Those blurred memories. The fractured, uncertain points where everything connected. The pond he had submerged himself in, whose exact appearance and location he could never remember no matter how hard he tried. And that strange name—Bai Six—altered by only a single character.
Now, as the water receded and Tang Erda’s furious voice rang out, those memories finally surfaced completely from the deep silt where Bai Liu had buried them.
The blinding white haze spinning before Bai Liu’s eyes gradually dissolved into a metallic ceiling.
It felt as though he had just been dragged out of a freezing, bottomless lake. His fingers trembled faintly. His chest convulsed violently as he coughed, desperately trying to force the water from his throat and lungs.
Tang Erda’s voice continued pressing down on him through the communicator.
“Bai Liu. Have you remembered now?”
Bai Liu slowly rolled onto his side. Supporting himself against the ground with one hand, he staggered upright along the wall. He was still coughing as he stood, but once he finally regained some control over his breathing, he calmly raised a hand to straighten his clothes, leisurely fastening the top two buttons of his shirt that the rushing water had torn open.
Only then did he slowly lift his head toward the communicator carrying Tang Erda’s voice.
“I remember,” Bai Liu replied lazily while buttoning his collar. Then he looked up with a faint smile. “So what? Xie Ta is already dead. Doesn’t that make this a matter between the two of us now?”
Tang Erda fell silent.
On the other end, his teeth clenched tightly.
This bastard...
After three consecutive rounds of psychological pressure, his mental state hadn’t wavered in the slightest. If anything, he was even harder to deal with than the Bai Sixes from the other timelines.
And had he really remembered everything?!
“The solution for the Dried Rose Leaf Gas—I can give it to you,” Bai Liu said lightly, speaking as though he already understood something he had originally known absolutely nothing about.
Then, wearing an expression of complete sincerity, he began calmly spouting nonsense.
“But you’ll have to give me something in return.”
A vague but deeply unpleasant feeling rose in Tang Erda’s chest.
Bai Liu narrowed his eyes and smiled.
“Didn’t I tell you before? Sell your soul to me, and I’ll give you the solution, Captain Tang.”
Expressionless, Tang Erda reached over and extended the drainage timer on the control panel to [240 seconds].
The team member beside him immediately panicked.
“Captain Tang, four minutes underwater is too dangerous! If he’s really just an ordinary person, he could drown—”
“I’ll take responsibility.”
Tang Erda shot him a cold glance, and the member instantly fell silent.
Behind them, Lu Yizhan struggled violently while being restrained by two officers.
“You haven’t even investigated the full situation yet!” he shouted desperately. “You can’t torture Bai Liu like this during an interrogation! He’s innocent!”
Tang Erda didn’t even turn around.
“Take him to another room and lock him up,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. “Don’t let him interfere again.”
Lu Yizhan was dragged away by force.
Tang Erda stared at the monitor for a long moment before picking up the communicator again.
“Bai Six,” he said coldly, “I’m giving you one last chance. What exactly is the solution for the Dried Rose Leaf Gas?”
Bai Liu smiled faintly.
“And I’ll say this one last time too, Captain Tang. Make a deal with me, and I’ll offer you a price for your soul that you’ll find very satisfying.”
Tang Erda slowly inhaled, forcibly suppressing the rage surging through him hard enough to nearly crush the communicator in his hand.
“Do you know something, Bai Six?” he asked in a low voice. “I’ve never understood why you’re so obsessed with dragging these terrifying heretical objects into the real world. What exactly do you gain from turning reality itself into a horror game?”
“You live in this world too. Can you really survive in a world crawling with monsters?”
“A world filled with horror games and horror stories...” Bai Liu tilted his head back slightly, an indescribably strange smile spreading across his face. “That’s the only kind of world where reunion has any meaning, isn’t it?”
He slowly lifted his eyes.
“I’ve always thought our previous world was far more terrifying than any world filled with monsters.”
Within those black eyes seemed to swirl a shattered universe, something dark enough to devour all light.
Bai Liu shrugged casually and smiled with lazy amusement.
“Maybe I simply like monsters more than people. I don’t find them frightening at all.”
“Every time I talk to you,” Tang Erda said through clenched teeth, “I become more convinced you’re completely insane.”
