(PS: The first wave of recommendations finally comes on September 10. I've been running around naked for ten days, and now I have to keep it up for another two... It's so rough during a new book's promotion period.)
"...I see. So this is why gunpowder doesn't work and electricity can't be generated."
Ang excitedly found Lu Yuanming, who was preparing to lead his team out. He fiddled with some coils and magnets in his hands, along with a few parts he'd scavenged from who knew where. "Because this is the Dark Matter World, its fundamental particles are completely different from those in the Material World. That means all human technology involving chemistry or anything more advanced than electricity is useless in this afterlife. We'll have to measure this world's elements from scratch and draw up a new periodic table. We'll also have to work out the afterlife's various physical constants and Physical Laws all over again. Only then will we be able to make gunpowder, electricity, computers, vehicles... and everything else."
Lu Yuanming asked in puzzlement, "But there's electricity in the vault?"
Ang replied dejectedly, "That's what I can't figure out. I asked around, and it seems the vault gets its power from underground cables. I don't know where those cables lead, so I can't figure out why there's electricity."
Even more puzzled, Lu Yuanming asked, "Then go down and check. Follow the cables."
Ang shook his head and spread his hands. "There's no lower basement, and no utility shafts or anything like that. The cables are buried deep beneath the reinforced concrete. There's nothing we can do. We'll have to wait until someone from the bank's higher-ups comes down and ask them."
For Lu Yuanming, this was just a minor interlude. Afterward, he set out with Charlie and his men, Peter, and two newly recruited young men who had supposedly once been members of a US militia group. They were the organization's entire force. Their target was the supermarket occupied by the Super Giant Spider.
It was the only place Lu Yuanming knew of where one of the super-sized monsters lived.
Two days earlier, while leading a routine exploration and scavenging trip, Peter had spotted the spider that had retreated into the supermarket reappearing at the entrance. That meant the spiders might have become active again.
Ever since Lu Yuanming had been forcibly returned to his Original Body, the spiders had all hidden inside the supermarket. That made people afraid to go in. The space inside wasn't suited to attacking them from a distance with firearms, and the spiders could easily climb the walls or ceiling, making them even harder to guard against. So Lu Yuanming hadn't considered going in to kill them.
But now that the spiders were active again, all they had to do was kill some at the entrance. There was a good chance that would draw out the Super Giant Spider. And now that they had an FGM-148 antitank missile, Lu Yuanming was confident he could blow the gigantic monster to pieces.
He was very curious about how many White Light Particles such a monster would give him.
By the time Lu Yuanming arrived in the afterlife this time, twenty-two days had passed. It was also the twentieth day since Alfred had reorganized the organization. During that time, Lu Yuanming had used up fifteen Colorless Light Particles, turning them all into potatoes. He had traded the remaining four for bullets. Alfred had led almost the entire organization in farming the potatoes day and night. If they hadn't still needed bullets to clear out monsters, Alfred might well have demanded they turn everything into potatoes. As he put it, there could never be too much food.
Over those twenty days, Lu Yuanming had constantly led teams to wipe out every monster in the surrounding area. By the time they set out for the spider supermarket that day, his team had killed eight Man-faced Dogs, sixteen humanoid Bat Monsters, and three Mermaid Monsters. All of them were hideous, terrifying creatures bearing some human limbs, yet made of things that did not belong to reality at all.
The monsters had given Lu Yuanming a large number of White Light Particles, more than three times as many as he'd gotten from killing the spiders last time. But perhaps because he'd grown stronger, he still hadn't felt bloated after absorbing them. That meant he could absorb more White Light Particles. And since the supermarket spiders had appeared again, Lu Yuanming had naturally set his sights on the Giant Spider.
Of the only two giant monsters that had appeared so far, one—the Giant Man-faced Dog—had vanished without a trace. The other was this Giant Spider.
When Lu Yuanming and the others reached the supermarket, they saw three spiders spread across the parking lot outside. They were mostly lying in wait, but their enormous size made hiding all but pointless. Lu Yuanming immediately charged at them, carrying a steel spike and a Steel Shield cut from a Thick Steel Plate.
