Chapter 148: “The two hundredth time, you saved me.”
The immense depletion of gland energy pushed Shen Zhuo’s already severely injured body past its breaking point; blood began to trickle from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
The blood hit the ground, splashing up tiny droplets before spreading outwards like fine threads, resembling a Bumianhuo flower slowly blooming.
The corpses and bones of all the fallen soldiers struggled out from the ruins one after another.
Dragging their broken bodies to their feet, they marched forward to meet the surging insect swarm…
.
“Northern border insect swarm has stopped. Survivors: 30,699.”
“Southern border insect swarm has stopped. Survivors: 28,253.”
“Western border insect swarm has stopped. Survivors: 15,223.”
Good news trickled in over the communicators.
For seven days, Du Feng hadn’t slept a wink, orchestrating and planning every single second to minimize losses.
But less than a tenth of the soldiers had survived.
“Your Majesty! We won! We held the line!!”
The Supreme Command Center was dead silent for a few seconds before erupting into cheers of sheer joy, tears streaming down people’s faces as they embraced one another.
This seemingly unwinnable war—they had actually won it!
Everyone looked towards Du Feng. The man’s face didn’t show a hint of relaxation; he merely stared intently at the communicator, waiting for something.
The report from the eastern front was delayed.
The communicator remained silent, but Du Feng could no longer sit still.
A terrible premonition gripped his heart.
“You all handle the aftermath here. I need to go to the Eastern Command Center.” Du Feng grabbed his coat, stood up, and left swiftly.
Pushing the aircraft to its maximum speed, it was already late night by the time he arrived at the Eastern Command Center.
Bringing the freezing chill in with him, he entered the command hub to find everyone, despite their bone-deep exhaustion, cheering for the victory.
Even though the surveillance feeds displayed nothing but pitch darkness, devoid of any signs of life.
No living Zerg, but no living humans either.
Rivers of blood had become a literal reality, slowly dyeing the earth crimson beneath the torrential downpour.
But they had won. Humanity had won.
The path to survival, paved by the lives of so many who had charged forward relentlessly, allowed everyone to see hope for the future.
“Where is Shen Zhuo?!” Du Feng had abandoned all pretense of calm.
From the moment he boarded the aircraft, his mind had spiraled uncontrollably. Seeing the actual footage sent a spike of pure ice shooting from his tailbone straight to the crown of his head.
The moment they saw Du Feng, the smiles in the command room gradually vanished.
No one answered; even their gazes shifted away in avoidance.
Du Feng strode up to the central console. Someone immediately vacated their seat for him.
The Alpha deftly pulled up the personnel rosters for each squad captain. Dozens of portraits appeared on the massive electronic screen before him, each with a red or green light underneath.
Green meant alive. Red…
Du Feng stared blankly at one specific photo.
Seven days of sheer exhaustion compounded into absolute blankness in his brain. Du Feng suddenly lost his footing and stumbled sideways.
“Your Majesty!” “Commander!!” “Are you alright?!”
Countless hands reached out from all directions, but he shoved them away before they could steady him.
The colors in Du Feng’s vision plummeted rapidly into stark black and white. He fought desperately to maintain control while standing on the precipice of a total breakdown.
A severe blockage seized his chest. The man’s throat tickled, and he actually coughed up a mouthful of blood onto the console.
“Quick, call a doctor!” “Your Majesty!!”
Footsteps instantly grew frantic in the command room.
Just then, someone pushed open the door and announced loudly, their tone brimming with the joy of victory: “The survival numbers have been tallied and are ready to be reported to Supreme Command. The total is 6,325.”
The next second, Du Feng whipped his head around, glaring fiercely at the person: “What about Sector 2-916?”
That was the sector Shen Zhuo had been defending, the absolute hardest point to hold during this super-large Zerg swarm.
The person was terrified by Du Feng’s gaze. Never expecting His Majesty to be there in person, they immediately stood at attention and stammered:
“Th… there… no one…”
“Enough! Stop talking.” Du Feng interrupted him immediately, almost out of sheer terror, his eyes red enough to bleed.
The people around quieted down because of Du Feng, exchanging glances filled with profound sorrow.
This was the most ordinary of days in the year.
No different from any other.
Everyone was cheering for the victory of the war.
Everyone was weeping that humanity could now continue.
But it seemed someone had been left behind in the dark.
……
Du Feng’s vision blurred, his ears rang loudly, and every cell in his body seemed to scream in agony, as if tens of thousands of needles were piercing him all at once.
Rosemary pheromones exploded within the command room.
The perpetually stoic commander bolted out the door like a madman.
Before anyone could stop him, he utilized pheromone suppression, stepping onto a helicopter idling on the tarmac.
“Supreme Commander! It’s too dangerous!” “Your Majesty!” “You can’t go alone!!”
Turning a deaf ear, Du Feng started the helicopter. The downdraft from the rotors scattered the fine gravel on the ground.
This was not an ordinary day.
His wife had been left behind in the dark.
.
Du Feng stood in the center of the ruins, the heavy rain soaking him to the bone.
The night sky was packed with thick clouds, obscuring the stars and moon. In the air, besides the overwhelming stench of blood, he couldn’t discern the faint, nearly dissipated scent of Epiphyllum.
Rosemary pheromones cascaded across the battlefield, tracking the faintest of trails. It took Du Feng a long time to arrive at a mountain of corpses no different from any other.
The piled Zerg bodies entirely submerged what lay beneath. Scattered all around were fragmented mecha parts, and a grotesque, mottled mix of red and blue blood.
