Dawn was beginning to break, casting a faint white light across the sky.

Lu Yan hadn’t slept the entire night, but he still appeared to be in relatively good spirits.

After all, as a post-evolution human, he now only required four hours of sleep a day to sustain his vitality for the entire afternoon. It was somewhat sigh-inducing—had he awakened during his high school days, his college entrance examination score wouldn’t have been limited to a mere 727.

[Oh dear, both A-Rank pollutants inside the Botanical Garden have woken up. So noisy.]

The white poisonous mushrooms blanketed across the ground began turning red, releasing bursts of spores. The fine powder exploded mid-air, completing a round of transmission.

The wind would carry the source of pollution far into the distance. The pollution value of this spore powder was extremely low, making it practically harmless to Awakeners, but it remained lethal to ordinary civilians.

Lu Yan retrieved his portable pesticide sprayer and gave the area a thorough squirt.

A massive patch of mushrooms in the vicinity instantly withered, exposing skeletal remains half-buried in the soil beneath. This land would remain barren and devoid of life for a very long time to come, but there was no other choice.

Humans feared the pollution disease and refused to become aberrants, thus sacrificing the natural environment to contain the pollution. To the pollutants, however, humans were the ones encroaching upon their habitat. This was an inherently irreconcilable conflict.

Yet, Lu Yan felt no immense guilt when killing these mushrooms.

Because he was still human, and because he was still enjoying the protection of those bearing the heavy burdens on the front lines, he couldn’t bring himself to bite the hand that fed him.

The System praised him: [Host truly keeps his original aspiration in mind to achieve a proper end.]

Even on his way to liquidate the cultists, he didn’t forget his primary line of duty, diligently fulfilling his role as a pesticide-spraying gardener.

Among this batch of trainees, there was a support-type individual whose talent was called ‘Ultrasonic.’ Its function was somewhat similar to a broadcast system, capable of projecting audio frequencies inaudible to normal ears across great distances, which could then be picked up by other Awakeners.

This trainee had also attempted to reach the perimeter of the pollution zone to call for external help, but no response had been received for the time being.

It was impossible to tell what the situation was like on the outside.

In short, once the message was broadcasted, eight more light spots on the map blinked out one after another without Lu Yan even needing to lift a finger.

By the time he shot and killed the final cultist, the sedatives in Lu Yan’s pocket had completely run out. He felt as though any burp he let out right now would probably taste like mint.

This batch of students led by Tang Xun’an was likely about to transition very quickly from the group with the lowest casualty rate to the one with the highest mortality rate.

He checked his watch; the time was 9:30 AM.

[Excellent. When that existence wakes up, he will soon realize that due to sleeping in, he has missed his final opportunity for Divine Descent.]

[Even an S-Rank pollutant cannot remain entirely infallible and securely in control of victory forever. I love watching these entities overturn their cars and lapse into impotent fury the most. Hilarious. Do they truly believe themselves to be gods? If they had just taken a single Cephalosporin pill while drinking, they wouldn’t have ended up this hopelessly wasted.]*

“I thought you were eager to see humanity go extinct sooner.”

The System: [Our personalities complement one another, Host.]

Lu Yan waited for the last trace of sweetness in his mouth to dissipate before asking, “What do we do now?”

[Go to the Botanical Garden and save the guy. Your chief instructor is truly miserable, attacked from both front and rear.] The System’s tone resembled that of an old grandpa out for a casual stroll. [Don’t panic. If he could have emerged from the Divine Kingdom, he would have done so long ago. At most, it will cause the mutation degree on your body to rise slightly; other than that, it’s no big deal.]

“Save him…? How?” Lu Yan was genuinely shocked. “There are several pollutants in there with pollution values in the thousands. Even an S-Rank Awakener is completely helpless against them. How am I supposed to go save him?”

[The two of them went in together. According to the plan, Tang Xun’an was supposed to forge a path, and upon reaching the central area of the Botanical Garden, 07 would unleash his Karmic Fire to destroy those small hallucinogenic mushrooms on the ground and damage the banyan tree’s root system. Then, Tang Xun’an would deal with the banyan tree…]

[But before 07 was sent over, his researcher had already severed the ‘Karmic Fire’ talent from his body. Because a portion of his brain was excised, 07 doesn’t remember this; he believes he still possesses it.]

