I write obituaries for the gods

tide Leina walked to Lin Chen's side and looked at the painting on the platform.

In the image, the whale's giant eye is reflected in the shimmering water, creating a scene that is both real and surreal.

"The Menttis believe that a whale is at the bottom of the warp, and that our world will be destroyed if it swims across it."

Gazing at that giant eye, Xileina whispered:

"They also believed that as long as they voluntarily sacrificed themselves to the Warp and became part of the Warp, they could escape this disaster."

"Do you believe it?" tide Leina looked at Lin Chen.

“Me? How could that be?” Lin Chen shook his head. “That’s all superstition.”

“But some people do believe these legends,” Xileina laughed. “My mother was the same way. She always told me that there’s a ghost that exists outside of history, keeping our history moving forward. Otherwise, our history would have been destroyed by disasters long ago…”

"She said that the ghost traversed a lonely journey of a thousand years, becoming the stitches of history..."

Lin Chen looked at tide Leina without saying a word.

“She believes the ghosts of history will save us,” Xileina whispered. “Is that superstition too?”

“I don’t know,” Lin Chen said, “but hanging space-based weapons over everyone’s heads won’t save anyone.”

"Ok?"

Looking at Lin Chen's expressionless face, tide Leina smiled.

"Oh, you mean Black Star? You think it's just a space-based weapon?"

“You are looking for God.” Lin Chen casually revealed the information he had obtained from the Mentis cultists.

This is an excellent opportunity for cross-validation.

“Ah…it seems my elder brother is indeed looking for that thing,” Xileina nodded. “He’s a devout Catholic, so it’s normal for him to want to find his Lord, right?”

“An Omega-level anomalous entity—you and I both understand what that means,” Lin Chen said.

"What does that mean? Destroy the world?" Xileina blinked. "We're not such shallow villains, at least I'm not."

Xileina waved her hand:

"Let's go, Triton will be here soon, and he won't be as friendly as I am."

Looking at the girl's calm profile, Lin Chen was momentarily stunned.

Just let them go like that?

He stared at tide Leina for a while, then turned around and walked towards the exit.

"Wait a moment."

tide Leina suddenly called out to Lin Chen again.

He turned his head and saw the girl looking at him, speaking as if she had made up her mind:

"Do you recall that lightning struck the church tower?"

She paused for a moment, then added:

"The date is August 28, 2005."

On August 28, 2005, Lin Chen would not have remembered this date under normal circumstances.

But he had just read Xileina's memoir not long ago, so this day was incredibly vivid to him.

That was the day Hurricane Katrina began to hit New Orleans.

What does it mean when lightning strikes a tall tower?

That day, a bolt of lightning struck the tower, and tide Leina believed that this was related to Lin Chen.

"......"

Looking at Lin Chen's expression, tide Leina clearly already knew the answer.

“It’s alright,” she chuckled softly. “Let’s go, he’ll be here soon.”

Lin Chen stared at tide Leina for a while, then turned and walked out of the exhibition hall, quickly going downstairs.

He didn't linger; he went straight to the garage, got into a Ferrari 296, and drove away from the hotel.

"Quick Response Division 1, this is Lin Chen," Lin Chen said, pressing his earpiece in the driver's seat. "The Foundation has launched an operation to exterminate the Mentis cultists at the St. Paul Grand Hotel. We may need to send someone over to intervene on the scene and try to prevent them from running rampant."

"Received. Did you get the intelligence?" Jiang Zhengge's voice came through.

"got it."

Lin Chen stepped on the gas, and the V6 engine roared to life.

"Om——"

He picked up Li Zhanyi at the next street corner and drove to the safe house in the Liberty district.

......

"Clap."

After pushing open the villa's door, Lin Chen went straight to the second floor.

This villa once belonged to Tom Connell, but it has now been converted by the Bureau of Investigation into the residence of Thomas Lin, Lin Chen's false identity.

Driving back here will complete Thomas Lin's itinerary for the day, and even if someone investigates, they can only trace it this far.

And upon returning to the villa...

He will leave in a special way.

"Clap."

Lin Chen pushed open the glass enclosure of Tom Connell. It hadn't been completely cleaned yet, and there were still many shards of glass on the floor.

"Be careful not to cut your foot," Lin Chen said, protecting Li Zhanyi. "Follow me."

The two passed through the secret room and walked to the end of the room.

Here, there is an illusory door.

The door to the "ideal state".

Lin Chen quickly took off his suit jacket and sunglasses, and hung them on the coat rack next to the door.

He changed into his investigator's overcoat and immediately opened the door—

"Clap!"

The two walked through the door together, walked for a while in the long gray space, and then went out.

What comes into view is the Bureau of Investigation's brand-new facility in basement B4: "Central Hub".

There are already more than a dozen doors here. Some doors are for mobility and rapid evacuation, while the others are basically in designated locations.

