Chapter 1907: Humanity and Divinity

Leaving Long An, he walked upon Gao Tian.

In the night sky, Lin An silently overlooked the earth, as if he were an observer standing alone in the world, merging with darkness.

He turned off all communications, no longer thinking about anything; from this moment on, he intended to examine the world and examine himself.

How far humans are from gods, he did not know.

What it takes for a person to become a god, he also did not know.

But Lin An knew that all the experiences, encounters, and burdens from his two lifetimes of reincarnation would ultimately merge into one today.

His thoughts, his beliefs, his perseverance, his understanding of all things would turn into intangible faith, nurturing the divine Him.

"From human to god is never an instant leap, but a painful and prolonged transformation—each day denying oneself to find the sole correct path."

"The greater the ability, the greater the responsibility. When this responsibility exceeds the critical point and crushes a person, the character that re-emerges is the distinction between humanity and divinity."

Lin An lowered his gaze to the myriad lights beneath his feet.

This was near the outer city of Long An; the Safe Zone was well built, and he could hear every person's voice and see every person's joys and sorrows.

Zhang Tie had asked him more than once why he didn't flee, why he didn't give up.

What was there to bear? Why bother with so much? Why save those people? What exactly is responsibility?

To be honest, Lin An didn't know at first either.

He was just like any ordinary person, only wanting to live well himself.

But like an intangible change, from the start of his rebirth he only wanted to grow stronger, bringing An Jing Tian and the others to survive.

Later on.

Wen Ya, Zhang Tie, Gao Tian, Chu An...

The academy's students, the Yun Tian siblings, humans of the Ameba Instance, survivors of Linjiang, the Wangjiang War Zone...

Koreans overseas, the Linjiang Three Provinces, the Qinghai War Zone, the military, Huaxia, Soviet Russia...

From the Rescue Squad to Long An, from Hua Guo to Asia, then to the whole world, and even the distant Tianmu Clan of unknown extent.

The troop grew larger, and more and more people believed in him, Lin An.

Step by step, Lin An felt the pressure mounting; the burden he bore almost made him gasp for breath. He could not die, could not be wrong, could not retreat, could not show any weakness.

He was no longer representing himself, nor could he live for himself.

Often, Lin An also often felt lost, asking himself repeatedly like Zhang Tie did.

Does greater power truly mean greater responsibility?

"Because.."

"Being able to see, being able to hear, being able to do."

Lin An asked and answered himself, his gaze falling on a small hut below. It was the most common, and also the most ordinary hut in the outskirts of Long An's gathering area.

In the hut on the far left, the light was warm; inside was a father and daughter.

Sitting cross-legged on a crude bunk, the man was a Second Level Awakened One; all that could be seen was his loving gaze as he watched the little girl mending his boots. On the map in his hand, already falling apart, he drew a heavy red circle.

The New Year was approaching, heavy snow sealed the city; he wanted to gather more supplies so that the father and daughter would not go hungry.

Perhaps... maybe, in a mall that had been looted countless times, he could find a little dress to give as a New Year's gift to his daughter.

Clenching his fists silently, having made his decision, the man couldn't help but be drawn to the shouting next door.

Next door was a group of young people.

He didn't find it noisy; he only felt it full of vitality and vigor.

To the right of the shack was a group of youths loudly laughing and cursing.

Inside, everyone in the squad raised their alcohol bottles high, loudly envisioning the future.

"Next year we'll surely make a name for ourselves in Long An! Our squad, united, will definitely keep surviving!"

In the corner, a teenager also wore a smile, but unconsciously his gaze drifted toward the other room to his right.

Next door was the girl he secretly admired.

When he hoped to become Third Level, he would apply for residency in the Inner City and confess to her.

The third hut, its interior light dim.

A short-haired girl sat alone, hugging her knees, staring blankly at the photo in her hand.

It was a family portrait.

"Dad.. Mom.."

"I will live on well..."

"Bang bang"

The fourth hut was a dim shack; inside, a burly man silently sharpened his weapon.

He lifted his head toward the direction of Wangjiang City Area beyond a hundred paces, his eyes full of resolve.

"I will find you..."

"In life, see the person; in death, see the corpse."

The fifth hut held a mother and son; the son knelt before the sickbed, feeding his mother medicine, watching her worried gaze toward him.

The boy simply proudly produced a medal, indicating to his mother that he had joined the Official Squad, so she need not worry.

The sixth hut housed a young couple; the man affectionately gazed at his wife's belly, gesturing with the newly bought small clothes in his hand.

Calculating how long it would take to earn enough contributions, he couldn't help but promise his wife that perhaps next year they could move to the Inner City.

Withdrawing his gaze, Lin An's hand flashed red light, and in the next second he teleported to outside Linjiang.

Unlike what he saw and heard in Long An, as soon as he appeared here, Lin An heard human cries and roars.

If one said that under Long An's rule, although people's lives weren't great, most still had hope—either expecting to grow stronger, or yearning to join the Official, or striving for family and loved ones.

