Chapter 19: Entering the Apocalypse, Part 4

I raised my right hand with my palm facing upward. As I activated my supernatural ability, a large amount of flames spontaneously surged onto my palm.

The flames converged toward the center, forming a fireball nearly half a meter in diameter.

Supernatural abilities are a common concept in many fantasy stories; some can stop time, some control consciousness, others can alter the body. There are abilities with intricate mechanisms so complex that explaining them requires hundreds or even thousands of words, leaving listeners dizzy and confused.

Unlike those powerful or complicated abilities, mine is extremely simple.

In short, it’s the ability to “manipulate fire.”

I can summon flames out of thin air and control them, or manipulate existing flames within my sight. It’s so straightforward and classic that almost every fantasy story centered on battles involving supernatural powers features at least one early-stage character who can control fire. While I may not accomplish everything those fictional characters can, I can achieve at least eighty or ninety percent of it.

The “fireflies” I summoned earlier are essentially tiny flames. The reason they can be used for reconnaissance naturally has its rationale.

Normally, fire requires three elements to ignite: fuel, an oxidizer, and heat. But my flames appear out of thin air, needing none of these material conditions. Or rather, all those material conditions are replaced by my own spirit.

My spirit serves as the fuel, the oxidizer, and the heat.

In other words, my flames are my spirit. The “fireflies” dispersed outside are essentially “parts of myself” scattered afar, enabling me to perceive the surroundings through them.

And naturally, as they are flames, they possess formidable physical destructive power.

I slowly lifted the blazing fireball, which then contracted inward, shrinking into a searing orb the size of an eyeball. I pointed forward, and the orb struck the sturdy concrete wall before me.

Without resistance, without an explosion, the dense orb of light pierced through the concrete wall effortlessly, like a spoon scooping into a soft tofu, and entered the space beyond the basement.

Through the spiritual connection I share with the flames, I successfully gained a vantage point outside the basement.

Then, I held my breath.

There was nothing—

Outside the basement, there was nothing.

No earth, no sky; no color, no sound… only boundless darkness.

From this external perspective, the basement where I stood was a small concrete box suspended in infinite void, with nothing else around. Even when the orb moved directly beneath, there was no material supporting this “concrete box.” Not a single object, not even the most basic air or gravity existed.

It was like outer space, but outer space at least teems with countless stars, harmful cosmic radiation, and sparse cosmic dust—in a way, it’s quite “lively.”

But here, it was different—utter dead silence—a realm of nothingness.

It was as if all matter had reached its end. Here was a time and space already concluded.

Lonely, terrifying, suffocating.

The boundless emptiness of this void seemed to invade my airways like choking waves. This basement was but a tiny speck in a vast afterlife, and I was the sole passenger on that speck, destined to dissolve into meaningless bubbles, vanishing without a trace in the void.

After a long pause, I dispersed the external orb and viewpoint, sat down, and tried to clear my thoughts.

Returning to the real world via an external route was definitely impossible.

Fortunately, although the outside was void, the basement’s air did not leak out through the opening I created. Although I could function normally in a vacuum when entering my “second form,” sealing such a small hole was not difficult.

Trying to find some comfort in hardship, I realized this phenomenon revealed another truth: certain physical laws did not apply in this place. That discovery was at least a small achievement in exploration.

So, what next? Should I study the conditions for the cave’s appearance anew?

If the “fireflies” in the real world still had a connection with me, I might try other methods. But that connection was long severed.

It was somewhat ironic—this morning when Chang’an came looking for me, I thought that if she really encountered something strange, I would have the chance to showcase my powers and, like a comic book hero, explain my abilities while fighting. As expected, life rarely goes as planned, and my powers proved useless in this situation.

Some say “all fear comes from lack of firepower,” but no matter how strong the firepower, I doubt it would help here.

Perhaps this was an inevitable dead end, a fate destined to arrive sooner or later.

