Chapter 10: Apocalypse Year 3: Reborn and Returned

"Crack—"

A searing pain shot from his chest. Fang Shi forced his eyes open, and what greeted them was a sheet of blood-red.

The roars of beasts came at his ears, punctuated now and then by crunching, chewing sounds—enough to make one's hair stand on end.

"Am I about to die?"

Bitterness filled Fang Shi's heart. Three years of bitter struggle in this apocalypse.

Every moment, every hour, he had been cautious, not daring to slacken in the slightest.

Armor never leaving his body, weapons never leaving his hand; the slightest rustle in the wind would jolt him awake.

But in the end, he still could not escape death.

The Crouching Night-Shadow, that powerful undying creature, was the sovereign of the night.

Adept at stealth, in dark zones it even enjoyed a +8 racial bonus.

Before the ambush, Fang Shi had sensed not the slightest anomaly at all.

What's more, Fang Shi—who had just stepped into Second Tier—would be no match for a Crouching Night-Shadow in a straight fight either.

Feeling his body being crushed bit by bit, Fang Shi's heart brimmed with unwillingness.

"Is this my fate?"

"But I struggled for three years, only to end up like this! I might as well have died from the start!"

"I'm not willing to accept this!"

Unfortunately, objective things do not shift with the human will. Fang Shi's consciousness gradually sank into darkness, entering an eternal slumber.

……

"Ring ring ring—"

An alarm blared, and Fang Shi sprang up with a jolt.

"This is?"

A dim bedroom, a soft big bed, and on the table to the right, a 24-inch computer monitor emitted a faint blue glow, accompanied by waves of soothing music.

Looking at this familiar scene, astonishment welled up in Fang Shi's heart.

He immediately tumbled out of bed, walked to the computer desk, and picked up the mouse, waving it.

"June 6, 1022, 18:57"

"This!"

Fang Shi was stunned.

June 6, 1022—wasn't this the very day before the apocalypse disaster struck?

Had he been reborn, returned to three years earlier?

Or had everything before been nothing but an illusion?

No apocalypse had ever happened at all—just a dream conjured from a millet-pillow.

Before Fang Shi could think it through, a flash of white light suddenly streaked across the sky outside the window.

Right after, the sky's colors kept shifting—red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, indigo, violet—seven hues cycling in turn.

The gaudy, neon-lit city, bathed in the seven-colored glow, looked breathtakingly beautiful.

Whether pedestrians on the street or residents at home, all were drawn by such a spectacle.

One after another, they wondered what on earth was going on.

But Fang Shi was not among them. Seeing this scene, an involuntary trace of fear rose in his eyes.

"Damn it, isn't this the scene that happened before the apocalypse game began?"

"This isn't a dream—these are things that really happened."

"So I've been reborn!"

At this thought, the fear in Fang Shi's eyes faded, replaced by a look of steely resolve.

As if no matter the mountain of blades or sea of flames, the eighteen layers of hell, he would never give up.

This was the quality three years of bitter struggle in the apocalypse had forged in him.

"In this life I will absolutely not repeat the same mistakes. This life, I will stand at the very pinnacle of the world and master my own fate."

The arrival of the apocalypse was a crisis, but also an opportunity.

In his previous life, when the apocalypse first descended, 90% of humanity could not endure the transformation of the Laws and one after another became monsters called the Walking Dead.

But the remaining humans broke open the shackles on their bodies from that moment on, stepping into a great era of accelerated evolution.

Before Fang Shi's rebirth, there had already appeared on earth strongmen who could sever rivers with a palm.

Rivers that would take a concrete dam of several million tons to cut off.

Strongmen possessing such power, before the apocalypse, could already break past the first cosmic velocity and roam the void of space.

So long as energy was plentiful and lifespan endless, one could freely tour the Milky Way.

Unfortunately,

After the apocalypse, Blue Star's volume kept increasing, the sky rose higher each day, the earth grew thicker each day, and above the high heavens, Lei Jie came into being alongside.

Although gravity remained unchanged under the Laws' effect, the difficulty of leaving Blue Star could not be spoken of in the same breath.

"Wait, I remember someone before my rebirth saying that the first person to activate the Attribute Panel would get an extra reward."

Fang Shi vaguely remembered that before the apocalypse game began, he had ordered a takeout, and then been blocked inside his home by a delivery rider who had turned into a Walking Dead.

Because of fear, he had hesitated and delayed, unable to act. Later, after finally mustering the courage, he had killed the Walking Dead outside, but had already missed the earliest opening.

Thinking of this, Fang Shi immediately left the bedroom, grabbed the bone-chopping cleaver from the kitchen, and without even closing the door, charged straight out of the house.

"'Blue Star Online' has finished loading. The game is now activated. Wishing everyone a pleasant game—"

A flat, emotionless mechanical voice rang through the mind of every person on Blue Star—without any warning, and yet so matter-of-factly.

The time was exactly June 6, 1022, 19:00.

While everyone stood there bewildered, trying to figure out what had happened.

Fang Shi was already running in the hallway, hearing a roar coming from the corner.

"Roar!!"

Without hesitation, without any thought, Fang Shi naturally swung his right arm, using the momentum of his running fall, repeating an action performed millions of times.

