Tokyo: The Player Behind the Scenes

After these understated words, the two fell silent.

The investigators beside Kurosaki and Genji Himeko subtly moved aside, then exchanged a glance, their eyes seemingly connected.

"Your Fifth Investigation Team has gained quite a reputation lately. Perhaps we could collaborate sometime?"

"If the circumstances are right, yes."

After a few awkward words, Genji left.

Kurosaki didn't have much to say. This was fine; at least he didn't have to worry about Heisei Ryu falling for a woman.

At nine o'clock, a researcher led them through a long corridor in a certain direction.

Not long after Kurosaki left, he suddenly lost focus and saw a guy who should have been dead for many years standing not far away, smiling at him.

"They actually dare to do this? We're not important enough to be used as guinea pigs, are we?"

Kurosaki tried to force himself out of the hallucination, but looking at the person, he couldn't help but ask a few questions, so he habitually scurried over, his face full of flattery.

"Master Dao, have you succeeded?"

The man laughed and cursed, "Success my ass! Don't you know your own limitations? If you believed I could succeed, you wouldn't be here with me!"

"Master Dao, do you think I can succeed?" Kurosaki rubbed his hands together.

The man's smile slowly faded: "You think I simply sold you that robe? Maybe..."

Before he could finish speaking, he vanished like a bubble.

"Wait, can hallucinations be described incompletely?"

Kurosaki returned to reality and looked at the chaotic scene of demons running rampant everywhere, feeling inexplicably lost.

The place he was in was empty, with many of the faces he had just memorized standing a few meters apart, acting out joy, anger, sorrow and happiness. From an observer's perspective, it looked like a performance without props, and each one of them was an Oscar winner.

On a platform ahead, there was a spider lily about the size of a calf, guarded by the fully armed Talos squad. To the side was a large room with a sign that read: "Those who are sober, please enter this room. Do not disturb others."

Kurosaki walked listlessly toward the room, which was a conference room resembling a press conference hall, where Heisei Ryu was already waiting for him.

The two did not exchange words, but waited quietly.

Meanwhile, those outside gradually broke free from the illusion and entered the room. In the end, only a few remained, deeply trapped and unable to extricate themselves, and were forcibly taken away by the Talos squad.

A short while later, an elderly researcher walked in with Leon.

"I know everyone must have a lot to say and is very dissatisfied with this arrangement."

"But please believe that we must use this method to screen out those who are not up to standard in advance, otherwise they will not be able to join the work that follows."

"Being able to enter this room means that your willpower can withstand the test, and it also means that you are qualified to learn about the top secrets about the supernatural."

Leon bowed to everyone and spoke sincerely.

Upon hearing that it concerned top secrets, people disregarded their discontent and listened attentively.

“Dr. Miley, please begin.” Leon stepped aside and gestured to the elderly man dressed as a researcher.

Dr. Millai nodded and took two steps forward: "I don't know how to give speeches. You didn't come here to listen to my nonsense, so I'll just get straight to the point."

"The recent 'red spider lily craze' in Tokyo originated right here, from that red spider lily outside the window."

Upon hearing this, many people couldn't help but turn their heads to look.

“You can call it ‘divine flower’, ‘holy flower’, ‘mother flower’. It is the mother plant of all the spider lilies that cause the frenzy, and those daughter spider lilies are seeds that we actively sowed.”

Some people in the audience looked uneasy.

"We are not arbitrarily experimenting on citizens. Before this, we had already conducted preliminary internal verification and found that 'Red Spider Lily Fever' only causes temporary mental weakness, which is recoverable."

"But what we can gain from this."

"But it is a power that can resist evil spirits."

One more chapter

Chapter 174: The Protective Experiment

Miley paused here.

He glanced at the hands raised high below the stage, then looked at Leon on the side of the podium.

"Ahem, Kurosaki, what's wrong?" Leon had some impression of Kurosaki.

Kurosaki stood up: "Can I swear?"

"No."

"Okay." He sat back down.

Leon sighed: "Please let Dr. Miley finish speaking, but I must remind everyone that you can no longer withdraw now. Doctor, please continue."

"Okay, you may think this is a deal with the devil, but please remember, we are also fighting against the devil!"

"Centipede train, demon sword, demon mist, and possibly even more evil spirits lurking in unknown places—do you think we haven't considered the worst-case scenario of cooperating?"

"Or do you really think we can put all our hopes on those uncontrollable supernatural beings? Perhaps they are the more terrifying ones!"

Miley calmed her breathing.

"We will do everything we can to keep the Divine Flower under control. And so far, it is performing quite well, except for the uncontrollable growth location of the Red Spider Lily."

"Those spider lilies are the experiments I was talking about to fight against demons."

Through Dr. Millai's narration, they gradually learned the whole story.

All of this happened on the night the demon sword was shattered.

Both the US and Japan were clearly greatly provoked. They contacted Milley overnight and announced that they would double the investment of personnel and funds, as if they could choose any prison in the US as their experimental subjects if he asked, and even building the largest particle collider would not be a problem.

That night, he sat blankly in front of the only mysterious object he had obtained so far—the spider lily—unable to sleep at all.

Then, as his thoughts drifted, he seemed to hear some mysterious whisper and gained some wonderful knowledge.

At first, he thought it was a hallucination, so he used an electric shock to clear his head. But after the shock, the knowledge remained in his mind and wouldn't go away.

The main content of the knowledge is that evil spirits are about to appear on a large scale in the human world, and the red spider lily has the power to communicate and balance yin and yang. It can grow by absorbing the power of wishes, and when activated when necessary, it can release a mysterious power to fight against demons and maintain order in the human world.

