Chapter 1481: Chapter 1481

He had intended to follow the sounds he’d just heard and search for survivors, but as Jenkins was about to turn, a man crawled out from a nearby pile of corpses and stumbled toward him. The man was human—at least, he appeared to be. He was a little older than Jenkins, perhaps around thirty, and his body was riddled with wounds from the fierce battle. A layer of grime caked his face, and an unhealed scar stretched from behind his right ear to his cheek.

The man spoke, staggering before Jenkins before collapsing to the ground. He tried to get up, but his body refused to obey.

He repeated the words, his hand clutching at Jenkins’s trouser leg.

"This Epoch is over. I failed. Nothing can be stopped now."

To Jenkins's surprise, the man began to sob. He had never seen a man cry with such bitter despair.

"If you’d care to explain what happened, I think our conversation might be a bit more interesting."

Jenkins tried to help him up, but the man refused. Jenkins couldn't heal him, either; his injuries were far too severe to be mended by a simple infusion of life force. This man probably had less than half an hour to live.

"So what exactly happened here?"

Jenkins gathered that the man before him was a Savior from an ancient Epoch, one who had tragically failed to save his world.

"The ancient moon-worshipping customs and unbalanced desires accumulated too much sin. The moon that has hung above our heads since the beginning has been stained black by it. Though I stopped the birth of the Beast of Calamity, I couldn't prevent the final doomsday. I failed. I've failed this world..."

At the end of an Epoch, a Beast of Calamity would appear, but so too would a final, ultimate disaster. They were two separate events, but both could trigger the collapse of the material world, or even combine their might to threaten it. Clearly, the coming of doomsday had not been effectively prevented. Jenkins didn't know how to comfort the man before him. He guessed this was the "madman" from the story.

"So does that make me the fool? But how am I a fool?"

He wondered silently. Seeing that the man wouldn't get up, Jenkins glanced disdainfully at the filthy ground before carefully sitting down beside him.

"I don't know if you can believe this, but I'm not from this era. It seems I came here just to have this conversation with you."

He had thought the Master's intention was for him to confront the Beast of Calamity born in Black Town, but the last story hadn't mentioned that at all. It only described a conversation between a madman and a fool.

"You're from the future? Alright then, tell me, was the world destroyed?"

"You might be misunderstanding something. The arrival of doomsday only destroys this Epoch. When it's all over, the intelligent life of the next material world will carry on, their civilization reset, awaiting the arrival of another doomsday."

"That's good to hear. If the world had been truly and utterly destroyed because of me, I wouldn't be able to rest in peace even in death."

He lay on the ground, weeping, and Jenkins found it hard to listen. New ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄhapters are published on novᴇlfire.net

"Actually, I'm a Savior candidate myself, just not for this Epoch. Maybe you could give me some advice."

Jenkins said, cupping his hands to catch some of the falling rain. He saw that it was mixed with black ash. The temperature was dropping rapidly, and the air was growing thin. The black halo in the sky, once the primordial moon, was not only bringing disaster but also absorbing everything that sustained life.

This world was ending, well and truly ending. Jenkins was intensely curious about how the next Epoch would be reborn.

"If you're a Savior, remember this: your competitors are also your companions. Even if the great work can only be completed by one person, one person still has limits. We are Saviors, but we are also, always, just mortals. And the final calamity... it's too terrifying..."

Even if he didn't die, this man was completely broken. Jenkins didn't know what he had experienced, but it was clear he had no will left to fight. Only an empty shell remained.

"You believed I was from the future so easily?"

"Why wouldn't I? Everything is ending. Lies, truth... none of it matters anymore."

He sighed, burying his face in the black soil as his breathing grew fainter.

"Actually, from what I've learned, the Beast of Calamity for this Epoch was eventually born, right here on this very land. That's what history tells me, and people from different eras can all attest to it."

"It couldn't have been born. I sealed it..."

The man suddenly raised his hand and pressed an egg into Jenkins's palm, though his hands had been completely empty just a moment before.

"You see? I sealed it. This is the only contribution I've made to this world..."

He died before he could finish his sentence, passing away as a failed Savior.

"If I fail, too, will this be my end?"

Jenkins thought with a touch of sorrow. He stood and looked at the egg. It was small, like a quail's egg, its gray and white shell appearing quite ordinary.

"If it was sealed, then the legend of Black Town... I see. Seals have a time limit. Perhaps the creature in the egg was born after it wore off."

He placed the egg in his breast pocket to keep it safe, then lifted the man's body. He wanted to give him a proper burial, a final act of compassion for a fellow Savior.

But as he shoveled the last scoop of dirt with his conjured spade, Jenkins was struck by a very, very serious realization—his pajama pocket hadn't been empty. Before he'd put the egg there, it had contained the ring that sealed the disastrous black stone.

The former god of lies had claimed that the stone held enough power to destroy the world, which was why Jenkins had guarded it so carefully. Until now.

He immediately thrust his hand into his pocket, but when he pulled it out, he was holding only the egg.

"It can't be, can it?"

A cold sweat broke out on Jenkins's brow. He'd put the ring in his pocket earlier that night while playing with Chocolate and had forgotten to take it out. Since then, he had worn the same pajamas while doing so many things at different points in time that he couldn't be sure if the ring had fallen out somewhere or if it had been absorbed by this egg.