"Splat."

Black blood splattered everywhere; a headless corpse emitting a rotten smell fell "thud" into the stair corner, the takeout box in its hand scattering across the floor.

A head rolled clattering down the stairs.

Fang Shi watched silently, expressionless.

When the apocalypse descends, humans will do anything to survive.

Besides, the corpse before him could no longer be counted as human; it was merely a monster inhabiting that body.

Humans who could not withstand the Law's transformation were already dead; eliminating the zombie meant granting him release.

"You have killed a Level 1 Zombie, officially logging into 'Blue Star Online'."

"... Starting body data scan... Race confirmed..."

"... Element collection complete, player character template loading..."

As several streams of data flashed through his mind, a translucent status panel appeared before Fang Shi's eyes.

"Name: Fang Shi"

"Race: Human"

"Attributes: Strength 12, Agility 14, Constitution 12, Intelligence 14, Perception 18, Charisma 15"

"Class: Graduate Student Level 1"

"Health Points: 6/6"

"Experience Points: 0"

"Attribute Points: 0"

"Survival Points: 0"

"Race Specialization: Versatile I"

"Life Skills: Focus 12, Reading People 6, Science 14, Mathematics 12, Chinese 15, English 10, Finance 13, Computer 9, Cooking 8, Driving 6"

"Class Skills: Stealth 8, Hiding 10, Listen 10, Search 12, Tumble 15, Taunt 6, Medicine 10, Jump 14, Intimidate 7, Swim 6, Climb 6, Spellcraft 5, Survival 10, Throw 12..."

"Personal Specializations: Iron Will I, Athlete I, Photographic Memory I"

"Huh?"

Fang Shi quickly scanned the status panel, his pupils widening slightly.

"These data are wrong; Perception is 4 points higher than in the previous life, Intelligence is 1 point higher, Charisma is 1 point higher."

"The skills are the same too, exactly as before rebirth."

"However, the specializations only added one: Iron Will."

The initial attributes of the Apocalypse Game are determined entirely by the player's own physical fitness.

Fang Shi had a vague guess in his heart: Intelligence, Perception, and Charisma relate to the soul, as do skills and Iron Will; it seems my rebirth was a soul rebirth.

These attributes are now ridiculously high; the maximum attribute value for the Human race is 18.

Unless one enters the First Stage or uses free attribute points to add, no amount of training can exceed 18.

Besides, not everyone can train to the limit.

Modern life is too good, with little physical labor; most people's Strength is not even 10 points.

5 Strength points mean, according to the data, the ability to lift 50 kilograms; 10 points is 100 kilograms; 15 points is 200 kilograms.

18 Strength points can only be reached by a heavyweight world champion.

That cannot even be called one in ten thousand; with 7 billion people on Blue Star, it is practically one in a billion.

Fang Shi's 18 Perception points can be described as a rare existence on Blue Star.

A total attribute of 85 is also an terrifyingly high number; he is at least one in a million on Blue Star.

There are only two ways to acquire attributes in the Apocalypse Game: the first is daily hard training, the second is one free attribute point gained every four levels.

Free attribute points can only be obtained by leveling up; they are a great aid to breaking through limit barriers.

But in this dangerous apocalypse, most people live day to day.

An increase of 1 attribute point is very important to oneself; sometimes death occurs simply because of that missing 1 attribute point.

Therefore, most people will add points as early as possible to survive the omnipresent crises.

"Panel opening complete, Player ID 0000000001."

"As the first player to open the status panel, you receive 1 random attribute point."

"Distribution starting now; distribution complete: Perception 18 → 19."

Fang Shi's heart trembled; the reward for being the first to open the status panel was actually an attribute point.

He was lucky enough to have it randomly assigned to Perception.

Does that mean after reaching Level 4, when I get 1 free attribute point...

... and add it to Perception, Perception can enter the Transcendent realm?

That is a Transcendent attribute!

Before my rebirth, after three years of desperate training, my highest attribute point, Strength, was only 19.

I was just waiting to reach Level 12, get 1 free attribute point, and add it to step into the Transcendent realm.

Alas, he died before achieving victory; before he could witness the extraordinary power, he had already perished.

In this life, reaching only Level 4 grants the first extraordinary attribute; how could this not make Fang Shi excited?

"Do not be arrogant. Right now, the most important thing is to gain 100 experience points and unlock the Combat Class."

"Only by unlocking the Combat Class can combat power be maximized."

"If the reward for being the first to unlock the Attribute Panel is so rich, what about the reward for being the first to unlock the Combat Class?"

Thanks to his experience of rebirth, Fang Shi was not shocked like in his previous life, spending a long time analyzing before figuring out the panel; all these thoughts took only a dozen seconds.

A glint of sharp light flashed in Fang Shi's eyes; he leaped over the stairwell railing and jumped down. With a Jump stat of 14, dealing with this three-meter-high stairwell was far too easy.

He felt fortunate in his heart; fortunately, a hundred meters from his doorstep lay a gathering spot for square dancing.

In the past, it truly disturbed the residents, reported multiple times by neighbors, and never corrected despite repeated warnings; Fang Shi was also one of those deeply troubled.

But now, this place, in his eyes, was simply a treasure ground belonging to him.