Epoch of Twilight

Meanwhile, in a cave not far away from where Luo Yuan was, a group of people congregated in excitement.

"Chief, through my observation from the sidelines all this time, and the hundreds of inquiries I have made, I have managed to gather information about the current situation. It seems that there is going to be an insect plague very soon." The man speaking was in a military uniform, and he was addressing another young man, his eyes filled with a trace of fanaticism.

The man that he had addressed as chief had a childlike face. Judging by his appearance, he could not be over 20. He had to be 16 or 17 at the most. Facing the thirty-something military officer, the teenager showed indifference and a hint of arrogance.

"If what you say is true, then this is our chance!" Said the man faintly, patting the shoulder of the other man. "You did well. You can leave first, but do not act rashly. We need to avoid being found."

The teenager was dressed shabbily. His clothes were full of holes, and he did not look much better than a homeless man. However, his skin was silky smooth and white, and his hair was sleek and glossy. His eyes were as black as ink, his irises almost covering the white of his eyes. His appearance gave off an air of mystery; he was dressed in dirty, tattered clothes, yet he had a distinctive elegance about him.

The major did not say much. He just nodded, turned around and left the cave.

"Sister Mo, how is he? Are there any signs of escaping?" the teenager suddenly said after a while, his tone more gentle.

"No, it is not that easy to break from my hypnosis. I could tell him to commit suicide, and he would gladly do it," said a demure, soft-spoken young woman in a gentle tone. Her words made everyone in the cave shiver.

There was nothing magical about hypnosis. Any ordinary person could master some of its tricks if they trained enough. However, even though normal hypnosis could make someone obey a certain order, it could not make the hypnotized person commit suicide. That was because such a thing would clash with their subconscious, resulting in a failure of the hypnosis.

The teenager did not seem surprised, though. He actually looked amused as he said, "I certainly do not doubt your abilities, Sister Mo. It’s just that the critical time is getting closer now, and we must be more cautious."

"Is this necessary, Xiao Yu1?" said the young woman named Sister Mo, looking at the teenager in confusion.

"You’re thinking conservatively, Sister Mo!" The teenager shook his head and turned around. When he raised his head again, there was an arrogant expression on his face. "This is the apocalypse! The previous era is about to end soon. Hereafter, only the strongest will rule. The world is destined to be ruled by the evolved. Times will change. I am only adapting to those changes, but I must have the Desert City."

"Even if you take it, you will be unable to defend it," said the young woman worriedly.

"I do not need to defend it. I only need to govern it by law. Regardless of who is the superior, with my ability and your hypnosis, there will be nothing that we cannot do." The teenager gave her a cold smile. "As long as we can reach that stage, we can slowly plan the rest!"

"There is nothing to worry about, sister-in-law. The Desert City is just a small town without any decent evolved humans around. There won’t be any danger. As long as you can control some of the leaders, we will have the final say. You just don’t fully in trust our boss’ capabilities yet," a man said laughingly. He had a yellow skin tone, and his body was heavily built.

As she heard how the man had addressed her, the young woman’s face went red. She gave the teenager a displeased look and looked down silently.

The brilliant color on the young woman’s face sent the teen’s heart aflutter. If there hadn’t been people around, he would have carried her to the inner room and fervently taken her.

Although he’d had sexual relations with dozens of women since the beginning of the apocalypse, he had forgotten most of them easily. However, his feelings for Sister Mo were special. When he’d been in junior high, Sister Mo had been his language teacher and his secret crush.

At the time, he had been antisocial, thin, and insecure. He had been a wallflower in class, and had belonged to a group of ignored and bullied students. Only the beautiful, gentle language teacher had cared about him, so she had always been the object of his desire in his youthful fantasies.

That tender, beautiful body, those moist lips and that gentle demeanor used to appear often in his dreams. If the end of the world had not come though, this incestuous relationship might not have come to light, and he would have only occasionally dreamed of being intimate with her.

