Gluttony’s fingertips gently rubbed the cheap wax seal.
Although the outer packaging looked like one of those cheap Cthulhu RPG props that cost nine ninety-nine with free shipping, she did sense a trace of Runaway Energy.
“Assembly of the Great Sins, huh…”
In Fortune Village, Jiang Jian Yue turned off the latest public opinion report about the Ladder Project on her computer screen and fully immersed her consciousness into the puppet of Gluttony.
The meeting location was not in the bustling city center, nor in the dark sewers, but in an abandoned cold storage at the border of Adachi Ward and Arakawa Ward.
Very fitting for an antagonist organization.
This place used to be a logistics center for a large food company before the war; now only rusted conveyor belts and peeling thermal insulation remain.
When Gluttony, wearing a gray hoodie that hadn’t been washed in a long time, pushed open the heavy door of the cold storage while stepping through thick snow, a chill strong enough to freeze an ordinary person’s breath rushed toward her.
But this chill seemed not to come from physical low temperature, but from some twisted psychic field.
The core area of the cold storage was lit by a few dim emergency lights, surrounded by piles of scrap metal that looked like either art or garbage, forming a crude circular formation.
In the center of the circle, three people were already seated.
Gluttony’s appearance drew the attention of two of them.
Directly facing the door sat a very conspicuous man.
He wore a set of black Japanese armor, with the plates tightly connected by red silk cords, and a ferocious Hannya mask engraved on the chest guard.
He did not wear a helmet, revealing a head of white hair as wild as weeds, and a nodachi that was half a length longer than a normal katana rested across his knees.
The man’s murky eyes swept over Jiang Jian Yue’s face under the hood, with the scrutiny of a superior toward a recruit.
“Liu Ming told me you ate Toudou Daigo’s watchdog. Young people nowadays sure have big appetites.”
Sitting to his left was a woman in a burgundy silk cheongsam.
She was leaning sideways against a twisted steel bar, holding a slender women’s cigarette between her fingers.
Purple smoke curled into various distorted faces in the air.
“Oh my, don’t be so fierce, Lord Zhan Gui.”
The woman in the cheongsam let out a light laugh, her voice sickly sweet.
“She’s at least a new sister. If you scare her off, the President will have a headache.”
She glanced at Gluttony, a glint of greed flashing in her eyes.
Gluttony ignored the provocations of the two and walked straight to an empty seat in the circle and sat down.
And in the corner of the circle sat a figure hunched in a wide cloak.
He had almost no presence; if not for Jiang Jian Yue’s extremely strong perception, she might have even overlooked him.
That was another newcomer.
Besides her, this meeting also included the newcomer who was replacing another Great Sin’s position.
“I heard that before Human Spider died, she was still begging her neighbor to save her.”
Zhan Gui let out a cold snort, looking at the woman in the cheongsam.
“You infiltration types always like to band together in those dark places. And what happened?”
“That was just an accident.”
The woman in the cheongsam elegantly blew out a smoke ring.
“If anyone’s to blame, it’s Feng He Shi for being too careless and leaving too many clues.”
The two were reminiscing as if no one else was there, their topics nothing more than past glorious achievements in the underworld and disdain for the new generation of Espers.
Jiang Jian Yue sat there listening to these so-called big shots boast, feeling nothing but boredom.
Just then, the light inside the cold storage suddenly twisted eerily.
The dim yellow light of the emergency lights seemed to be sucked away by some invisible force, and the surrounding shadows began to madly converge toward the center of the circle.
The previously noisy conversation instantly ceased; Zhan Gui tightened his grip on the sword handle on his knee, and the woman in the cheongsam also sat up straight and extinguished her cigarette.
A figure made of pure darkness had appeared in the central seat at some unknown time.
He had no concrete form, like a constantly shifting mass of ink, with only two faint red glimmers flickering at the position of his head.
The President of the Inferior Breed Mutual Aid Society—Ying Shi.
“Enough reminiscing.”
Ying Shi’s voice was low and layered, as if countless people were whispering at once, making it impossible to distinguish gender or age.
His gaze swept over everyone, finally stopping on Gluttony and the cloaked newcomer.
“Welcome, you two.”
“Although the ways you joined are different, now that you’ve taken these seats, you are the Great Sins of the Mutual Aid Society.”
“Here, you can obtain freedom beyond the law, as well as even greater power.”
Ying Shi extended an ethereal hand and lightly tapped the void.
“But before we talk about future benefits, I want to reiterate the rules.”
His voice turned a few degrees colder, and the surrounding shadows instantly boiled, transforming into countless sharp tentacles that emitted a sizzling corrosive sound in the air.
“Do not. Go. Too deep.”
Ying Shi said word by word: “Zhan Gui, Xiang Hu, especially you old-timers who have been in Tokyo too long.”
Zhan Gui lowered his head and did not refute.
“This is a special period.”
Ying Shi turned to the two newcomers.
“You can prey freely within your respective territories, and you can expand your influence, but when it comes to the secrets of the entire Mutual Aid Society, you must maintain absolute independence.”
After the lecture, the meeting moved to the main topic.
“In the coming period, all of Tokyo’s attention will be focused on the Ladder Project.”
