Chapter 1377

In order to communicate normally with people, Shang-Chi had to bring a handful of sand to their second stronghold.

Actually, they didn't need any stronghold, because judging by the current density of monsters, there was no difference between them sleeping in a house and on the street. That kind of terrifying attack wouldn't weaken because of the obstruction of buildings.

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But perhaps due to the human instinctual need for shelter from the wind and rain, they eventually found the floor above a coffee shop that was still relatively clean to serve as a base for spending their third night.

Undoubtedly, this was progress, because everyone had fully prepared psychologically for what might happen tonight. They were even able to leisurely prepare things conducive to communication in advance.

The Scarlet Witch's vision problem was almost impossible to solve. Such a short time was clearly not enough for her to evolve sufficiently keen hearing and touch. But fortunately, Jarvis helped her. Jarvis repeated the situation around her tirelessly, and in order not to disturb others, he could only whisper close to her ear.

Although Riley couldn't hear, he could read lips. Because the pronunciation methods of English were different, the mouth shapes were easier to understand, so even without professional training, he could barely understand.

Shang-Chi used writing on sand to restore his communication ability. This was very effective, because for someone who was good at writing Chinese characters, English letters that could be written quickly in one stroke were simply as easy as eating and drinking.

Before it got completely dark, they started a fierce discussion. Shang-Chi still insisted on his point of view. He wrote at a very fast speed on that pile of sand:

"Disasters happen at night, there must be a special meaning to it. But actually, nothing special happens at night. Except for the ethereal stars, there is only the path of dreams."

"But verifying this is very dangerous." Riley disagreed somewhat. He tried hard to swallow the extra modifiers in those words, clearly choking himself quite a bit, but still could only say as briefly as possible: "We might go crazy in our dreams."

"I think we must methodically figure out all the strange events we have encountered and arrange them in order of priority." Jarvis proposed an extremely rational plan and immediately put it into practice.

"First is the strangest attack. Its importance is certainly A, but the difficulty of investigation is also A. Immediately following is the situation of this world. I think it is equally important and dangerous as the attack."

"Next is everything we saw in New York City. Its importance and danger level should be rated B. Then is the ins and outs of the missing monsters and the Ancient One's knot, which should be rated C. Finally, it's a point we have no time to attend to: where did Quill and that raccoon go? This matter should be set as D."

"The more important it is, the more dangerous it is. If we challenge it rashly before collecting enough clues, it is very likely to bury our own lives."

"But we have just arrived here after all, our energy is still relatively abundant, and we can encourage each other and maintain a good state of mind. If we waste this precious time on things that are not important enough, it is very likely to slow down our progress, leading to us being exhausted to death here."

"So I think we should start from the intermediate level, which is investigating the situation in New York City, figuring out what exactly this city and the people in the city did when the disaster came. This way, it might be possible to reveal the essence of the disaster in part, and perhaps we can also find survivors."

"Although I don't hold hope for the last point, I think what you said makes sense." Riley nodded and said.

The other two couldn't refute Jarvis's well-founded analysis. In such a situation, having such a rational teammate was simply a stroke of luck. So the group started to speculate on what exactly New York had encountered.

"I guess, perhaps one day a monster parasitized inside a human body, and then it might have secretly used its tentacles to sow more seeds in other human bodies, and then they hatched one after another to kill humans."

Wanda made a speculation first, but Shang-Chi shook his head and said: "If that's the case, then why weren't many facilities destroyed? And why are there no traces of the military and police on the road?"

Wanda frowned and said: "Perhaps, the incident happened suddenly, and the authorities didn't react at all."

"Do you know how many people are in New York?" Shang-Chi asked back. He wrote a string of words in sloppy notes: "Assuming infection in binary, the time required is also unimaginable. As long as one monster's true form is seen by someone, it will certainly cause panic."

"Is it possible that there was an existence that sowed seeds in everyone at the same time, and then let them erupt simultaneously?" Riley looked at the words Shang-Chi wrote and frowned, saying.

But Jarvis shook his head and said: "If its ultimate goal is to destroy humanity, then since it has the ability to sow seeds in everyone, why not just kill everyone? Or sow the seeds on the heart? The human physiological structure dictates that they cannot resist such an attack."

The discussion reached a stalemate. Clearly, the "infection theory" of one spreading to ten, ten to a hundred proposed by Wanda didn't match the situation they saw in New York, and the "simultaneous eruption theory" proposed by Riley had contradictory logic in behavior before and after.

Suddenly Riley had a flash of inspiration again, and he said: "Perhaps the culprit's goal isn't to destroy humanity, it just wants monsters?"

"What does it want monsters for?"

Riley fell silent again. He couldn't figure it out either. Judging from the monsters they encountered, these monsters really didn't have many advantages.

"Perhaps, perhaps those powerful monsters have already been eliminated by Master Ancient One." Riley tried hard to speculate, and he said: "Just like in zombie movies, among countless ordinary zombies, there will always be one or two with special abilities."

