Chapter 1367: The Call of the Stars (Part 10)

(This paragraph is very Lovecraftian! Read with caution!)

"Where am I?"

Xu Shangqi stood up, clutching his dizzy head. As soon as his sensory perception recovered, he smelled a foul odor. A black shadow darted past outside the window where the light came from. Xu Shangqi instinctively flinched and looked toward the window.

The window closest to him was large; it should have been a shop window on the street corner. The exquisite colored window frame couldn't provide any sense of solid security at all. Just as Xu Shangqi turned his head, with a "crash," the glass shattered all over the floor, and several thick tentacles whipped over from above.

Xu Shangqi, who had just stood up and hadn't steadied himself, exerted force with his left foot and dodged to one side somewhat clumsily and stiffly, but was still hit on the shoulder by the tentacle that drilled in last.

"Ah!!"

Xu Shangqi let out a scream, but he had no time to think. With the faint light shining through the window, he crawled and rolled toward the half-shattered counter, grabbed the chair that had fallen to the ground, and threw it at the tentacle.

The chair hit the end of the tentacle, but it didn't cause any damage at all. With the sound of mucus flowing, a large circular mouth appeared outside the window. It grew in the center of the tentacle, relied on the tentacle to wrap around the window frame, and was crawling into the store.

And what terrified Xu Shangqi the most was that after the tentacle and the large mouth completely crawled into the store, the back half of them wasn't a bloated insect with a bunch of legs, but the upper body of a human.

The tentacles were extending from the abdominal cavity of a middle-aged woman. Around that large mouth, one could clearly see the completely shriveled and rotten intestines. That terrible foul odor was emanating from there.

When the monster moved forward, the remaining corpse was dragged on the ground just like that. The skin on the chest, neck, and the entire face had completely fallen off due to rot and friction, leaving only the blood-stained, yellowed bones, like a plow, plowing one groove after another in the mucus and dust.

Xu Shangqi stared blankly at this monster. After being stunned for less than a second, he let out a scream that didn't sound human, and then crawled and rolled toward the side door to escape.

His brain was blank. There was no room for rational thinking, and he couldn't even express his emotions. At this moment, he had only one thought, and that was—run!

In his previous life, Xu Shangqi was a movie lover. Whether it was Hollywood movies or art films, he liked watching them very much. Like many movie lovers, during a certain period, he was particularly obsessed with horror and gore movies.

Whether it was zombie movies with blood all over the screen or ghost movies that created psychological horror through suspenseful shots, Xu Shangqi could always get some stimulation from all kinds of scares and disgust.

It was precisely this stimulation that made him obsessively look for resources online to find uncut versions to feast on during that period.

Xu Shangqi didn't remember where he had seen a certain theory, which seemed to say that humans are interested in horror movies precisely because fear triggers the human instinct for self-preservation.

Witnessing bloody and terrifying scenes makes the human brain think that it is in danger, and then adrenaline will soar, which can accelerate the human heartbeat and excite the nerves.

On the other hand, human reason will tell them that the scene they are in now is safe, so these nerve stimulants that should have been used for self-preservation will turn into an improvement in sensory experience, thereby bringing a certain kind of sensual pleasure.

Therefore, many horror movie lovers are actually not brave, or rather, if they are too brave, they can't feel this excitement.

Xu Shangqi was one of them. He was not a brave person at all, and even in some aspects, he was quite cowardly, but when facing horror movies, he was both afraid and wanted to watch, both incompetent and loved to play.

But watching horror movies and being in a horror scene are two completely different things. Without the aid of drugs, the terrifying images never seen before and the stimulating smells only make the brain stop working briefly, because it cannot understand, so it cannot analyze.

Therefore, in real life, when facing a sudden disaster, many people's first reaction is not to run, but to stand there and watch. This is not because they like to watch the excitement, but because the brain needs time to process and digest scenes never seen before.

