My portable grandfather refreshes every week

Chapter 352 What were you doing during the apocalypse? Are you free? Can we chat?
The little witch's face had completely transformed into a screaming expression, her terrified facial expressions returning once again.

However, Xue Dinglu seemed oblivious to the dense, locust-like humanoid balloons in the sky, and continued to stare at the contract with a furrowed brow.

"Brother... what should we do? What should we do now? Brother, say something! Stop bullying me! What should we do? How about we start trying to purify her? Even if we have to summon Margaret, that would be fine... Brother..." The little witch stammered and spoke very quickly.

At that moment, she felt as if her soul had been scared several miles away again, and she had to desperately pull it back.

Millions of human-shaped balloons densely packed in the sky, as if waiting for you, watching you. All of them gathered together, creating a feeling of extreme unease, as if facing a formidable enemy. The threat of death instantly swept through your mind, reaching the deepest recesses of your thoughts.

When she turned her head with difficulty to look at Xue Dinglu, she was completely petrified, as if she was about to crack apart.

Although Xue Luding's ordinary eyes only shed tears of blood when viewed through the eyes of the Divine Purification Demon Eye, black flames emanated from Xue Luding's Divine Purification Demon Eye in the vision of the Divine Purification Demon Eye. At this moment, Xue Luding's other demon eye completely infected almost half of his cheek, twisting that half of his face into a face like that of a demon.

The purplish-black flames emanating from the Divine Purification Demon Eye seemed to be a response to the distortion and contamination of that demonic eye.

"No, brother, are you conscious! No, this is not happening!" The little witch felt that her last lifeline had been lost, and immediately grabbed Xue Dinglu's collar and shook him desperately.

Su Su, I'm about to die!

Brother, you've really got me killed...

……

At this moment, the ghost eye in Xue Dinglu's eye socket was spinning rapidly.

What he saw was completely different from the real world. At that moment, he seemed to see the city that was once still incredibly prosperous, but there were no countless hot air balloons or shouting pilots in flying squirrel suits in the sky.

The city looked no different from any other city. Xue felt as if he had returned to the golden age of the last century, with crowds thronging the streets and traffic flowing like a river.

"Hey! We need to get moving, damn the World Government! Damn the demons! No, we have to hurry, much faster!" a girl suddenly said to Xue Dinglu.

Xue Dinglu turned his head and was suddenly stunned. It was the little witch Su Su, but she was not little at all now. She seemed to have matured more than ten years in an instant. Even her chest had changed from being flattened by the witch's clothes to being quite large when she was wearing formal attire.

"What happened?" Xue asked, his brows furrowed.

"The World Government has been controlled by human demons. They have released demonic contracts to the whole world, and the populations of some city-states have already become slaves of demons. Damn it! I don't want to live in a world ruled by demons!" the "Great Witch" said through gritted teeth.

But at that moment, Xue Dinglu touched his left eye and instantly understood his current state.

"An illusion? When?" Xue Dinglu murmured. "And this place, is it the same illusion from half a year ago, on Doomsday?"

The High Priestess immediately grabbed Xue's hand and rushed outside. At this moment, the dragon demon was rampaging through the sky. People piloting small planes strapped explosives to the dragon demon and detonated them step by step, turning into fireworks in the sky.

However, such explosions were largely ineffective. Demons are immortal and indestructible. Even if you kill them with human lives, the dragon demon will still appear in the sky above the city the next time, indiscriminately sowing fear and despair upon everyone.

"What do we need to do now?" Xue asked.

"I've made contact with Lady Margaret. The World Government has now distributed their pact with the human demons to all officials worldwide via communication terminals. Although we intercepted and remotely destroyed the communication terminals, numerous cities have already fallen..."

"Now, we need to sign a contract with Lady Margaret as quickly as possible, and then..."

"Use Lady Margaret's power to completely destroy the demons, and all those who have been enslaved by them."

The high priestess said through gritted teeth.