However, those that were gifted were destined to shine. Just like ugly caterpillars transformed into butterflies and soared in the skies, so did he. Even before there was any sign of the impending apocalypse, he had already developed his superpowers.

His special abilities were inherent, different from the people who had obtained theirs through the consumption of mutated beasts. One day, he had discovered an electrical current on his hands, and from that moment on, everything in his small world had suddenly changed.

He had hidden his power from his parents while he had secretly absorbed electrical power and stored it. His body had undergone extreme changes, and he had rapidly grown tall and strong as his strength had grown day by day.

He had gradually become more and more confident. Girls that had been uninterested in him before had started to shower him with attention, and the b*stards that had tormented him before no longer dared to be mean to him.

As the apocalypse had been approaching, the city had become more dangerous and violent. His parents were killed by burglars due to his negligence. Three days after he’d buried them, he had finally tracked down their murderer.

He had made his first kill while also rescuing two women that had been threatened by the murderer. He had also experienced his first pleasure between a man and a woman that night. After they had been rescued, the victims had gotten into bed with him and pleasured him in every way, letting him savor all that pleasure in delight.

He had matured in a single night. As the city had grown more chaotic and dangerous, he had been like a fish in a pond. With his strong powers, very few mutated beasts could beat him. Through both coercion and willingness, the number of his conquests increased, from the school beauty to white-collar women, heiresses, and mistresses of the rich and powerful...

Even his language teacher had not been able to escape his grasp.

Still, all good things eventually come to an end. Soon, the military had come, and the city had regained its law and order. Nonetheless, he had continued to act recklessly, not wanting to give up his old ways. He had been forcefully repressed by the newly-arrived military, and had been forced to enlist in the army. Soon after, most of the women had left him, one after the other. Only a small number of them had remained, but his teacher had been one of them.

These events had been followed by the large-scale migration, and life in the army had really depressed him. He could not stand the strict lifestyle of a soldier or the remarks made by weak, ordinary humans on his natural superpowers.

Most evolved people like him even though the relationship between normal soldiers and evolved people had been hostile. Finally, the big purge had come. Several of the most arrogant and wildest evolved people had been captured one by one, and those who had resisted had been executed on the spot.

Only a few of them had been able to escape, but he had been one of them.

He’d been a stage-four evolved person, so when he had been surrounded, he had burned the entire army squad with a sudden strike of lightning. Before any back-up managed to arrive, he had broken into the Desert City with a horse and a gun to pick up his women.

...

"Someday, I will get my revenge. I will rule the entire Reconstruction Area," the teenager thought to himself.

"After I was struck by lightning during that catastrophic electromagnetic storm, my abilities have undergone some kind of mysterious transformation. I have no idea what the level of my powers even is. I have already long surpassed level four. I could be level five, six, or maybe even seven."

"I have also long abandoned the uncontrollable release of electrical charge."

"In my eyes, this is an electromagnetic world. There are countless magnetic fields blending into the array of an invisible network, and I control all electromagnetic energy," he thought furtively.

"I could fly with the help of the earth’s magnetic field, and I could easily disturb the air, which has an abundance of electromagnetic particles, to trigger a lightning storm. Under the guidance of others, I have mastered creating electromagnetic bombs."

"I could even feel the radio waves in the air that transfer messages, except that I don’t know how the transmission is encrypted, so I’m unable to decrypt the information. My body has also undergone some kind of transformation. My thoughts have become sharper, and things that I was unable to figure out before have become clearer now. My muscles have also become stronger, and my skin is firmer and smoother. My cravings for food have become less, so it seems like my development is inclined towards a non-human path."

He took a look at his palm, which seemed to have a faint electrical pulse flowing through it, "I have become invincible. If it wasn’t for the nuclear bombs, the entire Reconstruction Area would not even be worth mentioning."

"Nonetheless, we’ve almost reached our goal. The control of the Desert City is only the first step!"

