Chapter 1374

"Can we really survive?"

Rocket Raccoon stood on the edge of the vanity, asking in a somewhat dejected tone, then tilted his head to cast his gaze toward the arm on one side of Star-Lord Quill, where the lower part of the sleeve hung empty.

Rocket Raccoon closed his eyes, pressed his paws against his eyelids, and said painfully, "I really can't believe it. Just a few hours ago, you performed an amputation on yourself right here. You really, you really..."

Rocket Raccoon couldn't bring himself to say the second half of the sentence. He actually wanted to ask, "Are you really still sane?" or perhaps he wanted to ask, "Have you lost your mind?" But the moment he thought about how everything Quill had encountered was actually caused by him, he couldn't bring himself to ask those sharp questions.

What had happened the previous night was simply too terrifying. Rocket Raccoon had no idea what Quill had seen; he only saw him scratching his arms incessantly, screaming frantically, and then, while convulsing in pain and foaming at the mouth, using a heavy chunk of concrete to smash his own elbow and sever half of his arm.

Rocket Raccoon had traveled far and wide across interstellar society and had seen his fair share of horrific things, but this was the first time he had encountered such a bizarre situation. He couldn't find the enemy at all, so naturally, there was no way to fight back.

The raccoon felt immensely guilty for not being able to help, yet he couldn't help but give in to despair. He flicked his tail helplessly and said, "Maybe it'll be my turn tomorrow night. Maybe we'll all die here?"

"Don't talk nonsense." Quill used his only remaining hand to hold a blade, scraping the stubble on his chin while looking into the mirror above the washbasin.

His expression wasn't one of deep misery; on the contrary, there was even a hint of lightness. When the sunlight shone on him, he appeared even more out of place with the oppressive atmosphere surrounding them.

"In fact, I already have a bit of a lead." Quill tilted his head from side to side, touching his smooth chin in the mirror, and said, "Don't you think there are too few monsters in this world?"

"You call this few? Do you want them to crowd the whole world and then swallow us whole?!" Rocket Raccoon shouted in confusion.

"When we came here, didn't you see? Most of the corpses lying on the ground only had a portion of their torso left. That part is missing. I suspect the monsters might have hatched from there."

"If everyone was parasitized and hatched a monster, then the number of monsters is too low. If not everyone was parasitized, then judging by the number of monsters, it's impossible for the survivors to be completely silent."

"Although it's a bit pessimistic, I'm inclined to believe that almost everyone had a monster hatch inside them, it's just that after these monsters left their hosts, I don't know where they went."

After shaving, Quill walked to the hospital window and looked out at the road. There was no shortage of monsters dragging human limbs, but their numbers weren't high, they certainly weren't dense, and they didn't move fast, nor was their desire to attack strong; it seemed as if they were just following their instincts to forage.

"I have a strange feeling." Quill, standing by the window, stared at the broken road and said, "These monsters produced from within human bodies aren't meant to attack humans. This isn't an infectious virus."

"Good heavens! Listen to the nonsense you're spouting!" Rocket Raccoon jumped onto Quill's shoulder, turned his head to look at him, and said, "The city has already been destroyed like this, and you still want to applaud these monsters?"

Quill shook his head without offering further explanation. He let out a sigh, turned around, and began to pack his luggage with his only remaining hand. In truth, he didn't have much to bring, so he used a large bag he found in the patient's personal locker to pack some medical supplies and canned goods he had found in the warehouse, then left the hospital with the bag on his back.

Although there weren't many monsters on the road, avoiding them was still quite troublesome. Relying on his decent agility, Quill mostly moved across the rooftops of low-rise buildings, while the small rocket launcher Rocket Raccoon had mounted on his arm could repel some of the monsters trying to climb up.

Just like that, they traveled between the residential houses in Queens, New York. Before the next night arrived, Quill climbed to the roof of a high-rise building in the commercial district and looked out over all of New York.

"My speculation was correct; those monsters are indeed heading in one direction." Quill reached out to shield his eyes from the bright sunlight, squinting as he looked into the distance.

It wasn't difficult to reach this conclusion. The slime trails remaining on the ground and high-rise buildings were enough to show that in the recent period, these monsters had carried out a mass migration, with at least 90% of them converging toward a certain point in New York.

Quill sighed and said, "It's a pity I'm not a New Yorker; I don't know where their final destination is. I can only take it one step at a time."

"Where is their destination?"

Wanda asked, clutching Jarvis's hand tightly. By this time, the group had already walked out of the residential area and climbed a large building. However, following Shang-Chi's gestured suggestions, they didn't go to the roof but climbed to a high floor, entered an abandoned office, and looked out from a room where the window had bars.

Hearing Wanda's question, Jarvis's expression changed slightly, but he quickly regained his composure and uttered a few words: "Central Park, New York."

"Good heavens, why do monsters want to go there too?" Wanda spread her hands helplessly and said, "Don't tell me they want to go there to enjoy the scenery."

