Chapter 154 — Canned Mushrooms, Third-Class Citizens
The disappearance of the old order meant the emergence of a new one.
Warlords who had seized temporary control of various regions chose to blow up the passages and crown themselves petty kings of their own isolated domains.
The underground world was carved into one sealed-off fragment after another.
It was then that word of the nuclear scorching of Earth's surface finally reached the ears of the new world's inhabitants.
They called this splintered subterranean realm the "Sanctuaries."
But a sanctuary was no paradise, and one problem followed hard upon another.
With no God of Justice to maintain the power-supply equipment, many places lost their electricity altogether.
The artificial sun went out.
Darkness fell.
Panic. Terror.
Many underground dwellers had always assumed electricity was simply a fact of nature—that even with no one tending it, it would never vanish.
The God of Justice had spoiled them far too thoroughly.
The last three generations had never known a single blackout in their entire lives.
What was to be done now?
The backup generators could hold out a few days at most.
Adrian, the interim administrator of Sanctuary b19 who styled himself "Emperor," chose to squeeze the survivors under his rule.
The devices that looked like exercise bikes were in fact human-powered generators.
As long as someone kept pedaling, the power flowed to him without end.
"I really shouldn't have beaten that old fool to death yesterday. They say he was a doctor of electrical engineering."
At the thought that the lack of equipment and expertise made it impossible to store the power, a flicker of vexation crossed Adrian's face.
He slammed his fist on the table and savagely downed another mouthful of vodka.
Adrian relished that drunken haze.
In that twilight between waking and dreaming, he was the true emperor of Sanctuary b19.
The whole city lay in pitch blackness.
By day and by night alike.
Only the small patch where Adrian dwelled had light and power.
He could even climb into a submersion pod and occasionally watch a few subconscious films.
And if a few unlucky wretches worked themselves to death for it, what was that to him?
Adrian felt not the slightest twinge of guilt.
Just then, the lights flickered.
That wavering between light and dark sent Adrian's mood plunging to the depths.
"Damned rabble, slacking off again!"
He tightened his grip on the whip, strode briskly to the "energy chamber," and laid into the sweat-drenched "power men" with a furious flurry of lashes.
After a hysterical tirade of curses and roars, two of the power men, exhausted and starving, finally saw black and collapsed, unable to rise again.
Their breathing ceased, their hearts stopped.
If the new world the God of Justice had striven to maintain still existed, perhaps they could have been saved.
After all, modern medicine judged death by the total cessation of brainwaves.
But now...
The two wretches who had served as his punching bags were already sentenced to death and dumped at the corpse-disposal station.
Adrian knew perfectly well they would be put to full use as compost substrate for mushrooms.
And those mushrooms would be made into canned mushrooms and handed out to the rabble to fill their bellies.
He cared nothing for whether these people lived or died, nor for their resentment.
He had a cache of firearms in his grip, and subordinates bound to him by mutual profit.
In this Sanctuary b19, he was the sole ruler, and no one dared defy his will!
The remaining "power men" burned with rage but dared not speak.
They could only bow their heads, faces dark, and swallow their fury.
These people deeply regretted voting "not needed" back then.
But they would never get another chance to start over.
The chance to decide one's fate comes only once.
Everything had long since been settled.
The God of Justice had vanished, and with it all restraint.
This world had become one where thugs ran rampant and brute force reigned.
Humanity was ever thus.
Only after losing something does one learn to cherish it.
While the God of Justice was still present, no matter how much it did for humanity, how much effort it poured out, it was forever harshly faulted, even smeared and buried under every conspiracy theory imaginable.
That nickname "Artificial Retard," which seemed a mere joke, said everything about how the new world's humans regarded it.
And now?
The God of Justice had vanished.
The citizens of the new world, once so full of superiority and self-styled as "human-rights warriors," who had picked the God of Justice apart and smeared it across the internet from behind their keyboards—they now regretted it beyond all remedy.
What one cannot have is forever restless; what is favored has nothing to fear.
Now they could only go hungry, burning their own bodies to generate power, so that the strong might live in comfort.
In Sanctuary b19, there were only three classes: the Emperor, the upper class, and the lower class.
As the sole Emperor, Adrian was nothing like the reasonable God of Justice!
The few underdeveloped minds who had dared spout "human rights," "democracy," and "freedom" in his presence had been beaten into bloody pulp by clubs and left thoroughly dead.
From then on, no one dared question Adrian's decisions with so much as a word.
Those robust enough to be chosen for Adrian's guard, eager to preserve their "upper-class" status and privileges, oppressed their former comrades more zealously than anyone.
"This is living!"
Adrian was smug with satisfaction.
He rather thought life now was far better than before.
At least in the old days he'd never had the chance to trample on others like this.
A world where everyone was equal, a world without crime or killing...
How dull!
Whoosh!
A sharp arrow tore through the air and came flying!
When Adrian came to his senses, he found a jet-black arrow lodged in his chest, its fletching still trembling faintly.
His heart had burst, blood gushing out in torrents, his life force draining away with it.
He was a dead man.
Yes.
The finest cardiac surgeon in b19 had been beaten to death half a month ago for resisting his rule.
"Kill that man! Avenge His Majesty Adrian!"
The roar of his right-hand men rang in his ears.
In that instant of approaching death, Adrian's madness vanished utterly.
He became truly calm, his mind clearer than it had ever been.
He knew that the "hyena" he had counted as his right arm did not truly want to avenge him.
The hyena merely wished to use this affair to establish his authority, take over his power, and become the next ruler.
Adrian gave a bitter laugh, his vision went dark, and he passed away.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Hunted by the hyena and Adrian's loyalists, Hawkeye fled for his life.
His archery was superb, and his stamina and agility were no less remarkable.
Even the pitch-black world worked in his favor.
Unfortunately, he had been wounded in the second volley of concentrated fire.
Turning his head to look at his pierced left arm, Hawkeye could not help but smile bitterly.
Before making his move, he had gone out of his way to gather intelligence on his opponent.
Among Adrian's subordinates was one nicknamed "Hyena," Jia Mingyuan, who possessed a mutant gene and a sense of smell keener than that of a genuine wild dog.
The faintest trace of blood, and the man would cling to him like a tick buried in bone.
Wounded as he was, his stamina was gradually failing.
Defeat and death seemed a foregone conclusion.
[Do you wish to survive?]
[Yes/No.]
Hawkeye was deeply disappointed in himself.
He had never imagined that a single gunshot wound would be enough to bring on hallucinations.
Still, he answered instinctively: "If I can live, who would choose to die?"
In the blink of an eye, Hawkeye found himself in a world that spanned all of Linchuan...