Time passed slowly and heavily at the fog-shrouded gas station.
On the roof of the convenience store, Pete gripped his rifle tightly, his gaze sweeping over the grayish-white filled wilderness again and again, trying to penetrate the suffocating chaos to look for signs of his companions' return.
The night was deep, the temperature dropped, and the fog seemed even more stagnant, bringing only a piercing chill and unease.
Several hours had passed since Roy and Alan disappeared into the thick fog driving the police car.
The anxiety in Pete's heart was like a constantly rising tide, threatening to drown him.
Various ominous conjectures churned in his mind: did they encounter a large horde of monsters they could not fend off?
Did their vehicle break down, leaving them stranded?
If the sheriff and Alan really met with an accident, Pete knew that the burden on his own shoulders would become unimaginably heavy.
He would have to face the desperate situation of surviving in the apocalypse with a group of children.
The original plan of establishing a base, collecting supplies, and taking in survivors would become extremely difficult, or perhaps even a pipe dream, with only him and Jack left.
With two people, one must guard the base and the children at all times, while the other would have to risk going out alone to scavenge. The margin for error was pitifully low. Even if they were lucky enough to recruit other survivors in the future, he and Jack, as the original core, might face a complex situation involving a numerical disadvantage, differences in opinion, competition for resources, and even factional infighting...
A sense of powerlessness and fear of the uncertain future gripped Pete's heart.
He could only grip his rifle even tighter, forcing himself to focus his attention on the immediate watch.
Right at this moment—
Rumble... rumble... rumble...
A low, deep rumbling sound, carrying a sense of mechanical power, faintly came from deep within the fog, interrupting Pete's wandering thoughts.
That sound was definitely not something a police car engine could produce; it sounded more like some kind of heavy machinery in operation.
?!
Pete was instantly alerted, his muscles tensing all over, his heart pounding.
He quickly lowered his body, staring intently at the direction the sound was coming from, which was north of the gas station, the highway the sheriff and the other had taken when they left.
The sound became clearer and clearer, closer and closer.
Immediately after, two bright, even somewhat blinding powerful beams of light, like two flaming white greatswords, fiercely pierced through the thick fog, carving out two clear paths of light in the chaos.
They are here!
Pete's heart jolted, followed by a surge of immense pleasant surprise.
This commotion, these lights, could absolutely not be produced by monsters!
It is the sheriff and the others!
And they must have found something incredible!
Pete no longer hesitated. He immediately turned around and climbed down the roof ladder using both his hands and feet. His movements were swift, without making a loud noise.
Meanwhile, Jack, who had not been awake for long and was sitting in a corner rubbing his eyes, his face still bearing the peculiar daze from the void realm experience, saw Pete running past hurriedly. He quickly stood up, wanting to share his unbelievable dream from just now, "Pete, wait, I just had a very weird dream. There was a golden giant in the dream, he said he was..."
"I know, I know."
Pete did not even turn his head, his voice hurried and perfunctory, "Save it for later. The sheriff and the others are back. The commotion outside isn't right, there might be a big guy! You watch the children, I am going to receive them!"
After saying that, he had already rushed to the door.
Jack choked on his words, feeling somewhat speechless, but he also immediately realized the urgency of the situation. He suppressed the urge to share his dream, quickly checked his rifle, and then walked quickly to the area where the children were resting.
To his slight surprise, Emily, Michael, and the other children were all sleeping soundly at this moment. Their breathing was even, and their faces even bore a trace of peaceful drowsiness.
It seemed that the Emperor's promises were all true.
Jack felt a bit more at ease in his heart. He stood guard beside the children with his gun, vigilantly watching the convenience store's entrance and windows.
Outside the door, Pete had already gotten a clear look at the visitors coming through the thick fog.
When the outline of that colossal behemoth gradually became clear against the backdrop of the blinding headlights and rolling fog, Pete involuntarily widened his eyes.
That was a Bradley infantry fighting vehicle, military stuff?
