A terrible mistake had been made.
Endless regret filled Ivanovic’s heart, subjecting him to constant pain and torment.
But no matter how much he regretted it, even if he put a bullet in his own head, time could not be reversed. The Commander and his comrades in the Salvation Army could not be brought back to life.
Moreover, the Commander had only awakened him after the Salvation Army was completely wiped out, which clearly meant he had high hopes for him.
He was both a vulnerability and a fail-safe.
Ivanovic quickly snapped out of his grief and began to enact his plan.
The Salvation Army was annihilated, the Commander was gone, and all of human civilization on Earth had descended into severe chaos and internal conflict. Soon, humanity might be driven to complete extinction by the lawless darkness and the attacks of the Quantum Ghosts.
Fortunately, the Purification Society still had enough power.
Power enough to temporarily save human civilization.
The name "Salvation Army" had become a pejorative term. Due to the previous information blackout, almost everyone blamed the Salvation Army for the disaster and despised them for it.
This, in turn, gave the Purification Society—which had always opposed the Salvation Army—the moral high ground.
It was also advantageous for commanding the ignorant Purifiers.
So, Ivanovic commanded the Purification Society to step out of the shadows and begin guiding human civilization through the long, dark night of chaos.
Internally, Ivanovic’s story was that everything was orchestrated by the Whisperer. The Purification Society was to do what the Salvation Army would not. Since the Salvation Army had plunged the world into darkness, the Purification Society would seize the opportunity to win the hearts and minds of the people.
Externally, under Ivanovic’s leadership, the Purification Society essentially became the new Salvation Army, using the power it had accumulated over centuries to save human civilization.
Thanks to the Purification Society’s guidance, human civilization gradually survived the initial decades of chaos and collapse, enduring the attacks of the Quantum Ghosts.
Long-term survival in the darkness also gave humanity new survival mechanisms, allowing them to live on like cockroaches until the day a game-changer arrived.
The entire Purification Society even fractured and fell apart from its all-out effort to save humanity, exhausting all the resources it had accumulated over the years.
Ivanovic knew full well that he was not the Savior, nor was he the Commander. He couldn’t eliminate the Quantum Ghosts and lead humanity back into the light.
He couldn’t even control the Reverse Dyson Sphere to project sunlight.
But he did his utmost to preserve the spark of human civilization amidst the darkness, the attacks of the Quantum Ghosts, and the Great Decline.
During this process, some within the Purification Society also noticed something was amiss and launched several assassination attempts against Ivanovic. One even pierced his left lung, but in the end, they were all quelled without major incident thanks to Ivanovic’s personal prestige.
By the time Ivanovic’s life drew to a close, humanity had learned how to preserve its spark in the darkness and was barely holding on.
The Purification Society had also disintegrated due to decades of selfless dedication and internal conflicts, gradually fading into obscurity. In his final moments, Ivanovic chose to take the last remaining spacecraft back to the Reverse Dyson Sphere, returning to face the Commander and his comrades from the Salvation Army.
He had spent his entire life atoning for his sin, yet he could never find peace. Only by dying before the Commander could his soul find some semblance of rest.
On the last page of that confessional journal, a line of text was strikingly written:
The final words of Ivanovic, member of the Salvation Army.
This line was written entirely in Russian, but the force of the script seemed to press through the paper. Just looking at it, one could feel Ivanovic’s final, complex emotions of regret, relief, sorrow, and more.
Putting the journal away in his backpack, Shen Feng couldn’t help but sigh with emotion as he looked at the old man who had died in his spacesuit.
’I never thought a piece I placed so casually back then could play such a significant role.’
In a way, Ivanovic had taken over the work of this world’s Shen Feng. Although he hadn’t achieved perfection, for an ordinary person, he had already done his absolute best.
Looking at the bodies of "Shen Feng" and Ivanovic sitting opposite each other, Shen Feng nodded slightly.
’I’ve basically figured out everything that happened in the Dark Apocalypse, the entire timeline of this apocalypse.’
’Now that I have the new Beast Gold version of the Gray Tide, ordinary apocalypse missions have become much simpler for me.’
’At the very least, investigating them is much more convenient.’
’They’ve done enough. Now, it’s up to me...’
Just then, a piercing alarm suddenly blared. The command room Shen Feng was in was instantly bathed in red light!
The alarm was sounding from the broadcast system inside the Reverse Dyson Sphere’s structures!
Jingwei frowned, having already received the relevant information in an instant. She said:
"This is an alert from the meteorite detection system inside the Reverse Dyson Sphere. The situation isn’t good. A meteorite with a diameter of about two kilometers is heading for Earth. In about two days, it will hit the outer shell of the Reverse Dyson Sphere. We don’t have much time..."
Shen Feng’s expression tensed. ’A two-kilometer diameter...’
The asteroid that struck the Yucatan Peninsula sixty-five million years ago and caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs was about ten kilometers in diameter.
While this two-kilometer-diameter asteroid could also cause a massive disaster, it was still survivable.
Now that Shen Feng controlled the Reverse Dyson Sphere’s Gray Tide, he could even use the Gray Tide to envelop the asteroid directly, cushioning its impact until it was completely consumed and absorbed in space.
However, doing so would inevitably cause huge energy fluctuations and damage the outer edge of the Reverse Dyson Sphere.
These violent energy fluctuations would attract the attention of the Myriad Wills. In particular, the moment the Reverse Dyson Sphere intercepted the meteorite, a gap would appear, allowing the enemy to glimpse the conscious fluctuations of the human survivors on Earth!
He believed that as soon as the Myriad Wills, which had been circling in space for so long, hungry and waiting, sensed the conscious fluctuations from Earth, they would swarm the planet like sharks smelling blood.
At that point, not even the Reverse Dyson Sphere’s magnetic field could block this massive quantum state life form. The remaining humans on Earth would likely be completely wiped out, and even Shen Feng wouldn’t be able to escape!
Thinking of this, he asked grimly:
"How long do we have? I need the exact time."
Jingwei immediately replied:
"At its current speed, it will impact the Reverse Dyson Sphere in approximately 70 hours, 32 minutes, and 20 seconds."
Then Jingwei added:
"It appears we could use nuclear weapons to intercept it in a high-orbit area to avoid breaching the Reverse Dyson Sphere. However, the energy fluctuations would be even more intense, and that would also attract the Myriad Wills."
It was basically an unsolvable problem.
Shen Feng nodded and said:
"I understand... Let’s go. I’ll take you to ride some horses."
Jingwei was taken aback for a moment, then smiled and said:
"Are you sure you want to go there? I’ve never been, so I’m actually a little excited to see what those monkeys are like."
Shen Feng chuckled and corrected her:
"Strictly speaking, they’re apes, not monkeys..."
Then he raised his hand to his "True Apocalypse Game" bracelet and said:
"Requesting to claim the stored spatial-channel reward. Destination: Stone Statue Apocalypse mission. Location... Brain Ape headquarters."