At the End of the Wasteland, Who Stands at the Peak?

The East District residents all looked astonished. They had never expected that there would really be an idiot willing to come out and die.

This Fate Roulette was different from the usual ones. Normally, winning a single round was enough, but this time, one had to keep winning until the forbidden artifact acknowledged them. Magic Hand Li You from the West District had won three rounds in a row and fired five shots without gaining its recognition. The difficulty was obvious.

"Who? Who's that brave?"

Everyone turned to look and saw a ragged young man slowly approaching, chains dragging from his feet.

The youth's face was covered in mud, obscuring his features. Only his eyes shone with unusual brightness, completely at odds with everyone around him.

The others' eyes were either numb and dim or cruel and greedy, yet the light in the youth's gaze had never gone out. It was a flame woven from civilization and savagery.

"Bai Ye?" someone cried out.

"Wasn't he crazy before?"

"Nonsense. If he weren't crazy, would he step forward at a time like this?"

"I heard Bai Ye got contaminated by something while hunting in the wasteland. When he came back, he went completely mad, always muttering things like, 'I am the god of the new era! From today onward, I shall stand above the heavens...'"

"Not just that. I even heard him reciting poetry. Something like, 'At the end of the wasteland, who stands at the peak? At the sight of Bai Ye, the Dao becomes empty. Wind and snow have weighed upon me for two or three years, yet I tread through the snow to the mountaintop...'"

Hearing their whispers, Bai Ye's face darkened as unbearable black history flooded his mind.

When he had first transmigrated here and discovered that he had awakened the power to stop time, he had skipped straight ahead to the "I don't eat beef" part without a second thought.

He had called himself the god of a new era and seen everyone as insignificant trash.

By sheer coincidence, Tan Jie and his men had come to collect protection money. Bai Ye had flown into a rage on the spot. What garbage? A mere East District ruler, an ant-like nobody, and they dared collect protection money from a god!?

He had immediately launched into a barrage of insults. Facing Tan Jie and the others' black gun barrels, he had been about to display divine might and unleash his godly power—only to freeze up in embarrassment. Time stopped for two seconds before resuming because he had wasted over fifty seconds testing his ability earlier.

That was when he discovered that he could only stop time for one minute each day.

After that, he had ended up like this, demoted from a resident to a slave.

In the era of the Great Cataclysm, there was no shortage of people whose minds had been contaminated. Tan Jie and the others had merely assumed he was insane. Unwilling to waste labor, they had demoted him to a slave.

The past was too unbearable to revisit. Fortunately, Bai Ye's face was grimy enough that no one could see his expression.

When Tan Jie, ruler of the East District, heard that someone had volunteered, he was overjoyed. But when he looked closely at the newcomer, his expression immediately turned strange.

Bai Ye?!

Wasn't this kid crazy?

Just this morning, the brat had stood before him claiming to be a god, muttering nonsense about creating a new era...

"You..." Tan Jie hesitated.

"I'm cured. I accidentally ate some poisonous mushrooms in the wild before and had a few hallucinations," Bai Ye said without changing expression.

He had always loved telling little lies.

Seeing that Bai Ye spoke clearly and no longer called himself a god, Tan Jie could not help but look delighted. He knew there were indeed poisonous mushrooms in the wild that could cause hallucinations. Some people even deliberately sought them out to eat.

"Little Bai, I thought your mind had been contaminated before, which was why I demoted you to a slave. Don't worry. As long as you can contain [Breath of Bones], I'll not only restore your resident status, but I'll also become sworn brothers with you! From then on, the East District will belong to the two of us!"

Tan Jie's tone was exceptionally warm. After all, making empty promises cost nothing.

Bai Ye sneered disdainfully. He had swallowed enough empty promises in his previous life. His bosses had served them up every day, and he was sick of them already. Naturally, he would not believe Tan Jie's nonsense.

"Unlock it." He shook the iron chain around his ankle.

At Bai Ye's rude command, a cold glint flashed through Tan Jie's eyes, but he smiled and said, "Look at my memory, I nearly forgot. Someone, unlock Little Bai's chain."

One of the lackeys hurried over with a key and unlocked Bai Ye's ankle shackles.

Bai Ye moved his somewhat stiff legs, then kicked the mummified corpse on the chair.

Bang!

The corpse flew more than three feet away and shattered all over the ground.

His arrogant entrance made everyone glance at him repeatedly. In truth, he wanted to keep a low profile, but his strength simply would not allow it!

With the power to stop time, how could he possibly stay low-key? Though he only had one minute and could not become the god of a new era, he could still be an arrogant man, right?

Across from him, Magic Hand Li You narrowed his eyes slightly. Watching the youth make such an overbearing entrance, he became somewhat wary.

He had some impression of this boy from the East District. People said Bai Ye was a lone wolf of the wasteland who rarely interacted with others and survived by hunting.

These days, anyone who dared hunt alone in the wasteland was not to be underestimated.

But later, he had heard that Bai Ye had gone crazy. So it had been because he ate poisonous mushrooms by mistake.

Still, would a wasteland hunter accidentally eat poisonous mushrooms? Had he been starving, or was he chasing a thrill?

While Li You was pondering, Bai Ye had already sat across from him.

If he had not feared that Tan Jie would surrender outright, he would definitely have waited longer before coming up.

Because it was now 23:55.

After that earlier blunder, he had thoroughly figured out his time-stopping ability. He had even understood the source of it: time desynchronization!

Time desynchronization sounded complicated, and the actual explanation... was complicated too.

Only someone standing within the dimension of time could fully comprehend its mysteries, just as low-dimensional beings found it difficult to understand higher dimensions.

He could not accurately describe the principle behind his power with words. Only through metaphors could his brain barely make sense of it.

Simply put, the world he had come from—the civilized world of two hundred years ago—and the current Great Cataclysm world had different rates of time flow.

There was a one-minute discrepancy between the two worlds.

Whether before or after the Great Cataclysm, humanity defined a day as twenty-four hours.

But if calculated according to a true twenty-four hours, a day in the civilized world was twenty-four hours, while a day in the Great Cataclysm world was actually one minute slower: twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes.

He did not know the reason for the discrepancy. It had probably been caused by the Great Cataclysm a century ago.

His soul, as a creature of the twenty-four-hour world, had arrived in a world with only twenty-three hours and fifty-nine minutes. Every day, he gained one extra minute of freely usable time!

That was why Bai Ye could stop time for one minute every day.

"Let's begin," Li You said.

"Are you going first, or am I?" Bai Ye knowingly asked in order to stall for time.

Li You frowned. "Naturally, we decide the order with rock-paper-scissors. Even if you've never played Fate Roulette, didn't you understand after watching just now?"

Bang!

Bai Ye slammed his palm onto the table. The sound was so loud that it startled everyone from both the East and West Districts, and some even instinctively reached for their guns.

"Who are you calling blind?! I'm asking you, who are you calling blind?! Say it again if you've got the guts!"

Li You stared at him in confusion. "When did I call you blind...?"

"You still dare say that!" Bai Ye erupted in fury, grabbing Li You by the collar of his floral shirt as though he were about to beat him up.

Click, click...

King Snake and the others from the West District all drew their guns and aimed them at Bai Ye.

Tan Jie and the others behind Bai Ye reacted as though provoked, hurriedly drawing their own guns and aiming them back.

Both sides stood at sword's point, as if a gunfight could break out at any moment.