"No, no, no." Riley quickly denied his speculation and said: "Although Master Ancient One is very strong, if those special monsters were eliminated by her with a wave of her hand, it seems they are of no use either."

"Don't you think it's very strange?" Wanda suddenly spoke up and said: "Compared to the attacks we suffer at night, those monsters on the road are like little babies. The gap in strength between the two is too big."

"This kind of monster is unlikely to have been created to attack or destroy anything. They are more like... more like..."

Wanda searched for an adjective for a long time but didn't find one, while Jarvis stroked his chin and said: "More like failed products."

"If they are failed products, then what are the successful products?" Jarvis asked himself, but soon, he shook his head and said: "No, the line of thought is wrong. Having failed products doesn't mean there are successful products. Or rather, compared to failed products, they are more like some kind of... residue?"

Shang-Chi's hand suddenly froze, and then he wrote a line of words on the sand at a very fast speed: "They are the residue of fear."

Everyone stared at him with wide eyes. Shang-Chi took a deep breath, tried hard to clear his thinking, and began to infer with the rich imagination he had from watching countless horror movies:

"Have you ever thought about what we will become if we can no longer resist the attacks at night and go completely crazy?"

Everyone froze.

The Scarlet Witch's fingertips began to tremble incessantly. The female physiological instinct made her more disgusted with those slimes, tentacles, and tumors than others. Just imagining herself becoming that kind of monster made her unable to catch her breath.

"You mean, if we lose to the night, we will become that kind of monster?" Jarvis looked into Shang-Chi's eyes and asked.

But soon he found the suspicious point again and said: "Then isn't this the same as infection? Human willpower varies, there must be people who go crazy early and people who go crazy late."

"Then the monsters that appeared earlier must have attracted the attention of the authorities. How could no one have armed resistance to the end, but instead all committed euthanasia?"

The group fell silent again. Clearly, the inference reached this point and fell into a stalemate again. No matter what, one fact cannot be ignored, and that is that New York actually didn't suffer much damage.

Those collapsed buildings didn't look like they were attacked by artillery, but like they were abandoned due to lack of maintenance, or collapsed by some large-sized monsters. There were no traces of crossfire on the road, most of the cars were intact, and many life-critical supplies weren't looted.

Although the few people present could be called young heroes, clearly they all realized that humans are essentially chaotic creatures. If everyone could fully adhere to their kind original hearts and not harm others at all when facing such terrifying natural and man-made disasters, then why would there be so many broken things on Earth?

So it can be imagined that in the face of disaster, huge chaos will certainly be generated. When disaster hasn't arrived and there are only rumors, people will hoard supplies due to panic, and as long as one monster's photo is taken by someone, even if the authorities react quickly, small-scale chaos cannot be avoided.

Shang-Chi, an outsider, didn't think highly of the organizational ability of the New York government, and the three locals thought even less of it. It could even be said that they felt despair without even looking. So the lack of crossfire traces in the city was an insurmountable reasoning obstacle.

"Don't you think it's strange? Compared to the apocalyptic cities we've seen before, this city is too intact."

On the tree-lined path of Central Park, New York, Quill was discussing similar questions with Rocket Raccoon, and the two of them were clearly more knowledgeable than those few young people who had almost never left Earth.

"I was on the planet Ronta, you know, that unlucky star in Centaurus..."

"Ooh!" Rocket Raccoon let out a sudden realization shout and said: "That's the planet that was unfortunately knocked away due to the orbital change of other stars, encountered a solar flare and was knocked out of the system, and then was hit into a black hole by a Kree Empire planetary warship that was speeding, right?"

"That's right, that's it. Although the natives of Centaurus like to call it the Unlucky Star, I prefer to call it Black 8. I've never been this accurate when playing billiards on Earth."

Recalling the unlucky things that planet encountered, Rocket Raccoon finally showed a long-lost smile. He hissed and then said: "There are quite a few unlucky stars in the universe, but it's rare to see one as unlucky as it."

"You should say I'm unlucky. At that time, I was sent by Yondu to that billiard ball to scout for information. Seriously, the leaders and residents there were quite good. Although there weren't many people and the civilization wasn't developed, they reacted very quickly and were united."

"Their only planetary shield opened immediately within a fraction of a second after the impact, so the first round of impact didn't cause destructive damage to the planet itself."

"But the funny thing is, the brother of the civilization leader thought this was a conspiracy by his brother to kill him, so he simply acted first and killed his brother, violating the rules to start the propulsion device. As a result, the public wasn't prepared and were all slapped against the wall by the huge kinetic energy, becoming meat paste."

"What I want to say is that civilization is very fragile in the face of such natural and man-made disasters."

"If you ask me, humans aren't as united as the public on that billiard ball. Facing such a big disaster, no one will shoot? I don't believe it at all."