Chapter 157: “No. 99, congratulations on being alive.”
While exchanging clothes with Zhou Yijue, An Wujiu pondered their next steps.
What if their bombing failed? What if they couldn’t lure the target away?
These were uncertainties that he couldn’t control.
He hadn’t expected Zhou Yijue to leave him the bulletproof vest, not even giving him a choice.
When An Wujiu was trapped in the warehouse, he still didn’t know what Zhou Yijue planned to do until static noise suddenly came through his earpiece. When he hooked it over his ear, unsurprisingly, he heard Gabriel’s voice.
“Gabriel?” An Wujiu tried to communicate, “Is that you?”
After a few seconds, the response came.
“It’s me, Wujiu.” Gabriel’s voice took on a serious tone, sounding very solemn. “I’m boarding the aircraft now; might take off in a bit…”
Realizing he was too serious, he chuckled a few times, “Damn, I have a bottle of tequila here; should I drink it?”
An Wujiu frowned, “Don’t be nervous, Gabriel; you just need to drop the bomb and…”
Mid-sentence, An Wujiu felt something was off, “Wait a minute, you mentioned the bomb’s horizontal blast radius before, what about the vertical range? At your aircraft’s speed, can you get away safely after dropping the bomb?”
What followed was a brief silence, the static hissing as if answering for Gabriel.
“Gabriel.” An Wujiu repeated, “Can you hear me? The vertical…”
“Wujiu.” Gabriel interrupted, “That guy, Zhou Yijue, has already come over; that mask of his is pretty convincing, I almost thought it was you at first.”
An Wujiu’s heart sank. Thinking of Zhou Yijue’s words, he suddenly had a very bad premonition.
Damn door, why won’t it open?
It was as if his powers had vanished, and suddenly, even opening a warehouse door was difficult.
“Tell him not to act rashly!” An Wujiu’s voice was urgent, trying every way to stop Zhou Yijue, “Gabriel, tell him, I can’t help him; he has to hand over the necklace himself!”
Gabriel remained calm.
“Sorry, at this point, none of us can persuade the other.”
An Wujiu stood frozen, the unsaid words stuck in his throat.
“Actually, when I first saw Zhou Yijue, I thought he wasn’t a good person. But then again, neither am I. Earning and spending money, living in debauchery, always seeking benefits and avoiding harm, doing all sorts of immoral things.”
An Wujiu could hear Gabriel’s hearty laugh and the sound of him taking a big gulp of tequila.
“Just think of it as for my sister; since God can’t protect her, let her big brother protect her from afar once.” Gabriel asked An Wujiu, “There should still be some humans alive, right? Just like us.”
An Wujiu’s nose stung, standing alone before the iron door.
“I don’t know; maybe there are.”
Having experienced so many failures, so many sacrifices, An Wujiu could no longer speak with absolute certainty.
“Then there are many.” Gabriel laughed. Through the earpiece, An Wujiu heard the engine starting.
“Gabriel, be careful; can you fly out?”
An Wujiu urgently asked for an answer, he needed it to feel at ease.
“Of course.” Gabriel’s voice carried a smile, “We’re the ones saving the world, right?”
The engine noise gradually drowned out Gabriel’s heroic words, like a heavy fog enveloping these insignificant humans.
“Gabriel, I don’t…”
“Cutting off now, Wujiu.”
An Wujiu vaguely heard him say goodbye. He said, “When I come back, let’s have a drink together.”
Then the sound abruptly cut off.
The sudden silence hit An Wujiu like a heavy hammer; he felt every cell in his body filled with lead, unbearably heavy, immense sorrow, and loneliness compressing him, leaving no space to breathe.
In the earpiece, the signal was mixed, and Gabriel’s voice flashed again, this time not so clear and intermittent.
An Wujiu briefly emerged from despair, shouting Gabriel’s name, but the other seemed unable to hear.
Just a minute ago, in the cockpit, Gabriel saw a ray of light rising from the horizon through the dusty glass. He pressed the drop button and, following An Wujiu’s words, left as quickly as possible.
But Lady Luck did not favor a man like him.