"Us? Are there any other people besides the two of us?" Xue Dinglu sensed the different meaning in the words and immediately asked.

The High Priestess didn't hide anything, saying, "Besides us, there's Mayor Kaito of this city, and another member, an intelligence agent named 'Crow,' who can help us remotely use Margaret's power to destroy the communication terminals in the hands of the officials."

"These are the last three members of our team, but even so, we will save this world from being completely conquered by demons," she said.

Xue Lude fell silent. If the translator hadn't made a mistake, when he first arrived in this world, he noticed that the sky above the city he first landed in was filled with crows, but this city had no crows at all.

Or perhaps the sky above this city is filled with human-shaped balloons, which is why there are no crows.

"And one last question, what exactly is the contract between humans and demons?" Xue Dinglu asked, this might be his last question.

The High Priestess, seemingly without any impatience towards Xue Lude who knew nothing, spoke very seriously, word by word: "Human demons are demons born from humanity's fear of the concrete concept of 'humanity'."

"Demons grow stronger through fear. All the uncanny valleys—fear of evil people, and even all kinds of fears born within humanity—will eventually be absorbed by human demons. Therefore, human demons are among the most terrifying demons, second only to the three Prime Evils."

"What makes human demons even more terrifying is that anyone who fears others will become nourishment for a human demon and a teleportation anchor for it. It can be said that as long as humanity is not extinct, human demons will be one of the strongest and most invincible demon kings."

"Therefore, human demons infiltrated the World Government through this, creating a 'werewolf' scenario that fostered mutual suspicion and fear within the World Government, thereby gaining control of the entire organization. Therefore..."

"It plans to go directly through the World Government to turn all those who have signed contracts with it into 'fake humans'!"

"It is a monster that looks extremely similar to humans, but in essence it is a demon in human skin, and it highlights the weirdness and twistedness of the uncanny valley. These demons, who live on fear, are preparing to turn the whole world into a farm where fear is born from them."

She recounted the state of the world, sentence by sentence. In short, if the human demons succeeded, the whole world would become a place teeming with fake humans and all sorts of other monsters from the Uncanny Valley.

Humans live alongside pseudo-humans, living in constant fear, in a world resembling some kind of ghost story. They must always be wary of those around them, wondering if they are monsters in human skin, or they will die a horrible death.

Because here, all the demons in the world feed on human fear, and fear has a threshold; only after feeling fear and then relaxing can they cause more fear next time.

Similarly, killing a group of people every now and then is also the best way to maintain fear.

"So, what should we do?" Xue Dinglu asked the great witch.

The two ran and talked, while dazzling fireworks exploded in the sky, representing the pilots' fight against the enslavement of the dragon demon with their lives.

"Margaret's Pact: The goddess Margaret grants us the power to fight demons. If the whole world becomes a region enslaved by demons, and human civilization, culture, and even all our love are devoured by demons, then a lose-lose situation is better than a win-lose one!"

"A lose-lose situation?" Xue Dinglu muttered the word, and in an instant he understood a lot.

“Yes, since demons are monsters that are born and become powerful by relying on human fear, what would happen if we all became fearless monsters?” she laughed, but Xue Dinglu stopped in his tracks.

All the information in my mind connected in that instant. Ah, so that's how it is…

Xue's Law gradually came to understand everything and found that he was gradually understanding the truth of the world.

"We've arrived, Kaito. Let me introduce you. This is Xerides, our newest member." The High Priestess began introducing another member of their group to Xerides.

The other party was an extremely young person, who did not resemble the mayor of the city at all, but rather someone who had just graduated from university and started working.

"Hello, I'm Kaito, the mayor of Lanhai City. I've issued an emergency evacuation notice to the entire city, and now almost everyone has taken refuge in underground shelters." He said, beginning to explain the current situation in the city to the two of them.

However, Xue Dinglu's right eyelid twitched.

Looking at Mayor Kaito, he suddenly felt he looked very familiar... extremely familiar...

