Chapter 486: You Are the Last Hope

Suddenly learning the truth behind her family’s collective misfortune, Arabella Donovan’s lips twitched. She made the swift decision to keep this secret buried.

Otherwise, once all this was over, her third brother would probably face the collective wrath of the entire family.

“Without your third brother, we wouldn’t have made so many preparations. Faced with this surging malice, everyone would have been completely reactive. After the initial panic and chaos, by the time they calmed down enough to search for a solution, they’d find their research could never keep up with the speed of that thing’s mutation.”

At that point, the world would have descended into a living hell. But that would only be the beginning. Once it absorbed enough energy from these events and began altering the very rules of the world, people wouldn’t just be facing these intangible threats. They’d be up against all sorts of terrifying natural disasters.

No matter the era, humanity has always been insignificant in the face of nature.

A chain of blows like that would be enough to annihilate all life. That would be the true… apocalypse.

When Arabella had read that book by Terence Lewis and the others, she had felt uneasy and worried. But mostly, she had felt a sense of ambition—that the future had not yet arrived and could still be stopped and changed. That feeling was nothing compared to the gut-wrenching terror she felt now, listening to her master. It was as if he had actually lived through that future himself.

The thought made a chill run down Arabella’s spine.

“But things have changed now. Not only is my third brother okay, but he’s also gotten the attention of the higher-ups ahead of time. The members of the ‘protagonist group’ who carry the source are also under close watch. Does that mean we still have a chance? A… fighting chance?”

At her words, the old man on the other side of the screen was silent for a long time. Then, under her anxious gaze, he reached up to stroke his white beard and said mysteriously, “Who knows? Anything’s possible until the body’s cold.”

“?!”

“Master! Sir! For goodness’ sake, we’re talking about something serious here! Can you be reliable for once? If you keep this up, I’m really going to lose it!”

Arabella stared at the familiar, devil-may-care look on his face and felt like a complete idiot for pinning her hopes on him just moments before.

The old man, however, seemed oblivious to her frustration. He chuckled and said, “Now what kind of talk is that? When have I, your master, ever been unreliable?”

“Heh…” If she hadn’t been tricked by him for over a decade, Arabella might have actually believed him. ‘Seriously, how can someone be so shameless and act so self-righteous?!’

“Besides, am I wrong? As long as you’re still drawing breath, anything is possible. How reasonable is that? It’s practically a golden rule.”

“…”

Perhaps the disdain and contempt in Arabella’s eyes were too obvious, or maybe even he couldn’t keep a straight face while spouting such nonsense. After his antics, the old man’s smile faded, and his voice grew serious. “Even if I said there was no chance, no hope of winning, would you just give up and walk away from all this?”

Arabella froze. The answer to that question was obvious. Setting aside how many people would die if this was ignored—when the nest falls, will any eggs survive?—just looking at how this new Providence hated her family to the bone, wishing to exterminate every last one of them, there was no way she could just accept her fate!

“Well, there you have it. Young people should have a bit of passion, a bit of impulse. Don’t think so much about gains and losses or the consequences before you act. Just put your head down and charge forward. Trust yourself, trust your heart, and trust your family and friends. No matter what, they will always be your strongest support.”

The old man’s words were a little more comforting this time, but Arabella wasn’t so easily fooled. She said, half-amused and half-exasperated, “So after all that, my support system includes everyone… except you, is that it?”

The old man rubbed his nose and chuckled. “Don’t put it so harshly. I’m a man of the cloth, after all. Getting too involved in worldly affairs can lead to karmic entanglements, which isn’t good for my cultivation.”

Arabella set her phone on the table, crossed her arms, and looked down at him with a sidelong glance, as if to say, ‘Go on, keep spinning your tales. I’d love to see what other nonsense you can come up with.’

The old man coughed lightly, his gaze shifting away. He didn’t dare meet her eyes.

Seeing this, Arabella sighed and didn’t press him further.

“So, Yuri Quincy’s death wasn’t an accident either.”

“There are very few coincidences in this world. The strangeness surrounding that Miss Vance has already caught its attention. After having a plan so long in the making be completely foiled, how could it possibly be willing to just let things go?”

A dark glint flashed in the old man’s eyes. “His death is a warning. It’s also the signal that the war has begun.”

Even though she had already suspected as much, hearing him say it aloud still made Arabella’s heart drop.

“Scared?”

Arabella was silent for a long moment before shaking her head. “I’m scared, but I’m also not. It’s only natural to feel uncertain after suddenly learning something like this, but I don’t scare easily. I’m not the one driving this. From the very beginning, I’ve been a passive recipient, forced to counterattack. It’ll probably be the same going forward. Since that’s the case, being scared is useless.”

Arabella met her unreliable old master’s gaze, a sly smile even gracing her lips. “Like you just said, let’s just do it. Worst case scenario, we all die together. We can just have a reunion in the afterlife. People who watch dramas and ship couples have a saying: a double death is a happy ending. By the same token, for an ensemble show, a total party kill is also a happy ending!”

“???”

The old master, who prided himself on being up-to-date with internet culture, suddenly had the bewildered expression of an elderly man on the subway staring at a smartphone. ‘Are all young people this intense nowadays?’

Still, Arabella’s mental state saved him the trouble of offering consolation, something he wasn’t particularly good at.

“As long as you know what you’re doing, that’s what matters. The plot’s advancement is certainly unexpected, but it also means…”

It’s panicking.

Arabella narrowed her eyes. After she and her master exchanged a few more words, a silent understanding passing between them, she prepared to end the call.

Just as she was about to hang up, Arabella hesitated. “Master, I…”

“What is it?”

“…Nothing.”

Arabella wanted to ask him: ‘Since you know everything, when you moved heaven and earth to take me up the mountain all those years ago, was it all for this day, for this very moment?’

The words were on the tip of her tongue, but she decided it wasn’t necessary. Even if he had initially approached her with the intent to test or use her, the kindness he had shown in raising her for so many years was real. The way he had treated her so well all this time was also real.

‘Perhaps their first meeting was born of calculation, but who could say that after so many years of being together day in and day out, there wasn’t a bit of genuine affection between them?’

Having come to this realization, Arabella didn’t dwell on it. Instead, she decisively switched to a different question.

“Why me?”

If her third brother was the standard, their family had so many relatives. Why her, specifically?

The old man was silent for a long time. Arabella lost her patience, assuming he just didn’t want to answer.

“Forget it. It’s not like I have to know.”

With that, she hung up, and in doing so, missed the old man’s final, quiet remark.

“Because you are the last hope.”