True Apocalypse Game

Scrawled between the lines, crammed together and crooked, were the words "Shen Feng." The thought that these markings came from the Aztec Civilization’s Spider Nest City—a civilization from millennia ago that should have been completely unrelated to him—made Shen Feng’s skin crawl.

He flinched, utterly baffled.

’What the hell is this thing?’

’The Aztec Civilization’s Diary of the Madman?’

The ground was now littered with shattered fragments of the detonated Sacrificial Stone. Their broken surfaces were exceptionally smooth, even reflective. Though it was dark, they still caught the faint glow in the chamber, reflecting Shen Feng’s silhouette.

A million fragments held a million reflections of Shen Feng. As he moved, they all shifted, and due to the different angles, each reflection seemed to be acting independently—an exceptionally eerie sight.

The writing system of the Aztec Civilization had been studied and partially deciphered by many people, but the work was incomplete. Moreover, each tribal kingdom used a different variation of the script.

Shen Feng had downloaded relevant data before coming here. He now began inputting all the carved symbols from the ground into his Silicon-Based Brain to compare and decipher them.

Soon, the comparison against his entire character database was complete, yet he had only managed to find the meaning of a few symbols.

They were the symbols located right before his name, "Shen Feng."

Its meaning was "The World’s Destructive."

The World’s Destructive, Shen Feng.

Shen Feng was now filled with questions. He had originally assumed the symbols were referring to him showing up and blowing up the Sacrificial Stone today. He never expected them to give him some kind of "Destructive" title.

He was used to being the Savior. To suddenly be called this by a prophecy from millennia ago felt incredibly awkward.

Of course, he wasn’t about to let some so-called prophecy get to him.

He then noticed that the section for Chatai Zhou Country also had circles made of dotted lines. Outside the circles, there were still the patterns of paired eyes.

Each layer of the mural was surrounded by a circle of dotted lines, and outside those lines were the pairs of eyes.

Shen Feng hadn’t had any definite ideas about what the eyes meant before, but now, having seen so many, he was instantly reminded of the future-predicting method used by the Purification Society.

The Spiritual Child.

Using a so-called Spiritual Child, they sent a person’s consciousness for a brief moment into the mind of someone at an extremely important point in the future. They would see what that person saw in that instant and then draw it, creating a prediction.

From the looks of it, this "important moment" was either the instant before death or the moment Shen Feng used Hypnosis to completely restructure their brains.

The inhabitants of the Aztec Spider Nest City must have used a similar method to witness the outbreak of the Evil Spirit Virus and the destruction of the entire world.

And perhaps they also saw the moment Shen Feng arrived here.

Tens of thousands of skeletons still knelt around this altar, surrounded by mountains of piled-up skulls. ’Perhaps they used a similar technique,’ he thought.

That shattered Sacrificial Stone must have possessed some ability to amplify Spiritual Power, though it clearly had the side effect of causing mental confusion.

’The only question is, did the residents of the Spider Nest City commit mass ritual suicide because they saw the world’s future destruction, or was it because they were under the influence of the Sacrificial Stone?’

’There’s still one thing that’s hard to explain, though. Why were those zombies also calling my name?’

’Judging by their actions, they were clearly resisting the Sacrificial Stone’s electromagnetic field.’

Shen Feng shook his head, deciding to stop thinking about it.

Having a rough answer was good enough. There was nothing else in these ruins worth exploring. The priority now was to leave as quickly as possible.

After arranging the scattered Sacrificial Stone fragments on the ground into a circle, he picked out a few handily-sized shards and put them in his bag. Then, weapon in hand, Shen Feng strode toward the entrance.

After the experience of blowing up the Sacrificial Stone and eliminating a horde of zombies, coupled with his deeper understanding of the Spider Nest City, the return trip was far less terrifying than the journey in.

Looking at the ancient skeletons, Shen Feng couldn’t help but sigh. To think that these natives might have chosen mass suicide simply because of some shared hallucination.

’Feudal superstition is a real killer,’ he mused. ’You’ve got to believe in Science!’

The return trip was quick and easy. In about twenty minutes, he was back at the earthen mound that served as the entrance to the underground complex.

He reached the top of the mound inside the cavern, leaped, and dug his hands firmly into the soil at the edge of the collapsed opening, pulling himself up little by little.

Back on the surface, gazing at the bright sun and the ruins of modern civilization, he felt as if a lifetime had passed. Even a sunlit apocalypse was better than a dark tomb deep underground.

A few zombies were wandering nearby. When they saw Shen Feng appear, they stared at him sluggishly for a moment. But then, disoriented by the zombie brain hanging from his waist, they immediately turned and shuffled away.

After all, Shen Feng was covered in dirt and dust, looking thoroughly grimy. He even swayed a bit as he walked. He was basically indistinguishable from a zombie.

Shen Feng turned and entered a nearby supermarket, intending to rest and resupply before investigating deeper into the city ruins.

As he walked, he raised his arm and uploaded the findings from his investigation of the Spider Nest City ruins to his wristband device.

The supermarket’s contents were mostly intact. A few zombies wandered the aisles, some even pushing shopping carts, but they were all completely fooled by Shen Feng’s disguise.

Shen Feng navigated around the zombies, gathered plenty of food and drinks, and filled a shopping cart to the brim. He also scavenged some ammunition from a dead security guard before pushing the cart out of the supermarket.

