Happy Doomsday

Chapter 1: Wake

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Dusk.

The blood-red sunlight passed through the vines and fell from the mouth of the pit, illuminating a tile floor full of cracks and sand.

The middle-aged man shuddered and exhaled, clutched his half-severed left arm, and tried to swallow back a few groans.
The blood blotted the dirty fabric close to black and it gradually pooled into a black and red lake making the tiles unviewable.

The large amount of adrenaline rush failed to give him the strength to stand up again.

The man raised his head vigorously, crossed the edge of the pit, and looked at the sky dyed orange by the setting sun.

Here, he could barely see the spires of the high-rise buildings not far away.
There was no memory of neat floors and spire, and instead the geometric metallic luster was strangely rotated weirdly under the hard yet chilly warm sunlight.

This had ceased to be human territory for a long time.

His limbs began to get cold.
The man coughed twice and tried to touch the hemostatic gel in his waist bag.
Unfortunately, when he touched it, he found only a few energy tanks.
He mechanically rubbed the cold jars; the rapid loss of blood blurred his vision, and the thing in front of him was mixed into a bloody red mass.

There was the sound of heavy objects falling to the ground, and the scrapping sound of hard objects rubbing the ground was getting closer.

It was too late.
After a long chase, that thing had finally caught him.

The man shook his sweaty hair on his forehead, tightened his cheeks, took out all the energy tanks in his pockets, and spread them out on his thighs.
Then, trembling, he squeezed a grenade that was concealed in his chest pocket.

Besides the explosive, there was also an emergency food cannister.

It was the less than the size of the palm of his hand, and had a thin layer, a bit like a candy in a flat box in the old days.
Every explorer in the refuge was given one.
Unlike homemade weapons and energy tanks, these were precious relics before the destruction of human civilization— Delicious in taste, extremely high energy value; mixed with a sufficient amount of water, it was enough to last an adult an entire week.

But compared to food, everyone was more willing to use it as a kind of amulet.
This was a forest.
They could always get something to eat.
Usually no one was extravagant enough to use such precious resources.

The food cannister he got was still carrying a bit of blood leftover from its previous owner, and now it would become a “relic” again.

The pain and weakness made his consciousness gradually hazy, and for some reason, he suddenly wanted to cry.
He twitched his nose fiercely, but the man didn’t even look at it.
He threw the small canister directly behind him, letting it rattle and roll into the depths of the ruins.

The ugly thing finally approached.
The stench and damp breath came to his face.
The man grinned weakly, tearing open the pin of the grenade with his teeth.
He tossed the grenade next to the energy tank right after activation.

“Bah, neither one of us will get any food today.” He used his last strength to spit in front of him.

A scorching white light exploded, and the impact of the energy tank bursting almost collapsed the underground corridor not far away.

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The vines at the entrance of the cave were instantly burned into ashes by the high heat, and the middle-aged man disappeared without a trace, leaving only a large black crater where he was— The human body at the center of the explosion was reduced to flesh and foam.
The shapeless corpse of the monster was also scattered around the pit.
Charred flesh showed many gray blood vessels on its fractures that was still slightly twitching.

The blast of wind frightened the nearby birds.
After the smoke and dust dissipated, the last piece of debris laid firmly on the land.
A few blackbirds fluttered their wings to come closer and began to peck at the flesh near the collapsed pit.

However, everything didn’t return to calm.

The faint sound of stone rumbling sounded again.
The corridor that had collapsed shook and a metal container full of scratches and rust slid out from the rubble.

The mud-stained operating panel struggled and flickered a few times before finally going out.
The explosion had activated something, and even with the dust covering it, the blue light path of the metal surface remained conspicuous.

The blackbirds stopped pecking and looked at the flashing metal object vigilantly.

The explosion and collision made multiple dents, and the tightly stitched lid was frighteningly twisted.
Viscous liquid continued to gush out along the gap, like blood from a wound.

The liquid emitted a faint blue halo that didn’t penetrate the soil.
It rolled over the debris and stone, meandering down, and gradually gathered into a depression.

It looked like drops of water falling on the lotus leaf, or mercury that scattered on the ground.
After the final liquid flowed out of the metal container, it gathered into a flat circle with a diameter of less than two meters and a height of about half a meter on the dirty ceramic tile fragments.

The nearby blackbirds began to jump vigilantly, putting aside the minced meat in their mouths and were a few steps away from the ruins engulfed by the shadows.

Abnormal changes suddenly occurred.

It seemed that the color was condensing or hatching.
The outer side of the huge “drops of water” gradually became transparent, and the color converged to the center of the liquid mass, becoming more turbid.
Soon, with a crash, the entire liquid mass collapsed to the ground.
The unnatural sound finally startled the blackbirds, who left only corpse residue that had been pecked.

When the last feather landed, the liquid was no longer viscous, and it didn’t penetrate the cracks of the ceramic tile, leaving behind only a condensed object lying in the center that was wet and surrounded by charred bones, shattered tissue fragments, and stone debris.

It was the body of a young man.

At first the body was motionless, like a corpse.
A gust of wind swept over, and a few broken leaves stained the white skin causing it to shake.

Ruan Xian felt chilly.

His brain felt like it was mixed with cement that had solidified into a mass as he felt his head frighteningly heavy.
The chill enveloped him in an instant, like having your blanket pulled off while experiencing a high fever.
He could only cradle his arms tightly while groggy.

His naked skin rubbed against the rough stone debris, and he vaguely realized that something was wrong.

There wasn’t any soft fabric under him.
He wasn’t in a bed.
The wasn’t the smooth and hard floor of a laboratory.
He had passed out several times in the lab before so he would never mistake it.

The first thing to recovered was his sense of smell.
The dust rushed into his nose bringing in the scorching smell of the explosion that was so thick it almost suffocated him.
The next moment, the wind blew across his damp skin causing the stone debris on his arm to rub against him.
Countless senses smashed into his brain at the same time causing Ruan Xian to almost faint again.

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Something was wrong.

Although his mind wasn’t very clear.
He could be sure that this was definitely not a normal way of perception.
His sense of smell and touch were countless times more sensitive, and his chaotic brain couldn’t process such a huge amount of information currently.

Ruan Xian didn’t dare to move.
He tried his best to squeeze out a little bit of sanity from the overly amplified perception and carefully opened his eyes.

The light that sound have been soft almost blinded him.

The stimulated eyes gushed out tears forcing Ruan Xian to open his eyes wide until he adjusted to the bright light that hadn’t been seen for a long time.
The scene in front of him changed for blurriness to clarity.

‘Perhaps too clear,’ he thought in a dazed.

When he saw the scene in front of him clearly, Ruan Xian would rather pass out again.
In this way, when he wakes up, he might be able to return to his familiar bed.
Even if it was a hospital bed and IV bottles in front of him, it was 10,000 times better than the scorched earth and corpse.

However, it was useless to close his eyes.
The smoke and dust persistently penetrated his nostrils, and the sound of birds and the friction of leaves gradually became deafening, pinning his consciousness firmly in place.
It seemed to be a warm dusk, but the wind blowing against his skin felt as if they were embedded