Dimensional Codex System: I'm really not a cultist!

When Fang Zheng and the others arrived, the entire camp was completely destroyed. The storm had torn apart the wind walls and tents they had built; only a few tents remained intact. The three erected drills had all collapsed. But that wasn’t the main point; the main point was those corpses.

Professor Lake’s expedition team had brought over a dozen people and eight sled dogs. However, now, the entire campsite was only filled with human and sled dog corpses. They weren’t frozen to death; on the contrary, whether human or dog, they were twisted and shattered like someone wringing a towel, turning into gruesome remains.

The scene was so horrifying that many stood dumbfounded for a long time before coming to their senses, and at this moment, Fang Zheng lightly coughed.

”Excuse me, but shouldn’t we... bury these people first?”

”Ah, right...”

Hearing Fang Zheng’s suggestion, Professor Mike, who was leading, finally snapped out of it. He still looked at the camp with lingering fear and then nodded.

”Let’s tidy up first, let the dead rest in peace, and... figure out the current situation and resources of the camp...”

”......”

Professor Mike spoke without energy; it sounded like an actor reciting lines rigidly, and the others around him said nothing either, silently dispersing to do their tasks. No one spoke, and the camp was deathly silent, with only the whooshing wind blowing, as if nobody was there at all.

Fang Zheng, with nothing to do, came to a nearby mound, then casually picked up a shovel and began to dig up those mounds. Soon, some strange creatures appeared before him.

This was evidently the major discovery Professor Lake mentioned in the telegraph before. If Fang Zheng had to describe it, he would imagine placing a giant starfish at the mouth of a vase made of flesh, with five eyes at the end of the starfish’s tentacles. Octopus-like tentacles tightly adhered to the vase’s body, and in the middle of the pentagram-shaped head, a circular mouth full of sharp teeth was stuffed.

On the sides of the ”vase” body, there were a pair of wings.

Simply put, it was like a hybrid mixture of animal and plant. They were placed upright inside, seemingly buried... but who buried them...

”Nymph.”

Looking at the monsters in front of him, Fang Zheng raised an eyebrow.

”Yes, master.”

”Record the biological signals and conduct a full-scale search, find the ones that slipped through, and eliminate them. Ryoko, you go with her.”

”Understood.”

Upon hearing Fang Zheng’s command, Ryoko Asakura also smiled slightly, then turned and left with Nymph, while Fang Zheng stood there, leaning on the shovel, squinting at these now-dead creatures.

He knew what they were; from the memories he absorbed after killing Cthulhu, Fang Zheng had seen these creatures.

The Ancient One.

They were the first beings to come to Earth; one could even say they were Earth’s original masters. They controlled the Earth, built, developed, and grew here.

Until Cthulhu led the Star’s Retinue to come.

The two sides had a great battle—ahem, to Fang Zheng, it was just a weakling fight between ordinary alien races. In short, the final result was that neither could do anything to the other. After the stalemate, both sides shook hands and made peace; Cthulhu took the Star’s Retinue to the Pacific Ocean, while the Ancient Ones withdrew to Antarctica, with neither side contacting the other again.

Antarctica at the time wasn’t like now; it was pleasant year-round. However, the Ancient Ones clearly didn’t think there would be an Ice Age on Earth. When the cold winds roared, the temperatures dropped precipitously, and all things were frozen in ice and snow, the Ancient Ones also attempted to leave, but... a ridiculous thing happened.

Back then, the Ancient Ones, just like Cthulhu, could break through the atmosphere with their bodies and fly around the universe. However, after billions of years of decadent and corrupt life on Earth, their interstellar traveling abilities significantly degraded. By the time the Ancient Ones realized something was wrong and wanted to escape, they helplessly found that they couldn’t even exit Earth’s gravity sphere!

In the end, the Ancient Ones despairingly went extinct during the Ice Age.

Extinction caused by laziness and greed is a first, historically speaking.

Speaking of which, beings that could break through atmospheres and fly interstellar distances with their bodies, yet chose to nest comfortably on Earth, is beyond Fang Zheng’s comprehension.

Then again, differences in species, I suppose.

In fact, even without retrospection, Fang Zheng could guess what happened here. Those Ancient Ones went into hibernation underground when they encountered the Ice Age. Since their bodies could support these ancient creatures in interstellar travel, naturally they were extremely resilient. Even with degradation, a typical severe winter couldn’t kill them.

