I, Superman, the Supreme Commander

Chapter 517: The Road to Fire in the Doomsday World

The chaotic sunlight illuminates the high walls on the cliff.

Lothric, this is the name of this country, but now this land that once created glory has been shattered.

Under the influence of the extinguishing of the primordial fire, the entire world is collapsing towards the primordial furnace, and the landform is undergoing tremendous changes.

The royal city is lifted a thousand meters above the ground and is surrounded by broken cliffs. The broken bridge leading to the royal city has a drop of hundreds of meters, like a desperate relative waving at you, but out of reach.

The Broken Bridge was filled with pilgrims who had come from far away.

These humans, whose bodies were deformed uncontrollably by the extinction of the First Fire, wrapped themselves tightly in thick black robes, leaving only their limbs as thin as dead branches exposed. They walked with crutches, trembling like old men at dusk, through the vast wilderness and the windy sand, just to take part in the Fire Procession Ceremony like martyrs.

That was a sacred sacrificial ritual left behind by the ancient Lord of Fire for the continuation of the world.

Carrying heavy stone tortoise shells to suppress the deformations in their bodies, the pilgrims came to the Royal City of Lothric for pilgrimage, just to witness the rekindling of the First Flame before they died.

Countless zombies, which have lost their humanity and sanity due to their long wandering, roam the wilderness and the ruins of the ancient kingdom, attacking all living people, craving for and plundering the souls and humanity of outsiders.

The knights who swore to dedicate their lives to protecting Lothric were transformed into wandering souls with only a trace of obsession left in the endless battle, patrolling the ruined city day and night.

Kill all outsiders.

The earth is gray and barren, all things are withered and dying, undead creatures and deformed monsters are wandering on the land, the once prosperous towns have turned into ruins, covered with moss and ashes, and the roadside is littered with dry, burnt corpses and white bones. Who knows how many abandoned people have accumulated from ancient times to the present.

This is what Zhang Hong saw after he embarked on the path of fire transmission.

A bleak, decayed, desperate world on the verge of destruction.

All of this is caused by the extinguishing of the [Original Fire].

[Primal Fire] is the basic rule of this world, which can be roughly understood as the significance of the sun to life on Earth. Without sunlight, most life on Earth will be destroyed.

The existence of the primordial fire is even more important to this world. According to ancient legends, before the appearance of the primordial fire, this world was a chaotic darkness, without the concept of time and space, and no living creatures existed except the eternal and immortal ancient dragons.

It was the ignition of the primordial fire that brought light to the world. Under this light, life and death, time and space were born, causing all things in the world to change and giving birth to a colorful world.

If the primordial fire is extinguished, all of this will cease to exist, and the world will return to the distorted abyss of lightlessness, chaos and chaos.

The burning of flames always has an end, just as the sun will go out one day, the original fire that has burned for thousands of years is now about to go out.

The "fire bearer" played by Zhang Hong has the mission of continuing the existence of the original fire. He is responsible for retrieving the "firewood" and adding fuel to the original fire.

The firewood of the primordial fire is the soul - the powerful soul, the soul of the hero and the king. These people are called [Fire Kings], and they are entrusted with the mission of passing on the fire. But now the Fire Kings refuse to pass on the fire for various reasons, and the primordial fire is about to go out.

Zhang Hong’s mission is to forcibly take back the souls of these Fire Kings, throw them into the primordial fire, and continue the vitality of the world.

——It sounds cruel. Sacrificing some people to maintain a world that is doomed to be destroyed.

Because firewood will eventually burn out, the world will eventually be destroyed. Under the world rules set maliciously, the indigenous people of this world are destined to have a hopeless future.

But there are still countless people who carry on the fire, who continue to turn their bodies into firewood, struggling to keep the world alive.

This is how humans are, and it has always been like this.

Zhang Hong had deep feelings about this in The Wandering Earth and Warhammer World.

Even if there is only a glimmer of hope, even if they can only survive one more day, some people are willing to give up everything and fight to death for the collective, for their country and civilization.

Even if you know that the day will never come, you will still fight desperately in the deepest darkness before dawn until your last drop of blood is shed, even if it means your soul is lost.

We usually call this kind of people heroes or saviors...

Out of admiration for his peers, Zhang Hong decided to embark on the path of passing on the fire, even though his identity was not that of a fireless ash.

To regain his own power and to save the world.

Even if he loses his superhuman powers and his system, his original intention to save the world will not change!

Zhang Hong killed the zombies blocking his way with one sword.

