Safe City Ch.154

Chapter 154: The Prophet

There were differing opinions among Blue Sea’s upper management regarding how to develop their newly acquired underground territory.

Some senior officials believed they could build shelters underground, so that if Blue Sea ever encountered a crisis that the surface protective shield could not withstand, the civilians could retreat underground for safety.

Others believed they could construct an underground city for everyday living or scientific research.

Still others proposed digging out a military command center underground. If Blue Sea ever found itself in a war with another Safe City and enemy forces poured into this area, the Blue Sea soldiers lying in ambush below could suddenly emerge and give them a very big surprise.

Although that last proposal earned everyone’s reaction of, “Oh! That actually sounds pretty interesting,”

it was ultimately voted down by a large majority on the grounds that “Blue Sea would never allow enemy soldiers to penetrate this deep into the area during a war.”

From time to time, Cheng Qisheng would place some of her mental power in the various meeting rooms and watch her believers hold one meeting after another.

Sometimes, she wasn’t even interested in listening to what the meetings were about. She simply wanted to make sure Blue Sea was running smoothly.

Just like now, these proposals might eventually be implemented underground, or they might be rejected, or perhaps put on hold temporarily for some other reason.

But one thing was certain: whether the proposal was “Keep digging and keep storing water,” or “Let’s hide down there and stab the enemy in the back with spears,” everyone in the meeting was thinking about what was best for Blue Sea.

Every proposal represented a possible new branch in Blue Sea’s development.

And because Cheng Qisheng understood both Blue Sea and the processes by which different things developed, she could easily imagine the futures being described during these meetings.

Whenever she watched everyone gather together and brainstorm like this, it felt to her like watching several movies with different directions and branching storylines all at once.

And they were all playing at normal speed, too.

That feeling was wonderful.

At the same time, another movie was beginning to play.

—“I’m serious. We didn’t know there was a new owner here before we came to Broken River. We’re truly sorry for trespassing. I can pay a ransom, really. I have some assets.”

—“You can escort us away, but do you really have to do it this way?”

—“Hey? Hello? Could you pay attention to me?”

The two unfortunate souls who had wandered into this remote region were currently bound at the wrists and dangling like two weightless sacks, carried through the high sky by the tall mutant with wings flapping overhead.

All they had to do was lower their heads slightly to see the dizzyingly distant ground below.

—The kind of fall that would definitely kill them.

Gong Cheng swallowed hard as he tried to speak to the mutant above them.

His butler and childhood companion, Xie Wuke, with gray hair and black eyes, was also keeping his eyes tightly shut.

“My lord, have we landed yet?”

Gong Cheng roared, “Why don’t you use your feet and find out?”

Xie Wuke’s voice trembled. “I don’t dare move.”

Gong Cheng began to question his childhood judgment.

How exactly had he managed to pick Xie Wuke out of that whole group of children and decide that this guy should become his future butler?

Oh!

Perhaps it was because, among all those children, Xie Wuke was the only one who hadn’t looked at him with fear and had instead calmly smiled at him.

Who could have known that the reason Xie Wuke had smiled so brilliantly back then was because he was a complete idiot.

“Even if you don’t move an inch, you should still be able to tell that we’re not on the ground yet, right?”

Xie Wuke still didn’t dare open his eyes.

“My lord, did we accidentally trespass into some forbidden territory? They look really abnormal, almost like Never Approach the New Home.”

Never Approach the New Home was a movie from three hundred years ago. It told the story of a group of astronauts who traveled to another planet to conduct an investigation. After landing, they discovered that the planet was almost indistinguishable from Moon Silk, and even the humans living there looked identical to the people of Moon Silk.

The astronauts spent a peaceful day, but when night fell, those people suddenly sprouted grotesque wings and transformed into monsters. They dragged the astronauts into underground caves and used their flesh and blood to offer sacrifices to their god.

When Gong Cheng watched the movie back then, he had only been concerned with secretly sneaking into the archives to look up some information. He discovered that the ancient humans of Moon Silk really had possessed the ability to develop spaceflight technology, but none of the countries had ever pursued it very deeply.

