God's Gift

Dark Star gave a sinister laugh, offering no reply and leaving the wanderers to speculate.

Oshi did not deceive them.

If Oshi can truly destroy the Eye of Hela, everything it brought will disappear, including biological mutations and mental power.

But Oshi can't do that, because the Eye of Hela is only a part of its body.

As long as Dark Star's true form exists, the Eye of Helya will never be destroyed.

And Dark Star did not deceive them. In the present moment—as long as it is alive—any human who approaches its remains will have their spiritual power drained.

After losing their spiritual power, their only fate is to become monsters enslaved by it.

"My body..." Soon, other wanderers began to change, and they finally stopped doubting what Dark Star had said.

Fear spread, and cries rose and fell.

"I don't want to become a monster!" someone cried out as he began to mutate. He ran trembling toward the others, crying, "Help me! Help me!"

The piercing cries for help seemed to pierce the eardrums of others.

Faced with his plea for help, the others were also in dire straits, and they could only retreat in panic, avoiding him.

The man kept tearing at the hair that kept growing on his face, ripping off his skin in the process. The bright red muscles beneath the skin twitched, and blood flowed out like water, soaking his torn clothes.

He ran frantically to Jiang De, crying out, "Chief, please save me!"

"help me!"

His throat was torn open from the inside, and his cries for help were distorted and hoarse, like the whooshing of a broken bellows.

The face, devoid of flesh and blood, suddenly loomed close to Jiang De, its white eyes staring at him, startling Jiang De into taking several steps back.

Jiang De frantically aimed his gun at the man and fired a shot at his forehead.

With a loud bang, blood and flesh splattered onto Jiang De's face.

Jiang De stopped what he was doing, panting heavily, staring blankly at the mutated wanderers around him, watching them tear at each other and attack one another.

“I can’t…” Jiang De covered his head, his eyes trembling in pain, “I can’t become a monster.”

He looked at the Dark Star and ran towards it as if grasping at the last straw.

"Help me, help us..."

Jiang De knelt before Dark Star, his desire for survival having eroded all his dignity and reason, and he pleaded incessantly like a dog.

But Dark Star did not answer Jiang De immediately. It turned to look at Yu Youyou in the distant sky, and the smile on its face became more and more obvious.

"Don't worry... you'll get the answer soon."

-

Meanwhile, the situation at the Bird Academy is not much better.

Some trainees also began to mutate, and they faced the same situation as the homeless.

They had initially held onto a sliver of hope, believing that the Eye of Hela wouldn't affect their students, but instead, they fell into the same panic.

Their skin was either covered with scales or fur.

Shen Minghua looked at the panicked crowd and spoke:

"calm!"

"Your body is in a hibernation pod in the real world. What you are doing here now is just a mimicry. Once the mission is over and you return to our world, these mutations will no longer exist."

"What if we die?" a student suddenly spoke up, staring intently at Shen Minghua and questioning him.

"If we die here, will we definitely be resurrected in the real world?"

"What are you talking about?" the student beside him retorted without hesitation. "Of course we'll be resurrected. These aren't our real bodies here, how could it be..."

Strangely, Shen Minghua did not give a definite answer. He looked at everyone and fell silent, which was unusual for him.

Looking at Shen Minghua's silent demeanor, the trainees present suddenly remembered the team members who had died in the Ten Thousand Buddha Caves.

The deaths of those team members were ultimately classified by the academy as an "accident".

But what if such an "accident" happens again...?

As if to antagonize them, while they were distracted, the AI's notification sounded:

"Red Alert: The energy of the Eye of Hela has exceeded the control range of the AI, and the AI ​​is no longer able to protect the life of the trainee. If the trainee dies here, the trainee will not be able to wake up in the real world."

"What?" This notification, like a stone thrown into a calm lake, instantly stirred up ripples, causing the students to panic once again. "Unable to awaken?"

"Isn't that the same as being dead?"

Shen Minghua didn't answer; he had come closer to death than any of them. He clutched his chest, the excruciating pain of his ruptured internal organs still vivid in his mind's eye.

The thought that he might really die at any moment filled him with an uncontrollable fear.

Shen Minghua never considered himself a coward. He even firmly believed that he could dedicate his life without hesitation for his ideals.

But when he was truly close to death, he realized that he was just an ordinary person after all. As death approached, his biological instincts still drove him to survive.

Shen Minghua chuckled and looked at the panicked students behind him. "You don't need to do anything. Just wait here for Yu Youyou. Once she gets the Eye of Hela, this world will end."

"protect yourself."

After saying that, Shen Minghua looked at Yu Youyou, who was still trying to get closer to the Eye of Hela, and Ars No. 1, which was still attacking relentlessly.

Without hesitation, Shen Minghua turned around and stepped into the inner ring of the radiation zone, ran to the side of Arles-1, took out a laser gun from his storage space, and aimed it at Arles-1's sensors.

After entering the inner ring of the radiation zone, the rate at which his mental energy was drained suddenly accelerated.

Shen Minghua felt the muscles under his skin seem to be twitching, a sign that a change was taking place.

He gritted his teeth, forcibly steadied his trembling arm, and fired a shot at the sensor of Arles-1.

However, the shot landed on the hard outer shell of the Ars-1 without leaving any mark.