The communicator creaked sharply under the pressure of his grip.
Then Tang Erda pressed the button without hesitation.
“I hope that four minutes from now, you’ll still be capable of giving me the same answer.”
Behind Bai Liu, the door marked [1807] opened once more.
Water exploded into the corridor.
——————————————————
At the other end of the base, Liu Jiayi stood motionless in the slowly receding water.
Even Mu Ke, normally the calmest among them, could no longer hide his anxiety.
“Still nothing?” he asked urgently.
Liu Jiayi shook her head.
“The water flow is wrong. It’s draining now, not filling. The current’s moving toward the rear drainage outlet. Bai Liu should be somewhere near an intake entrance.”
“Could your senses just be off?!” Mu Shicheng snapped for what was probably the hundredth time. He was so anxious he practically wished he could transform into a fish himself. “Damn it, if only I had whatever fish ability lets you sense currents!”
But among them, only Liu Jiayi possessed abilities related to fish.
“If this doesn’t work, should we switch back to the original coordinate plan?” Mu Ke asked, frowning.
Before he even finished speaking, Liu Jiayi abruptly lifted her head.
“They started releasing water again,” she said sharply. “This way!”
The moment the words left her mouth, she dove forward.
Her bare feet kicked powerfully through the water while her arms stayed tight against her sides. She moved with astonishing speed, shooting through the flooded corridor like a streamlined fish.
Liu Jiayi pushed forward with all her strength, swimming directly against the violent current.
Somewhere ahead, she heard the muffled sounds of someone struggling in the water, rising and sinking while choking for air. Bubbles surfaced continuously from their mouth.
Every time they approached a corridor intersection guarded by patrolmen, Liu Jiayi lightly tapped the wall beside the corner.
Then, like an impossibly agile fish, she spun cleanly through the arms reaching to grab her without even opening her eyes, slipping effortlessly past them before bursting briefly above the surface.
“One patrolman,” Liu Jiayi said softly.
Then she flipped gracefully and dove back underwater, creating only the faintest splash.
The patrolman had barely begun reaching for his communicator to report the intruder—because underwater interference rendered most surveillance useless, meaning the base relied heavily on patrol reports—
—when two figures wearing identical patrol uniforms suddenly rushed around the corner.
Before the guard could react, they locked him into a clean chokehold.
Moments later, the unconscious patrolman floated limply in the water, his respirator still attached.
Mu Ke, breathing heavily, exchanged a glance with Mu Shicheng, who was flexing his sore hand.
“Move.”
——————————————————
“It’s already been over three minutes...”
The team member stared at the monitor in growing horror.
Onscreen, Bai Liu floated face-down in the water, limbs spread loosely, eyes closed.
“He hasn’t breathed for almost ten seconds!” the member shouted in panic. “Captain Tang, are we still continuing this?!”
Tiny bubbles drifted upward from Bai Liu’s eyelashes, tangling into his floating hair.
His complexion had already turned deathly pale with a faint bluish tint. His lips were slightly parted, making him look disturbingly like a drowned corpse.
Tang Erda remained silent.
He had done this countless times before to the Bai Sixes from other timelines. Those monsters could endure ten rounds of suffocation like this. Even with their lungs flooded with water, Bai Six would still smile viciously at him, lips trembling and darkened blue while calmly handing over the solution for the Dried Rose Leaf Gas.
He had always been a lunatic. A monster through and through.
And yet, even when Tang Erda succeeded in forcing answers out of him, he never felt victorious afterward.
Only exhausted.
Only hollow.
But the Bai Liu of this timeline was different in every possible way...
“Three minutes thirty seconds!” the team member cried out in terror. “Captain Tang! Drain the water!”
Tang Erda stared fixedly at Bai Liu’s motionless body on the monitor.
Finally, he waved a hand.
“Drain it.”
The team member immediately let out a shaky breath of relief and slammed the drainage control.
But at that exact moment—
—the entire base violently shook.
The officer nearly lost his footing and grabbed desperately onto the control panel.
“What the hell is happening?!”
“Report—!”
Someone burst in from another monitoring room, panting heavily, face pale with fear.
“Captain Tang! All contained heretics inside the base have suddenly started rioting! And we’ve also discovered three intruders!”
“What do you mean, a heretic riot?” another member asked blankly.
