Epoch of Twilight

Brother Hei was running for his life. He was so afraid, he’d almost gone mad. He felt the danger get closer as that guy ran after him. What drove him crazy was his opponent’s speed, which was even faster than his. It was total desperation to meet a stronger enemy.

He ran along the corridor and sprinted towards the door without looking back.

The fear in his heart did not allow him to notice Wang Shishi, who was vomiting nearby. He could not have managed to react even if he had seen her anyway.

Not every evolved person was like Luo Yuan, who could develop his attributes in a balanced way. Most evolved people had strong powers, but also had weak points. His speed may have been as fast as Luo Yuan’s, but he did not have a high battle efficiency, a competent brain or the strong sensory perception to process the large amount of information during a high-speed fight.

It was like a non-professional driving a racing car. He could probably race on a highway, but not be able to make a U-turn or overtake.

In fact, after Luo Yuan had become an evolved person, he had had to reduce his speed at about 50% when he fought so his battle efficiency wouldn’t decrease.

A few steps later, Brother Hei was about to reach the door. As soon as he got out of the villa, he saw the young woman in black semi-crouching about 30 meters away. She was holding a silver-white handgun tightly in both hands and pointing it toward him while she swayed from left and right.

A chill suddenly shocked his spine. He glowered and growled. With the driving force of a man about to get killed, he sped up toward the young woman. He knew perfectly well that if he did not get himself a hostage to control the terrifying man behind him, he would not be able to survive.

“Jiahui, run!” Luo Yuan shouted in alarm.

Huang Jiahui did not seem to hear him as she remained still. Cold sweat ran down her forehead as she watched the enemy get closer fast. Her pupils contracted while she pointed the gun at the vague shadow.

The distance between them was getting shorter very quickly.

Thirty meters, twenty-five meters, twenty meters...

Huang Jiahui finally pulled the trigger.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The first shot missed, but the second shot grazed his arm, drawing blood, and the third one hit him right on the chest. The dark blue rank bullet had an extremely strong penetrating force. It got through his chest and penetrated a couple of walls before finally disappearing. It left quite a few holes in the villa.

Brother Hei’s body jerked, stumbled and flew into the air by the force of his speed. A ferocious look of disappointment flashed across his face as he took out a handgun from his waist, raised his head and pulled the trigger in Huang Jiahui’s direction.

“No!” Luo Yuan was shocked as he threw his Zhanmadao towards Brother Hei.

It was too late though. A gunshot sounded out just as the Zhanmadao struck his chest.

At such a dangerous moment, nobody would have thought that a shadow would suddenly appear and throw itself upon Huang Jianhui, letting the bullet hit their body instead. Blood splattered all around.

It was Huang Yuying.

Luo Yuan was shocked. He had never thought that Huang Yuying would do such a thing.

Noticing that somebody had gotten injured, everyone ran over.

Luo Yuan pulled his Zhanmadao out of the man’s body. He was not dead yet, but blood was oozing out of his mouth and he could no longer talk. He gave Luo Yuan an imploring look, hoping that he would take pity on him and end his life fast.

Luo Yuan swished his knife emotionlessly and finished him.

Then he quickly rushed over to Huang Yuying, who was partially lying on the floor, her hand pressing on her stomach while blood oozed out through her fingers. They were dyed a deep red.

Huang Jiahui was holding her hand tightly, her eyes full of tears. She felt thankful and ashamed at the same time. She kept murmuring, “Please hold on! Why were you so stupid? You didn’t have to save me.”

Huang Yuying’s face was very pale, but she gave her a forceful smile and said weakly, “I... I owed this to all of you. I couldn’t do much, all I could do... was this. If I die, please go to Wugou County in Shannan Province and check if my parents are still alive. My dad’s name is Huang Weimin, and my mom’s is...”

She started spitting up blood before she could finish her sentence.

“Don’t worry, you won’t die. We’ll all go together.” Realizing that she was going to die soon, she turned and shouted at Ning Xiaoran, “Save her, quick!”

She died eventually.

Ning Xiaoran was just a nurse. She could not perform surgery. Besides, the bullet had gone through her stomach and caused profuse bleeding. Considering the lack of sufficient medical supplies, it was impossible to treat such a serious injury.

The ashes in front of the villa had yet to decompose, so a new fire was started on them.

Life was unpredictable, especially during the apocalypse.

Luo Yuan had not liked Huang Yuying. She had made a very bad impression on him right from the beginning. Even though she was a beautiful woman, Luo Yuan had never been nice to her. He had even had the urge to kill her. However, she had been willing to sacrifice her life to save someone she had know for less than half a month.

Human nature was complicated. Nobody could predict what would happen next.

