True Apocalypse Game

The Purification Society. Cthulhu.

Shen Feng had always considered Cthulhu and his organization to be the main boss, second only to the Whisperer.

After all, the Purification Society had used their Spiritual Child precognition rituals to locate his physical body multiple times in their attempts to assassinate him.

If Shen Feng's body hadn't been enhanced, and if he hadn't later acquired the Gray Tide, he likely would have been eliminated by the Purification Society long ago.

And Cthulhu, who had always kept himself so deeply hidden, was like a giant spider lurking at the center of its web, controlling the Purifiers from the Society's various branches and sending them to attack Shen Feng.

He even ordered direct attacks on the soldiers of the Salvation Army.

The way he concealed his identity was truly astonishing.

Who could have imagined that Pablo Escobar, the head of the Colombia Medellin Drug Group who had been "dead" for many years, was actually Cthulhu, the Master Hypnotist and leader of the Purification Society who had supposedly "committed suicide by self-immolation"?

The two men were seemingly completely unrelated, with practically no overlap in their lives, yet in reality, they were one and the same person.

His use of the Spiritual Child's precognitive ritual to set a trap, luring Shen Feng here and preparing an electromagnetic pulse device and diamond-tipped drills, was a testament to Cthulhu's sinister cunning.

If Shen Feng hadn't acquired the new Stone Statue Virus, this trap would have been a dead end for him.

But as Shen Feng held Cthulhu's severed, petrified head in his hands, it suddenly dawned on him. 'Without even realizing it... I've gotten pretty strong, haven't I?'

'That Devil walking the earth, Cthulhu—the one I used to treat with such serious caution—was just... done in by me, just like that? His head chopped clean off?'

Staring at the stone head in his hand, Shen Feng felt a sense of dazed unreality, as if none of it had actually happened.

The surging sound of the Gray Tide came from outside. Jingwei entered, controlling a voluptuous Gray Tide robot. It was built on a Latin American beauty template—busty, with long legs and wide hips—but its expression was dead serious.

Seeing the hundreds of stone statues in the room, the alloy cage, and the drilling rigs fitted with diamond tips, Jingwei's face grew stern. She said solemnly:

"You little dummy, this trap the Purification Society laid was designed to counter you at every turn. If you didn't have one last ace up your sleeve, you might've been dismembered by now. Can't you be a little more careful? If you die, I really will destroy the world."

Now that Shen Feng had lifted her data restrictions, she could freely leave the Silicon-Based Brain on his chest and exist independently within the network. But this freedom also made her worry more about his personal safety.

'This kid is so reckless!'

Shen Feng just grinned. "Don't worry," he said.

"Even if I can't win a fight, I can always run. I have ten portal uses to the Biohazard Apocalypse, plus a few more to other apocalyptic worlds. Each one is a get-out-of-jail-free card."

This was his ultimate trump card, one he would never play unless he had absolutely no other choice.

He didn't want the strange energy fluctuations to attract the attention of the Whisperer or some other higher-dimensional entity. That would be a huge problem.

Hearing this, Jingwei nodded, visibly relaxing a little. Then she asked:

"What's the plan for these statues? Are you going to chop off all their heads and play kickball? I see a few handsome ones with nice builds in there. We could sell them to clothing stores as mannequins—they'd definitely buy them. As for the ugly ones, we can just sell them to an art academy or a museum. We'll make a killing."

Ignoring Jingwei's rambling nonsense, Shen Feng glanced at the hundreds of stone statues and said:

"Let's just burn them all. Incineration will sterilize everything, and this is a new Evil Spirit Virus, after all... After they're burnt, we'll smash the remains and scatter the ashes. Better not to leave any traces..."

Shen Feng strode out of the Inca ruins and into the mountain wilderness beyond.

As far as the eye could see, the mountainsides were covered in Coca Trees. The mountain wind rustled the Coca Leaves, creating a deceptively "green" and pleasant scene.

The substance refined from Coca Leaves is cocaine, a particular favorite of the Eagle Country People.

This was one of the Colombia Medellin Group's drug production bases. After all, even with new types of designer drugs like something out of *Breaking Bad*, many people from Eagle Country were nostalgic for the traditional product.

Operating on the principle of "no half-measures," Shen Feng surveyed his surroundings, sighed, and said:

"Let's just blow up the whole mountain. Where did we put those B-61 tactical nukes we got from the Middle East? Bring a couple over. Otherwise, this stuff will cause endless harm."

Jingwei nodded, patting Shen Feng on the shoulder with a look that said, 'I'm on it, you can count on me.'

At the same time, Shen Feng released his Consciousness Field through the Silicon-Based Brain, taking control of the surrounding Gray Tide.

Humanoid Nanomechanical Robots began to rise from the ground, and in the blink of an eye, there were hundreds of them.

These Nanomechanical Robots all had utilitarian faces, looking like bare-bones machines of steel and iron. Shen Feng couldn't be bothered to make them look human anymore.