One of the fixed doors is Lin Chen's new hiding place.

This allowed him to move freely between his hideout and the Bureau of Investigation, operating as Thomas Lynn.

"..."

Taking the elevator, Lin Chen and Li Zhanyi quickly walked into the office of the Rapid Response Section 1.

"what's the situation?"

As soon as he entered, he saw a group of people standing around the information board, looking at the notebook on the table.

Everyone frowned.

"How's the situation?" Li Zhanyi walked quickly to the computer.

Jiang Zhengge remained silent, simply turning the computer screen towards the two of them.

Lin Chen looked at the surveillance video on the screen, and when he saw the footage, he felt a chill run down his spine.

The scene depicts the exhibition hall, where Triton strolls leisurely among the exhibits, his dark blue coat swaying in the breeze.

Every now and then, he would glance at something, and a pool of bright red would burst open among the exhibits.

Those were Mentitis believers hidden in the exhibition hall.

The battle began and ended quickly. After Lin Chen left, the Mentis cultists immediately launched a surprise attack on the Foundation's soldiers and wiped out most of them in an instant.

When Triton arrived, most of them exploded into a pool of bright red blood on the ground within ten seconds.

"ended."

Triton turned his head and looked at the soldiers at the entrance of the exhibition hall.

"Have you found the door?"

“The door is gone. The Crimson Archbishop is very cautious,” the soldier muttered. “They’ve managed to slip through again, luring away a whole bunch of tourists and converting them into new believers.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Triton’s lips curled into a smile. “We’ll kill as many as they convert.”

The demigod glanced at the camera in the corner of the exhibition hall and stretched out a hand...

He made a "shooting" gesture.

"Snapped!"

The surveillance video has ended.

“This guy’s fighting ability when he gets serious is insane,” Jiang Zhengge said. “He barely made a move, and those Mentis cultists were dead in heaps.”

“This level of deterrence would indeed be very troublesome if we confronted it head-on,” Lin Chen nodded.

Theoretically, Triton could kill anyone within the Rain City area using this method.

He can control anything that has water.

“He can’t start killing people right now because Project Black Star is still underway and he can’t overturn the table yet,” Jiang Zhengge frowned. “Once Black Star takes off, the Foundation will no longer need to hide itself, and then we’ll be in trouble.”

“Triton could easily hide in the encrypted room and blow us up one by one,” Lucy said.

"Isabel, what can we see from the video?" Jiang Zhengge pressed his earpiece.

“Well… the mechanism seems to be manipulating the water pressure inside the human body, but as for the specific way it’s transmitted…” Isabel’s voice came through, “I do have an idea to reverse this thing, but it needs to be verified.”

"What idea?"

"Professor Jürgen Eisenberg's research on subspace deep-sea armor has a special function: it can rapidly reduce the depth inside the armor, down to around D-1 in the most extreme cases."

"This feature is typically used in deep-sea diving to allow for dynamic adjustment of internal and external depths during the ascent to reality, thereby reducing some erosion reactions."

"My idea is, if we can use this function during the battle with Triton to hide the pilot in the subspace, could we isolate him from his long-range explosions?"

“It’s worth a try,” Jiang Zhengge nodded, “but how do we verify it?”

"We could ask the experts for their opinions..." Lin Chen nodded thoughtfully.

"Expert? Which expert?" Lucy looked at Lin Chen.

“Black Sword’s armor seems to work on a similar principle,” Lin Chen said. “That armor would immerse her in a shallower subspace, allowing her to tear through the subspace more freely.”

"Why don't we call her and ask?" Li Zhanyi suggested.

“No need, she seems to be at the Investigation Bureau,” Jiang Zhengge said, picking up his phone. “I’ll call her over.”

......

Ten minutes later, in the office of the Rapid Response Division 1.

Little Hualuori sat on the chair, looking up at the people surrounding her.

"I'm going to get tested by Triton? What if I fail?" She spread her hands. "Is it okay for Director Hua not to have a mother?"

“No, it’s not that we need you to do the testing for us…” Jiang Zhengge rubbed his temples. “I just wanted to ask for your opinion on the matter.”

"Opinions? I think that's quite difficult."

As Hua Luori spoke, she stretched out a hand, and suddenly a gray-black flame ignited on her arm.

Everyone was startled by the sudden appearance of the will-o'-the-wisp, while Hua Luori seemed completely unfazed.

"First, you need to understand why I need this armor."

“My symbiote is ‘Black Impermanence,’ a beta-level anomalous entity,” she said. “It is a hunter that roams through nightmares. Whenever someone is trapped in a nightmare about ‘life and death,’ it appears, enters the dream, and devours the victim’s soul.”

“I was fourteen years old at the time, living in the countryside. One night, all the children in our village had nightmares, which led to death.”

"At that time, the entire village fell into the D-1 space, which slaughtered the villagers in a nightmare, and being killed by it meant never waking up in reality."