Return

As the searing heat spread, Gu Qing felt as though his skin were about to melt.

The crashing wind and waves tore apart his already fragile flesh, shredding it into fragments that fell from his body.

In the blink of an eye, Gu Qing was covered in blood!

Although he had not been at the center of the explosion, having detonated it from a distance and sensed the danger in advance before fleeing.

Gu Qing was actually still some distance away from the blast's epicenter.

Yet he remained within the shockwave's range, suffering damage that he simply could not withstand at his current level!

Leave the world of 'Chronicle'?

It was not just physical pain—even his consciousness felt as though ten thousand files were slowly sawing through it.

Yet the system's voice still reached Gu Qing's mind with perfect clarity.

As long as Gu Qing chose to confirm, he could immediately escape this perilous situation.

However!

"No!! It's not time yet!"

Under the radiation and searing heat, Gu Qing's eyes had filled with blood.

Bloody tears even streamed from them.

Yet determination still shone within them.

"Cellular Recombination!! Damn it, Magnetic Field Rotation, turn for me!!"

Even the system fell silent.

Facing a nuclear explosion head-on and placing himself on the brink of death, Gu Qing's intention was simple: to force out his own potential.

"Come on! Let me see where my limits lie!!"

This was pure madness!

In a daze.

Gu Qing seemed to return to Schmidt's laboratory.

Bound to that Electric Chair.

Schmidt's cold words echoed beside his ears, and the chilling terror of death awakened within him once more!

Some people, after suffering immense trauma, developed fear and psychological scars.

From then on, they could never face it again.

Without another major stimulus, they would spend their entire lives running away from it.

If Gu Qing had been an ordinary person, after experiencing such immense terror between life and death, he might have become desperately insecure, wary of everything around him, and tried his best to lie low!

To avoid ever falling into such a situation again.

But was he an ordinary person?

Absolutely not! Of course he wasn't!!

—Bzz! Bzz! Bzz!

The Magnetic Field Power that had nearly been exhausted began regenerating at an incredible rate.

With Cellular Recombination, the injuries on his body were continuously restored, only to be ravaged once more.

Eighty thousand horsepower!

Ninety thousand horsepower!

One hundred thousand horsepower!

Once one's strength reached ninety thousand horsepower, life itself would undergo another transformation.

One could gain even more extraordinary abilities, even achieving particle manipulation at the molecular level!

Their vitality would become incredibly vigorous. Even at the center of a small nuclear bomb's explosion, enduring the extreme heat within the fireball radius head-on would not kill them—at most, they would be injured!

But this time, what Gu Qing faced was no small nuclear explosion—it was a fucking two-megaton nuclear blast!!

"System, return."

Before losing consciousness, Gu Qing issued his final command to the system.

He knew he had already reached his limit.

If he continued, then even if he did not die, his severely injured self would likely struggle to protect himself against the United States' next moves.

He might as well return immediately.

May 9, 1945.

Entrusted by Hitler's successor, Dönitz.

In the cafeteria hall of the Berlin Military Engineering Academy, representatives of the German Army's High Command—Field Marshal Keitel, General Stumpff, and Admiral Friedeburg—formally signed the instrument of unconditional surrender with the Soviet Union and its allies.

From that day onward, the Third Reich officially exited the stage of history.

The swastika flag that had once flown, representing Nazi racism and war, was gone forever as well.

Inside a hospital ward reeking of disinfectant.

White bedsheets, white walls, white ceiling.

That was the first thing Gu Qing saw when he opened his eyes.

The second was the news playing on an old television set not far away.

Then he heard thunderous cheers, deafening cheers.

Cheers that echoed throughout the entire hospital!

"This is... 1945?"

He remembered that when he entered the Chronicle World, it had been September 1944.

He had not expected that when he returned, eight months had already passed.

Wait!

Gu Qing abruptly sat up!

Klaus Schmidt!!

Ignoring the pain of his injuries, Gu Qing threw off the covers and got out of bed, intending to head outside.

Just then, a blonde woman in a nurse's uniform walked in.

"Wait, where are you going? Your injuries haven't healed yet."

"Where is this? Why am I here? What happened to the Nazis in Auschwitz Concentration Camp? Where is Klaus Schmidt?!"

The blonde woman seemed particularly skilled at comforting people and easing their anxiety.

Faced with Gu Qing's barrage of questions, she neither flinched nor retreated. Instead, she showed a warm, caring smile.

"Don't panic. You're safe now. The Nazis have been defeated, and Auschwitz Concentration Camp has been liberated by the great Red Army. No one can hurt you anymore.

I'm Nina Ivanovna Ivanova. You can call me Nina. You still need to rest, so let me examine your injuries..."

Gu Qing's emotions were indescribably complicated!

He had not expected time to pass at the same rate in the Main World and the Instance World.

He had spent eight months in the Chronicle World, and by the time he returned, Germany had already been defeated and World War II was nearing its end.

"Incredible. When you were brought here a week ago, I practically thought you were dead!

But aside from being physically weak, you don't have a single external injury now—not even a scar!"

After briefly examining Gu Qing's injuries, Nina wore a shocked expression.

"I was unconscious for a week?"

Nina nodded.

Once Gu Qing had calmed down, he asked for more details.

It turned out that during his time in the Instance World, the defeated German army had been forced to withdraw from Poland. Soviet forces had taken over, establishing a provisional pro-Soviet coalition government with the approval of the Yalta Conference.

Even Berlin had fallen by now. The Nazis had been completely wiped out.

Gu Qing did not think Schmidt would perish alongside the Nazis.

In fact, according to the plot of the film, after breaking away from the Nazis, Schmidt had completely changed his name and identity, becoming Sebastian Shaw.

He founded the Hellfire Club and gathered quite a few Mutants under his command.

He had even personally orchestrated the Cuban Missile Crisis, intending to trigger World War III.

Gu Qing had thought that with his current strength of one hundred thousand horsepower, he should have been able to take revenge.

Yet when he returned, his enemy had already fled.

That left him deeply frustrated!

His injuries were too severe. Even with Cellular Recombination, he could not recover immediately.

He could only remain in the hospital for now and restore his strength to its peak as much as possible.

At the same time, Gu Qing thought of something else.

He wondered whether Andrew and Matt had died in that nuclear explosion.

Matt had escaped early, so perhaps he still had a chance of surviving.

Andrew, like Gu Qing, had suffered the blast of the nuclear explosion. He was probably already gone.

And after that battle, both the Magnetic Field Pollution and the Nuclear Bomb explosion would have an immensely far-reaching impact on the entire world.

At the same time, they had brought him a massive haul of Spacetime Value.

He opened the system panel.

Host: Gu Qing

Spacetime Value:

(Thanks to boss Yeyeah for the tip!)