Xu Shangqi was exactly like this. He had already rushed out of the side door of the store and still hadn't reacted to what had happened. He didn't even remember the process of how he came here.

He stood at the door, panting in confusion, and even looked back at the monster in the store, walking forward staggeringly on the street where night had fallen, at a loss.

He stood by the lamppost next to the street, looking through the shattered shop window at the tentacle monster crawling over the counter. When the brain finally processed this information, Xu Shangqi's first reaction was to kneel halfway, cover his neck, and start vomiting desperately.

But he actually hadn't eaten much, and it had long been digested. The retching only vomited out acid water, making his throat feel like it was burning.

Convulsing all over for a long time, Xu Shangqi barely stood up while holding onto the lamppost. After his reason recovered a bit, he knew he had to leave here immediately, otherwise the next one to be dragged on the ground might be himself.

Xu Shangqi looked around, but couldn't see anything. At this time, he finally remembered the method he had learned at the S. H. I. E. L. D. Spear Bureau. He circulated his Qi to his eyes, barely able to see the situation around him.

This street was empty, with only the wreckage of vehicles and fragments of buildings scattered on the ground. Judging from the rotting smell drifting in the air, there might be human corpses mixed among these fragments.

Except for the monster that had just drilled into the store, there was also movement in the two houses at the end of the street. Xu Shangqi suspected that they might be similar monsters, but after discovering this, the first thing he did was turn and leave.

Relying on his night vision, Xu Shangqi walked toward a more open area, but heaven didn't fulfill his wishes. Intense fighting sounds came from the two buildings at the end of the street.

A flash of red light passed, followed by a scream. Xu Shangqi turned to look there. He widened his eyes and saw a figure breaking through the window. It was Ben Riley. He looked like he had been thrown out by something.

Xu Shangqi gritted his teeth, clenched his fists, took a few deep breaths, tried hard to dispel the panic in his heart, and ran toward that side.

Circulating Qi in his legs, he moved as fast as flying, quickly crossed the broken street, and ran to Riley's side. As soon as his hand touched Riley's skin, he found a glass shard stuck in his back.

But Riley couldn't care about the pain at all. He pointed into the shop window and said: "Quick, quick, go save Wanda."

Xu Shangqi supported Riley and looked into the building. The red light in the window was getting brighter and brighter, and then Wanda was hit by something, fell into the corner, and lay on the ground, followed by Jarvis's roar.

Xu Shangqi stepped on his toes on the spot, looked at Riley, and said: "Don't run around, just wait here, I'll be back soon!"

After speaking, he ran toward the window that had just been shattered by Riley. Without caring about dodging the glass shards all over the floor, he covered his head with both hands, bent down, lifted his legs, and jumped directly through the narrow window frame.

After entering, he didn't turn his head to see what was opposite Wanda at all, but grabbed the young witch's wrist and pulled her toward the window.

Wanda hadn't reacted yet when she was pulled into a stagger by Xu Shangqi. She screamed, and then heard Xu Shangqi's roar.

"What are you stunned for! Run!"

"But I..."

Xu Shangqi grabbed Wanda from behind without explanation. After circulating Qi to his arms, he grabbed Wanda's waist, threw the slender young witch directly out of the window, and then jumped out of the window one after another with Jarvis, running back to the street.

Wanda was thrown to the ground and rolled a few times. Riley hurriedly rushed up to help her up. She was a bit dazed from the fall and turned to look at Xu Shangqi, wanting to say something, but Xu Shangqi ran to the front and then turned back to roar at everyone:

"Any human with a brain and a normal mind would only choose to do one thing at this time, and that is—run, damn it!!"

People have a herd mentality, especially when they are at a loss, they will instinctively follow the loudest peer. Xu Shangqi shouted to run, and the other few who hadn't reacted followed him to run.

And this move likely saved their lives, because the monster that rushed out of the window was different from the one Xu Shangqi had seen in the shop window.

In the faint light, a monster standing upright on two legs rushed out of the broken window, but what supported it to walk wasn't legs at all, but tentacles like sea anemones bursting out from half of its head.

