Chapter 21: Seeking Information from the Dark Web
“Whatever… what’s done is done,” I muttered at last, giving a lazy shrug. “Looks like I can only raise my intelligence.”
Though I sounded resigned, my fingers tightened slightly as I selected the enhancement option. There was hesitation there—an instinctive caution—but beneath it lay a curiosity too strong to suppress.
The moment the Intelligence attribute increased, a strange sensation spread from the back of my head. It felt like a gentle current of electricity slipping through my nerves, subtle yet undeniable. I flinched, eyes widening for a brief second.
The world around me didn’t change.
But the way I perceived it did.
My thoughts suddenly felt lighter—clearer. As if a thin layer of fog that had long wrapped itself around my consciousness had been swept away by a cold morning breeze. Ideas that once moved sluggishly now aligned with startling precision.
My focus sharpened in a way that was unmistakably real, not mere suggestion. The faint hum of the laptop fan beside me separated itself from the ambient silence, steady and mechanical. The soft friction of my shirt as I shifted in my seat sounded distinct. Even the ticking of the wall clock—something I had long stopped noticing—now rang clearly in my ears, rhythmic and measured, almost like a metronome dictating the tempo of my thoughts.
I drew a slow breath. The air felt cooler than before—or perhaps it was simply my perception that had shifted.
Without wasting time, I reached for the laptop on the desk. I lifted the screen, and its pale white glow flared to life, slicing through the dim shadows pooled in the corners of the room. The light reflected off the glossy display, sharpening the angles of my face in its surface.
As a hacker who had long since retired from the underworld of my previous Earth, accessing the dark web was hardly unfamiliar territory. It had once been routine. Muscle memory. But now, every movement felt more precise—more efficient.
My fingers danced across the keyboard at a speed that surprised even me. Strings of letters, numbers, and command sequences that used to require a few seconds of recollection now surfaced instantly, as if my memory had been freshly defragmented and lubricated. There were no pauses of doubt. No empty gaps in recall.
I bypassed layers of encryption with ease. Anonymous networks unfolded before me like curtains being drawn aside.
Page after page appeared.
Most of the content remained the same as I remembered from my former world—dark, filthy, saturated with humanity’s worst impulses.
Blurry low-resolution images. Anonymous posts dripping with threats. Lists of illegal goods priced with unsettling precision. Discussion forums packed with cruel jokes and emotionless negotiations. It all scrolled past like a parade of things that should never have existed.
This time, however, I wasn’t here to judge.
I ignored the chaos. My objective was singular: to understand this world. Earth 76.
I navigated hidden forums, combed through archived conversations, scanned specific keywords, cross-referenced patterns. Threads that seemed unrelated at first began to align under scrutiny.
With my newly enhanced intelligence, my mind felt like an analytical engine running at peak efficiency. Fragmented pieces of information connected, forming a larger picture.
And that picture… was far from comforting.
After some time digging through the depths, I realized one thing: this world housed more than its fair share of lunatics.
Yes, I knew the dark web naturally attracted the unhinged. That was an unspoken rule. But even so, the sheer quantity—and variety—of madness left me momentarily silent.
I let out a long breath. Not out of fear—I had brushed against darkness too many times to scare easily—but out of bewilderment and a faint, creeping exhaustion.
This world… Earth 76… did not seem any saner than my previous one.
If anything, it might be worse.
The transaction lists I uncovered read like a catalog from hell: organ trafficking detailed with cold medical specifications; human trafficking coded in euphemisms so revolting they made my jaw tighten; military-grade weapons advertised like clearance sale items; narcotics in variations I had never even heard of before.
And then the stranger entries began to surface.
Odd creatures.
Body-enhancement serums boasting “results from classified experiments.”
Small glass vials filled with murky green liquid labeled as “non-human biological extract.”
The claims were outrageous—yet disturbingly consistent across multiple sellers. Threads debated effectiveness. Buyers posted coded reviews. Moderators enforced rules with rigid efficiency.
I leaned back in my chair, eyes narrowing at the glow of the screen.
