Chapter 231-01: Don’t look directly at the moon

heavy rain.

Streets of Shibuya, Tokyo.

Pedestrians with depressed and numb expressions held umbrellas and walked on the zebra crossing, interweaving and merging with each other as the traffic lights changed.

The evening merged into dark clouds, and no one knew whether the sun had set by then, but the slightly dark sky weighed down the heads of everyone on earth, making them dare not look up.

All around, the dense slogans are not very clear in the dim light, but it doesn’t matter. These slogans are mainly used at night. As time goes by, they will be powered on one after another, constantly repeating a sentence to people in the darkness.

Don’t look directly at the moon

At a glance, there are several glowing, conspicuously positioned signs with the same content standing on buildings or streets, but people seem to be accustomed to such strange slogans and don't even stop to look at them.

"Mom, that person is so weird."

When crossing the road, the little girl who was holding hands curiously pointed at a man in the middle who was not holding an umbrella.

".Don't look at him, let's go around him."

The mother looked at him warily and held the child's hand tightly.

In the middle of the road, on the zebra crossing, people looked at each other with strange eyes, or did not even dare to look at each other, and made an arc to avoid a middle-aged man in a suit who was standing there without an umbrella, allowing the heavy rain to soak him.

He just stood there with his back hunched and his head lowered, silently and motionlessly, as if no one knew where he got the stimulation from.

People just want to avoid him and not give themselves extra trouble.

In recent years, people have seen more and more bizarre events. The more they learn about them, the more suffocated ordinary people feel. It is not uncommon for people to collapse from time to time, further deteriorating the already depressing social atmosphere.

The remaining normal people just hope that these broken people will not disturb their fragile lives.

They just want to live as ordinary people in this world full of extraordinary chaos.

Standing in the street in the rain is already a moderate approach, at least it doesn't bother others much.

It was raining heavily, and the whole body of the man in the suit was soaked by the rain. Water kept dripping down his hair and cheeks. His lips seemed to be trembling or moving. There seemed to be a faint sound, but it was quickly knocked down by the raindrops and could not be heard.

After being in a daze for a long time, he seemed to be inspired and slowly raised his head.
"Oh my god, honey, look."

".Go, go faster."

A couple saw the man raising his head, and their expressions immediately became extremely horrified. They didn't care about getting their trouser legs wet. The man took his girlfriend's hand and quickened their pace to get away from the intersection.

After a while, the man in the suit raised his head completely, facing the raindrops and looking at the sky.

"I finally saw the real moon."

In the man's reflected pupils, there was only a moon, an exaggerated full moon like the one in anime.

The strange thing is that although the sky was covered with dark clouds at this time, if most people dared to look up, they would find two moons hanging in the sky without being obscured.

But for some people, there has always been, and should be, only one moon in the sky, never more, never less.

More and more people noticed the actions of the man in the suit. Most of them were a little panicked and quickly moved away from him. A small number of people chose to call the Special Affairs Bureau to report the abnormal situation.

Under normal circumstances, such suspected supernatural incidents would first be investigated by the Metropolitan Police Department, and then the Special Affairs Bureau's supernatural countermeasures force or supernatural team would be notified to handle the matter after confirmation.

However, it was obvious that even the Metropolitan Police Department did not arrive in time.

"In this turbid and hypocritical world, only the Mother Goddess is real. Only by gazing at the Mother Goddess can we find a moment of peace. Only by embracing the Mother Goddess can we see through the truth and witness eternity."

The words that the man in the suit was muttering became clearer and clearer. In his sight, the real moon slowly pulled aside the veil towards him, opened its eyes, and stretched out countless hands full of maternal radiance, gently caressing the soul of this scarred middle-aged man. Such a peaceful expression on her face made him unable to help but be obsessed with it.

"Yes, that's right, I am the child of the Mother Goddess, and I always have been."

The man's mouth widened into a creepy smile, which became increasingly weird.

Just when his body seemed to be changing, a pink umbrella blocked his sight, cutting off the connection between him and the Mother Goddess.

The man was startled, then turned his head angrily, only to see a beautiful female high school student standing next to him, looking at him with a playful look.

The instinctive hostility lurking in the man's body erupted immediately when he saw the girl. A huge vertical mouth with sharp teeth quickly opened up with his chest and abdomen as the center, and he let out a strange roar at the girl.

The woman's smile became even brighter.

“That’s disgusting.”

The man seemed to become even angrier because of these words, and his mouth widened again, almost enough to swallow the petite girl in front of him in one gulp.

