"The outbreak in this bizarre world isn't a biohazard crisis at all, but a mental attack. None of us were prepared for this, and the situation has reached extreme levels of catastrophe,"
Xu Shang-Chi said while eating sealed bread found in the bar's storage room. He was seated by the window of the bar's second floor.
"I can't even comprehend what you guys have been through," Jarvis blinked, "These mental attacks are utterly ineffective on me, and I can't imagine what they've seen or heard to drive them to harm themselves so desperately."
Jarvis looked genuinely helpless. If he was to summarize everything that happened that night, it'd be something like 'Humans are bloody interesting' and if he had to add something, it would be 'I don't understand it, but I'm greatly shocked'.
Jarvis knew that despite their tumultuous childhoods, the Scarlet Witch Wanda and Quicksilver Pietro never really faced struggle due to their remarkable abilities. Wanda would shriek as if she was a soprano if a rose thorn pricked her finger.
However, last night, she gruesomely gouged out her own eyes with a rough tree branch, and even now, she bears a grateful expression as if she barely survived a catastrophe. How horrifying must the thing she has seen for her to change to such an extent?
Jarvis had to constantly hold Wanda's hand, for the loss of her sight made her feel extremely unsafe.
More importantly, for fear that she might lose control and harm her companions, Wanda dismantled her powers by pouring all the Chaotic Power she could control into her eyes and then destroyed them.
Now, she couldn't contact Xeseon, nor did she dare to mobilize the Chaotic Power of the cosmos, so she was virtually a common human now.
This was unimaginable for mutants whose powers were like their arms. The loss of their abilities wasn't just a disability, it felt like the world had changed drastically.
In the past hour, Wanda asked Jarvis hundreds of times about her surroundings. As Miss Witch explained, being a Mage, she didn't need to use her eyes to perceive the world when she had her powers. Her perspective and sense of the world were entirely different from humans.
Riley's situation was slightly better than Wanda's, losing only his hearing and having to rely on lip reading to understand what others were saying. His trouble was that he was afraid to speak, fearing that he might accidentally sing that melody that had been looping countless times in his mind.
He was struggling immensely, unable to muster energy for anything else, and Wanda was also the same.
So, in the upcoming journey, not only would they not be the most powerful individuals in the team, but they might also become liabilities.
As one would expect, neither Jarvis nor Xu Shang-Chi could leave their companions behind. Hence, despite the break of dawn, their journey was about to get much more challenging.
"I retract my previous judgment," Xu Shang-Chi started, "My original plan was to find a secluded place to hide, slowly gather resources, make weapons when survival was no longer a concern, regularly go out for exploration, and once the base was large enough and technology advanced enough, gradually explore towards the possible event center."
"But now it seems like this high wall, stockpile grain approach is not applicable to this world. There's far too few monsters that we can see and defeat. Even having weapons doesn't help."
"Furthermore, it's unlikely that many survivors are left to be rescued, meaning that mass production isn't possible or necessary. More importantly, with each day that we wait, our chances of being corrupted by the darkness increase."
Xu Shang-Chi covered his eyes and said in a pained tone, "Why, after I got Spider Man and Scarlet Witch to have my back, did I have to end up in a world that tests mental strength!"
Then he grinded his teeth and added, "I'd love to know which little smart ghost is responsible for this!"
Jarvis sighed as well, shaking his head, "I'm sorry. Most of the machinery in the city is broken, so my hacking skills won't be much use here, perhaps to fix a car or something."
"As for the mental attack you all suffered, I'm totally immune to it thus can't help much. It would seem we'll have to rely on you from here onwards."
"I'm just a common man," Xu Shang-Chi emphasized, "If you're under the impression that I've come so far because my willpower is strong, I'm afraid you're about to be disappointed. I've relied on a relic."
Xu Shang-Chi took off the jade pendant from his neck. He trusted the integrity of those present and more importantly, the energy within the pendant was very faint now. The wall he built using the 'Clear Heart Mantra' was on the brink of collapse.
As the scan device in Jarvis's eye swept over the jade pendant around Xu Shang-Chi's neck, he said, "It has a peculiar energy, but I don't know what it is. Can you replicate this energy?"
"Regrettably I can't. I already said that I've just hurriedly learned some methods temporarily... Okay, let's not get stuck on this topic. We need to do something while it's daytime. We can't stay here and wait. If the night falls, we would still be utterly defenseless."