Jiangnan reached out and lifted the black cloth.
Liu Yuqing hurried over with her flashlight.
The beam pierced the murky Preservative Fluid, illuminating the inside of the jar.
It was a dark golden eyeball.
It floated quietly in the liquid.
But the instant the light touched it...
Its dilated pupil suddenly contracted.
Like a living creature, it stared at Liu Yuqing from inside the jar.
"Hiss!"
Liu Yuqing instinctively sucked in a breath, tasting blood.
Her stomach lurched, and she nearly threw up again.
Fighting down her nausea, she activated [Appraisal].
A few seconds later, she looked up, her face pale.
She wrote down the appraisal results and handed them to Jiangnan.
[Item]: Eye of Calamity [Rank]: A-Class [Type]: Weird Artifact [Information]: A sinister eyeball refined by a Powerful Superhuman in a state of extreme madness. [Function]: Can See Through others' weaknesses, Health Bars, and Energy Flow, and has an Auto Combat function. [Side Effect]: Only someone with exceptionally strong willpower can control it. After implantation, a Willpower Check is required. Failure will result in being Devoured by the resentment within the eyeball and becoming a sinister creature that knows nothing but killing.
Jiangnan looked over the information and gave a slight nod.
An A-Class Weird Artifact, capable of seeing through weaknesses and fighting automatically.
It really was a good thing, but its side effects were just as clear.
It was a double-edged sword: either you controlled it, or you became its slave.
He put away the note and turned around.
His gaze fell on Guo Shuai, standing in the corner.
Then on his charred, sightless left eye.
Jiangnan took out his Memo Pad and wrote two words.
[Name?]
Guo Shuai froze.
They were in the same class, but he was practically invisible.
Jiangnan was an even greater loner; the two had barely spoken.
"I... I'm Guo Shuai."
Guo Shuai answered hoarsely, somewhat overwhelmed by the attention.
Jiangnan continued writing: [Supernatural Ability?]
At those words, Wang Meng hurriedly nudged Guo Shuai with his elbow and raised his eyebrows at him.
"Hey! What are you standing there like an idiot for? Big Boss is taking your measure. He's getting ready to bring you along!"
Hope suddenly flared in Guo Shuai's previously dull eyes.
Bring me along...
If he could follow Jiangnan, his chances of surviving this apocalypse would increase immeasurably.
He remembered Yang Wei shoving him aside before he died, and the words, "Stay alive."
"That's right... I have to stay alive... I have to see the End of the World for Old Yang, too."
Guo Shuai took a deep breath and straightened his back, his gaze turning resolute.
"My Supernatural Ability is [Danger Sense], D-class."
"I can sense things within a twenty-meter radius..."
But.
Before he could finish.
The pen in Jiangnan's hand stopped.
He showed no interest. Instead, his expression turned disappointed, even disdainful.
He hurriedly wrote a line in the Memo Pad, tore it off, and tossed it onto the table in front of Guo Shuai.
Guo Shuai looked down. It felt as if lightning had struck him.
[Too weak.]
[My team doesn't need useless people.]
Those few simple words were like a basin of ice water, instantly dousing the flame of hope that had just ignited in Guo Shuai.
"U-useless?"
Guo Shuai's lips trembled, and his face turned deathly pale.
The air went cold.
Wang Meng and Liu Yuqing both froze. They hadn't expected Big Boss, who had just saved Guo Shuai, to be so ruthless now.
"B-Big Boss, Guo Shuai's ability might be low-level, but he's pretty sharp. And earlier, outside, he even..."
Wang Meng tried to plead for him.
But Jiangnan ignored him.
He turned and headed for the ladder leading out of the cellar.
As he passed the table, he didn't take the jar containing the Eye of Calamity. He left it right where it was.
Before climbing the ladder, Jiangnan stopped with his back to Guo Shuai and tossed down one last note.
It drifted lightly onto the dusty floor.
[Prove your worth to me.]
[Otherwise, rot here.]
With that, Jiangnan climbed up without looking back.
Chen Tong, Liu Yuqing, and Yu Shishi exchanged glances.
Though they felt sorry for him, they didn't dare defy Jiangnan's wishes and could only hurry after him.
Wang Meng was last.
He looked at Guo Shuai, still standing there frozen, sighed, and gave him a firm pat on the shoulder.
"Take care, brother..."
"Big Boss's words were harsh, but he left the jar for you... Figure it out for yourself."
With that, Wang Meng climbed up the ladder and pulled the Metal Cover shut behind him.
"Clang!"
With a dull thud, Guo Shuai was cut off from the others.
Silence settled over the cellar once more.
Only a sliver of pale moonlight, seeping through a crack overhead, fell across the battered table.
Guo Shuai stood alone in the shadows.
"Useless..."
The word was a sharp knife, twisting savagely in his heart.
He remembered Wu Hao pointing at him and yelling.
"I've got eyes and ears. What use is an ability from a useless guy like you?"
Back then, he'd been furious on the outside and wanted to argue.
But deep down...
He'd agreed.
Yeah. What use was a twenty-meter range?
He hadn't even saved Old Yang, or sensed danger in time.
I'm just useless.
A useless guy who could only hold everyone back and get his brothers killed.
"Heh..."
Guo Shuai looked at the jar on the table and gave a bitter laugh.
"Prove my worth..."
"How can someone like me still be worth anything?"
He touched the half of his face that had been burned, his fingers brushing the socket of his dead left eye.
Pain shot through him.
Yet the pain cleared his muddled mind a little.
The Eye of Calamity in the jar seemed to be slowly turning, its pupil fixed on him.
As if silently tempting him:
"Want power?"
"Want to see through everything?"
"Want... revenge?"
Guo Shuai's body began to tremble.
It was fear, but excitement, too.
"I've already died once..."
"Old Yang is dead, my face is ruined,"
"What do I have left to fear, besides this worthless life?!"
"Jiangnan was right! I'll prove my worth!"
Guo Shuai jerked his head up. A near-mad ferocity blazed in his one remaining right eye.
He gritted his teeth and walked step by step toward the jar.
"I'm not useless!!"
"Ahhhhh!!"
Guo Shuai roared to steel himself and vent the oppression in his heart.
He reached out abruptly and snatched the glass jar off the table.
Crash!
The glass shattered, and Preservative Fluid splashed everywhere.
The dark golden eyeball rolled into his blood-covered palm. It was slick and cold, yet brimming with power.
By the pale moonlight,
a crazed shadow stretched across the cellar wall.
The shadow lifted a hand and slowly reached for its left eye.
"Ugh... Ah!!"
Guo Shuai had no anesthetic and no scalpel.
He used his fingers to dig into the charred, dead eyeball and wrench it free.
Squish.
In that moment, he was his own butcher.
Pain wracked his body with spasms, and cold sweat poured from him like rain, but he didn't stop.
With a tearing sound, he ripped out the useless eyeball and tossed it aside.
Black Blood streamed from the empty socket.
"Come on... Let me see... just what the hell you are!!"
Guo Shuai panted heavily, gripping the Eye of Calamity tightly in his hand.
No hesitation.
No way back.
He pressed it hard into the bloody, mangled socket!
"Gah!!!"
His scream echoed through the cellar.
The next second,
terrifying Black Qi erupted from his left eye, engulfing his entire body!
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