Looking through the window, Jason could see the three-hundred-meter-tall behemoth. He glanced at the wall clock, his mind racing. He muttered,
"There are less than twenty minutes until the real apocalypse. Soon, led by the Giants, the Earth will undergo its Ascension, and the sky will become a forbidden zone for humans."
Thinking this, Jason shivered all over. He took out the mysterious, unknown Divine Demon Fruit from his pocket and gently sniffed it. This was his greatest safety net for the future.
As long as he swallowed a Divine Demon Fruit and became an ability user, he would be considered a pillar in the apocalypse, although, even so, people in the middle tier would still become cannon fodder if required.
But it was better than being at the bottom, no matter what.
Jason remembered the days when he was enslaved by A Group and sent to the apocalypse mine, a period that truly felt worse than death.
Ding-dong!
Just as Jason's thoughts were spiraling, the doorbell rang, interrupting him. It was a rhythmic knock:
Knock-knock-knock… Knock-knock-knock… Knock-knock-knock… Knock…
Hearing the three-long-one-short knock, Jason knew exactly who it was. He casually tucked the precious fruit into his pants pocket and slowly walked to the door. Looking through the peephole, he saw a familiar face anxiously waiting outside.
He opened the door.
The person outside was named Johnson, Jason's college classmate. He was average height, with a slightly bulging belly. Though he didn't have much hair left on top, he had managed to straighten the remaining strands with gel. His overall appearance resembled an insurance salesman more than his actual job as a programmer.
Seeing Jason, he said anxiously,
"Jason, do you have any butter? I need it urgently."
"No…" Jason shook his head. "But I have honey at home. Do you want some?"
"No, no!" Johnson shook his head like a rattle. He explained, "My girlfriend rushed to the supermarket and grabbed loads of honey. We have enough honey to last a hundred years!"
"Why are you suddenly looking for butter? Honey should be an acceptable substitute," Jason asked, confused.
"You don't understand. My girlfriend says bread must have butter, or she can't eat it." Johnson said with an air of weariness.
"The apocalypse is almost here. Why are you still worrying about things like that?" Jason said, exasperated.
"Apocalypse? What apocalypse? Nothing has even happened," Johnson said, pointing to the stairwell window.
"It's just that five hundred unexplained Giants suddenly appeared globally, right?"
"That's nothing! I still have to go to work this afternoon!"
"It's the apocalypse, why are you still working?" Jason said in shock. Was this guy born to be an overworked employee? The world was about to end, and he was still thinking about work.
Though, in the future apocalypse, there will be plenty of work for you…
"Didn't you get the message? Mary the Witch wants us to be at our workstations immediately this afternoon, no delays, or all our performance bonuses will be lost. More seriously, we might be fired!" Johnson said, sounding nervous.
"Mary the Witch?" Jason was slightly dazed. He hadn't been to the company since his rebirth, but the name Mary sounded familiar…
"Yeah, Mary! By the way, Mary said you've been absent without leave, and if you don't give her a reasonable explanation, she's going to fire you, and she might not even give you compensation." Johnson said.
"Mary!" Jason's pupils slightly dilated. He finally remembered who Mary was: the infamous Queen of Calamity in the early days before the apocalypse.
She was also a notorious super enforcer in the A Group!
Although she was eventually sold out by A Group as cannon fodder—Jason, a small-time low-ranker, wasn't privy to the specifics—he only knew she had gained a fearsome reputation during the first cycle of the apocalypse but didn't survive to the second cycle, dying in the late stages of the first.
"Old Lin, what are you thinking? Mary the Witch isn't easy to deal with. You had better come to work with me this afternoon and apologize; then this whole thing will blow over," Johnson advised.
Jason didn't speak. He knew time was the best answer, especially since the apocalypse was less than twenty minutes away…
"You haven't gotten into some sort of conflict with Mary the Witch, have you?" Johnson was a chatterbox from a young age. He continued rambling,
"I'm telling you, it's hard to eat sh*t and hard to earn money. It's not easy to find a job now; there are laid-off workers everywhere…"
Jason knew that once this guy opened his floodgates, he wouldn't stop for thirty minutes. He raised a finger and said,
"Stop, stop, stop. Did you come here to borrow butter or to chant a sutra?"
"Hehe, both," Johnson grinned slyly. He said, "You know, since I quit smoking, I haven't had much to relieve stress besides chatting."
"Go chat with your girlfriend," Jason waved his hand in a shooing gesture.
"Oh, her? She has a tendency toward violence. If I talk for more than two minutes, she'll get physical with me." Johnson rubbed his sparse hair, looking like a world-weary middle-aged man. He said,
"My hair was ruined by her abuse…"
"Alright, that's enough." Jason was genuinely afraid the guy would keep talking. He looked into Johnson's eyes, his expression seriously stern.
"Johnson, as your college friend, I'm giving you a piece of advice: absolutely do not go to work today. Stay home."
"What's wrong? What happened?" Johnson noticed something was off. He had never seen Jason so serious and stern. He frowned and asked,
"What exactly happened?"
"Don't ask unnecessary questions. You'll find out soon enough."
"Are you joining some weird apocalypse cult?" Johnson raised an eyebrow, then added,
"You know, ever since these strange Giants appeared on Earth, all sorts of apocalypse cults have popped up."
"You know, I find these Giants quite interesting, but I don't think they have anything to do with the apocalypse. They're probably just some kind of supernatural phenomenon."
"I think scientists will soon come up with a not-too-bad but utterly ridiculous explanation to fool us."
"I admit this provides good soil for all sorts of conspiracy theories, but overall, it's probably more positive."
Jason didn't reply. His gaze was fixed on the window, looking at the Giant in the city. Suddenly, he noticed the Giant seemed to be moving. Its mouth was slightly opening!
The Giant was starting to act!
Seeing this, he quickly looked at the clock in the room. The time displayed was nine o'clock, a full twenty minutes earlier than the original time!
"What's going on? Did the timeline shift?" Jason's face darkened, a bad feeling suddenly washing over him.
"Hey, what's wrong with you? Why do you look so pale? What were you looking at?" Johnson chattered like a parrot. He followed Jason's gaze, and when he saw what was outside, his eyes widened involuntarily. He pointed towards the balcony and cried out,
"The Giant opened its mouth!"
Not just the Giant in A City, but Giants scattered across cities all over the world opened their mouths simultaneously.
They didn't just open their mouths; they emitted a resonating sound from their rotten throats, like the roar of a wild beast, the chanting of a shaman, or the painful wailing of countless beings!
The sound seemed to come from a distant epoch, a voice from your genetic memory. The sound felt incredibly far away, yet also right next to your ear, singing an ancient, mysterious song…
Almost instantly, every living creature on Earth had an instinctual reaction!
"What is that sound… it hurts so much!" Johnson covered his ears and painfully crouched down.
Jason, too, was pale and held onto the door frame. Even though he had been through this once, it still felt unbearable... He knew that from this day forward, humanity—no, every creature on Earth—was about to begin its evolution!
According to the future scientists' theories, in this evolution, it was not just animals and plants; our dear Mother Earth was also beginning to evolve. Or, more accurately:
The Ascension!