[Therefore, 07 is currently nothing more than a piece of trash that comes with built-in magnetic interference… and he isn’t even a beauty.]

[Barring any accidents, your chief instructor is still trapped inside an illusion, battling invisible pollutants. So, you just need to wake him up.]

“Even though you make it sound so effortless, I have a feeling it won’t be effortless at all.”

Lu Yan had already grown accustomed to his reverse-koi buff.

If you said his luck was good, he managed to run into trouble every single time he stepped out the door. If you said his luck was bad, anyone else who encountered such trouble would have died long ago, yet he remained alive and kicking to this day. His spiritual power threshold was even rapidly approaching 2,000.

[As long as you stick that piece of human skin parchment from the pocket watch onto your body, the pollutants inside the Botanical Garden will not initiate an attack against you. They will mistake you for reinforcements sent by the Divine Kingdom… Rest assured, as long as you don’t believe in the cult, this human skin parchment won’t have much of an effect on you, though it will allow you to be seen by the Holy Lord.]

Lu Yan retrieved the piece of human skin from inside the pocket watch.

It was a mere two inches in size, and the pitch-black tattoo on it seemed to have shifted its form slightly, looking exceptionally eerie.

He hesitated to act.

The System asked: [Are you doubting me? Having doubts is a good thing, but Host, you can always trust me. Your eyes will deceive you, your memory will deceive you, but I won’t.]

[I am not a biological entity, nor am I a deity. I am your talent. You can use me like a reference book, like a Baidu encyclopedia, without ever needing to worry about errors. Because I am the omniscient truth itself.]

“Fine.” Lu Yan pasted the piece of human skin onto the back of his left hand.

The King Fish residing inside his body reacted as if it had been scalded, kicking and punching in a frenzy of rage, causing a cluster of lumps of varying sizes to bulge across the back of Lu Yan’s hand.

The human skin parchment on his hand seemed to come alive. It was noticeably more intelligent than the hot-tempered King Fish; instead of engaging in a direct confrontation, it quietly spread across the surface of Lu Yan’s palm. It even attempted to use its skin to cover the mouth located within Lu Yan’s palm, though a section of it was promptly torn apart.

Soon, the fusion was complete.

Lu Yan instinctively raised his head, looking toward the sky that was largely obscured by the tree canopy.

In the void, a deity seemed to open its eyes and cast a fleeting glance down at him.

In that split second, Lu Yan’s entire body uncontrollably entered a state of high alert, and the fish scales on his body began to surface. Fortunately, the sensation of being watched did not persist for too long.

Lu Yan glanced at the back of his hand. The human skin parchment had bonded seamlessly with his hand, completely integrating into one without distinction. The tattoo upon it looked as though it had grown naturally out of his flesh, appearing incredibly vivid.

[Congratulations to Host for acquiring the special spiritual energy item — Elysium Sect Guidance.]

[This is a pass capable of granting entry into the Elysian World—though of course, it does not refer to the ‘Elysian Pure Land’ within that mental realm.]

[Years ago during the ‘Divine Kingdom Operation,’ two A-Rank Awakeners from the Eastern Island committed suicide there under the directives of the First Research Institute. Upon death, they transformed into a mindless, specialized pollutant—the Sea Mist. This mass of Sea Mist trapped the Divine Kingdom and halted its expansion. It also represented the absolute abandonment of the millions of people remaining on the island.]

[Sacrificing a portion of the population to save the majority—this has always been the core tenet of the First Research Institute.]

[Possessing the Elysium Sect Guidance allows the use of Talent 99 — Dream Invasion. However, the success rate declines with repeated use. After all, you do not truly possess this talent.]

Lu Yan stared at the tattoo for a long time. “…It seems I have no choice but to buy a pair of gloves.”

Previously, the King Fish would occasionally misbehave, surfacing from his palm on its own to open its mouth. At that time, Lu Yan had considered buying a pair of gloves to wear. But later on, the King Fish admitted its mistake to him and promised not to act out line, so Lu Yan had dropped the matter.

However, this tattoo on the back of his hand clearly wouldn’t fade. He didn’t want to be mistaken for a cultist this early on.

[Not a big deal. If you truly don’t want it, you can just excise it directly once this is over. You can even use your right hand to perform a skin excision surgery on your left hand. I have absolute faith in your skills, Doctor Lu!] The System’s tone instantly filled with encouragement.

