This Spiritual Energy is Lethal!
Chapter 461: Hello, Human Beings

Chapter 461 -461: Hello, Human Beings

Chen Ke and Xu Jing once again faced the mirror.

Although another Chen Ke had burned down the café outpost established by the Foundation in 1859, he didn’t know how the Foundation’s people had come over.

“This is yours,” Xu Jing handed over an old, screen-cracked iPhone 3G to Chen Ke.

“Oh! I thought for sure this thing was gone.” Chen Ke took the phone, wanted to turn it on to check, but found it was out of power.

After killing the other Chen Ke, he had found the Holy Diamond in the moonlight while searching for Xu Jing, but no matter what, he couldn’t find the phone.

“Do you habitually not charge your phone?” Xu Jing asked.

“I don’t often have time to charge it,” Chen Ke pocketed the phone.

Xu Jing didn’t ask further and took out a pocket watch, snapping the lid open. Chen Ke noticed that the watch face had no glass cover and no time scales. Xu Jing gently fiddled with the watch face while muttering to herself.

Chen Ke glanced at the mirror. The reflection showed two figures, and as Xu Jing fiddled with the watch face, their clothing began to change into the outfits they had swapped into after their most recent crossing.

“2009, July… around 1 PM. We’re going back now,” Xu Jing tucked the pocket watch into her pocket.

“Wait a second,” Chen Ke suddenly interjected.

He checked his possessions and turned to Xu Jing, “After we go back, the things on me won’t be missing, right?”

The set of Holy Diamonds from Florence were acquired after coming over here, if they went back, wouldn’t the items acquired before the time node be erased?

“You’re overthinking it. We’re in a state of flux, haven’t I told you? Time is a human perception; the universe doesn’t operate like that,” Xu Jing said.

“Alright then, let’s get started, traversing through time,” Chen Ke gestured towards the mirror with an inviting hand motion.

“Mm, once we get back to Opportunity City…” Xu Jing’s voice grew more and more indistinct.

Chen Ke couldn’t catch it clearly. He suddenly noticed water accumulating on the floor.

“Umm? What is this…” Chen Ke lifted his foot and examined his wetted shoe. If he remembered correctly, they were on the second floor.

“Xu Jing… it’s flooding. Is this… normal?” Chen Ke asked, but the space next to him was empty; Xu Jing had disappeared.

He looked towards the stairwell, where water was continuously pouring in, rising more rapidly than imaginable. Chen Ke couldn’t understand what could have caused such a massive flood outside.

However, the water was incredibly clear, and it tasted salty.

Within just a few seconds, the water had risen to his waist. Chen Ke couldn’t find Xu Jing. He knocked on the mirror, studied it for a few seconds to no avail, and then vigorously waded towards the stairwell to try and see what was happening outside.

Chen Ke submerged into the water, holding onto the banister as he dived downstairs. The water floated with jars, bottles, and other miscellaneous items from the house. He swam to the front door, only to find it was shut.

How did the water get in then… He thought opening the door would be difficult, but when he pulled at it, to his surprise, it opened easily, revealing that the outside was also submerged.

The relentless rising water, coming from who knows where, even exceeded the roof level. There were no living creatures on the streets; carriages, bottles, and even street lamps floated in the water.

Chen Ke drifted upward with the current, quickly rising above the sky. The Big Ben was dozens of meters below him as he looked down at the entire city of Langdon, which seemed like a submerged city in the sea.

Glug glug… water filled Chen Ke’s lungs, but he didn’t need to breathe. The situation was beyond his understanding and control, and he could only let himself drift in the sea.

He looked upwards at the vast expanse of white light, resembling the fierce sun above the sea’s surface. As he ascended higher and higher, the city below gradually disappeared into the abyss, becoming difficult to discern. Chen Ke felt the light’s intensity and swam towards it.

The light grew more intense, the sound of waves and dolphin-like calls reached his ears, and a wave of drowsiness came over him. Chen Ke closed his eyes, curled up, and floated in the sea.

He didn’t know how long had passed when he felt an ultimate sense of comfort, like waking up naturally from sleep, accompanied by that disrupted feeling of being woken by the warm sun during a nap. He opened his eyes to find himself lying on the ground.