Perhaps the human brain gave this monster higher intelligence. Its desire to attack was much stronger than the monster Xu Shangqi had seen growing out of the lower body, and its means of attack were much more numerous.

The sarcomas and tentacles wrapped around half of the human corpse worked together. Half of the tentacles stuck to the wall, moving forward quickly and alternately, while the other half kept whipping forward, interfering with the prey's positioning.

"Wanda, put your magic away!" Xu Shangqi shouted back: "Don't make any light!!"

Wanda gritted her teeth while running. She said helplessly: "I... I can't control it a bit!"

"Then run faster!"

Fortunately, several of them were agile heroes. Although they weren't entirely known for their speed, they weren't slow either.

Xu Shangqi could use footwork, Riley was Spider-Man, so his full-speed sprinting speed naturally went without saying, Wanda could use magic, and Jarvis himself was the culmination of mechanical engineering. Several people ran wildly all the way and soon left the monster behind.

After rushing out of the street, they came to an intersection. Several people stopped and panted. Wanda panted while clutching her chest and said: "Why are we running? I think I can..."

"You can my ass!" Xu Shangqi also panted and said: "If you could beat it, you wouldn't have been thrown to the wall!"

"I." Wanda was choked, and then whispered: "I was ambushed..."

"Hell, what's going on?" Riley pressed his temples with his hands and slowly knelt halfway to the ground, saying: "My spider-sense has been ringing, and it's ringing very violently. It's so noisy that I can't hear what you're saying."

Riley's expression was very painful. He tried hard to open his eyes to look at the broken scene of the city around him. Xu Shangqi stood with his hands on his hips, constantly calming his breath, and said: "There is no doubt that we have traveled through time and space and came to a damn universe that might be the end of the world."

"Traveled through time and space?" Riley let out a painful groan, but still gritted his teeth and said: "You mean we traveled through the universe?"

"Something like that."

"But why is it like this here?"

"How would I know."

Xu Shangqi answered absent-mindedly. He looked around, scanned the few people, and said: "Let's go."

"Where to?" Wanda frowned and looked at him and asked.

"Find a place without monsters to hide."

Wanda widened her eyes. She looked at Xu Shangqi in disbelief and said: "The world is about to be destroyed, and you actually want to hide?!"

【The most comprehensive and best-to-use novel app for listening to books, integrating 4 major speech synthesis engines, over 100 timbres, and a source-changing artifact that supports offline reading, the source-changing app】

"It's precisely because the world is about to be destroyed that I want to hide! You don't really think that just by relying on the few of us, we can save the world, do you?"

"But, but we have to go save..."

"We have to save ourselves first!"

Wanda still opened her mouth to say something, but Xu Shangqi directly stretched out a hand to interrupt her, and then said: "I know what you want to do. You want to dive into the city center where there are the most monsters, knock down all the monsters there, and then find a group of culprits in the very center and eliminate them all, and then successfully save the world."

"But from my experience, in this process, the people in the entire team will die one after another, and they will die very miserably, including but not limited to being drowned by insects, being swallowed by monsters, being pinched by gates, being shot into a sieve because of infighting among survivors..."

Wanda's face became paler and paler. Her eyes looking at Xu Shangqi had completely changed. She opened her mouth wide and said: "Good God, what have you been through..."

"In short, listen to me now, hurry up and find a place to hide, and we'll talk about anything tomorrow when it's light!"

Wanda was a bit wavered, and Riley's painful voice became the last straw that broke the camel's back.

"Wanda, please, you came here because of me, I have to bring you all back safely!" ===== CHAPTER 1368 =====

"In any case, listen to me now, hurry and find a place to hide, we'll talk about everything else when the sun rises tomorrow!"

Wanda was somewhat shaken, and the sound of Lila's painful voice became the final straw that broke the camel's back.

"Wanda, please, you all came here because of me, I have to bring you all back safely!"