While my power is simple, straightforward, and powerful enough for anyone to understand, strange entities are unpredictable. No one knows in what form they might bring death. Even with a spear that can destroy anything and a shield that can defend all, there remain many things beyond reach.

I propped myself up on my knees, stood, and paced around, searching the shelves for any useful clues.

The yellow boxes on the shelves weren’t completely empty; some contained small items like cartoon stickers, plastic keychains, candles, and so on. None seemed helpful in the current situation. Previously, I might have eagerly taken them as souvenirs, but now I lacked the inclination.

To focus my thoughts, I stopped maintaining the “fireflies” illuminating from all directions and instead lit a candle I picked up from the shelf, placing it on the floor. The basement returned to darkness, and the single point of light helped me concentrate, while also stirring memories from the past.

Speaking of which, when I first awakened my powers in ninth grade, the catalyst was also related to a candle…

People who have near-death experiences often say that when one is about to die, memories involuntarily flash before their eyes.

Could it be that I suddenly recall the past now because I know I’m about to die here?

Time continued to pass, minute by minute, hour by hour.

My analysis of this predicament made no progress.

Since I wasn’t very hungry yet, it meant there was still a long time until dawn.

Yet, this was a time and space beyond the real world. Perhaps time itself followed strange rules here. Outside, it might have already been more than a day—like the classical “chess game” legend where time passes differently, I was abandoned by the world in this outer realm.

Marxism says that a person is the sum of social relations. At this moment, I was undoubtedly severed from all social ties, unsure even if I could return. To die like this, it would be less as a human and more as a nameless animal.

Perhaps influenced by this strange environment, I even entertained a bizarre thought—what if I had been a resident of this basement from the start, never living in the real world, and all my life so far was merely an illusion?

I felt my pockets. There was a house key, but this could not prove I had ever lived in a home outside, nor confirm that the “real world” I remembered truly existed. Keys and locks are paired concepts—there were no locks here, so this metal object could not prove it was a key.

The ID card and loose change were the same. Such items only have meaning within society. Once separated from society, they are just matter shaped in peculiar forms—just like me now.

All meanings built on the concept of “society” dissolved here into nothingness. Whether these objects, my personality, or even the clothes I wore, all seemed to be dissolved by this dim space, revealing my most primal, natural nakedness.

In this strange trembling, I felt a faint, intoxicating emotion. In this realm cut off from everything, I felt myself gradually transforming into some unforeseen heterogeneous existence.

A hermit is either a beast or a god.

Astonishingly, though I was filled with fear, unease, and pessimism, I felt no regret or panic.

Because I entered here with determination and awareness.

As I mentioned before, part of my reason for seeking adventures beyond reality was my deep desire to discover what kind of self I would become. Boldly put, I thought this could be classified as a kind of “quest for the Way.” Now, faced with adversity, despair, and death close at hand and alone…I seemed finally to have found a truer self.

If it were my daily self, I might have felt proud, excited, or happy about this. But now, I lacked such passionate emotions.

It’s not that I was ruled by negativity; on the contrary, I felt an unprecedented sense of release with my current self.

What a clearing of clouds and sunshine! No matter how many negative feelings surged in my heart, they could not touch this pure state of mind.

But I would never say, “To hear the Way in the morning and die in the evening is acceptable.”

I am very greedy; this level of reward cannot satisfy my appetite.

I want to overcome this predicament with my own strength and prove that I am not just an early-stage character who dies easily in adventures beyond reality.

Afterward, I want to return home and see Mazo again, making her reveal all her secrets sooner or later; I want to explore the mysteries of Luoshan and the demon hunters, understand how supernatural forces distribute their powers in this world. I have countless things I want to discover.

—So, here’s the question: can I really do it?

Just as negative emotions cannot infect my clear mind, no matter how calm I am, I cannot deny the objective existence of this dead end.

Precisely because I am so calm, I know clearly:

Perhaps this is the end of my adventure.

My adventure is ending just as it begins.