Chapter Ninety-Six: On the Eve of the Blast

The things that once truly existed in the mortal world could never ultimately withstand the erosion of time; in the end, they would hang high and distant like a constellation of stars, shining yet forever out of reach.

But when those legends appeared before the world once more, no one could face them with composure. Igarashi Chihane and Kagou Ryunosuke were no exception.

The girl curled within the Seal of Saen opened her eyes. The once fragile maiden now radiated the oppressive aura of one born to command, her appearance unchanged, yet the two thaumaturges of the Cult of Flesh had already knelt on one knee in the ritual salute due a saint.

Saen regarded the dagger in her chest with indifference. Slowly, she drew it out. Blood seeped along the blade’s etched lines, and when drops of dark gold blood struck the ground, Igarashi Chihane and Kagou Ryunosuke were already moving.

Of course, not against Saen, but toward the inevitable slaughter between the old Cult of Flesh and the Inner Sanctum.

From the beginning to the end, what they had considered was never summoning the saint and then praying for her guidance or blessing. This ritual was not the highest form of true descent within the Cult of Flesh. Such a descent required far too much energy, perhaps enough to sacrifice an entire city. Thus the rite established by Igarashi Chihane was a spiritual descent, a projection-like manifestation. Its duration was only a brief half hour. After thirty minutes, Saen would once again sink into slumber. What Igarashi Chihane and Kagou Ryunosuke cared about was the vessel left behind after Saen’s sleep: the girl’s body.

Though it lasted only half an hour, the saint of the Cult of Flesh had indeed materialized within this body. For the cultists, this human form that had carried the saint had been transformed by Saen’s power into a sacred religious symbol within the Cult of Flesh. Through this body, these cult thaumaturges could glimpse the saint’s domain and find the path to higher ascent.

That single hour was the time in which victory and defeat would be decided. The winner would possess all; the loser would gain nothing.

Kagou Ryunosuke showed no mercy. The moment he confirmed Saen’s descent, he launched his attack at Igarashi Chihane. Sharpened bone spurs writhed beneath his skin; his muscle tissue seemed to burn as though pressed into molten magma. Under the command of his mind, energy stripped away every weak human trait. With a tearing of fabric, something pallid forced apart his clothes. Wings formed of membranous flesh spread behind him like blooming flowers. Inside his chest, crimson trembling muscle lay exposed to the air. Every cell was straining to absorb oxygen from the atmosphere and create still more energy. At this moment Kagou Ryunosuke held nothing back, awakening the form of a biologically immortal Karcist. The body cloaked in black exoskeleton stood beneath the moonlight like a killing aberration from humanity’s worst nightmares.

Igarashi Chihane reacted just as quickly the instant Kagou Ryunosuke moved. Though the new Cult of Flesh and the original cult differed completely in creed and purpose, in essence they walked the same path of ascent. As a fellow Karcist-class thaumaturge, Igarashi Chihane no longer retained the elegance of his former human appearance. He was like a dragon without scales or wings, his body gleaming with a metallic sheen, his pupils a flowing dark gold. The cells within him had long since surpassed the boundaries of ordinary life, possessing astonishing powers of change and adaptation. The soft white fat used to disguise his human body was instantly melted and absorbed, converted into energy to drive his muscles. Within his ferocious yet cold molten-gold eyes lived the arrogance of a creature that had climbed to the summit of life in the mortal world.

The two monsters, both blazing with murderous intent, erupted into a savage struggle at once. Their sharp exoskeletons gouged deep furrows into the concrete ground. Their bodies, hard as alloy, collided without restraint, like two freight trucks crashing head-on at full speed. Even the air emitted a dull sonic boom. Claws, teeth, bone spurs—they fought with every weapon they had, locked together like beasts battling for their lives.

Blood ran from torn muscle. In almost the blink of an eye, the muscle had already begun to churn and reorganize. Flesh that had gone pale from blood loss withered and rotted in an instant, replaced by new tissue. Enormous amounts of energy were ordered by the neural centers to surge into every corner of the body. Even the penetrating wound in the chest could be filled in by fresh tissue in a single breath, and then the exoskeleton would once again cover the muscle in an instant.

This battle had only just begun. It would not end until one side was exhausted or killed. They roared as they tore through the jungle of steel and concrete. Whirling dust could not conceal the bloodlust in their eyes. As the battle escalated, the desire for slaughter within them was completely unleashed. Every bite and collision was chaotic and savage, as though beasts from the primordial age were gambling their lives for victory.

