Hawk, leaning against the railing, glanced at a backpack at his feet, then looked at the anxious Dr. Merrick who was almost in tears. He raised an eyebrow, bent over to pick up the backpack, and handed it to Dr. Merrick.
"Here."
"Oh, God, thank you."
Dr. Merrick instinctively took the backpack, glanced at Hawk, thanked him, then opened his own backpack and took out a seemingly ordinary red apple that appeared to have been bitten. He put down the backpack, held the apple with both hands, and sighed in relief.
"Thank heaven..."
Dr. Merrick muttered to himself, then seemed to think of something, his body stiffened, and he turned his head mechanically like a zombie, eyes wide open, slowly looking to the side.
What he saw.
Hawk smiled brightly at Dr. Merrick and said, "Hello."
The next second.
He reached out and snatched the bitten red apple from Dr. Merrick's hands.
Dr. Merrick was dumbfounded.
Then he went crazy, roaring as he lunged at Hawk, trying to take back the red apple.
"Give it back..."
"Snap!"
Hawk glanced at the frantic Dr. Merrick lunging at him like a mad dog, thought for a moment, and froze him in place, then examined the bitten red apple in his hand.
He hadn't paid attention to the backpack at his feet at first.
But now.
Looking at the bitten red apple in his hand, he suddenly noticed that it seemed to have a taste similar to the Infinity Gemstones.
However, this red apple wasn't an Infinity Gemstone, but how to describe it...
A divine object?
Hawk thought to himself, then looked at the emotionally overwhelmed Dr. Merrick in front of him, and then at the red apple in his hand, seeming to have realized something. He raised an eyebrow and asked Dr. Merrick, "Could this be the apple—the one from Eden, the one Adam and Eve took a bite from?"
Legend has it that after being created, Adam and Eve lived in Eden, without clothes, carefree, until Eve was tempted by a serpent and, along with Adam, ate an apple from the Tree of Wisdom, thus gaining a sense of shame. Then God discovered it and expelled them from Eden.
So—
Is this the legendary Wisdom Fruit?
Hawk looked at Dr. Merrick but didn't expect him to answer, nor did he want to hear his answer, so he focused his Sixth Sense on the red apple in front of him.
The next moment.
With a buzzing sound!
Hawk suddenly felt as if he had pierced through something and entered a rounded but missing-a-corner space.
Then.
After scanning the surroundings with his Sixth Sense, Hawk instinctively drew a breath.
So many people.
No, not people, to be precise, so many souls.
The densely packed souls filled almost the entire space, but unlike the restless souls of the Hell Dimension, these souls were pure white and clean like paper, almost as if they had been formatted.
Wait a minute.
Newly pure white formatted souls?
Hawk withdrew his mind from the red apple in his hand and looked at Dr. Merrick again: "Is this why your clones succeeded? You used the souls here to give the clones their own souls?"
Just like when Adam and Eve took a bite of this apple and gained a sense of shame.
But it's not about shame.
It's more accurate to say that the original Adam and Eve also didn't have souls at first, but under the serpent's temptation, they took a bite of the apple, and thus gained a soul. Once they had a soul, they had self-awareness, and with self-awareness naturally came a soul.
So—
"This is not a Good and Evil Apple."
"Rather, it's a Soul Apple."
Hawk thought to himself and then, without hesitation, unfolded his Little Cosmos and directly threw the red apple into his Netherworld.
One thing to say.
This is his trophy.
Thank God, with this apple, even if he doesn't make a deal with Mephisto or invade Heaven, at least in the future, after he materializes his Little Cosmos, the first life in the universe will have a foundation.
Hawk smiled and then released Dr. Merrick.
With a thud!
Just a second after he released Merrick, the latter, still in his lunging posture, stumbled and hit his head on the deck.
But Merrick, still fixated on his red apple, got up with a bloody face and lunged toward Hawk.
"Give me back the apple; that's God's gift..."
With a thud!
As Hawk disappeared in place, Dr. Merrick lunged through Hawk's afterimage and crashed directly into the speedboat's railing, then with another thud, flipped head over heels over the railing, and with a splash, plunged into the sea.
Dr. Merrick resurfaced from the water, desperately paddling, the salt water stinging his wounds, bringing him back to his senses. He looked up at Hawk standing on the deck of the speedboat, his expression filled with terror.
"Hawk."
"You can pray now, Dr. Merrick. I'm giving you the hope to pray to God."
Hawk had no intention of rescuing Dr. Merrick, his hands in his pockets, standing on the deck with a smile, watching Dr. Merrick in the water: "I'll give you five minutes, enough time for you to hope your God appears or sends angels to save you."
It was already night, and the sea had turned icy cold.
Dr. Merrick shivered in the water: "Hawk... no, Mr. Phoenix, I was wrong, it was Hydra who forced me, they wanted me to clone you, I was wrong, please, have mercy on me."
Hawk beamed with a dazzling smile: "I told you to pray to your God, Merrick, not to me. I'm not your God, time is ticking, Merrick, start praying."
With that said.
He stopped looking at Dr. Merrick and instead watched the second hand of his watch tick by.
Five minutes means five minutes.
He was giving God five minutes to either show up and give him an explanation or else he would break into Heaven to demand one from God.
...