True Apocalypse Game

"Pierce his body, but leave his head. The Antichrist won't die so easily. We can still trace the source of his great power through his brain," Cthulhu said impassively, approaching the metal cage.

Shen Feng remained unfazed and asked:

"What if this has been nothing but a double of mine from the very beginning? Are you so sure you've already won?"

Cthulhu said, his expression unchanged:

"The famous Antichrist has many incarnations. I've already seen this in my precognitive visions. That's how you defeated the Master of the Void's Apostle, isn't it? But do you know the biggest flaw of your real body?"

At this, Cthulhu flashed a triumphant smile:

"Only your true body possesses such powerful defenses."

As he spoke, he yanked a pistol from the waist of a subordinate next to him and fired a shot at Shen Feng.

BANG!

The bullet struck Shen Feng's shoulder, kicking up a cloud of white dust but failing to penetrate.

Several Purifiers holding drills had now taken their positions around Shen Feng. The drill bits poked through the bars of the alloy cage, ready to be activated at any moment.

Cthulhu spoke again:

"One last time, Antichrist. If you lower your Mental Defense and willingly submit to the Whispering God to become a new Purifier, you can live. You will even receive supreme glory. Why wouldn't you?"

Shen Feng sighed and said:

"You're right. I can't use the Gray Tide right now, and my AI is suppressed. I suppose I really am at the end of my rope... But I would rather die than become some ridiculous Purifier. Let the Whisperers rage at the sight of my corpse..."

As he spoke, a look of grim resolve appeared on his face. He bit down hard, seeming to crush something hidden in his teeth.

Seeing this, Cthulhu's brow furrowed. He spoke quickly:

"It's cyanide! He has poison hidden in his teeth! Stop him!"

As he spoke, several nearby Purifiers threw lassos, catching Shen Feng around the neck and pulling him to one side of the alloy cage. Cthulhu even reached directly through the bars, trying to pry Shen Feng's mouth open.

The fastest-acting poison hidden in a tooth is typically cyanide. Swallowing it quickly is enough to end one's life in an extremely short time, but it would also render the brain unusable.

In his time, Cthulhu had seen many people die from cyanide. He had seen it as the chairman of the Purification Society, as the mortal spokesman for the Whisperers, and as the kingpin of the Drug Empire who once controlled all of Colombia.

The way they acted right before death was identical to what the Antichrist had just done!

'Could the Antichrist truly be so resolute? To choose death rather than become a servant of the Whispering God?'

Just then, Shen Feng suddenly opened his mouth, breathed out toward Cthulhu, and grinned.

"Surprise!"

He showed no signs of cyanide poisoning whatsoever!

Cthulhu froze, confused about what the man was up to. 'Was it all just a prank?'

'This is too absurd. It's not something the Antichrist would do.'

Shen Feng leaned against the bars of the metal cage, casually snapping the lasso around his neck, and said:

"You must have lived in these remote mountains for many years, right? And with that proud personality of yours, knowing the Medicine for Petrification Disease was invented by the Salvation Army, you naturally wouldn't have gotten vaccinated. After all, the Petrification Disease broke out in Alaska, which is a world away from Colombia."

"Petrification Disease?" Cthulhu instantly understood Shen Feng's meaning and chuckled darkly. "You hid the Stone Statue Virus in your teeth? But it takes at least a month for symptoms to appear. Even if I'm infected now, it's no big deal. I just need to get the treatment within a month."

'So this was the Antichrist's final killing move?'

'It seems like a desperate last resort, something you'd only do when you're at the end of your rope. It's almost pathetic...'

Shen Feng said with a sincere expression:

"I recently took a trip to a Parallel World where the Master of the Void won. I developed some rather... perverse new strains of the Stone Statue Virus there. One particular type combines the irreversible onset of Petrification Disease with the rapid infection speed of the Evil Spirit Virus, and it's effective on humans. It's so twisted, I was almost embarrassed to use it... How are you feeling? Are your joints swelling up? Like you've had a massage that was a little too rough?"

"You..." Cthulhu was about to call his bluff when he suddenly felt a tingling numbness in his arm joints. He moved it slightly, and a loud CRACK echoed out, as if something hard inside had jammed.

At the same time, his body seemed to grow heavy. He tried to move but found his actions were extremely slow.

Then, the Purifiers around him began to cry out in terror. Their bodies were turning to stone before their very eyes!

In just a few minutes, even moving had become difficult for them!

"Kill him!" Cthulhu roared, activating the drill in his hand and trying to lunge at Shen Feng. But he found his body, as if struck by Magic, had become incredibly stiff, allowing him only to inch forward slowly.

Every step sent a tearing pain through his joints and muscles. The more he tried to advance, the stiffer and slower he became. Soon, his legs had completely petrified.

On his exposed arms and chest, gray lines appeared, creeping steadily upward.