Saen paid no heed to the two beings beside her carrying the aura of the Cult of Flesh. In her era, life was merely a consumable, death only a means of pleasing her. For her, slaughter was the true music the world ought to have.

The very first moment she opened her eyes, she realized that the world a thousand years later had already changed beyond recognition.

Steel, alloys, machinery—those things she instinctively loathed filled every corner before her eyes. Though she did not know their uses, she knew they must belong to the Church of the Shattered God.

The golden age of the Cult of Flesh had indeed passed, but those damned followers of the machine gods had actually seized this diseased world?

The city before her filled her with a desire for destruction. Within a few short seconds, the saint of the Cult of Flesh had found what she intended to do.

She slit her left hand with the dagger, and one by one, the sigils that should have been recorded only in the sacred scriptures of the Cult of Flesh were inscribed upon the earth in blood.

The thaumic energy drifting through the air, like sharks smelling blood, converged continuously toward the sigils before Saen. The saint of the Cult of Flesh, said in legend to govern darkness, secrecy, deceit, poison, and justice, wore a calm expression, but that immense thaumic power had already begun a countdown over the whole of Japan.

At SCP Foundation Headquarters in Asia, expensive thaumic monitoring instruments far beyond the technological level of this era were now flashing red like little loudspeakers in an amusement park. A detector in a research coat stared in disbelief at the data on the instrument, then pressed the button beside it marked “Emergency Situation.” “A massive concentration of thaumic energy has been detected gathering on the Japanese mainland in Asia. Based on the rate of convergence and its scale, it should reach its peak in about twenty-seven minutes.”

“Yield?” the male voice in the communicator was steady and forceful.

“Approximately fifty megatons of TNT equivalent. Geologically speaking, Japan’s foundation is quite unstable. It sits at the boundary between the Asian Plate and the Pacific Plate, and volcanic eruptions and earthquakes are already frequent there. If an offshore explosion of this magnitude occurs, Japan may sink...”

The voice in the communicator cut in at once. “Suspend all mobile task force missions within Japan. Reassign everything to preventing the thaumic explosion. Send every currently idle mobile task force at Headquarters to Japan. Continue monitoring and report the scale of thaumic energy every fifteen seconds. Notify the Japanese government to evacuate civilians from the blast zone.”

“The center of the thaumic convergence is Tokyo, and the Tokyo branch reported this morning that it was resisting an attack by the Cult of Flesh.”

“The Cult of Flesh? Find out which saint has descended within five minutes. Contact the GOC and prepare an online meeting.”

“There is something else. Almost all supernatural beings in Japan have been drawn to Tokyo by this thaumic energy. I do not believe they are trying to save the humans in Tokyo at a time like this.”

“Prioritize the thaumic explosion. The GOC will be more than happy to settle accounts with those yokai after the fact.” Duanmu Zhe made his decision after only a second’s pause.

This doctor, who held the highest authority over the Asia branch of the SCP Foundation, fell into brief thought, then pressed a very inconspicuous button beneath his desk, which was made from a single slab of rosewood. Light and shadow interwove before him. A moment later, a life-sized holographic projection appeared, showing a man seated in a chair, his face deliberately blurred.

“I have been informed. Leave it to you to handle everything.” Before the doctor could speak, the man waved a hand, ending the report with a single sentence.

Half an hour earlier, in Aoyama-Omotesando, Tokyo, inside a cafe with a European flair, Qin Mo looked somewhat uneasy at the girl before him. As expected, Yuuhi Harisa exclaimed a minute later.

“How can you interfere in ordinary people’s affairs? Not only does that violate Deer Academy regulations, it also goes against the Basic Law of the Supernatural Sphere.” Yuuhi Harisa looked slightly at a loss.

“Mm, actually, the Cult of Flesh is involved too,” Qin Mo said after thinking for a moment.

Yuuhi Harisa blinked, as if relieved. “Then this report will need to be revised carefully. All right, you can now tell them to proceed according to the plan.”

Only then did Qin Mo relax. At the same time, he felt a little embarrassed. “If nothing unexpected happened, they should already have started by now. Um, Miss Yuuhi, how should this report be revised?”

Yuuhi Harisa picked up her coffee cup and took a small sip, then licked the foam from her lips. “Leave it to me. There probably isn’t anyone better suited to this than I am. I’m an expert in this field.”

Qin Mo hurried to thank her. Truth be told, she also found writing these kinds of reports rather troublesome.

