Night of the Apocalypse

“What? No way! He looks completely normal, doesn’t he?”

Lin Xiaoyu was equally astonished and found it hard to believe.

“Of course he seems normal before the condition flares up.”

Liao Kai pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, took one out, put it in his mouth, lit it, and took a puff before saying,

“Bullshit, Xiao Qiu is perfectly fine! There’s nothing wrong with him!”

Grandma Wang didn’t hold back in her rebuttal upon hearing this.

“Ahem, Grandma, this is a record from the medical system; it can’t be wrong.”

Liao Kai explained helplessly.

“I don’t believe that nonsense! We know very well whether Xiao Qiu is sick or not. I suspect you chaotic institutions are just making things up to make some extra money, right? As if we don’t know! You can’t do this and ruin a good young man’s life; it’s going to make it hard for him to find a job or a girlfriend. Do you have any idea how pitiful that is?”

The more Grandma Wang spoke, the angrier she became.

Seeing this, Shen Qiu quickly intervened, saying, “Grandma Wang, stop talking about it; it’s really no big deal.”

While others didn’t understand what was going on, Shen Qiu was very clear about his own condition.

Upon hearing Shen Qiu say this, Grandma Wang stopped complaining.

Liao Kai, feeling embarrassed, quickly changed the subject. “Haha, let’s not talk about that. Let’s handle the main issue now.”

At this moment, everyone’s attention shifted back to the giant mosquito that had been killed. The kitchen knife had struck it on the head, nearly splitting it in half, and bright red blood splattered everywhere.

“Goodness, it’s not even April, and the mosquitoes have already grown this big?”

“You’re getting old and confused; no mosquito can grow this big at any time of the year. This is about to break a world record.”

“Imagine if a person got bitten by one; wouldn’t that be quite something?”

“Come on, stop joking around and be serious.”

The neighbors present began pointing and commenting on the corpse.

Some even curiously took out their phones to capture the scene.

“Let’s take a photo.”

Seeing someone in the crowd raising their phone to take a picture, Liao Kai quickly stopped them.

“You can’t take photos.”

“Why can’t we?”

Some people at the scene asked, confused.

“You just can’t. If you ignore this advice and take photos anyway, your phone will be confiscated at best, and you’ll face fines at worst. If you deliberately spread panic, you’ll be subjected to administrative detention.”

An unyielding voice accompanied by the sound of footsteps came from behind.

Shen Qiu’s eyebrows twitched slightly, and he turned to look. He saw three men in black-striped uniforms, each with a prominent KPI logo on the chest, holding G36 assault rifles and looking sharply at the crowd.

Instantly, the people present were frozen in place.

Liao Kai immediately saluted upon seeing the three.

“Commander!”

The leader, a captain, glanced at Liao Kai before speaking.

“KPI personnel on duty; all unrelated personnel return home immediately. Discussions and dissemination of tonight’s events are strictly prohibited.”

The crowd obediently turned and left, and Shen Qiu didn’t linger either, heading straight back to his home.

He closed the door, entered his bedroom, and turned on his computer.

Shen Qiu opened the browser and began searching for information about the mutations by continuously entering keywords.

After a round of searches, he found nothing.

Not even the posts about the red skull on the Haiyin platform could be found.

In the virtual network, everything seemed peaceful.

But beneath this calmness, Shen Qiu felt the situation was becoming increasingly serious.

After pondering for a few minutes, Shen Qiu opened a hidden software on his computer.

“Selecting network service terminal.”

“Selection successful, establishing a new network channel.”

“Second network connection successful.”

Shen Qiu immediately entered a series of very complex virtual addresses, and the page changed instantly.

“Welcome to Dark Eye, witness the unknown world through the dark lens.”

Dark Eye is a clandestine website that shouldn’t see the light of day. Shen Qiu had previously used this site to gather information for some special extreme sports that required him to go to controversial areas.

Of course, Shen Qiu couldn’t guarantee that this site had the information he wanted, but he was willing to take a chance.

As he scrolled through the posts on the Dark Eye website, his expression suddenly tightened.

He quickly read through the publicly available free information, and while some information required payment, the free content was sufficient for now.

Tick-tock, tick-tock~

The vintage clock on the wall ticked steadily.

In the blink of an eye, more than an hour had passed, and Shen Qiu leaned back in his chair, his face looking somewhat grim.

From the Dark Eye website, Shen Qiu had a rough understanding of the current situation.

Abnormal phenomena were occurring all over the world; many people had vanished without a trace. According to incomplete conservative estimates, the number of missing persons had exceeded at least ten million.

So far, the earliest case of a missing person who returned was a retired non-commissioned officer named Kading from the Blue Alliance region.

According to him, he had been dining in a restaurant when, inexplicably, he found himself in a primeval forest shrouded in darkness. During his time there, he encountered many previously unseen plants and animals, and then somehow found his way back.

The total time he was missing was 1 hour and 21 minutes.

Subsequently, a large number of missing persons began to return. Reliable sources indicated that most of these individuals described their surroundings as vastly different, with only a few reporting similar experiences.

Based on a comprehensive analysis of the abnormal phenomena, it was basically confirmed that all missing persons disappeared between 6 PM and 6 AM.

Moreover, the times when the missing persons returned also fell within this timeframe.

Among those who returned, some exhibited physical mutations. It was said that they had unlocked different abilities, and this group of people was collectively referred to as “Awakened Ones.”

On the other hand, the worst part was that some of these mutated individuals had lost control and had reportedly transformed into various brutal monsters. These uncontrolled mutants were commonly known as “Failures.”

At this moment, Shen Qiu’s expression kept changing as he muttered the word “mutation.”

According to the information available on the Dark Eye website, these people had mutated after traveling to different worlds, and he had gone there too.

Could it be that he had also mutated?

Whether it was his mind playing tricks on him or some other reason, Shen Qiu inexplicably felt a bit uncomfortable; his stomach hurt.

He quickly took off his shirt to check his body for any unusual signs on his skin.

However, after checking for a long time, he found nothing abnormal.

But Shen Qiu’s stomach continued to hurt more and more, to the point where he furrowed his brows.

Holding his stomach with one hand, he could no longer endure the pain and hurriedly ran to the bathroom.

Splash, splash~

The long night dragged on, and through the window, one could see Shen Qiu’s room brightly lit all night.

Creak, the door opened!

Shen Qiu’s lips turned pale as he held his stomach, hunched over, and slowly stepped outside with weak legs.

He struggled to walk out of the community and headed towards the 24-hour clinic near the street.