His question at the time had been, “If humanity gained the ability to travel into space so early on, why did they keep circling around Moon Silk instead of exploring the universe?”

As for the scene depicting “the monsters carrying their sacrifice toward the lair, while all the other monsters along the way chased after them with such fervent gazes that it was as though they wished they could offer themselves as sacrifices,” Gong Cheng had felt absolutely nothing about it at the time.

He had never imagined that one day, he would be reenacting that very scene.

Their hands were bound and suspended above them, while the mutant above carried them by the ropes, swaying as he flew onward.

Below them, everywhere they passed, everyone on the ground—regardless of what they had originally been doing—would look up slightly when they saw the scene and follow them with fervent, utterly trusting gazes.

Gong Cheng could tell that these people were ordinary humans.

Yet they neither avoided them nor showed any fear. Compared with ordinary Moon Silk people, they were worlds apart.

Just like the monsters portrayed in that movie, there was no confusion, no sense that anything was strange, no questions.

Every single one of them simply stared blindly after the figure in white robes above them.

Gong Cheng had no doubt that if they were thrown down the next moment and smashed into a bloody heap, these people would merely erupt into cheers.

It was too bizarre.

The moment they had entered this remote region, a white-robed mutant whose strength was practically defying the heavens had dodged all of their attacks and effortlessly captured them, as casually as a mutant beast snatching up a child.

And then there were these excessively fanatical humans.

Having watched countless pre-apocalypse movies, the only explanation Gong Cheng could think of for this situation was that the mutant beasts had evolved again.

They had evolved into human forms and gained the ability to control humans.

They were doomed.

The people of Moon Silk were truly doomed.

…

“Are the people of Moon Silk really doomed?”

Bessie looked through the one-way mirror at the two Moon Silk natives being held in separate cells.

“Both of them are New Humans. Neither is a researcher, neither is involved in some earth-shattering conspiracy, and aside from the fact that they’re both mutants, they have no other value. They’re not spies planted by another faction, either.”

“And during this sensitive period, when this [Ota] has just begun making contact with the outside world, they entered the Broken River Wasteland simply because they wanted to go exploring?”

Bessie, a Velvet Star native, found this extremely difficult to understand.

The Blue Sea colleague beside her merely shrugged.

“It’s not that hard to understand. The apocalypse is exactly why they can go exploring. If this were a peaceful society, where would they find anything dangerous enough to explore?”

Another Blue Sea police officer flipped through the report.

“It wasn’t entirely for exploration. During his interrogation, the one called Gong Cheng let something slip. He seems to think he’s saving the world.”

Although Gong Cheng had tried very hard to conceal his true purpose, the problem was that Blue Sea’s interrogation experts had been idle for far too long.

Now that they had finally gotten some work, the interrogation experts were practically itching to use every technique at their disposal.

The result was roughly equivalent to a student having to deal with more than thirty tutors, all of them experts in their respective fields.

Blue Sea police officer: “Give us another hour, and I estimate we’ll know exactly how many trees this kid climbed when he was little.”

Bessie didn’t bother pointing out that trees on Moon Silk couldn’t be climbed. She knew perfectly well that this was a Blue Sea-style metaphor.

She looked toward Xie Wuke in the other cell.

“What about this one?”

“He’s Gong Cheng’s butler. He was raised and trained for the job from childhood, and probably serves as a bodyguard as well. Based on the combat footage recorded by the divine officer through the Brain, his estimated combat strength is around 86.”

He had encountered a divine officer with a combat rating of 92, and his combat experience was far inferior to his opponent’s, so his weapon had been taken from him with ease.

“He’s more troublesome than Gong Cheng. Ever since he entered the interrogation room, he hasn’t said a single word. However, based on his subtle body language, the experts have determined that his weak point is Gong Cheng. Threatening him with Gong Cheng would work, but if we actually resort to that, we’ll have to put a bullet in him afterward. So the experts recommend saving that method for last, when we really have no other options.”