Human-shaped balloons should all have the same face, right?
In the vision of the Divine Purification Demon Eye, all the faces of the humanoid balloons were the same, and that face was the face of Mayor Kaito in front of him. However, it was not the imposing figure he was in now, but a face that looked like it had been dead for a long time, soaked in water, and had become gigantic!
They immediately began their operation. At this moment, the High Priestess began to draw the contract incantation and said, "Raven, if time is of the essence, publish this incantation directly on the world network. We are in a time when humans and demons are racing against time."

"Crow received. I am currently remotely fighting for control of the network against those demon-controlled cities..."

"Wait, damn it, cyber demons! Cyber ​​demons! Why can the embodiment of the internet become a demon?!"

Suddenly, another member's terrified scream came through the communication. At that moment, the High Priestess frowned instantly and said, "Crow, calm down! Calm down! Don't be afraid. The more afraid you are, the stronger the demon's power will become. Don't be afraid!"

However, at this moment, there was no sound from the other end of the communicator.

The silence between them was eerily quiet.

They looked at each other.

The internet has even been taken over by demons, giving birth to internet demons...

So what else can we do?
"Ugh..." At this moment, Mayor Kaito's surveillance footage showed a riot breaking out in the entire shelter.

Those who had been holding communicators seemed to be influenced by something; they stared intently at the crowd protected in a corner, and then they rioted.

Pushing, trampling, crying, and blaming everyone, the riot escalated, with people throwing their communicators at each other as if they were weapons.

It seemed as if the whole world had gone mad, society was on the verge of collapse, and everything had completely lost its original form.

……

On the other hand, the little witch, who was not affected by the illusion, looked up at the sky in terror once again.

The human-shaped balloons made way for her, but this did not bring her any relief. Instead, she looked up at the sky with a tearful, cat-like expression.

In the sky, a gigantic humanoid balloon, seemingly over ten kilometers in size and blotting out the sun, looked down at the ground.

If Xue Lude were to look up at the sky right now, he would surely see that the face of that gigantic humanoid balloon is none other than Mayor Kaito's face...

The whole world was left with only this face staring intently down below. This fear from head to toe completely turned the little witch into a tearful cat-head state. Especially since Xue Luding couldn't be woken up no matter how she called him, she could only tremblingly reach out her hand to protect Xue Luding.

Tears streamed uncontrollably down his chin. He looked up at the sky and said tremblingly, "We...we were just joking...can we...can we make up? Please let us go..."

The enormous humanoid balloon in the sky seemed to be smiling; it didn't attack, but rather appeared to be merely coming to take a look.

No wonder!
At this moment, these humanoid balloons were no longer affected and would no longer lose their direction just because they were within a kilometer's radius. Fully armed, they launched a death charge downwards.

At this moment, she completely panicked and had no choice but to spread her arms to block Xue Dinglu and then close her eyes.

The next moment, a tremendous force seemed to lift her shrine maiden robes, and Xue Dinglu seemed to have stepped out of the illusion, grabbing his collar, and then...

"Buzz!"

The dimensional blade slashed out with a beam of light, but the moment it touched the humanoid balloon, it shattered, instantly splitting into billions of tiny cutting beams that bounced between the balloons. The successive explosions of the balloons caused a rain of blood to fall from the sky. When the beam disappeared, the humanoid balloons found that Xue Lude and the little witch were nowhere to be seen; they had vanished completely from the city hall.

One by one, the small black dots were inflated again, and these newly inflated human-shaped balloons returned to the queue.

All the balloons dispersed, as if nothing had happened.

They continued to drift in the sky, waiting for the demon to appear.

……

The portal landed in a small alley. The little witch seemed to still be recovering from her shock. Looking at the unfamiliar alley and Xue Dinglu, whose pupils now seemed to have returned to normal, she breathed a sigh of relief and said, "That was close, we almost died."

Xue Dinglu remained silent, not revealing the scene he had witnessed while under the influence of the illusion.

