novelraw Chapter 75 : Charlatans Emerge in Chaotic Times
Chapter 75 : Charlatans Emerge in Chaotic Times
Chapter 75: Charlatans Emerge in Chaotic Times
Shinto Theocracy of Sakurajima, Neon Metropolis, Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters.
At this moment, the command hall had already descended into utter chaos.
“What’s going on?!”
“Reporting—large-scale riots have broken out in front of Shibuya Station!”
A technician was drenched in sweat, fingers flying rapidly across the keyboard.
“Director… all surveillance cameras… they’ve all captured images that can’t be understood.”
Trembling, the technician pulled up a window. “This is the real-time feed from Shibuya Center Street.”
On the screen, thousands of citizens looked as if they had been possessed, slaughtering one another crazily at intersections, swinging their fists at empty air, or kneeling on the ground and kowtowing toward the void, begging for mercy.
“My god, what is this?!”
Police Director-General Sato murmured to himself, “Is this… the hell from mythology?”
“Quick! Dispatch the mobile units! And request support from the Self-Defense Forces!”
……
The streets of Shibuya, more than ten minutes after the riots began.
Dozens of police cars flashed red lights as fully armed mobile unit officers advanced step by step with riot shields raised, driving back the chaotic crowd.
At the center of the crowd, Kuroki Satoru tilted his head slightly, watching the police swarm toward him like ants.
There was not the slightest hint of tension in his eyes—only the excitement of a child discovering a new toy.
Snap!
Kuroki Satoru snapped his fingers.
The next second, the captain of the mobile unit at the very front suddenly stopped in his tracks.
In horror, he discovered that the riot shield in his hands had turned into a gigantic ghostly face drooling saliva.
And the faces beneath his teammates’ helmets had all become blank voids without any facial features.
“Ahhhhh!!”
The captain collapsed.
He raised the gun in his hand and pulled the trigger at the “monsters” beside him.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The police began firing at the “monsters,” and those “monsters” were in fact panicked civilians, or their own comrades.
Blood splattered, and screams rose one after another.
Watching this scene, Kuroki Satoru laughed so hard he doubled over, tears streaming down his face.
He took a deep drag, as if savoring a cigar.
“Listen…”
“What a wonderful melody this is.”
……
Shinto Theocracy of Sakurajima, Neon Metropolis, Metropolitan Police Department Headquarters.
Inside the massive command hall, phone rings overlapped one another, and red alarm lights flashed madly along the walls.
“Moshi moshi?”
“Damn it! What do you mean all vehicles have been dispatched?! Monsters! The streets are full of monsters!”
“This is impossible…”
“Requesting support! Requesting support! They’ve gone mad… madmen everywhere!”
“The Shibuya blockade has collapsed! The mobile units… the mobile units are completely wiped out! They’ve gone insane! They’re shooting at each other!”
Sato Masayoshi stood before the massive electronic map, the knuckles of his hands turning white from excessive force.
“Where’s the technical department? Have you still not analyzed the cause? Is it a biochemical weapon? Or a large-scale hallucinogen?” Sato roared.
Before the technical department could respond, another piece of bad news arrived.
“Report!”
A communications officer abruptly stood up, tore off his headset, his face pale as paper. “The Self-Defense Forces’ helicopter lost contact after entering Shibuya airspace. The last sound transmitted back was… was…”
“What was it?!”
“It was manic laughter… the pilot was laughing hysterically…”
……
Adachi Ward, slums.
“Cult Leader, I heard things have gone completely out of control over in Shibuya.”
The usually ferocious Scar-face was now wearing an ill-matched white robe, and was even holding—ridiculously enough—a “scepter” fashioned from a clothes-drying pole.
The expression on his face was incomparably devout, even trembling with a trace of fanaticism.
“Out of control?”
Asahara Shoko stood on the balcony of a dilapidated apartment building. At this moment, there was not the slightest trace left of his former sleaziness.
A sacred white radiance enveloped him, setting off that street-stall robe until it looked like divine vestments.
Asahara Shoko gazed toward the direction of Shibuya.
“No, that is not chaos.”
Asahara Shoko extended his hand, palm upward, as if embracing the calamity filling the sky.
“That is the pasture bestowed upon us by the gods.”
“Come, my children.”
He turned around, and deep within his pupils flickered a light of greed and calculation.
“Go harvest our lambs.”
……
After Asahara Shoko led the three others out, he looked at the surrounding slum dwellers who had been awakened by firelight and sirens, emerging from their homes with faces full of confusion and fear.
These people were the lowest stratum of this city.
They had no money, no status, no hope.
In daily life, they were garbage despised by society.
But in Asahara Shoko’s eyes, they were the best “fuel.”
The more desperate the people, the more they yearned for salvation; the deeper they were in darkness, the more they longed for light.
“An opportunity…”
Asahara Shoko spread his arms and took a deep breath. “This is the stage granted to me by the gods.”
Buzz—
A faint milky-white halo spread out from his body, instantly enveloping an area within a hundred meters.
Within this halo, the originally pungent stench of garbage vanished, replaced by a sandalwood fragrance that calmed the mind;
“Lost lambs!”
Asahara Shoko’s voice, empowered by divine force, carried a deep resonance, exploding in the hearts of every person present.
“Lift your heads and look at the sky!”
The slum dwellers subconsciously raised their heads.
They saw the sky-piercing flames in the direction of Shibuya, and saw within the twisted black clouds what seemed like demons roaring.
Fear instantly spread through the crowd.
“That is the end times! It is judgment!”
Asahara Shoko’s voice abruptly rose, becoming stern and majestic. “The order of the old era has already collapsed, and the false gods are raining down calamity to punish this sinful world!”
“That is the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons! It is hell returning to the world!”
“No one can save you! Not the police! Not the military! Not the government!”
“Only…”
Asahara Shoko paused.
He slowly extended his right hand, palm upward. A mass of pure, gentle white light condensed in his hand, transforming into a resplendent “holy sun.”
In this pitch-black slum, this light was so dazzling, so warm.
“Only by believing in ‘Universal Spirit Truth’ shall you obtain a ticket to the Ark!”
“I am the proxy who walks upon the earth; I am the path, I am the truth, I am the life!”
A miracle.
A naked, undisguised miracle.
For people who had lived their entire lives mired in filth, the impact of the scene before their eyes was immense.
“God… it’s God…”
A sallow-faced woman holding a child stared at that mass of light, feeling the chronic pain within her body gradually easing under its radiance.
With a splash, she knelt down in the muddy water and desperately kowtowed toward Asahara Shoko.
As she knelt, a pure white filament—visible only to Asahara Shoko—floated out from the top of her head and connected to him.
Though weak, it was the purest form of energy.
Immediately after, the second, the third…
Those ferocious homeless men, those numb sex workers, those despairing elderly all knelt to the ground one after another.
Amid this apocalyptic terror, Asahara Shoko became their only lifeline.
“Very good… very good…”
Asahara Shoko felt the power continuously surging into his body. The pleasure of controlling others’ destinies almost made him moan.
But this was still not enough.
He wanted to make it big.
“My believers!”
Asahara Shoko swept his arm wide, the white robe snapping loudly in the wind. “Do not fear—god’s radiance is with you!”
“Pick up your torches! Follow in my footsteps!”
“We shall walk out of this dark abyss and purify that filthy world!”
“To save those compatriots who are still crying in confusion!”
Boom!
The crowd erupted.
Their original fear transformed into frenzied religious zeal.
A long procession of several hundred people, under Asahara Shoko’s leadership, surged mightily out of the slums and advanced toward the chaotic urban district!