People were perhaps a little panicked, but not too chaotic. Just like the supernatural evacuation procedure that had been included in the compulsory courses, people dispersed in all directions with the monster and the girl as the center. The drivers of the cars that were originally waiting at the red light also hurriedly got out of the car and fled to a distance, ready to call the supernatural insurance company at any time.

Everything is so skillful that it makes people feel distressed.

The girl in the center of the zebra crossing faced the huge mouth without changing her smile. Just when the big mouth was about to reach her, she slowly opened her mouth.

"stop."

The raindrops froze in an instant.

Within a few meters of the girl, time seemed to stand still.

Splashing water droplets, big mouths of slime, stagnant monsters.

This piece of time and space seemed to have been dug out from the original universe, leaving behind a hole that no one would notice.

However, the girl was not affected at all. She quietly put down her tiptoe, opened the umbrella to the side, brushed away the solidified raindrops with her fingers, walked silently to the side of the monster, and pursed her lips again.

"inverse."

The raindrops returned to the sky, the accumulated water on the ground turned into water droplets again, and the heavy rain in the opposite direction rose from the earth and sank into this lonely space and time.

The monster's movements were like a rewind as the heavy rain progressed, transforming it into a human again, and then going from looking up at the moon to lowering its head.

"Return."

After an invisible shock, the girl and the monster returned to reality.

The eyes of the man in the suit suddenly swelled up like a frog, almost exploding. His chest was even swollen, bulging like a balloon.

“Gu-ka! Yueqi--”

Bang!

The upper body of the man in the suit exploded completely, splattering a lot of blood and minced meat, mixed with heavy rain and falling down.

The girl had used an umbrella to block the blood mist at some point, and her JK clothes and black stockings were not stained at all.

On the ground, a blood-stained card the size of a business card reflected a faint light.

The next second, the card slowly floated up and landed in front of the girl. It had a light yellow background and only a complex circular pattern on it.

"Moon map." The girl showed no surprise at all. She took out an evidence bag and put it in it remotely.

"Tashiro-senpai, this is Izumi Ringo. I killed a Moon Polluter at the intersection in front of Shibuya Station. Please help me."

"Got it. Please, Jingquan, maintain the scene. The nearest logistics team will arrive in about seven minutes. By the way, Junyan is also nearby and seems to be heading towards you."

"Seki Toshihiko (Ability: Great Adventure Journey)? Thank you, Tashiro-senpai, I got it."

".Well, just don't fight."

"Please rest assured, senior. I won't bully him."

"."

After hanging up the communication, Jingquan threw three round cake-shaped devices in a triangle around the corpse. After the devices landed on the ground, they automatically adsorbed and then projected a holographic image above, forming a warning triangle. The words "Extraordinary Disaster" and "Civilians Keep Away" scrolled on it in a loop, and the extraordinary alarm sounded continuously.

The girl standing in the rain holding an umbrella seemed to be lost in some deep thought. After a moment, a male voice came from behind, interrupting her.

"Ah, Jingquan, you are here too."

Turning around, it was Guan Junyan who had rushed to the scene.

"Since Senior Guan is here, I'll leave it to you. The logistics team will be here soon. Here are the related items." Jingquan controlled the evidence bag to float in front of Guan Junyan.

"Is it [Mother Goddess Integration] again?" Guan Junyan saw the moon map, frowned and looked at the card and half of the corpse.

Jingquan hummed lightly, turned around and prepared to leave the scene.

"Izumi. About Iki Island." Guan Junyan tried to speak hesitantly.

Jingquan's back paused, and suddenly disappeared into the air along with the rain around him.

Guan Junyan's expression changed and he retreated suddenly.

The next moment, the space where he was just now was distorted, the heavy rain retreated, and the girl holding the pink umbrella reappeared in front of him, right where he was just now. The smile on her face was gone, and was now filled with coldness and indifference.

"Don't think that I won't attack you just because we're both in the Special Affairs Bureau, Guan Junyan. You'd better pray that I don't catch you with any evidence."

Guan Junyan shook his head, looking depressed, and said nothing more.

Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the world.

On a rooftop not far away, a strange man in a black robe and a crescent-shaped mask was silently looking at the two people at the intersection.

But when the next flash of lightning lit up the sky again, the strange man on the roof disappeared, as if what had just appeared was just an illusion.

Soon, the logistics team arrived and skillfully carried out anti-contamination operations on the blood stains on the ground, retrieved the latest monitoring data, and compiled the information.

