Chapter 454: Future World

Chu Che stood in the ruins.

The sky was gone.

That spot was replaced by a blood‑red giant eye, occupying four‑fifths of the heavens; fine lightning danced in the iris's pattern, the pupil pointed toward the earth, and all things were shrouded under its eternal gaze.

Chu Che did not move.

He stood at the top of a collapsed building, his eyes lowered toward the ground.

The outline of Jiang Hai City could still be made out.

The main road's asphalt had been ripped up, the concrete foundation seemed pierced from below by something, and dark‑red fleshy vines grew from the cracks, clinging to the remaining building framework, writhing and breathing.

In the distance, a faceless gigantic humanoid Weird knelt amid the Gymnasium's ruins; its spine pierced the roof, its head hung over its chest, and countless tiny flying Weirds perched on its shoulder blades like crows on a dead branch.

Farther away, two monsters of completely different shapes were tearing at each other, flesh spraying everywhere, emitting a metallic‑crack scream.

Not a single Weird showed fear.

They were very leisurely.

Strolling, feeding, mating, fighting over territory.

Like beasts released from a zoo back into the wild, finally returning to their proper place in the food chain.

Chu Che pushed the glasses that did not exist in this space.

He said nothing.

And nothing needed to be said.

It was his masterpiece.

Or rather, this was a possible future of his, extrapolated to its ultimate conclusion.

The Weird Editor granted him not only the ability to create Weird, but also a fundamental understanding of karma and the nature of Rules. In the apocalyptic scene before him, every line and every rule imprint on each monster's body could be read as the creator's technique.

It was himself.

Without a doubt.

Chu Che withdrew his gaze and turned toward the city center.

The Investigation Bureau Building's wreckage spanned three blocks, the structure twisted like a wrung towel, Reinforced Steel Bars jutting from the distorted cross‑sections, bearing torn cloth, dried bloodstains, and half of a Federation flag.

On the square at the building's base, there were still people.

Living people.

Not many.

Chu Che's consciousness drifted a little closer.

He saw familiar faces.

Jiang Yuan half‑knelt behind a pile of rubble, the Shadow Legion reduced to a few thin wisps of black mist swirling around him like the last flicker of an oil lamp before it goes out. His right arm was gone below the elbow, the stump sealed by black substance, not bleeding, and showing no sign of regeneration.

Jiang Yuan was still fighting.

At the other end of the square, Chen Shao leaned against a broken street‑lamp post, the scarlet Demon Eye's glow dimmed to a single dark spot. Beside him stood Xu An, the Silent One's Red Wood Ruler split in two, only the handle still gripped, and dried blood scabs oozing from the lips sewn together with black thread.

Eden Garden and the Federation.

Two veterans of countless years of fighting, now back‑to‑back, facing opposite directions, waiting for the next wave of monsters to attack.

Chu Che watched the scene, his expression unchanged.

He could not even feel appreciation.

It was entirely expected.

Like a cardiac surgeon opening a chest to see a beating heart, feeling no surprise.

All organs were in their places, all reactions matched expectations.

Humans will struggle, will fear, will temporarily set aside hatred to shake hands in dire straits, then turn against each other again when the crisis eases slightly.

It is a biological instinct.

There was nothing moving about it.

The scene suddenly accelerated.

It was not Chu Che who propelled it forward; the memory's own rhythm did—Lu Yu's soul had hit the fast‑forward button during this episode, compressing the repeated battles, deaths, and defeats into hazy shards of light and shadow.

Sunrise and sunset.

The Blood Moon hung eternally.

Buildings fell one after another.

Living people dwindled one by one.

Chu Che saw many ways to die in this accelerated memory.

Some were torn to pieces by Weird. Some were stabbed in the back by comrades—for the last half‑bottle of water. Some stopped breathing in their sleep, a look of release on their faces.

Others died very quietly.

Sitting on the ruins, watching the blood‑red giant eye in the sky, they smiled, then laid their weapon across their own neck.

Pull.

The scene finally slowed.

Freeze.

Abandoned subway tunnel.

The emergency lights had long since failed; the only illumination came from a few burning logs in the corner, the fire casting long shadows of everyone.

There were five people in total.

Including Lu Yu.

He was thinner than he is now, yet taller. Prominent cheekbones, deep eye sockets, and ankles so slender the bone outlines were visible.

He leaned against the wall, hugging his knees, eyes fixed on the fire, motionless.

Su Ming sat opposite him.

Chu Che sized up this "future version" of Su Ming.

He had lost a lot of weight. A scar stretched from the corner of his forehead to his jaw, the scar tissue gray‑white, pulling his mouth corner, making him forever wear a mocking expression.

But his eyes were unchanged.

Those extremely deep pupils remained overly lucid.

"That Chen Shao is dead," Su Ming said after a long pause.

Lu Yu's fingers twitched.

"When?"

"Just before the second Sai Men detonated the Containment Object. He took Xu An to intercept that thing," Su Ming's gaze fell on the flame, "The telekinetic force held for about seventeen seconds. Not enough."

A muffled rumble of something moving far away echoed from deep within the tunnel. Everyone fell silent at once, pricked up their ears for a moment. The sound faded.

The man with a tangled beard exhaled, clutching his gun tighter.

"That thing," Lu Yu whispered again.

"You've seen it," Su Ming said, looking at him.

Lu Yu gave no reply. But Chu Che noticed the youth's hands hugging his knees tightened. The tendons on the back of his hand rose, the Nail digging into the flesh of his palm.