Before arriving, Du Feng had wondered how he should face such a situation.
He had thought about it, yet he also hadn’t dared to.
He had known this time was exceedingly dangerous, yet he didn’t dare to imagine that something would actually go wrong.
This lifetime was going so smoothly… Why? Why won’t it give him even a single chance? Du Feng bit his lip and fell to his knees beside the mound. Using his bare hands, he dug into the Zerg corpses, clawing them away piece by piece. The razor-sharp edges of the insect carapaces slashed his palms open.
He didn’t stop until his bloodied, filthy hands grasped a slender, freezing cold arm.
This wasn’t the first time Du Feng had felt this sensation.
His mind exploded with a resounding boom.
His heart seemed to forget how to beat. Only a constricting, violent agony reminded him that he was still miraculously alive in this utterly meaningless world.
He pulled the youth from the pile of corpses, cradling the small body against his chest, frantically trying to administer first aid.
He released his pheromones with reckless abandon, terrified, desperate, trying over and over again to wake him.
“Shen Zhuo, Shen Zhuo… look at me.”
“Open your eyes, I’m begging you…”
“Just look at me once…”
But the youth never responded.
The perpetually tall, imposing, and calm man knelt hunched over on the ground.
His eyes were bloodshot to the point of splitting; his face was ghastly pale.
The veins from his forehead down to his neck all bulged violently.
He looked as terrifying as an Asura crawling out of hell.
Gently, tenderly, he held the youth’s freezing body tight against his chest.
Trying, time and time again, to use his own body heat to warm him.
“I’m sorry…”
It was a choked sob.
One drop after another, scalding tears fell onto the youth’s peaceful, long eyelashes.
Du Feng suddenly remembered something. He crushed the pale red sphere in the center of his necklace.
A dense wave of Epiphyllum pheromones erupted outward from Du Feng like a tsunami, filling his withered, entirely drained glands, and swirling around the youth.
But it was useless.
Du Feng remained silent for a long time, kneeling there, leaning over to hold the youth tightly. His lips trembled as he let out a hoarse sound:
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”
No one could possibly imagine the state he was in right now.
Like a trapped beast at the end of its rope, he could only curl his body inward, wailing and mourning in absolute helplessness.
He seemed to be waiting for someone’s salvation, or perhaps praying for a god’s mercy.
But there was nothing.
The gods were not on his side.
The only one who could save him, the only one he wanted to save, lay dead in his arms.
“Wait for me, okay?”
Du Feng pulled a gun from his coat.
It was the gun imbued with Epiphyllum pheromones from barrel to bullet.
Completely silver, Du Feng carried it with him at all times, even sleeping with it under his pillow.
That was never a gun meant for killing enemies.
It was meant for suicide.
So that when he died, he could be with the youth.
His pale fingertips trembled violently.
Yet, firmly and with practiced ease, he pressed the muzzle against his jaw.
It was a guaranteed fatal shot.
There was absolutely no way to survive it.
The Alpha pressed a reverent kiss to the youth’s forehead.
Like embracing the very deity he worshipped.
“Wait for me…”
“Next time, I will definitely save you.”
His clouded eyes brimmed with deathly stillness. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, Du Feng heard a long, piercing tone.
It sounded like the noise of an old communicator suffering from severe interference.
It appeared directly in his mind.
[Beep—System has malfunctioned!]
[Warning! Warning! System has malfunctioned!]
[Warning! Warning!!]
The man’s brain was instantly flooded and overwhelmed by the sharp, blaring, overlapping sirens. His head splitting with pain, Du Feng’s fingers shook.
The next second, something freezing cold grasped his hand.
The alarms ceased instantly.
Du Feng raised his head from his black-and-white world.
He saw the crimson Bumianhuo flower with its petals fully unfurled.
“Don’t wait for next time…”
The youth in his arms half-opened his eyes, speaking so weakly he barely made a sound, “It has to be this time.”
Raindrops fell on his face, gathering into larger droplets before sliding down his cheeks.
In Shen Zhuo’s half-lidded pupils, he saw the silver gun slip from the man’s grasp and fall to the ground.
And in the youth’s palm appeared an unidentified substance the size of a speck of light.
That was the system.
Only after obtaining the [Manipulator] ability did Shen Zhuo finally understand the rules of this world, the pattern of these repeated fatal junctures.
They thought the system was there to help them, using extraordinary means to let them start over.
But they never considered what benefit the cycles brought to the system—or rather, what the boost in viewership ratings did for it.
From the very beginning, the only thing manipulating them was the system.
The one forcing him into death traps over and over, while making Du Feng reincarnate endlessly, was also the system.
The system wasn’t a helper; it was the source of all their nightmares.
Because the system feared his ability, it had sealed it away, casting him aside to be cannon fodder.
And now, Shen Zhuo had reclaimed the power to fight against the system.
The very first thing he had to do.
Was to obliterate the system that monitored him and Du Feng like a parasitic camera.
Only when Du Feng decided to end his own life would the system trigger its reincarnation protocol.
That was the absolute best time to extract it.
He didn’t want to be some protagonist.
He wanted freedom.
So that both he and Du Feng could be free from the dark curse of the death cycles.
Shen Zhuo knew Du Feng would come, just as Du Feng believed he was still alive.
Du Feng didn’t need a next time.
They had this time.
Activating his ability to crush the speck of light in his palm, Shen Zhuo looked at the man’s eyes, which were weeping tears of sheer ecstasy. Smiling weakly, he whispered:
“The two hundredth time, you saved me.”
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