Final Ending

Lu Yuanming forcefully kicked the monster's corpse away from the opening and then carefully crawled out through it.

The surroundings were very quiet, except for some cluttered noises in the distance, the rooftop of this building and the several floors below were completely silent.

Obviously, more than ten days had passed, and the hoard of monsters had moved on.

The monster he had killed had already started to decay, its hindquarters eaten away with many gaps, revealing pitch-black viscera and skeleton in many places. The entire creature looked even more grotesque and terrifying, and a pungent stench of decay permeated the room.

Lu Yuanming quickly left the room and also checked his body as he went.

The body that had been badly damaged and nearly fatally wounded had now completely healed. Both legs and arms were unharmed, even the scratches that had been pierced by steel bars on his body had fully healed.

"Is it because I returned to my physical body?"

Lu Yuanming muttered to himself in a low voice, unsure whether the healing was due to the crossing itself or the body's regeneration with the soul.

But either way, this was his great fortune.

Following that, Lu Yuanming explored the floor with great caution, and he also carefully avoided the building's damaged walls and open windows, to prevent his figure from being seen from outside.

Those monsters had extremely keen vision. They had spotted the three people on the rooftop from the bottom floor initially. Lu Yuanming did not know how many monsters were in this post-mortem world, nor whether these monsters could spot him from a great distance. To avoid all accidents, he could only choose to expose himself as little as possible.

When he first arrived in this post-mortem world, he had been chased by monsters while still on the rooftop, so he never got the chance to explore the floors of this building. Now, as Lu Yuanming explored, he discovered that this floor was supposed to be for office use, with the broken papers on the ground vaguely showing some commercial charts and the like, which were basically of no significant value.

There were also some broken pieces of furniture. Among them, Lu Yuanming found pens, a mobile power bank, nail clippers, cosmetics, and a variety of other trinkets. Most of these trinkets were damaged, with the more technologically advanced items being more severely damaged. For instance, a mobile power bank was essentially completely destroyed, while items like nail clippers were still usable.

And peering out carefully through the windows and broken walls, Lu Yuanming saw some of New York City's landmark buildings, but from their appearance, they were also severely damaged, looking as if they had been through a war. Buildings that had collapsed, collapsed, and what was left remained incomplete, with basically no intact buildings.

Why is the post-mortem world a ruined, destroyed New York City?

Who built this city in the post-mortem world?

Was it replicated exactly like the world of the living?

And why is it damaged? Was there really a war?

These questions made Lu Yuanming very perplexed.

During his exploration, Lu Yuanming confirmed again and again that he had indeed become stronger.

Judging by the strength he could exert with his hands and his running speed, he had become stronger, more powerful, and faster. Although the improvement was not exaggerated, his strength and speed had clearly increased. In just over ten days, he had gone from a junkie's frailty to the condition of a regularly exercising, robust man.

After several tests, Lu Yuanming was very sure that the increase in spiritual strength was not an illusion.

That meant the White Light Particles obtained when killing the monsters did indeed enhance his spiritual strength!

But this also meant that he must attack and kill monsters to get more White Light Particles, which was inherently risking his life.

As time went on, after about ten hours or so, Lu Yuanming had explored up to the middle floors of the building. Fearing that monsters might be hidden within the building, he was extremely cautious with every floor he investigated, which naturally slowed his exploration. Then, on the middle floor, he found the remains of Zhang and Ling's bodies.

The two corpses were no longer recognizable as human. Whether it was flesh, viscera, or skeletal bones, almost all had been devoured and chewed clean by the monsters. Only a few bloodstains and fragments of bones remained to prove that they had once been human.

When Lu Yuanming saw the remains of Zhang and Ling, he did not feel any triumphant revenge, only fear, a shudder throughout his body, and a desire to vomit.

It was quite some time later that Lu Yuanming managed to overcome the nausea and fear in his heart and carefully explored the floor, especially around the remains. As expected, he found the policeman's handgun!

When he found the gun, Lu Yuanming almost felt his heart racing so fast that he nearly passed out. Clenching the gun tightly, it took him a long time to remember something. He carefully pointed the muzzle of the gun forward and then began to explore how to remove the magazine.

