Dark and gloomy.
The stars in the distance do have a faint light, but this light is far from enough to illuminate the endless darkness around.
I had just stepped into the edge, but it felt like I had already gone deep into it.
This was the first time Lin Rui saw such a strange field.
"This is where?"
He had a feeling that this was a realm created by someone, rather than a natural realm.
But if this is true, this domain is too powerful, because the golden space-time force in his body... is gone.
Everything seemed to have been dissolved, and I seemed to have completely become an ordinary person.
This feeling, which only existed seven hundred years ago, made Lin Rui a little panicked.
He discovered that the master of the domain might really be a demon-like being.
In the darkness, Lin Rui heard the sound of iron chains rubbing against the ground, and there was a hint of eternity in the sound.
It was as if I had arrived in an ancient world and saw an imprisoned god.
The body gradually began to react with fear, and Lin Rui realized that even if his subjective will was not yet afraid... his instinct had already begun to be afraid.
“I have to go!”
The thought was so strong, but when he turned around, he found that he couldn't leave at all.
Just as he had thought before, he had only touched the edge, but in fact, this area was like a monster that had completely swallowed him up.
Once you enter, you can't leave.
"Calm down... Calm down. I'm just an ordinary person now. It's too late to escape..."
Lin Rui forced himself to calm down.
But it's hard to actually do it.
Even though he has been the strongest human being for seven hundred years and possessed the time and space power of the first generation masked monster, he still felt fear unconsciously when facing the unknown.
The sound of chains dragging was getting closer.
The overwhelming momentum approached like a storm.
"Is it because I lost my power... that the feelings became stronger?"
"No... No, this monster is really stronger than the big devil..."
Lin Rui silently told himself not to be afraid, but his back was already soaked with sweat.
He couldn't see who the man with the chains was, but for the first time, he felt that just by facing this man, he had one foot in the underworld.
The breathing sounds in the darkness gradually became rapid. Lin Rui found that the other party had not spoken a word. His fear became more and more intense.
This is simply not something humans can fight against.
Could it be that there are gods in this world? This strange space, and this powerful unknown existence...
What is the origin of the world
Who are they
Why did my former world become what it is now
For some reason, facing this huge, eternal aura, Lin Rui subconsciously thought about the origin of the doomsday.
It seems that the answer can be found in this person.
"Kill, don't kill, kill, don't kill, kill..."
A hoarse voice came from the other side in the silence, with a bit of madness. When the word "kill" was mentioned, Lin Rui could feel that the other party was a little happy.
When talking about not killing, it seems that the other party finds it boring.
This person seemed to be counting something. Lin Rui was no stranger to this kind of scene. He had seen it in many movies before the doomsday seven hundred years ago.
When weak humans encounter powerful villains, the villains will use a very absurd way to decide the survival and death of humans.
Odd numbers die, even numbers live.
Lin Rui never expected that he would encounter such a thing.
He really wanted to enter a state of suspended animation, but the problem now was... his space-time power had been drained away. Even if he entered a state of suspended animation, could he really return to reality
"Ah... I must be prepared to die. It looks like I'm really going to die this time."
Lin Rui began to observe his surroundings. What could he use as a reference in the darkness
The only thing that could allow this person to count odd and even numbers seemed to be the stars all around him. Lin Rui soon got confirmation, because as the unknown being in the darkness continued to speak, Lin Rui found that the stars were getting dim one by one.
For some reason, Lin Rui felt that the vast number of stars was odd at first glance.
I will definitely die.
This was somewhat pessimistic, but Lin Rui was not very depressed. He just smiled and suppressed the fear in his heart with a smile.
"My name is Lin Rui. Can you let me see what you look like?"
"Kill, don't kill, kill, don't kill, kill..."
The existence in the darkness ignored Lin Rui and just continued counting the stars.
Lin Rui felt that this person was a little crazy.
He added:
"If nothing unexpected happens, I should be from the future, but I don't know how far back in time I have gone."
"My city is called Baichuan City. Humans built a shelter there... It's a place to survive outside the tower."
The man ignored Lin Rui's voice, as if he couldn't hear it, and just continued talking to himself.
Lin Rui's inner fear was suppressed again and again, and then surged up again and again.
Only when facing this person, he seemed to have returned to seven hundred years ago and become that extremely helpless young man.
But the boy has experienced seven hundred years, and even though he has lost his strength, his mentality is changing towards that of a hero.
If death is doomed to be irreversible, then at least make this death... meaningful.
Lin Rui began to talk about the reason why he came here. More and more stars became dim. The speed was getting faster and faster.
Several times, he was frightened by the other party's sudden increase in speaking speed.
But in the end, Lin Rui plucked up the courage and decided to tell the whole story of his experience.
He really couldn't think of how to survive.