However, the hibernating Ancient Ones were unearthed by Professor Lake’s expedition team, who surely used some method to thaw them—yes, long story short, the ones that hadn’t died surely revived and then massacred the entire camp.

This was understandable; if Fang Zheng himself slept for a millennium and awoke to find a bunch of frogs wielding surgical knives circling him, he wouldn’t be polite either.

After all, to the Ancient Ones, what the hell were humans anyway? They’d never seen them before. In their time, humans weren’t even hominids yet.

Though the plight of the Ancient Ones deserves sympathy, Fang Zheng had no intention of sparing them. The era of the Ancient Ones had long ended; it was now humanity’s era. Once awakened, these Ancient Ones wouldn’t simply sit idly; they’d surely try to awaken their kin and reclaim their lost land... This was something Fang Zheng believed the Ancient Ones were capable of.

So, to avoid this situation from happening, Fang Zheng asked Nymph to find those scattered Ancient Ones and then have Ryoko Asakura take action... to eliminate them.

”Mr. Van Helsing.”

At this moment, Professor Mike walked over with a weary expression. He looked somewhat sorrowful and uneasy.

”Where is your assistant, miss?”

”They have some personal issues to handle... anything up?”

”No, nothing...”

Professor Mike shook his head, then touched his beard and looked at the hole dug at Fang Zheng’s feet. He looked at these creatures with a complicated expression and remained silent for a long time.

”Everyone...”

Only after a while did Mike finally speak.

”Everyone is very panicked... but we decided... to investigate thoroughly what’s going on. Also, a young man is missing; maybe we can find him and get some clues and information from him...”

”Haven’t you thought about leaving?”

Fang Zheng couldn’t help but ask. He really couldn’t understand why every scientist in horror stories is so stubborn, even when facing danger. Was this dilapidated camp, those bodies like torn towels, and the dissected corpse fragments not enough to convince these mere mortals to retreat?

Fang Zheng being a god might be one thing, but these people were just ordinary humans with no weapons. Where did they find such courage?

”Leave...”

Professor Mike muttered, then suddenly seemed taken aback.

”No, we can’t leave!”

”Why?”

”We’ve already lost so much, but precisely because of this, we have found something, haven’t we? Humanity yearns for the unknown! What we’ve discovered now—whether those specimens or these creatures—can overturn everything! Biology, geology, human history, evolution, everything will be overturned!”

At this point, Professor Mike’s face was flushed.

”We can’t end it just like this... at least not now. At least... at least, I must go to the place Professor Lake mentioned, see with my own eyes what that place truly is, and then...”

”..........”

Hearing this, Fang Zheng shrugged silently.

No way around it, like the saying goes, ”The sky wants to rain, the woman wants to marry.” If he’s seeking death, let him be.

While contemplating, Fang Zheng squinted his eyes and began to survey the entire camp once more. Quickly, time began to turn back before his eyes, and everything that had happened in the camp was presented before him. He saw how Professor Lake and his assistants excitedly dug up the Ancient Ones from ancient rock layers, how they dissected them, and how, at that moment, these Ancient Ones awoke and began attacking these ”two-legged monsters” in terror. The humans’ attacks were nearly meaningless against their bodies.

And they swung their tentacles, easily snapping people’s necks, tearing them into fragments. Then, these Ancient Ones seemed to calm down, starting to explore everywhere, rummaging through the camp’s items, looking for everything...

”—————!!”

Suddenly, at this moment, Fang Zheng felt a gaze.

A gaze that came across time, as if something perceived Fang Zheng’s observation of the past and was now looking back at him!

Who is it?!

Fang Zheng turned his head toward the direction of the gaze but only saw, among the towering mountains and in the depths of the time-sea, a huge shadow quietly emerged.

It looked like a wolf, like a dog, or like an indistinct silhouette. Its eyes were cold and gloomy, full of some unknown secret. It just stared at Fang Zheng, and Fang Zheng stared back. The two sides simply observed each other, as if at this moment, across the river of time, in the depths of the dark forest, the wolves and leopards faced each other across a stream.

No one spoke, nor did anyone say anything. They simply watched each other quietly, and after a moment, that shadow turned around, disappearing into the darkness of the sea of time.

And at this moment, Fang Zheng withdrew his gaze and looked at the world before him once again.

However, he knew very well that this was not the end.