Apocalyptic Forecast - Chapter 48

Chapter 48: Heart Poison

At that moment, there was the sound of something shattering in the distance. Immediately after, the wind whistled.

As the instructor swung his fist, his right arm suddenly swelled. Those flexed muscle bundles enlarged as if they were being inflated with air. An innumerable number of swollen muscles seemed to make his arm several times larger, revealing a near-deformed and frightful state.

As Huai Shi dodged, the fist hit the ground, causing the whole town square to suddenly shake.

It was like withstanding the bombardment of a tank.

Was this the change brought about by Red Gloves’ fear under the records of the person-in-charge or was it something else?

Huai Shi had no interest in finding out. It would not be his first time dying against the instructor in such a state.

Bullets, firearms, and explosives had no effect on him at all.

It was like having sleep paralysis in a nightmare.

In the past, some time in Red Glove’s memory, this instructor who had cruelly forged him into a weapon was almost a symbol of invincibility. Just like a monster, his power had been artificially amplified.

If not for Red Glove being absolutely certain that the instructor was just an ordinary person, Huai Shi would have expected the instructor to transform entirely at this point and to grow bat wings or goat horns.

Fortunately, the change ended here, which was not too jaw-dropping for Huai Shi.

Stretching out his hands, he dipped them into the blood on the ground.

Trapping Hand!

This was the first time he was trying this newly acquired technique in the record.

With the elementium flame rising from his fingertips, the blood started to bubble, almost like it was boiling. On top of that, grey puffs of gas continuously evaporated from it.

A thick cloud of Disastrous Dust rose from the unknown number of the corpses and blood that was littered around the entire town square.

Although he did not know why his soul was given such a strange name—”Trapping Hand” by the Sea of Silver, its essence was very clear to Huai Shi. It was a relatively rare transformation type ability as it crossed the two major lines of spiritual and physical matter.

Its scope was elementium and iron.

In other words, he could build a bridge between spiritual matter and physical matter by connecting the elementium that represented the foundation of the soul in the spiritual world with the metal matter that was largely available in the physical world. With that, he could achieve any transformation between the two.

It was borderline omnipotent.

The invisible ax… Huai Shi had accumulated 7 years of insecurity and murderous intent within the elementium. When everything was converted into iron, the weapon was born.

Now, with Trapping Hand acting as its foundation, Huai Shi tried to convert the elementium that was scattered around the outside world again.

Thus, countless ultra-fine rusted iron rose from the blood.

This was the essence of destruction.

The assembling of Disastrous Dust from death.

The dry wind and dust soon brought with it a pungent, bloody, and smoky smell. Rising quickly, the scent suddenly permeated the whole area.

All the despair and pain were distributed equally.

At that moment, a hoarse, raging roar came from the dark fog. A howling gale spread across the area. However, it could not disperse the mist that was in a state between elementium and the physical matter. Nevertheless, a ferocious black shadow came rushing toward Huai Shi. It swung widely with an overhead punch!

Huai Shi dodged. Swinging the dagger in his right hand sideways, he left a brutal scar on the huge deformed arm. Immediately after, he flipped the dagger around, stabbing it into the instructor’s neck!

Collapse!

The dagger did not sink into his raised arm. It hit the bone instead. The sound it made was as though two pieces of steel were colliding.

He felt the beast-like ragged breathing as well as the instructor’s voice rumble out from his chest. The heavy toll brought about by such violent strength caused the instructor to breathe in a lot of the Disastrous Dust. Under the stimulation of such amplified pain and despair, his rage only worsened.

He was now like a wild beast.

“How is it? How does the despair you created feel?” Huai Shi clenched his army knife firmly, staring at the face across the deformed arm.

The instructor smiled mockingly.

“——I’m used to it, what about you?”

Bang!

The huge arm swept across, creating a low roar that boomed through the air. Even the force of the wind almost blew Huai Shi 3 steps backward. However, immediately after, Huai Shi leaped at the seemingly unbeatable instructor.

He smiled wickedly.

He felt as if he was drunk.

He felt like he was in a deep trance, yet, was sober at the same time. Immediately after, he felt like he was in a frenzy.

It was like some kind of indescribable freedom, like the relief felt after being extremely angry.

As he breathed, he brought the Disastrous Dust into his lungs. Inhaling the pain of the dead, he merged with their despair.

He seemed to become one with the countless deaths.

From being both a recorder and the recorded, he now became the record itself.

He could feel the pain inflicted by the countless deaths all at the same time. He was soon immersed in the despair of dying in the massacre.

It was as if the souls of those people were standing still with him, side by side.

Thus, those nihilistic deaths turned into flames, burning in the depths of his chest. After mixing with his anger, his unwillingness, and his will, it turned into an inexplicable impulse, erupting from inside out, engulfing him whole. It urged him to face his opponent, to rain down the punishment, and to bring to him true death!

Therefore, under the tight grip of the Trapping Hand, the grey flame rose from the tip of the blade——it was a far darker and paler in color than the Disastrous Dust. It had been further refined by the countless despair and pain as it was extracted once again, further ascending into a pure object.

Pure poison.

It was a poisonous substance extracted from the death records. It was the death collected from the final condensation of Disastrous Dust. Although it was not lethal to the physical body, once contaminated, it would eventually bring a very realistic suffering to the spirit of the victim, just as Huai Shi had experienced countless times before.