Then here, in the Jinxi Three Provinces bordering the Wangjiang War Zone, even the night grew darker.

Under Lin An's feet, he at a glance saw on the garbage hill outside the Safe Zone, hundreds of scavengers divided into several groups, facing off.

Obviously they are all of the lower class, yet everyone stares deathly at each other, clutching crude weapons.

The three sides are fighting over an iron tin box containing several packets of damp salt; to the scavengers, this is no less than a huge fortune.

As a seasoning essential to people, a packet of salt that cost seven and a half before the Apocalypse can often be exchanged for dozens of catties of grain.

Undoubtedly, whoever gets it will survive this winter.

The brawl began; the leading man, without hesitation, smashed a club hard onto the head of a gang of youths.

Brains burst; compared to these perpetually underfed kids, his tall, sturdy build among the scavengers gave him an advantage.

No one cared how many would die in this melee; to the scavengers, trading a life for a sausage was worth it.

In the melee, people's blood almost soaked the white salt in the box; in the scramble, a thin little girl, using her inconspicuous advantage, darted like a mouse, crawling on hands and feet between people's legs.

All one could see was that her eyes seemed fixed only on the scattered salt chunks on the ground; she leapt and lunged, landing on a salt chunk.

Yet the moment she excitedly tried to grab the salt chunk and run, the next second a foot violently stomped down, crushing her fingers.

"Ah!!"

She couldn't help letting out an anguished cry, but compared to the pain of all ten fingers connected to the heart, the girl, as if giving up, ignored the pain and wanted to cry; she desperately stretched her head to reach the salt chunk, opened her mouth, and swallowed a fist-sized chunk whole.

She turned and ran.

Unknown whether it was the taste of blood or the damp salt.

The girl endured the nauseating, bitterly salty taste as if her tongue were bitter, desperately fleeing.

She knew that if she could get away with this chunk of salt, she could exchange it for an anti-inflammatory pill for her sister, perhaps curing her sister's festering **. Saving a bit more money, maybe she could beg the supply team to take them aboard a vehicle and escape to Facing River.

It was said that there, people could eat their fill, and the godlike man in that vision would also protect them.

However, before she had taken a few steps, a swoosh sounded and an axe flew from behind, directly cleaving her leg.

The tremendous impact was like snapping a tree branch; the girl's right leg instantly broke, exposing bloody bone at the ankle.

She fell to the ground; before the terrified girl could even try to crawl, two adults rushed out from the scavengers and lunged at her.

Seeing that the girl actually had the salt in her mouth, almost about to escape with it.

In their fury, the two wrenched the axe from the girl's leg and prepared to chop off her head.

"Chop off her head! If we can't get it out, we'll use her head as a salt jar!"

Lin An withdrew his psychic power and turned his gaze to the edge of the old-era city.

All that could be seen was a convoy speeding away on a weed-choked road; behind the convoy was a mutant giant wolf.

Or perhaps it was a dog infected with the virus.

Although it only had Second Level strength, to most survivors it was an irresistible nightmare.

At the rear of the convoy, on a modified off-road vehicle, several Awakened Ones looked in terror at the wolf's mouth drawing ever closer.

The foul, rotting corpse stench almost made them vomit.

In the gaping maw, a severed hand could still be seen hanging from the teeth.

"Step on it! Step on it! If they catch us we'll all die!"

"We can't pull away! The vehicle is too heavy!"

No matter how far the accelerator was pressed, the off-road vehicle loaded with "trash" could only pant like an old ox, as if it would break down any second.

Yet those in the vehicle seemed unwilling to abandon this junk even at death's door; the next second, a youth sitting on the roof grabbed the boy beside him without hesitation and prepared to throw him off.

"No! Brother! No!"

Seeing his brother about to throw him off, the boy clung desperately to the roof handle, instinctively pleading for mercy.

The vehicle was too heavy; evidently his life wasn't worth even a few padded jackets.

"I gave you money! Brother Wang! You promised to take me! I beg you, my mother is still waiting outside the city for me to bring food back…! I don't want to die, don't…"

"Bang!"

Facing the underling he had taken in, the youth's face turned ferocious; without a word, he swung a blade, chopping off the boy's fingers and kicked him out of the vehicle.

The severed fingers dangled from the vehicle's roof; the youth called Brother Wang stared coldly, as if collecting sausages, he simply grabbed the boy's stubby limbs and stuffed them into his pocket, ignoring the final plea, then turned away without looking.

Yes, he had promised this kid to make him a member of the scouting team.

The boy also had some talent; he had good potential to become an Awakened One. With proper training, he might even become an official member someday.

But if he's dead, he's dead. Even a "good seedling" like him isn't worth more than this truckload of supplies; with a flick of his finger there are plenty of lower-class survivors like the boy begging to join them.

With a thud, the boy was kicked hard off the vehicle.

Looking at the bloody maw lunging at him, the boy's eyes filled with despair.

