A Person Beyond His Time

Four months later in the Green World.

Hei Zi's tracks were discovered by the human tribe, and he fled to the ape-man tribe he had previously been sent to and subsequently escaped from.

This time, Hei Zi brought many surprises to those ape-men; these were items he had meticulously prepared to play the role of a supernatural being.

Extremely sharp fruit knives stolen from the laboratory, small solar-powered flashlights that glowed on their own, and other such trinkets of little practical use were exactly what Hei Zi relied on after his escape.

By using these things to bluff, Hei Zi became the leader of the ape-man tribe.

Although the primitive ape-men of the Green World were foolish, their combat power was not poor. When using brute force, they could hold their own for a few rounds against humans wielding wooden and stone weapons.

After hiding among the ape-man tribe for several months, Hei Zi was still inadvertently spotted by human scouts.

Once this news was reported back, many among the human tribe clamored to find Hei Zi and take revenge.

Naturally, this included Shu Zi, relatives of Xiao Hua, and some who had previously followed Hei Zi out.

Those people only realized after coming to Shu Zi's side that they had been used; Hei Zi had merely been using their corpses to pave his own way. Compared to the average tribesman, this group held an even deeper hatred for Hei Zi.

Furthermore, the human tribe, having established a firm foothold, needed to expand their territory. The ape-man settlement blocking their path of expansion was exactly the target they needed to strike.

Thus, leaving a portion of warriors to guard Fang Mountain, Shu Zi took over a hundred of the most elite warriors and headed toward the ape-man tribe in the north.

At first, neither Hei Zi nor the ape-man tribe took these people to heart; after all, that ape-man settlement was a large community with over a thousand ape-men.

Moreover, as the local inhabitants, the ape-man tribe occupied the high ground and could use the advantageous terrain, which only they were familiar with, to defeat the invaders.

Night fell.

Shu Zi and his hundred-plus warriors quietly laid an ambush on the outskirts of the ape-man settlement. The wind was strong that day, but fortunately, it was blowing to the right, so the windward side was not on their side, and they did not have to worry about being discovered by their scent.

Soon, the scouts returned to report that most of the ape-men in the settlement ahead were fast asleep, with only a few on guard.

"Where is Hei Zi?" Shu Zi asked in a low voice.

The scout shook his head: "I didn't see Hei Zi."

"Let's attack together." Shu Zi finally decided to strike directly.

Ten minutes later, the once-quiet ape-man settlement was quickly filled with the sounds of battle. Flames roared to life, shooting into the sky and illuminating the surrounding area for several kilometers.

Hei Zi fled in a panic; he had not expected the ape-men to be defeated so quickly!

This place was beyond saving; those people were unexpectedly cunning, using their intellectual advantage to launch a surprise attack on the ape-men.

The ape-men primarily fought based on instinct. Although the humans' physical fitness might not have been as good as the ape-men who foraged in the forest all day, the ape-men were still in a daze after being woken up at night and were no match for the humans wielding weapons.

What's more, the humans had the God Bow!

Hei Zi couldn't help but resent the god who had once saved him. Why could the god of others give Shu Zi such a useful weapon, while he could only scurry around like a rat?

He was also a person favored by the gods!

After cursing filthily, Hei Zi gritted his teeth and continued to run forward.

He still had a chance. As long as he could escape to the next ape-man settlement, he could continue to use the trinkets in his hands to bluff and remain a person above others.

"Whoosh!"

An arrow suddenly broke through the wind and pierced Hei Zi's shoulder.

In extreme pain, Hei Zi stumbled and nearly fell to the ground.

He looked back and, in the flickering firelight, saw a man holding the God Bow, looking majestic.

It was Shu Zi! The person he longed to kill but had failed to!

"Damn it, Xiao Hua is damned, and you are damned too! Why didn't I kill you back then!" Hei Zi gritted his teeth in hatred, scrambling backward on his hands and knees, trying to escape the range of the bow and arrow.

However, a second arrow arrived immediately!

With a dull "thud," Hei Zi's right leg was struck!

Hei Zi cried out in pain, and immediately after, a third arrow struck his chest, aiming directly for his life!

Hei Zi hurriedly twisted his body, barely avoiding a fatal blow, but the arrowhead plunged into his abdomen, the powerful force sending his body flying backward.

