Late at night, in the outskirts of Tokyo.
There stood a sprawling compound known as the “Light of Truth Spiritual Practice Center.”
Normally, this place was brightly lit, with luxury cars coming and going endlessly—a gathering spot for politicians, business tycoons, and so-called “masters.”
But tonight, it was eerily silent.
Half an hour earlier, the power had been cut off.
A low, rumbling engine noise shattered the quiet of the night.
Several black helicopters emblazoned with the DRG logo hovered in the air.
Their massive searchlights instantly turned the entire estate into broad daylight.
“People inside, listen up! You are completely surrounded!”
“Immediately drop your weapons and cease all resistance! Prepare for inspection!”
The cold warning blared from the loudspeakers.
The estate’s main gate burst open with a thunderous crash as several armored personnel carriers smashed through the barricades and charged inside.
Fully armed DRG security forces poured in like a black tide.
“This is private property! You have no authority here! I’m going to sue you all!”
A robed “master” with a long beard stormed out, flanked by a group of bodyguards.
His voice trembled with false bravado.
“I’m a friend of Parliamentarian Matsuda! How dare you—”
Bang!
A gunshot rang out.
The ground at the master’s feet exploded into a crater, and he collapsed to his knees in terror.
Zobayan leaped down from an armored vehicle, his assault rifle still smoking.
“Parliamentarian Matsuda?”
Zobayan sneered, his voice dripping with mockery from beneath the face mask.
“He’s currently having tea at the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department. I’m afraid he won’t be coming to save you.”
“Take them all! Kill any who resist!”
“Yes, sir!”
At the same time, at the rear of the estate, a group of shadowy figures tried to slip away in the chaos.
They weren’t ordinary followers.
They were superpower users recruited by the cult, along with members of the Saints hidden among them.
“They’re out. Three Cicada Shell Hosts, seven Parasites, and one Semi-Devourer.”
In the woods behind the estate, Truffle stood in her deep-black DRG Japan uniform, her crimson eyes glowing faintly.
Once a member of the original 10003 Unit, she now served in the Dark Crow Unit, working for Dawn Resources Group—more precisely, for Jiang Jian Yue.
Her parents had been safely relocated from Kazakhstan to Japan, tying up all loose ends.
There was no denying it: DRG’s benefits far outstripped those of the 10003 Unit, and she no longer had to worry about being hunted by the Office of Commonwealth Affairs (OCA) in the CIS countries.
“Attention: prioritize capturing them alive.”
The fleeing superpower users had just blasted open the locked rear gate when suddenly, countless palms appeared floating in the air.
They surged toward the group like a tidal wave.
Most were scattered by various flying projectiles, but more and more palms kept appearing to replace them.
A burly man engulfed in green flames roared and tried to charge straight through the encirclement.
“Hmph! Trying to escape?”
A cold snort echoed through the air.
The man who had almost broken free suddenly flickered and reappeared exactly where he had started.
Even the charred clothes on his body returned to their original state.
He looked dazed for a moment, then realized there was no time to stand still.
With another roar, he reignited his flames and sprinted toward a weaker point in the formation.
A few seconds later, he was back in the same spot.
He stared down at his restored clothes, a trace of fear in his eyes.
The superpower users soon exhausted their strength.
The palms descended on them like parasitic creatures from a horror movie, slapping onto their faces and slamming them to the ground.
In moments, their bodies were covered in dense layers of palms.
“No matter how many times I see it, that ability is still disgusting,”
Maria commented calmly.
“…………”
Beside her, a brown-haired boy, drenched in sweat, nearly choked.
Gritting his teeth, he said, “Big sister! Stop just standing there watching!”
Maria waved her hand, and more than a dozen soldiers in combat uniforms rushed out from the woods, each holding a restraint collar.
These souvenirs brought back from Lake Toya proved quite effective, though DRG’s current research capabilities couldn’t yet replicate them.
However, the collars had no effect on the Semi-Devourer.
The one wearing a bandit hood suddenly spat a glob of acid at a soldier when no one was looking.
“Ah!”
The soldier screamed and fell, his thigh rapidly corroding and snapping off in under two seconds.
Then, the soldier suddenly vanished from right in front of them.
He reappeared at the edge of the woods, still holding his submachine gun and collar, instinctively clutching his leg before realizing he was completely unharmed.
“I’ll handle this.”
Behind the soldier, a bald man patted his shoulder and adjusted his glasses.
He stepped forward into the hastily cordoned-off area around the Semi-Devourer, his expression darkening.
Pointing directly at the creature, he shouted:
“You big idiot!”
The Semi-Devourer shuddered.
A flicker of fear appeared in the eyeholes of its bandit hood.
“Because of your reckless behavior, you’ve caused trouble for the entire class!”
“But—”
“The only acceptable answer is ‘Yes!’! Speak from your diaphragm! Louder!”