!!
Pete felt his heartbeat skip a beat.
How did the sheriff and the others drive an armored vehicle back?! This surprise was a bit too huge!
The infantry fighting vehicle let out a low rumble. Its tracks crushed the gravel ground of the gas station, making a crunching sound, and finally stopped steadily in the open clearing in front of the convenience store. Its headlights illuminated this small area as bright as day.
The engine was not turned off, and the low vibrations transmitted to the ground.
Following that, the rear hatch opened amidst the sound of hydraulics.
The first to jump down was Alan, carrying a bulging backpack and holding a heavy light machine gun in his hand. Although his face bore fatigue, it overflowed with the excitement of returning fully loaded.
Next was Roy, his movements steady, carrying a canvas weapon bag full of long guns on his shoulder.
Seeing his familiar companions returning safe and sound, and even armed to the teeth, the heart that Pete had been keeping in suspense was finally completely put to rest, and he hurriedly went up to meet them.
"My god..."
Pete looked at the infantry fighting vehicle radiating a cold luster in the fog, and then looked at the machine gun in Alan's hands. His voice was somewhat out of tune, "Did you... did you guys wipe out a US military nest? You even drove an infantry fighting vehicle back?"
Hearing this, a rare hint of a smile appeared on Roy's face. "We had good luck and picked up a treasure, and conveniently picked up an armored trooper who knows how to drive it. Alright, do not just stand there, go wake Jack up and tell him to come over and help move things! It is full of good stuff inside!"
"Jack is already awake! The children are all asleep!" Pete hurriedly said, then shouted toward the convenience store, "Jack, come out quickly, we have a big job!"
Hearing the voice, Jack immediately ran out holding his gun. When he saw the infantry fighting vehicle and the equipment Roy and Alan brought back, his reaction was exactly the same as Pete's, his mouth wide open and his eyes round.
"Stop looking, hold this!" Alan shoved the machine gun to Pete, turned around, and climbed back into the compartment.
The following scene allowed Pete and Jack to experience the extreme thrill belonging to hoarders and survivalists, a rare sight in the apocalypse.
Roy and Alan, like tireless worker ants, began to continuously move various supplies out of the infantry fighting vehicle's troop compartment: bundles of rifles, general-purpose machine guns with bipods, entire cases of handguns, rows of fragmentation grenades and smoke grenades, and even a few sets of military under-barrel grenade launchers with their corresponding ammunition.
The military ammunition crates required two people working together to lift down, filled with sealed packages of rifle bullet belts, machine gun bullet belts, and handgun bullets.
The heavy .50 caliber bullet boxes were also carefully carried down.
Ballistic plates, Kevlar helmets, various tactical vests, night vision goggles, individual radios, high-intensity flashlights, military daggers...
These things, which were once only seen in movies or military magazines, were now piled into a small mountain.
The dark green boxes printed with MRE (Meals Ready-to-Eat) came one after another.
Bottled drinking water, military medical kits, toolboxes, and even a few large rolls of heavy military waterproof canvas and several bundles of barbed wire.
Several heavy standard military oil drums were rolled down, containing precious diesel and gasoline.
Pete and Jack were a bit flustered at first, but they were quickly encouraged by this bountiful harvest and joined the ranks of the movers.
The four men shuttled back and forth, transferring each treasure from the belly of the infantry fighting vehicle into the relatively safe convenience store.
Watching the originally empty corners of the convenience store quickly fill up with various military supplies, piling up into reassuring small mountains, an indescribable sense of fulfillment and security rose in everyone's hearts.
With these, their confidence in defending the gas station and establishing a base increased by more than tenfold.
Just as the moving was nearing its end, the driving cabin of the infantry fighting vehicle opened, and a young soldier with a face full of exhaustion, wearing a tattered camouflage uniform, staggered down. It was Benjamin Davidson.
His footsteps were unsteady, his eyelids drooping heavily, seemingly about to fall asleep standing up at any moment.