Next, he arrived at a bar. Pushing the door open, he found it full of zombies that had once been drunks, all swaying back and forth. They didn’t look much different from when they were alive.

Just as he’d hoped, Shen Feng found several zombified gang members, as well as a small weapons cache hidden behind the bar.

After replenishing his ammunition and firearms, Shen Feng found a small, zombie-free cafe. He went inside, washed his hands and face thoroughly with purified water, then opened several cans of meat, fruit, and vegetables and began to wolf them down.

He hadn’t really eaten anything since waking up that morning.

The one good thing about this Doomsday World was that the cataclysm hadn’t happened too long ago. Much of the sealed food was still within its expiration date, so he didn’t have to struggle to find things to eat.

Once he had eaten and drunk his fill, Shen Feng shouldered his backpack and pressed on. This time, he headed in the direction of the skyscraper that had been on fire the other night.

As soon as he reached a street near the building, he saw that the ground was covered in a thick layer of ash and soot from the fire.

As far as he could see, the entire skyscraper was scorched black, leaving only a skeletal frame. The structure was noticeably warped, as if the steel reinforcement bars inside had melted in the blaze.

Charred corpses still clung to the exterior of the building, frozen in climbing positions. Below, the ground was piled high with the blackened, pulped bodies of zombies that had fallen.

He was already used to such scenes, so he felt nothing upon seeing it.

The ground was also scattered with torn, large-denomination US Dollar bills, the very ones thrown down by the people on the upper floors before they died.

’Ironic,’ he thought. ’They probably risked their lives for that money, only for it to become worthless paper in the apocalypse.’

Mexico City was traditionally the territory of the Sinaloa Drug Trafficking Group. This building had likely been one of their bases.

The number of zombies in this area was particularly high. Most had been attracted by the fire and explosions the other night and had yet to fully disperse.

Draped in a tattered windbreaker, Shen Feng carefully blended in with the zombies, mimicking their swaying gait to avoid drawing attention.

The zombies were clearly divided into two types: common ones and those that moved in coordinated swarms. The common ones were no big deal, but the swarming ones demanded caution.

Shen Feng walked straight through the horde of zombies and into the scorched interior of the building, quickly making his way to the upper floors.

He then looked north from the building.

If he recalled correctly, before being overwhelmed by zombies that night, the people on the rooftop had looked in this direction multiple times. And it hadn’t just been one person.

From his current position, and triangulating their line of sight from that night, they must have been looking at a specific building up ahead.

A towering, enormous chicken wing sign.

A fried chicken joint at the end of the street.

’For those gang members to be so fixated on it right before they died, there must be something good inside.’

Shen Feng returned to the street and quickly headed for the fried chicken joint.

He no longer had the support of the Gray Tide, and even Jingwei wasn’t here. With only his own mutated muscles and skin, plus the few guns he carried, he couldn’t contend with some of the more powerful entities out there. Many dangerous places were simply off-limits.

’I need heavy weapons.’

The door to the fried chicken joint was locked. Shen Feng glanced at the wandering zombies, confirmed there were no intelligent swarms nearby, then smashed the glass in the door with the butt of his rifle and sauntered inside.

Fried chicken joints, laundromats, and other businesses that generate a steady cash flow have always been favorite money-laundering fronts for criminal organizations, including drug traffickers. This place was probably no exception.

A few zombies were wandering inside the shop as well, but they were easily fooled by the zombie brain Shen Feng carried and did not attack.

Shen Feng searched the place and found a hidden door in the back kitchen, concealed behind a dishwasher.

Calling it "hidden" was a stretch; its outline was clearly visible, only partially obscured.

’For a criminal group in Mexico, this much concealment was practically a courtesy to the police.’

Shen Feng found a key on a zombie dressed as a cook, unlocked the hidden door, and pushed his way in.

The moment he saw what was inside, he couldn’t help but let out a low whistle.

Beyond the door was a massive underground warehouse. A room packed to the gills with weapons and ammunition appeared before his eyes.

In addition to common Shotguns, assault rifles, and grenades, the stash included grenade launchers, man-portable anti-tank missiles, a small Mortar, a Toyota technical with a mounted machine gun, and even an armored car!

Picking up a grenade launcher to inspect it, Shen Feng couldn’t help but smile with satisfaction.

’I’d always heard that Mexico’s cartels were better armed than the army, that they even had their own fighter jets. Looks like the rumors were true.’

’With these weapons, I can really throw my weight around for a while. Even if I run into one of those eerie, self-aware zombie swarms, it won’t be a problem.’

Just then, a frantic shriek rang out from outside, followed by a single gunshot that shattered the quiet!

’A survivor has been spotted by the zombies!’

At the same time, the sound of frantic footsteps erupted, clearly coming from the street. It sounded like a large group of people running together.

Shen Feng’s brow furrowed. He slung a bandolier of grenades over his shoulder, readied the grenade launcher, and hurried out of the underground armory into the main dining area of the fried chicken joint.

He peered out through the window.

Hundreds of zombies were sprinting past the shop, heading toward the source of the gunshot.

They looked completely different from the common, aimlessly shambling zombies. Although their eyes were just as vacant, they held a faint glimmer of intelligent life.

The zombies were even letting out short, guttural roars in Spanish, like hunters herding their prey.

Shen Feng understood the meaning of their low roars in an instant:

"Capture the prey! Sacrifice to Shen Feng!"