[Warning! Wing damaged, power system damaged, please manually land immediately!]
[Warning! Aircraft repair system severely damaged, please land immediately!]
[Warning…]
Gabriel saw with his own eyes the monster hit by the bomb roaring, escaping from the ambush.
He also saw Matsubara Mori, piloting another aircraft, heading towards the monster with a bomb to eliminate it as much as possible.
Gabriel finished the rest of the tequila. He didn’t repair the aircraft; there wasn’t time.
But he still had time to say something.
Through the weak signal, An Wujiu clearly heard Gabriel’s voice.
“My friends who I’ve never met, don’t be surprised to hear this voice, I bought this global broadcast time. I’ve been muddling through life, only thinking about making money and enjoying myself, every minute and second was a transaction. This damn disaster killed so many people, but it finally made me feel truly alive.”
Gabriel laughed, his words choked with emotion, “I’m now on an aircraft, about to attack a pollutant, not sure of the outcome. My sister, I hope you can face the future bravely, I will always protect you.”
“I know many of you are about to give up, but don’t stop seeking hope. I was once a coward, but not anymore.”
Finally, he seemed to say something else, but An Wujiu could no longer hear clearly.
All he could hear was the sound of an explosion, one that brought him to utter despair, closer than any previous one. Gabriel’s voice was completely obliterated in the final explosion, and a dreadful silence like a dead sea ensued. An Wujiu couldn’t even drown in this fear of losing everything.
He didn’t know that Gabriel, upon seeing the monster still standing, chose to crash into it, using the power of the giant aircraft to destroy it.
An Wujiu felt as if he had returned to a long-past time when he was still an experimental subject.
Day after day of torture had left his exhausted youth with nothing but despair. He prayed daily, pleading with the god he could see to save him.
But at this moment, An Wujiu only wished for everything to be reversed.
He wanted to save everyone and didn’t want to lose anyone.
It was because he decided to change himself that he gained so many precious companions. Why did he still have to lose them in the end?
When An Wujiu finally managed to open the warehouse door with all his strength, he dashed from the mountaintop ruins towards the forest, where the ruins were burning fiercely and black smoke was billowing.
Grief continuously cut through his consciousness, and An Wujiu could keenly feel the collapse of his will. Scenes of their sacrifices replayed in his mind with each cycle, like an unshakable domino effect of repeated failures.
He knew very well that a crucial piece was teetering.
But when he arrived with all his might, An Wujiu knew he was still too late.
The wreckage of the aircraft bore Gabriel’s beloved bright pink paint, now charred like coal, nothing remaining. As he walked towards it, his feet felt as if they were stepping in mid-air, with no support.
This must be a dream. All of this, the pollution, the cycle—it should be a dream.
Matsubara’s aircraft also crashed to the ground. An Wujiu walked over to it; the machine gun smashed against the ground, completely deformed, and the glass shattered. He saw half of Matsubara’s body.
An Wujiu wanted to pull him out, but he had no strength left.
He straightened up, looked around blankly, and spoke with a hoarse voice, a hoarseness he hadn’t anticipated.
“…Wu You? Nan Shan?”
An Wujiu stood alone in the forest, where it was utterly silent, receiving no response.
“Miss Toudou?” An Wujiu lowered his eyes, reciting all their names one by one, his voice growing smaller and smaller.
He walked step by step, searching for them among the massive remains of pollutants and monsters. Finally, outside the ambush, among many pollutant corpses, he found Nan Shan and Wu You, whom Nan Shan had protected.
Before the explosion, these pollutants had been summoned to surround those who couldn’t retreat in time. Nan Shan, unable to fend off so many alone, prioritized protecting Wu You.
This time, he didn’t let Wu You be polluted, but they still couldn’t survive.
An Wujiu’s eyes stung. He knelt down and used his hand to close Wu You’s wide-open eyes.
From the outside, An Wujiu now appeared almost cold-blooded and numb. Only he knew how chaotic his mind was at this moment, with all thoughts crashing wildly, good and evil battling repeatedly, his beliefs shattered, and his faith burning, leaving a chaotic sorrow in his heart.