Accompanied by a shrill scream, Hei Zi fell straight off the cliff.

"Chief, he fell down; he shouldn't be able to survive!"

"Pursue! I won't be at ease until I see his corpse!"

Shu Zi took a few men to search for the path down the cliff.

Hei Zi's arrow-pierced body landed heavily on the ground, the massive impact instantly destroying his vitality.

Blood spilled from his head, clouding his vision.

"Dead... am I dead?... God, save me, save me quickly!"

With his throat blocked by a large amount of blood, Hei Zi could no longer make a sound, and could only roar desperately in his heart.

Huang Si had actually been watching from the side the entire time.

He came here just to see Hei Zi one last time.

This man had reached the end of his rope.

Huang Si said softly, "I have already caught a glimpse of your soul, so you must be dying soon."

Hei Zi thought: A voice? He heard a voice. Was it a god? Had a god come to save him!

A gurgling sound emanated from his throat as he tried to speak. Unfortunately, it was merely the sound of blood mixing with air bubbles.

"Actually, keeping you alive until now was just a personal interest of mine." Huang Si casually molded a prosthetic body for his own use, then sat down beside Hei Zi to watch the death of the only human he had paid the most attention to in this world.

In truth, from Huang Si's perspective, neither Shu Zi, nor Xiao Hua, nor the thousands upon thousands of humans were particularly special. Whether they lived or died, or what their fate held, Huang Si merely viewed it all as part of the historical process.

However, regardless of morality, Hei Zi was indeed someone he had paid more attention to. In a sense, Hei Zi was not wrong to claim he was favored.

"Do you know why you are dying, and why you lost?"

Why? Hei Zi roared in his heart. Wasn't it because of you! It was because you didn't give me divine artifacts, didn't favor me, that I ended up in this state!

Hei Zi's soul was now showing slight signs of detaching, and Huang Si could even see the fluctuations of his emotions through that soul.

Huang Si had no intention of intervening; he simply continued calmly:

"That is because your thoughts and actions surpassed the era you lived in."

"You are clever and know how to utilize every resource at your disposal."

Whether it was during that comfortable life in the Earth Realm or the days after leaving it.

"You were an implementer of class oppression, the sprout of religious terror; you fooled the masses and propagated the lie of the divine right of kings. If you had been born several thousand years later, you would have fared better than you did now."

"However, this is a primitive society."

Huang Si hugged his knees and looked up at the distant starry sky; the stars in this world were quite beautiful, too.

"The overly primitive tools of production and the overly low productivity make it impossible for the human race to provide enough surplus value to be exploited. Since there is no surplus value at all, it is impossible to establish class rule based on exploitation, accumulation, and oppression."

"When you were being raised in the Earth Realm, all the food you obtained was grown for you by robots, waiting for you to harvest it; you were essentially being provided for. At that time, the human race possessed surplus value that could be exploited by you."

"However, once they escaped with you and no longer possessed that Eden-like life, your deception and oppression could not last. Sooner or later, the others would eventually leave you."

The night wind swept past them, whistling as it scraped away the blood that had crusted over Hei Zi's eyes.

As if in a final moment of clarity before death, Hei Zi struggled to lift his head and looked toward Huang Si.

His throat hissed, and finally, he squeezed out a distorted, toneless sentence:

"So, this is what you look like... Then, tell me, are you a god? Tell me, are you truly a divine being... or... just a hallucination as I die..."

Huang Si looked at him and said, "I am an ordinary person."

Upon hearing this completely unexpected answer, Hei Zi's body struggled one last time, and then, he became completely motionless.

Huang Si watched as Hei Zi's soul emerged from his body and then gradually dissipated.

He reached out and closed Hei Zi's eyelids.

"Not assimilating you is my respect for you."

Respect for this interesting soul.

Volume Two begins.

Starting from Volume Two, I will change to chapters of over two thousand words, otherwise, it is difficult to divide the segments.

It is not cutting corners; it is genuinely difficult to divide, because my plot moves too fast. With chapters over 3,000 words, the plot is always cut in half, which is very troublesome. If set to over 2,000, the word count can be more flexible. The update schedule remains the same: one chapter in the morning, one in the evening. If there are two updates, they will not be later than 9 PM. Usually, they will be updated around 8 PM.