Chapter 513: The Return of the Shadow

This tragedy had to do with the foreign civilization but what was the connection? Gu Jun sat on the chair in the corridor as he tried back to think back to that illusion. Many emotions wrestled in his mind. One thing was certain though, the foreign civilization had chosen a different path than the R'yleh cultists. They did not abandon their faith, nor did they join the Son of Misfortune, instead, they instilled greater faith into the real Goddess of Life, the Lord of the Woods. 

The Goddess of Life is Shub-Niggurath and Shub-Niggurath is the Goddess of Life. Is that really the case?

Gu Jun was silent. He knew that the Carlot Doctor had to make 'sacrifices' to gain power from the Goddess of Life. Carlot Doctors sacrificed themselves to save others, it was why they were so respected. Did the doctors know from the beginning that the Goddess of Life was not a force of light but… a purified version of the Black Goat of the Woods? 

From the illusion, Gu Jun believed that was the case. The black-robed individual implied that it was the Carlot Doctor who placed a false image over the actual Goddess of Life so that the faith of the common people would not empower the power of darkness to bear horrible fruits. The Carlot Academy's actual research was how to cleanse and control the power given by the Goddess of Life. This secret perhaps was known to all members of Carlot Academy or perhaps it was only knowledgeable to a few selected ones. Haemoptysis, Necroskins… 

Gu Jun closed his eyes and gave out a breath. The two threats that he had not considered for a long time now returned again. The earliest appearance of Necroskin at Phecda World was at the forest north of Eastern State; there was a suspected banyan tree channel there. When it was discovered, it had already collapsed. At the time, they believed that it was the Afterlife Cult who summoned the Necroskin from the foreign world. However, the Afterlife Cult was too weak so the Necroskin they summoned was lacking in intelligence, a pale facsimile of the real thing. After that, no more was heard of the Necroskin again. And now a Black Billy Goat had appeared at the same spot. 'The Necroskin… are they a race that worships the Black Goat of the Woods?' Gu Jun had no idea. 

With regards to Necroskin's history at the foreign world, he only had a glimpse of it at the House of Nightmare through Mr. Chandler's dreams. He seemed to witness Mr. Chandler participate in an organization related to the zombies to create Necroskins… Create Necroskins… How?

Zombies were mutated from humans.

Deep Ones were mutated from humans.

Could the Necroskins be mutated from foreign humans?

Mutation, evolution, DNA coding… Coding the DNA of newborns to create… The thoughts bounced in his mind. Gu Jun stood up with his eyes wide open. He stared at the abnormal babies through the glass window. Wu Siyu, Yu Chi, Feng Pengqian beside him turned to look the same way.

"Captain Gu, do you have any idea about what's happening?" Even though Yu Chi knew he shouldn't interrupt, he couldn't help himself. 

"Captain Yu, that split cross, you mentioned that it might be symbolic." Gu Jun gave his thoughts. "There are more than 4 worlds, there are more variations of Earth. The Foundation and the City of Dusk have basically confirmed that. I'm now wondering if the foreign world is another version of Earth as well…" 

Mysterium did not know about the foreign world but after the formation of the PM Agency, they read about it in files. 

"Another version of Earth?" Yu Chi's interest was piqued. To be honest, this speculation had been circulating. What dimension did the foreign world inhabit and what kind of planet was it? Phecda had done many analyses on it. The data they collected in the abnormal space surrounded by tall walls showed that the gravity and air composition were all similar to Earth. Due to these similarities, the organisms appeared to have undergone the same evolutionary route. Gu Jun knew the foreign people survived on oxygen, were mammals and could use medicine invented by homo sapiens. In fact, the biological structures of these two species weren't that different. They just had different facial features but the difference between them was even less than the difference between homo sapiens and chimps. In fact, the difference might be smaller than the DNA difference between Caucasian and Asians. 

"The difference is decided by the competition in prehistoric time?" Yu Chi suggested, from an archaeological perspective. "What if it was not the homo sapiens but the Neanderthal who won? Or what if it's another race altogether? History has endless possibilities. If the first batch of homo sapiens that left Africa ran into a pack of beasts and all died…" 

Hearing that, Gu Jun was reminded of the information from his old system. There was a host information that stated, Human: Homo sapiens. Does that mean there are other versions of humans? Like the foreign humans? If the foreign world was another Earth, one whose evolutionary tract was different since prehistoric times… Gu Jun's heart sank. 'Are both Phecda World and Mysterium World both under the control of the Black Goat of the Woods? They had chosen Shub-Niggurath to resist the chaos of Nyarlathothep…'

In the foreign world, be it the false Goddess of Life, or the real Goddess of Life, the Necroskins, the black goat worshippers, they were all related to Shub-Nigguraths. They were all children of the Black Goat of the Woods. There was already a connection between Phecda World and the Foreign World thanks to Afterlife Cult and Son of Misfortune. And now due to the choice that they made… the connection was stronger. 

Could that be the reason why the lives from foreign worlds had projected their way into Phecda and Mysterium Worlds through these newborns? Was this happening naturally or something was instigating it? Gu Jun frowned as he studied the baby boy of negative selection…

With each abnormal baby, would the connection between two worlds be stronger? That world was a ruined world, a world dominated by the Black Goat of the Woods. 

A series of crying shattered Gu Jun's thoughts. Another batch of abnormal babies was transferred over. There were 18 babies transferred from hospitals all over Eastern State. Each of them occupied an incubator. To help identification and management, each incubator was labelled differently. 3 positive selection, 5 negative selection, 10 stabilizing selection. Gu Jun and Yu Chi walked towards the new arrivals. Before he even reached them, the familiarity returned to Gu Jun. His eyes focused on the 5 negative selection incubators. Two of the babies evoked familiarity in him. And so far, all those that he felt familiar with were negative selections…