The night wind, carrying the chill of the suburbs, swept across a desolate empty lot.
Ye Chen's off-road vehicle was parked by the roadside, its headlights piercing the darkness, illuminating the path ahead.
It was here.
In his memory, the biological research institute that ultimately triggered the apocalypse should have stood here.
But before his eyes, there was nothing but land flattened by bulldozers and some scattered construction debris.
Not even a remnant of a foundation could be found.
It was as if that research institute had been forcibly erased from this world with an eraser!
"No... impossible..."
Ye Chen stumbled out of the car, running and searching like a madman across the empty lot.
He dug at the soil with his hands, kicked away gravel with his feet, trying to find even the slightest trace.
"It's here! It was clearly here!"
He roared, his voice sounding particularly shrill and desperate in the empty night.
After searching for over half an hour, he finally stopped, kneeling in the center of the empty lot.
He was forced to accept a fact that made his liver and guts tremble.
The source of the apocalypse was gone.
Completely, vanished into thin air!
It was that man!
It must have been that man named Lu Cheng!
Besides him, who else could possess such heaven-defying means, not only to prevent the apocalypse but even to completely erase its source?!
An extreme surge of resentment and unwillingness churned wildly in his chest.
He had lost everything.
His parents hated him to the core, creditors blocked his door, and the fortress he was so proud of had become a laughable prison for himself.
His life was completely ruined.
Since that was the case... then let everything be destroyed together!
He suddenly raised his head, his eyes bloodshot, and roared with all his might into the empty air:
"System!"
"Tell me! Is there still a way! I want the apocalypse to descend! I want this world to be buried with me!"
"At all costs!"
A cold, mechanical voice sounded in his mind.
[Ding! Host's strong desire detected, critical value reached.]
[Initiating ultimate emergency protocol — Sacrifice.]
[Protocol Description: Host can, at the source point of the apocalypse, sacrifice 99% of his life force and all asset return quotas, forcibly tear the dimensional barrier, and re-attract the original strain of the apocalyptic virus to this world.]
[Warning: This process is irreversible. Once started, the Host may be completely depleted.]
[Proceed?]
Ye Chen looked at the scarlet warning and laughed.
He laughed madly, he laughed shrilly.
"Completely depleted?"
"Hahahaha... What's the difference between me now and being dead!"
He roared in his mind without hesitation: "Proceed! Now! Immediately! Proceed!"
He no longer cared about any God of Apocalypse.
He only wanted to see this world burn!
He wanted Lu Cheng, and everyone, those who betrayed him, those who belittled him, to die in wails and despair!
This was his greatest comfort!
"Boom!"
An invisible force was wildly extracted from his body!
Ye Chen's body shriveled at a visible speed, his full head of black hair turned gray and withered in just a few seconds... his face instantly covered with deep wrinkles, but the flame in his eyes burned to the extreme!
In front of him, on the flat ground, countless blood-colored runes appeared out of thin air, intertwining into a huge and eerie magic circle.
In the center of the magic circle, space began to distort, emitting a grating "sizzle" sound.
Above the sky, the originally sparse clouds began to gather frantically, forming a huge black vortex.
In the center of the vortex, a tiny crack, emitting a heart-palpitating evil aura, slowly opened!
The apocalypse was about to be "created" by his own hands!
Just as that dimensional rift was about to fully form and release the first wisp of disaster!
"Whoosh!"
"Whoosh!"
Two figures, as fast as ghosts, arrived rapidly from two different directions in the night!
One of the figures had a graceful posture, it was Dongfang Yue.
The other was shrouded in a black, tight-fitting combat suit, revealing only a pair of cold, sharp eyes, code-named Jueying.
"He's forcibly summoning an otherworldly evil! Madman! We must stop him immediately!"
Jueying's voice was extremely solemn; she had completely not expected that the fellow they were to "clean up" this time would possess such a crazy method!
Before her words finished, her figure flickered, the dagger in her hand cut through the air, stabbing directly at Ye Chen in the center of the ritual!
A strange glint flashed in Dongfang Yue's eyes, and she likewise coordinated, launching an attack from the other side.
"Bang!"
The attacks of the two slammed fiercely against an invisible shield in front of Ye Chen.
Although Ye Chen was sacrificing and his body became extremely weak, the ritual itself granted him powerful defense.