He wasn't afraid of death; he feared that after dying he would be alone in a tent, even having sold his hair, scraping together the enrollment fee for his sister with ***, wondering how to survive this cold winter.

He withdrew his psychic power.

Under the bright moon, Lin An slightly turned his head toward a defensive line where gunfire raged.

Gunfire roared, turning in the night into flaming snakes that shattered the Corpse Horde rushing out of the darkness; yet no matter how strong the firepower, it could not stop the huge mutants within the horde.

As a tank-like mutant, its body like metal, growled lowly toward the line, the soldiers on the wall, many Awakened Ones, could only drop their rifles and were forced to jump down to engage the monster in close combat.

At the base of the wall, a soldier whose lower half had been crushed, intestines spilling onto the ground, painfully clutched his comrade's hand.

He only begged for a quick death.

He knew that even if he were rescued, thanks to the vitality of an Awakened One he might not die.

But no one could attend to him; everyone was fighting desperately, and he knew that even if he survived he would be a cripple.

All that could be seen was the soldier vomiting blood, his eyes full of pleading as he looked at his comrade.

"Brother... I beg you... please take my equipment... and sell it..."

"Take the money... as long as I let my mother... not be driven out of the Safe Zone.... don't say I'm dead..."

"... She has nothing left... she can't bear the blow..."

He withdrew his mental power.

Lin An looked toward a group of refugees on the wasteland far from the city.

On a hanging iron pot, a disheveled, seemingly mad woman was desperately scooping something in the pot. Her palm, scalded by the red-hot iron pot, gave off a burst of meaty aroma.

The scalding bubbling sound could not stop the woman's desperate searching hand.

Behind her, crowds of refugees numb ly held their bowls, sipping the meat broth mouthful by mouthful.

He slowly closed his eyes.

In just a few minutes, Lin An had already seen far too many horrific scenes.

Every minute and second, someone suffers, struggling in despair.

Even if he closed his eyes, his extremely acute five senses would transmit every sound and vibration within a thousand-kilometer radius into his ears, no detail too small.

He could hear the wails of those screaming under monsters' mouths, hear the screams of women being * by people, hear the heart-rending cries of watching parents starve to death before his eyes, hear the thud of survivors forced onto rooftops falling in despair.

Being overly powerful is actually a torment.

Even if Lin An proactively closed his five senses, refusing to see, hear, or smell.

But his powerful, domain-like mental power would still cram all information within a thousand kilometers into his brain.

It is as if he were there in person, a pain more crushing than actually seeing or hearing.

He is too strong.

The strength of his body and soul even lets him sense emotions 'in the air'.

"The greater the power, the greater the responsibility — this saying is not naive; it sounds like the weak binding the strong with nonsense, a shackle."

"But it is a substantive torture that incessantly questions humanity."

"If one cannot hear, see, sense, or perceive, then anyone can naturally remain unaffected, doing nothing, and will not suffer any spiritual condemnation."

"But if one can hear, can see..."

"Even if you stay in a room, you can hear someone being raped and murdered a few kilometers away, a squad being attacked by zombies, a group of helpless children crying, tens of thousands trapped in a sea of fire, and a war zone suffering disaster."

"What to do?"

"If one is powerless, rushing over is too slow to save them, strength insufficient to repel mutants, power insufficient to extinguish the fire, stop the disaster."

"Then naturally, one would only feel regret, pity, sympathy, but nothing more."

"But if one could do it, it would be a trivial effort, easy as pie, even just a thought, a wave of mental power could save them, right?"

"One interrogation, one neglect, not caring."

"But what if one sees it a hundred times, a thousand times, ten thousand times, a hundred thousand times?"

He slowly opened his eyes, Lin An questioned himself inwardly.

The answer to the question, he had actually found it long before, when he decided to condense faith, on his way to the star battlefield.

But at this moment, he seemed to condense his own belief, forge his own divinity, piecing it together to find a more correct answer.

"Unless one abandons human identity, discards everything, severs all past emotions, otherwise one will surely go mad."

"Unless one is absolutely cold-blooded and unfeeling, like a machine, otherwise there will always be some matter, some tragedy that moves oneself."

"But gods need people, which means that a god like a dead object cannot possibly exist."

"Of course, perhaps that is another path."

His eyes flickered, Lin An began to merge all his understandings of gods and humans.

"All sentient beings suffer."

"I wish to become a god."

"Like now, I can save everyone, but later, after briefly saving everyone, I will inevitably encounter difficulties that even I cannot resolve, and I do not have enough energy to save every person."

"So."

"Only by condensing a common belief, letting each person draw strength from the belief aggregate, enabling self-rescue, is the sole solution."

"This way, one can avoid being bound by faith and not fear backlash, because the savior is not me, but the people themselves."

"Just.."

"My belief is to end the apocalypse, to kill the source of all pain and evil."

"Then, how should I guide people?"

Lin An fell into contemplation.

Faintly, a vague outline emerged in his mind.