In the 1970s, the golden age of infrastructure in the United States ca to an end. Since then, the country’s construction speed had declined year by year, and in many cases, it had simply been relying on the legacy of the past.
As a result, even the city of Radyard—which had suffered a zombie outbreak—had already been bombed two years ago, yet there were still only two flight routes from Dwight State to New Osebuch State: “Sunken → Gilosha → Concord” and “Sunken → Gegha → Concord.”
Two months earlier, when Everly returned ho from school, she had taken the latter route.
At that ti, Gegha City was still in a relatively stable period after the end of the so-called “Ten Plagues,” with no major incidents occurring. While waiting for her connecting flight, Everly had even taken the opportunity to visit an art exhibition in the city and seen the famous painting ‘Sea Demon Under the Moon’.
But just one sumr later, the situation in Gegha City had taken a sharp turn for the worse—there had been a series of murders.
The first case occurred in mid-July in the suburbs of Gegha City. A resident out for morning exercise accidentally discovered the body of a young girl who had been brutally murdered, lying in the roadside grass.
The girl had gone missing three days earlier. Based on traces in her apartnt, the police concluded that she had likely been abducted after a forced break-in. The kidnapper never contacted her family to demand ransom, and there was no evidence of any enemies in her social networks.
While the police were still investigating the disappearance, the girl had already turned up as a corpse.
When she was discovered, her body was covered in severe injuries. According to the forensic report, the killer had s*xually ass**lted her while she was still alive, then brutally mutilated her by removing her left breast and stabbing her repeatedly dozens of tis with a dagger, causing her to bleed to death.
Because the manner of death closely resembled the notorious “Gegha Ripper” serial murder cases that had caused widespread panic in the 1980s, the news imdiately sent the entire city of Gegha into an uproar.
Police received the report and rushed to the scene at once, dedicating substantial manpower to the investigation.
However, all four suspects from the original “Gegha Ripper” case had already been caught. One was still serving a prison sentence, while the remaining three had been executed by lethal injection. None of them could possibly have reoffended.
As a result, the police suspected it was a copycat cri.
Just as the Gegha police were conducting intensive investigations, another murder occurred.
The victim was again a young woman, and the thod of killing was identical to the previous case. The only difference was that this ti, the body had been dumped right at the entrance of a police station.
It was clear: the killer was openly challenging the police.
In response, the Gegha police got angry—very angry. After calming down, they held a press conference and confidently told the dia and the public that they already had leads on the suspect and would solve the case within three days. Citizens were urged to remain calm.
After the press conference, the Gegha police launched a rapid crackdown and, within two days, arrested a holess man wandering the streets.
The day after the police had grandly announced that they had caught the culprit, a new victim was discovered.
Ironically, the third female body was found not sowhere remote—but right inside the banquet hall where the press conference had been held.
It was clear the killer was escalating his provocation against the police again and again.
The Gegha police were thoroughly humiliated.
More than a month passed. By then, the serial killer known as the “New Gegha Ripper” had still not been captured. The entire city of Gegha lived in a constant state of fear—every three or four days, another body would be discovered. By the ti Everly checked the news, a total of eleven people had already died. anwhile, the police were still being completely toyed with by the killer, with no aningful progress in the investigation.
Everly didn’t know what the situation would be like by the ti she and Misha actually arrived in Gegha by plane. If possible, she didn’t want to gamble on it.
This wasn’t just a simple serial murder case.
According to the information she found, the original “Gegha Ripper” in history had been a group of four S*tanist cultists. The reason they targeted young won and removed their left breasts was to complete a dark sacrificial ritual.
The exact details of the ritual were never made public, but it was likely one of those horror-movie clichés: offering the flesh and blood of young girls as a gift to S*tan in exchange for supernatural power, or to summon so evil demon.
In any case, the ritual had never succeeded.
During the murder of their sixth victim, the four cultists made a mistake. The sixth girl, despite being stabbed multiple tis and having her breast mutilated, was still barely alive. After the killers disposed of her “body” and left, she dragged herself, covered in wounds, to the roadside and called for help, providing key clues that led to the police arresting the perpetrators.
As for the current string of killings… if the Gegha police continued to be as useless as they were now, Everly seriously suspected that the situation might drag on long enough for the ritual to actually be completed one day.
The known number of deaths was now 11. If two more people were killed, the total would reach 13.
In Western culture, 13 is widely regarded as an ominous number:
Judas, the betrayer, is often considered the 13th participant;
Folklore says witches gather on the 13th of each month, and the 13th attendee is said to be the incarnation of S*tan;
When 13 aligns with Friday, it becos “Black Friday,” a mont when the power of S*tan is believed to reach its peak…
From this, Everly ford a hypothesis: the number of won required for the ritual might very well be 13.
On a certain Friday, the S*tanist cultists would kill the 13th woman, then offer all collected sacrifices to S*tan to complete the ritual—and then… what would happen after that, she didn’t know. But it would undoubtedly be far worse than an ordinary murder case.
Everly didn’t want to take that risk, so she turned her attention to Gilosha instead.
That place was not peaceful either.
Before sumr vacation began, a Winton tribesman nad Quilla told Everly that Gilosha Beach had suddenly washed up with a large number of dead fish, along with the remains of a massive and horrifying sea monster.