The key to absorbing the power of wishes is either to make people have faith in the divine flower or to pray and worship through the spider lily.

The former won't make people go into a state of frenzy, while the latter will, and it's also more convenient.

However, the distribution of spider lilies is random, and increasing the quantity requires consuming some wish power.

They dared not reveal the existence of the divine flower yet, so they first used the spider lily to conduct experiments.

They have no demons in their hands, but there are still demons among men, in the prison.

So they planted two spider lilies, and after gathering a little bit of wish power, they found a group of death row inmates and a few ordinary people who volunteered to participate in the experiment.

They are required to attack ordinary people, and their weapons will be gradually upgraded.

As for ordinary people, they are protected by the divine flower.

The results showed that the attacks of the evildoers were deflected and neutralized by a red light, but perhaps because the power of their vows was too weak, it did not protect ordinary people for long.

This experiment was crude, but it still gave Miley a lot of confidence. More importantly, the two countries' governments agreed to expand the experiment.

As a result, the "Red Spider Lily Mania" began to appear in Tokyo, but Milai carefully controlled the number of them and allowed the investigation team to go out and test their ability to collect the red spider lilies.

Everything went smoothly. The power of the divine flower's wishes increased significantly, and the recovery of the spider lilies was also successful, with the quantity remaining under control.

We can proceed to the second phase of the experiment, which is why these people were invited here.

Of course, they wouldn't know that the divine flower did collect willpower and spirit, but what it fed back to them had little to do with the aforementioned things.

Seventy percent of those vows came from Shinji Higashiyama, and thirty percent from Shinka.

In fact, Shinichi Higashiyama hasn't found any use for these wish powers yet, but as a player, whether they're useful or not, hoarding them won't hurt.

As for the so-called protection, that is simply the power of this divine flower.

There are two red spider lilies in total.

The flower that Shinjiro Hidaka hid in his belly was "yin," while the flower found near the Other Shore Cave in the laboratory was "yang."

Yin rejoices in the spirit, Yang favors the will of the gods.

The two seem to be quantum entangled, mutually influencing each other, but only if there is a host.

Now that the original Great Serpent of the Other Shore is dead, Yang is still alive only because Yin is keeping it alive.

At first, both Yin and Yang spider lilies were half-dead. Later, as the spider lily grew, Yin regained some of its power. On the day the demon sword was destroyed, Touyama Shin asked the spider lily to spit out the spider lily for him to examine.

This examination revealed that Yang had also recovered to some extent, but it was much weaker than Yin.

Since the Higanbana needs willpower and spirit, Shin Higashiyama set a tone for it, using protection as an excuse to get the authorities to help restore its power without him having to lift a finger.

If any major disaster strikes Tokyo in the future, even if the player can't handle it, this flower can still help them out.

Therefore, cooperating with Shenhua is not really like seeking help from a tiger.

Although from their perspective, the risks are indeed very high.

"That's the situation. In the second phase of the experiment, we will further test the Divine Flower's defensive capabilities and whether it has the ability to defend and counterattack."

"At the same time, we will strictly limit the number of spider lilies and ensure that we have the ability to recycle them at any time."

"But to achieve all of the above, we need everyone's help."

After Dr. Millai finished speaking, the people below began to murmur amongst themselves.

They had no choice in getting here.

"Alright, we have plenty of time to discuss this now. Please put on your safety suits and follow me to the combat lab."

Leon clapped his hands, drawing everyone's attention back.

Those who could sit here were basically elites. Upon hearing this, they quickly shut their mouths, put on their safety suits, and headed to the combat laboratory.

This experiment was much larger in scale than the last one, with the prisoners equipped with many weapons and even vehicles.

If they hadn't had bombs around their necks, they probably would have just fled.

On the other hand, the divine flower was placed at the rear and protected by the Talos team, with several volunteers at the front, roughly the limit of the divine flower's protective range as tested.

"The second protection experiment begins."

Once everyone had arrived, Miley gave the order.

The prisoner unit below began to move out, a chaotic scene overall, but with some semblance of infantry-vehicle coordination.

In mid-air, a small number of drones launched an initial attack.

The armored vehicle attempted to fire from a distance, unleashing a hail of machine gun bullets. As captured by a high-speed camera, the dense bullets were deflected by streaks of red light, all striking the wall on one side.

Then, the next second, bang!

A vine burst from the ground and pierced directly through the armored vehicle that had opened fire.

"Fire! Don't just stand there like idiots!" the prison captain next to the armored vehicle yelled.

The prisoners snapped back to reality and began firing at the terrifying vine with all sorts of fancy gun grips.

Gunfire erupted, and the vines broke and snapped constantly, as if they might collapse at any moment.

Before they could even rejoice, several more vines burst forth from the ground, sweeping across a wide area and smashing a large number of people to pieces, leaving a bloody mess.

"I'm not fighting anymore! I'm not fighting anymore! Monster! There's a monster!"

Witnessing this horrific scene, someone broke down and threw down his gun, trying to escape. Before the staff could detonate the neck bomb, several vines behind him lifted another armored vehicle and slammed it down on him.

The person exploded like a tomato.

These dozens of experienced prisoners, handpicked from Florida, were almost completely helpless; they were wiped out before they could even get close.

The drones in the air were not spared either. While the battle was raging in front, a strange patch of flower buds sprouted from the ground behind them, spitting out sharp spikes at the drones and destroying them within seconds.

The experiment concluded in a way that exceeded Dr. Millais's expectations.

And the others finally understood why Miley had placed such high hopes on this divine flower.

This combat power does indeed look quite formidable.

If it continues to grow stronger, it should be able to put up a fight even against extraordinary opponents.

As for demons like the Centipede Train and the Demon Blade, the difference is still quite significant.