Free Web NovelChapter 769: Chapter 727: Three Futures
The gale swept past, and the crimson sand scraped against the armor with a rustling sound, while the wasteland under their feet seemed endless, broken only by some gigantic earthen mesas like Ghost Shadows, jutting abruptly from Earth’s surface.
This was the true apocalypse. Humanity’s Weapons had ultimately brought about its own Destruction. Even when observing from space, Su Ming could distinguish the post-nuke craters with the naked eye.
Earth now looked like a dried, cracked mud pond after a rainstorm, with ring after ring of ripples recording where each raindrop had fallen.
Walking in a place like this made it really hard to feel cheerful. Even in worlds like Beidou Divine Fist or Fallout, at least there were still some living people.
But as Su Ming and Old Zheng traveled along on the Flying Carpet, the creatures they saw were pitifully few, and obviously had been exposed to nuclear Radiation; their bodies had been warped completely into monstrosities.
"Our country has Nuclear Bombs now too." After a long time, Zheng Xian finally spoke, covering his mouth: "But seeing it like this now, I really don’t know whether studying nuclear physics was right or wrong."
Su Ming peered through his eyepiece at the almost identical scenery along the roadside: "Stay cool, Old Zheng. We still don’t know what actually caused the apocalypse, and humans aren’t the only ones in the Cosmos who’ve mastered nuclear energy. But this place shouldn’t be a Parallel World; more likely it’s some kind of Future."
"You’re saying we just did Time Travel inside that Celestial Divine Species?"
"Who can say for sure? Maybe the ’white blood cells’ or ’phagocytes’ in a Celestial God’s body are literally time channels or something."
Zheng Xian coughed twice; his throat was really uncomfortable: "Right now I’m just wondering whether we can still get back."
"It’s not a big problem; I’m Deathstroke. No matter how bad things get, I can always find a way out." Su Ming answered calmly, and ahead of them, the ruins of a city were already drawing closer.
Calling it ruins was almost praising it. What little remained was more like a pile of rubble after a city-level Destruction. Aside from a few lonely walls of skyscrapers, most of what met the eye were twisted steel skeletons, covered in rust.
After they’d walked a bit, Zheng Xian pointed at something amid the ruins: "This one I recognize."
Su Ming sighed. It wasn’t just Zheng Xian—he’d also recognized this former landmark building.
The Statue of Liberty now had only a shattered head left, its features nearly indistinguishable, but that iconic crown was still recognizable at a glance.
"This is New York." Su Ming drew the God Eater, and at the same time signaled Zheng Xian to be on higher alert: "New York City after the apocalypse."
"Got to hand it to the construction quality. The statue... is still kind of intact." Zheng Xian said with a laugh, following in his footsteps.
That was true. Compared with New York City, which had been completely razed to the ground, the Statue of Liberty still having half a head left was already not bad.
"Let’s call that good news. We may not know the time, but at least we’ve pinned down the place."
"What’s the plan?"
Su Ming closed his eyes slightly, calculating positions and distances in his mind before using the sun to judge direction: "New York can be considered one of my bases of operation. Come with me to check out the company... ruins first. If this is the Future, I should’ve sensed something before the nuclear war and left some contingencies."
"Then let’s hope the you of the past—no, Future—you hasn’t changed his habits too much."
.....................
In a back alley, Su Ming and Zheng Xian had dozens, maybe hundreds of Weapons aimed at their heads. The red-and-blue flashing police lights made this originally dark corner of the city bright as day.
"Hands up. You are under arrest for unauthorized interstellar and Time Travel."
Su Ming set down the soda bottle in his hand. Good—at least it wasn’t some charge like ’drinking on the street at midnight.’ Looked like he hadn’t gone too overboard this time.
Zheng Xian looked at him, silently asking about the plan with his eyes: hit the station first and fish for intel, or just fight their way out? But the searchlights on the police cars quickly shone into his face, forcing him to turn his head away.
"Place your hands on the wall and turn around!"
Another order came from inside a patrol car, the voice extremely mechanical. Su Ming signaled Zheng Xian to comply for now; he needed a terminal that could hook into the Net.
The two of them turned, pressing their palms flat against the outer wall of the building beside them; the icy chill seeped straight into their bones.
With their hands on the wall, glowing circles suddenly appeared on the surface right where their palms were, and a powerful suction pinned them there. It seemed the police were using some kind of device to alter the local properties of the building material so it could restrain suspects.
The entire time, not a single cop got out of a car. It was as if they were glued to their seats, and only the guns and cannons mounted on the tops of the patrol cars remained fixed on the two men.
Right then, the wall in front of Su Ming began to flow. A small screen protruded as the building itself reshaped; the metal seemed alive, rapidly constructing a whole array of devices.
Nanotechnology, huh....
Below the screen were not only a microphone and camera, but also a few tools that looked like they were meant for drawing blood samples.
"Hey, brother, you seeing this? Looks like they’re planning to slice us up for research."
Both of them could’ve broken free; that level of suction wasn’t an issue. And whether it was Zheng Xian or Su Ming, they both took their blood and tissue samples very seriously and were not about to let them fall into other hands.
Su Ming shot him a reassuring look. Since the terminal had conveniently come right to his face, and given the intel so far, he knew exactly what he could do.
A familiar voice came from the screen: "Please look directly into the camera for registration and filing."