Bessie had been listening attentively, but when she heard “put a bullet in him,” she instinctively made an expression of strenuous concentration, as if trying to understand.

“Wait, wait, wait. How did we suddenly get to putting a bullet in him?”

“Oh! It’s like this. Look at this report. It says that Xie Wuke is probably the stubborn, single-minded type. He’s loyal to Gong Cheng. Obviously, his loyalty can’t compare to our loyalty to Our God…”

His colleague took a small jab at the other man’s loyalty before continuing matter-of-factly:

“But if we really use Gong Cheng to threaten him, there’s a very high chance he’ll hold a grudge and find a way to get revenge.”

“Although this guy can’t beat a divine officer, once there’s a grudge between us, we should still put a bullet in him for absolute safety. What if we spare his life and he eventually finds an opportunity to retaliate against Blue Sea? That would be bad.”

The probability of him successfully retaliating was extremely low.

But as long as it wasn’t zero, there was still a possibility that he could pose a threat to Blue Sea.

A local whose combat rating had reached 86 absolutely deserved Blue Sea’s respect.

And the way Blue Sea people expressed their respect toward their enemies was to wipe them out completely.

The classic trope from Blue Star novels—“Don’t look down on a poor young man; today you and I become enemies, and years later the fully leveled protagonist returns for revenge”—was never going to happen to Blue Sea’s enemies.

For example, another Blue Sea person nearby added:

“This Gong Cheng should probably be put down too. The two of them seem to have a pretty good relationship. Killing one and leaving the other alive wouldn’t be a good idea. He looks like he comes from a decent background, so we’d better make sure he doesn’t come back with people to seek revenge.”

“He doesn’t need one. His combat rating is too low to warrant wasting a bullet. We can just deal with him directly. This is a critical period, so every bullet we can save is one more bullet saved.”

Bessie: “…”

She had thought she’d already become quite Blue Sea-like.

Apparently, she still had some way to go.

Admittedly, their conversations were rather thunderous. But after witnessing how Blue Sea would nip every conceivable threat in the bud before it had any chance to grow, Bessie, as a member of Blue Sea, genuinely felt an overwhelming sense of security.

As someone who had been accepted into Blue Sea, she knew very well how kind Blue Sea was toward the weak and ordinary people.

But by contrast, they could also be extraordinarily ruthless toward anyone capable of posing a threat to Blue Sea.

Now, all that remained was to see how these two New Humans, who had brought weapons and vehicles into Broken River territory, viewed themselves.

—Gong Cheng, sitting inside the interrogation room, had no idea that he had another possible future development path: ascending to heaven together with his loyal butler.

He considered himself an adult.

And as a New Human whose average lifespan was only around thirty years, he had indeed been an adult for quite some time.

But in reality, Gong Cheng was only nineteen.

Faced with numerous experienced interrogation experts who took turns throwing every trick in the book at him, he quickly found himself unable to hold out.

Gong Cheng came from Nightan Greenbelt, one of the five top New Human factions.

The lord of Nightan Greenbelt was his mother.

He could be considered to have run away from home. He had traveled through the Central City and many other regions. When passing through Hal City, he got into a conflict with the child of one of the higher-ups in the [Zipa Company]. The other party tried to kill them, but in the end, they broke one of that person’s arms and fled Hal City.

Gong Cheng hadn’t dared reveal his identity.

He knew that the major factions of the New and Old Humans had never exactly gotten along. They merely maintained a superficial peace.

And with the [Company] growing increasingly powerful in recent years, he was afraid that if his identity were exposed, Nightan Greenbelt would be dragged into the conflict.

So he planned to take Xie Wuke and hide somewhere remote, eventually fleeing all the way to the Broken River Wasteland.

Cheng Qisheng could only give that story three points, because there really wasn’t anything particularly remarkable about it.

In fact, the reason they had gotten into a conflict with the child of that [Zipa Company] executive was simply because when Gong Cheng passed by him, he hadn’t lowered his head slightly and had instead tried to walk straight past.

