Free Web NovelThe team member shuddered and repeated Tang Erda’s words blankly.
“No one knows what kind of monster is inside...”
“I’m going down to check it out myself.” Tang Erda’s voice remained calm. “For now, don’t allow the other team members to follow me. The lower levels are all restricted zones. It’ll be too dangerous for them.”
As he spoke, he pulled a cigarette wrapped in plastic from his chest pocket, slid one free, and lit it.
A scarlet ember flickered in the darkness.
Behind the drifting nicotine smoke, Tang Erda’s deep-blue eyes looked especially cold and violent. freewebnovёl.ƈom
“Before I kill him, lock the elevator leading upward. Don’t let anyone come up.”
“And if I’m the one who gets killed...” Tang Erda exhaled slowly. “Seal the elevator completely. Under no circumstances can Bai Six be allowed to leave this base alive.”
“If Bai Six disappears somewhere inside the facility, surround the address I left behind. The moment he reappears, kill him at all costs.”
After giving his orders, Tang Erda walked alone into the deeper underground.
—
At the same time, elsewhere in the base—
As the team members gradually regained control and contained the heretics one by one, the heavy, bizarre stench surrounding the creatures slowly faded away, revealing the base’s original cold atmosphere once more.
Mu Shicheng sniffed the air and frowned in a certain direction.
“I smell something incredibly irritating,” he said darkly. “Makes me want to beat someone up.”
“The guy called Captain Tang?” Liu Jiayi immediately understood. “The one who said he was going to hunt down Bai Liu?”
“The smell’s getting stronger.” Mu Shicheng waved a hand in front of his nose in disgust. “Strong cigarette smell. He’s heading somewhere.”
Liu Jiayi made a swift decision.
“We follow him.”
“He’s the one chasing Bai Liu, so he definitely knows where Bai Liu is.”
Not long after Tang «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» Erda descended in the elevator, Liu Jiayi’s group emerged from around a corner.
They watched the elevator continue downward all the way to Level -10.
Mu Shicheng couldn’t help muttering, “This place actually goes that deep?”
But after the elevator descended, it never came back up.
Liu Jiayi swiped Su Yang’s work card twice against the sensor, but nothing happened.
Her expression sharpened immediately.
“So Bai Liu really is down there,” she said. “And that guy went down to kill him. The elevator’s probably been locked specifically to stop Bai Liu from coming back up.”
“Of course...” Liu Jiayi lifted Su Yang’s ID card between her fingers and glanced at Mu Shicheng and Mu Ke. “There’s another possibility.”
“We’ve already been discovered, and this ID has been disabled.”
Meanwhile, the surveillance team member was urgently reporting to Tang Erda:
“Captain Tang! The other three intruders are right behind you! They seem to want to follow you down, but the elevator’s already been locked. They can’t access it with Captain Su’s ID anymore. Patrol officers are currently being mobilized to apprehend them—”
“No need.”
Tang Erda cut him off indifferently.
“Unlock the elevator. Let them come down using Su Yang’s ID.”
The team member froze.
“But Captain Tang, they’re armed! And there are three of them—”
Tang Erda walked steadily through the darkness with a gun in each hand.
Only his eyes burned with a near-hysterical madness.
Yet his voice remained terrifyingly calm.
“Including Bai Six, that makes five monsters.”
“It’s not like I haven’t killed monsters before.”
The team member stared blankly before asking hesitantly:
“Five...? But there are only four humanoid heretics. Who’s the fifth?”
Tang Erda continued forward without stopping.
“Until all the monsters are dead,” he said quietly, “including me...”
“Do not unlock the elevator.”
The team member abruptly shot to his feet.
“Captain Tang?! Captain Tang, what are you talking about?!”
“There’s not only heretics down there!” he shouted frantically into the communicator. “There’s also a normal investigator trapped in the restricted area for some reason! Captain Tang!!”
But no response came from the other side.
—
Liu Jiayi and the others were still standing in front of the elevator, trying to think of another way down, when the previously locked elevator suddenly began rising again.
Then, as though openly inviting them inside, the doors slowly slid open.
Liu Jiayi raised an eyebrow.
“Oh? Looks like Captain Tang has guts.”
“He’s inviting all of us down together.” She tilted her head slightly. “Seems he’s pretty confident in himself.”
She glanced toward Mu Shicheng and Mu Ke, gesturing toward the open elevator.
“So?” she asked. “You still dare go down? He’s probably waiting below to ambush us.”
Mu Shicheng said nothing.
He merely rolled his shoulder, gripped his gun, and stepped into the elevator first.
Mu Ke silently followed behind him.
Liu Jiayi entered last.
She pressed the button for Level -10.
All traces of expression vanished from her face.
“Looks like we all agree on one thing.”
The elevator doors slowly closed.
Then the lift began plunging rapidly toward the deepest part of the earth.
—
Level -10. Restricted Area.
Most of this floor had no lighting whatsoever.
The entire level was swallowed in an abyssal darkness.
The heretics contained here resembled creatures from the deep sea.
Everything about them was unknown and dangerous.
Even the details recorded in their files—their weaknesses, habits, and capabilities—were often incomplete or uncertain. Their appearances were grotesque and incomprehensible, and they hated sunlight. Excessive brightness would agitate them violently.
Because of those unpredictable dangers, every containment room on this level had been custom-built.
Escaping should have been nearly impossible.
