Chapter 144: The gears of fate turned in reverse.
“You’re crazy.”
An Wujiu’s tone was icy. Only when he was extremely angry did he have such a tone and expression.
Outside the glass window, explosions continued to erupt throughout the city, one after another, as if a fuse stretched across every piece of land, constantly being ignited.
If this continues, everything will be destroyed.
Russell laughed wildly, his fingers flying over the floating projection in front of him, seemingly operating something, with some unfamiliar text displayed on it.
“You’re the crazy ones, all of you weak humans, thinking you’re the spirits of all creation, thinking you can explore the entire universe!”
Under his operation, the floating points of light kept turning red, more and more people were being contaminated, and everything was accelerating!
“In reality, you are nothing but ants who can do nothing. You cannot comprehend the gods, let alone understand how powerful they are!”
“I don’t need to know.” An Wujiu appeared with extreme speed, slashing at his opponent, but Russell’s reaction was far beyond his imagination, and he swiftly dodged the attack.
The long blade struck the desk, creating a huge crack, and Noah on the chair trembled in fright.
An Wujiu turned and swung again, but Russell dodged once more. No matter how fast he attacked, he could not succeed.
An Wujiu thought of the legend of the Sha Wen leader who resurrected.
Perhaps the one standing in front of him was no longer human.
“I used to be curious too.” Russell dodged again and even reached out, grasping the razor-sharp blade of the willow-leaf sword, “How did you survive?”
His hand did not bleed at all, and his eyes were empty, “Not a single test subject survived; they couldn’t endure the intensity of the experiments or the drugs injected into them. All those were adjusted to lethal levels. How did you survive?”
An Wujiu frowned.
He had never thought that the reason he was the “only” successful test subject was because they were all destined to fail.
Everything had been premeditated. It seemed that Russell had already been brainwashed by the so-called evil god back then, altering the original intention of the human revolution plan.
“The nerds in the research institute even regarded you as an artificial false god and put you in the altar for the final trial.” Russell’s hand gripped tightly, almost crushing the long blade in his hand, “It seems you and your father are both hard to kill.”
Mentioning his father finally broke An Wujiu’s restraint. He swiftly drew his long blade, swung it backhand, and unexpectedly chopped off one of Russell’s hands.
And at that moment, with a bang—
Shen Ti shot Russell in the head, the immense firepower blowing his head apart in an instant.
The severed arm fell to the ground and instantly melted into a puddle of blood.
In the next second, huge tentacles emerged from the blood, the severed shoulder, and the exploded head, like fierce venomous snakes, swiftly wrapping around An Wujiu’s body and lifting him up.
Russell gradually lost his human form, his suit tearing apart under the expansion of his limbs, revealing a chest cavity without skin and muscle, and a shattered heart dripping blue mucus.
No matter how many times Shen Ti shot, he could not bring Russell down. In his current form, he was almost indestructible.
Unless he could return to his original form.
But Shen Ti felt his power was sealed within this human body, unable to unleash it no matter what.
There was only one bullet left in his gun.
“What’s wrong? Angry because of your father?” Russell’s voice grew more hoarse and terrifying, his tone filled with disdainful mockery, “Indeed, he was hard to kill. He was the first to discover an unfamiliar ‘code’ in the Sha Wen system source code, like a spell, but it wasn’t a comment, nor was it called or used, so he felt strange and reported it to me.”
A strange, cold blue light radiated from Russell’s body, “When I saw that code, I knew I was saved. I could be reborn!”
He laughed, “I found the divine oracle. Incurable diseases? Only commoners are troubled by such things. From now on, I am no longer an ordinary person. Not just money, with the will of the gods, I can have everything!”
An Wujiu was stunned. So, Russell’s fall from grace back then was indirectly caused by his father.
“Your father, or rather, my former subordinate, was really a tough guy. He stared directly at the divine oracle but wasn’t affected. Such a person who can’t understand the divine will would be a disaster if left alive. Only the holy book could save him. I didn’t expect him to die like that, preferring to commit suicide rather than obey the will of the gods and assimilate you all! But what use is that? Your tragedy, humanity’s tragedy, is inevitable!”
Russell became more and more excited, the mouths at the tips of his tentacles opening, dripping with sticky saliva.
But tears welled up in An Wujiu’s eyes.
So his father was fighting with all his might until his last breath.
Fighting with all the power a small human could muster.
He wanted to pick up his long blade again and cut off all the tentacles on his body, but he couldn’t.
The blade had long since been flung to a corner of the room, lying lonely on the floor.
Despair spread from his heart. The more he faced the truth, the more terrifying everything became.
Seeing An Wujiu’s almost giving up look, Russell gained immense satisfaction. He sighed, “Most humans in this world cannot live without technology and the internet. These things follow them all the time, even embedded in their bodies, like an inseparable organ.”
His bloody head gradually formed a face—a grotesque face with countless eyes growing on it.
