Chapter 4: Nibelungen
"What was that monster? Bullets can"t kill it! Its healing abilities are out of a sci-fi movie! I need you to explain, Mr. Song! Hasn"t Juli Corp crossed the line, creating this monster? "Der Ring des Nibelungen" project, just what is it?”
Song Zhi closed his eyes, and after thinking for a few seconds he opened his mouth again. "Are you sure you want to know? Although the objective truth exists, it will have no effect on your life if you don"t know. But once you do know, you will fall from the edge of h.e.l.l into h.e.l.l itself."
Zhou Yu smiled, he pointed at the large area of the wound on his abdomen. His head was filled with the scene of Chen Chong being killed by that monster, "Mr. Song, I"ve already been to h.e.l.l."
"Trust me, you"re still far from h.e.l.l. You"ve merely peered into its shadow." Song Zhi wore a profound expression.
This is what Zhou Yu loathed the most about academics, they thought of themselves as omniscient.
As if he could even see through Zhou Yu"s fate.
"On the surface, you"re asking me if I really want to know, but you"re already prepared to tell me, am I right?" Zhou Yu asked in reply.
Song Zhi turned his face to the side and smiled.
This guy had very fair skin, he probably stayed in the researched center all year round and was rarely in the sun. He didn"t look like he exercised much, he was way too thin. When he was expressionless, he looked exceedingly cold and detached. But when he smiled, he revealed a n.o.ble and elegant demeanor.
"Correct, I would very much like to explain it to you. First, the monster you saw, we called "Peryton", after a monster in Western mythology. You"ve probably noticed that the monster didn"t have eyes, ears, or a nose, and it had a naturally fierce disposition.
"If it didn"t possess senses for seeing, hearing or smelling, how was it able to locate its targets?"
This was a question that Zhou had been puzzling over.
Song Zhi lifted his chin, " You know that there are many animals in this world, the way they locate their prey is different from humans. For example, the bat. They use echolocation to determine their prey. Dolphins use sonar. The platypus uses electroreception. The monster you saw uses "fear" to pursue its prey. The more frightened you are, the more you are able to excite its destructive potential."
Zhou Yu stared at him blankly, what Song Zhi had said was completely outside his scope of comprehension.
"You said fear?"
"Any animal, including humans, once in a state of fear, will have their brain secrete a special type of a microscopic hormone, which is then dispersed into the air through the skin. Once "Peryton"s" tongue tastes the hormone, it will pursue the prey. That"s why the researchers died, they were all too familiar with "Peryton"s" nature and cruelty, and the more they tried to warn themselves not to be afraid, the more they were afraid. When their fear spread out unbounded, they would"ve already pushed themselves into h.e.l.l."
Zhou Yu still looked at Song Zhi with a distrustful gaze.
"Think about it carefully. Why did all your team members die? But you did not?" Song Zhi held his chin and looked at Zhou Yu meaningfully.
As if he was being very patient, he waited for Zhou Yu to understand the question clearly.
Zhou Yu closed his eyes and thought his team member"s voices through the communication device.
"What is that?"
"Oh my G.o.d! How is this possible?"
"Impossible! This is impossible! Why would there be something like this?"
It was the dread of seeing something unbelievable and of facing a swiftly approaching death.
They were different from Zhou Yu, they went in with the goal of saving hostages, yet by a turn of events, they were met with a monster they had never seen before. When the monster attacked their least experienced member, Zhao Cheng, this rattled everyone else. They had a taste of just how terrifying the monster was. There was no need to say that bullets didn"t hurt it, even if they showed the slightest amount of fear, that monster would hunt after it to the end.
When Zhou Yu had met Chen Chong hanging onto his last breath, what had actually attracted that monster to them was not Zhou Yu, but Chen Chong"s fear. You could even go as far as to say that the monster simply killed Chen Chong without knowing of Zhou Yu"s presence, it only kept going until the trace of the hormone being secreted due his fear faded away.
"It couldn"t detect my presence the entire time." Zhou Yu suspiciously asked Song Zhi.
When Zhou Yu had shot at its tail, by its agility it could"ve easily avoided the bullets and killed Zhou Yu. Yet, it was like it lost direction of Zhou Yu and didn"t know where he was.
Song Zhi smiled placidly and extended his arm, tapping a finger on Zhou Yu"s chest, "Ask yourself, were you afraid of it? Where you afraid of being tortured and killed by it? When you saw your team members" crushed remains, did you have the anger and the dedication to grasp the truth of it, or the fear of it?
"I wanted to find it. I wanted to kill it." Zhou Yu lifted up his gaze, the resolution in his eyes made Song Zhi"s smile even more defined.