The dried body exploded, pus-like black substance gushed out, and it turned into a giant wriggling monster.

It pounces on its enemies with its huge claws and fangs.

This move is extremely terrifying. Any soldier caught by the monster will be torn to pieces in an instant even if he is wearing heavy armor.

But who is Zhang Hong? He has fought zombie mutants, fought against demons in mythology, and conquered all kinds of monsters in the galaxy in the Warhammer world. Even though he is just a mortal, his combat power is far beyond that of ordinary people.

With a nimble roll, he dodged the monster's attack at the right time and came behind it. He stood up and thrust the sword in his hand forward, piercing the monster's body with force. A ball of fire exploded from the sword and ignited the monster's black body.

The monster's body seemed like flammable material and was instantly engulfed in flames, with it screaming sharply.

Zhang Hong stood behind the monster and swung the flaming sword quickly and coldly, dismembering the monster into pieces in a few strokes.

The broken body parts squirmed and screamed in the flames for a moment, then turned into ashes and dissipated with a bang.

A fist-sized ball of white light flew out from the flames and penetrated into Zhang Hong's body.

This is the remaining soul fire of the monster, which will automatically be attracted by the powerful souls around it and attach itself to the souls of the strong.

Zhang Hong stood beside the ashes of the corpse, silently adjusting his breathing for a moment and recovering his strength.

Calm the turbulent blood in the body.

Then, holding the sword, he continued to explore deeper into the ruined castle.

Two days have passed since I came to the dark world.

Zhang Hong accepted the reality and embarked on the journey of passing on the fire as Yu Hui.

Even if this was the script assigned to him by the enemy, he had to go on.

I just hope I can find an opportunity to regain my strength in the battle.

He has never played the Dark Souls game himself, but only knows a thing or two about it from hearsay on the Internet.

The Dark Soul world after being realized is far larger than that in the game. Zhang Hong explored for two days before he managed to get through the maze-like city ruins and find the way to the palace.

All he encountered along the way were irrational and uncommunicative monsters, zombies, mutant dogs, and deformed creatures. Even those wanderers who still kept normal human attire could not communicate, and when they saw Zhang Hong, they rushed up to him without saying a word and fought like robots.

Zhang Hong had no choice but to kill them one by one and plunder their remaining souls as resources to become stronger.

Through conversations with the Fire Keeper and other NPCs, Zhang Hong already knew that the humans in this world were affected by the extinction of the First Fire, and a large number of [undeads] appeared. The concept of "death" seemed to have been half taken away from the undead, and they lived under the curse of eternal life.

——Immortality sounds wonderful, but it is not a good thing. Undead people can still get sick, be affected by deformation, and even live in skeleton form.

For most undead, the inability to die is a curse and torture.

Even if they are killed and their bodies are completely destroyed, the undead can be resurrected as wandering spirits. As they die more and more times, they will gradually lose their sanity and humanity, becoming mindless zombies that will subconsciously attack living creatures and rob them of their vitality.

Wandering souls can restore their normal appearance by plundering the souls of other creatures.

Whether it is a zombie or a ghost, it is not impossible to kill it completely.

If they completely lose the will to live, they will turn into a ball of soul fire without a body.

That is the kind of pale will-o'-the-wisp that Zhang Hong saw everywhere in Lothric.

Or if he is killed by a fire bearer like Zhang Hong and his soul is taken away, he will not be able to be resurrected.

With the Fire Keeper, Zhang Hong can use these ownerless souls to strengthen his own strength. Except that he cannot see the panel, it is exactly the same as in the game.

Thanks to the improvement brought by this external object, Zhang Hong now has some combat effectiveness.

With his enhanced strength and agility that are several times greater than that of an ordinary person, he can easily display all kinds of exquisite martial arts in his memory and deal with all kinds of inhuman enemies with ease.

Zhang Hong also made tools such as hooks, ropes, and crowbars to break down some access control systems and climb over obstacles.

He is not the immortal with a broken leg in the game, so he will not be affected by a mere wall or door.

Spend half a day taking detours or searching for keys.

However, some important areas, such as the palace gate, have magical access control that cannot be broken by human power. Zhang Hong has no choice but to honestly find a way to open it.

Commonly known as following the game process.

"Hey, you don't look like those irrational things, can you do me a favor?"

During the exploration, Zhang Hong heard a call.

He looked for it out of curiosity and found an NPC with whom he could communicate normally in a prison in the city. This was the first normal human being he met.