True Apocalypse Game

The blood on the floor continued to rise, reaching waist-deep in the blink of an eye. The entire hall had transformed into a sea of blood, and the sickeningly sweet stench was nauseating.

Cheney’s head felt like it was about to split open. He slammed his fists against his temples, his eyes bulging as he roared:

"I... am... the Vice President of the Purification Society! The acting President of the Eagle Country Senate! Cheney Kreif! The man with the strongest willpower in the world! I cannot be put under Hypnosis! I am the first Apostle of the Whisperer!"

Even as he screamed, the blood had already risen over his head and was still climbing toward the ceiling.

Submerged in the blood, Cheney couldn’t breathe as the warm, sickeningly sweet liquid flooded his mouth. He desperately clawed at his own throat, suffocating.

Just then, he shoved his right index finger into his mouth and began frantically biting down on the second knuckle.

Cheney’s eyes bulged as he bit down with all his might. A piercing pain shot through him, but it brought him a surge of joy. ’If I can feel pain, I can break the Hypnosis.’

’I need a more intense stimulus!’

In an instant, his finger began to bleed; he had already bitten through the skin, exposing the tendon beneath.

The sea of blood around him began to boil, and cracks spiderwebbed across the walls.

Piercing pain shot from the wound. Cheney kept tearing at his finger, and in a flash, his teeth had sunk halfway through the second knuckle.

More cracks appeared on the hall’s walls, which looked ready to collapse at any second.

’I can’t stop!’

A low growl rumbled in Cheney’s throat as he bit down harder. With a sickening CRUNCH, his teeth slammed together. He had completely severed the finger at the joint, tearing it off.

Pain so intense it nearly made him pass out flared from the stump. Cheney clenched his jaw and squeezed the wound, his eyes stretched so wide they felt like they would split, but a smile spread across his face.

The world around him was rapidly shattering. He was waking up from the Hypnosis!

The next moment, the world spun around him. The crimson sea of blood vanished in a flash, along with the bodies of Joey and the other two. He was back in the hall.

But everything was completely different from what he’d just seen. The Special Service Bureau gunmen were all down on the floor. Joey and the other two held firearms, having secured several vantage points, and were aiming down at him.

The dozen or so Spiritual Children had been brought over to them and were under their protection.

They weren’t dead.

The man in the hood and mask stood watching him, hands in his pockets, a mocking expression in his eyes.

Cheney spat the severed finger from his mouth. He pressed his left hand firmly against the wound, and though waves of piercing pain washed over him, he grew calm.

The sound of the wind still drifted in, along with the rustling of leaves.

Cheney glanced up at the windows on the walls and the skylight in the dome. He closed his eyes, listening for a moment before speaking.

"The wind... So the Hypnosis started when I first heard the wind... Ha. I actually thought it was just the light and shadows shifting because of the clouds. I never imagined you had started hypnotizing me so early on..."

A faint, silvery-gray light glinted from the surrounding walls, windows, and ventilation ducts.

Clearly, the Antichrist had been using the Gray Tide to control the hall’s wind and light from the very beginning, initiating the Hypnosis.

Cheney collapsed to the floor, sitting in a pool of his own blood. He scrutinized the figure before him, then suddenly burst out laughing.

"I still underestimated you... You are the Antichrist, after all—someone even Cthulhu has to treat with caution. Your brain must have been modified. It can interfere with others’ magnetic fields, can’t it? Otherwise, there’s no reason I should have fallen under your Hypnosis so easily..."

Shen Feng didn’t answer. He simply gave Cheney a faint smile and said,

"Have you ever considered that this idea of destroying the world is just plain wrong? Surrendering to your own death drive is just a form of escapism. You can be saved, too. You could even become a Savior and save others... The line between good and evil is a fine one. Since you’re not content to bow to Cthulhu, why not join me in saving the world? One day, even the Whisperer will kneel before you..."

Cheney glanced at the floor around him.

He could feel something silently closing in.

’It must be the Gray Tide he controls.’

He gave a wretched smile.

"I know you want to control me, to turn me into your pawn, your puppet to play against the Whisperer. But I’d advise you to give up on that notion..."

As he spoke, he whipped a pistol from his coat with his uninjured left hand, aimed it at Shen Feng, and said with a grin,

"Good or evil, it’s my own choice. Pure evil is my purest self. No one gets to interfere—not even the Whisperer..."

Joey and the others gasped, simultaneously leveling their guns at Cheney. The red dot of a laser sight danced on his forehead, ready to take his life at any moment.

Shen Feng’s smile vanished. He watched Cheney, his face devoid of expression, and said,

"I will capture Cthulhu. I will capture the Whisperer. And I will turn everything you believe in into a joke."

’He already knew what Cheney was about to do.’

Cheney let out a dark chuckle.

"Savior, Antichrist, I admit I lost to you... Take a good look at your own eyes; you’ll discover what’s truly in your heart... Farewell. We’ll meet again in Hell after you’ve destroyed the world."

The moment the words left his lips, he whipped the gun around, pressed the muzzle under his chin, and pulled the trigger.

