Shrouded Seascape-Chapter 1145. Transformation

The two Annas stared at their doppelganger that had ascended to godhood. They clenched their teeth and struggled to get on their feet.

However, in the face of the writhing tentacles, even the simple act of standing felt like an impossible feat.

God Anna didn't spare them a glance. For her, they were nothing more than insects. Her eyes were set on the entirety of mankind on this world.

The black meteors had already crashed to the ground. Anything they came into contact with was erased from existence. Everything that made contact with them crumbled into nothingness, and the world was teetering on the edge of annihilation.

The ground ruptured and split apart. From the chasms, foul-smelling, dark green seawater surged upward and flooded the land.

By the side, Jackal's eyes suddenly widened in wild ecstasy. He pointed at the encroaching waters and screamed hysterically, "Look! God Fhtagn has arrived in the waters. The Great Fhtagn has come to save us!"

Of course, Anna knew who Jackal was referring to. Her heart clenched.

If the seawater from the Subterranean Sea is pouring into the surface world, does that mean Charles is here, too?

However, when she turned her gaze toward the water, the flicker of hope within her withered away. The waters were pitch black; there was nothing. It had just been another hallucination on Jackal's part.

Jackal had always claimed that any body of water contained one of Charles' branches. Unfortunately, hallucinations were merely hallucinations.

"Look! Our omniscient, omnipotent God has finally arrived!" Jackal shouted. He was delirious with madness in their current desperate state. His eyes were bloodshot as he pointed a trembling finger at the waters.

A tentacle lashed out from Dioite Anna and coiled around Jackal. Accompanied by the crack of breaking bones, she dragged Jackal close to her.

"How many times do I have to tell you? It's just an illusion! A hallucination! That guy had forgotten about us long ago!"

At that moment, Anna's face was so close to Jackal's that she could see the reflection in his eyes.

However, she couldn't see her reflection. The only thing she saw was a writhing tendril of blood and flesh.

Reflection?

A strange thought suddenly rang in Anna's mind. The next second, she moved like a mad woman and ripped the skin from Jackal's scalp before prying open his skull.

Amid the gray and white brain matter, both Annas saw the fleshy branch. It was a part of Charles that he had left behind.

In that instant, everything suddenly made sense. She finally knew why Jackal had been claiming that he could see Charles' branch in just about any body of water.

It was all because those were really reflections, and the actual branch was buried in Jackal's brain all along.

"So... this is your contingency plan? Your parting gift for me?" The two Annas spoke in unison at the bloodied branch.

The bloodied branch of flesh didn't sprout any vocal organs. It merely swelled and grew. It rapidly expanded and devoured Jackal's corpse. And then it was Anna.

Everything was lacking in this place, but corpses were in abundance. While the branch hungrily feasted, the towering tsunami from afar was drawing close.

The dark green seawater crashed down, drowning everything in its path, burying the world in its depths.

As soon as it came, the waters churned and surged before a massive, mountainous bulge surged upward and breached the ocean's surface.

A deafening explosion rang out as a colossal tree of flesh rose from the depths of the waters and pierced into the skies.

Its trunk was covered with inverted limbs and exposed organs, while its canopy was lined with eyes with yellow cross-shaped pupils.

Those eyes opened in unison and locked onto a single target in the distance—God Anna.

No words were exchanged. Both sides collided at blinding speed.

Neither wielded their most familiar ability—mind manipulation. They knew themselves too well. Their usual reality-warping tricks had no power here.

Flesh intertwined with limbs; shriveled eyeballs were gouged out and rained down on the ocean below.

As they wrestled with each other, their two worlds blurred and blended into one. Their consciousness encroached on and stacked on each other.

They began to understand. Anna saw Gao Zhiming's death and felt that same grief. An unbearable clarity showered upon her. She now understood why the other Anna had done what she did, and her feelings made her feel conflicted.

As the wrestle of consciousness intensified, the world, teetering on the edge of breaking down, began to go completely out of control.

The earth cracked open, and verdant lands bursting with life became endless deserts as well as frozen wastelands. Each scene flickered like slides in a broken projector.

Ruptures appeared in time and space. Time would accelerate and then suddenly reel backward the next moment. Objects lost their figures; nothing could maintain their forms. Nothing remained real.

At this moment, their beliefs or emotions no longer mattered. The only thing that remained was the raw will behind their power.

Finally, the battle reached its zenith.

Just then, everything collapsed into a single, blinding singularity. An unknown amount of time later, the singularity exploded.

