426: Chapter 426 The Truth Gradually Becomes Clear, and the Force Behind It Is Astounding

Gray mist still swirled slowly at the bottom of the valley, like a pot of thick, undercooked porridge. The campfire had long since gone out, leaving only charred wood emitting blue smoke, mixing with the smell of blood that burrowed into his nose.

Chen Wuwang sat in the cockpit of the 'eye of wuwang'. The energy bar stayed at 62%, the crack on the left arm had widened by a finger's width, and electric arcs jumped from time to time.

He didn't move.

His eyes stared at the blind spot below the cliff.

That slight movement just now was not an illusion.

"Still alive?"

He whispered, his fingers sliding across the control panel to bring up a thermal scan.

A blurry humanoid outline was crawling up the rock wall, moving slowly as if its bones were shattered, twitching with pain at every step.

"Running quite slowly."

Chen Wuwang sneered and pushed the joystick with his right hand. The 'eye of wuwang' stood up with a boom, its metal soles stepping into the bloody mud with a dull squeezing sound.

"Mechanical arm, lock onto the target."

The System activated in response. A folding alloy pincer arm popped out from the back, its three-fingered grappling hook at the tip humming as it charged.

"Don't force me to get rough."

He pressed the communication button, his voice transmitting directly below: "If you crawl another ten meters, I'll recycle you as scrap metal—crushing you and your bones into powder to be sent back to the Artifact Refining Workshop as raw material."

The figure on the rock wall suddenly froze.

Then, the person actually laughed.

The laughter was hoarse and intermittent, like a rusty knife scraping against sheet metal.

"Heh... hehe... Family Head... you've finally come..."

Chen Wuwang's gaze turned cold: "You know me?"

"In the entire Eastern Desolation, who doesn't know you?"

The person gasped, turning their head with difficulty. Their face was covered with a black cloth, revealing only a pair of cloudy eyes. "You ruined Light-Erosion's three-year plan..."

You killed seventy-two of us... but do you know? Those you killed were just shadows."

"Shadows?" Chen Wuwang scoffed. "Then what about you? Are you the real body?"

"I am a sacrifice," the person coughed up a mouthful of black blood, "and also a key."

Before the words even fell, a lump suddenly bulged in his chest. Something was wriggling under the skin, like a living thing about to burst out of the body.

Chen Wuwang's pupils constricted: "Self-destruct Talismanic Incantation? Too late."

He slammed the control button, and the mechanical arm shot out instantly, snapping its pincers around the person's neck, lifting them directly off the rock wall to dangle in mid-air.

At the same time, the mecha's built-in psionic suppression field activated. A circle of pale blue ripples swept through, and the bulging in the person's chest immediately stalled. The foreign object under the skin seemed frozen and stopped moving.

"Cutting off the Meridians' energy supply, sealing the Divine Soul fuse," Chen Wuwang whispered. "Want to blow up? No way."

He controlled the mecha to step forward, pushed open the cockpit door with his left hand, and jumped down to the ground.

The wind swirled ash against his face, and the three old scars on his right cheek throbbed faintly.

He took off his helmet, walked up to the suspended prisoner, and looked directly into those cloudy eyes.

"Speak." His voice wasn't loud, but it suppressed the sound of the wind. "Who sent you? Who is behind this?"

The man grinned, his teeth covered in blood: "You wouldn't believe it... no one would... it is... the unspeakable thing..."

"Cut the crap." Chen Wuwang raised his hand, the red light of his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye flashing. "I don't like repeating a question a second time."

"Fine... fine..." The man gasped and suddenly laughed. "He... is in the depths of the Void Realm... the whispers never stop... we are just... the ones who heard..."

"He? Who?"

"Cthulhu..." The man's voice trembled, and his eyes began to roll back. "His name cannot be spoken... if spoken, it will be heard... chosen... swallowed..."

Chen Wuwang's brow twitched.

Cthulhu?

He was not unfamiliar with this name.

He had heard it back on Earth—the Great Old One, the source of madness, an existence beyond understanding. But wasn't that stuff from novels?

"Are you crazy?" he asked coldly.

"I'm not crazy!" the man suddenly roared, the veins in his neck bulging from the restraint.

"It's you who are too stupid! You think this is a conspiracy? This is a plague! It's pollution! It's a rot that has been spreading for three thousand years!

