Chapter 457 - 408: Result of the Interrogation 2

Chapter 457: Chapter 408: Result of the Interrogation 2

With that, Guan Tong turned and entered the shelter, leaving Lu City lying on the ground outside.

He wasn’t worried about Lu City escaping or trying to kill himself; the man’s hands and feet were bound by Shadows, leaving him completely immobilized.

Even if he tried to copy what people do in movies and bite his tongue to commit suicide, he would quickly find that was just a cinematic trope. It’s not that easy to die, especially for an Ascender.

GRRRR...

Coal Ball was still pacing around Lu City, letting out low growls from time to time.

Cold sweat broke out on Lu City’s forehead.

He was torn between the fear that the beast Guan Tong kept would suddenly pounce and maul him, and the terror he felt for Crimson Terra.

Guan Tong had said he didn’t know which was more painful—spore withdrawal or the Crimson Fear. And he, Lu City, didn’t know either!

And the greatest terror, of course, was the unknown.

As time ticked by, the sky began to grow dim.

’Should I talk?’

Lu City was torn.

Guan Tong had made it clear: whether he talked or not, he was going to die.

The only difference was that if he confessed honestly, his death might be swifter.

If he didn’t, he would suffer all kinds of torment.

Lu City’s initial thought was: ’Since I’m dead either way, why should I give up the information?’

But that fear of the unknown continued to torment his psyche.

He now wished he could be like those ten Parasites, cut to pieces in the stadium just to be done with it. Or better yet, he wished he had already transformed into a Parasite; then he wouldn’t have to agonize over these questions.

It was precisely because he hadn’t yet transformed, because he was still human, that he was struggling. A true Parasite would feel no such conflict because the neurons in a brain, once remolded by the spores, would never betray any information detrimental to the Parasite swarm.

’So, should I tell Guan Tong that the Prophet sent me after Shi Jingyi?’

Lu City couldn’t make up his mind.

The sky grew darker and darker, and when Crimson Terra appeared, he still hadn’t been able to make a choice.

"Time’s up."

Guan Tong’s voice came from behind him. Lu City couldn’t turn his head to look, but he shouted, "Bring it on! I’m not afraid of you!"

In the end, he chose to remain defiant.

He knew Guan Tong, Shi Jingyi, and the academy hadn’t wronged him, but he was still indignant, believing that his fall to this state wasn’t entirely his fault.

Even now, knowing he was doomed, he refused to give up the intel. He wasn’t particularly loyal to the Prophet; he was doing this purely to spite Guan Tong!

"As you wish."

After speaking, Guan Tong didn’t leave the shelter. He simply manipulated the Shadows, having them adjust Lu City’s body, wrench his chin up, and force his face toward the crimson orb in the sky.

At first, Lu City squeezed his eyes shut, determined to resist to the end. But he couldn’t hold out for more than a few seconds before Guan Tong manipulated his Shadow Lines to force them open.

The moment his eyes were pried open, Crimson Terra immediately filled his vision.

The Crimson Fear seeped into his body.

In an instant, horrific images formed in his mind.

He saw the future he feared most: a version of "Lu City" standing among a crowd of Parasites, raising his arm with the others and shouting, "Everything for the spread!"

After all, his greatest fear was having his consciousness replaced by the spores, his body becoming a walking corpse completely under their control.

When this scene appeared in his mind with such terrifying realism, he nearly broke down on the spot.

Everything that "Lu City" did after becoming a Parasite was, in his eyes, utterly horrifying and nauseating. The profound sense of revulsion was beyond description.

For anyone to witness another consciousness take over their own body while they could only watch like a disembodied spirit... one can only imagine what that feels like.

Just as Lu City was in extreme mental anguish, his consciousness on the brink of collapse, his eyes were suddenly forced shut again.

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself indoors.

"GACK!"

He couldn’t help but dry heave. Even though it had been brief, the images he’d seen had left a deep psychological scar.

"Well?" Guan Tong asked with a smirk. "Is the Crimson Fear more painful, or is spore withdrawal?"

Lu City was still reeling from the horrific images he had just seen, and his reaction was delayed. It took him several seconds to understand what Guan Tong was asking.

When Guan Tong saw him remain silent, he assumed the man could still resist and felt no rush.