Lu Yan: “…”

He felt that he had truly sacrificed far too much for the sake of saving the world.

The System stated that as long as he wore this piece of human skin, the pollutants within the Botanical Garden would not attack him. But since he only had one life, Lu Yan still found a pollutant to test it out on before entering the notoriously high-risk pollution zone.

He located a plant-human currently taking root by the roadside, used his blade to slice a shallow wound into his hand, and a single bead of fresh crimson blood welled up, round and glossy.

A human face materialized on the tree trunk. The plant-human drooled tree sap out of sheer craving, yet its branches strictly refrained from moving even a meter closer.

Excellent. It appeared this imprint was indeed effective.

Lu Yan casually smeared the bead of blood onto the tree trunk. This pollutant fell into a brief state of paralysis, lasting approximately one minute.

According to the System, the higher the pollution degree of a pollutant, the less it would be affected by the properties of his blood.

To facilitate his movements, Lu Yan unbuckled the heavy protective suit weighing dozens of pounds from his body and detached the pesticide tank on his back.

Up ahead lay the danger-zone warning line marked by the staff using orange indicators.

The main gates of the Luochuan Botanical Garden had already collapsed, with withered vines wrapping around the iron gates, squeezing them out of shape. Lu Yan glanced at them, sensing that these plants must have died only recently.

As Lu Yan stepped inside, he felt as though he had entered a kingdom of giants. Here, even the wild grass by the path stood as tall as a human. The mushrooms were truly large enough to block out the rain. In the sky, several insects with buzzing wings darted through the air, their post-aberration countenances savage and terrifying.

The detector watch displayed the pollution level here: 3,900.

Even at the perimeter of the Botanical Garden, still at least several miles away from that massive banyan tree, the pollution level was already terrifyingly high. If an ordinary civilian accidentally wandered in, even if they encountered absolutely no pollutants, they probably wouldn’t survive past three hours before undergoing aberration.

Lu Yan didn’t find it to be much of an issue, but there was still a presence in the air that made him feel highly uncomfortable.

In the darkness, pairs of prying eyes locked onto him, sniffed, and then turned away without interest upon spotting the tattoo on his hand. If it weren’t for this imprint of the Holy Lord, he probably would have been torn to pieces by the frenzied flora and fauna the moment he arrived.

Tang Xun’an and 07 must have been here; traces of combat remained scattered across the ground.

Lu Yan followed these tracks all the way forward. On the detector, the pollution value readings had already risen high enough to trigger the automated alarm mechanism.

The deeper one ventured into the Botanical Garden, the more uniform the plant species became. In the end, only a single type of tree remained: the Bengal Banyan.

This massive banyan tree, originally intended to provide shade, had become the ultimate nightmare for everyone in P City when the pollution disease broke out. Its aerial roots blanketed the ground everywhere, resembling blood vessels transporting nutrients.

The wind tunneled in from the outside, sounding exactly like the heavy breathing of this tree.

The banyan tree’s root system wove into a dense web across the ground. Despite moving with utmost stealth, Lu Yan still ended up stepping on it and waking it up.

The earth trembled. These smaller trees seemed to come alive, writhing as they cleared a path for Lu Yan.

[Light the candle you scavenged from Chen Anzhi earlier. Do not be afraid. Walk forward and maintain your composure. Whatever expression a hypnotized person displays, you copy it. Understood?]

Lu Yan forced his eyes to go blank and walked forward.

The soil beneath his feet grew increasingly damp, its color gradually turning black, carrying a hint of an indescribable stench of corpses. When Lu Yan performed surgeries and patients were brought in, even if the scene was quite bloody, they were ultimately still alive. He hadn’t smelled the scent of dead people all that often.

Passing through a suffocating patch of forest, Lu Yan spotted a pool of crystal-clear lake water.

By the lakeside, the banyan tree had plunged its thick roots deep into the lakebed, surrounded by a cluster of round, lovely white mushrooms.

[A-Rank Pollutant, Banyan Tree. Pollution value: 9,400. Due to its short lifespan since birth, its intellect currently sits at the level of a 16-year-old human.]

[Talents: Life Extraction, Longevity]

[Direction of Mutation: Gigantism, Tentaclistion]

[A-Rank Pollutant, White Mushroom. Pollution value: 8,200. Lacks intelligence; a symbiotic pollutant.]