Anna gasped awake to find herself sprawled atop a mountain of corpses. She spotted all kinds of bodies around her, including her own Dioite body.

As soon as her eyes snapped open, she scanned her surroundings in search of God Anna. However, she saw not even a trace of the black, molten tar.

There wasn't any black meteor shower, and there wasn't any sickly green seawater bleeding from the cracks in the ground. There weren't any traces of God Anna as well.

Everything had returned to the way it was. The distant mountain that had splintered was back as well. It was now whole again.

Anna felt that something was off. There seemed to be something different about her memory and personality. Then, realization dawned upon her.

The others hadn't vanished. They were her. She was them. The three Annas had completely merged to become one.

And it wasn't just that. Everything was gone. Be it the cursed blessings from Fhtagn, the corrosive flame of the Primordial Fire, or the Anomalies she had absorbed. All of it had vanished.

Even her age and appearance had regressed. Now, she looked like a fourteen-year-old girl, an ordinary human.

Anna's long lashes fluttered slightly as she lifted her small, fair hands to her face. Her lips curled into a bitter smile.

"Charles, so is this your solution? To turn me back into a human?"

Something suddenly stirred in the distant pile of corpses. The IMF survivors crawled out. Olivia dragged a wounded Li Lu out of the carnage.

The forces on both sides exchanged glances, but no one said a word.

Days passed, and the surface world remained embroiled in chaos. No one truly knew what had happened or what was happening.

Everyone moved with blatant ignorance, keeping themselves busy with their affairs. Like the hunting instinct of wild beasts, they were fueled by self-interest and fought to maximize their benefits.

When news spread that the IMF had mysteriously vanished, a couple of factions acted. They took control of the military and toppled regimes.

Just as they attempted to wrestle for more power, every screen flickered.

Every signal was hijacked.

All of them showed the same feed.

A woman was on her knees with her head bowed low. She was covered in wounds, looking mangled and bloodied. Clearly, she was subjected to brutal torture.

Just as the world was trying to guess the identity of the woman, a hand seized her by the hair and yanked her head up. The woman was 315, Anna.

The woman who had led their resistance against the IMF had ended up getting captured by the IMF.

"No way! I heard that her faction was expanding rapidly, and they even managed to raid the IMF HQ and escape unscathed. How could she get caught?"

"That must be a fake! I've interacted with her! The real 315 is so powerful. The besieged IMF couldn't possibly defeat her!"

"Oh God... if even she can't win against the IMF, then I..."

"No! I must go rescue her. At such a critical moment, nothing must happen to her!"

However, none of those thoughts mattered.

A deep, male voice suddenly crackled through the screen.

"Everyone, take a good look. This is your 315, the instigator of this rebellion. The visionary leader of a bunch of fools."

A wide-bore handgun was then raised, and under the watchful gaze of billions across the planet, the barrel pressed against Anna's temple.

Bang!

A gunshot echoed through every screen, and almost every single living person in the world instinctively shot to their feet at the sight of it.

Her delicate head exploded like a shattered watermelon. The bullet tore through her skull. Blood splattered. Her skull peeled off with a sickening tug as the hand lifted what remained of her scalp for the world to see.

The camera panned upward to show the grotesque mountain of corpses behind Anna's body. They were the dead Fhtagnists.

Some viewers recognized them. These were once her loyal followers, but now, they were all dead.

The same voice returned. "Look around you. Look at those who died in this war. Is this truly what you want?

"You keep saying that the IMF is oppressing you, but have any of you ever stopped to think about why we do what we do? Because this is our mission! The IMF is the will of humanity. We exist to protect all of mankind!

"Our home—this world we live in—is beautiful, but just as fragile. Just this year alone, in your attempts to strike at us and purge your so-called enemies, you've unleashed sixteen Anomalies of the highest threat level, EtzhaChayi.

"Sixteen. And not to mention the nuclear weapons you've stolen from national armories and detonated.

"If this continues, our world will be utterly destroyed! There are no victors in war. We are all losers. Ask yourself, is this truly what you want?"

Silence fell. Across continents, no one spoke a single word.

"We acknowledge that the IMF's past foreign strategies were too aggressive. We admit our mistake and are willing to step back. We're open to dialogue. But this chaos cannot go on!

"You know where to find us. If you agree, send a representative. If you don't..."

The camera sharply cut back to Anna's mangled corpse. The speaker's voice now dripped with uncompromising resolve.

"Then this will be your fate! Anyone who threatens the stability of mankind will be treated as an enemy of the IMF!"