Ever since joining this base, they had certainly dealt with dangerous heretics before...
...but they had never witnessed an actual riot.
Because Tang Erda, who carried memories from other timelines, understood these heretics too well. Every threat had always been eliminated before it could erupt.
But now, as Tang Erda watched the panicked team members running around in confusion, a chill crept through him.
Only at this moment did he realize a fatal problem.
Because he had protected them too thoroughly, these officers—people who should have possessed experience dealing with heretics—had never truly seen how terrifying heretics could become.
To put it simply—
none of them had the ability to handle a real heretic riot.
Not even the Third Division members ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) Tang Erda himself had once led to countless victories.
They had all been ruined by his overprotection.
Tonight had been the very first time many of them had even heard the term Humanoid Heretic. Most of them still doubted Tang Erda’s claims entirely. They had only obeyed his orders because of his authority as captain, but their expressions revealed fear, suspicion... and rejection.
They believed Tang Erda had gone insane after prolonged exposure to heretics.
That his mind had become contaminated.
That perhaps he had simply drunk himself into madness.
Even Su Yang thought so.
In this line of work, prolonged contact with heretics often drove people insane. Tang Erda’s ruthless methods and obsessive preemptive strikes had long since alienated many within the base.
The way they looked at him had changed.
Suspicion.
Fear.
Disgust.
As though they themselves were staring at a Humanoid Heretic.
Without realizing it, he had changed from the respected and trusted Captain Tang Erda into the alcoholic Tang Erda everyone avoided in silence.
The remaining team members were visibly trembling.
“Why are the heretics rioting?! Did we identify the cause?!”
“We don’t know! Every heretic in containment is becoming unstable! Some are smashing against their doors, some disappeared from the monitors completely—!”
Tang Erda braced both hands against the monitoring panel, staring at the screen where the water level continued to drop.
Soon, Bai Liu’s face would emerge completely from the water.
This riot was caused by him.
Tang Erda was absolutely certain.
Bai Liu’s shirt drifted gently in the current, loose against his body. From beneath his collar, something slowly floated free—
—a silver coin pendant.
The surrounding water seemed to vibrate strangely around it, as though resonating with some unseen force.
The instant Tang Erda saw the coin, realization struck him.
His expression changed violently.
He lunged for his pocket.
The inverted cross pendant he had confiscated from Bai Liu earlier was burning hot against his palm.
This bastard had been stalling for time from the very beginning.
Everything Bai Liu said had only been meant to delay him long enough to use the coin to locate the cross in Tang Erda’s possession.
That was why he deliberately provoked Tang Erda into keeping him submerged for so long.
This fucking lunatic!!
Tang Erda nearly crushed his own teeth.
The sole believer of the evil god had offered up a prayer.
And in response, the god had commanded all contaminated heretics to save its dying believer.
That was why the heretics were rioting.
Tang Erda instantly reached for the drainage controls, intending to stop the process immediately.
But before he could press the button, the entire base shook violently again.
He was thrown hard to the floor.
Only one team member managed to cling onto the control lever instead of being flung aside.
Onscreen, the water level had already dropped below the top of Bai Liu’s head.
“Close the drainage system!” Tang Erda roared at the officer holding the lever. “Don’t let him out of the water!”
The stunned member froze.
“What?!”
Too late.
On the monitor, Bai Liu—who had floated motionless until now—slowly opened his eyes.
At the same moment, the inverted cross inside Tang Erda’s pocket emitted a low hum.
CLACK!
Every member inside the monitoring room stared blankly at the screens.
Then came a deafening chain of metallic crashes echoing throughout the base.
One after another, every containment room holding heretics swung open.
Silence filled the monitoring room for several long seconds.
No one moved.
No one spoke.
They only stared.
As the water level dropped completely, Bai Liu descended from floating weightlessly in the current to standing firmly upon the corridor floor.
Water dripped slowly from his soaked hair.
His breathing remained uneven as he leaned weakly against the wall, pale-faced and exhausted.
And then—
he smiled.
Bai Liu tilted his head toward the monitor and laughed softly.
“So?” he asked pleasantly. “Are you willing to reconsider my deal now, Captain Tang?”
A second later, every monitor in the room dissolved into static.
