“Save him!
Bring him back to life, understand?
He cannot just die like this!
If he dies, then the only choice you’ll have is to go with him!
“I’m not a doctor, I’m just…”
“Pa! Keep him alive, got it?”
“Okay…”
What a helpless answer.
It had been a long time since such voices had been heard in this deep, gloomy cave.
How ironic.
There were many people in this cave—people standing, people who were still alive—but all that could be heard from them was the sound of death.
All they brought with them was the destruction of life and endless suffering.
As for the others, those who were kneeling, crawling, or lying on the ground, they yearned for death.
They wished they could die quickly and painlessly.
And now, someone wanted to live!
Someone wanted another person to live!
How interesting.
“Which one of you! TMD knows how to save someone? Speak up, or next month’s food rations are getting cut in half for all of you!” a terrorist guard holding a gun shouted as he knocked the barrel against the cell door.
“Quit your damn shouting. Is that all the people you’ve got? Can’t you look for yourself?” A mocking voice came from a dark corner of the cell.
“You…”
The guard had barely started speaking when he seemed to remember something.
He spat toward the cell door and decided not to bother with him anymore.
“Don’t leave! I can save him.”
A disheveled man with a face full of beard emerged from the darkness.
He leaned against the bars and slapped them as he shouted.
His voice passed through the heavy metal door.
The guard hesitated for a moment.
He walked over and opened the small window in the cell door, taking a look at the man.
In the pitch-black cave stood a filthy, bearded man, but beneath his thick hair, his eyes were astonishingly bright.
The guard opened the cell and took the man to another cave.
It was also used as a prison, but the environment was much better than the man’s previous cell.
At least there were no screams here, no deaths in sight, and there was even a dim oil lamp.
The guard rudely shoved him inside.
The man fell heavily to the ground, but he didn’t make a sound.
He simply got up, dusted himself off, and laughed to himself.
…
“Do you know how to save him?” the bespectacled man in the cell asked timidly.
“Hey! Brother, shouldn’t we introduce ourselves when meeting for the first time?” The man casually walked over and put an arm around the bespectacled man’s shoulder.
“My name is Ethan,” the bespectacled man said timidly.
He looked at the man with some disgust.
The man was covered in dirt and grime, absolutely filthy.
His unkempt hair and beard looked like wild weeds growing unchecked in the wilderness, thick and chaotic.
Even his smell was unbearable.
But Ethan didn’t dare show his disgust.
He was afraid of this man.
“My name is Yadan. Nice to meet you.” Yadan wore a kind smile.
Yet that smile made Ethan’s back prickle with fear, sending a chill down his spine.
It wasn’t the way the man’s facial expressions pulled at his thick beard, making his face look even more ferocious, that frightened Ethan.
It was because…
Ethan had probably been imprisoned here for several years.
His cell was one of the best.
At least he couldn’t see or hear how the people in the other cells were being killed, dissected, and treated like laboratory animals.
But this man…
This man had been imprisoned here long before Ethan arrived.
He had been trapped in hell itself, living every day surrounded by screams and suffering.
Ethan had no idea how he had survived.
He had no idea why those people hadn’t killed him.
Ethan was afraid of the man standing before him.
“Do you know how to save him?” Ethan asked again, his voice trembling slightly.
“Save him?” Yadan shrugged.
“Of course I don’t know how to save him. I’m not a doctor.” Yadan spoke as though it were the most obvious thing in the world, even raising his eyebrows at Ethan.
“Then why did you tell the guards you could?” Ethan asked, bewildered.
“I got tired of that room. I wanted to move into one with other people.”
Yadan laughed loudly as he walked over to the blood-covered man lying on the ground.
He lowered his head and looked at him.
Suddenly, his expression froze.
“It’s him you want me to save?” Yadan asked coldly.
Ethan didn’t know why Yadan’s tone had suddenly changed.
He could only answer softly.
“Yes.”
Yadan raised his head and smiled at Ethan.
“Looks like I know how to save him.”
…
Yadan didn’t know how many years he had spent at the End of Time.
He had read everything there was to read, including countless novels and biographies recording all kinds of events.
Yadan even felt that if he ever returned to his old world, his novel-writing skill would definitely be MAXed out.
Eventually, he finally left the End of Time.
He had returned.