Even the high priestess might be different from this junior priestess in personality, style of doing things, and even...

Xue Luding glanced at her chest, which was completely covered by the shrine maiden's outfit and showed no movement, and thought that he must be overthinking it.

Furthermore, he didn't believe that this guy, whose intelligence seemed to rival that of the Great Dragon Girl, could be the leader who organized the resistance against the demons at the crucial moment.

However, this was all the information Mayor Kaito had, so Xue Dinglu decided to go to the next place to take a look.

He walked directly into the depths of the alley, and in this area covered by greenery, he lifted the door of a dilapidated wooden door.

"Where exactly is this place?" the little witch asked.

She had no idea why Xue Daolu had brought her back here, or even why he had come all the way here.

“A hero who destroyed the world is buried here,” Xue said, as he walked down the secret base and down the stairs covered in disgusting liquid.

"Huh? What does 'world-destroying hero' mean? Is there even the slightest connection between these two words?" The little witch hurriedly followed behind Xue Lude and entered the basement.

Inside this basement, all the instruments that were still working were rendered useless, as if they had exploded in this small space centered on the stool.

Blood and fragments seemed to be evenly smeared across the entire basement, each piece appearing to have been crushed into tiny fragments, like fragmentation grenades, embedded in the basement walls, the stool beneath them, and the expensive communication mainframes in front of them.

"On Doomsday, a hacker engaged in a fierce battle of attack and defense against a cyber demon in this dark basement. It was an unequal war, with one side being a cyber demon that used the network as its base and could resurrect infinitely, and the other being a hacker who had only received a portion of Margaret's power."

"By the way, this basement is located 27 degrees northeast of your shrine, about 3 kilometers away," Xue Dinglu calmly stated the scene he had witnessed.

Perhaps he should feel sad and grief at this moment, but now, he has felt it, though not much.

"Huh?" The little witch stared blankly at the blood-splattered basement and the pile of network equipment that had been turned into scrap metal. She couldn't understand why the hackers here could destroy the world.

Why should my world be destroyed for such a reason?

She looked at the now-blackened red floor and wondered if she should resent the hacker.

"Why?" the little witch asked.

Xue Dinglu did not reply to her, because at that moment, he reached out and pulled out a piece of paper hidden under the main control panel, which read "Margaret's Linking Technique".

In an instant, the spiritual vision and illusion reappeared before Xue Dinglu's eyes.

At this moment, a hacker wearing thick glasses and headphones was operating continuously in the basement.

He is "Raven" from the Saviors team, a hacker. Xue Law already knew his identity during the last spiritual vision; he is a retired employee of the World Government's cybersecurity department.

Xue Dinglu was now accompanied by the great witch in formal attire.

"Susu, are you there? What are you doing during the apocalypse? Are you free? Can we chat?" The man with thick glasses smiled, as if showing off his sense of humor.

"Which is better, becoming a demon in the whole world or becoming a slave to the devil?" He kept operating the machine, which was like a giant ball of light, and at this moment his enemy was no longer the World Government.

Rather, it is a cyber demon born from the human network!

Currently, the area controlled by cyber demons has reached 30%.

“If I had a choice, I wouldn’t want either of them,” the high priestess said, her face grim.

"But whether we live or die, we have no choice. You are a clergyman, so you must have seen those humans who were abducted to hell by demons. Tell me about their situation." The raven wearing thick glasses seemed to be joking as he confronted the cyber demon while chatting.

“It’s worse than death, and you wouldn’t want to know,” the High Priestess said. “Like livestock in a slaughterhouse, humans are like commodities hung on hooks, their only freedom being endless fear.”

"That doesn't seem like a pleasant experience," Crow teased with a laugh.

"Yes, I've seen the Rule Demon. It makes all those who fear the rules give it power. So it created a world where you can only survive by following the rules, and the price for each violation of the rules is the removal of an organ from your body."

"In fact, the rule demon doesn't like internal organs, but it makes others fear the rules and set such regulations in its own pasture."