A remaining shred of rationality led him to realize one fact.
All along, he hadn’t seen Russell’s body.
An Wujiu lowered his eyes and glanced at the countdown on the inside of his wrist.
00:13:13
The game wasn’t over.
Could all their efforts and sacrifices have been in vain?
Chaos expanded further. An Wujiu’s senses seemingly magnified infinitely, hearing the sounds of all living things around him and appearing chaotically in his mind.
His vision even displayed parallel scenes, from left to right, showing him curled up on the grass, scenes of his farewell with Yang Erci, Zhou Yijue locking him in the warehouse, and at this moment, monitoring him like a record.
The record of the present, which was originally the last one, suddenly had a new one appear to its right.
The scene was initially chaotic, then gradually took shape. To An Wujiu’s surprise, the image of himself in the scene raised his head, looked through the “monitoring,” met his gaze, and even smiled.
No, that wasn’t him.
An Wujiu recognized the other’s clothes; it was No. 0.
The chaos almost took over his mind, but An Wujiu still tried to observe everything in the scene.
At No. 0’s feet was the body of himself wearing Zhou Yijue’s clothes.
Is this the future?
The horizontally arranged squares suddenly shrank, and shrank again, gradually becoming a continuous line.
Is this… time?
An Wujiu’s heart thumped heavily.
He suddenly turned around, raised his gun, and sure enough, No. 0 appeared not far behind him.
But unlike the “monitoring” scene just now, this difference made An Wujiu hesitate to pull the trigger.
No. 0 [An Wujiu] was holding the bound Lilith, just like in the second cycle.
But this time, Lilith was wearing a hoodie, the one An Wujiu almost recognized once.
“What’s wrong? Can’t do it?” [An Wujiu] laughed maniacally, pressing the gun against Lilith’s temple.
An Wujiu coldly stared at him, noticing that he was missing an arm and had very little health left. It seemed he had already faced off with Russell, but Russell hadn’t killed him.
The reason was probably for this very moment.
An Wujiu couldn’t understand; if he could really see the future, in the future he “monitored” just now, [An Wujiu] came alone and killed him.
Why is it different now?
Was it because he made a change? Or…
An Wujiu suddenly realized a blind spot in his thinking: this guy in front of him was also him.
If he could have the ability to change the future, then [An Wujiu] could too.
So the future either of them “saw” could be invalid.
“It looks like you, as a brother, aren’t much better than me.” [An Wujiu] jabbed the gun hard at Lilith.
Lilith, with her mouth gagged, couldn’t speak. She could only close her eyes, restraining her tears, and gently shake her head at An Wujiu, as if telling him to leave.
How is that possible?
An Wujiu continued thinking.
If it was really as he thought, they should have the same ability…
There was a difference in abilities between him and No. 0, and the reason… should be because No. 0 had spent more time in the altar than he had. He had only experienced the 99th space-time once and collided with No. 0 at the end, crossing into the 98th, and from that point, walked to the present.
The time difference led to the disparity in their ability awakening.
Since that was the case, he might be able to control pollutants too.
An Wujiu lowered his eyes, trying to mobilize the chaotic power within his body to sense the beings around him that emitted similar auras.
There it was.
An Wujiu’s indifferent demeanor made No. 0 sense something.
What is he up to?
An Wujiu tried to control the pollutant whose consciousness he had captured, making it move over.
No. 0 must be extremely nervous now. Even a slight disturbance would distract him.
Then he would definitely have a chance to kill him.
Suddenly, heavy footsteps echoed through the forest.
Now!
An Wujiu aimed at No. 0’s head and fired a shot. He was prepared for the opponent to dodge, as he could also see the future. Perhaps in that brief instant, he monitored it and made a change.
So An Wujiu fired many more shots, until he was sure it was enough to kill [An Wujiu].
[An Wujiu] indeed fell, strangely not dodging any of the shots.
An Wujiu couldn’t understand; he even thought it was a trap set by him, waiting for him to fall into it.
But the [An Wujiu] in front of him fell, covered in blood. Lilith, somewhat exhausted, stepped back a bit, then continued retreating further away.