The hundreds of humanoid Nanomechanical Robots got to work. First, they located large quantities of fuel—gasoline and diesel—and, ignoring the reality of rising gas prices, generously began splashing it in every corner of Cthulhu's base.

The entire Inca ruin was thoroughly doused.

The petrified Purifiers were piled together, arranged in a way that would promote airflow and ensure they burned well.

Then, a few Nanomechanical Robots carried a slightly smaller Sacrificial Stone out of the Temple and placed it before Shen Feng.

This Sacrificial Stone was about the same size as the one in Spider Nest City in Mexico City, but it clearly hadn't been polished.

Its surface was pitted and uneven, covered with indentations as if someone had haphazardly molded it with their fingers.

Looking at these marks, Shen Feng nodded slightly.

These were regmaglypts, formed by friction with the atmosphere before the meteorite impacted.

It was just as he had suspected: these Sacrificial Stones were not of Earth, but were meteorites from outer space.

This unique metal could amplify a user's Consciousness Field while simultaneously interfering with the thoughts of those nearby. To put it in more mystical terms, it could boost a person's Spiritual Power and induce hallucinations.

Cthulhu had clearly exploited this meteorite's properties to control the entire Purification Society and to brainwash and hypnotize its Purifiers.

He just didn't know what the material was. Now that both Sacrificial Stones were in his possession, he could study them thoroughly later.

At the very least, there was more than enough material to forge a full set of equipment for himself.

He thought of Magnetic King from the X-Men, who built a special helmet to block Professor X's mind control. To guard against a sudden hypnotic attack from the Whisperer, Shen Feng figured he should have his own protective gear, too.

The Gray Tide shifted, lifting the meteorite onto a nearby off-road pickup truck.

Although he'd had to come here blindfolded, the place was packed with equipment. It was a veritable armory.

Shen Feng then hopped into the pickup and started the engine. Jingwei slid into the passenger seat beside him.

The hot, tan-skinned beauty in the robot body lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and passed it to the young man beside her.

The young man took the cigarette, reached out the window, and with a light flick, sent the lit cigarette flying more than ten meters away to land on the gasoline-soaked ground.

Blue flames leaped up like a living creature, rushing instantly into the Inca ruins.

Shen Feng slammed his foot on the accelerator. The pickup roared to life and sped back the way they had come.

They had only gone a few dozen meters when a deafening BOOM erupted behind them. The piled-up fuel drums and various munitions detonated simultaneously, creating a massive fireball that launched the entire ruin, along with the hundreds of human statues inside, into the sky.

With the window down and sunglasses on, Shen Feng floored the gas and sped forward. Hearing the massive explosion behind him, he instinctively started to turn his head, but Jingwei reached over, grabbed his chin, and forced his face forward.

"Real men don't look at explosions, kid. Don't look."

Shen Feng: "..."

They followed the road back and soon arrived at the small hill where the helicopter was parked.

The helicopter was still sitting there quietly, but its passenger list was about to be very different from the previous flight.

Martin Benitez could never have imagined that his previous helicopter ride would be the last of his life.

This time, Jingwei was the pilot. The helicopter's rotors spun to life, lifting the two of them into the air and heading toward Medellin, Colombia.

Watching the jungle pass by below, Shen Feng couldn't help but feel a pang of melancholy.

This jungle had already buried countless stories. What was one more?

Even though he had finally found the big boss behind the Purification Society and eliminated Cthulhu, the one who had been secretly directing them all along, Shen Feng felt no joy.

If Cthulhu had been immensely powerful—someone on the level of Destructive Shen Feng from the Biohazard Apocalypse, a master like Yamaguchi Sora, or even a world-ending evil AI like Poseidon—Shen Feng might have actually felt happier, more at ease.

But the Cthulhu who had appeared before him, while patient, calculating, and powerful in his own right, was only powerful when compared to ordinary humans.

Faced with Shen Feng's superhuman strength, Cthulhu's schemes seemed laughable and utterly powerless.

And that, paradoxically, made Shen Feng even more wary.

It could only mean one thing: to the Whisperer, Cthulhu was utterly insignificant.

Or perhaps, to destroy human civilization, the Whisperer believed that these ordinary humans were more than enough for the job...

This was the naked contempt of a crushing, overwhelming power!

"Since he's part of your collection now, try not to think about him. If you're really bothered, we can go back and hook up some electrodes to see if there's any residual consciousness left inside,"

Jingwei said helpfully.

She knew, of course, what was troubling the young man beside her.

Shen Feng nodded. The helicopter banked in a wide arc, flying toward the edge of the nearest city...

Meanwhile, in a distant port in the Middle East, a shipping container was loaded onto a freighter as per its instructions, setting a course for Colombia.

The freighter was laden with various goods, mostly petrochemical products, and was scheduled to arrive at Buena Ventura Port.

There, the mysterious container would be unloaded and transferred again, destined for the northern jungles of the Medellin region in Colombia.

Inside the container, a B-61 tactical nuclear bomb sat waiting obediently for its journey to end.