Ying Shi raised a topic that somewhat surprised Jiang Jian Yue.
“I know that some of you are very interested in the Ladder Project, and some have even made some ridiculous deals with those politicians.”
When he said this, although he did not turn around, Jiang Jian Yue could feel that sticky malice was locking onto Gluttony.
Clearly, her contact with the Liberal Democratic Party’s Hatoyama Faction had not escaped the President’s eyes.
“I am issuing the highest order here: no one, in any form, may participate in actions that sabotage, interfere with, or obstruct the Ladder Project.”
Ying Shi’s voice echoed in the cold storage, carrying an inexplicable pressure.
“Especially you, Gluttony. Don’t think that latching onto the Liberal Democratic Party’s thigh means you can rest easy. In those politicians’ eyes, you are just a useful tool. But in my eyes, if you ruin my plans, you will only become my nourishment.”
Jiang Jian Yue controlled Gluttony to slightly lower her head, putting on a submissive posture: “I understand, President.”
But her mind sank into great confusion.
‘Why? As the leader of Japan’s most radical Semi-Devourer and illegal Esper organization, why would Ying Shi want to protect the Ladder Project? Jiang Jian Yue had already learned about the Ladder Project through animation. Once that tower in Tokyo Bay was completed—though its purpose wasn’t directly to strike at them—in times of need, perception-type Espers could use it to drag them all out from the darkness. Was Ying Shi committing suicide?’
Ying Shi did not give her a chance to ask questions. After delivering the ban on the Ladder Project, the dark figure dissipated like foam in the air.
“Hmph, a boring warning.”
Zhan Gui stood up, and his nodachi struck the metal rack with a crisp clang.
He gave Gluttony a cold glance, turned around, and strode out of the cold storage.
The cheongsam woman also swayed her hips as she stood up.
When she passed by Gluttony, she lowered her voice and said, “Little sister, sometimes listening to the President can make you live longer. But if you want to live better… remember to come drink with me.”
After saying this, she let out a silvery laugh, and her form turned into a purple mist and vanished.
The cloaked newcomer also left silently, without speaking a single word from beginning to end, not even revealing his face.
In the empty cold storage, only Jiang Jian Yue’s controlled Gluttony and Liu Ming, who hadn’t gone far, remained.
“You seem to have many questions, Miss Gluttony.”
Liu Ming walked over, the dark circles under his eyes looking somewhat ghastly under the cold light.
“What exactly does Ying Shi want?” Gluttony asked.
“What the President wants is evolution.”
Liu Ming lifted his head slightly, a fanatical emptiness in his eyes.
“After the old era is completely rotten, only those who embrace the abyss can open their eyes in the dawn of the new world.”
Liu Ming spoke a bunch of cryptic riddles and gave no direct answer, then turned and disappeared into the darkness.
Riddler, get out of Tokyo!
Since everything on the Japan side required lying low, Jiang Jian Yue had no need to stay in Japan for long.
Putting the miraculous computer into her Storage Space, Jiang Jian Yue, after who knows how many days, returned to her original appearance.
‘It’s so much easier being flat-chested.’
Jiang Jian Yue stretched her limbs, concealed her presence, and left Fortune Village, where she had stayed for a long time.
‘SAAC, don’t blame me for causing trouble in Afghanistan. You were the ones who got in the way first.’
……
Afghanistan, south of Kandahar, Crimson Project Site.
Inside the SAAC temporary outpost, dozens of high-precision Superstring Wave Scanners were emitting sharp whines.
At the holographic projection center, the silent Giant Egg was analyzed to have an extremely eerie internal structure.
“The spatial waveband feedback is extremely chaotic.”
The technical supervisor stared intently at the endlessly folding geometric lines on the screen, his voice trembling slightly: “According to the current modeling, the interior of the Giant Egg contains physically almost infinite corridors, which are undergoing ultra-high-frequency self-reorganization in subspace.”
“The micro-scouts we deployed completely lost contact three seconds after entry…”
Amid the noise of commands, a man sitting in the corner stood out, out of place.
He wore a loose linen robe, his eyes tightly bound with special black silk.
He was one of SAAC’s most precious observation tools, code name “Xianzhi.”
“What do you see?”
The outpost commander walked up to him, his tone carrying unconscious reverence.
Xianzhi tilted his head slightly, as if listening to some rhythm from deep within the Giant Egg.
He spoke, his voice hoarse: “It is a corridor prepared for The One Who Never Returns, a ruin left after countless Dreams overlapped. Lamps circle in the gallery but cannot find a wick to burn.”
The commander frowned; this riddle-like description gave him a headache.
But there was no help for it; this gentleman’s superpower was “see the essence of things, side effect is being unable to control speaking in riddles.”
The commander just wanted to ask his superiors if anyone’s superpower was solving riddles.
“It is very perfect, vast enough to hold the remains of the entire old world.”
“But it is also incomplete, like a carefully sewn skin that forgot to stuff in a soul.”
“It is waiting… waiting for the Glutton who can fill the void, to bring the last piece of the puzzle.”
“Missing something?”
The commander pressed: “Energy? Or some specific Esper core?”
“A Seed Named the End.”
The commander looked at the infinitely extending corridors on the screen, a chill rising in his heart.