From the end of the world

Chapter 77: The Enemy Surfaces 3
Lu Youxun was always kind and friendly, and he was graceful in his words and deeds, as if he never got angry. So when Zhu Shi told me about his tragic experience of being captured and imprisoned by an underground organization for research, I found it difficult to connect it with the real him. He seemed like a person who had a smooth journey, with a stable life that matched his stable emotions.

But at this moment, he showed unprecedented hatred and rage, with veins on his forehead, a ferocious red expression, and bloodshot eyes. He looked like a completely different person. If the man wearing the silver mask in the photo appeared in front of him, I have no doubt that he would pounce on him like a demon, bite off his face with his teeth, and tear his flesh.

"What is the Humanitarian Department?" Although I was asking Lu Youxun, I actually already had an association.

Zhu Shi glanced at Lu Youxun, who was completely oblivious to the situation, and seemed to be hesitating whether to explain to me in front of Lu Youxun.

The latter took a deep breath, as if trying to calm down his anger, and then said: "It is a mysterious organization that is independent of the Luoshan order. They use all means to capture civilian monks across the country... civilian demon hunters, and even Luoshan demon hunters, in order to use scientific technology to analyze the power of demon hunters.

"The purpose of this behavior is to create extraordinary warriors who are completely obedient to the management of mortal society and completely follow the orders of mortal leaders.

"Luo Shan is destined to become the ruler of secular society in the future, but they are unable to recognize this destined future. They are a group of lunatics who are walking against the trend of the times."

It seems that the Humanitarian Department is the underground organization that once captured, imprisoned, and studied Lu Youxun.

Lu Youxun's words had a very clear bias. I selectively accepted and digested them, and then continued to ask, "Is the monster maker from the Humanitarian Department?"

"Yes. I have had contact with Silver Mask, the maker of this monster, before. I would recognize him even if he turned into ashes." Lu Youxun said with anger still on his face, "So that's how it is. The person who creates monsters, and the seeds of hearts that turn ordinary people into monsters... This really seems like something the Humanitarian Department would do."

The monsters seem to be created by the mysterious organization "Humanitarian Department".

At the same time, the monster is likely to be related to the demon that appeared at the end of the world.

But according to Ma Zao, the Karma Demons are not transformed from human bodies, but are produced by a mysterious substance called "madness" that spreads in the doomsday world and corrodes the survivors...

Could it be that "madness" is also related to the mysterious organization called the Humanitarian Department?
The "madness" that can invade the human body, causing people to gradually lose their memories and self, and eventually become monsters, actually sounds like a "highly contagious virus", which makes me think of many doomsday horror movies.

In those movies, a terrifying virus that can transform humans into zombies or other monsters suddenly spreads around the world, eventually leading to the destruction of human civilization. The emergence of this virus is sometimes associated with conspiracy theories, and is set as "a forbidden creation accidentally produced by some large organization in order to develop biological weapons or to study immortality technology."

Continuing on from this idea, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that "the Humanitarian Department is the direct driving force behind the apocalypse."

But, is it really that simple? In the doomsday described by Ma Zao, madness seems to be just a supporting role. Rather than being the main cause of the doomsday, it is better to say that it is one of the large group of weird people raging in the doomsday world. Just like many viewers of doomsday movies believe that even if the zombie virus really appears, it will not be able to destroy human civilization. I find it hard to believe that madness alone can bring human civilization to an end.

Lu Youxun seemed to have finally regained his composure and composure. His breathing became steady, and he once again asked the head in front of him, "Where is the monster maker?"

The head seemed to be intimidated by the other party's previous rage and answered honestly: "I don't know."

"You must have used some kind of consumable item to drag us into the maze space. Was that item given to you by the monster maker?" Zhu Shi asked.

"Yes," the head replied.

"Why did he give you that prop? Don't tell me it was just for you to protect yourself." Zhu Shi asked.

The head gave an unexpected answer: "It is to deal with a man named 'Konda'."

"Agent Kong?" Zhu Shi was surprised.

Lu Youxun asked: "Isn't Kongda the same as you, a monster transformed by the Monster Maker? Why did the Monster Maker instruct you to deal with him?"

"Because Kongda has recently reached the limit of his power, the monster maker hopes that he can break through to the next stage." The head replied, "And if the monster wants to break through to the next stage, he must sublimate his soul.

“Although this kind of sublimation can be achieved by devouring a large number of souls, the monster maker hopes that Kongda can sublimate his soul by breaking through his own inner demons. Therefore, he gave me a one-time key to the maze space a week ago and asked me to find an opportunity to lock Kongda in there soon.

