In order to communicate normally with people, Xu Shang-Chi had to bring a handful of sand to their second stronghold.
In fact, they didn't really need a stronghold. Given the current density of monsters, sleeping in a house or on the street made no difference. The horrifying attacks would not be reduced by the obstruction of buildings.
But perhaps due to the human instinct for shelter, they ended up choosing a relatively clean café upstairs to serve as a base for their third night.
Without a doubt, this was progress. Everyone was mentally prepared for what might happen tonight, and they even had the leisure to prepare items for communication in advance.
The issue with Scarlet Witch's vision was almost impossible to solve. There was clearly not enough time for her to develop sufficiently keen hearing and touch. Fortunately, Jarvis was there to help her. Jarvis tirelessly repeated to her the situation around her. In order not to disturb anyone else, he had to whisper in her ear.
Riley couldn't hear, but he could lip-read. The pronunciation of English words made their mouth shapes easier to understand, so even without professional training, he could still make sense of them to some extent.
Xu Shang-Chi used writing on sand to restore his ability to communicate. This method was very effective because, for someone skilled in writing Chinese characters, quickly writing English letters that connected smoothly felt as easy as eating and drinking.
Before it had gotten completely dark, they began a heated debate. Xu Shang-Chi stuck to his views. He quickly wrote in the sand:
" Disasters occur at night, which must have its special significance, but actually, nothing special happens at night. Apart from the elusive stars, there are only dreams."
"But validating this idea is quite dangerous." Riley disagreed somewhat. He forced himself to swallow the unnecessary adjectives in his sentences, apparently choking himself, but he still managed to say as succinctly as possible, "We might go mad in our dreams."
"I think we must systematically understand all the strange events we have encountered and prioritize them accordingly." Jarvis proposed a very reasonable plan and immediately put it into practice.
"Firstly, there are the most peculiar attacks. Naturally, its importance is A, but the difficulty of investigation is also A. Following that is the state of this world, which I think is equally important and dangerous as the attacks."
"Next is everything we have seen within New York City. Its importance and danger should be rated B, followed by how the monsters disappeared and the Ancient One's mental knots, which should be rated C. Finally, Quill and the raccoon's whereabouts, which we have had no time to care about, would get a D."
" The more important it is, the more dangerous it is. If we recklessly challenge it without collecting enough clues, we are likely to lose our lives."
"But we've just got here, our energy is still abundant, we can encourage each other, maintain a positive attitude. If we waste this precious time on less important matters, we may slow down our progress and get worn out here."
"So in my opinion, we should start from the middle level - investigating the situation in New York City, finding out what the city and its people did when disaster struck. Perhaps this would partially reveal the nature of the disaster, and maybe it would find survivors."
"Though I don't hold out hope for the latter point, I think you make sense." Riley nodded in agreement.
The other two could not refute Jarvis's well-argued analysis. Having such a rational teammate in such a predicament was a blessing. So they started to speculate on what happened to New York.
"I speculate that one day, a monster might have parasitized a human. Then it might have secretly used its tentacles to sow more seeds in other human bodies. Then they would hatch and kill humans one by one." Wanda ventured a guess first.
But Xu Shang-Chi shook his head, "If that's the case, why weren't many facilities destroyed? And why were there no traces of the military and police on the streets?"
Wanda frowned and said, "Maybe the incident happened so suddenly that the authorities didn't respond in time."
"Do you know how many people are in New York?" Xu Shang-Chi countered. He scribbled a string of words: "Even if people get infected in a binary fashion, it still takes longer than we think. As soon as a monster shows its true form, panic is a given."
"Could it be that an entity planted seeds in all people simultaneously and had them break out at once?" Riley looked at the words Xu Shang-Chi had written, wrinkles forming on his forehead.
Jarvis shook his head, "If the mastermind's ultimate goal is to destroy humanity, since it has the ability to sow seeds in all humans, why not directly kill all humans? Or plant the seeds in the heart? The human physiological structure points to them not being able to resist such an attack."
The discussion reached an impasse. Clearly Wanda's "infection theory" of spreading from one to many didn't align with what they saw in New York. Riley's theory of "simultaneous outbreak" was a logical contradiction.
