Chapter Thirty-Two: The Eighth-Rank Warrior and the Faulty Memory

After slaying Qi Yun, Gu Sha did not leave immediately; instead, he began looting. In the wreckage of the destroyed helicopter, he found a metal box containing two source pearls—both of considerable size. The box had been specially engineered for protection, so despite the helicopter’s devastation, the source pearls remained intact.

Having acquired the pearls, Gu Sha wasted no time. He swiftly departed, slaughtered some zombies in the streets, and, seeing hordes closing in, escaped by scaling a building. He spent over an hour searching but found no more source pearls.

Soon, he hid in a luxurious residential complex, locating a relatively intact apartment. After barricading the door with appliances and furniture, he quickly settled into a room. Today’s gains far exceeded his expectations. His initial plan had been—at most—three pearls; finding two would count as good fortune. Now, he had surpassed his goal: two at first, two more from the Gold Joy Hotel, and another pair gained from killing Qi Yun, totaling six pearls—three of them especially large.

The harvest was abundant.

Gu Sha examined the source pearls, wasted no time, and swallowed them, beginning to absorb their energy. Golden energy violently surged against his genetic locks.

An hour passed.

Two hours.

He broke through the seventh tier… then the eighth…

At last, after a long while, the energy of all six pearls was refined.

“Eighth tier!” he murmured, far surpassing his expectations. He hadn’t thought he could fully unlock his eighth genetic lock, but he had underestimated the power of those three large pearls. He successfully unlocked both the seventh and eighth genetic locks, becoming an eighth-tier warrior.

An eighth-tier warrior, even twenty years later, would be considered a master in any region.

Gu Sha exhaled a mouthful of stale air, glanced at the time—it was already three in the morning. He took out a box of compressed biscuits, finished them quickly, then rested, conserving his strength for the final Scarlet Descent tomorrow.

At dawn, when the sky was just beginning to brighten, Gu Sha was abruptly awakened by violent shaking. He sprang awake, instinctively gripping his blade, startled, thinking some armed force was fighting, and that shelling had struck his building.

Yet, as the high-rise trembled fiercely, and he heard no sounds of artillery, realization dawned.

An earthquake!

“Did C City ever experience an earthquake during this period?” Gu Sha wondered, but the intense tremors left him no time to ponder. The walls were fracturing, and the building began to tilt.

Without hesitation, Gu Sha smashed through a window and leapt out. Landing from the eighth floor was but a blink; with a thunderous crash, the force drove his legs into the ground. He pulled himself free and ran.

In that instant, the terror of the earthquake descended.

Within the complex, towers collapsed one after another—a world-shattering horror. The earth quaked violently, ripping open deep fissures. Buildings vanished into dust; the land shook, houses sank, roads split, endless towers toppled, smoke and dust billowed, dense swarms of zombies were swallowed, and countless survivors—having evaded infection for over a month—perished in the catastrophe.

Gu Sha dashed between ruin and destruction, his figure ghostly as he sped to an open plaza within the complex.

He witnessed the horror firsthand, but his heart grew heavier.

Searching his memories of past earthquakes, he found nothing about an earthquake in C City during the initial apocalypse. Logically, this shouldn’t be; the second Scarlet Descent lasted three days. If such a massive earthquake had occurred, there would be records.

In his previous life, during this phase, he hadn’t been in C City, but he lived there for seventeen years afterward, learning much about the city—yet nothing about this earthquake, not even a mention.

In later years, discussions about the second Scarlet Descent and its three-day opportunity were frequent. He’d even heard of source pearls found in Gold Joy Hotel, yet never heard of this earthquake, nor seen any record of it in official channels.

“It’s impossible—a quake this massive, coinciding with the end of the second Scarlet Descent, can’t have gone unnoticed!” Gu Sha’s brows knitted.

C City had experienced many earthquakes; in truth, over the next few years, disasters would plague the world—earthquakes, tsunamis, acid rain, typhoons, sandstorms, and more.

But those should have begun two months after the apocalypse’s arrival. Initially, a global outbreak of intense acid rain restricted human activity and destroyed supplies, followed by frequent disasters everywhere.

Yet, in the first two months after the apocalypse began, disasters were rare, and their occurrence matched pre-apocalypse patterns.

“Something’s wrong. Could I have forgotten this earthquake after all these years?” Gu Sha doubted himself.

After all, before his rebirth, it was already the twentieth year of disaster—2143 in the common era—a vast span, memories blurred.

The quake lasted only a few minutes, but in that short time, everything became ruins, the earth gaping with cracks, dust swirling ominously.

Gu Sha muttered in confusion, “It must be the time gap—I must have forgotten this earthquake…”

Just then—

Drip.

A drop of yellow liquid fell from the sky onto a piece of foam before him, corroding it into a pitch-black hole at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Gu Sha’s eyes widened. He recognized this liquid instantly—it was the highly acidic rain, one of the greatest disasters of the later world!

Drip. Drip. Drip.

More raindrops fell, all yellow-brown in color.

Gu Sha glanced at the sky, then bolted, quickly hiding within the ruined corner of a collapsed high-rise, where the slanted floors formed a triangular space.

He huddled there, watching the intensifying rain, his expression growing grave. This acid rain—he knew it well. Its destructive power paled compared to earthquakes and tsunamis, yet it was among the most painful disasters for humanity.

The acid rain was corrosive and toxic; touching it led to poisoning, illness, and skin ulcers. Food exposed to it died outright.

Moreover, it covered vast areas, causing ongoing food shortages for humanity throughout the apocalypse.

Of course, these were not Gu Sha’s concerns now. He focused on one thing: he distinctly remembered the first acid rain in the apocalypse occurring two months after its onset—on July 10, 2123, beginning in Sakura Isle, sweeping the nation in two days, and thereafter appearing worldwide.

Now it had arrived a month early.

Was this a lapse in memory, the butterfly effect, or something else?

(The chapter ends.)