“Yes!”
“Obey school rules! School is not your playground!”
“Yes!”
“Stand there! You will remain standing until I see genuine remorse!”
The Semi-Devourer quickly gave up resisting.
It stood still, head bowed, looking deeply troubled.
“What an incredible ability,”
Maria said, the corner of her eye twitching slightly.
“Is this the Showa Teacher?”
Ever since the Dark Crow Unit began recruiting superpower users, it had fully transformed from a special forces team into a superpower unit.
The original members like them now often served more as supervisors… or overseers.
Maria had seen many bizarre abilities by now.
She even felt a spark of curiosity toward the Special Ability Response Headquarters—their files must contain even stranger ones.
The helicopter rotors churned the damp night air, pressing down the estate’s vegetation with powerful downdrafts.
“Maria, take this batch back with you.”
Zobayan stood by the rear door of the armored vehicle, wiping rain from his face.
As the engine roar intensified, the black helicopters lifted off and quickly vanished into the rain curtain.
Zobayan watched them disappear, then turned toward the brightly lit main building.
DRG’s logistics teams were escorting out the ordinary followers who had been mentally controlled.
Most of these victims stared blankly ahead, muttering under their breath, clutching cheap amulets tightly as if they were their last lifeline.
“A bunch of fools,”
Zobayan spat in disdain.
In his mercenary career, he had seen too many of these scams—exploiting human weakness and greed.
No matter what they called themselves—“Light of Truth” or anything else—the essence was always the same garbage.
Just as he was about to order everyone to pull out and let the media, already gathering at the estate entrance, film the “rescue footage”—
Zzzzt—
The communicator on his chest suddenly erupted with harsh static, followed by a scream of absolute terror.
“Ahhh—!! My God!”
The voice was distorted with horror, then came the sound of violent retching and stumbling footsteps, as if someone had witnessed something that should never exist in this world.
Zobayan froze in place.
That was the squad responsible for clearing the basement—callsign “Scavenger Group 3.”
These were hardened veterans who had rolled in piles of corpses in Africa.
What on earth could make them scream like that?
“Group Three? Respond! What happened? Ambush?!”
The communicator only returned heavy breathing.
“Damn it!”
Without hesitation, Zobayan racked the bolt of his rifle.
“Alpha Team, on me! Medics on standby!”
The team advanced like a unit facing an enemy, kicking open the heavy iron door to the basement and charging down the spiraling stairs at full speed.
The deeper they went, the colder the air became.
The nauseating luxury perfume smell from upstairs vanished, replaced by an overwhelming, suffocating scent of rust.
It was blood—old and fresh, mixed together.
Mingled with it was the signature sweet, cloying fragrance of “Quiet Dream,” but here it was a hundred times stronger—sickeningly sweet, so thick it turned the stomach and made the air feel sticky.
“Sir, ahead.”
The point man stopped, his tactical flashlight beam trembling.
Zobayan pushed past him and strode forward.
Before them was a blast-shattered reinforced explosion-proof door.
Beyond it lay the main basement hall.
The members of “Scavenger Group 3” were slumped at the entrance.
One burly man had ripped off his mask and was violently vomiting against the wall, bile spilling out.
Zobayan frowned, stepped over the mess on the floor, and raised his flashlight, shining the powerful beam deep into the hall.
The moment the light illuminated the space, even a hardened killer like Zobayan felt a chill race up his spine, his scalp prickling.
This was no basement.
It was a ritualistic slaughterhouse.
In the center of the hall stood not a statue of a deity, but a massive cross forged from some unknown black metal.
Dozens of naked bodies were nailed to it.
They weren’t piled haphazardly.
Their limbs had been brutally broken and twisted backward, fixed in place so their chests and abdomens protruded grotesquely.
But that wasn’t the worst part.
The worst part was that each victim’s abdomen had been neatly sliced open with a blade, the skin pulled to the sides and pinned with metal hooks, exposing vivid red organs and ribs.
From a distance, these dozens of human bodies looked exactly like “pupae” that had been peeled open from their shells.
They were linked head to tail along the cross, forming the shape of a gigantic, spiraling centipede.
At the very top of the cross, a petite girl had been posed in the “emergence” posture—her back skin completely flayed and spread like two thin wings, held open by supports.
The blood had already congealed into a dark-red, semi-transparent state, resembling a blood-colored butterfly about to break free from its cocoon.
“This is… imitating the form of ‘insects’…”
It was a sacrifice—a sick worship of what they believed to be a “higher life form.”
These lunatics believed humans were inferior, and only by undergoing “metamorphosis” like insects—breaking out of their cocoons—could they achieve rebirth.
So they used scalpels and metal hooks to forcibly reshape people into insects.
And they had even desecrated the cross…
No wonder the devout Christian members of Scavenger Group 3 had been triggered into shock.