Either this was an elaborate web of scams…
Or Earth 76 held secrets far beyond ordinary crime.
And if even half of these listings were real, then the darkness in this world ran deeper than I had anticipated.
There were even listings selling alien saliva.
And the one that froze me in place for a few long seconds was a post offering… alien excrement.
I almost laughed at the sheer absurdity of it. Truly, if not for the detailed descriptions and the unsettling number of serious comments beneath it, I would have dismissed it as some elaborate joke.
But nothing about it sounded like a joke.
The laugh caught in my throat, strangled halfway out, replaced by a slow, crawling wave of disgust that crept up my spine. It was the kind of revulsion that didn’t explode all at once, but seeped in gradually, tightening around my chest.
Some posts included photos of vaguely shaped creatures—something between reptile and insect, with slick, reflective skin and compound eyes that bounced back the camera’s flash in fractured shards of light. The images were blurry, likely intentional, but clear enough to make the fine hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.
Glass bottles filled with murky, viscous liquids were displayed against makeshift laboratory backdrops—metal tables stained with unknown substances, cheap microscopes, flickering fluorescent lights. The descriptions were written in half-baked scientific jargon, clumsily imitating academic language, yet convincing enough for the desperate or the power-hungry.
How strange and horrifying this world was.
Even in my previous world, no lunatic openly sold excrement on the dark web with grand cosmic claims attached to it. This wasn’t mere criminality anymore. It had crossed into territory that bordered on the incomprehensible.
It felt like staring into a bottomless abyss of chaos—a reality maintained by people who, somehow, were still walking freely without being caught.
Or perhaps… they weren’t caught because something far larger was moving behind the curtain.
That thought left me silent.
Eventually, I closed the laptop slowly. The soft click of the lid snapping shut sounded unnaturally loud in the room that had fallen back into silence.
I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling, now faintly illuminated by the early morning light. Thin strands of sunlight slipped through the gaps in the curtains, carving pale golden lines through the dusty air. Particles drifted lazily within those beams, indifferent to the turmoil brewing in my mind.
This world was clearly not normal.
And somehow, with the strange system embedded in my body and my abilities continuing to evolve… I felt as though my steps were leading me deeper and deeper toward the very heart of that chaos.
I continued digging through information on the dark web, navigating hidden forums and digital archives locked behind layers of encryption. The deeper I went, the more suffocating the atmosphere became—threads discussing classified incidents, redacted government files, whispered rumors about alternate realities.
That was where I found something that truly shook me about Earth 76.
Shocking was the most fitting word—though even that felt far too mild for what I had just read.
The original Tony Stark was dead.
The information appeared in the form of a shadowy article, its dark crimson font glaring against a pitch-black background, as if deliberately designed to emphasize tragedy. The letters looked like stains of blood bleeding across the screen.
My heart seemed to stop for one long, suffocating second. My fingers, which had been moving fluidly across the keyboard, suddenly stiffened mid-motion before settling uselessly against the cold keys.
Ridiculous? Maybe. Shocking? Absolutely. But it was still reality. A reality that nearly made me curse aloud in the middle of my silent room.
My body tensed without me realizing it. The muscles in my shoulders hardened, and my breathing grew heavier, uneven. My eyes widened, locked onto the screen in disbelief.
I even leaned closer, as if bringing my face nearer would somehow force the words to rearrange themselves into something else—“just a prank,” or “fabricated article.” Unfortunately, the screen remained cold and indifferent. No clarification. No denial.
Why did this feel so wrong?
Because I remembered clearly—I worked at Stark Industries. I remembered Tony being alive, appearing on television, attending press conferences, delivering his signature sarcastic remarks with effortless confidence. Those memories were vivid, detailed to an almost painful degree, impossible to dismiss as mere imagination.
My mind flooded with fragments of the past: gleaming glass-walled corridors in the office, massive screens displaying cutting-edge technological schematics, and Tony’s face broadcast live across them.
He stood there casually, speaking as if the world itself were nothing more than a stage built for him. I could still picture the curve of his smile—that confident grin, half mocking, half charming. The smile of someone far too alive to be dead.