"It is not Weird," Su Ming continued, as if delivering a final summary report.

"Weird is manufactured, it has rules, it has weaknesses, it has corresponding containment measures. But that thing......"

He paused.

"It is the rules themselves."

"It rewrote the underlying logic of this world's operation, kicking humanity off the top of the food chain and then taking its place."

"We've fought for so many years. Exhausted every method. The Unconventional, Containment Objects, nuclear weapons, rule countermeasures, a global coalition joint operation."

Su Ming's gaze finally left the fire pit and met Lu Yu's eyes.

"Useless."

Two words, more desolate than the apocalypse outside the tunnel.

"Because divine beings can edit rules, creating cheat‑level monsters, the scenario a disgusting scheme. Every weakness we found gets patched before the next engagement. We thought every counter‑rule we mastered was within its design scope."

"From start to finish, we have been running on its board."

Lu Yu's lips moved.

Su Ming withdrew his hand from his abdomen. The blood flowed more.

Chu Che's eyes behind the lenses narrowed when he heard them.

It wasn't nervousness. It was something like pure academic interest.

At that stage, they had already sensed his existence, but didn't know exactly who he was.

Interesting.

The scene fast‑forwarded again.

A few hours. Or a few days. The concept became blurred in the apocalypse.

When the view refocused, only two people remained in the tunnel.

Su Ming leaned against the wall.

His abdominal wound had stopped bleeding—not because it healed, but because the blood was nearly drained.

His skin showed an abnormal gray‑white hue, his lips turned bluish, but his eyes still shone.

Too bright.

It was the afterglow before burning out.

Lu Yu crouched in front of him.

"Don't waste it," Su Ming's voice was only slightly louder than a breath.

Lu Yu didn't stop.

Su Ming laboriously raised his left hand.

Between his fingers he held a worm.

It was tiny—only half the length of a little finger. Its whole body was a translucent eerie blue, with ultra‑fine light threads flowing inside, like a miniature galaxy sealed in a crystal shell.

Time Marrow Worm.

Chu Che's attention was completely focused at that moment.

He, of course, knew this thing.

Its essence is a parasite of the Time Law, feeding on the Causality Law, using Paradox as its breeding nest.

Su Ming rubbed the worm's body with his thumb, blue light dancing between his pallid fingers.

"Before His wings are full."

"Find Him."

"Kill Him."

Su Ming's hand slipped off his wrist.

After helping Lu Yu crush the Time Marrow Worm, he exhausted his last strength.

He leaned against the wall, his head tilted to one side, his breathing turning into intermittent bubbling sounds.

Lu Yu knelt on the spot, clutching in his hand the Time Marrow Worm that emitted an ever‑growing eerie blue glow, the surroundings beginning to blur.

Chu Che looked at the youth's face.

No tears.

No howling.

There wasn't even a sorrowful expression.

There was only one transformation: being completely hollowed out, then refilled with something ultimate.

Calm. An extreme, bone‑shaving, flesh‑cutting calm.

At the instant the blue light burst apart, Chu Che's consciousness trembled briefly.

It wasn't an attack.

It was the Time Law itself warping.

The causal chain was violently reversed, and ripples of spacetime spread outward from Lu Yu's body, piercing tunnels, piercing ruins, piercing the entire Blood Moon‑shrouded apocalypse.

Lu Yu's body began to become transparent.

From his feet upward, as if stripped layer by layer by some force, he turned into blue dust.

His consciousness was pulled out.

Swept by the torrent of Time, it fell toward the past.

Chu Che stood amid the collapsing shards of memory, watching the last strand of blue light fade.

He said nothing.

But the eyes hidden behind the Gold-threaded Lens were more focused than any moment in the past three years.

Hunt the deity.

That is Lu Yu's goal.

And the "deity" he speaks of, the entity that edits rules and rewrites the underlying logic of the world—

is himself.

The incandescent lamp in the Examination Room came back on.

The smell of disinfectant, the low‑frequency hum of the air‑conditioner, the clamor of students queuing outside in the Corridor.

Chu Che's fingertip still rested on Lu Yu's pulse.

He could feel the boy's heartbeat: sixty‑two beats per minute. Steady. Healthy.

The gray ripples receded as if they had never existed.

Chu Che lifted his hand, took the signing pen from the table, and wrote the conclusion in the final column of the medical examination report.

All indicators are normal; it is recommended to maintain the current recovery training intensity.

The handwriting is pleasing—horizontal and vertical strokes even, pressure uniform.

"All right," Chu Che closed the report, handed it to the nurse beside him, then looked at Lu Yu and smiled.

A gentle smile that left no flaw to be found.

"The pulse is fine, Qi and blood have recovered well. Go back, rest, avoid staying up late, and don't look at your phone before sleep."

Lu Yu stood, pulling his sleeve down to cover his wrist.

"Thank you, Dr. Chu."

"Go ahead."

Lu Yu pushed the door open, merging into the crowd of students queuing for examinations outside in the Corridor.

Sunlight streamed through the window at the end of the Corridor, falling on his slender silhouette.

Ordinary. Quiet. Harmless.

The nurse lowered her head to organize the examination sheets, muttering, "That kid is so pitiful; he suffered such severe injuries before."

Chu Che said nothing.

He turned around, facing the window.

Sunlight struck the Gold-threaded Lens, refracting a thin, icy white beam.

Behind the lens, within the pupil, something beyond human comprehension slowly rotated.

He raised his hand and nudged his glasses.

"Next patient."