What interested Cheng Qisheng was something else Gong Cheng had said.

“He said he’s the savior?”

The Great Blue Sea Creator God, who had been diligently working the soil in the planting-zone room, temporarily set down her hoe.

“Let me guess. One, he’s crazy. Two, he has a serious case of teenage delusions of grandeur. Three, he awakened some supernatural ability and saw things he wasn’t supposed to see.”

Aether circled once around Cheng Qisheng.

“Your wisdom is unparalleled, City Lord! It’s three!”

“The interrogators have already tested him. Gong Cheng is an ability user, and he’s Tier 6.”

Cheng Qisheng: “Tier 6?”

The Great Creator God, who had looked rather uninterested just moments ago, immediately perked up.

Oh ho!

This was the first Tier 6 ability user she had ever encountered.

“Moon Silk really is full of talented people. Aether, put the interrogation footage up. Let me take a look.”

Yes, Gong Cheng was still being interrogated.

It seemed he had been holding everything in for a very long time. Once the interrogators guided him into opening the floodgates, all the thoughts hidden inside him came pouring out like a torrential flood.

“I saw it. I’ve been able to see it since I was little. Do you think you’re very powerful? Do you think you’re the rulers of this land? No. You’re not.”

“I saw the end of the world. There will be absolute darkness that will engulf the entire Moon Silk in an instant. There will be no New Humans, no Old Humans, no lords, no [Company], no armies, no earth, no radiation. Everyone will step into that final ending of eternal night.”

As Cheng Qisheng listened to his somewhat deranged description, the black-hole radar in her mind suddenly sprang upright.

Absolute darkness, engulfing everything in an instant.

There was no mistaking it.

It was a black hole.

That damn black hole that had suddenly appeared and swallowed Dark Star, the same one Duxi had mentioned—one that could appear at any moment and swallow an entire apocalyptic planet.

Cheng Qisheng stared intently at Gong Cheng on the screen.

“What ability does he have?”

Aether sat on her shoulder.

“City Lord, judging from what we’ve seen so far, it’s [Prophecy].”

Cheng Qisheng closed her eyes for a moment.

Good.

Very good.

The [Black Hole of Annihilation] was coming to Moon Silk.

Now she knew about it in advance.

She just didn’t know exactly when it would arrive.

Gong Cheng was still lost in his emotions.

“Only I can see it. Only I can save everyone! But none of you believe me. Everyone thinks I’m spouting nonsense. The only person willing to believe me is my butler. No, actually, even Wuke doesn’t believe me. He just follows my orders and stays by my side. He even told me to get my eyes checked.”

“But even under these circumstances, I’m still searching for that one and only chance of survival—for us, for Moon Silk! I’m trying to save all of you! Shouldn’t that make me the savior? You’ve locked me up here, and you’re bringing about your own destruction!”

The interrogator remained calm. She first made a soothing gesture.

“If everything really is as you say, and the end of the world is going to be swallowed by darkness, then what exactly can you do to save all of Moon Silk and everyone on it?”

Gong Cheng: “I’m looking! Otherwise, who do you think actually enjoys risking his life running around outside every day? I’m searching for something that can save us!”

The interrogator: “I don’t think there’s anything that could possibly withstand eternal darkness.”

“There is. There is.”

Gong Cheng suddenly became calm.

“A city… Do you know of one?”

The expressions of all the Blue Sea people in the room remained unchanged.

But the way they looked at Gong Cheng had subtly changed.

Gong Cheng didn’t notice anything at all. He continued pouring out everything he had seen.

“A city that suddenly descends from the sky. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen so many different cities. I know they’re the cure, but every time, they only appear in my mind for a brief moment before disappearing again. But I know they’ve come. They’re just temporarily invisible to people.”

Cheng Qisheng narrowed her eyes.

It was a Cognition Lock.

The Cognition Lock prevented the people of Moon Silk from perceiving the existence of Blue Sea Safe City.

