Apocalyptic Forecast - Chapter 9
Chapter 9: Plan B
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation
Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“…”
The crow fell silent.
“That’s not right, is it?”
Huai Shi murmured softly, “I know not everyone has to like me. I might not fit in well, and I might not be very popular. Still, while some people should be punished for the things they do, none of them deserve to die.
“They’re all living people, just like me. They shouldn’t die, just like the people in the club shouldn’t have died. They may be criminals, but they’re still innocent.
“That’s why I don’t like you saying those things.”
Huai Shi looked her in the eyes, emphasizing every word. “—I really, really don’t like it.”
“…Oh my my, do you have to be so mad?”
The crow turned her head away and seemed to sob sorrowfully. “Big Sis is only trying to do what’s best for you. My entire bird is yours now, so is it that wrong for me to test you before we begin working together?”
With that, she blinked her teary eyes. “Since your Big Sis is so perfectly sincere, could you give me a chance to make amends? If Plan A doesn’t work, we still have Plan B.”
Unfortunately, when a crow put on a pitiful face like that, it did not look cute at all.
“…What Plan B?”
“It’s simple.”
The crow eventually gave him a look. “Since you don’t want to kill others…”
She said, “Then I’ll just have to kill you.”
In that very instant, Huai Shi’s vision turned dark.
…
Huai Shi had a very long dream.
In his daze, he seemed to be on his way home after work. While he waited for the subway, he was still thinking of that useless employee he had fired that day with utter contempt. After that, he heard the rumbling of the train coming down the tunnel.
Before he could put his phone away, he heard a spiteful voice behind him. “Die!”
The next moment, a pair of hands shoved him in the back.
He fell. He flew and then he fell, heading toward the tracks. The train’s headlights grew ever brighter and closer, and then Huai Shi was reduced to shreds, his body torn to pieces. The last thing he heard was the crack of his skull shattering.
An indescribable pain shot through him, but before he could scream or even feel terror, his consciousness rapidly began to fade.
Immediately after that, he seemed to turn into a legendary businessman who controlled the entire world’s economy. Now, however, he was at a dead end. Trapped in a garden, he was being threatened by his traitor of an assistant who gave him an ultimatum: surrender, or else.
Huai Shi sneered coldly and pointed a gun at the assistant.
Bam!
There was a soft noise from the helicopter in the distance, and then Huai Shi could not feel his body anymore. At the very last second, he heard his assistant’s dazed yell, “Don’t shoot, he’s not…”
Was he shot in the head?
In his daze, Huai Shi did not have the time to digest what had happened before the stream of nightmares continued. All of a sudden, he was now a pervy middle-aged man wearing some strange motion armor and armed with a gun. He rushed into the Louvre and fought a bunch of oddly-shaped bug creatures, but soon he was dead as a doornail again.
The last thought in his mind was actually, ‘F*ck, I wanna load my save…’
Load his save? Load what save? Try loading your Rem then, idiot!
He began to sneer at ‘himself’, but he immediately stopped laughing, because it seemed he was hanging from the city gates again. His hands were nailed down, but he could not feel any pain. His entire body felt like it was floating, as though he was drunk, and he smiled stupidly at the white-haired man in front of him.
Still, why was this guy glaring at him? Did he do something wrong?
Soon enough, there was a flash of moonlight, and his head was chopped off.
This time, it was a decapitation.
After that, it seemed like he was tied to a stake amidst the passionate cheers of the crowd. As he burned in the flames, someone howled excitedly, “Die, heretic!”
Then he died again.
Just like that, he died again and again, in many different ways. He was poisoned, drowned, strangled, set on fire, stuffed into a meat grinder, sent into the ER, accidentally shoved by another. He died to all sorts of people and all sorts of self-inflicted causes.
Again, again, again, and again.
He died died died died died died died died.
He did not even know how many times he died.
After all that dying, he was growing numb to it all— This time, he was losing his consciousness for real.
That was it, right? It was over?
He fell into a deep sleep, relieved.
At the very last second, he seemed to turn around and look at the source of all those illusions. He finally spotted the essence of all those deaths, and the deaths seemed to morph into countless flying black pages. The dancing sheets of black stacked on top of each other like snow, gathering into a sea of sorrow and despair, forming a world of silence.
Maybe this was the Book of Destiny’s true form.
A cold world that died alone.
…
A silence descended upon the room again, rustled only by the scritching of Deceptive Split scribbling on the Book of Destiny.
The illusory crow was staring at Huai Shi quietly, as though seeing his elementium alight beyond his physical husk.
It was just a single person’s consciousness, but when the thoughts collided, the sparks that flew were as bright as burning flames.
The crow glanced at the Book of Destiny and could not help a sigh. “I knew it. If it hadn’t been absorbing your elementium over all these years, you would’ve awakened years ago…”
Ever since she woke up from within the book, she had been observing Huai Shi the entire time.
That was why she could deduce from all the signs that Huai Shi had probably put one foot through the door of Ascension long ago. Otherwise, the Book of Destiny would probably never acknowledge a completely normal person as its wielder, and she would not have made this wager so easily either.
Right now, on the pages as they stood in this moment, the bracketed ‘Developing Stage’ words next to Huai Shi’s name had become bolder, as though they were gathering power and getting ready to transform.