"This is Benjamin Davidson, our new driver and technical consultant."
Roy briefly introduced him.
Davidson managed to nod to Pete and Jack, then looked somewhat unfocused toward the warm lights of the convenience store, making a vague sound in his throat, "I... I really can't hold on anymore, I want to sleep... but I don't dare to."
His voice was filled with a longing for sleep, as well as an extreme fear of the transformation, his body trembling slightly because of this contradiction.
At this time, a crisp child's voice rang out, "Big brother, you can sleep peacefully."
Everyone looked over, only to see that Emily had woken up at some point and was standing at the entrance of the convenience store. Rubbing her eyes with her small hands, she said very seriously to Davidson, "The Emperor will protect you. Look, we are all sleeping, and we are all fine."
"The Emperor... protect?"
Davidson blankly repeated this unfamiliar vocabulary, looking at Emily, and then at Roy and the others.
He had not closed his eyes for a day and a night, his nerves highly tense. Having experienced brutal combat and the blow of losing all his comrades, his body and spirit had reached the verge of collapse at this moment.
The heavy drowsiness was like the strongest anesthetic, eroding his last line of conscious defense.
Ultimately, his survival instinct and a trace of trust toward these normal people in front of him...
Or rather, he no longer had the strength to doubt, which overwhelmed his fear.
He whispered, "Please... Emperor protect me..."
Then, swaying, he walked toward the convenience store and found a relatively clean corner. Not even having the time to take off his bloodstained jacket, his body tilted and he directly collapsed. Almost instantly, heavy, even snores rang out, clearly having fallen into a deep sleep after extreme exhaustion.
Everyone quieted down, their gazes focusing on the sleeping Davidson.
Time passed minute by minute. The soldier's breathing was steady, his face relaxed, without any signs of distortion or mutation.
The taboo fear of sleep, which had shrouded the gas station for a long time, seemed to be completely broken with this soldier falling asleep peacefully.
The Emperor's protection was once again confirmed in a silent yet powerful way.
Inside the convenience store, supplies piled up like mountains;
Outside the door, the infantry fighting vehicle lay quietly guarding;
The exhausted soldier could sleep peacefully. The seed of hope began to quietly take root on this isolated island cut off by the thick fog...
The scene shifted, crossing endless dimensions and void turbulence, returning to the deepest part of the Imperial Palace located at the core of Earth in the main universe, acting as the anchor point of the universe—
The Meditation Hall.
The massive space was filled with the almost eternal hum originating from the Golden Throne, which was the manifestation of the magnificent power maintaining the stability of the multiverse and resisting the erosion of the warp.
Upon the throne, the figure of Emperor Samuel Young sat perfectly straight, like an eternally unchanging boulder.
However, at this moment, his eyes, which were usually as deep as the abyss and carried the myriad phenomena of the stars, were completely filled with pure, blazing golden light, as if two miniature stars were silently burning and revolving within them.
This light was not directed at the interior of the hall; rather, it was his majestic, unparalleled will and psychic power extending, penetrating, and exploring outward in a manner beyond conventional understanding.
After maintaining this for who knows how long, the dazzling golden light finally began to slowly recede like the tide, ultimately completely restraining itself and reverting to those eyes that saw through everything.
At the very instant the light completely dissipated, Samuel Young's body, which seemed to have merged with the throne, gave an extremely slight shudder, almost impossible to be captured by any instrument or the naked eye.
Immediately after, a barely audible soft sigh, carrying a trace of indescribable fatigue, almost dissipated into the eternal energy hum inside the hall.
His consciousness had just undertaken an extremely distant and arduous journey—
It was not a displacement in the physical sense, but an extension and perception of his vast psychic essence.
His will had transformed into invisible tentacles, forcefully piercing through the layers of incredibly solid yet highly unknown cosmic barriers, casting his perception toward those parallel universes that were not yet connected by the Empire's spatial portals, whose coordinates were blurry, and which were currently enveloped by various hardships and darkness.