But Gong Cheng had foreseen them, so they appeared in his prophetic visions. Then, because of the Cognition Lock, they quickly disappeared from his mind.

So Gong Cheng could only keep seeing them, then forgetting them; seeing them again, then forgetting them again—over and over in an endless cycle.

No wonder he looked like he was losing his mind.

As expected of a Tier 6 ability user.

His brain was remarkably resilient.

Gong Cheng was pounding the table now. The more he spoke, the more convinced he became that he was absolutely right.

He was the savior.

“As long as I find it—find them—we’ll have a chance to survive.”

“I know you’ll think I’m crazy. You’ll think it’s ridiculous that the end of the world could be saved by a city. But believe me, I’m the one who’s actually clear-headed here. The more you see, the more you experience. I’m willing to give everything I have to save us, but you don’t even know what I’m trying to save you from.”

Gong Cheng looked at the interrogator and everyone else in front of him as though they were a group of ants who knew nothing.

His eyes held anger, despair, helplessness, and pity.

It was the helplessness of someone who was awake and clear-minded, looking down from above at those who remained ignorant.

“You can’t even imagine how miraculous that city is. It descends from the heavens. It brings hope. It’s so… so indescribable. I don’t blame you. I know you simply can’t understand that miraculous city. You’re too shallow, too ignorant. Even if I told you about it, you couldn’t possibly imagine even the tiniest corner of that magnificent city.”

The entire roomful of people from Blue Sea Safe City silently stared back at him.

Cheng Qisheng had Aether turn off the video. She decided it would be better to face this prophet directly from a believer’s perspective and see what he was really like.

A small portion of her mental power shifted into the interrogation room.

Gong Cheng continued speaking.

“So you’d better release me immediately and let me go search for our last chance of survival, search for that…”

He was nervous and excited, and while speaking, his eyes kept wandering involuntarily.

And at that moment, Gong Cheng’s gaze accidentally drifted upward, above the head of the interrogator sitting opposite him.

There, a gigantic, indescribable eye was quietly staring at him.

Gong Cheng didn’t even have time to react before his eyes met its gaze.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!”

He clutched his eyes and let out a horrifying scream.

His brain seemed to have been crushed in an instant, leaving behind nothing but a blank void.

Countless images flashed before his eyes.

[Mountains and rivers. Divine statues standing tall. A star-filled sky. A gigantic star with a corona of pale silver-white plasma billowing and flowing across the heavens, its entire surface engulfed in seas of fire, being dragged forward behind an enormous city.]

It was too much!

Far too much information for a human mind to withstand!

He collapsed onto the floor. Blood flowed from his eyes, nostrils, mouth, and ears as he writhed in agony.

He couldn’t even scream anymore.

“Huh?!”

Cheng Qisheng had been listening intently to the prophet when he suddenly started screaming.

This scene was far too familiar. It was hard not to think of what had happened when Wang Moning awakened her [Perception] ability and chose to look toward her, only for her brain to nearly be torn apart.

Wait.

She hadn’t even done anything this time!

The words Gong Cheng had said earlier flashed through Cheng Qisheng’s mind.

“The more you see, the more you experience.”

Oh no.

Back then, Wang Moning had only just awakened her ability, so she had actually seen only a tiny fragment of information related to Dark Star.

Just that tiny fragment had nearly left her blind.

This Gong Cheng was a Tier 6 ability user, after all. He could only see even more.

Was he going to die right here?

Cheng Qisheng grabbed her hair.

I finally run into a Tier 6 prophet, and he dies the moment we meet? How ridiculous would that be?

When she had saved Wang Moning before, she had been able to use the Faith Chain to directly send her mental power into the other woman’s brain, blur the images she had seen, and calm her soul under the violent impact.

But now that it was Gong Cheng, a native of Moon Silk, Cheng Qisheng had no way to save him even if she wanted to.

He wasn’t her believer…

Wait.

Cheng Qisheng suddenly sensed something.

Amid the countless oceans of Faith Chains, a new one had silently appeared.

It belonged to Gong Cheng.

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