Journey Through Dimensional Worlds

Chapter 26 Meeting

Funeral home base.

The dim yellow light shone down from the dome.

Gai Tsutsugami leaned back in an old chair, his right leg in a splint resting on an ammunition box, a portable terminal in his hand.

A frame was frozen on the screen: the moment He Quan's fist smashed into the frontal armor of the Ultimate Roar, the pure white machine collapsed inward from the chest like a crushed soda can.

The entire base was so quiet that only the hum of the cooling fans could be heard.

The members who infiltrated Tianwangzhou Middle School turned on their recording equipment the moment GHQ surrounded the school. The footage was handheld and somewhat shaky, but clear enough.

From the broadcasts in the booing world to Daryl's announcement, to the final roar descending upon the playground. Then He Quan walked out of the teaching building, holding Yuzuriha Inori's hand. Finally, a punch.

This war machine was smashed into scrap metal by one man's fist.

Argo sat atop the ammunition box, his right leg bandaged from knee to ankle. The dagger hovered between his fingers, untouched.

Quartz pushed up his glasses: "From the moment He Quan appeared directly in front of Ultimate Roar to the moment the mech completely lost its ability to move, less than 0.5 seconds passed. The fist pierced through the front armor and tore through the internal structure."

His voice was low, as if he were reciting an investigative report he was reluctant to believe: "This is not a power that humans can possess."

"He didn't kill us when we broke into his apartment..."

When those words landed, it felt as if a layer of air had been sucked out of the base.

It wasn't because He Quan was kind; it was because he simply didn't care.

People won't stop to check if a few branches blocking their path are dead just because they've broken them.

Gai Tsutsugami put down the terminal.

He knew He Quan was strong, but he didn't expect He Quan to be able to destroy an Ultimate Roar machine with a single punch.

The Apocalypse Virus slowly spread within him. From the day of infection, Inori Yuzuriha's blood was the only inhibitor that could stop the crystallization.

Yuzuriha Inori is currently with He Quan.

Gai Tsutsugami withdrew his gaze, looked down at his right leg wrapped in bandages, and tightened his fingers slightly on his knee.

"Ya." The voice of the quarter instrument came from the side.

"I'm fine," Gai Tsutsugami said.

The terminal suddenly started vibrating.

A new intelligence report simultaneously flooded in from the information nodes that the funeral home had deployed around GHQ.

Quartz was the first to finish looking at it, and then his expression changed.

"White Blood Cells. GHQ's orbital attack system deployed in low Earth orbit." His voice was low: "Just now, three White Blood Cells were physically destroyed almost simultaneously, and debris has fallen into the atmosphere."

In the brief silence, Argo's dagger finally slipped from between his fingers and struck the concrete floor with a crisp sound, like something breaking.

Immediately afterwards, another piece of intelligence jumped in.

GHQ issues a public apology. Major Baluz Makoto of the Antibody Squad issues an apology statement on behalf of GHQ to all teachers and students of Tennozu Middle School.

They acknowledged that there were significant errors in the intelligence, that Yuzuriha Inori was not a terrorist, and that all surrounding troops had been withdrawn.

The two intelligence reports were exchanged within minutes of each other.

Three space-based weapons were destroyed, and then GHQ apologized.

"It's He Quan." Yagami's voice was hoarse.

Quartz did not respond.

Less than 15 minutes passed between the GHQ surrounding the school and issuing a public apology.

He Quan shattered the Ultimate Roar with a single punch.

GHQ's three space-based weapons were destroyed, and then GHQ apologized.

Gai Tsutsugami leaned back in his chair.

A broken leg requires a considerable amount of time to recover.

Yuzuriha Inori is with He Quan; he needs Yuzuriha Inori's blood to suppress the virus.

The Void Genome is with He Quan, and there's absolutely no hope of getting it back.

Thinking of all this, he closed his eyes.

"What do we do next?" Da Yun's voice came from the weapons box.

No one answered.

Gai Tsutsugami also fell into deep thought.

......

At the same time, in the emergency meeting room of the United Nations.

The air was so heavy you could wring water out of it.

On the projection screen, images of the wreckage of the White Blood Star, the dogs with fragments of their uniforms hanging from them in the GHQ command vehicle, and a profile photo of He Quan appeared alternately.

The elderly man, seated at the head of the table, slowly began to speak: "Gentlemen, what we are witnessing is not a military conflict, but a... cognitive upheaval. I need your most rational assessment based on the existing boundaries of science."