"Maybe it will be decades, maybe hundreds of years... It could be later or earlier. This is the past, but the future will definitely come. If one day, a powerful being like you will no longer stay here, I hope that on the most dangerous day in the shelter... you can help humanity."
“Hahahaha… What the hell am I talking about… Are you a disaster or a miracle? I’m not sure what kind of existence you are. I just never thought… that one day I would be able to meet such a powerful monster.”
"But I'm so unwilling... I should be dying, right? Come to think of it, I've forgotten the exact day when humans no longer belong to this world."
"It's actually pretty nice to curl up in a tower."
"There have been no problems for seven hundred years. I guess in the future... Never mind. I dare not say anything. I always feel that the more I say today, the more mistakes I make..."
"Hey, why don't you kill me, but before that, let's talk?"
Lin Rui was very scared.
He talked about a lot of things, including the establishment of the Baichuan City Shelter and the various crises he had encountered.
But the other party did not stop, the stars continued to dim, and only a quarter of the stars remained.
Only when he finished speaking one sentence did Lin Rui notice that the man paused.
"At least humans have fought."
The monster in the darkness didn't care about the content before or after this sentence, but this sentence itself seemed to remind the monster of something.
He paused for a second, and then... continued to count the stars.
After that, no matter what Lin Rui said, the other party didn't care.
There are fewer and fewer dazzling stars, and those dim and dull stars are dormant in the night.
The countdown to death is so long.
For the first time, Lin Rui felt that he also had such helpless moments. Ever since he met his predecessor seven hundred years ago, he thought he would never be so helpless again.
"I still like my friends very much, even though they made wrong decisions again and again after the apocalypse. Even though they just regarded me as a burden."
"But if I could go back in time, I would still save them."
"But for seven hundred years, I have tried countless times, but I still cannot go back to that time..."
"Fortunately, I made new friends later on."
The faces of Bai Wu, Wujiu, Jiang Yimi, Liu Mu, Nie Chongshan and many others flashed through Lin Rui's mind.
At this moment, Lin Rui was like a dying man on the guillotine, waiting for the knife to fall.
"It's just a pity that I can't seem to continue to protect them, haha... This feeling is really uncomfortable."
As he finished speaking, Lin Rui discovered that there were only a few stars left.
He suddenly discovered something, and at that moment he was so excited that he wanted to jump up...
Even number!
As the being in the darkness shouted not to kill, the number of stars left was even!
This means that I survived!
It is hard to imagine that when facing Jing Wu, even when he was on the verge of death in the battle and finally survived, he did not have the surprise of surviving the disaster.
But now, when this monster hidden in the darkness finally counted all the stars and the last word from its mouth was "don't kill", Lin Rui truly felt the joy of surviving a calamity.
"Kill, don't kill."
The monster in the darkness sounded very impatient and refused to kill.
This made him a little unhappy.
Lin Rui wanted to say something, but suddenly found that he could no longer speak. A powerful force held him down, making it impossible for him to move at all.
"do not kill?"
The monster in the darkness was silent for a long time. Finally, the iron chain made a friction sound again, and his finger... tapped in the dark area.
A star lit up.
Then he said excitedly:
"Kill! Kill! Kill kill kill kill!"
A series of killing words drained Lin Rui's inner hope bit by bit. Facing this man... he had no way to deal with it.
There was finally light in the darkness! All the stars suddenly became dazzling at this moment, much brighter than before they dimmed.
At this moment, Lin Rui seemed to see countless stars being destroyed in the heat, and countless stars beginning to be born.
Everything in the void seems like a corner of the universe.
A hand was pressed on Lin Rui's forehead. At this time, Lin Rui raised his head and finally saw the appearance of this person.
Lin Rui's first impression was wildness.
With long, drooping hair and strong but not overly bloated muscles, he looks extremely well-proportioned, but the scar on his chest is shocking.
He looks younger than I am, but his eyes are filled with madness and experience.
"kill!"
The breath of death was like a huge wave that could destroy the coastline. In front of this overwhelming torrent that could sweep away the city... Lin Rui was like an ant.
He could do nothing, but at this moment he knew very well that his journey had come to an end.
"Death is just the beginning of the next journey... but it seems to me... there will be no next time."
Lin Rui's body began to decay, just like a desertified rock peeling off bit by bit in a storm. At the same time, his body began to change due to the invasion of a huge amount of resentment.
Evil degeneration. But this change, facing the powerful force of this madman, is meaningless, and it only makes his death even uglier.
Lin Rui didn't know what he was thinking about, but at the end of his life, he actually smiled, with a strange beauty of life withering away.
Bang! A mask fell to the ground from the rotten body.
At this moment, the golden space-time force seemed to have finally released a portion of itself from the body under the threat of death...
But it was completely useless. Facing such a powerful and vast force of the monster in the darkness, this little bit of time and space force was of no use at all.