"BANG!" The bullet tore through Cheney’s head, exiting through the crown of his skull. It blew the top of his head clean off, splattering brain matter and blood everywhere in a gruesome mess.

His body collapsed, hitting the floor like a sack of stones.

Joey stared blankly at Cheney’s corpse, finding it hard to believe that the esteemed President of the Senate had just ended his own life, now nothing more than a cooling body.

The Gray Tide swarmed over to Cheney’s corpse, engulfing it like a colony of ants and beginning to rapidly devour and decompose it.

His brain was shattered, leaving nothing of value to be salvaged.

Without a single glance at Cheney’s body, Shen Feng walked over to the massive Blood Painting.

The dozen or so children had recovered from their earlier frenzy. Some began to cry in a panic, while others seemed scared witless, just standing there, stunned and expressionless.

Shen Feng studied the painting, his mind racing.

After everything that had happened, he’d come to understand the predictive abilities of these so-called "Spiritual Children" all too well. They were almost always right.

’The scene in this painting is absolutely horrifying.’

’Am I really going to become a world-destroying monster in the future?’

’Or was this just a setup by Cheney, a trap to plant a psychological suggestion in my mind?’

’And if this really is the future, should I just get a bunch of props, stage a similar scene, give a devilish smile, and take a few pictures to break the prophecy?’

But he knew that even if he did, it would just be a hollow gesture to make himself feel better.

’Nothing would really change.’

"Savior... sir, what do we do now? Some of those men were from the Special Service Bureau. Government agents could be here any minute..."

Thomas asked cautiously.

Shen Feng glanced at the bodies in the hall and in the courtyard outside, then once again commanded the Gray Tide to clean up the scene.

Truth be told, the Gray Tide’s most convenient feature was its ability to destroy bodies and erase all traces.

In the blink of an eye, the Gray Tide had devoured all the bodies on site. All that remained were the dozen or so injured, trembling Spiritual Children, and Joey, Aili, and Thomas.

It even devoured all the weapons, ammunition, and bullet holes in the walls, leaving the place spotless.

It was as if nothing had ever happened.

Shen Feng gave Joey a long look and said,

"You have two choices. First, you can leave here immediately and pretend none of this ever happened, that you were never here. As for the children, just call the press and the police. Get the FBI or someone else here to protect them. No one will give the kids a hard time. Your priority is to save yourselves."

From start to finish, no one else had seen Joey and his companions.

Or rather, anyone who had was now dead.

They could still walk away from this completely clean.

As for these children, who were already unstable and suffering from various mental disorders, they would have a hard time describing Joey, Aili, and Thomas accurately. Besides, no one would believe them anyway.

"Your second choice is to wait for the reporters and police, spin a story about rescuing abused children, and become heroes. Then, while you’re in temporary custody or being questioned, you let the Purification Society quietly have you killed."

Thomas shuddered and said quickly,

"I’ll take the first option!"

Joey and Aili nodded as well, agreeing to follow the Savior’s plan.

Shen Feng sent out the messages to the press and the police. He then equipped the three of them with Gray Tide Battle Armor one last time. After making sure the children would be rescued shortly, he left Maple Leaf Castle, driving back the way they came.

Shen Feng would, of course, completely erase all surveillance footage and data from their route, leaving nothing that could endanger Joey’s group.

Soon, they were back at the small lakeside cabin near Shuanghu Town.

When she saw them return, Martha squealed with delight and threw herself at Shen Feng, hugging his leg tightly. She then looked up at him with wide, teary eyes, seemingly surprised that he had made it back alive.

After a moment’s hesitation, Martha handed Shen Feng a drawing.

Shen Feng stared at it, stunned.

The drawing depicted the exact same scene as the giant Blood Painting in Maple Leaf Castle: an apocalyptic world with mountains of corpses and a sea of blood, with Shen Feng sitting atop a pile of bodies, smiling.

’Martha saw this scene too!’

Shen Feng vaguely recalled someone from the Purification Society saying that each Spiritual Child could only see one vision of the future.

’Martha has now had two visions. Does that mean her gift is much stronger?’

Shen Feng took out the Blood Painting and compared it to Martha’s drawing, immediately noticing a few differences.

In Martha’s drawing, the figure of "Shen Feng" had turned its head and was staring at something in the void.

Its eyes were so lifelike they made one feel as if they were being watched.

"...Take a good look at your own eyes; you’ll discover what’s truly in your heart..."

Cheney’s words suddenly flashed through Shen Feng’s mind. ’What he said... it obviously had another meaning!’

Shen Feng immediately stared intently at the version of himself in the drawing.

Those eyes... they made him feel as if he could transcend time and space to meet the gaze of his future self.

The next moment, a wave of vertigo hit Shen Feng, and his vision was suddenly filled with smoke and fire.

Glancing around, he found himself sitting atop a pile of corpses. He was surrounded by the shattered walls and dilapidated remains of a city in ruins.

It was as if he had become the "self" from the drawing, or perhaps his eyes had broken through the shackles of time, allowing him to inhabit his future self and see the future firsthand!

He then lifted his gaze forward. His eyes shot wide in horror. He finally understood what the "himself" in the drawing had been looking at!