[Talents: Spore Outbreak, Fungal Infection, Hallucination]

[Direction of Mutation: Extreme Toxicity, Hyperplasia]

[Their shared characteristic is a fear of fire.]

The direction of the giant banyan tree’s mutation was highly similar to that of Shen Qingyang, whom Lu Yan had encountered initially. Both involved gigantism and tentaclistion. However, Shen Qingyang’s talents were ‘Life Absorption’ and ‘Mimicry.’

[A single word’s difference. Yet separated by over a hundred serial numbers.]

Extraction required processing, whereas absorption did not. If processing Tang Xun’an weren’t such a tedious task, the giant banyan tree might not have requested the Holy Lord’s assistance. Those dragon scales were simply too hard to chew through.

[Actually, the talent sequence of pollutants is somewhat different from that of humans, but overall they share the same evolutionary direction,] the System added.

Holding the burning candle in his hands, Lu Yan repeated mechanically, “Praise the Holy Lord, ultimate bliss and eternal life.”

The branches and leaves of the banyan tree parted, revealing a massive human face concealed at the deepest layer. “What took you so long?”

Lu Yan: “Was sleeping. Drowsy.”

The banyan tree was left utterly speechless. But out of respect for its senior, it could only pretend nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Its immensely massive trunk underwent a wave of writhing. The human faces blanketed across it seemed to come alive, slowly parting toward both sides to reveal the contents sealed within.

“Though the mushrooms did indeed trap him within an illusion, the process didn’t go very smoothly. The mushrooms suffered severe injuries and have all reverted to their white state.”

“His mutation degree is already extremely high, yet he has consistently refrained from breaching that threshold… I sense an unsettling aura. You take over; I’ll yield this man to you. Remember our transaction.”

“Oh, wait. Why haven’t you descended into this vessel yet?” the banyan tree questioned.

Lu Yan raised his eyes, looking at the man up ahead.

The chief instructor, who usually never cracked a smile, had his brows locked tightly in a deep frown, his head hanging low. He still wore the bark-stopper on his face, occasionally letting out heavy, labored gasps, looking as though he were deeply mired within some nightmare.

Tang Xun’an’s limbs were tightly bound by the deep-brown vines of the banyan tree, resembling a suffering Jesus.

Lu Yan had once heard a theory stating that during crucifixion, the nails used for punishment were actually driven through the prisoner’s wrists. Now, two vines had similarly pierced clean through Tang Xun’an’s wrists, leaving two gruesome bloody holes.

Pitch-black dragon scales had sprouted across his body, extending all the way to both sides of his cheeks. The dragon wings on his back appeared broken, drooping powerlessly.

The banyan tree had regurgitated Tang Xun’an from its own stomach, which left Tang Xun’an entirely coated in its gastric juices, thoroughly drenched and sticky. This gastric fluid likely possessed some corrosive properties, leaving his usually pristine uniform corroded into tattered shreds by the stomach acid.

Lu Yan asked the System, “How do I wake him up?”

[Dream Invasion.]

“Something’s wrong,” Lu Yan remarked. “I can’t help but feel that everything is far too coincidental. If you say it’s just my good luck, that seems like a plausible explanation. But I keep getting the feeling that someone is pulling the strings behind the scenes.”

[Paranoia is also a side effect of overusing your talent, Host.]

“I still feel like something is wrong,” Lu Yan insisted.

The System: [?]

Lu Yan spoke in a low, expressionless voice, stating a stark fact: “I have an erection.”

The chief instructor had been thrashed this brutally, yet looking at him actually caused his heart to flutter with arousal.

This was completely wrong.

The System: […]

_

Author’s Notes:

• Note 1: Antibiotics (such as Cephalosporin) cannot be consumed after drinking alcohol, as it triggers a disulfiram-like reaction (specifically manifesting as facial flushing, limb weakness, dizziness, headache, palpitations, sweating, nausea, vomiting, chest pain, hypotension, dyspnea, weakened or vanished pulse, coma, etc.).
• Note 2: It seems to have been mentioned previously in the text that Lu Yan’s aesthetic preferences are quite traditional; he likes those with large chests and slender waists (.).
• Note 3: But do not picture a muscle-bound hunk!! Tang Xun’an is not that!!!
• PS: Yesterday many people felt heartbroken for Director Hu. In truth, he merely went to another world to work and pay off his mortgage!!!