Novels online

Chapter 722: This World is Void

In a blink, three more weeks passed.

"Tomorrow is the Second Impact," Lun Qin said, standing atop the mountain peak and looking down at the bustling crowd below.

Ultimately, she had not chosen to abandon these people who had followed her in their escape, and had even informed everyone in Hope City about the impending Second Impact of the Apostles.

Hope City, which was the large camp established a few weeks ago by the survivors who had fled from New York City.

However, calling it a city was certainly an overestimation. Hope City was essentially just a disorganized gathering place for people, without running water, electricity, communication networks, or proper sewage systems. In terms of basic infrastructure, it was even worse than the countryside.

Modern people, who just a month ago had been enjoying the convenient and comfortable life of a city, were instantly transported back to ancient times in their dreams.

The eight characters encompassing daily necessities – 'eating, drinking, excreting, and sleeping; clothing, food, shelter, and travel' – shattered everyone's romanticized notions of so-called ancient times, especially for some artistic youths who used to constantly romanticize the past and fantasize about transmigration.

Regarding food and drink, the people of Hope City were quite lucky. The suburbs of New York City had vast farmlands, and after thoroughly scavenging all these farms, they obtained enough food to last for two months.

However, the sheer task of turning seven hundred live cattle and six thousand live pigs into truly edible food proved to be a major challenge for the tens of thousands of people in Hope City.

Many of them were just office workers who had jobs in the city. Buying pre-cut meat from the market or supermarket was fine, but truly asking them to sharpen their knives and face pigs and cattle was completely beyond their capabilities. They didn't even know where to stab first.

There were only about a dozen people in the camp with actual experience in livestock slaughter. Moreover, unlike a slaughterhouse with a full set of auxiliary machinery, they could only use crude methods to butcher pigs, exhausting themselves for one or two hours just to process a single animal.

Though they had thousands of pigs, limited by the efficiency of the butchering, the result was that each person could only get a few slices of meat per day at most.

To forage for food, more people chose to form small teams and re-enter New York City.

After all, this was a mega-city with countless food stores. As long as they could evade the zombies, the chances of finding food were high.

If the eating and drinking problem could still be barely endured, the excrement problem, on the other hand, caused many people to simply break down.

The makeshift camp had no sewage system. All personal hygiene issues could only be resolved in the wilderness.

For the first two days, it was fine. They just found a random spot outside and took care of business.

But a few days later, those who wanted to go out again discovered that all the slightly closer spots bore traces left by others. Not only were the piles of flies sickening, but the stench was also terrible. A camp of tens of thousands of people had, quite literally, created the sensation of a city besieged by excrement.

Thus, the organizers in the camp could only learn from ancient traditions and organize a team of 'excrement collectors,' who went door-to-door collecting all kinds of waste from the camp and dumped it in a centralized location.

"Once separated from the urban system, we are all useless..." Lun Qin said, watching with her far-beyond-normal eyesight the people below struggling forward, pushing carts of excrement buckets.

As a superhuman protecting the camp, her only task was to kill any monsters attempting to assault the camp. These trivial matters naturally had nothing to do with her, but this didn't prevent Lun Qin from feeling a sense of lament.

No matter how strong she was, she couldn't change certain facts.

The sewers were gone. The convenient flush toilets were gone too.

Electricity was gone.

The internet was gone.

The TV dramas she had been following were gone.

The supermarkets where everything could be easily bought were gone too.

She realized for the first time that the life she and her brother had taken for granted in New York City actually required so many people to maintain.

Once this system collapsed, life itself transformed into a survival challenge.

"Can we go back to how things were?" Lun Qin asked the arm behind her.

After nearly a month of fighting, the palm of the spirit originally summoned had now transformed into an entire arm.

However, it was still a very long way from summoning the complete spirit.

"Once you obtain the Holy Grail, you will have one chance to choose the future."

"..."

"I don't want the joy of being high above all, doing as I please, nor the despair of falling into the abyss. I just want to live a peaceful life. Why is even that so difficult?" With a single palm strike, Lun Qin flattened a large rock on the mountaintop, venting her inner dissatisfaction.

To be fair, she truly didn't want to be a savior. But this damned world had not given her a choice.

...

The camp was already on high alert, prepared for battle.

The monsters of the Second Impact were much stronger than those of the First Impact. This was something they had all been told.

"The first wave were Observers, the second wave are Reapers..."

Lun Qin's spirit itself was a wisp of Bai Mo's will projection.

"This World Is Void." Every time she saw the spirit's sole ability, she felt utterly speechless.

Any attack was ineffective against him. At the same time, he couldn't exert any physical influence on the world. He was simply a pure bystander.

"Reapers are a type of large monster whose entire body is covered by a cloak, and whose bodies are covered in multiple scythe-like tentacles. Ordinary people who encounter them must flee immediately. Ability Users should also try to avoid close combat with them..."

On the eve of the great battle, Lun Qin once again emphasized this to those participating in the battle within Hope City.

Many people had doubts in their hearts: Why could Lun Qin know so much? Things like the Second Impact, it was practically a prophecy.

Fear stems from the unknown and helplessness.

"Sis, did that spirit tell you this too? It's clearly not from some phony divination ability."

"Don't ask so many questions." Lun Qin ruffled her brother's hair. "Protect yourself tomorrow."

"I'm an Ability User too, don't underestimate me!"

She let out a soft sigh.

From Bai Mo's words, she generally understood the Reapers' actual combat capabilities. One-on-one, Lun Qin was confident she could kill her opponent. If it was one against two, she could fight to a draw.

If it was one against three, she would only be able to look for an opportunity to escape.

Although her fists were powerful, two fists were still no match for countless limbs. Each Reaper had over twenty scythe-like tentacles, making close combat extremely disadvantageous for humans.

Possessing the unique treasure tool, the Zero Hour Child, her power boosted to almost cheating levels, she was already the strongest among the more than six hundred treasure tool holders in the entire camp, but even she couldn't deal with three Reapers simultaneously.

If more than three Reapers appeared tomorrow, then everyone would probably reach their end.

"According to what he said, a thousand two hundred Reapers would appear worldwide during the Second Impact. Water Blue Star is so vast, surely we wouldn't be so unlucky as to encounter four or five at once..."

How many enemies would appear during the Second Impact, Bai Mo had also told Lun Qin this. But she dared not tell the truth to others and could only keep this number to herself.

She had only just managed to fool them with the excuse of a divination ability. If she could even accurately predict how many monsters would descend, then it would truly seem like she was an inside mole.