At that moment, the handwriting in the Book of Destiny changed silently. This did not just affect the soaring level of the Military Boxing, new branches even began emerging under the soul introduction of the Trapping Hand. It could now be utilized by a soul that is sufficiently recognized.

——[Heart Poison]!

“Yes, that’s it, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.”

Crow stared at the young man in the record who was immersed in insanity. She seemed to laugh happily, “Go and represent death. Take revenge on the beast in this dark canyon!

“This is your destiny, Huai Shi, the last guardian of Heaven…”

At that moment, Huai Shi’s dagger was swung.

The deformed instructor roared in pain. As he smashed downward, he seemed to break Huai Shi’s left arm, which the latter could no longer feel. However, Huai Shi was not shaken at all. He still stepped forward almost obsessively, inspecting the twisted face before him closely.

His dark pupils were filled with pure darkness.

Then, the army knife swung again!

Collapse!

Although it was clearly a light and handy army knife, at that moment, under the control of Trapping Hand, he made a heavy slashing sound, as though he were swinging a heavy ax.

An unbelievably weight emerged from it. Accompanied by Huai Shi’s unconstrained movements, the enemy’s tendons were cut again and again. The flesh was soon split apart.

The sound of his bones breaking was like firewood getting split by a giant ax.

The instructor growled. After clenching his fists, his 5 huge fingers spread out. He tried to grab his opponent’s face. However, in the very next moment, the army knife chopped down. The iron-colored palm was chopped in half, split down the middle from between the index finger and the ring finger.

It was now in two pieces.

The blade was deeply wedged in his wrist.

Whilst writhing in agony, he saw Huai Shi take a deep breath. Immediately after this, the boy snarled. Then, he dashed forward!

A thunderous sound burst through the air!

As the army knife suddenly shattered, the elementium fire emerged from it, making form the outline of a sharp blade. It successfully split the arm inch by inch, until eventually, the whole arm was divided into two, separated evenly right down the middle!

Immediately after, the burning dagger was raised again. Chop!

The deformed arm fell from the instructor’s shoulder to the ground. Blood spewed out from the cut, spraying all over the town square where blood had already been spilled countless times before this.

It pooled together with the blood of the suffering elderly, desperate women, and naive children. The blood soon combined and turned into the same dark and shadowy color of the above wasteland.

Although the instructor tried his hardest to push him away, he could not still his body. He staggered backward. Then, he fell to the ground.

However, Huai Shi continued moving forward. While panting, he stumbled across body after body. He walked past a pair of lifeless eyes, leaving a red silhouette in their lost expression.

“Thanks to you, I finally figured out one thing—”

He whispered softly. He suddenly raised his foot. He stepped on the instructor’s chest, pinning him to the ground. He let the man struggle in vain.

Finally, he raised the dagger and pointed it at his neck.

“The reason why I chose to be an Ascender—”

As if saying goodbye, Huai Shi gazed solemnly at the twisted face. He said each word slowly and steadily.

“—— was to cut off the head of bastards like you!”

The moment he swung the blade, a deep crack was left in the ground.

Blood spewed out of the neck of the headless corpse, pouring onto the dry wasteland. It brought a rare bit of moisture to this dead land, giving hope to the summer flowers that they might be able to bloom.

Immediately after, Huai Shi saw the whole world shake.

Everything was broken.

He sank into the darkness before soon waking up in the chair again. He was sweating bullets. He felt completely exhausted and terribly uncomfortable.

However, for some reason, his heart was also calm and satisfied.

It was as if he had been compensated via that virtual revenge.

“Congratulations on passing the level.”

Crow stood on the table, looking attentively at his appearance, “Did you achieve anything, Huai Shi?”

“…”

Huai Shi was silent. He did not know how to answer.

After all, he could not do anything. That could not be considered a rescue, nor could it be deemed revenge.

Perhaps as early as a dozen years ago, it was all over. All he did was change the story because he did not like the original plot. He merely tore the original work apart before writing a fanfic about it.

What did he achieve in doing so?

After a moment of contemplation, he laughed softly.

“A dream, at least the story is complete…”

While speaking, he stood up slowly, using the table for support. When he spotted the dagger he had placed on the table, he could not help but pick it up. He swung the dagger a few times before throwing it back onto the table.

“As for the rest, just pretend it’s some self-comforting Easter egg…”

Let’s just say, he was not going to see the others. He headed upstairs immediately after turning around.

After a long day, he felt dizzy. His sight darkened bit by bit as he eventually went to sleep.

Nothing in the world was better than a good night’s rest.

If there was, then it would be 2 nights of rest.

“Sleep early.”

He closed the bedroom door after waving his hand.

Crow watched the figure disappear up the stairs. She turned back, looking at the table.

Under the glimmer of the desk lamp, the cheap dagger seemed to faintly be the color of iron. It was stabbed into the cracked and peeling lacquer surface of the long table, a slender shadow drawn from it.

At the point of the table where the tip of the knife had been driven into was a terrible scar.

It looked like an ax.

“Good night, Huai Shi.”

Go to sleep.

Crow spread her wings, flying into the hazy night outside the window.

Disappearing.