Chapter 9: The Prophet

Jason wasn’t following now , he is now hunting.

He followed the scent trail through the maze of the second floor. It was a strong mix of ammonia and fear sweat that cut through the sterile air, guiding him past four empty rooms to the fifth door.

He’s here.

Jason kicked the door in.

There, Calvin was cornered. He gasped, turning just as Jason lunged in.

Jason grabbed Calvin’s arm. He went for a standard military takedown: grab the wrist, twist the arm, and drop his weight into a horse stance to pin the man. It was a textbook move. On Earth, it would have slammed Calvin into the floor instantly.

But Jason made a mistake. He relied on muscle memory from a 1G world.

On the Moon, Jason weighed almost nothing. He had no friction. When he tried to drop his weight, there was no weight to drop. Calvin, who had lived in this gravity for five years, was as slippery as an eel.

Using the lack of gravity to his advantage, Calvin twisted his body hard. The spin didn’t break the Jason’s grip, but it threw the soldier off balance, sending him floating sideways into the wall.

Damn it ,Jason cursed, stumbling as he hit the bulkhead, Forget the Earth and adapt already! .

Calvin scrambled for the door, his eyes wide with panic. “I told you! Five minutes!”

Jason didn’t try to run this time. He crouched, coiled his legs like springs, and kicked off the wall.

BOOM.

He closed the distance instantly. He wasn’t going for the grapple this time; he became a missile. He slammed into Calvin’s back mid-air, the momentum driving them both into the floor with crushing force.

There was no mistake this time. Jason grabbed Calvin’s right arm and yanked it up while driving a knee into his spine.

SNAP.

“ARGHHH!”

Calvin screamed, a raw sound of agony as his shoulder popped out of its socket. He tried to struggle, but Jason twisted the other arm.

Snap.

Both arms dangled uselessly like sponges.

Jason ignored the screaming. He snatched the black box from Calvin’s limp hand, the detonator. He pinned the cultist to the floor, his forearm against Calvin’s throat.

“The code!” Jason roared, jamming his gun barrel against Calvin’s head. “Give me the disarm code, Calvin! I won according to your rules!”

Calvin was breathing fast, beads of sweat the size of soybeans rolling down his forehead. But as he looked up at Jason, the pain in his eyes turned into a terrifying, manic joy.

“Amazing…” Calvin wheezed, seeming to forget the pain. “Truly amazing. You found me.”

“The code! Or I will break your legs next!”

Calvin started to laugh. It was a wet, bubbling sound. “I lied, Jason , I lied. There is no code. There is no bomb.”

He nodded toward the black box with his chin. “Press it.”

Jason froze. He looked at the device. It had a digital screen and a red button. If this was a lie within a lie, pressing it would kill twenty thousand people.

“Press it!” Calvin shrieked, his laughter turning into hysteria. “See what happens!”

Jason gritted his teeth. He pressed the button.

The device lit up. But instead of a countdown, a tiny speaker crackled. A cheerful, electronic melody began to play.

“Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star…”

It was a toy. A music box, playing nursery rhymes.

Rage flared in Jason’s chest. He punched Calvin in the face.

THUD.

Blood sprayed across the floor. Calvin’s nose shattered, but he didn’t stop laughing. The pain seemed to wake him up, replacing his hysteria with a strange, obsessed clarity.

“Does it look like a game to you, Calvin”

“That’s twenty thousand people ”

Beep-beep.

Suddenly Jason’s radio crackled.

“Captain? Do you copy?” It was Austin.

“I have Calvin,” Jason said, his voice heavy, twisting Calvin’s arm to keep him down. “What’s the situation in the lobby?”

“Sir… it’s strange,” Austin said, his tone confused. “We didn’t find any bombs. And the rebels… they aren’t fighting at all instead they all surrendered.”

“Surrendered?”

“They just dropped their weapons,” Austin said, hesitating. “They seem… waiting. It’s weird, Sir. Just get down here.”

Jason frowned. The remote was fake. The rebels surrendered without a shot. This wasn’t a siege; it looks like stage play.

He looked down at Calvin. The madman was staring at him with total worship.

“You… Captain Jason,” Calvin rasped, spitting blood. “Do you believe in prophecy?”

“Shut up,” Jason growled, hauling him to his feet.

“I’m not lying,” Calvin said, stumbling as Jason shoved him toward the door. “Since I was a child, I saw fragments of the future. The bigger the event, the clearer the vision. Ten years ago, I saw the fire. I saw Earth die.”

Jason paused. He knew the file. Calvin had founded the ’Void Cult’ and it looks as if he predicted the apocalypse.

“I tried to save them,” Calvin whispered, his eyes burning with intensity. “I built the Cult to gather resources. I planned to build a spaceship on Earth. I wanted to build an Ark.”

“But the vision changed. I saw that even if we built the ship, we wouldn’t survive in deep space. We would just die slowly in the dark.”

Calvin looked up at the ceiling, toward the surface.

“That’s when I saw the only path. The Moon. The government had already built the Ark here. So I cheated. I staged the riots on Earth. I got myself sentenced to death so I could be shipped here as a slave. I chose to be a prisoner so I could be alive when the end came.”

Jason stared at him. The man was a genius wrapped in insanity.

“But I was wrong about one thing,” Calvin continued, his voice dropping to a whisper. “I thought I was the Chosen One. I thought I was the Son of God. But when I got here… I realized the truth.”

“If I were the Savior, the Perfect Element would have chosen me. But it didn’t.”

Suddenly, Calvin looked at Jason, the man who had climbed a tower barehanded, dodged automated kill-drones, and moved faster than human eyesight.

“I am not the Messiah,” Calvin screamed, his voice echoing in the corridor. “I am the Servant! And servants have powers too!”

“I started the riot to find you. I needed to verify the rumor. The first Superhuman. The survivor of a million embryos.”

Calvin fell to his knees, ignoring his broken arms, and looked up at Jason with fanatical devotion.

“It’s you, Jason. You are the one who will lead us. You are the Son of God!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep