Apocalypse Forecast

The terrible power instantly obliterated the entire cage. Amidst the explosive roar, countless steel pipes twisted and disintegrated along with the concrete, flinging debris in all directions and almost burying Huai Shi under the ruins.

At the epicenter of the explosion, Qi Yuan floated in mid-air as if gravity had no hold on him, convulsing violently while letting the darkness he had ingested into his physical shell course through his body. Finally, the blackness in his eyes spread, leaving no trace of white.

He slowly landed, stepping on the mangled flesh and shattered bones beneath his feet, and let out a contented sigh.

"What the hell is this..." Huai Shi groaned from beneath the cover of rubble.

"Haven't I told you before, Huai Shi?" Qi Yuan turned to look at him, a mocking smile on his face. "I've tried all the methods I could think of, all of them. But I forgot to mention the rest to you—and then, I gained power from the Paradise of the Abyss."

He gained it from the hands of the Savior Association.

Probably even in his wildest dreams, Qi Wen never imagined that the son he'd raised as a good-for-nothing had long since pledged allegiance to the Savior Association. This son held a rank even higher than King Ocean's and had been baptized by the Lord.

Now, he had drunk the blood that represented power, received protection and blessings from the Paradise of Bliss, and been assimilated by the power of Hell.

Or, to put it more precisely: while Sublimators ascend their will above the material and rise higher, Qi Yuan, at this moment, had actively embraced the erosion of Hell. He was merging his self with the eternal and unchanging Abyss—a Solidifier!

The Qi Yuan of this moment was a monster, remade by the Abyss.

"Now, I have power!"

Qi Yuan laughed, exulting with open arms. Then, from the corpses on the ground and from the top of the stairs, torrents of fresh blood gushed forth. They converged upon him, forming a blood-red robe.

Huai Shi quietly raised his gun, intending to pull the trigger.

But in that instant, the gun in his hand vanished, only to reappear in Qi Yuan's grasp, twisted into a mangled heap. Qi Yuan then grabbed Huai Shi by the collar and slowly lifted him.

"You need to understand..." Qi Yuan grinned, his smile ferocious. "This isn't personal."

BANG!

Huai Shi was thrown to the ground, feeling as if his body would shatter.

A twisted steel rebar from a shattered wall impaled his chest, piercing a fragment of his ruined lung. Immediately after, Qi Yuan's hand punched through bone and plunged into his chest cavity, viciously crushing the beating heart within.

His heart burst. Huai Shi convulsed once, then lay still.

Qi Yuan slowly withdrew his hand, tossing the fragments of heart aside. He looked away from Huai Shi, turned, and ascended the stairs step by step.

Before long, chaotic gunfire erupted from above. Soon, all sounds faded into silence.

In the quiet, Huai Shi's stiff body twitched slightly. His eyes, which had rolled white, slowly focused again. He listened intently but heard nothing.

Has that guy left? he wondered. He really left.

Once he was certain, his expression twisted in agony.

"Is anyone there?" he called out with difficulty. "Help me! Somebody, help!"

Normally, anyone in his condition would be dead.

He almost thought he was dying himself.

But since he didn't feel dead yet, he had to at least try to struggle, to see if he could be saved.

He no longer hoped for anyone alive from the Special Affairs Department to lend a hand; he just prayed that the Raven, who was always slacking off, wouldn't be too late.

"My, my, how did you get into such a terrible state so quickly?"

The Raven's voice sounded beside his ear, and then he saw that familiar face again. She was no longer in the form of a Flying Bird. She had once again taken human shape and was already standing before Huai Shi. Her extravagant skirt almost brushed his side as she leaned down, her delicate, graceful face casually inspecting his wretched condition. She held a cup of Potion, sipping from it leisurely. She looked utterly relaxed and happy.

So good... Huai Shi thought. If I weren't on the verge of death, I might even ask for a sip.

Huai Shi opened his mouth and spurted a spray of blood at her, his meaning clear: Stop gawking and save me, quick!

"Ah, I understand, I understand." She lifted her skirt hem slightly and squatted, revealing a stretch of her slender, fair calf, as if to tempt his gaze upward. But the hand that had lifted her skirt reached into her neckline, pulling out a strange key. "So, about this key," she waved it at him with a cheerful smile, "are you worthy?"

Huai Shi nodded vigorously. "I'm worthy! I'm worthy!"

"You're worthy?" The Raven raised an eyebrow. "And how many keys might you be worthy of?"

"However many there are, I'm worthy of them all!" Huai Shi was almost frantic. "Could you please hurry? I'm really dying here."

"Don't rush. Wasn't I just waiting for you to kick the bucket? That way you'd suffer less," she said calmly, her words astonishing. "But this is an opportunity. After all, the transformation of the Potion is only half complete; we might as well finish the other half now. However, before that…"

She paused, a mysterious smile playing on her lips. From her sleeve, she pulled out an ancient parchment. She unfolded it to reveal sinister and evil-looking text—it resembled seal script, yet also some variant of alphabetic characters. Her slender, delicate fingers spread the parchment before the young man.