Lin Rui has also discovered that his life has come to an end. The overly powerful force has devoured his vitality. The reason why he is still conscious... is probably just the last moments before death.
Even if the powerful monster in the darkness did nothing at this time, he could not escape death.
Ironically, at this moment the monster in the darkness suddenly woke up.
"No... No... Why are you here?"
"I've killed you once... Why are you still here?"
The force of time and space that emerged at the moment of death, as well as the mask that fell to the ground, finally brought this monster in the dark back to clarity from madness.
At this moment, there was only endless regret in his eyes, which were filled with madness and vicissitudes.
Countless stars exploded at this moment.
Outside the dark starry sky, the area where snow, cities, deserts, lakes and other places were mixed together began to decompose and split.
It was as if there was a huge force that was madly crashing into this space.
"Why you! How could I kill you... How could I kill you..."
The monster began to wail in pain. The huge force fluctuated with his emotions, bombarding the outside world.
Lin Rui's eyes were weak, and the world in his eyes was blurry. Only this madman was still clear.
He always felt that he had seen him somewhere... But when he thought about it carefully, he probably had not seen him before.
At this time, Lin Rui realized that these chains should be the means by which this monster imprisoned itself.
"Is it because the power is too great and you are afraid that you will do something stupid?"
"It's so lonely... How many years have you been in this place?"
Lin Rui's voice had become barely audible, but the man who was wailing madly still heard it.
There were mists in his eyes, and he wanted to infuse his strength into Lin Rui, but it was meaningless. The decay and collapse of Lin Rui's body was irreversible.
The monster blamed himself and tore horrible wounds on his chest, but all the wounds healed instantly.
Only the original wound remains.
That was left by a guy wearing a mask many years ago.
The man told him that the savior does exist, and maybe one day in the future, someone will tell him that humanity is still struggling.
But by that time, he had gone completely crazy. After seriously injuring the owner of the mask, he began to wander the world.
He thought the owner of the mask was dead, but in fact, he was still alive.
And finally, under the guidance of a woman, he finally found his successor.
Lin Rui.
He is the descendant of the owner of the mask.
When the crazy man in the dark saw the mask, he thought of the person he had killed before.
He was overwhelmed by self-blame and guilt. In the past seven hundred years, the most painful thing for him was that he killed the wrong two people...
One is a hero wearing a mask, and the other is a scientist fighting against evil.
"I'm sorry... I'm sorry... I didn't know you were still alive, I'm sorry!"
The words of the masked owner when he was seriously injured once again echoed in the madman's ears:
"Don't despair... Don't be afraid of the existence in the tower, and don't lose faith in humans. Maybe one day in the future... humans will walk out of the tower. At that time, I will definitely tell you this news..."
At that time, he will definitely tell me the news.
After many years, the madman has forgotten these words.
Until this moment, when he regained consciousness, he saw the mask and remembered what the human in front of him said to him before he died.
"My city is called Baichuan City. Humans built a shelter there... It's a place to survive outside the tower."
The overwhelming guilt made this crazy man cry out in grief, and his mournful howls echoed among the stars.
That masked man... really fulfilled what he said, humans are really still fighting...
He did not deceive himself and finally brought the news he had been waiting for for a long time.
But I... killed him by mistake again.
“Don’t cry... It’s so strange, it’s obviously me who died...” Lin Rui smiled bitterly and fell to the ground. He no longer had the strength to support himself to stand up.
The body began to break into pieces, and perhaps in the next second, he would die completely.
"Don't die! Don't die! I'll give you your power back!"
The golden force of time and space illuminates the entire space, and the countless stars actually represent cause and effect.
These causes and effects began to explode wildly.
The powerful force of time and space poured into Lin Rui's decaying body, but it was all meaningless now.
At the end of his life, Lin Rui actually saw some memories that did not belong to him.
It was still the madman in front of him, but the madman's hair was not so long at that time.
He sat with himself, seemingly talking about something.
This scene was somewhat heartwarming, and Lin Rui finally understood that this person... knew his master.
A lot of things were connected at this moment. No wonder the master said that he was almost beaten to death... Was it him
Is he imprisoning himself in this place because of guilt? He seems to think of me as his master... He is really a madman... The master is the real hero, and I... am just a person who clamors to be a hero.
Lin Rui wanted to raise his hand, but he had no strength. He wanted to forgive this madman.
Because he could feel that very real grief and guilt.
But he couldn't do it.
His consciousness gradually became blurred, and he couldn't even see the madman in front of him.
Recalling the past... Lin Rui found that he was really stupid.
"I'm always obsessed with the past... I always want to save you, but every time I wake up, I can't find you."
"I should have understood that some things cannot be changed. I should have grasped the future like my master."
Lin Rui only now truly understood what the masked man said: the opportunity to change the world lies not in the past but in the future.
