Chapter Twenty-Seven: The End

Hearing the stranger speak with a human voice, the two siblings were skeptical; even for a mutant, this seemed far too extraordinary. Jiang Mu glanced at Jiang Yu, silently asking if they should rescue the person below.

"Bring them up first."

Seeing his sister's agreement, Jiang Mu prepared to descend, but Jiang Yu held him back. He turned to her, puzzled. "Sister, didn't you agree?"

"Don't rush down. We have a rope, don't we? Just use the rope to pull them up."

Jiang Yu preferred caution; she feared the person below might be a trap. If Jiang Mu went down, he would have nowhere to hide if danger struck. Even with his strong abilities, the cramped space would hinder his movements.

They lowered the rope and instructed the stranger to secure it around themselves before pulling them up. The stranger hesitated for a moment but ultimately complied.

"How are you feeling? Is anything uncomfortable?" Jiang Mu asked as soon as they brought the individual up. Given that the person was a pregnant woman, he was worried about her condition.

"I'm fine. Thank you both so much."

"That’s a relief. We’ll take you back to the base now, where you can have a full examination."

"I’m sorry for the trouble."

The woman seemed normal enough, yet Jiang Yu remained uneasy, sensing that something was wrong. As they navigated the city searching for a functional vehicle, Jiang Yu kept a watchful eye on the woman, wary of any surprises.

Soon, they encountered mutants. To protect the woman, they left one person to guard her while the other fought. Jiang Yu’s intuition proved correct.

Just as she was distracted by the battle Jiang Mu was engaged in, the woman suddenly pulled out a fruit knife and lunged toward Jiang Yu.

"What do you think you're doing?"

Jiang Yu grabbed the woman's hand in advance and gave it a sharp twist, forcing the knife to drop. The woman smiled at Jiang Yu as if she felt no pain, and Jiang Yu felt the hand she was holding lose its structure, as if the bones had melted away, leaving only a layer of skin.

Suddenly, a mutant burst forth from the woman’s abdomen. Jiang Yu retreated quickly, watching the creature with intense vigilance. She was shocked; when had mutants evolved to this extent? The creature before her was massive, its own stomach distended as if pregnant, and smaller, ordinary mutants crawled out from its body, advancing toward her.

Jiang Yu glared at the creature, realizing it was the source of the mission they had failed to complete previously. Jiang Mu, noticing the commotion, finished off the mutants surrounding him and rushed over to assist. Seeing the lifeless body of the pregnant woman nearby, he immediately understood the situation.

"We have to find a way to kill that creature." Both knew that unless this entity was destroyed, the stream of mutants would never end.

After three days and nights of fierce fighting, they finally defeated their target. Following this incident, Jiang Mu began joining Jiang Yu in traveling to various cities to eradicate mutants. Every so often, they would escort groups of survivors to a safe base, and Jiang Yu would provide Jiang Yi with items she had exchanged from the system store.

Five years passed, and Jiang Yu finally accumulated enough points to exchange for the energy required to wipe out all mutants.

[Host, do you wish to spend ten billion points to exchange for the energy sufficient to eliminate all mutants?]

"Exchange."

[Exchange successful. Points balance is now zero.]

In the next second, everyone—whether they were locked in combat or being hunted—witnessed the mutants dissolving before their eyes, leaving behind only their crystal cores as proof of their existence.

Jiang Yu had been prepared for this moment. A bottle designed to seal the system had been placed in the center, surrounded by a crowd of Awakened ones. At Jiang Yu’s signal, they all channeled their energy into the bottle. The system, sensing danger, tried to escape, but it could not break through the containment. It had always believed it resided within Jiang Yu’s body, never suspecting that she had long since isolated it in a separate space.

-[Warning, warning... The system is being destroyed, the game is about to fail!]-

The player behind the scenes, who thought they were on the verge of clearing the game, was stunned by the sudden error. "What is happening? Escape from their body immediately!"

[Unable to escape.]

"Boom!"

-[Warning, warning. Game failed. Fifty percent of the player's health points have been deducted.]-

The player’s remaining health was wiped out; they were dead.

Jiang Yu waited for a final wave of mutants, but none came. It was clear that they would never return.

"Did we win?"

"We succeeded!"

The crowd cheered in celebration. The trajectory of this life had diverged from the previous one. With the threat of the mutants gone, the world began its plans for post-disaster reconstruction. Their lives were finally returning to normal.