“There’s no better medium for proselytizing, wouldn’t you say?” His tentacles wrapped tightly around An Wujiu, almost suffocating him. Through his wrist, Russell saw the time.
“A countdown is the best invention in this world. It can intensify all conflicts, plunge people into chaos and madness, and make them feel the footsteps of death approaching, step by step, until the moment it hits zero. Anger, fear, frenzy, despair—these extreme human emotions are so delicious! Haven’t humans discovered that your lives feed on negative entropy? Entropy means inevitable chaos, means a path towards desperate extinction, and that’s exactly our food, our source of power!”
His hoarse voice was like a bursting flood, vibrating with terrifying excitement.
So, they were willing to destroy all of humanity just for one meal, a meal sufficient to bring the gods back.
Russell laughed, “You have less than a minute left. The world you live in is also nearing its end. In the final moments, watch carefully how the world is destroyed! After hitting zero, everything will be over.”
In the void, the floating light points gradually converged, seemingly forming the shape of a sun.
Zero…
An Wujiu suddenly realized that this time he might not be able to wait for death.
All humans in the world were already close to being contaminated. Just as Russell said, once it really hit zero, everything would end. The evil god would return. Perhaps then, as a human, he would lose the ability to reincarnate.
This might be his last chance!
“Shen Ti!”
In his panic, he looked into those green eyes that brought him peace, his own eyes still glistening with tears.
[Kill me.]
He feared that speaking out loud would cause the plan to fail and that they would be stopped, so he could only plead in his heart.
[Please, this is my last chance.]
[Kill me quickly!]
Shen Ti had mentally prepared for this moment, but when it really came, he still couldn’t bring himself to do it.
He had never thought that the first thing An Wujiu would ask him to do was to kill him with his own hands.
Time was running out.
An Wujiu, who was bound by the tentacles and unable to move, shook his head towards Shen Ti.
[Don’t hesitate!]
Shen Ti stared at An Wujiu and saw the countdown numbers on his face. He didn’t know if this was real or just his perception.
But there were only three seconds left.
An Wujiu’s inner voice was like a dull knife, repeatedly pulling and sawing at Shen Ti’s most sensitive nerves, leaving them bloody and raw.
[Next time, I will still find you. I will come to see you soon!]
[Shen Ti, kill me.]
Shen Ti wasn’t sure if the miracle of time reversal would truly happen again.
Perhaps he would really be taking An Wujiu’s life with his own hands.
But he truly couldn’t hesitate any longer.
“I love you.”
Shen Ti spoke as if to himself and raised his hand, aiming at his beloved.
The shot pierced through the tentacles and hit his heart with perfect accuracy.
As the blood splattered, even Russell was stunned.
Noah, who heard the gunshot, stiffened completely.
An Wujiu’s eyes were open, blood blurring his vision, and the last thing he saw was Shen Ti’s face.
If I really die, he will go insane.
I must go back; I must see Shen Ti again.
At the end of time, An Wujiu lost his consciousness of life with this extravagant hope, accompanied by the return of the gods, countless full moons, and the extinction of humanity.
But the gears of fate stalled at this moment of despair.
And then reversed—
An Wujiu, who had chosen to end his life, suddenly opened his eyes.
He gasped for breath, like a drowning person finally rescued at the brink of death.
An Wujiu looked around and found that after his death, he was back on the truck at the beginning. Nan Shan was sitting in the driver’s seat, and Wu You was in the passenger seat, shooting at a pollutant outside the window.
The last reset point was at the automatic firearm vending machine, where they had met Nan Shan and Wu You, who came to rescue them, and then they got on the truck.
But this time, they were already on the truck.
This meant that the second reset point had moved forward.
An Wujiu was a little dazed, and his first reaction was to grab Shen Ti’s hand next to him.
Fortunately, this time they succeeded. He had come back again!
Whether Shen Ti remembered or not, he wanted to give him a hug.
But he didn’t expect Shen Ti to be quicker, grabbing his wrist first and pulling him into his arms.
An Wujiu looked over in surprise. In that brief moment, he noticed that Shen Ti’s eyes were exactly the same as they had been at the end of the last cycle.
“I…”
In the turbulent truck, Shen Ti held An Wujiu close, their chests pressing together as if trying to feel his heartbeat. An Wujiu didn’t know why he was doing this. In the previous cycle, at this point in time, Shen Ti hadn’t hugged him.
At this moment, he should be like Wu You, dealing with the pollutants attacking from outside the window.
But he asked in a very gentle voice, “It hurt a lot, didn’t it?”
Hearing this, An Wujiu froze.
How could it be?
Could he remember…
“Don’t make me do that again.”
Shen Ti lowered his head, holding him tightly, as if afraid he was not real.
“I was really scared.”
Aaaaa ml killing mc be the only way to escape from that situation 😭 the 2nd run was 🤯