"See, that"s the reason you were able to live, on top of being able to kill it. Your gaze is telling me, you"ve accepted my explanation. This is good news. If you can"t even understand this, then what I"m about to tell you will be even harder to understand."
Zhou Yu was silent.
"Your second statement," Song Zhi extended his finger, "That monster Peryton wasn"t bred or created by us, and it is not a product of the pursuit of human endeavors. It was an already existing organism."
After he said that, Zhou Yu stared at him blankly.
"It was already existing? You"re trying to persuade me into believing you that Juli Corp discovered some kind of new creature living on Earth?"
Zhou Yu felt that Song Zhi was getting more and more absurd.
"Do you know of the concept of parallel s.p.a.ces?" Song Zhi asked.
"I"ve seen it in movies. So right now, you want me to believe that this creature came from a parallel s.p.a.ce? What a convenient explanation!"
Although this explanation sounded made-up, Zhou Yu found a certain type of confidence in Song Zhi"s eyes. At least in Song Zhi"s heart, everything he said was true.
"We named that parallel s.p.a.ce "Nibelungen". This name may sound whimsical, personally, I am more inclined towards a systematic naming system, such as alpha and beta, or World A and World B, any of that would be better than something from Norse mythology, but I have no choice, Juli Corp"s board of directors like that name. Zhou Yu, many years ago, scientists thought that gravitational waves were only an imaginary concept, but now it has been confirmed to be true. The expansion of the known world is really just repeatedly verifying what we don"t believe is true. The existence of Nibelungen is the same.
Zhou Yu listened to his story and leaned back, "Then, what"s in that world?"
His reason told him that this world didn"t exist, it must be an excuse invented by Juli Corp to hide its research. But, deep in his heart, his intuition was continually echoing to him: It"s real, Zhou Yu. It"s real.
"Similar to earth, but with an entirely different system of organisms."
"The monster was brought here from that world?" Zhou Yu didn"t ask the other what the "entirely different system of organisms" was, because it was a loaded and specialized question.
"Yes. Doing any research there has a large risk factor, our researchers are constantly in a state of danger. That"s why we brought back some research specimens, to keep examining them in an environment we can control and understand."
He was saying that Juli Corp had already sent out researchers into that world, and since they were already capable of achieving this step, it meant that Juli Corp had already grasped how to cross over to that world.
"When you brought that monster into our world, you also brought the risk that came with it. Even if you retreat ten thousand steps to seize control of that world, you still can"t control the organisms that don"t belong to this world." Zhou Yu"s tone was ice cold.
In his heart, for the pursuit of his own answers, this lunatic could definitely act immorally.
"Did you see that monster"s healing ability? And its special biological composition? By studying them, we can help humanity defend against and even defeat all kinds of diseases, even if it comes from our human bodies. For example, Huntington"s disease, Down"s syndrome, and etcetera, even deadly cancers can be cured. Humanity can even overcome the consequences of our collapsing environment, and be able to live and reproduce with no limits.
"That sounds grand." Zhou Yu knew that every academic undergoing their frantic research would give themselves a grandiose purpose, " Mr. Song, I believe that the other s.p.a.ce is an absolute secret for you, but now that you"ve told me of this secret, it can"t be to just talk about science. Why not state your real purpose?"
Song Zhi smiled. He tilted his head downwards and showed an expression of thought, "A lot of people have seen Peryton, whether they were researchers or Special Operations teams trained by Juli Corps, but none of them were able to do what you did, to discard their fear and to look straight at death. In that world, fear is the sign of the hunted. Practically every person has some trace of it on their bodies. Although we"ve done countless studies, and have made all kinds of equipment to mask our physical signals, fear always exists objectively. You"re very special, Zhou Yu. You"re the first person I"ve met who can face Peryton without any fear. I want you to join us, to go to the world on the other side."
This answer astonished Zhou Yu. He never thought that he would be worth this much to Juli Corp.
Yay! Chapter 4!
I"ve added some simple definitions below. They may not have a direct connection with the story but it"s nice to know where names come from. From wiki:
The Peryton is a mythological hybrid animal combining the physical features of a stag and a bird. (Obvs it"s just a generic monster name here)
The Nibelungenlied, translated as The Song of the Nibelungs, is an epic poem in Middle High German. It tells the story of Siegfried in the court of the Burgundians, and of the revenge of his wife, Kriemhild.
Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), WWV 86, is a cycle of four German-language epic music dramas composed by Richard Wagner. The works are based loosely on characters from the Norse sagas and the Nibelungenlied.