The high priestess recounted her observations: "There are also twisted demons, which forcibly switch people's heads and buttocks, forcing them to walk on their hands and do delicate work with their feet, and even so, those humans are immortal; parasitic demons, where the pores on each person's body are larger than their nostrils, and each pore contains incubating parasitic eggs..."

"So, do you think we should be enslaved by demons, or become evil spirits altogether?" the high priestess said. "Slaves or death, we have no choice, do we?"

"Bang!" Crow's glasses shattered, his eyes becoming a bloody mess.

Currently, the area controlled by cyber demons has reached 60%.

"Really, it's fortunate that Lady Margaret gave me enough eyes among my abilities..." He waved his hand, and a raven appeared beside him.

Then he instantly gouged out the crow's eyes and stuck them into his own eye sockets.

The next moment, the two eyeballs seemed to come alive, extending tentacles to actively pierce their eye sockets, while their pupils began to move erratically.

Those sapphire-blue eyes, Xue Dinglu recognized them…

Divine Purifying Demonic Eyes!

Currently, the area controlled by cyber demons has reached 90%.

The intricate power within the Divine Purification Demon Eye began to operate, and Raven began rapidly manipulating the control panel, once again entering into a fierce battle with the network demon.

Both sides are engaged in the most primitive battle of massive data bombardment, which involves constantly copying data to contaminate each other and seeing who can't withstand it first.

Clearly, it was Crow who failed, but after acquiring the Divine Cleansing Demon Eye, Crow gradually became able to withstand the bombardment of endless garbage data.

"I'm sorry, even the power of the Demon Eye can't defeat a demon..." Raven smiled as if he had been relieved. In his eyes, the Divine Purification Demon Eye had twisted so much that its tentacles were twisted and knotted, like an octopus rooted to his head.

"So, I guess I still have to become a demon..."

The area controlled by cyber demons has reached 99%...

He smiled and finally decided to throw the contract formula with Margaret, provided by the High Priestess, onto the internet in a way that allowed it to continuously replicate itself and spread to everyone.

Anyone who sees this pattern will automatically enter into a contract with Margaret.

Any normal person who sees someone who has made a pact with Margaret will be instantly infected.

This was the raven's final gift to the world.

"I might be a villain who suffers a thousand cuts," he said self-deprecatingly. "Someone like me should go to hell after I die."

Faced with the choice between survival and destruction, perhaps the only option they could choose was to perish together with the demon.

"Susu, in an era without monsters, I might become a doctor, and you would be a female student troubled by love on campus." He smiled, stretched out his hand, and pressed a pistol against his temple.

"Goodbye."

"boom!"

Gunshots rang out in the basement, and in an instant, only a headless corpse fell to the ground, before its body exploded.

Blood mingled with the basement, and endless crows seemed to swarm towards it, devouring the flesh and blood on the ground. Soon, the eyes of each crow transformed into sapphire pupils, like divine, demonic eyes.

……

When the psychic vision ended, there wasn't a single crow left in the basement; only this dirty, blackish-red abandoned basement remained.

But now the whole world seems to be trembling and shaking.

Xue Dinglu and the little witch left the basement.

"Buzz!"

A terrifying tree root rose from the ground, and countless pairs of divine and demonic eyes on the root stared intently at Xue Dinglu.

Xue Dinglu neither dodged nor flinched; his divine, demonic eyes met the tree roots as he said, "Long time no see, Crow!"

"I'm here to kill you!"

The little witch was stunned, because before this, everyone had thought that the tree root covered with eyeballs was Margaret...

Unexpectedly, it turned out to be the culprit who indirectly destroyed the world, the crow!
Tree roots rose from the ground, wandering through the city like a surging tsunami. Each root was covered with countless eyeballs, which turned and twisted, staring at them from all directions.

"Ugh!" The giant tree demon, or rather, the "crow," cried out hysterically.

(End of this chapter)