The dead fish appeared to be carrying so kind of contamination. Anyone who approached or ca into contact with the beach developed symptoms within days—headaches, diarrhea, skin spots, and severe nosebleeds. Worse still, when the outbreak first occurred, it was peak sumr, and large crowds of tourists were gathered along the coast. The illness also appeared to be transmissible between people. As a result, within a short ti, nearly one-third of Gilosha City’s population had fallen sick.
Hospitals and pharmacies were overwheld by waves of patients, placing severe strain on the already fragile dical system. Seeing this, healthy residents began fleeing the city en masse by car, afraid they would be next. Opportunists took advantage of the chaos to loot stores, smash shopfronts, and steal property.
Before long, Gilosha City had fallen into near-total paralysis.
Compared with the obscure Radyard City, Gilosha was a port city and an important transportation hub on the west coast of the United States. If sothing went wrong here, the entire national economy would be affected.
As a result, the federal governnt reacted unusually quickly this ti.
On the third day of the so-called “infectious disease” outbreak, major entry and exit points of Gilosha were sealed off by deployed soldiers, and the entire city was placed under martial law, prohibiting anyone from entering or leaving freely.
On the fourth day, large numbers of doctors, volunteers, virology experts, and researchers arrived in Gilosha by sea, land, and air, joining efforts to treat the patients and investigate the cause of the disease.
Through the joint efforts of experts from multiple fields, it was quickly discovered that the strange illness was not caused by any virus as initially assud—but by nuclear radiation.
And if it was radiation, there had to be a source.
Attention soon turned to the dead fish and the sea monster that had washed up on the shore. Samples were collected and sent to laboratories for testing, and as expected, the radiation levels in these marine carcasses far exceeded safety limits.
But sothing was strange: the dead fish only washed ashore for five or six days, and then stopped appearing entirely. In order to contain the so-called “virus,” the city governnt had already dispatched hazmat teams to clear the shoreline, burning all of the dead fish.
Logically speaking, once the radiation source was removed and people had undergone decontamination and partial dical treatnt, their condition should have improved. However, regardless of what treatnt doctors attempted, the citizens’ symptoms not only failed to ease—they actually grew progressively worse over ti.
That made no scientific sense.
Unlike the overwheld dical teams, the investigation unit assigned to uncover the cause of the incident made rapid progress.
The fish that had washed ashore were all ordinary species—they did not naturally produce nuclear radiation. So where had the radiation co from?
With this key question finally identified, the investigation team activated a “summoning technique” of sorts and brought in oceanographers and marine biologists from outside the region to assist.
The oceanographers analyzed ocean current patterns, while the biologists collected samples of several fish that had washed ashore, carefully tracing their habitats and migration ranges. Through close collaboration, within a few days they had narrowed the source down to a specific area northwest of Gilosha.
If nothing was wrong with the analysis, then the radioactive fish had indeed originated from that sea region.
By the ti this conclusion was reached, it had already been one full month since the outbreak of the strange “infectious disease” in Gilosha.
During this period, despite the dical teams following treatnt protocols without obvious errors, patients continued to deteriorate day by day. Not only had no one recovered, but several critically ill patients had already died. With no hope in sight and no way to leave the city, tensions between patients, dical staff, ordinary citizens, and the governnt grew increasingly severe. Violent clashes occurred from ti to ti.
In order to calm public panic and prevent further bloodshed, the investigation team was forced to hold a press conference and publicly announce in advance that the radiation source originated from the ocean.
Imdiately, all sectors of society turned their attention to that sea area.
The continental shelf around Gilosha was relatively narrow, in so places less than one kiloter wide. Beyond the shelf, the ocean depth dropped sharply—so sharply that satellite images showed the water color shifting rapidly from light blue to deep blue.
The batch of radioactive dead fish had been carried by ocean currents from deep sea beyond the continental shelf toward the shore.
That sea region lay about 40 kiloters northwest of Gilosha, in international waters. On the map, it looked completely unremarkable.
So what made it special? Why there?
While most people were still confused, a 90-year-old retired soldier ca across the press conference and contacted reporters.
The old man had once served on a warship on the West Coast. With cloudy eyes, he told the reporter that after World War II, the U.S. governnt had dumped nuclear waste into that very sea area.
“I rember it was 1946. The governnt had just completed the first atomic bomb test. Not long after that, our warship received a secret mission—we were ordered to dump over a hundred tal barrels filled with radioactive waste into the sea. If I’m not mistaken, the place where we disposed of the nuclear waste was that very strange sea area.”
In front of the cara, the elderly veteran trembled all over, his face filled with fear.
The reporter interviewing him sharply caught a key detail and pressed further: “You said that sea area was strange?”
“Yes… it was a very unusual ocean region. No matter what the weather was like outside, there was always a thin layer of fog covering it. Whenever a ship entered that fog, the compass would suddenly malfunction, radio communications would be filled with static, and sotis we could even hear strange crying and screaming voices through the intercom. There were so many bizarre incidents that anyone who knew about that sea area would deliberately stay far away from it. Perhaps that’s exactly why higher-ups chose it as the dumping site for nuclear waste…”
The interview was quickly banned by the U.S. governnt. But while authorities could control the dia, they couldn’t control bored internet users.
The veteran’s story was too bizarre. Not only the official investigation teams, but even so capable individuals in the private sector began turning their attention toward that sea region.
Why was it so special, always shrouded in fog? In the depths of the ocean, aside from the dumped nuclear waste, were there other secrets hidden? Why did such a severe nuclear radiation disaster not occur earlier or later, but only erge seventy years later?
The answer was clearly hidden in that sea.
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