Tokyo Special Affairs Bureau.

Since its establishment, the overall power of the Special Affairs Bureau has been rising with the increasing frequency of extraordinary events.

After a major reform two years ago, the supernatural faction gradually gained a dominant position, while the traditional faction was defeated. Now, even the authorities can no longer completely command this supernatural organization, and can only ask for the assistance of the Special Affairs Bureau in the name of national interests.

"Is it related to the Mother Goddess Unity Organization again?" Kuroki Shinizumi, who was already the director of the Special Affairs Bureau, put down the intelligence in his hand and asked the person next to him, "How many times has this happened this month?"

"The eighteenth case. Today is August 20th. As of today, the number of monthly polluters that have appeared has reached the total number of last month." The new deputy chief of the Intelligence Section, Reimi Hirata, opened her mouth and started with the data.

"Eighteen." Hei Mu pondered for a moment. "From one case a month to eighteen cases a month, it took almost three years. So what will happen in the next three years?"

Hirata calculated silently and came up with several possible figures, but he did not speak.

Hei Mu looked at the moonlight outside the window and shook his head.

In fact, not everyone will be polluted if they look directly at the moon, but experiments have confirmed that even ordinary people will become increasingly mentally confused if they look directly at the moon for a long time. This is one of the reasons for the high incidence of various mental illnesses in recent years.

"It's been a really drastic few years." Kuroki sighed.

Three years ago, the sun shone on the entire earth at the same time, and for the first time, all human beings were under the same sunlight.

The next day, there were two moons hanging high in the night sky.

What is frightening is that human beings cannot detect which moon is the real one.

Yes, even with lunar satellites and even lunar observation rovers, people still cannot tell which of the two moons in the sky is the real one.

Since then, new geological activities have begun to appear on the moon, and an exaggeratedly large circular crack called the "Ring of Artemis" has been born.

It's like... like a spoon, digging out a piece of the moon, but then putting it back.

It makes people dare not think deeply about what strange changes have occurred in the world and the universe.

The only consolation was that not long after, the Holy Child appeared again and said in a calm tone that the Earth would be fine.

They have no choice but to believe it, otherwise, the more they think about it, the more they will collapse.

The Holy Infant also revealed some secrets to them, such as the moon had long been polluted by some force, but was only gradually awakening now. It wouldn't be long before monsters polluted by the moon would gradually appear among humans, and the only way to delay this process was to not look at the moon, and to use the Moon Enlightener to fight against the Moon Polluters and the Mother Goddess Integration organization that came from nowhere.

The moon brings not only pollution, but also a group of new extraordinary people who have awakened one after another. They are collectively called "Moon Initiators".

However, there is no evidence that people who are already extraordinary cannot become [Moon Initiators].

But as it stands now, if the number of Moon Polluters continues to grow at this rate, the Moon Initiators will also be stretched to the limit.

The only thing to be thankful for is that there are other extraordinary people who take the initiative to fight against the moon polluters, thus avoiding more terrible consequences, just like the [Iki Island Incident].

It has been proven that once a considerable number of Moon Polluters hide out and begin to reproduce in large numbers, the earth will be polluted and become Moon desertified. Countless monsters will swarm out from under the earth, causing irreversible destruction to human civilization.

This was the case with the Iki Island incident. Because the traditionalists still held a dominant position at the time, for various reasons, this incident indirectly led to the occurrence of Iki Island, which was polluted as a whole and completely desertified, becoming a dead land and a forbidden area for humans, with countless monsters lurking in it.

The Special Affairs Bureau also lost the initiative, and the traditional faction's order to rescue the "big shots" led to the deaths and injuries of several extraordinary people, which led to the rebellion of the lower class. The extraordinary faction finally couldn't bear it anymore and turned the table.

Kuroki Shinizumi belonged to the traditional faction that tended to be extraordinary, and later became the new director who was barely acceptable to both sides. Noguchi Takeshi, as the leader recognized by most extraordinary people, served as the deputy director and concurrently as the head of the Operations Division.

"Has Elvis (Head of Intelligence) made any moves?"

"No, he was very cooperative and took the initiative to hand over a lot of intelligence work to me."

"Keep an eye on him and find out what his relationship with Ricky and Prime Minister Abe is like."

"Yes."

After watching Hirata leave the office, Kuroki sat back in his chair, opened the drawer, and put the file into a pile of almost identical files.

"Mother Goddess Unity, are you also a force from another world?" Kuroki muttered to himself as he looked at the moon cards on the computer.

(End of this chapter)