"The conditions set by the monster maker for the maze space are 'breaking through from the residential level to the advanced level'. Although I don't know what the relationship is between the maze space and Kongda's inner demons, unless Kongda can meet the conditions, he will definitely starve to death in there.

"But I didn't expect that he would disappear before I could go find him. Since you all know that he is a weirdo, it means that he was killed by you..."

"What is the maze space?" Lu Youxun asked us.

Zhu Shi explained it to him. After listening, he pondered for a moment and then let out a long sigh: "Is that so? It turns out that I was not able to truly save him back then... Until the moment of his death, his soul has been trapped in the ghost wall of twenty years ago..."

After thinking about it, I asked the head: "I don't quite understand. Can't you monsters also summon clones from the shadows? As long as you summon enough clones in the maze space, can't you ignore the conditions for breaking through?" "That maze space only regards individuals with spirit and perception as the center. Although the clones we summon have a certain degree of intelligence, they have no real spirit, and we have no way to share senses with them." The head replied, "Konda should be an exception. The monster maker told me that Kongda's ability is to 'create a substitute'. He can temporarily transfer his heart seed to other people, turning them into clones controlled by himself and sharing senses with them.

"It's just that he can only control one clone at a time, and in order to overload the maze space and cause it to collapse, at least two thousand sentient individuals are needed to disperse and move around in it. We monsters can summon no more than ten clones at the same time. I am a special one among them, and I can only summon dozens at the same time. The order of two thousand is really out of reach for us monsters.

"There is another way to crack the maze space, which is to output a huge amount of firepower from the inside at once, at least the scale of the gas explosion that occurred near Saltwater University recently. The maze space will be temporarily breached. But that is also far beyond the reach of freaks of our level..."

It turns out that the maze space can be solved directly by brute force.

I even used my brain a lot.

"Agent Kong can temporarily give up the source of his power?" Zhu Shi suddenly realized, "No wonder I never realized he was a weirdo. He always hangs around in front of me."

No one knew what he was thinking of, but Lu Youxun's face turned gloomy. "You weirdos can summon clones from shadows... Come to think of it, I did see it in the literature..."

"There should be other weirdos in this city, right?" I asked the head, "Besides you and the dead Agent Kong, how many are there?"

"Only one person." the head replied.

"What is his true identity and where is he?" I asked.

"I don't know. I've only been a monster for ten days. Although I've had contact with another monster, I don't know his true identity. I only knew Kongda's true identity after the monster maker told me. Before that, I had never even met Kongda once." The head said, "I only know that the other monster probably lives in the new city area. I don't know much about the rest."

The one who attacked Chang'an should be the other weirdo he mentioned.

And if I want to find Ma Zao, I must use this as a direction next.

When Lu Youxun heard that he had only been a monster for ten days, he seemed to realize something else: "In other words, the monster who hunted down the local dignitaries in the past two months was not you, but that weirdo?"

"Yes." The head replied.

"This is strange. We were tracking down the weirdos who were hunting down the local dignitaries, so we traced them to you." Lu Youxun thought, "I even used divination. You should at least have a significant causal relationship with this series of events..."

He took out photos of two murder scenes that had appeared in recent days and showed them to the head: "Did you do these two scenes?"

There were two murder scenes, one where an elderly man was killed alone outdoors, and the other where a husband was killed together with his wife and son.

The head's gaze was focused on the latter

After a moment, he replied: "...I was the one who murdered the family of three, but not the other one."

"Really..." Lu Youxun seemed to be still confused, but he didn't ask, just thought about it silently.

Zhu Shi stared at the head closely and asked in a serious voice: "Did you become a monster voluntarily? Or did the monster maker force you to do so?"

"I volunteered," said the head.

Zhu Shi asked again: "Did he tell you beforehand that after becoming a monster, he would be eager to devour human souls?"

"Yes," the head said calmly, "He even told me that if I don't kill people and devour souls for a long time, I will go out of control and become a monster that only knows how to devour souls. And if I don't want to become a weirdo, he will turn around and leave."

"And you just agreed to him like that?" Zhu Shi said incomprehension.

"What else? This is a great opportunity!" At this point, the head seemed to recall the emotions at that time, and the voice became passionate, "Become a being beyond humans - become a superman! How can such a good opportunity be missed? Absolutely can't miss it!

"Now I am a life that is superior to all living beings. If I were to travel back to ancient times, I could even tell those ignorant mortals that I am a god who has descended to the human world, and those mortals - they should all obey my orders, worship me, and become my slaves!"

(End of this chapter)