He raised his old and ferocious face, letting out a beast-like roar at the two: "No one can stop me!!"
Jueying's brows furrowed, and her offensive became even more relentless.
All her focus was on how to quickly break the shield and interrupt that damned ritual.
After all, this concerned the life and death of this world!
At the same time, she also completely failed to notice that her "teammate" Dongfang Yue, beside her, had quietly approached her back.
Now!
Dongfang Yue's eyes sharpened, and she flicked her finger again.
A Gu worm silently detached from her fingertip, accurately attaching to Jueying's combat suit, then quickly burrowed in, merging into her body.
Puppet Gu!
This Gu does not affect the target's thoughts and will, but as long as the mother Gu is activated, it can temporarily control the target's body at critical moments!
Dongfang Yue was not content with merely entering that so-called small circle and being a henchman who followed orders.
What she wanted was control!
To gradually turn these self-righteous fellows into her pawns!
And this seemingly powerful Jueying could become her first stepping stone.
After doing all this, she acted as if nothing had happened, continuing her attack on Ye Chen.
"Crack!"
Finally, under the continuous fierce assault of the two, Ye Chen's shield shattered with a crash!
"Pfft!"
The ritual was interrupted, and Ye Chen was struck as if by lightning, fiercely spitting out a mouthful of black blood. His entire being instantly withered, and all his strength receded like a tide.
Jueying seized the opportunity, lunged forward, and delivered a powerful whip kick to his chest.
Ye Chen flew backward like a broken sack, falling to the ground, barely alive, only exhaling, not inhaling.
Jueying didn't hesitate for a moment, her figure flickered and she appeared beside Ye Chen, a cold dagger pressed against his throat, ready to completely end this madman.
Just then.
A leisurely sound of footsteps, accompanied by the closing of a car door, came from not far away.
A low-key, luxurious Rolls-Royce had parked nearby at some point.
Lu Cheng walked slowly, a hint of doting smile on his face, his gaze passing over Jueying and falling on Dongfang Yue.
"Yue'er, why did you run off to such a desolate wilderness?"
"It's already dark, it's so unsafe."
"I'm here to take you home."
The plain words, however, startled Dongfang Yue!
A sense of closeness and... obedience, emanating from the depths of her soul, instantly overwhelmed all her thoughts through the Love-Binding Gu!
The aura of a so-called "mysterious expert" on her was completely gone, leaving only obedience, tenderness... This scene made the nearby Jueying's eyes almost pop out!
Who was this man?
Why could an ordinary-looking man make this Dongfang Yue, whose depths even "Heaven's Secrets" couldn't fathom, display such... a demure woman's demeanor?
"Who is he?"
Jueying subconsciously tightened her grip on the dagger, asking warily.
Dongfang Yue bit her red lip tightly, almost squeezing out the answer from her heart, word by word, through clenched teeth.
"...He's my... husband."
"Oh?"
Lu Cheng smiled contentedly, stepped forward, and naturally put his arm around Dongfang Yue's waist.
At the same time, his palm subtly moved towards Ye Chen's direction... The black vortex of the system furnace flashed past.
Within Ye Chen, the origin of the [Hundredfold Return System], along with his remaining meager luck, was instantly sucked out and completely devoured!
Ye Chen still didn't die.
He lost the system, but still retained his memories and consciousness... After all, these things were memories from after the apocalypse, meaningless to Lu Cheng.
Ye Chen lay on the cold ground, watching all this with wide eyes, watching the man who took everything from him intimately embracing the woman who had just tried to kill him.
"It was you, after all..."
He also understood... From beginning to end, he was no chosen one, no prophet of the apocalypse.
He was just a self-righteous clown, played in the palm of a higher-dimensional existence!
A complete and utter, colossal joke!
Endless resentment and regret filled his last consciousness.
"Then I'll take Yue'er and leave first."
Lu Cheng nodded casually at the stunned Jueying, as if greeting her.
After speaking, he, embracing the somewhat stiff Dongfang Yue, turned and walked towards his Rolls-Royce.
Jueying watched the two departing figures, then looked down at Ye Chen, who was rapidly aging and lying on the ground like a dead dog.
She was silent for a moment, then finally raised her dagger, and with a swift movement, brought it down.
Pfft.
Ye Chen's life was cleanly and decisively ended.
In the last scene of his vision, it was the taillights of that Rolls-Royce, disappearing into the night.