And yet—
The moment Tang Erda arrived, he saw several containment chambers standing open.
His jaw tightened.
Gun raised cautiously, he began patrolling the corridor.
This floor was almost completely dark, so moving quickly required complete familiarity with the map.
But only branch captains and a handful of specially trusted members were allowed to know the layout of this level.
Even accessing the elevator required vice-captain clearance or higher.
Tang Erda genuinely could not understand how Bai Six had gotten down here.
And within only a few dozen minutes, in complete darkness, Bai Six had somehow located the room belonging to Heretic [0001].
But then again...
That person always found a way.
Whenever Bai Six decided he wanted to accomplish something, he would succeed no matter how much the world opposed him.
Still—
Why had he come to this room?
Even Tang Erda himself didn’t know what was sealed inside.
Across the countless timelines he had experienced, he had investigated this room again and again.
And every single time, he failed to uncover the answer.
The only person who had ever known the truth was the First Branch Captain—the man called the “Prophet.”
One of the founders of this base.
Yet in nearly every timeline Tang Erda experienced, that captain eventually descended into madness and committed suicide.
Before dying, the Prophet would destroy every file related to this room and leave behind only a single sentence:
[Never open it. Within lies the most terrifying truth—a truth capable of driving anyone who witnesses it insane.]
[Let me be the last person destroyed by it.]
[Let me become the final thread suspending your sanity and your future.]
The reason that captain was known as the “Prophet” was because, much like Tang Erda now, he possessed the ability to foresee the emergence of catastrophic events.
Because of that gift, he wielded enormous authority within the base.
And before his death, he entrusted all of that authority to the still-young and utterly inexperienced Tang Erda.
Back then, Tang Erda had merely been an ordinary captain.
He had not yet begun crossing timelines or endlessly regressing through them.
But the Prophet told him that only Tang Erda could inherit his mission.
Only Tang Erda could continue leading the base against the dangerous heretics destined to appear in the future.
The Prophet had foretold that Tang Erda possessed the power to eliminate the greatest and most terrifying heretic.
And he had also prophesied that the most horrifying heretic of all was connected to the number six.
Later, after Tang Erda truly began regressing through countless timelines—carrying the memories of tens of thousands of worlds—he gradually became exactly what the Prophet had predicted. freewёbnoνel.com
Someone capable of “foreseeing” the appearance of extraordinarily dangerous heretics.
The members of the base began calling him the “Little Prophet.”
But Tang Erda knew better than anyone that he was no prophet.
He was merely a hunter.
A hunter who had witnessed everything countless times, changed almost nothing, and wandered helplessly through endless timelines over and over again.
And the real Prophet—
The real Prophet had foreseen Tang Erda’s arrival long ago, then forced the burden of authority and responsibility onto a man already standing on the brink of madness.
The Prophet’s predictions had never once been wrong.
The members of the base, saved by him time and time again, trusted him with blind faith.
From that point onward, this room became an “invisible” existence within the base.
No one dared investigate its secrets again.
And Tang Erda became the person holding the highest authority in the entire facility.
But as the years passed, the influence of the long-dead Prophet gradually weakened.
At the same time, Tang Erda’s increasingly unstable mental state became impossible to ignore.
The members began doubting him.
Did Tang Erda truly deserve such overwhelming authority?
Or was he merely abusing it to act however he pleased?
Then came Tang Erda’s insistence on capturing “living human heretics.”
And everything finally spiraled out of control.
The members’ suspicion and fear erupted completely.
—If even living humans could be classified as heretics and captured at will...
Then had this authority ceased being protection long ago?
Had it instead become slaughter?
Could authority this absolute truly be entrusted to a “human” full of emotions, desires, and inevitable mistakes?
Only a “God” should possess that kind of power.
Rumor claimed the First Branch Captain had once been like a god.
Selfless.
Infallible.
Respected by everyone.
Loved by everyone.
Unfortunately—
Even that “God” had eventually gone mad and committed suicide.
And now, everyone could sense it.
Tang Erda, the successor personally chosen by the Prophet, was slowly walking toward the same fate.
Madness.
Suicide.
That seemed to be the inevitable ending awaiting all humans who had seen too much truth about heretics—humans who had come too close to becoming gods.
So the team members silently accepted Tang Erda’s suicidal mission to eradicate every heretic.
Just as they silently accepted the fate awaiting him.
The fate of a Hunter.
In Werewolf Kill, the [Hunter] is a “God Identity Card.”
And the Hunter’s destiny is simple:
Before dying, he must use his silver gun engraved with roses to take down the person identified by the Prophet as the most likely “Werewolf” among everyone present.
Tang Erda held that silver gun in his hand as he walked calmly toward the end of his fate.
—
Author’s Note
Friend: Ah, your favorite kind of chuuni plot is finally here. Are you losing your mind with excitement?
Me: YES!!!! THE BATTLE’S FINALLY STARTING!!!!
Friend: Wake up already! You’re writing a danmei novel! Why are you more excited about fight scenes than romance?!
Me (eyes trembling): Aren’t battles full of men sweating and bleeding basically another form of “doing it”?!
Friend: You’re hopeless.
Also, Tang Erda still has a huge amount of story left according to the outline. He’s one of the core team members and will continue appearing later on. I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again here:
If you genuinely dislike him or his storyline, it’s completely fine to stop reading here. bows
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