Every time they tried to change, however, they seemed to bump into an invisible barrier that forced them back to their original position.
Soon enough, an invisible force yanked the quill to a white space on the page, and it drew a curve.
As time passed, the curve slowly lengthened and gradually became a perfect circle. When the ends were about to meet, however, they just could not complete the circle, however hard they tried.
“What? It still isn’t enough?” murmured the crow in shock.
Usually, the Developing Stage was the process during which a person’s essence was lifted from the White Silver Sea. The elementium would stand on its own before gradually returning to merge with that person’s consciousness.
During that process, the Ascender’s exclusively unique soul would be forged.
This usually took a very short time, unlike the construction of a soul. The shortest record time in history was only five minutes and twelve seconds, whereas the longer ones only spanned five to six months… Even the crow had never seen someone who could not pass the Developing Stage after six to seven years.
Even if he had been at ‘zero mana’ for all these years because the Book of Destiny kept absorbing his power, this was still a little too much, right?
At first, she thought that with the death records in the book as a trigger, Huai Shi would naturally be able to make a breakthrough after a few minutes. What she did not expect was to see the kid standing at the grand entrance but biding his time and refusing to go in!
He was so close to forging a soul.
So very close…
“What on earth is he missing?”
The crow could not help but narrow her eyes.
She had forgotten one final thing, something crucial.
That feeling was especially annoying, but no matter how she racked her brain, she could not figure out what it was.
The existence of a soul meant the ascension of his essence and conscience. That included the very fiber of his humanity. It was precisely because everyone was different that there were so many unique souls in this world.
There could only be one reason the construction process stopped.
It must be because of Huai Shi himself.
However, even if she wanted to use Deceptive Split to go through Huai Shi’s records, she could only read after the point when Huai Shi picked up the Book of Destiny at ten years old.
Anything before that was a blank…
When she read between the lines, though, she could clearly tell that Huai Shi was trying to hide something. She just could not tell what it was.
As long as Huai Shi did not reveal it, it would forever stay a mystery.
As the crow was lost in thought, the imperfect circle shifted again.
Pitch-black ink appeared out of nowhere and drew along the shape of the curve, finally forming what looked like a crescent moon.
“…So he’s a moon-sign, huh?”
The crow was stunned for a second, but then she sighed. “How rare.”
Although his soul was not complete yet, his attribute had already revealed itself— According to the Book of Destiny’s categories, the moon sign corresponded to human elementium, or the very soul itself.
Souls under the moon sign had abilities that similarly interfered with the soul. This included things like mind control, consciousness shaping, and spirit repair. To most Ascenders, this branch represented eeriness and mystery.
“Unfortunately, its effect is too small-scale.”
The crow shook her head in some disgust. “Far too small…”
Relying on mystery and fear might last him some time, but these were shadowy artes. The true center of this world’s stage would never be occupied by someone who could only dwell in the shadows.
After some time, Huai Shi’s breathing became heavier, and his eyelids twitched. It seemed like he was about to wake.
She sighed and lifted Deceptive Split slowly, drawing a light dot in the center of that crescent.
Just a single dot of ink.
That alone was enough to make the crow turn even paler.
“I’ve given you your chance, Huai Shi,” she murmured softly. “Now you have to rely on yourself to build that bridge and make the fake real.”
…
“It’s done.”
The trusted subordinate rushed into the office excitedly, holding a hard disk. “Master, I have all the footage from after that b*stard Chen Quan stole that box.”
“Were you clean about it?”
The man referred to as Master looked like he had not slept for a long time now. His eyes were completely red, and when he raised his head, his bloodshot eyes made for a gruesome sight.
The subordinate instinctively shuddered and forced a smile.
“Don’t worry, sir, I got someone else to do it, so there aren’t traces of our names. Even if someone followed the trail, they’d only find him.”
“Very good.”
The Master accepted the disk and did not say anything else. He paced the office for a good long while before he finally stomped his foot and made up his mind.
“Inform that old men and women that they’re to come for mass on Sunday night. Get all of them to come, and anyone who doesn’t won’t be able to come ever again.”
The subordinate was stunned. “Didn’t we just have mass the day before yesterday? They’re used to coming at the end of the month…”
“Just make up an excuse! Can’t you think?!” The Master flew into a rage and glared at his face. “Do I have to come up with excuses for you as well? Just say the Heavenly Father is celebrating his birthday!”
“Okay, okay, okay. Whatever you say, sir.”
The subordinate did not want to step on any more mines, so he hugged his head and scurried away.
In the quiet office, the man who looked slightly older than his years was silent for a long time. He closed the door and paced for a good long while before inserting the hard disk and watching the fragments of information saved in it.
It started in the warehouse, where that man suddenly pulled out a gun and killed some people. He stole the sacred item and was injured in the counterattack, then there was the explosion, and his panicked escape… Finally, he slipped into an alley.
As the man played the video in fast forward, he saw a boy with a cello case walk into the alley and then walk out again before long. Here, the video paused once more.
It stayed on that somewhat childish face.
“It’s you…”
The Master approached the screen, his bloody red eyes fixed upon the boy in the image.