Su Ming looked at that tiny metal probe and smiled faintly. "Adjutant, identity verification, Jim Raynor."
"...Verification complete. Welcome back, Chief Raynor. Transferring planetary control..." A small figure suddenly appeared on the screen: a robot with a completely silver-white body. Aside from skin color, she looked no different from a human woman, and right now she was smiling brightly at him.
The weapons on the walls on both sides of the alley seemed to melt, flowing back into the buildings. The light rings pinning the two of them in place dispersed.
The little display then underwent a round of transformation, dropping into Su Ming’s hand like a phone.
At the same time, the dozens of police cars that had surrounded them all exploded. Firelight filled the streets and alleys, debris flying everywhere. A leg came spinning through the air, and Su Ming casually snatched it out of the air.
"That’s it?" Su Ming tossed aside the severed limb and flicked the blood off his hand, while Zheng Xian reached up and touched his neck.
He’d heard what that robot said just now too—planetary control. This was way too...
But the robot on the screen didn’t think anything was off. Her eyes glowed faint blue as she answered in a dead-serious tone, "Given that 80 Bionic Men pointed weapons at the Emperor, this constitutes a Level 1 felony, judged as a machine uprising. Sentence: death. Everything fits the logic—eliminate danger in its embryonic stage."
"Mm, nice work." Su Ming scratched his head; there was a chunk of meat stuck in his hair. "So that means I really became the Emperor?"
The Adjutant’s avatar turned side to side, as if showing off her figure. "Unable to answer that question. Advances in time technology are limited. Current answer... you are now, you were not in the past, and you may not be in the future." freewebnøvel.com
Su Ming curled his lip. They really researched this? Isn’t that just nonsense? But now wasn’t the time to argue semantics.
"Where are my people?"
The avatar nodded, queried some data—or maybe contacted someone in real time—then replied, "At present, all main bodies are located outside the All-Powerful Universe. I am one of the main body’s subprograms, responsible for managing Holy Terra in the 40K Universe. Do you need me to contact Gin?"
The corner of Su Ming’s mouth twitched. They really called it Holy Terra?
"No need. You come pick us up. I need some intel analysis."
"Aircraft has launched. ETA 7 seconds. Please stand by."
Zheng Xian smacked his lips, not sure what to say. Popping into a future society out of nowhere—and it’s an Earth run by Deathstroke—this was just...
"You’re something else, man."
.....................
The Heart-shaped Grass was indeed just as easy to find as Su Ming had predicted. Because of the explosive plant growth, it had spread out of that cave; now the entire mountain was covered in this bizarre plant.
Its mechanism for modifying the human body wasn’t yet clear, and generally speaking only the King was allowed to take it. Maybe there was some Unknown restriction.
From Su Ming’s perspective, this modification was completely different from the SSS Serum. It was more like a Spirit Communication Medium: after drinking it, you’d see the Heroic Spirits of past kings, then meet the Black Panther God, and then become powerful.
Of course, this take wasn’t necessarily right, but if it wasn’t something like that, then T’Challa had done a lot of things in a really stupid way.
He had good stuff at home, and it was one thing not to give any to his loyal royal guard, but not giving a couple sips to his wonderful little sister, and the wife doesn’t get any either—wasn’t that way too stingy? It’s just some grass leaves, come on.
Then again, maybe that’s just how their national customs worked. The King had to be the strongest, and everyone else had to be weaker.
He couldn’t wrap his head around it. Tribal customs and that kind of thing really weren’t his field.
If the SSS Serum could be mass-produced, Su Ming would definitely give each of the girls in Spider Web a shot. Whenever something came up, he’d send them to handle it while he stayed home and salted away his days.
Thinking about all that random stuff, Su Ming bent over and yanked up Heart-shaped Grass like he was pulling weeds. One handful after another went straight into his backpack.
"This stuff’s useful?" In Zheng Xian’s eyes, these plants looked a bit like clover.
"Not sure about the ’strengthens the body’ part, but if you eat it you get to see the Leopard God. Humanity may have hit Extermina, but the Leopard God’s not that easy to kill."
"What Leopard God? An Immortal?" Zheng Xian bent over too, pulled up a few stalks and held them in his hand for a closer look.
Su Ming stuffed two sets of herbs into a small Silk pouch, then used his Weapon to hack a little bowl out of the rock wall, and started pounding the Heart-shaped Grass in it to make juice.
"Mm... should be a type of Loa Spirits. The Leopard God is an extremely powerful totem god."
"Can it help us?"
"Whether it’s even still alive, and if it is, whether it’s willing to help—that’s all up in the air." Su Ming’s arm rose and fell quickly, Godslayer now acting as a pestle. "But we’ll just take it one step at a time. If that doesn’t work, we can try to contact the Gods of the Celestial Dynasty. At the very least, Asgard is off the table."
"Why?" Zheng Xian kept pulling grass as he asked. He didn’t have a Spatial Bag, so he could only stuff the leaves into his suit pockets, which were now bulging.
"Because for Earth to end up like this, either Asgard got wiped out too, or they deliberately let Earth become like this. I don’t trust them."
Su Ming and Zheng Xian got back onto the cloak. He was still holding the stone bowl and hadn’t rushed to drink it.
Since they’d found Wakanda, it’d be a total waste not to do some mining. First they’d look for Vibranium, then carry out the next steps.