A warm breeze caressed him under the blazing sun as he abruptly sat upright, drenched, leaving a wet human-shaped mark on the ground.

Chen Ke realized he was on top of a mound. He got up and looked around to find himself amidst a boundless Red Earth Plain.

The color of the sky was indescribable, not the blue of Earth’s sky but the awe-inspiring and frightening deep space of the universe. A massive, shattered half-moon moved slowly in the sky, visibly a mix of bloody and pale white. The distant sun shone like a heat collector, scorching the land with its searing rays.

Chen Ke glanced at the corner of his eye; the countdown to the end of his life had disappeared.

Mutated space?

No, this feeling… Chen Ke felt the long-missed “thump, thump” of a heartbeat in his chest…

He laid his hand over his chest; his heart was beating! He tore open his collar, the Sun Mark had disappeared, leaving behind only a stab wound.

“What is this…”

He searched his body, couldn’t find his wallet or phone, tried to communicate with the stone in his heart, but got no response.

He tried to call up the soul interface, no response; he flicked his right hand, tried to condense the Spiritual Power Crystal Gun, again no response.

All abilities gone, could it be he had become a normal person?

He felt himself breathing, bent down to pick up a sharp-edged stone, and fiercely slashed it across the back of his hand, blood pouring out immediately.

“Healing… healing… healing…” Chen Ke murmured, but the pain did not subside, and blood continued to spill from the cut.

Unsure whether to be happy or worried, becoming mortal was something Chen Ke had always sought, but now, he was hesitant. Besides, where was he? No information at all, and everything he had was gone.

Chen Ke clutched his bleeding hand, looking blankly around him. Judging by the terrain, it looked much like the mountainous area in Colorado, of course, if the United Federation also had a Colorado.

He walked down the hillock, strolling above the Red Earth Plain, under the scorching sun, walked for a long while, Chen Ke felt tired and thirsty, an unfamiliar sense of fatigue and dizziness overwhelming him.

Not knowing how long he had walked, Chen Ke was defeated by the blazing sun, the temperature aberrantly high, probably exceeding 40 degrees.

Chen Ke took off his coat and covered his head with it, and continued the difficult trek for a while longer, until finally he collapsed to the ground from exhaustion.

“Damn… to die here?” Chen Ke muttered resentfully in his delirium, he saw an abandoned cabin standing abruptly in the distance. He clenched his teeth and struggled to his feet, recklessly charging towards the small cabin.

With a bang, he burst into the cabin, only to be disappointed to find no water, no food, just a shelter from the sun.

On the cabin floor lay a pile of skeletons, wearing a variety of tattered clothes, clearly dead for a long time. Judging by the positions of their contorted bones, they seemed to be piled on top of something.

Chen Ke came to the center of these skeletons, cleared them away, and found a battleship-grey floor, covered in rust, scratches, pits of various sizes, and dried bloodstains.

“Is this… a shelter dug by the owner of the house?” Chen Ke spoke to himself.

In the United States, there was a group of people known as doomsday preppers, among them many billionaires. They held a pessimistic outlook on humanity’s future and thus stockpiled survival supplies, building underground shelters in their backyards.

Perhaps this was a bunker as well… Whatever had happened here, if it could be opened, there might be survival supplies inside.

Chen Ke checked the floor panel, knocked on it, not a single echo, indicating its thickness.

Of course, it could just be a slab of steel embedded in the ground.

But Chen Ke didn’t want to go out and get scorched by the sun again, so he placed all his hope inside this cabin.

“Damn it, can’t find a handle, no switch devices inside the cabin, such crappy luck, ah if I die…” Chen Ke sighed, resting on the floor.

“Checking… primary biological composition…”

An inexplicable, emotionless electronic synthesized voice then reached Chen Ke’s ears, the sound faint and intermittent, as if from a poorly received radio.

“What’s this?” Chen Ke got up, looking at the grey floor where a light blue progress bar appeared.

“Comparing… body’s… database, please wait…”

Chen Ke tapped on the floor, unsure what would happen next.

“Comparing… Comparing…”

“Comparison complete…”

“Biological entity passed the human verification process.”

“Welcome, human.”

At that moment, the heavy metal plate trembled, a mechanical retracting sound emerging, as it collapsed and retracted under the floor, revealing a descending staircase.