Enforcer Manual
Chapter 291: The Sacred Hive Connects Everyone_1

Chapter 291: Chapter 291: The Sacred Hive Connects Everyone_1

Some people are dead, but he was still alive.

Bruno had thought this was just a philosophical saying, but at this moment, he gained a new understanding of it.

When the hallucinatory world shattered, and the cosmos and myriad stars split open causing this world to crumble, he should have been thoroughly dead.

He was killed by someone piercing his heart from behind, a brief daze leading straight to death, leaving him with no way of knowing how the other had approached him.

It seems the High Priest’s assessment of the town was off.

They had believed the other party had broken free from the control of the Sky Curtain using some sort of drug, thus destroying the Sky Curtain and stealing Xinyue, but they had not anticipated that the other party, even while in a hallucinatory world, could do this without any external help.

"Everything in the hallucinatory world is under your control,"

the voice continued from behind him as the right hand that had pierced his heart withdrew from his body, and Bruno, without support, fell to his knees.

The shattered heart, along with the massive blood loss, was causing his entire body to gradually slip from his control.

"But you cannot react to attacks beyond consciousness and understanding."

He had already witnessed this ability once in the town, where those in a state of hallucination were not unconscious; everything they did in the hallucination had an impact on reality.

And once he had dealt with the ability user in the real world, the illusionary world they had woven would also shatter.

Bruno opened his mouth wide, but couldn’t utter a single sound.

The reason he was still conscious was that his body was undergoing some sort of transformation; as the other person’s arm pulled away from his body, it seemed something had crawled into the hole and begun actively repairing the broken heart.

At the same time, a distant and hazy echo emerged in his mind.

"Become one of us."

This voice sounded exactly like how the Moon God would impart guidance.

This revelation filled Bruno with a mix of terror and awe; he suddenly realized that the real enemy hiding in this city was not any particular person but rather a deity on par with the Moon God.

And he, as one of the most devout Believers of the Lunar Eclipse Sect, was utterly unable to resist the whispers of this foreign god in his mind.

...

The transformation and integration process lasted a few minutes.

The fatal wound on Father Bruno’s body was repaired, heralding his Resurrection.

He knelt and gasped for a moment, then propped himself up and stood.

Bug Swarm.

He received the name of this unfamiliar hive, and gained a deeper understanding of the identity of the person before him.

God of Harvest.

Most members of the Bug Swarm saw Song Lan this way, especially the Horn Bugs that had connected to the Queen’s Nest consciousness; they tirelessly propagated through the consciousness network the glorious deeds of the God of Harvest—only those individuals who had made outstanding contributions to the Bug Swarm could have the chance to taste the food personally made by the God of Harvest.

So... I was just defeated by a cook?

Bruno didn’t understand why, in this special group, even someone who cooked was so powerful.

However, Song Lan wasn’t satisfied with the changes that happened to Bruno. He had wanted to exploit a bug by letting the Devourer parasitize and revive Bruno at the brink of death, thus preserving the ability to control hallucinations. But after the parasitism was complete, the Devourer brought some bad news.

Once Bruno’s thinking was altered, his abilities disappeared as well.

This implied that the Lunar Eclipse Sect had installed a "faith value checker" in the minds of every believer. The moment a believer’s faith showed any problems, all gifts bestowed upon them would be immediately revoked.

The ability to control hallucinations was not to be underestimated, especially since it was a rare ability that caused him to fall into a world of illusions without recognizing any trigger rules in both encounters. He was certain that if the true possessor of this ability defected to the United Government, they would immediately be awarded a Five Stars rescuer medal or higher.

The two stared at each other, Song Lan feeling slightly annoyed inwardly.

The feeling was like having gone through a lot of hard work thinking you caught a Groudon, only to open the backpack and discover it was a Torkoal.

Fortunately, Bruno’s memory was retained, which brought the Bug Swarm an unimaginable path.

Song Lan soon realized that the Lunar Eclipse Sect’s spreading of the "infection" across the 17th District through the network was not just to garner their attention. There was a deeper reason: they wanted to construct the Sky Curtain here.

The Sky Curtain was initially created by the High Priest, and in Bruno’s cognition, this ability to control hallucinations likely came from the High Priest.

Its essence was the result of integrating many people’s consciousness into one entity, and its form was related to the local people’s imagination and perception. Once the Sky Curtain began to take shape, its power could influence more people. Anyone who looked directly at it could be affected by the collective consciousness and eventually become one of them.

The eerie moon above the small town was conceived by the local people, incorporating their fears of infection and death. When necessary, the Lunar Eclipse Sect turned all their fears into reality.

At a superficial level, the Lunar Eclipse Sect exploited the fear of infection in the citizens of the Third Country to create one Sky Curtain after another, transforming the outskirts of small towns into breeding grounds for mental viruses.

At a deeper level, they had found a way to fuse Psychic abilities and the physical body. The Lunar Eclipse Sect placed such importance on Xinyue because this experiment was their first successful fusion of a Psychic and a Devourer.

Similar experiments had been conducted in other towns and villages, but they all ended in failure.

Thinking of this, Song Lan asked, "Your plan is to build the Sky Curtain in the 17th District through the network?"

"The network is just a means. What we want is to gather people’s consciousness together,"

Bruno said, "An individual’s consciousness is very weak, but once they are gathered together, they become an energy that cannot be underestimated. Both the Sky Curtain and the Church require this type of energy."

A power bank.

Song Lan immediately thought of this device that had become an antique by the year 2166.

While everyone made no progress in the study of Spiritual Energy, the Lunar Eclipse Sect had blazed a new trail — using the Third Country people’s fear of infection and radiation, along with their faith, like a power bank, they managed to achieve bioelectricity on the level of Spiritual Energy.

Mere faith probably wouldn’t suffice; what was truly special was that they utilized the collective consciousness of the Devourer’s Queen’s Nest, turning all believers into "Infected," using this collective mentality to link their thinking and consciousness together. Within this system, every believer became a power bank for the Moon God.

Song Lan found it difficult to imagine just how terrifying the Moon God’s Spiritual Energy strength was with the support of so many believers.

"Father Bruno, I want to discuss a theological question with you."

Seizing the opportunity, he asked, "Do you think Horn Bugs or mutated creatures can have faith?"