They were the demarcation lines of the petrification.

The same was happening to the Purifiers around him.

Some were petrifying from the chest outward, from the center of their bodies. Others developed gray, stony patches all over that spread. Still others had the petrification creeping from their limbs toward their core.

The speed of this petrification was comparable to the infection rate of the Evil Spirit Virus. Even Shen Feng, watching from his cage, stared wide-eyed.

'This Stone Statue Virus is too damn terrifying!'

'If that "One as a Billion, Billion as One" entity had used this kind of Stone Statue Virus back then, human civilization would have been finished long ago. There would have been nothing left for me and the Salvation Army to do.'

The sounds in the hall immediately attracted the Purifiers guarding outside. Many of them quickly rushed in, guns in hand.

But all they saw was their chairman, Cthulhu, and a group of core members standing silently beside the cage.

The newcomers stood stunned, not understanding what had happened. Then, they suddenly felt something was wrong with their own bodies. Their limbs felt heavy.

A glance at their arms was met with screams of agony. Their arms, and the skin all over their bodies, were turning gray and hard at a visible rate, their bodies transforming into solid blocks of stone!

Soon, they could no longer move, as if gazed upon by the eyes of Medusa!

Their screams immediately drew more Purifiers. The hundreds of them guarding the rest of the base now rushed into the hall one after another like moths to a flame, completely unaware that this place had already become an Abyss of the Stone Statue Virus.

"You... I..." The petrification had already reached Cthulhu's neck in the blink of an eye, rendering him unable to speak.

The petrification continued its upward creep, soon covering his chin, lips, and nose. Just before it consumed his eyes, Cthulhu's gaze fell on Shen Feng. His eyes seemed to hold a hint of relief, yet also a sigh of regret and unwillingness, before they too were replaced by the gray of stone.

His final Consciousness Field fluctuated violently for a moment, then rapidly dissipated.

His brain, along with his skull and every strand of hair, slowly petrified completely, turning him into a stone statue.

A statue of Cthulhu, and also a statue of Pablo Escobar.

Shen Feng sat in the alloy cage, silently watching everything unfold. He made no sound, like a master sculptor quietly admiring his collection of masterpieces.

About twenty minutes later, the last Purifier to enter the hall had also completely petrified, becoming another stone statue.

Everything here fell silent. Only the sound of the wind and the crackling of a fire remained, like a cozy campsite.

Outside, the electromagnetic pulse device was still running, casting an eerie silence over everything.

Shen Feng casually grabbed one of the diamond drills, pressed the button inside the metal cage, and used the bit to grind through the hard metal bars one by one. After cutting through three bars, he squeezed out.

He stretched, stood up straight, and looked at the petrified Cthulhu before him. Even Shen Feng felt a chill run down his spine.

This Stone Statue Virus, possessing the characteristics of the Evil Spirit Virus, was truly an invincible weapon for killing.

Fortunately, however, it also had its own drawback: the infection speed was so fast that the host was completely petrified before they could even spread the virus.

Besides, the vast majority of the global population had already been injected with the Medicine for Petrification Disease, so they were in no danger.

Lifting the rapidly spinning drill, he instantly plunged it into the chest of a Purifier's statue, boring a clean hole through it. Shen Feng immediately saw that the body was indeed completely petrified, with not a trace of flesh and blood remaining. It was solid stone inside.

Nodding in satisfaction, he picked up a Shotgun and a few grenades and headed outside.

The roar of the electromagnetic pulse device led him quickly to a massive EMP generator.

And, next to it, a power distribution room.

Shen Feng pulled open the door to the power room, pulled the pins on the grenades, tossed them inside, and shut the door again.

BOOM! A huge explosion echoed out. The power supply equipment failed instantly, and the EMP generator, which had still been running, ground to a halt.

The electromagnetic pulse field vanished in an instant.

"Jingwei, can you hear me?" Shen Feng's Silicon-Based Brain broadcast a signal as he also shouted aloud.

About ten kilometers away from the Inca ruins, in the surrounding mountains, the Gray Tide—which had long been blocked by the strong electromagnetic pulse—surged like a flash flood toward the ruins where Shen Feng was located.

At the same time, Jingwei's signal came through quickly:

"Shen Feng, are you okay? Those bastards are too damn sneaky, setting up a wide-area strong electromagnetic pulse field. I couldn't get the Gray Tide through at all... I was about to go find a nuke to drop on them."

Feeling Jingwei's signal, Shen Feng couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

He then turned and went back into the hall, found an axe, and with all his strength, swung it violently at Cthulhu's neck.

With a few sharp CRACKS, Cthulhu's petrified head was severed by Shen Feng's axe.

He held it in his hands, examining it for a moment as if it were a precious toy. Shen Feng nodded and put the head away.

'It can go right next to Yamaguchi Sora's brain in a jar, on the bookshelf in my study at home.'