Chapter 20
Chapter 20: Toward Death, A Madman's Surgery
Jiang Nan reached out and lifted the black cloth.
Liu Yuqing quickly shone her flashlight over.
The beam pierced through the murky preservative fluid, illuminating the inside of the jar.
It was a dark golden eyeball.
It floated silently within the liquid.
But the instant the light touched it…
The previously dilated pupil suddenly contracted.
Like a living creature, staring out at Liu Yuqing.
Hiss!
Liu Yuqing instinctively drew a sharp breath of blood-tinged air.
Her stomach churned violently, and she nearly vomited again.
Suppressing her discomfort, she activated 【Appraisal】.
A few seconds later, she raised her head, face pale.
She wrote the appraisal information on paper and handed it to Jiang Nan.
【Item】: Eye of Calamity
【Grade】: Grade A
【Type】: Cursed Object
【Description】: A bizarre eyeball refined by a powerful ability user in a state of extreme madness.
【Function】: Possesses the ability to see through others' weaknesses, HP Bars, energy flow, and has an auto-combat function.
【Side Effect】: Only someone with exceptionally strong willpower can wield it.
After implantation, a willpower check is required. Failure results in the bearer being devoured by the resentment within the eyeball, degenerating into a kill-obsessed Cursed Object.
Jiang Nan read the information and gave a slight nod.
A Grade A Cursed Object—see through weaknesses, auto-combat.
This was indeed a fine thing, but its side effect was equally obvious.
It was a double-edged sword. Either you wielded it, or you became its slave.
He pocketed the note and turned around.
His gaze fell on Guo Shuai, standing in the corner.
Specifically, on his charred and blinded left eye.
Jiang Nan took out his Notepad and wrote 2 characters.
【Name?】
Guo Shuai was momentarily stunned.
Although they were classmates, he had always been invisible. And Jiang Nan was a lone wolf—the 2 of them had barely exchanged a word.
"I… my name is Guo Shuai."
Guo Shuai answered with some pleasant surprise, his voice hoarse.
Jiang Nan continued writing: 【Ability?】
Seeing those 2 characters, Wang Meng beside him quickly nudged Guo Shuai with his elbow and winked.
"Hey! What are you spacing out for! Boss is doing a headcount—he's thinking of bringing you along!"
A spark of hope instantly ignited in Guo Shuai's previously dim eyes.
‘Bringing me along…’
‘If I could follow Jiang Nan, the odds of surviving in this apocalypse would increase infinitely.’
He thought of Yang Wei's final moments—pushing him away, those last words: "Live on."
‘Right… I have to live on… I have to carry Yang Wei's share and go see the end of this world.’
Guo Shuai took a deep breath, straightened his back, and his gaze turned resolute.
"My ability is 【Danger Perception】, Grade D."
"It can sense threats within a twenty-meter range…"
However.
Before he could finish.
Jiang Nan's pen stopped.
He showed not the slightest interest. Instead, a look of disappointment—even contempt—crossed his face.
He scrawled a line on the Notepad, tore it off, and tossed it onto the table in front of Guo Shuai.
Guo Shuai looked down, and the words struck him like a bolt of lightning.
【Too weak.】
【My team has no use for dead weight.】
Those simple words were like a bucket of ice water, instantly extinguishing the flame of hope Guo Shuai had just kindled.
"Dead… dead weight?"
Guo Shuai's lips trembled, his face going instantly pale.
The atmosphere turned cold in an instant.
Wang Meng and Liu Yuqing were both stunned—they hadn't expected the Boss who had just saved Guo Shuai to be so ruthless now.
"Boss, Guo Shuai's ability grade is low, but he's still pretty sharp—outside earlier he also…"
Wang Meng tried to plead on his behalf.
But Jiang Nan paid no attention.
He turned and walked toward the ladder leading out of the cellar.
As he passed the table, he did not take the jar containing the 【Eye of Calamity】—he left it there.
