Calamity of Tomorrow - Chapter 16: Rewind

The moment Zhou Bai headed toward death, the gem hanging on Christina’s neck released a brilliant radiance.

In an instant, Zhou Bai felt everything around him stop. Then, as if a video being rewound, his body reassembled, recovered, and the blood on the ground returned to his body.

Bando, Alice, Elsa, and the rest– their blood all flowed backward, and they stood back up.

That snake-shaped Mara also slithered backward, turning into a cloud of black smoke, and withdrew into the vent duct.

All of this, the entire world rewound quickly, back to what it was five minutes ago.

When Zhou Bai felt time flow normally again, he saw before him an unscathed Bando. Behind him, Alice said, “No, it’s already Doomsday out there. We’ll die if we go out.”

“Lies! It’s all lies!” Bando said with agitation, “Teacher is lying! The humans outside have already found a way to resist Doomsday! Keeping us here is just for his personal desires.”

Watching the two of them talk, Zhou Bai came to a realization. He screamed in his mind, “What’s going on? Christina! What just happened?”

Christina screamed back, “We went back in time? Or did we foresee the future? I told you, this gem is very important. I told you it’s important!”

Zhou Bai looked at the gem that hung on Christina’s neck. The rhombus-shaped gem was now grey, and it even had tiny cracks creeping on its surface. It looks like it has exhausted its powers.

Christina almost broke into tears, “Ah! My gem! My gem is broken!”

Zhou Bai: “There’s no time.”

……

Recalling the future he saw before, Zhou Bai’s expression changed. He used his primordial spirit power to lift Bando up against his resistance.

“Everyone, follow me, hurry!” Zhou Bai saw those who were still hesitating and said, “Teacher set up a secret room in here. Everyone come over.”

Zhou Bai rapidly contemplated what he could do right now.

‘If that future is real, the main door hasn’t broken nor been opened. That means that the monster will come in through the vent duct. Neither Bando nor I am that monster’s match…crap.’

Then, in Bando’s shocked gaze, Zhou Bai brought everyone into the laboratory and opened the secret door with familiarity.

‘There’s no other option. Level 5 underground is a dead end. If we escape through the vent duct, we’ll run into that monster. The main door requires Professor Zhuang’s fingerprint to open…d*mn it.’

When the children saw the rows of corpses in the secret room, they all looked astonished.

Alice crouched on the ground, tears streaming down her face. She asked, “What…what is all of this?”

Elsa: “What’s going on? Am I dreaming?”

Bando scoffed and wanted to say something, but Zhou Bai didn’t want him to make the crowd that was already terrified even more shaken, so he used primordial spirit power to shut Bando’s mouth.

Zhou Bai thought to himself, “Everything in the secret room is real, which means that Mara is real too….’ As he thought this, he quickly lay on the ground. He needs to raise some Laziness first.

Zhou Bai, who was lying on the ground, looked at the children and said, “The enemy might attack us soon, everyone hide in the secret room…and mix yourself in with these corpses.”

As he said this, he ignored the children who were still opposed to the idea and used his primordial spirit power to sweep everyone up into the secret room. Then he closed the secret door.

Currently, Zhou Bai’s primordial spirit power was at 30 points. Although it still only had a 10-meter transmission range, it equated the strength of a few dozen adults, enough to control the children before him.

Yet how could these teenage children stay calm when they looked at the rows of corpses in the secret room? Especially those who looked exactly the same as themselves?

No matter what Zhou Bai said, most of them were lost in despair, fear, and hysteria.

Christina: “This won’t work, Zhou Bai. Their view of the world that has been shaped over so many years just got broken. How can they stay calm? You should knock them out.”

Zhou Bai sighed. He used his primordial spirit power to knock out all the children, including Bando.

He left only a tearful Alice and a befuddled Elsa.

Alice cried and sniffled, “Zhou Bai…knock us out too, I’m afraid I can’t control myself.”

Zhou Bai nodded. After knocking Alice out, he put her into the pile of corpses, then turned to look at Elsa, who looked very lost.

Elsa hugged her head and looked very distressed, “What the hell, did everyone starve to death?!”

The sound of a click.

Elsa was also knocked out on the floor. After Zhou Bai stuffed her into the corpses too, he found a place to lie on the ground.

Zhou Bai: “Christina, can this…fool the Mara?”

Christina: “It depends on what kind of Mara. You probably can’t fool the stronger kind.”

Zhou Bai no longer spoke. His ears twitched, hearing a dull thump from a distance. He knew the Mara had probably already slithered out of the vent duct.

‘The only one we can depend on is probably Professor Zhuang. Hopefully, I can buy enough time for him to come to save us.”

‘If I went out now to attract that Mara’s attention, maybe I could help everyone get a better chance of survival?’

‘But I’m scared…I’m so scared…I don’t want to die…’

Zhou Bai grit his teeth. He hated his current predicament. He wanted so much to live, but he had no power to do it. Bravery, wisdom, power– he didn’t have enough of any of those….

This feeling of helplessness was truly awful.

Boom boom!

The sound of tables and chairs being kicked around came from outside the door. Zhou Bai’s chest tightened, quickly controlling his own breathing, pretending to be dead…

Time passed second by second, but Zhou Bai was so nervous he could hardly feel the passage of time.

He heard the rummaging sounds continue for a while, followed by the sound of crashing and growling, which slowly faded into the distance.

Zhou Bai let out a sigh of relief, “Phew…it’s finally gone.”

Christina: “That scared me to death. All my fur was about to fall off. I thought I was going to die. It looks like this Mara isn’t very strong….”

Before Christina even finished her sentence, the door to the secret room was instantly broken through with a loud thump. The Mara that looked like a snake monster slithered in slowly, the black smoke on its body filling the entire secret room. The bloodlust and chill it gave off raised goosebumps all over Zhou Bai’s body.

The Mara chuckled, “What’s the point of hiding? You pigs’ heartbeats and body heat stand out like fire in the dark to my eyes.”

“Oh, no!” Zhou Bai’s heart jumped, rapidly adding all the Laziness he obtained from lying down onto Primordial Spirit Value.

In the few minutes that just passed, Zhou Bai had been lying down and increased his Laziness to the 200 point limit for today.

Right now, he used all of his Laziness, Primordial Spirit Value immediately began rising from 30 all the way to 50 points.

After abruptly raising 20 points of primordial spirit power, Zhou Bai couldn’t adapt at all. Blood spurt out of his nose, his head hurt as if it was being stabbed by needles.

At the same time, the black smoke that spread through the secret room rippled, turning into countless sharp, black blades that stabbed at everyone hiding among the corpses.

The sound of stabbing rang in the room, one after another child lost their lives in a stupor.

—

Number of survivors: 12