He was too obsessed with the past and wanted to go back to the past to change something again and again, but he found that what he actually did was not as good as what his predecessors did in less than a year in this world.
"Heroes never die, but I'm not a hero... I'm not a qualified hero. Haha, even my death was so inexplicable..."
Lin Rui closed his eyes. His heart seemed to have forgotten to beat.
I'm going to die.
Suddenly, he saw countless lights and shadows. In that food city full of laughter and joy, the girl he once liked and the group he always wanted to join were standing on the campus of the food city and waving at him.
The sun was gentle, the summer cicadas were chirping in my ears, and the air smelled of the sun-baked soil. Everything outside the school gate was familiar.
It's as if the end of the world has never come.
He knew that he was really going to die, otherwise how could he see these things...
But Lin Rui always felt that there were still some things he had not done... He always felt that there were greater regrets in life than not being able to save his former companions.
This huge regret lying between life and death caused him great pain.
Perhaps as long as I step into this school gate, I can make up for the past seven hundred years in the kingdom of death, but...
How can I be considered a hero if I die like this? How can I die peacefully if I know that a shelter cannot be built
Lin Rui, who was dying, suddenly opened his eyes, and his body seemed to have strength at this moment... He tightly grasped the madman's hand:
"Please... please... don't forget what I said... don't forget Baichuan City! Please!"
Lin Rui's hand tightly grasped the madman. His idea was so simple that it was a bit childish.
Taking advantage of the moment when this madman feels guilty, we should at least tell him the key information about Baichuan City and the shelter.
This might be a very shameful thing, begging the person who killed him and doing something unrealistic, but he could only do this. Compared with the beautiful and tempting past, he would rather fight for the broken future, even if it could only be done in this way that was not in line with the heroic style!
At this moment, the madman could feel this man's enlightenment beyond life and death.
What a great will this is!
Even though his body was completely rotten and covered in sand, he could still feel slight pain.
“Humanity has worked hard for seven hundred years... Please! Don’t let their hopes fall through... I don’t know what happened between you and my master... I don’t know why fate has arranged for me to come here, but I’m about to die, so please, please save Baichuan City!”
The man with the crying voice seemed to have become the crying boy many years ago. No tears could flow from his eyes anymore. At this moment, his body had already decayed and no longer had normal human functions.
But he still begged, eager to convey that desire!
The madman didn't have time to respond. He couldn't imagine that someone could do such a thing after being devoured by him and without any life left.
The body fell to the ground again, and cracks appeared on Lin Rui's heart, eyes, limbs, and torso. It was like a stone corpse falling to the ground. Death also made the evil degeneration of Lin Rui's body... stuck in the middle.
The madman's subsequent reply... He could no longer hear it.
“Don’t dwell on the past, explore the future.”
Before his death, Lin Rui finally realized this sentence. The huge force of time and space took his body and disappeared into a certain time and space, but he was completely dead. No one knew where and how this dead body would appear in time and space.
The masked man's journey ends here.
…
…
The dream of rushing to death changed again.
Lin Rui did not finally step into the campus.
He stood outside the campus and waved earnestly to the people inside.
Mom, Dad, teachers, classmates, and the group of people fleeing after the end of the world. Maybe when I walk into them, the people I liked in the past will also like me.
Maybe after I walk in, no one will regard me as a burden anymore.
Maybe in this campus world, everyone likes masked weirdos... But that is the past after all.
Lin Rui turned around. The world behind him appeared before him.
It was endless darkness, completely different from the beautiful world just before.
The world became dilapidated, with only ruins of various buildings on the streets.
In the darkness in the distance, there is a long and narrow road.
This path may lead through deep darkness and eventually to true light, or it may just lead to deeper darkness and eventually death.
But Lin Rui still chose this path.
Because he saw a masked man waiting for him on that road.
"Do you regret coming here so early?"
"No regrets."
"What is more terrifying than death is the cycle. Those who play with time and space will inevitably be played with by time and space."
"Master, I'm already dead... Can you please not be so obscure when speaking..."
"Master? Hahahaha… The relationship between you and me is more than just master and disciple."
Lin Rui didn't know what this meant. He just smiled and said:
"Although I don't regret it, I still feel that my death was too pathetic. This world really has many powerful beings that are beyond our comprehension.
But in the end, it seems like I did a good thing, even though I was… unable to watch the end of this cause and effect.”
"Since you have tried your best, there is no need to worry about it."
"Speaking of which... am I considered a qualified hero?"
On the dark road, two generations of masked men walked side by side, rushing towards the depths of the underworld.
Lin Rui did not hear the master's response, as if he was too disdainful to answer the question of whether he was a hero or not.
But if someone looks from behind them, they will find that the two figures gradually overlap.
He is a hero, always has been.