We built altars, sacrificed Souls, and guided the whispers... all just to make Him open one eye! Just one eye! The Cultivation World will have to kneel to welcome the new god!"

Chen Wuwang was silent for two seconds, then suddenly laughed: "So you attacked Zhao Village, bombed the Artifact Refining Workshop, and turned Alliance members... just to wait for a monster in a dream to wake up?"

"It's not a dream!" the man screamed. "What do you know?! You use technology to defy the Heavenly Dao, thinking you're so clever? But do you know that technology itself is the echo of His whispers?

The mecha you built, the code you wrote, the psionic resonance you created—it's all echoing His will! You are not an opponent; you are an accomplice!"

Chen Wuwang's smile froze.

He didn't get angry; instead, he narrowed his eyes: "Interesting. Continue."

"It's impossible to continue..." The man's voice suddenly grew weak, and black slime seeped from the corners of his mouth. "I... have already said too much... He... will punish me..."

His eyeballs rapidly filled with blood, black blood began to seep from his seven orifices, and his whole body convulsed violently as if being torn apart from the inside by something invisible.

Chen Wuwang immediately activated the 'Spiritual Sense Scan' mode of his Mechanical Prosthetic Eye, locking the red light onto the other's head to forcibly read the remaining memories.

Images flashed—

A wasteland, a pitch-black night sky, stars arranged in an eerie spiral.

In the center was a massive stone altar covered in twisted runes. A dozen black-robed figures knelt and chanted, their voices layering together to form a non-human frequency.

A mass of wriggling black mist hovered at the center of the altar, with countless tentacles vaguely extending and retracting within the mist, and a giant eye without a pupil slowly opening.

Next was another scene—a Northern Border merchant caravan passing through Dry Bone Valley. One person in the group suddenly went mad, tore open their chest, ripped out their heart, and smashed it onto the ground, shouting: 'Light-Erosion is eternal! Our Lord shall awaken!'

Later, in an underground secret room, a damaged mecha was being modified. Biological tissue was embedded inside, and alloy patterns identical to those of the rebel Puppets from three years ago appeared on the surface.

Finally, a segment of whispering.

It wasn't language, nor was it sound.

It was a vibration acting directly on the consciousness, as if coming from the end of the Universe, carrying an irresistible sense of oppression that made one only want to kneel, submit, and sacrifice everything.

The images stopped abruptly.

The man's head slumped; he had completely lost his breath.

The corpse was held by the mechanical arm like a bag of dead meat.

Chen Wuwang stood in place, unmoving.

The wind stopped.

The fire died out.

Even the distant chirping of insects had vanished.

He looked down at the dead prisoner in his grasp, then looked up at the sky.

The clouds were heavy, obscuring the stars and moon.

But he knew those stars were still there.

Only now, the way they were arranged made a trace of unease sprout in his heart for the first time.

"It's not a conspiracy..." he murmured, "it really is a plague."

He turned and walked back to the 'eye of wuwang', sealed the corpse into the isolation box in the rear compartment, and casually picked up a residual rune fragment from the ground, stuffing it into his pouch.

The mecha's engine slowly started, and the propulsion wings unfolded, emitting a low hum.

He sat in the pilot's seat, buckled his seatbelt, and took one last look at the corpse-strewn valley.

The Ghost-Faced Man was dead, the remnants were cleared, and the leader had been caught.

But he knew that the true enemy had only just revealed a corner of itself.

He pressed the communication channel, connecting to the Chen Family Base.

"This is Chen Wuwang," his voice was calm. "Prepare to convene an emergency meeting. All core members are to gather in the Main Hall within half an hour."

After a pause, he added: "Bring the highest-level protection protocols. This intelligence... might affect the cognitive baseline of our entire civilization."

After closing the communication, he took a deep breath and pushed the joystick.

The 'eye of wuwang' soared into the air, its six propulsion wings spitting blue-white flames, cutting through the gray mist as it sped toward the Qiming Plain.

Inside the cockpit, the energy readings slowly recovered, and the crack on the left arm still flickered with electric arcs.

Chen Wuwang gazed at the brightening horizon ahead, his fingers unconsciously tapping on the console.

Once, and then again.

As if calculating something.

Or perhaps, as if waiting for something.