Before climbing the ladder, Jiang Nan paused, his back to Guo Shuai, and dropped one final note.
The note drifted down lightly onto the dust-covered floor.
【Prove your worth to me.】
【Otherwise, rot here.】
With that, Jiang Nan climbed up without looking back.
Chen Tong, Liu Yuqing, and Yu Shishi exchanged glances.
Though reluctant, none dared defy Jiang Nan's will, and they hurriedly followed.
Wang Meng went last.
He looked at Guo Shuai, frozen in place, and let out a sigh, giving him a heavy clap on the shoulder.
"Brother… take care."
"Boss's words are harsh, but he left that jar for you… figure it out yourself."
With that, Wang Meng climbed the ladder and pulled the metal cellar hatch shut behind him.
Clang!
With a dull thud, Guo Shuai was sealed off from the outside.
The cellar sank back into dead silence.
Only a sliver of pale moonlight filtered through the gaps above, falling upon the worn table.
Guo Shuai stood alone in the shadows.
"Dead weight…"
Those 2 words were like a sharp blade, churning violently through his heart.
He recalled Wu Hao once jabbing a finger in his face and cursing him.
"I've got eyes and ears—what use is your dead weight ability?"
At the time, he had been outwardly furious, wanting to argue back.
But deep inside…
He had actually agreed.
‘Yeah. A twenty-meter range. What's the use?’
‘Couldn't even save Yang Wei. Couldn't even warn anyone in time.’
‘I'm just dead weight.’
‘Someone who only drags people down and gets his brothers killed.’
"Heh…"
Guo Shuai looked at the jar on the table and let out a hollow laugh.
"Prove my worth…"
"I'm already like this… what worth do I even have left?"
He touched his half-charred face, fingers grazing the dead and ruined socket of his left eye.
Searing pain shot through him.
But that pain jolted his foggy mind into sudden clarity.
The 【Eye of Calamity】 inside the jar seemed to be slowly rotating now, its pupil locked on him.
As if silently tempting him:
'Do you want power?'
'Do you want to see through everything?'
'Do you want… revenge?'
Guo Shuai's body began to tremble.
It was fear—and excitement.
'I've already died once…'
'Yang Wei is dead. My face is destroyed.'
'The way I am now—besides this worthless life, what else do I have to fear?!'
'Jiang Nan is right! I need to prove my own worth!'
Guo Shuai snapped his head up, and in his remaining right eye, a near-manic ferocity blazed.
He gritted his teeth and stepped forward, one step at a time, toward the jar.
"I am not dead weight!!"
"Ahhhh!!"
Guo Shuai let out a roar—to bolster his own courage, and to vent the crushing weight that had built inside him.
He thrust out his hand and snatched the glass jar off the table.
Bang!
The glass shattered, preservative fluid splashing everywhere.
The dark golden eyeball tumbled into his blood-soaked palm—slick and cold, yet brimming with power.
By the pale sliver of moonlight.
On the cellar wall, the shadow of a madman was cast.
The shadow raised its hand and slowly reached toward its own left eye.
"Ugh… Ahhh!!"
Guo Shuai had no anesthetic. He had no scalpel.
With his bare fingers, he forced them into the socket of his already dead, charred left eyeball.
Squelch.
In that moment, he was his own butcher.
The agony made his entire body convulse, cold sweat pouring like rain—but he did not stop.
With a tearing sound, the ruined eyeball was ripped free by his own hand and discarded on the floor.
Black blood seeped from the hollow socket.
"Come then… let me see… just what kind of thing you really are!!"
Guo Shuai panted heavily, the 【Eye of Calamity】clutched tight in his hand.
No hesitation.
No retreat.
He pressed it against the raw, bloody void—and shoved it in!
"Ungh!!"
A scream of anguish echoed through the cellar.
The next second.
A terrifying dark aura erupted from his left eye socket, enveloping Guo Shuai's entire body!