The message queue hadn't just filled to capacity; it had burst at the seams, and not in a figurative sense. This was a literal inundation of data.

When Lin Mo made his way back to the Bureau's central complaint vault, the holographic interface sputtered and glitched for a full seven excruciating seconds. It seemed to shudder under the weight of the incoming information before finally steadying itself enough to display the figures. Once it did, the numbers flashed again, as if the system itself was in a state of disbelief, struggling to make sense of what it was being compelled to render.

Complaints received in last 24 hours: 17,329.

Origin confirmed: Divine Products (Class A – D).

Critical escalation tags: 3,104.

Zhou stood beside him, still sodden from their foray into the ruins of Lightning Unit #9. Her damp coat left a slow, steady drip on the tiled floor, the sound echoing softly in the otherwise quiet space. For a long moment, neither of them uttered a word, the magnitude of the numbers on the hologram hanging heavily in the air.

Finally, she broke the silence with a hushed whisper, “This can't all be real.”

Lin Mo remained mute, his eyes locked onto the hologram as if he half - expected it to start bleeding, such was the overwhelming and disconcerting nature of the data presented.

The oldest and most insidious trick in the age - old game of god - making wasn't the display of raw, awe - inspiring power. It was the subtle, yet far - reaching, strategy of inundating the masses with influence, overwhelming them with volume.

Lin Mo reached forward, his hand hovering over the interface for a moment before selecting a single cluster，ID: DPH - 149B，flagged prominently as “Priority: Civilian Risk.”

Instantly, a voice crackled to life. It was raw, unadulterated by any form of processing, a pure and unfiltered human cry for help.

“My daughter took the Lunar Glow pill from a temple - endorsed distributor. They promised it would cleanse her emotional imbalance. But she hasn't woken up in two days. The doctors say there's nothing physically wrong with her, yet her dreams... they're glowing. It's like she's trapped somewhere else entirely.”

Another complaint blinked into existence on the screen. This one originated from a lower city council.

“Local rivers blessed by the East Sea God are flooding spontaneously. We've double - checked the tide patterns, but nothing aligns. Residents report hearing 'joyous singing' underwater just before the floods burst forth.”

Zhou reached out and tapped another tag, her brow furrowed in concentration. “These aren't isolated, regional anomalies,” she stated with conviction. “They're synchronized. The same timestamps, the same celestial distribution zones.” She rubbed her temple, as if trying to soothe a rapidly forming headache. “This isn't mere failure. It's... intentional chaos, a calculated entropy.”

Lin Mo began to pace slowly towards the data spine, his steps measured as he tried to keep his breathing steady. He could sense it, a presence lurking just beneath the surface of the system, like a faint, barely audible sound waiting to be fully heard, a malevolent undercurrent threatening to pull them under.

Suddenly, his badge vibrated against his chest, jolting him from his thoughts.

A direct message.

From an untraceable address.

: stop investigating. this cluster was designed.

: ask your mother what happened to complaint code L - 0ST.

: she never closed it. we still see her signature.

He read the message not once, not twice, but three times, his eyes scanning the words as if they might rearrange themselves into a more comprehensible form. Then, he turned around, his mouth opening to speak. “Zhou，” he began.

But before he could utter another word, the speakers throughout the vault let out an earsplitting shriek.

Every channel, every level was flooded with a cacophony of noise. A shrieking wave of sound cascaded through the room, as if a thousand divine voices were chanting in reverse, a discordant and terrifying symphony. The holographic complaints dissolved into a sea of static, the once - ordered data now a chaotic mess.

And then, layered beneath the chaos, a voice emerged, one that sent a chill down Lin Mo's spine.

“…not a god… not a god… not… a god…”

Lin Mo dropped to one knee, his hand gripping the edge of the console so tightly his knuckles turned white. His head throbbed, the pain intensifying with every syllable of his mother's distorted, recursive voice. It melded with hundreds of others, a viral mantra seemingly coded into the very fabric of the complaint logs themselves.

Zhou was in no better state. She clung to the side of the server stack, her eyes wide with a mixture of fear and horror. “It's in the Filter,” she gasped, her voice strained. “The Civilizational Filter. These aren't just reports anymore，they've embedded something, some sort of sentience into the complaints.”

The lights in the room flickered wildly, as if a power struggle was taking place between the physical and the supernatural. Then, they dimmed, plunging the room into a semi - darkness. And for the briefest of moments, the air itself seemed to change, taking on a taste of burnt citrus and the metallic tang of blood.

And then, as suddenly as it had started, everything stopped.

Dead silence filled the vault, a void so complete it was almost palpable.

The complaints returned to the screen, pristine and untouched, as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. Clean, sanitized, and data - purified.

“Lin…” Zhou's voice was barely a whisper, thin and frail. “Do you know what L - 0ST means?”

He shook his head slowly, his mind still reeling from the chaos that had just unfolded.

She let out a long, shuddering exhale. “It was the prototype neural index. An early faith quantifier. It used... personal grief as a measure of signal strength.”

“Personal grief?” he echoed, his voice filled with disbelief.

“Yeah.” She looked away, her gaze fixed on some distant point. “Like, whose god died the most painfully. The system marked those souls with the most'mythic potential.' It fed the Filter their pain, using it to shape the blueprints of divinity.”

There was a long, heavy pause.

“My brother was in that dataset.”

Lin Mo turned to her sharply, his eyes wide. “What?”

She nodded slowly, her body trembling slightly. “Alpha unit W.T.W - α05. He didn't meet the emotional cohesion requirements. They said he broke down during the simulation. But I remember... I remember hearing his voice in the prototype dreams.”

Her hands began to tremble, a visible manifestation of the pain and trauma she had carried with her for so long.

Lin Mo was at a loss for words. He stood there, frozen in place, as the weight of her revelation settled over him.

Suddenly, the screen pulsed, a new tag materializing. This one was different. It didn't originate from the mortal realm, nor was it from the Bureau.

It read:

Complaint Filed by: Claimant Entity [Unverified]

Subject: False Ascension / Unauthorized Deletion

Attached Witness: Code Name – Daji’s Daughter

Timestamp: Pending validation

Lin Mo whispered, his voice filled with a mixture of shock and denial, “That's not possible.”

But deep within the recesses of the complaint queue, something ancient and malevolent seemed to stir, as if it had heard his words and was preparing to reveal itself.