Apocalyptic Disaster: I Hoard Billions in Supplies and Kill the Saint

140: Chapter 140 Reencounter with Zhou XiaoThe morning of the ninth day.

The morning light could not penetrate the abyss of the Western Wilderness Rift; the world seemed shrouded in a pale filter, everything gray and hazy, with no wind, no sound, and no living things.

Ye Nanxing and her party stood before a massive rift carved through the mountain, gazing into the distance at the infamous Luo Dechuan main base.

Once known as the ”last human fortress in the West.”

Now, it resembled a ghost town.

The base’s outer walls were towering, its structure resembling a metal fortress chiseled from a glacier. Towers stood in rows, with guard towers, bunkers, and energy arrays neatly arranged along the perimeter.

Yet, everything about it felt abnormal.

”...No guards,” Zhao Wei said in a low voice.

”The auto-targeting systems on the towers are all powered down.” The sniper’s expression was grave. ”Something’s wrong. It’s too quiet.”

Ye Nanxing narrowed her eyes slowly.

This was not the emptiness of a post-war dead city, but rather—a false peace before a trap.

The main gate of the base was open, a twisted metal archway gaping silently like the maw of a monster, waiting for someone to walk straight into the trap.

”Should we go in?” Zhang Tianjin licked his lips, eager to try.

”—Wait!” Lin Kui raised his hand abruptly. ”There’s someone ahead!”

It was a group of fugitives, disheveled and with broken equipment.

They were fleeing in panic from within the rift, their bodies covered in blast marks, their eyes filled with terror, as if their wills had been torn apart by something indescribable.

The leader, wearing a cracked combat suit, leaned against the rock wall, panting in disarray.

As he looked up, he froze instantly:

”...Ye... Ye Nanxing?!”

His hoarse voice and those incredulous eyes seemed to be confirming that what he saw before him was not an illusion.

Ye Nanxing saw him too, her gaze shifting slightly.

—Zhou Xiao.

Zhou Xiao’s voice was raspy, his eyes filled with shock.

The next second, he rushed forward in a few strides, grabbing her shoulders as if trying to hold onto an illusion, his eyes showing anger and confusion:

”Why are you here?! Shouldn’t you be at the Shelter—”

Before he could finish, his gaze landed on the cold, stern young man beside Ye Nanxing.

Chu Yunting.

The atmosphere changed instantly.

Zhou Xiao’s eyes darkened, a sharp crease forming between his brows, and his entire being radiated undisguised hostility. His lips moved, but in the end, he did not erupt.

But his eyes clearly said: You, you brought her here?

Chu Yunting met his gaze for a moment.

In the past, he would never have bothered to respond to such questioning, but this time, he offered no defense.

He simply nodded slightly, his expression unusually weighed down by self-reproach and heaviness.

He knew.

If he hadn’t taken that brass badge, which had been disguised as a ”resource exploration sample,” Ye Nanxing would never have needed to risk coming here.

The air grew stagnant.

Zhou Xiao let out a cold laugh, his mouth curling with suppressed anger.

”You’ve got some nerve, bringing her here to die with you?”

Ye Nanxing stepped to the side to block him and said calmly, ”Enough. We don’t have time to argue about this.”

Zhou Xiao gritted his teeth, his chest heaving violently, before finally falling silent.

Yan walked over, his gaze shifting between the two, and expressionlessly changed the subject: ”Explain the situation first.”

Zhou Xiao nodded, forcing himself to contain his anger, and said in a low voice:

”We originally came here under orders—to assist Luo Dechuan in researching a psycho-interfering heterostructure, which is what you later called the ’brass badge’.”

”At first, we thought it was useless, but of the first group of people who participated in the deconstruction, three went insane, and one...”

His Adam’s apple bobbed, his tone low:

”Became a living corpse, as if his spirit had been drained, leaving only his body to repeat a certain memory. Even now, he’s still locked in the third-level experimental chamber, repeating the same sentence at 3:00 AM every night—’It saw me.’”

”None of us knew what that thing was actually for, but one thing we were very clear about—we could not activate it.”

Yan nodded slowly, his expression grave: ”The structure doesn’t conform to any known model at all; it doesn’t even look like a man-made object.”

”It’s more like a container for some kind of consciousness.”

Chu Yunting asked in a deep voice: ”What... does Luo Dechuan intend to do now?”

Zhou Xiao’s eyes turned icy, and he let out a low laugh:

”The ’badge package’ you received was sent by him.”

”He didn’t dare to use it himself, but he wanted you to—in case you accidentally activated it, he could take advantage of the chaos to swallow up your base’s resources and personnel; even if you didn’t activate it, he could lure you here and force you to reveal your trump cards.”

”Your Chu family’s rear is too fat, and your forces are scattered; he’s been coveting it for more than a day or two.”

Chu Yunting’s expression changed slightly, his brows furrowed tightly.

”We know the badge doesn’t kill, but it will steal your ’self-awareness’.”

Zhou Xiao gritted his teeth and said, ”It will make you believe you’re still alive, that you’re still normal—until one day, you look in the mirror and discover that the face doesn’t belong to you at all.”

”I withstood seven ’whispers,’ so I can distinguish between ’it’ and ’me’.”

Yan said calmly: ”So, it has never truly been activated?”

”No,” Zhou Xiao shook his head. ”We sealed it away. Because after one failed activation, some people started developing ’mirror displacement disorder,’ even mistaking teammates for relatives from their childhood.”

”And Luo Dechuan...”

His eyes were dark as an abyss: ”He didn’t give up; he was waiting for a chance when the conditions were ripe.”

”Now, the deepest level of the entire base has been cleared out, leaving only him and a group of ’core personnel’ he selected.”

”He wants to hold an advent ritual.”

Chu Yunting was silent for a moment, then suddenly asked: ”Then what’s the reason for the open gate?”

Zhou Xiao narrowed his eyes: ”The perimeter defense level of this base is extremely high, with triple spiritual lock rings and a semi-intelligent patrol network. Under normal circumstances, let alone getting close, you wouldn’t even be able to get a signal in.”

”But this time—the gate is wide open.”

”Why?”

”Because the people who can make it here are either lunatics or monsters.”

”Luo Dechuan knows that those who can arrive alive are elites, powerhouses, and mutation-adapted individuals.”

”These people can either be recruited by him, or...”

His voice dropped suddenly: ”—Thrown into the brass badge as a spiritual sacrifice.”

The air suddenly fell into a deathly silence.

”He doesn’t lack test subjects, and he certainly doesn’t lack ambition.”

”He wants to reshape the ’new human consciousness structure,’ using the brass badge as a bridge to pave the way to ’God’.”

Ye Nanxing looked up, her expression indifferent yet firm: ”Then we must stop him.”

”It’s not about who goes mad slower now, but about who can strike first.”

The wind rose in the rift, and amidst the surging mist, the will to fight ignited like searing fire.

Zhou Xiao looked at Ye Nanxing with an extremely complex expression, the kind only those who have truly walked through fire would understand—

It was reluctance, yet also trust; it was anger, and even more... an unspeakable obsession.

He said in a deep voice:

”I’m going in with you.”

”This time, it’s not for a mission.”

”It’s for revenge.”

Just as he finished speaking, a sharp shout rang out from behind.

”Are you crazy?! You’re going back to that place?!”