Huang Jiahui was in a bad mood after the incident. She was quiet for days and abused herself by training intensely. She held her gun horizontally for several hours on end until she was so tired, she fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. Luo Yuan did not stop her or encourage her, even though he knew about it.

After all, this was normal during such hard times. The relaxing attitude that they’d had so far had been abnormal.

This battle had changed most of them, especially Wang Shishi.

Killing a person might sound simple, but it was difficult for the soul to bear. A killer sees people differently than the average person. They despise normal people, and serial killers usually see them as animals.

Wang Shishi was not an adult and she had not formed a stable worldview yet. Other than some fear and discomfort at the beginning, she got over it pretty quickly after a few comforting talks. It was faster than Luo Yuan had expected.

What made him delighted was that, after killing a man, her willpower seemed to have been strengthened and her telekinetic power had become stronger. She could now carry things up to 50 kg and her shuttle could easily break the sound barrier and exert even greater power.

Luo Yuan had not remained idle either. Ever since he had evolved, he had stopped hunting in order to practice his special ability.

His Earth Stomp power was related to his sensory perception and strength. Besides training his strength, Luo Yuan would spend a lot of time standing on the grass quietly and enjoying the indescribable feeling that the Earth gave him.

Through his ability as an evolved person, he could use his sensory perception to ‘see’ into the deeper part of the Earth, which was a whole different world.

Grass had a very developed underground root network and could spread up to a few square meters of space. Numerous roots intertwined together and formed an airtight network, which provided a habitat for various bizarre mutated organisms.

As his sensory perception kept expanding, the images in his mind gradually became more vague and unclear.

Then strangely, he thought he felt the Earth’s slow rotation that never stopped or changed.

It was an indescribably immense power, and it left him in awe for a moment.

After feeling it for a while, he retreated and started to speculate.

The pulse he had felt could have been described as an earthquake. He had felt the Earth shake while he had been feeling the rotation. However, he could not confirm that that’s what it was, because there were various types of Earth movement besides earthquakes- tides, volcano eruptions, nuclear explosions, even the slightest vibration caused by the movement of a mutated beast.

Furthermore, among all these quaking frequencies, some were clear and powerful while others were weak and unidentifiable. Some frequencies were consistent while others were not.

However, Luo Yuan was guessing that there would only be one main frequency representing the Earth’s real pulse. The question was how to differentiate between them.

After a few days of experiencing this, he discovered that the pulse of the Earth was neither the clearest nor the weakest, and a small earthquake of a 2 to 3 magnitude could cover it completely.

He considered many possibilities. He even thought of using the 24 hours of the Earth’s rotation as an interval to test the frequency of the pulse, but to no avail.

The pulse of the Earth seemed to come from the core of the Earth. It was a faster, hidden frequency.

Time flew while he tried to comprehend the Earth. Luo Yuan looked at the time and realized that it was close to dusk. He shook his head. He had to go back, but when he raised his right foot, he felt it cling to the Earth, a terrifying power pulling him toward it tightly. His heart suddenly missed a beat and started throbbing.

The incident shocked him and he consciously exerted all his energy. His forehead was roped with prominent veins as if he was trying to carry the whole Earth on his shoulders, yet he could only raise his foot about 2 to 3 feet high before he could no longer resist the force and stomped his right leg on the ground.

Bang!

There was a loud noise.

It felt like the surface of the ground in a 50-meter radius had exploded. Numerous weeds, gravel, and some mutated organisms living underground flew up into the air. The mutated organisms burst into a bloody mist before they fell to the ground.

After a few seconds, the loud noise of the explosion began to subside. Other than the small area where he stood, the whole area looked like it had been ploughed and the soil and weeds looked like sand mixed with some green.

Looking at what had happened, Luo Yuan was shocked. Even a slow learner would have know what had just happened.

“Earth Stomp... This is the Earth Stomp!” he murmured, unable to hold back his shock.

“If low-rank mutated beasts could not resist it at all, perhaps light blue beasts would not be able to escape its power either.”

The explanation provided by the system regarding the Earth Stomp power was rather vague, so he had thought that it was just a secondary power with a weak attacking power. Luo Yuan had tried his best to understand it these past few days because he thought that it could cause a certain degree of dizziness, and thus might help him attack and kill his enemies.

However, he had not expected the third level Earth Stomp to have such a horrific attacking power. It was like an extreme meat-mincing machine.

“The dizziness effect has to apply to blue rank or dark blue rank beasts as normal beasts would have been crashed.”

He was excited for a quite while before he finally calmed down, thinking, “This time it was triggered by luck, but there has to be a second time. I have to find its trigger pattern.”

The power was extremely strong. If he could fully master it, his strength would get even bigger and he could turn this into his best weapon.