This was the first time in his life that Lu Yuanming had touched a firearm. The firearms during military training didn't count since they weren't allowed to be handled freely during training; they were only laid on the ground for you to crawl up to and fire a single shot. He had no idea how to load or unload the bullets or the magazine.

This was the first time Lu Yuanming had ever handled a firearm in his life. Following what he had seen in his memory, he imitated the white police officers he had seen loading and unloading their magazines. Checking at the handle on the back end of the gun, he managed to disassemble the magazine from the pistol.

"Please, just leave one or two bullets, only one or two..."

As Lu Yuanming murmured under his breath, he turned his gaze to the magazine. After a glance, he was stunned.

Only three bullets were missing from the magazine!

How could that be!?

Lu Yuanming fell into deep thought.

This was something he found incomprehensible.

At that moment, Lu Yuanming even forgot the fear he had felt upon seeing the two mangled bodies. He began to survey the situation on this floor.

The remnants of the two fools, Black and White, had been completely shredded, but judging from their distribution, one could roughly discern where the two had met their demise—in the middle hall of this floor, spacious with an excellent field of view, making it highly unlikely for monsters to ambush them from the sides.

Given the running speed of the monsters in Lu Yuanming's memory, the white police officer would have been able to empty his handgun's bullets in a short time upon spotting the monster. During that interval, the monster would not have been fast enough to get close to the white police officer.

But why were only three bullets used?

Lu Yuanming was utterly baffled, even going as far as to mimic the white police officer's actions in the central hall.

Spotting the monster, raising the handgun, pulling the trigger, bang, one bullet, bang, a second bullet, bang, a third bullet...

Wait, no!

Lu Yuanming suddenly snapped back to reality. Based on his current simulation, the white police officer definitely would have emptied the magazine. There must have been some other accident that caused the white police officer to fire only three bullets. Could it be that the black homeless man stabbed him in the back again?

No, that doesn't make sense either. As far as Lu Yuanming knew of the situation in the United States, the racial opposition between whites and blacks was very severe, so severe that it even tore through American society on a level comparable to gender opposition. Knowing that the black homeless man had stabbed him in the back, the white police officer would not have been unguarded against him. This could be seen from the position of the two corpses; the black homeless man's remains were at least five meters away from the white police officer.

Therefore, Lu Yuanming speculated that something else must have occurred, causing the white police officer to pull the trigger only three times before giving up on continuing to shoot...

"The handgun is ineffective!?"

Lu Yuanming reached this conclusion.

In the scenario he simulated, only if the bullets from the handgun could not be fired or were completely powerless, could it make the white police officer doubtful. So, he shot a second time and the situation was the same, then a third time and again no change. Next, his reaction would be to run frantically instead of standing still and continuing to shoot. After three consecutive attempts with the same outcome, anyone in a life-or-death moment would not try a fourth time.

Lu Yuanming surmised this possibility, and his heart instantly turned cold.

Firearms were humankind's strongest personal weapon at that time, leaving aside those mounted and strategic weapons. Guns were a symbol of human dominance over all other lifeforms on Earth.

If firearms were ineffective, whether damage could not be inflicted or bullets could not be fired, then humanity's military power would regress hundreds of years back to the age of melee weapons. For those facing hordes of monsters in this post-death world, it would indeed be the worst news imaginable.

Without further ado, Lu Yuanming promptly pulled a bullet from the magazine. Then, imitating what he had seen in TV dramas and movies, he carefully placed a broken stone at the hollow of the bullet casing and pressed down hard on the base edge to expose the gunpowder inside.

And then, Lu Yuanming was stunned.

After opening the bullet, the gunpowder that poured out rapidly transformed into gravel in Lu Yuanming's eyes. Yes, it turned into the same kind of broken stone gravel found on the ground. Lu Yuanming swore that it was a transformation; the moment it poured out, it was gunpowder, but as he observed, it turned into gravel.

The bullets were ineffective!

Firearms had been invalidated!

Finally, the post-death world revealed its bizarre aspect to Lu Yuanming.

A strangeness and absurdity that went beyond science!