"...could you sign this?"

"You're just taking advantage of my predicament, aren't you?"

"You flatter me. But you'll die if you don't sign, so you will sign, won't you?" she replied, smiling cheerfully.

"...As you wish." Huai Shi sighed, realizing his left hand had somehow regained sensation.

He clenched his teeth, lifted his finger, and with all his strength, scrawled his name in jet-black ink on the scroll—Huai Shi!

The moment his final stroke fell, pitch-black flames erupted from the scroll, instantly incinerating it to ashes. The flames, like an Evil Ghost, spread rapidly. They crawled up his fingers, into his body, burrowing into his very organs, clinging to his skeleton and burning fiercely.

Unspeakable agony overwhelmed him, and Huai Shi let out a hoarse, piercing scream from amidst the fire.

He struggled wildly, almost tearing himself free from the steel rebar impaled in his chest, and managed to rise from the ground. But then he saw the woman lift her leg and forcefully stomp him back down.

"Calm down. Don't act like you've never seen anything before." The Raven pinned him forcefully. She then reached out, pulled the bent rebar from Huai Shi's chest—along with attached fragments of cement and blood—and tossed it aside.

"Weren't you just asking for a key? Here you go." She wiped non-existent sweat from her forehead. The ornate key in her hand turned slightly, aimed at Huai Shi's gaping chest wound, and then she thrust it in. Then, she twisted it forcefully.

It was as if the gates to Hell had been wrenched open within his body. Huai Shi felt an unending torrent gush from the new fissure. It quickly filled every inch of his being, inflating him like a balloon.

Just when he thought he would explode, the flames covering his body blazed even fiercer, igniting everything that had flooded into him, incinerating it completely.

Only an unburnable essence remained, slowly integrating into his body under the intense heat.

It was as if he had become a lampwick, forced to endure the suffocating torment of kerosene from below and the engulfing flames from above.

Huai Shi coughed out great gushes of blood, but it seemed to have spoiled. It was black and hissed as it hit the air. Amidst the excruciating torment, he widened his eyes. "What the hell is this?"

"It's your Stigma." The Raven kept him pinned, signaling him not to move. With one hand, she summoned the Book of Fate from Huai Shi's soul and held it open; her other hand pressed down on Huai Shi's head. "Huai Shi," she declared, "under the witness of the Heavenly Kingdom, I make this pact with you. I swear in the name of [ ]. —My royal authority shall be revealed here, and you shall live eternally in His radiance!"

Instantly, Huai Shi felt as if an Iron Hammer had struck his forehead. His vision went black, and his very soul reverberated with her words.

Huai Shi thought he heard her speak a name, but he couldn't make it out clearly. The power carried in that name shook him, making it difficult to maintain the clarity of his will. He nearly crumbled under the pressure, like being crushed by raging tidal waves.

BOOM!

Huai Shi felt as though he had become a bonfire.

His consciousness, freed from his body-turned-kindling, merged with the black flames and rose. It expanded and contracted infinitely, dancing on the very edge of destruction and renewal.

Huai Shi finally saw her—the woman with whom he had made the pact. This was not the exquisite Phantom of a Dreamland, but the raging torrent hidden behind the illusion: endless fire and light transforming into Thunderfire, as if to engulf the entire world.

As the terrifying power surged, myriad tongues of radiant flame rose like tides from her pupils, only to fall back into a seemingly endless sea of light.

When she spread her wings, infinite light bathed the world; when she lowered her gaze, all creation plunged into infernal fire. The world crumbled and was born anew.

The existence and extinction of all things seemed to be unified in her hands, endowed with a beginning, an end, and all meaning.

Now, this embodiment of all creation lowered her eyes before him, proclaiming with an air of immense authority and chilling solemnity, "I shall bear witness to you."

She whispered softly in Huai Shi's ear, "Just as you shall bear witness to me."

In that instant, the endless Phantoms collapsed, vanishing without a trace, like a long, painful dream suddenly ending.

Huai Shi felt the gateway in his body slam shut, and the flames abruptly rolled back.

With a push of her palm, Huai Shi's will returned to his body, like a sword forged in Thunderfire being sheathed.

Huai Shi felt his heart beating. Blood flowed through his veins, reaching his limbs and bones. He felt his lungs drawing breath. Then, he smelled the lingering scent of blood in the air and heard the roar from distant streets.

He felt his hands, and then, once more, his feet. He felt as if he had truly returned to this world.

He was alive, and his body was whole.

Huai Shi's eyes snapped open. Recalling the agonizing dream, he screamed and leaped up from the ground. As if terrified the nightmarish memories would catch him, he sprinted frantically within the cage, from one end to the other and back again.

After a long while, he finally calmed down. He leaned against the wall, drenched in sweat, gasping in terror.

Finally, he looked down, staring blankly at the strange sensation on his chest.

"What the hell is this!"