He saw the city ruins desperately surviving amid a frenzied tide of zombies;
He heard the wails of souls reduced to parts under mechanical tyranny;
He felt the faint palpitations of the sparks of civilization about to be extinguished under the invasion of aliens;
He also captured that pure and desperate spark of faith in a certain world eroded by an eerie fog and dream corruption, when a little girl named Emily prayed to an internet picture she accidentally saw while in a desperate situation.
Yes...
The post about the Human Empire's Archangel Sanguinius and Emperor Samuel Young that Emily had browsed on the internet was not some kind of coincidence, or a fictional creation of some netizen.
That was exactly the extremely faint,
extremely indirect information disturbance triggered by Samuel Young's own will when attempting to pierce through that universe's barrier and sow the seeds of cognition.
He could not directly transmit information on a large scale; that would instantly trigger severe rejection from the laws of the universe, along with unimaginable consumption.
But he could act like a hacker, cleverly implanting a piece of disguised code pointing to his existence within the complex and disorderly network data streams, which was the information level of that universe—
A painting containing the images of him and his Descendants, accompanied by brief, seemingly fictional setting descriptions.
This code would act like a message in a bottle, randomly appearing in front of the information receiving terminals of certain people.
The vast majority of people would glance over it, treating it as an ordinary fantasy work. However, an extremely small number of people in specific moments and specific states of mind—such as those falling into despair and seeking spiritual sustenance—might be attracted by it, remember it, and even unconsciously establish an extremely weak,
cross-dimensional cognitive connection.
Emily was one of those extremely few lucky ones, or rather, a selected contact point.
And the power of Emily's faith directly helped him to be able to influence more humans in that universe.
However, performing such an operation, even for Samuel Young, came at a high price.
In the absence of a stable physical channel—namely, a spatial portal as support and buffer—forcefully crossing the cosmic barrier to perform perceptual projection and subtle information interference consumed psychic energy and mental focus that grew exponentially.
This was like accurately delivering items across a turbulent river without a bridge, relying solely on a single spider silk. The strength and exquisite control required were far beyond ordinary imagination.
Every such attempt would impose a considerable burden on him.
But he considered this a necessary investment.
When a contact point like Emily appeared and established initial trust due to his response—such as dispelling the nightmare—he could then give a further blessing through this fragile connection. It was not directly granting apocalyptic power, but subtly enhancing their physique and mental resilience, granting them the ability to resist specific local corruption—such as the dream erosion of the fog world—or even, as in the case of Roy, Alan, and the others, providing guidance and seeds of power in the void realm.
These individuals who received the blessing would then be able to better preserve themselves, unite their companions, and save more compatriots during the chaotic times in their respective worlds.
They were like specks of campfire in a dark forest, not only illuminating their surroundings but also attracting other survivors struggling in the darkness to draw near them.
This way, when the Empire eventually pinpointed the location and opened a stable spatial portal to that universe in the future, what would greet the expeditionary force would no longer be a land of despair completely swallowed by darkness where humanity was on the verge of extinction. Instead, it would be a world that already possessed sparks of resistance, had rudimentary organizations, was somewhat aware of the Emperor's existence, and even had the embryonic form of faith.
This would greatly accelerate the Empire's integration process, minimize unnecessary casualties among human compatriots during the transitional period, and also lay a more solid foundation of public opinion and faith for the Empire's rule in that universe.
Trading present exhaustion for the vitality of billions and trillions of compatriots and a more efficient conquest in the future...
This was the trade-off that Samuel Young preferred to make, sacrificing himself rather than having more sacrifices made.
His gaze had long since transcended the victory or defeat of a single universe, focusing on the overall destiny of humanity spanning across the multiverse of space and time.
Behind every exhausted breath could be a world on the verge of destruction, where a glimmer belonging to the Human Empire was quietly ignited...
______
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