After a brief silence, a biologist took off his glasses and pointed to the strange photograph of a "dog," his voice trembling slightly:

"Gentlemen, we are not dealing with shapeshifting or disguise. According to intelligence, the soldiers are being reconstructed into canine creatures in an instant. This means that in an extremely short time, the DNA sequence of approximately 200 trillion cells in their entire bodies is precisely edited, their skeletal structure is reorganized, and their nervous system is completely remodeled. Even the most advanced CRISPR gene-editing technology takes several hours to modify a single gene site, and has an extremely high error rate. The goal, however, is to rewrite the entire genome instantly and without error."

He took a deep breath and pointed to the human-like terror in the dog's eyes: "What's even more against the rules is that it retained human consciousness and memory. A brain of a large class with only about 1.6 million neurons could never possibly contain complex human-level thinking. It's like trying to cram the entire Library of Congress's information onto a floppy disk—it's impossible in both physics and logic. The only explanation is that it didn't 'change' the life form, but rather... rewrote the rules of life itself."

Another physicist chimed in.

"That's not all. The three white blood cells deployed in near-Earth orbit were physically destroyed. We analyzed the debris; there were no traces of explosions or ablation from energy weapons. It was an impact. He smashed through three titanium-armored space-based weapons with his body."

He pulled up a set of data.

"The last images captured by the white blood cell tracking system before the impact showed that the target object was traveling at more than fifty times the speed of sound. At that speed, a human body would instantly vaporize due to the high temperature generated by air friction. He didn't. He crashed through three white blood cells and emerged unscathed."

He glanced around the conference room.

"If it were merely high-speed flight, we could assume he possessed some unknown propulsion method. But the fact that he collided head-on with titanium alloy armor at over fifty times the speed of sound and remained intact means that his body's strength exceeds the limits of any known material. The impact force his body can withstand is enough to tear apart any material on Earth, and he himself remains unharmed."

"Based on the results, although this creature has the same appearance as a human, it may just be a biological disguise."

A sociologist spoke up.

Regarding his behavior at school—

He pulled up several screenshots: the Tianwangzhou Middle School forum, secretly taken photos, and posts from female students: "He wasn't deliberately hiding anything. On the contrary, he was enjoying the attention. He chose the profession of physical education teacher, which requires frequent physical contact with students, and within a week, he became the most popular person in the entire school."

"This isn't lurking; it's like a human visiting a zoo wanting to reach out and pet the most beautiful animal. He's enjoying our world. Today he enjoys being a teacher, but what if he finds being a king more interesting tomorrow?"

The group engaged in a heated discussion.

Finally, an elderly man of high rank and power put down his pen.

"In summary, he possesses the ability to rewrite biological genes, has physical strength surpassing any known material, can fly at supersonic speeds, can destroy space-based weapons with his bare hands, and can turn people into dogs at will. Do we have any means to deal with him?"

The physicist shook his head. "Sir, there is currently no weapon system on Earth that can effectively harm him."

The biologist added, "His gene-rewriting ability has no observable process. This means our defense systems are completely ineffective against him. He doesn't need to break through defenses; he is an entity that defenses cannot intercept."

The sociologist spoke last: "What's more dangerous is that we don't know how much more he has untapped potential. The behavioral logic of someone who enjoys working as a high school gym teacher cannot be predicted using any model of human societal motivation. What if he finds teaching fun today, but tomorrow he finds destroying the world even more fun?"

The elderly man at the end of the long table, a man of high rank and influence, remained silent for a long time. Finally, in a hoarse voice, he announced the resolution, a resolution filled with a sense of powerlessness: "First, immediately withdraw all surveillance and investigation operations targeting 'He Quan,' assessing the risk level as 'untouchable.' Second, designate Tianwangzhou Middle School and its surrounding area as an absolutely neutral zone, where no military unit is permitted to enter. Third, send a clear signal through GHQ: we will absolutely not interfere with any of his actions within the school."

"Fourth, only a very small number of unarmed observers who have undergone rigorous psychological evaluation may be stationed. The only instruction is to observe, not to contact, not to interfere, and not to cause any possible misunderstandings."

He paused, then uttered the most crucial instruction: "Our ultimate goal is singular: to ensure that no one, nothing, gives him a reason to 'not want to be a PE teacher anymore.'"

No one objected on either side of the long table.

This is not a compromise; it is a rational choice made after recognizing the absolute power disparity.

(End of this chapter)