Why didn’t he dodge?
An Wujiu walked over step by step, initially hesitating but then quickening his pace.
Lilith was still there; he at least had to take her away.
But [An Wujiu], with his bloody hand, grabbed An Wujiu’s ankle.
An Wujiu looked down and saw his weak yet crazed smile, blood oozing from between his teeth.
“These useless guys, they were all willing to die for you…” he laughed, maintaining the posture of a victor with his last bit of strength, even though he had lost.
“No matter, they can’t come back anyway.”
An Wujiu squatted down, gazing at him expressionlessly, “How long do you think you can still live?”
No. 0 [An Wujiu] laughed even more wildly, “You really are no longer like me.”
“You think I’m afraid of death? You think I killed so many people just to become the only surviving An Wujiu?”
No. 0 looked disdainfully at the sliver of health above An Wujiu’s head, “You think I can’t kill you?”
An Wujiu’s eyebrows furrowed slightly; something felt wrong.
He looked up and saw Lilith continuously retreating, seemingly trying to escape.
“Lilith! Where are you going?”
An Wujiu stood up, intending to go after her, but No. 0 suddenly drew a short knife and cut An Wujiu’s Achilles tendon.
The intense pain surged through him, and the thoughts that An Wujiu had finally stabilized became chaotic once again.
Lilith was getting farther and farther away from him, seemingly frantic in her attempt to escape from his side.
An Wujiu didn’t understand why this was happening, but he knew it must be because of No. 0.
Ignoring the blood pouring from his ankle, he grabbed No. 0’s collar, “What did you do to Lilith!”
“You’ll find out soon enough.” The smile on No. 0’s face became calm, even indifferent. He threw away the short knife, spread his hands, and began counting with his fingers.
“Five, four, three, two, one.”
[An Wujiu] softly mimicked the sound of an explosion, “Boom.”
Suddenly, a massive explosion erupted in the direction Lilith was fleeing, a flash of fire.
An Wujiu’s heart sank into an icy abyss, unable to utter a word.
No. 0 [An Wujiu] seemed extremely pleased with what he saw and laughed again, as if hearing a funny joke.
“I’m truly sorry, she’s dead. Now you know why she was running away, right?”
His face radiated a cruel joy, “No. 99, congratulations on still being alive.”
“But…” No. 0 laughed as blood began to ooze from his mouth. He didn’t mind; he was even happier, “You’re also almost not yourself anymore.”
“You tried to save everyone, but you couldn’t even save your own sister. Isn’t that driving you mad?” His words relentlessly provoked An Wujiu.
An Wujiu’s last bit of calm was shattered.
When the explosion sounded, he almost lost the last shred of his humanity.
The ground started to tremble, and around him, the shattered remains of bodies began to float and reassemble, but he couldn’t care about that at the moment.
No. 0’s words, like a devil’s prophecy, surrounded him in despair.
“That was a time bomb I personally strapped on her. It’s just too bad our sister didn’t run fast enough. She should have crawled out crying like when she was little, right?”
These words stabbed into An Wujiu’s heart like a knife. He painfully raised his gun, gritting his teeth, and said, “Shut up.”
But No. 0 wasn’t afraid at all. He grabbed An Wujiu’s wrist with his dirty, bloody hand, forcing the gun to his own forehead, laughing cruelly, “You want to kill me, right? You’re almost going crazy, aren’t you? Do it, or you won’t even touch a piece of her body.”
I am not like you.
An Wujiu’s collapsing humanity turned into a ruin, from which came a faint cry like a dead spirit.
I am not you.
But Lilith’s tearful face as she fled and the sound of the explosion kept replaying.
“Two identical bodies with different souls, good and evil, an angel and a madman. When the good one gradually darkens and falls into frantic madness, No. 99, tell me.”
“Who is the survivor among us?”
He finally fired the shot, the startled birds in the forest fled to the sky, and the monster reborn from the explosion reached out its tentacles toward him.
Lilith could never come back, and in a daze, An Wujiu seemed to hear another self’s victorious mockery.
[I am dead, but I will live forever in your body.]