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"I think something is attracting them." Jarvis stared out the window with a serious expression. Now that he was the only member of the entire team who was intact and unaffected, he had to shoulder the responsibility of being the leader, though he didn't actually want to do so.

For a very long time, he had only been Stark's assistant. An intelligent life form is naturally adept at following orders. Becoming the leader of a team and having full decision-making power was a first for Jarvis, completely contrary to his instincts.

But he had to do it. His team couldn't be described as lacking arms or legs; it could only be said that they lacked everything except arms and legs. Riley couldn't hear, Wanda couldn't see, Shang-Chi couldn't speak, and all three of them were simultaneously being interfered with by that terrifying power. He didn't know if they could survive the next night.

Thus, Jarvis thought for a moment and said, "We should head toward Central Park, New York, but first we should find a car."

The others had no objections, so they went downstairs together. Fortunately, they were not far from an exhibition hall, and there was a car show taking place there.

The group headed to the exhibition hall as fast as they could, hoping to salvage an intact car. Unexpectedly, it wasn't that there were no intact cars at the show; there were too many, and almost none were damaged.

Setting aside the terrifying slime and messy corpses on the car bodies and the surrounding ground, the condition of the cars was actually quite good. Many of the test-drive cars were even full of fuel, which truly left the group unable to understand.

Generally speaking, when the apocalypse arrives, the easiest things to be destroyed are various means of transportation, especially civilian vehicles. They weren't built for defense; with even a slight bump—the kind of bump that exceeds the scope of ordinary human strength—they would easily fall apart.

When a powerful mutant like Wanda fought others, a casual wave of her hand would blow up at least a few cars. It was clearly abnormal for the cars here to be preserved so well.

"What's going on? Don't those monsters attack cars?" Hearing Jarvis's description, Wanda felt very puzzled. She continued, "If they attack indiscriminately, these cars should be easier to damage than buildings. If they intend to carry out large-scale slaughter, they would certainly prioritize attacking transportation to prevent humans from escaping."

"They might not have thought about attacking."

Riley only said this one sentence and then fell silent. Wanda also quieted down, and Jarvis couldn't understand what riddle they were speaking in. He could only find a car he deemed most suitable, checked its condition, and finding it completely fine, the group got into the car.

They didn't encounter any monsters along the way, but the doubts in their hearts grew deeper. The city had been destroyed, it was dilapidated everywhere, presenting a scene of the apocalypse, but the problem was that there were too few monsters, they had no aggression, supplies weren't scarce, and judging by the state of the corpses, no riots had occurred.

There were even many shops with generators that still had their lights on, the goods on the shelves were complete and hadn't been looted, and the mangled corpses didn't have bullet holes or wounds caused by other modern weapons. This simply didn't make logical sense.

If the hatching of these monsters was like the outbreak of a zombie virus, it would certainly have caused panic among the crowd. Ordinary people who saw the monsters would run away in a panic, the police would try to maintain order and attack the monsters, and as the news spread, it would cause large-scale hoarding of supplies among the public.

But the scene now was as if, one second before everyone died, the remaining people were still living their normal lives.

This was even more terrifying than that chaotic scene.

The greatest fear comes from the unknown. The few people present had more or less seen the chaotic and dilapidated scenes in zombie movies. Although it was enough to make one sad and angry, it wasn't unacceptable. But this silence before the storm now caused a deeper fear to grow in everyone's hearts.

With a "creak," the car stopped.

The three people in the team who still had their sight looked up. In the very center of Central Park, New York, they saw a huge temple whose style was completely different from all the surrounding buildings.

"Good heavens, what is this?!" Riley couldn't help but exclaim. Jarvis blinked, a faint light flashing in his eyes, and then he said, "It looks like it has some Eastern style. Wait, that decorative pattern should exist in my database... Kamar-Taj!"

Hearing this name, Wanda immediately exclaimed, "Oh, right, if the world is destroyed, then what about the mages? Are the mages still alive?"

"The Time Stone. If the Sorcerer Supreme still possesses the Time Stone, then perhaps we can..."

Wanda's words came to an abrupt halt because she thought that if the Sorcerer Supreme could really use the Time Stone to reverse the current situation, he would have done so long ago. The fact that he hadn't meant that the situation was already beyond saving.

Wanda took a deep breath and then let it out. She clutched Jarvis's hand tightly, even half-leaning on him. Miss Witch rarely made such unreserved movements, but she truly felt despair.

Jarvis hugged her, supporting her back, buried his head in her neck and shoulder, and said, "It's okay, Wanda, we will survive."

"But it's almost dark." Wanda said with a crying tone, "It's going to be dark again. Can we really survive this night?"

Shang-Chi and Riley both appeared a bit silent. They had no confidence at all to answer this question. It was only their third day here, yet the torture they had suffered and the darkness they had experienced were more than everything they had experienced in their past lives combined.

"We will." Jarvis raised his head, quietly watching the sun setting on the horizon, a flash of inexplicable brilliance in his eyes, and then said, "No matter what, I will make sure you survive."