Chapter 1 The Image

Layer upon layer of figures climbed onto the stone plate. The lead man pierced the mysterious woman's chest with a spear. Blood splattered like ink, dyeing her white dress crimson, and staining the lips of the invaders.

Without resistance, the woman watched them rush up, hack at her with their weapons, then pounce on her ravenously, devouring her remains like a pack of wolves.

Those who couldn't get close could only surround the outside, greedily licking the blood that flowed across the ground with satisfied expressions.

All of this occurred on the stone plate shrouded in a faint blood-red light. The overall image had the texture of an oil painting, reflecting a melancholy and desolate dark tone against the backdrop of the night.

Chen Ran was immersed in the subconscious influence of the carved painting with an expression of enjoyment. He didn't find anything wrong with the townsfolk's actions. His only regret was the lack of appropriate background music.

Such a religiously inspired scene deserved a suitable accompaniment.

What a waste.

It was like waking up on a Croatian beach in the afternoon, the azure sea spread out before you, a waiter with rolled-up sleeves approaching quietly, everything harmonious and peaceful to an infuriating degree.

But the next second, the waiter, with an impeccable smile, first poured red wine from the Tuscany region onto the caviar, then scooped up a handful of caviar and plastered it on your face.

This was Chen Ran's understanding of the scene.

Such an understanding was obviously beyond Jiang Cheng, who was still struggling to make ends meet.

The woman was already covered by the densely packed figures. Throughout the process, she did not struggle or make a sound.

Jiang Cheng forced himself to shift his attention away from the woman, his eyes reflecting a faint light.

His gaze swept around the vicinity of the stone plate. He wasn't a hunter; this was just a survival instinct born of extreme calm.

The painting also gave him a sense of unease, but he keenly sensed that within that unease, there was also a strange sense of dissonance.

For Jiang Cheng, the discomfort was simply the shock the image caused him. After all, in modern society with relatively sound legal principles, cannibalism was rare.

Criminals would even be labeled as demons, such as so-and-so the cannibal.

But dissonance was different. It meant something was wrong.

A moment later, his pupils suddenly contracted.

Found it...

It was the people rushing onto the stone plate who were strange!

No, not those people, but... but that woman!

The stone plate was already crowded with people. Some were eating meat, while most of the less fortunate ones were kneeling nearby, greedily licking the blood from the ground.

Roughly estimated, there were no fewer than dozens of people on the stone plate, and no less than a hundred people surrounding it.

The entire stone plate was almost stained red with blood.

Where did so much blood come from?

There was only one woman on the stone plate, plus the old man and the little girl's remaining half-body, staring lifelessly. There were only three people. How could there be...

Wait!

As his gaze swept across the little girl's remains, Jiang Cheng's gaze paused. He saw... the corners of the little girl's eyes were slightly raised, and the corners of her mouth were stretched open exaggeratedly.

She... was actually smiling?

This little girl, who had been cruelly split in two and left to decompose on the stone plate, was actually smiling?!

The next moment, the perspective suddenly pulled back. Even with Jiang Cheng's composure, his breathing began to quicken.

The man with his limbs cut off and tossed aside, the woman with her abdomen ripped open, the old man with his head chopped off and stuck on a spear like a trophy, and the slaughtered children covered in blood...

All the people who had been killed... were smiling.

Their pale faces were mostly stained with blood, but it didn't hinder their bizarre smiles.

What was even more terrifying was that Jiang Cheng could clearly feel that the smile was heartfelt.

They didn't resent the people who slaughtered them. On the contrary, they were filled with something akin to gratitude.

Grateful... to the invaders who killed them.

Why?

"Kaka kaka—"

Continuous and subtle sounds echoed in Jiang Cheng's ears. The scene in his mind began to change. The blood-colored barrier that had appeared before began to rotate slowly.

His heart couldn't help but tremble. A decree-like message crashed into his mind. Something extraordinary... was about to begin.

The next second, the people on the stone plate fell to the ground one after another. They struggled and rolled in the blood, as if experiencing extreme pain.

Everyone's mouth was wide open, as if they were roaring.

But even though the corners of their mouths were about to tear, Jiang Cheng still couldn't hear their voices.

A middle-aged man convulsing on the ground stared fixedly at his arm. The skin on his arm slowly bulged, stretched, and stretched again... until it even became blood-red and transparent.

The next second, a thick bone spur burst out of his body. A bone spur structure resembling a fin actually grew on the man's arm.

The mutation spread like a plague. A person who looked like a boy had his back torn open, the skin and flesh under his clothes were a bloody mess, and the exposed spine was even thicker than that of an adult man.

What was even more terrifying was that a pair of wings with blood-colored bone membranes actually unfolded along both sides of the exposed spine.

The thing, no longer clear whether it was a boy or a monster, screamed and fell into the blood, rolling around.

Some people grew sharp horns on their heads, and some even grew two more arms as thick as the forelimbs of reptiles along their ribs.

There were also people who had completely mutated into monsters that were 2 meters, or even 3 meters tall.

They roared, howled, and even rolled together in the blood.

The excruciating pain during the mutation was obvious. Covered in blood and mucus, they bit each other, venting their pain and unwillingness.

Jiang Cheng clenched his fists, his fingertips slightly pale due to lack of blood supply. The scene before him completely subverted his understanding. This was not a sacrifice; this was... evolution!

Like Gamaliel in relation to angels.

But the difference was that their evolution was completely irregular and aimless. From an evolutionary perspective, most of these things were defective products.

They simply did not meet the most basic survival requirements of living beings.

Their existence seemed to be only a challenge to some kind of authority, a statement to those who claimed to be the righteous path, such as the Pope of the Church, that the world still contained a battlefield.

After the blood-colored mist dissipated, these ugly fellows began to run towards the forest in groups of three or five. They were huge, but their movements were unusually clumsy, like toddlers.

Soon, all of them disappeared from the vicinity of the stone plate.

Jiang Cheng stared at the direction they left in. It was... the direction of the sea.

The scene described by the old woman immediately appeared in his mind, those ships that were mysteriously attacked, and the old woman's heavily armed special forces team on board.

And the captain's radio call that remained after the attack.

He shouted, "It's hell! The gates of hell... are open!"

So... that's it.