"That’s fine. There are still twenty-some days until the Rule Stage ends. We can take our time. I’ll let you rest for an hour, then I’ll put you back out there to watch. We’ll do it again tomorrow, and the day after, and every day until the Rule Stage is over."

Upon hearing this, Lu City’s psychological defenses completely shattered!

This one time had been unspeakably agonizing. If Guan Tong were to torture him like this every day for the twenty-odd days left in the Rule Stage, the mere thought made him tremble uncontrollably. It was a shudder that came from the very depths of his soul.

"No! Just give me a quick death!"

Guan Tong’s gaze hardened. "Tell me what you know, and I’ll give you a quick death."

"What do you want to know? I’ll tell you everything..."

Lu City whispered, resigned to his fate.

He had no real loyalty to the Parasites or the Prophet to begin with. At this point, there was no need to suffer endless torture just to spite Guan Tong.

"The night is long, and we have plenty of time," Guan Tong said. "Start from when the [Outer Heaven Parasite] rule that brought the spores was announced. I want you to clearly explain how you got addicted and everything that happened after you left the academy."

"...From my time at the academy? Back then, I..."

Lu City’s eyes held a mix of confusion and regret.

He confessed that, while at the academy, he had been anxious about his abilities and desperate to improve, which led to his addiction to the spores. He also said that he had wanted to seek help, but after Dean Zhou Qinfeng casually mentioned that "outstanding graduates have the chance to be assigned to the Strategy Research Room," he gave up on seeking help in order to achieve that goal.

After that, his addiction grew progressively worse, and he knew that Shi Jingyi had discovered his secret. She hinted at it subtly and expressed a desire to help him, but he couldn’t accept the consequences of his addiction being exposed, so he never accepted her offered hand.

He struggled through like this until the Rule Stage ended. Just when he thought he was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, a rude awakening plunged him into total despair.

As Lu City spoke, Guan Tong had already figured out what that "rude awakening" was.

"I never imagined..." Lu City said in anguish. "After the Rule Stage ended, the spores didn’t disappear from the world! And my addiction didn’t disappear either!"

Yes, that was the unique characteristic of the [Outer Heaven Parasite] rule.

The rule was over, but its byproducts had not vanished. They continued to harm humanity.

However, this wasn’t without precedent.

The failure penalty, announced back when the rule was first issued, had already hinted at this: survival in the form of a Parasite.

Before this, failure in a survival-type rule simply meant death.

But with this rule, failure meant survival as a Parasite—this foreshadowed that the spores wouldn’t disappear when the Rule Stage concluded.

Logically, a clever mind like Lu City’s should not have overlooked this crucial detail. But even the sharpest mind can become foolish when it resorts to self-deception to escape reality.

Lu City continued.

When the Rule Stage ended, the spores remained, and he was already severely addicted. To alleviate his suffering, he had no choice but to leave the academy and travel to the lands of the Black Banner Country, where the Parasites had declared their own nation.

After an arduous journey, he reached his destination and obtained the spores he craved. However, because of his high Psychic Power threshold, the transformation process was slow.

This left him stuck in a loophole of sorts: he was still human, but because of his severe addiction, he had to pledge allegiance to the Parasites just to get his fix.

The Parasites’ leader, the "Prophet," exploited this. Using a ploy of faked hardship, he had Lu City pretend to be an Ascender resisting the Parasites, allowing him to infiltrate the Human Federation’s allied forces and gather a great deal of intelligence.

According to him, he wasn’t the only such sleeper agent. The Prophet had deployed many of them, who had infiltrated the allied forces and important departments within the various Human Federation member states.

As for this latest operation, he had felt his own transformation was imminent. Desperate to find a way to preserve his human consciousness, he had pleaded with the Prophet for help. The Prophet gave him a task in return: create an opportunity to meet with Shi Jingyi alone.

"The Prophet said... that the voices told it there were two threats. One of them... is Lecturer Jingyi."

Guan Tong froze for a moment when he heard this.

’Two threats, and one of them is Shi Jingyi.’

As far as he knew, around that same time, there were also two people who had broken through the one-thousand-point Psychic Power threshold and entered the second stage of Sublimation.

Namely, him and Shi Jingyi.

Furthermore, after their breakthrough, they had discovered that the Mind Network had been rebooted, allowing them to use it to identify Parasites.

’In that case...’

’The other threat... is me?’