Perhaps because his mindset had changed, or perhaps because he had passed through two Quest Worlds in a row, the dull life Qin Lun lived recently—shuttling only between the Training Ground and his Villa—gave him a feeling of fullness inside.
Apostles were different from ordinary people. Ordinary people usually ran around making a living and felt life was simple and monotonous, always hoping for a bit of adventure and excitement. Apostles, on the other hand, lived on the edge of life and death all year round, so they cherished the break without adventures even more. Most of them either spent their time on entertainment or on intense training.
However, Qin Lun and his kind of Serial Killers were different from ordinary Apostles. Because of their abnormal psychology, everyday life felt like prison to them. They were always seeking adventures that would stimulate their minds; only unknown challenges could awaken their sense of existence.
That such a dull and simple life could create a sense of fulfillment in Qin Lun’s heart was truly a strange thing.
But compared to Joey, who now took a perverse pleasure in the art of killing, Qin Lun had one advantage: his personality had a strong tendency to accept circumstances as they came. He wasn’t troubled by his current strange psychological state. After brief reflection, he even decided not to give himself a psychological evaluation, simply living by the day.
Qin Lun vaguely sensed that his current state was rather abnormal. Letting this continue would have unpredictable effects on both him and Joey. To put it bluntly, their emotional factors were gradually growing richer; they were slowly starting to develop thoughts normal people would have.
It was hard to say whether this change was good or bad. In fact, this wasn’t the first time Qin Lun had experienced such a transformation. Whether in his childhood or during his time in prison, he had undergone shifts both from normal person to Serial Killer, and from Serial Killer back to normal.
Yet every time he went through this transformation, by the final stage, he would lose most of the memories of that period, retaining only fragmented images. It was like reinstalling a computer system: most of the stored content would be erased, or those memories would be hidden in a backup drive that neither he nor Joey could access.
The only feeling he and Joey retained was that every time this transformation ended, the people in the prison—whether guards or inmates—would look at him with even more fear, as if he were a demon wearing human skin.
After spending nearly two weeks at the Training Ground, Qin Lun’s dull, two-point life finally saw a change.
“Hansen… party? I know, I’ll go there tonight!” One afternoon, after finishing his sword training, Qin Lun received a projection message from Disciple Hansen.
Qin Lun closed the projection and let his eyes flicker for a moment. Hansen’s initiative in contacting him was a bit surprising; usually, Shepherd Hill was responsible for coordinating among them.
Ever since the five Serial Killers started considering the idea of banding together as a team, they had consciously begun entering Quest Worlds together.
This wasn’t because they depended on each other, but because they wanted to observe their companions and test one another. Even if they couldn’t become life-and-death companions in the future, the Serial Killers still hoped to learn more about the others so they could cooperate better later.
During the two weeks Qin Lun rested, the other four Serial Killers had been going into Quest Worlds in pairs. Firecracker Rand and Disciple Hansen formed one group; Shepherd Hill and Clown Grant formed another. Of course, there were also the tag-alongs “beauty” Lili and “Handsome Guy” Silva.
This time, Hansen’s active contact with Qin Lun was clearly because Rand and he had encountered some major changes in the Quest World.
Qin Lun thought for a while but gave up trying to figure it out. The scope was too large; even he couldn’t find a clue.
“You’re all here!” That evening, when Qin Lun arrived at the “Golden Crown Cup” bar, he found the other four Serial Killers, as well as Lili and Silva, were already present.
“Did something happen?” Seeing Hansen’s grave expression, Qin Lun’s heart stirred.
Disciple Hansen was different from the other Serial Killers; in a way, he was more normal than the rest. Among all the Serial Killers, Qin Lun had multiple personalities; after experiencing a tragedy in life, Rand developed an extreme obsession with fire; Shepherd Hill had a twisted mindset regarding religious beliefs; as for Clown Grant, due to childhood experiences, he was a complete psychopath.
Hansen’s psychological issue was post-war trauma. A life of killing that started from childhood had fostered a violent, bloodthirsty nature in him. He could only feel a sense of existence through killing; he grew restless if he didn’t kill for a few days. Conversely, once his killing urge was satisfied, Disciple, used to a soldier’s life, was actually the most disciplined.
Normally, even in life-or-death moments, Disciple remained expressionless, with psychological resilience as strong as a machine’s. For him to show such a grave expression indicated something big.
“Hansen, Rand, and Silva encountered the Death Hunting Mission from our previous experience in this Quest World,” Hill said slowly, his usual kindly smile on his face.
“You ran into Reincarnators from Superstring Space?” Qin Lun’s eyes flashed, then he frowned. “What’s the problem?”
