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

142: Chapter 142 Luo Dechuan’s TemptationLuo Dechuan paused for a moment and pointed to a white building in the distance:

”There, you can take a hot bath, eat real beef steak, drink clean water, and no longer have to worry about Berserkers, looting of supplies, or mental pollution.”

”As long as you are willing to stay and willing to join me.”

”We can—restore everything to the order and life from before the Apocalypse.”

Zhou Xiao sneered, ”That sounds too good to be true; it’s almost like heaven.”

”What do you want us to do for you?”

Luo Dechuan smiled.

”Just to continue surviving.”

”In this world where civilized order has collapsed and resources are severed, building such a ’human sanctuary’ requires many things: wisdom, discipline, courage... and raw materials.”

”As for the source of the supplies—”

He gently tapped a badge-shaped chip in his chest pocket.

”You don’t need to know.”

”You only need to enjoy it.”

Ye Nanxing’s eyes finally turned cold: ”...So you use mental pollution and the brass badge to ’deal with’ those who are unwilling to join you?”

”Yes.”

Luo Dechuan nodded without hesitation, a smile still hanging on his face:

”In the process of ’divinity descending,’ the losers must always be eliminated.”

”You—are not losers.”

”I have reserved a spot for you, Ye Nanxing; you can choose to control everything in this ’green land’.”

He looked at Yan, then at Shang Xu: ”Each of you has independent authority.”

”You can rule, rather than struggle to survive.”

The air fell into dead silence once again.

The green grass swayed slightly, as if responding to some unspeakable will.

Ye Nanxing stood before that ”almost perfect” green land, not responding to Luo Dechuan’s final words, nor looking at him again.

She simply turned and walked toward the picturesque, tree-lined path ahead.

The others followed tacitly, no one speaking.

They knew that coming here was not to be moved, seduced, or persuaded to surrender.

They were here to uncover the ”truth” behind the curtain.

Behind them, Luo Dechuan still stood in place, his smile not fading in the slightest.

As if he were already used to it—

All the ”test subjects” who rejected him would eventually walk into the deepest part of the ”screening system” themselves.

On both sides of the path, green trees provided shade, and in the distance, there was an artificial lake, swings, and a sun-drenched fountain square.

There were even a few buildings arranged among the hills that resembled high-end residential areas from before the Apocalypse, with clear traces of electricity and heating still operating inside, and projected lights shining mottled onto the walls.

It was too clean here.

No trash, no foreign objects, no corpses.

Not a single person.

”There’s a... strange sense of emptiness,” Sun Hao whispered.

”Like an empty shell paradise.” Zhao Wei subconsciously tightened his grip on his gun.

Ye Nanxing looked around, her gaze cold and sharp:

”Didn’t they say a lot of people had defected here?”

”How come we haven’t seen a single one?”

Shang Xu’s expression was calm, but her tone was extremely grave:

”Those people... it’s not that they aren’t here.”

”It’s that you can’t see them.”

Everyone was stunned.

She took out a mental sensor, moved her fingertips slightly, and brushed them gently through the air.

The next second, the frequency fluctuations on the instrument suddenly accelerated, showing a large amount of overlapping data, mirror signals, and—chaotic fluctuations of consciousness fragments.

”This is a precursor to the brass badge projection structure.”

”Everything you see is ’real,’ that’s true... but at the same time, all of this has established a ’sensory link’ with the brass badge.”

”It can gradually pull our brainwave frequencies through these buildings, plants, water currents, and light.”

”Before officially approaching the core area of the badge... you might start to lose the ability to distinguish what is real and what is an illusion it created.”

”The closer you get to the source, the harder it is to distinguish reality from projection.”

Her voice lowered:

”You must remember—the people, words, emotions, and even ’yourself’ that appear next might not be real.”

Zhou Xiao stopped, turned back to look at Ye Nanxing, his eyes extremely complex.

She walked in front, her gaze like a blade, her expression calm, her figure appearing somewhat aloof and detached under the scattered simulated sunlight.

It was as if she could not be shaken by any illusion at all.

But Zhou Xiao knew she would be shaken.

Because she was too clear-headed, so clear-headed that... she wouldn’t even look back at her memories.

”Can she... make it through?” he muttered.

Yan suddenly looked back at him, his tone indifferent: ”If she can’t make it through, neither can you.”

”So shut up and keep walking.”

Zhou Xiao: ”...”

Further ahead was a ”glass tunnel” that looked like a long corridor.

From all directions, they were surrounded by [Imaginary Paradise] filled with plants, simulated light and shadow, music, and tranquility.

However, the closer they got to this perfect world, the stronger something imperceptible in the air became.

Like an invisible eye, hidden deep in the grass, behind the fountain’s mist, hidden in the seams of every projected stone slab—

It was ”watching them.”

Yan suddenly stopped, his tone calm but making everyone stiffen instantly:

”We are entering the critical line ahead.”

”The brass badge’s mental coverage is within ten meters. Everything beyond that...”

”Cannot be trusted.”

Ye Nanxing slowly exhaled.

”Then let’s begin.”

She drew her short blade, the edge slicing through the air, and the light actually refracted into strange reflections on the blade—like an invisible mirror being gently torn open.

She was the first to step inside.

The others followed closely behind.

The moment they stepped into the glass tunnel, the green grass behind them curled slightly.

In the air, barely audible whispers began to emerge:

”Who are you... who are you... who are you...”

Repeating, overlapping, like cries for help before drowning.

At the end of the tunnel, an invisible wave rippled out.

The air seemed to tremble slightly—not a sound, not a temperature change, but the layer of the consciousness dimension had been switched.

The next second, everyone stepped into the ”core mental barrier.”

At first, no one spoke.

But everyone’s eyes had changed.

They were still standing together, as if they hadn’t been separated.

But the world each person saw was completely different.

—The spatial structure had not changed.

—”Reality” had already collapsed.

Zhao Shanhe raised his gun, only to find his hands empty, surrounded by the familiar mountain of corpses and sea of blood—he had returned to the day the ”Torch Project” failed, when his brothers were thrown into the test zone and burned to ashes alive.

Zhang Tianjin stood by the overpass, seeing that he had killed the wrong person—a Child lying in a pool of blood, eyes reflecting his face, lips silently saying: ”I am not an esper...”

Zhou Cheng found himself back on that night when the defense line at Tianlang Mountain collapsed—he had saved a group of people, but failed to save his most trusted deputy.

Shang Xu saw the colleague she had eliminated as a ”psychological pollutant” grinning at her from outside the glass room.

And Yan...

He stood at the end of an endless void, surrounded by ”himself,” one after another, faces identical, expressions different, surrounding him and asking: ”Who are you? You are not human, and you are not them.”

”Which side should you stand on?”

And in the center of this vortex where countless illusions intertwined—

Ye Nanxing stood alone in the deepest part of the mental barrier.