They had already agreed on the plan, so the others didn't try to stop him. Instead, they began searching for suitable firing positions on higher ground nearby. Peter, the best marksman, was given the FGM-148 antitank missile. They were waiting for the Giant Spider to emerge so he could land a fatal strike.
When Lu Yuanming came within thirty meters of the spiders, the three immediately sprang out of their crouched positions and rushed at him at tremendous speed.
This wasn't Lu Yuanming's first close-quarters battle. Over the past twenty days, he had thoroughly learned to control and adapt to his body's newfound strength and reaction speed. Using two lengths of rebar recovered by the scavengers, he'd twisted them together into a one-and-a-half-meter-long Long Spike. He'd also cut a Round Shield, one meter in diameter, from a one-centimeter-thick piece of steel. Only someone with his strength could use the spike and shield.
With those two tools, his current strength, speed, and reaction time allowed him to face two Man-faced Dogs at once without a scratch. Now, as the three spiders pounced at him, Lu Yuanming didn't panic. He only had to move his mind slightly, and the spiders seemed to slow down before his eyes. Before they could reach him, he lunged at the nearest one.
The spider reacted extremely quickly too. As Lu Yuanming charged, its forelegs stabbed toward him. He could even hear the air whistle nearby. Lu Yuanming raised his Steel Shield to block. Two dull thuds rang out, and his arm trembled, but he held firm against a force strong enough to flip a grown man. At the same time, he thrust out the Long Spike in his other hand. It whistled sharply through the air and plunged into the spider's mouthparts, piercing its head clean through.
The other two spiders swarmed him. Lu Yuanming continued to block with the Steel Shield in one hand and thrust with the Long Spike in the other. He didn't kill them instantly this time, but he kept himself safe while repeatedly wounding them, stabbing them until pus flew everywhere.
The two spiders shrieked nonstop. Gradually, more shrieks rose from inside the supermarket. Then ten, twenty, thirty... at least fifty spiders crawled out.
Lu Yuanming immediately retreated as he fought, heading toward the others' ambush. It took less than ten seconds. Charlie was the first to fire, and the others joined in right after. Gunshots erupted everywhere, and the spiders began dying in droves. More than ten were killed in just a few seconds.
As Lu Yuanming watched the dense mass of White Light Particles surge toward him, all he felt was delight.
It was just as Ang had said: these monsters seemed powerful, but they were little more than enhanced wild animals. Against human firearms, as long as people were willing, slaughtering them was hardly harder than killing chickens.
The spiders were stunned by the attack. In less than ten seconds, half of them had been killed. The rest immediately fled in panic. In the end, fewer than ten managed to escape back into the supermarket. Lu Yuanming absorbed the White Light Particles from the deaths of more than forty spiders, and still didn't feel bloated. That meant he could keep absorbing them. But he didn't dare pursue the spiders. He just stood still at a distance.
After waiting for more than ten seconds, the supermarket rang with the shrieks of a gigantic spider. Forelegs more than ten meters long stretched out from inside, and the enormous spider emerged once again. With a roar, it charged toward Lu Yuanming.
Lu Yuanming stood motionless, holding his Steel Shield. His heart was pounding, but he trusted Peter to hit the monster.
Lu Yuanming didn't have to wait long. When the Giant Spider was still fifty meters away, a trail of burning exhaust streaked across the air and slammed into its abdomen. A tremendous explosion followed. The rolling flames and shock wave forced Lu Yuanming, fifty meters away, to brace himself behind his Steel Shield. When the blast had passed, he saw a vast sea of White Light Particles surging toward him. It was only a tenth of the total, but the amount he gained this time exceeded the combined total from all the spiders, Man-faced Dogs, and other monsters he had killed before—not by a little, but by one or two times over.
In just a few seconds, Lu Yuanming began to feel bloated. The White Light Particles kept surging toward him, and the sensation grew stronger. He felt himself approaching the point of being forcibly returned to his Original Body again. He only had time to shout, "I'm going back to my Original Body!"
After that, Lu Yuanming reached the point of no return. In the instant he absorbed the last of the White Light Particles, he suddenly saw a cluster of light ten times larger than either the White Light Particles or Colorless Light Particles. It was neither white nor colorless, but gray.
The next moment, Lu Yuanming sank back into darkness, into a vegetative state.
Before you continue