Clearly, Hansen and Rand wouldn’t gather everyone just because they encountered Reincarnators. These two were not the type to make a fuss over nothing, and since they returned safely, they wouldn’t simply bring up old matters lightly.
“The Quest World we went to this time was the Earth Federation—no, more precisely, it was hundreds of years before the Earth Federation unified, in the old Earth calendar—the year 2012 A.D., when it faced the end of the world!” Rand said with a grim expression.
“That’s impossible!” Qin Lun narrowed his eyes slightly, a dangerous gleam appearing in them. “Maybe it’s just a world very similar to the Earth Federation?!”
Qin Lun had reason to be so assertive. If Hansen and Rand truly went back to the Earth Federation’s A.D. era, it would mean Apostles could return to their original world. If there really was a world-ending event, then the existence of Qin Lun and the others wouldn’t make sense.
“Qin Lun, let them finish first!” Hill stopped smiling and spoke calmly.
“We’re quite sure that world is the old calendar of the Earth Federation, because not only did they record world history, but Silva even found his ancestor there!” Rand said with a bitter smile. “You should know Silva comes from nobility—his family was quite famous during that period, so he shouldn’t have mistaken it.”
“This is impossible!” This time, it was Grant who couldn’t hold back a roar. Clown stood up abruptly, upsetting the coffee table in front of him. “If Apostles can really go back to the past, then what meaning does our existence have?”
“What if it has nothing to do with our existence?” Disciple, who had remained silent until now, suddenly spoke gravely.
“Has nothing to do with our existence?” Hill frowned slightly, reached out to restrain Clown, and asked cautiously, “Go on…”
Hansen and Rand exchanged a glance, both of them wearing a wry smile simultaneously. At Disciple’s signal, Silva, who was more eloquent, began to explain to everyone.
In reality, across the many universes and Space-Times, there was one and only one Main World. The past, present, and future of the Main World formed a shining river of history.
However, this river of history was different from ordinary rivers. At its upstream—the historical past—the water was nearly solid, almost no longer flowing. The water that surged forward represented the present history. As for the future water, it had no solid form; it was made up of ethereal, intangible ribbons, full of infinite possibilities, constantly changing as the present water surged forward.
Apostles could indeed enter their original world, even the historical past, but the ripples they made were generally insignificant, covered by the tides of history, and did not affect the course of the historical river.
Of course, a few Apostles did bring drastic changes to their original world. Whenever that happened, the river of history would give rise to a branch. This branch did not affect the main river; it only became an independent fork.
This independent forked branch of history would form a world with a shared past with the Main World, called a Shadow World. Each universe would have only one Main World, but it could have countless Shadow Worlds.
In other words, even if Hansen and Hill killed their ancestors in that world, they wouldn’t disappear. Because the Space-Time Law would default it as a forking event in the Shadow World, thus not affecting the Main World.
There were many reasons why Shadow Worlds came into being. Even something like a meteor impact explosion could stir Space-Time turbulence, causing the Main World to passively generate a Shadow World. The influence of Apostles in this process was actually very small.
Compared to the Main World, Shadow Worlds had much shorter lifespans, but the people living in them wouldn’t really notice. For example, during Earth Federation’s World War II, if Nazi Germany were affected by Space-Time turbulence and ended up winning the war, a Shadow World would be born.
However, this world might be globally destroyed very quickly for many inexplicable reasons, so this historical branch simply took a turn and then returned to the main course of the historical river. Those who didn’t understand the cause would blame various external factors, but the real reason was the strong inertia of the Main World’s history, forcing the Space-Time essence that diverged into the Shadow World to return to the Main World.
Of course, there was an exception: if the influence of the Shadow World grew too great, causing the branch to gradually become the mainstream, and the entire river of history changed direction completely. At that point, the primary and secondary would reverse, and it might be the Main World that faced destruction.
“This information is very valuable, but it doesn’t seem related to us, does it?” After hearing Silva’s explanation, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. However, the question arose: given Hansen and Rand’s temperaments, they probably wouldn’t have gathered everyone just for this.
“Handsome Guy said so much just to give you some background, to help you understand the next piece of information,” Rand sighed and waved his hand, signaling Silva to let him tell the rest.
“You all probably know more or less the essence of the Death Hunting Mission. Shattered Starry Sky is the World Essence Plunderer; Superstring Space is the Space-Time Manager—the two sides are opposed.” Rand said seriously. “Because we were so familiar with the Earth Federation, we achieved a great victory in the last Quest World, almost wiping out the Reincarnators team from Superstring Space and capturing their Leader alive. From him, we obtained an important piece of information…”