He had returned to a world filled with color and life.
Although this was a desert, Yadan felt as though everything around him was brimming with vitality.
The dryness in the air and the scorching heat beneath the blazing sun finally made him feel that he was alive!
But before long, he was surrounded by a group of people who clearly didn’t look like good guys.
Judging from their vehicles, weapons, appearances, and clothing, Yadan initially thought he had returned to Earth.
Perhaps this was the Middle East?
Some chaotic region?
It was indeed the Middle East.
But not the Middle East Yadan had imagined.
These people didn’t even bother talking to him.
They immediately opened fire with two bursts of bullets.
Although the tiny amount of power remaining within Yadan’s body was enough to deflect most of the bullets, one of them still struck him.
Pain.
Yadan wasn’t angry.
Because to Yadan, this pain was truly the most beautiful sensation in the world.
The feeling of being alive.
But you bastards actually dared to shoot me!
In the end, the enraged Yadan crushed these men and their vehicles into lumps of metal and flesh.
However, even more enemies soon surrounded him.
Feeling the tiny, pitiful amount of power remaining within his body, Yadan knew that even if he killed them all, he wouldn’t be able to survive long enough to escape the desert.
So he chose to surrender and allowed these men to “capture” him and take him back to their base.
Inside the cave, Yadan met the leader of these people.
The man was extremely curious about Yadan’s power.
Yadan had originally planned to use mental magic to control their minds and alter their memories, making them call him “Dad.”
Unfortunately, the endless years he had spent at the End of Time had caused Yadan to overestimate the tiny amount of power he had left.
Yadan was imprisoned.
At the same time, however, he left a suggestion deep within the organization’s subconscious: he was an important person and absolutely must not be killed.
Yadan had now been imprisoned for four years.
Because he was completely useless to the organization, its leader had long since forgotten about him.
So Yadan would remain imprisoned there…
Forever.
Because this universe was different, Yadan couldn’t absorb the chaotic elements of this world.
The laws of this universe were also different from those of the Elder Scrolls world, so with his own strength alone, Yadan had no way to escape.
All he could do was study power and the laws of this world day after day amid the screams and suffering.
During those four years, Yadan had witnessed all kinds of people die horrible deaths.
To the people inside this cave, “human” was nothing more than a designation, a code name.
They were animals.
Yadan had seen a side of this world that was even more brutal and filthy than the world of the Elder Scrolls.
So civilization brought more than just peace.
On the unseen side of it, civilization could be even more unbearable.
During those four years, Yadan gradually realized that this couldn’t be Earth.
At the very least, it couldn’t be the Earth he had once lived on.
Perhaps this was a parallel world.
Fortunately, the endless years and the loss of his emotions had forged Yadan into someone whose heart was as hard as stone.
Everything around him…
No longer mattered.
And today, in this dim cave, Yadan saw a familiar face.
Tony Stark?
This was the Marvel Universe?
It seemed that the space-time turbulence created by the Infinity Stones had brought him back to their original home.
This was an interesting world, a world filled with power.
But at the same time, it was also a murky world.
A filthy world.
Unfortunately, his current self still had no power.
A tiny flame flickered in Yadan’s palm.
…
“Cough, cough.”
The man on the ground, Tony Stark, let out a painful cough.
“He’s alive!” Ethan said excitedly to Yadan.
Yadan shook his head and replied indifferently, “Then it has nothing to do with us.”
As soon as he finished speaking, two guards rushed through the door and carried Tony Stark away.
“His body still isn’t stable. He’ll die like this!” Ethan stepped in front of the two guards, trying to stop them.
But one of them immediately knocked him down with the butt of his gun.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Why bother? Those guys aren’t going to let that man die. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble to make us save him.”
Yadan walked over and extended a hand toward Ethan.
Ethan looked into Yadan’s eyes.
Through the thick beard, he could see the man’s gaze.
In the end, he reached out, grabbed Yadan’s hand, and stood up.
Yadan smiled at him before walking alone into a dark corner and quietly sitting down.
Sure enough, it wasn’t long before Tony Stark was thrown back inside.
He collapsed onto the ground, barely alive.
But he was still alive.
Ethan looked at Tony on the ground, then turned back toward Yadan in the darkness.
In the end, he shook his head and walked away.