“It’s all right. Our Tokyo branch has always been like this, actually. After all, we have branches of the SCP Foundation and the GOC here, so serious anomalies hardly ever occur. The few Deer Academy students who come here are usually on commission, and if anything goes wrong, we simply hand it over to the SCP Foundation and the GOC. Our work is very easy.” Yuuhi Harisa took a small pair of glasses from her coat pocket and put them on her delicate nose, marking up the report with a ballpoint pen as she spoke.

The quiet cafe really was a good place to work. Watching the serious Yuuhi Harisa, Qin Mo decided to borrow another sum of money from Ji Ning before leaving Japan, at the very least enough to buy a gift for this gentle girl.

At worst, he could sign that indenture contract. Since it was him, anything would do.

Thinking of Ji Ning, Qin Mo unconsciously turned his gaze to the window. The lights decorating the streets made the night especially bright and dreamlike. What, one wondered, was he doing now? With Police Officer Ueno there, he and Afra probably wouldn’t do anything too outrageous.

If the world outside his sight had not been swallowed by that sudden darkness, perhaps nothing would have happened tonight.

“What was that just now?” Yuuhi Harisa jumped up, looking around alertly as she asked Qin Mo.

“I couldn’t see anything just now either. Not just us—everyone here lost their sight for a moment.” Qin Mo looked around and found that the other customers were just as bewildered.

As people were discussing the strange loss of vision, the soft music in the cafe was interrupted by a hurried voice from the television.

The live concert broadcast on the screen was abruptly cut off by an emergency bulletin. “...All citizens are asked to follow the police on the streets and evacuate in an orderly manner. The storm is about to make landfall...”

People in the cafe looked at the emergency alert that had popped up on their phones, then, after a brief stunned silence, rushed outside.

Yuuhi Harisa grabbed Qin Mo’s hand and headed out. “Hurry, hurry, the typhoon is coming. This makes no sense at all. There hasn’t been even a hint of notice lately, and suddenly they say a typhoon is going to make landfall...”

The streets were swarming with people, scattering like ants being chased away. Qin Mo suddenly stopped and stared blankly at the pitch-black sky. “They’re on the cruise ship.”

Yuuhi Harisa did not catch what Qin Mo had said. She pulled him toward the parking garage. “Come on, hurry up. Otherwise the garage will be blocked soon. You don’t want to sleep there tonight, do you?”

Typhoon, sea, cruise ship—when those words came together, Qin Mo’s heart skipped a beat.

Far from Tokyo, over the ocean, a conversation was taking place on a yacht.

“What is that?” Irina, dressed in a black shell jacket, closed her eyes and felt the thaumic ions in the air, as though they were burning.

“A thaumic storm.” Fifth Jue, dressed in white casual wear, watched the direction of Tokyo with great interest. A spear was slung across his back, utterly at odds with his modern clothing.

“That fluctuation is coming from Tokyo.”

“Mm. If nothing unexpected happens, there won’t be a Tokyo after this.”

“Can it be stopped?” Irina frowned, then looked at the young specially appointed professor from Deer Academy beside her.

“It can, but I would expend a great deal of energy.” Fifth Jue spoke as though discussing the weather, without the slightest fluctuation in tone.

As though noticing Irina’s gaze, Fifth Jue smiled. “I’m not a hero like you. This destruction has nothing to do with me. Turn the ship around. Since the mission is already complete, we can just land on the other side of the ocean.”

Irina let out a faint sigh. After so many years in the field, she had long since come to understand one fact: this world faced danger at every moment, but heroes did not appear every time. Success was remembered precisely because it was so much rarer than failure.

The small yacht turned and headed into the dark sea. Perhaps because a city was about to be destroyed, or perhaps because today’s task had simply been too tiring, the two fell silent and let the sea wind whisper between them.

Only when a glimmer of light appeared ahead of the yacht did Irina perk up a little and look over. The people on that sightseeing cruise were rather lucky; at least they would not be buried with the city. If they were even luckier and managed to avoid the tsunami after the explosion, they should still be able to survive. In any case, their chances of living were far greater than those of the people in that city.

Irina was just about to stop the yacht and go aboard to order the cruise ship’s operator to head away from Tokyo, but as the yacht drew closer, she saw a familiar figure on the cruise ship repeatedly pushing something off the deck. Though it looked familiar, Irina could not tell who it was for the moment.

Was he throwing out trash? Irina thought, but she did not intend to ask. It was not until she climbed aboard the cruise ship and met the person face to face that she finally realized why the silhouette had seemed so familiar.

“Ji Ning?” Irina said in surprise, because at that moment Ji Ning looked as though he had just finished a part-time shift at a slaughterhouse. Not only was he filthy all over, but there were also suspicious stains of blood on his clothes.