"All those who have betrayed me and the women who have left me, everyone will regret it one day!"

...

"Boss, two mutated beasts have been roaming near our place lately. Should we go deal with them?" a young man in glasses said calmly, interrupting his reverie.

"Do not act rashly during this time. We don’t want to arouse any suspicion. These two are no ordinary mutated beasts. They’re battle beasts implanted with microchips. If we killed them, they would expose our location. Although we are not afraid of that happening, it would be very troublesome to deal with it," said the young man lightly. He had mastered the electromagnetic waves, so he could naturally feel the beasts’ bodies transmitting radio waves.

"Boss, someone is here!" Someone suddenly came in with eyes that had an unusual amber color which looked somewhat transparent.

"Who would come here?" The young man gave a faint smile, mockingly dismissing his words by saying, "The King of Fire or the God of the Beasts? I have to say, these titles are ridiculous!"

Everyone burst into raucous laughter.

"They’re merely a group of villagers, acting self-righteous with the little superpowers that they have. If it wasn’t for our modest boss, they’d not even be able to show-off!"

"This is not one of them. He looks unfamiliar, and his clothes don’t look dirty," said the guy with the amber eyes. His superpower was long-range vision. His pupils could expand and contract at will like a camera lens adjusting its focus. He could even spot a tiny pebble located ten kilometers away, seeing its pattern clearly and in detail.

One could easily distinguish between the homeless and the non-homeless just by looking at their attire. The homeless usually wore shabby clothes or beasts’ pelts. People dressed in clean, tidy clothes were rare in that area.

"I think that he is from the Desert City. I would have never thought that there would someone brave enough to venture into the wild. I’m very intrigued. Let’s go and have a look," the young man said with a trace of a playful smile.

"This person is bad luck," everyone thought after seeing the young man’s expression.

The group followed the young man, filing out. The intruder was still a good five to six kilometers away. From such a long distance, the others could not see him, but the young man had noticed him at first glance.

He looked on condescendingly with a nonchalant smile on his face.

Suddenly, the man turned around and looked straight in their direction. His eyes seemed to penetrate the air and imprint on the teenager’s mind.

Not a single emotion could be detected on his calm gaze. He looked like a person walking down the road, occasionally looking over their shoulder indifferently. The young man went stiff, and took another look. The man had already turned back and started walking away.

"He has the guts to ignore me!" A hint of color flashed across his face. As his emotions surged, a faint lightning could be seen nearby, producing a popping sound.

He knew that his anger was uncalled for. Maybe the other man had not even known that someone had been watching him. There was no point in continuing to observe him if he could not see them. After all, the distance was too long. Even his vision was slightly blurred. The man’s eyes had made a strong impression on him, though. He could not help but smile. "No wonder he dared to go out in the wilderness. His response was quite sharp."

The bespectacled man, who was closely observing their leader, noticed the young man’s fast change of emotion. He adjusted his glasses and said, "We’re going through the most critical period of time, and all of a sudden this guy shows up near our turf. Could he perhaps be a spy for the Desert City? Should we capture him?"

Before the young man could reply, the young woman stared at the bespectacled man with an unhappy expression, and told the young man, "The man was just passing by, he did not attack us. You should not do anything to him, Xiao Yu."

The young man turned around, his eyes burning with passion. He really liked it when his teacher was being authoritative. He associated with the fiery hot, plump body under her clothes, and the very thought excited him.

With a loud gasp, he picked up the young woman. As she struggled to free herself, he strode into the cave. His earlier annoyance had long been forgotten.

"Teacher Mo..." the young man’s voice echoed from within the cave.

The few men left looked at one another with a strange expression on their faces.

Translator Notes:

1 Xiao Yu (小羽) - Similar to a 小宇 in Chapter 62 that was translated as Little Yu which also reads as xiao3 yu3 in its pinyin form. The translation in this chapter is also has the same pronunciation, but is a different person.