Apocalypse Forecast

Ten minutes later, on the wobbly little cart.

Huai Shi, coming to his senses, took a deep breath and tried to reassess the situation.

"Name?" he asked, staring at the mysterious skeleton brother in front of him.

"Uh, Ba... Pu Luo... Fu?" The skeleton hesitated as well.

"How did we suddenly switch to biology?" Huai Shi wanted to pull his hair out, "Didn’t you just say Publius! This has nothing in common except for the ’Pu’ part!"

The skeleton shrugged innocently, "I’m not sure either, you know?"

Huai Shi’s eye twitched, and he asked again, "Gender?"

"Male... maybe?" the skeleton replied, "Probably?"

Huai Shi felt like he was already using up a year’s worth of deep breaths in a day, rubbing his aching head, and finally asked, "Age?"

"Guess what—" the skeleton slapped his own big trochanter and said indignantly, "I forgot!"

Alright, the name is uncertain, the gender is uncertain, and the age is even more uncertain.

Completely unreliable!

A mysterious skeleton calling itself Publius?

A skeleton that picked him up like trash while he was unconscious, and claims to be a long-dead Great Grandmaster?

This is not just absurd!

With such tight security at the Lunar Prison, how did he manage to escape is one thing... but wasn’t Publius supposed to be dead?

His death should have been thoroughly verified by the Lunar Prison.

Even if he’s a Great Grandmaster, it couldn’t be possible to fake his death to fool the Astronomical Society, right?

Yet, here appears the unique technology of Publius, the Spirit of Nativity... Originally, Huai Shi was prepared to fight to the end against a final boss, but unexpectedly, it suddenly appeared right in front of him.

Well, to be precise, he got picked up by someone.

Thinking of this, Huai Shi couldn’t help but glare resentfully at the Broken Dog.

It’s still wagging its tongue and grinning idiotically!

It forgets who it is just for a bone!

It chewed up the big trochanter and sold him out in return!

Huai Shi rubbed his chin, pondering: if it truly is Publius’s, why didn’t it kill him?

After this period of experiences, he concluded that whether it was Mikhail, Garand, or Publius, as long as they were a Great Grandmaster, they would inevitably have some loose screws.

If they truly wanted to be kind-hearted, why scatter the Spirit of Nativity everywhere? And those cruel acts of Human Alchemy, no matter how you look at it, they don’t seem like things this silly skeleton could do.

The skeleton, completely oblivious to what Huai Shi was pondering, was still amusing itself, using both hands to make its pet mouse Xiao Bai ’fly’.

"Woohoo~"

It looked ecstatic, even Huai Shi started to feel a bit envious.

"Do you... remember anything else?" he asked.

"Nope, all forgotten, just know this eerie place is Helios, and my head’s filled with mismatched stuff." The skeleton scratched its skull and said, "Seems like a few days ago I was just drinking and eating with my uncles, aunts, brothers, and sisters, telling jokes together... but do I have uncles and aunts? Did you see any on the way here?"

I’ve seen unknown numbers of corpses, don’t know which one is your uncle!

Huai Shi desperately scratched his head for a while, accidentally pulled out a strand of hair, becoming even more heartbroken.

The world is so complex, and this situation so strange, if this continues... in a few hundred years, I’ll probably be bald like Liu DongLi!

It’s truly distressing.

"So you’ve been wandering here for this long?" Huai Shi asked in confusion, "And nothing’s happened?"

"Those ghostly things rarely come to the lower levels, it’s all garbage disposal here... Besides, they don’t seem to recognize me, probably to them, I look no different from a corpse?"

The skeleton shook its head and sighed, its finger stroking the little mouse in its eye socket, "But Fish Ball had it particularly rough, got targeted several times, almost got eaten yesterday, see, its butt is missing a chunk."

"...Why do you call it Fish Ball?"

"Because I picked it up from a bag of fish balls, duh!" The skeleton said matter-of-factly, "I had it all figured out, I picked you up from beside a dog, if you couldn’t remember your name either, I’d call you A-Dog from now on!"

"What the hell, A-Dog!" Huai Shi was stunned, pointing to the Broken Dog beside him and asking, "Then if I’m A-Dog, what’s it called!"

"I found it in a hole, so it’s Ah Dong!"

The skeleton chuckled proudly, its jaw creaking as it rubbed against its bones, still playing with the Broken Dog with a piece of its arm, not getting angry even when the Broken Dog tore it apart.

And finally, the worn-down little tricycle stopped in a secluded tunnel.

After getting off, Huai Shi studied it for a long time but couldn’t find any high-tech equipment on the tricycle, just an ordinary tricycle with no navigation function, no speed control, it was even pedal-powered, how could it move on its own?

"How did you do it?" he asked curiously.

"Isn’t it simple?" The skeleton raised its hand, pointing to the handlebars and wheels where there were a few runes, "Look, like this, like this, and like this... I figured it could move like that!"

Only now did Huai Shi, from beneath scratches and cracks, notice the few ancient and intricate Alchemy Runes, the craftsmanship clearly surpassed most Alchemists he had encountered!