Suddenly, Riley had a flash of inspiration: "Perhaps the mastermind did not intend to destroy humans, maybe it only wanted monsters?"
"What does it want with monsters?"
Riley fell silent again. He couldn't figure it out. From the monsters they had encountered, these monsters really didn't have many advantages.
"Perhaps, perhaps those powerful monsters were already killed by the Ancient One." Riley tried to guess, "Like in zombie movies, amongst countless normal zombies, there are always one or two that have special abilities."
"No, no, no." Riley quickly denied his guess, saying, "Even though the Ancient One is powerful, if those special monsters are wiped with just a flick of her hand, there seems to be nothing major."
"Don't any of you find it weird?" Wanda suddenly spoke, "Compared to the attack we experienced at night, the monsters on the road were like babies. The difference in their strength is too great."
"These monsters are unlikely to have been made to attack or destroy anything. They're more like ... more like …"
Wanda was trying hard to find an apt adjective, but to no avail. Jarvis, rubbing his chin, intervened, "They're more like failures."
"If they are failures, what would the successes look like?" Jarvis asked rhetorically, but quickly countered, "No, that's the wrong line of thought. Having failures doesn't necessarily mean there are successes. Or rather, they are more like some kind of... debris?"
Xu Shang-Chi's hand suddenly froze, then swiftly wrote in the sand: "They are remnants of fear."
All turned to look at him. Xu Shang-Chi took a deep breath and, relying on his rich imagination from watching countless horror films, began to reason;
"Have you ever considered what we would turn into after we could no longer resist the night attacks and finally lose our minds completely?"
Everyone froze.
The tips of the Scarlet Witch's fingers began trembling. The natural female instinct made her more disgusted by those tendrils, slime and tumors than anyone else. Just imagining herself turning into such a monster already left her breathless.
"You mean, if we lose to the night, we will turn into those monsters?" Jarvis asked, looking into Xu Shang-Chi's eyes.
But he quickly found a loophole in this theory, retorting, "But wouldn't that be the same as an infection? People's willpower varies. Some will go mad earlier, while others later."
"So earlier-appearing monsters would definitely have triggered alarm from authorities, right? How come there were none left to mount an armed resistance, and everyone just perished peacefully?"
Everyone fell silent again. It was now clear that their deductions have fallen into a deadlock. However, one fact could not be ignored: New York had not suffered significant damage.
The collapsed buildings didn't seem to be hit by artillery, but rather appeared to have been abandoned due to a lack of maintenance, or collapsed under the weight of some large monster. There were no signs of combat on the roads, most cars were intact, and numerous essential supplies had not been looted.
Despite the fact that all present could be called young heroes, they all realized that, by nature, humans are chaotic creatures. If everyone could truly uphold their kind-hearted nature and not harm others in the face of such terrifying disasters, then why would there be so many problems on Earth?
Therefore, it is conceivable that amidst disasters, massive chaos would definitely ensue. Even when the disaster hadn't arrived and there were only rumors, people would react hysterically and hoard supplies, let alone when a picture of a single monster was taken. Even if the authorities responded promptly, small-scale chaos would still be inevitable.
As an outsider, Xu Shang-Chi didn't hold much esteem for the organizational capabilities of the New York government. Yet the native New Yorkers, were even more cynical, despairing at the mere thought. Therefore, the absence of combat traces in the city marked a logical impasse they couldn't overcome.
"Don't you find it strange? Compared to the Doomsday Cities we've seen before, this city is way too intact."
In the shaded lanes of Central Park, New York, Quill was discussing a similar issue with Rocket Raccoon, and they were undoubtedly more widely-traveled than the youngsters who had barely left Earth.
"I was on Rongtastar, you know, that cursed star in Centaurus..."
"Oh!" Rocket Raccoon exclaimed as he finally understood, "You mean the planet that was unlucky enough to be knocked off-course by other planets, flung out of the solar system by a solar explosion, and then knocked into a black hole by a speeding battlecruiser from the Kree Empire?"
"Exactly, that's the one. The original inhabitants of Centaurus like to call it the Cursed Star, but I prefer to call it Black 8—I've never even been that accurate playing pool on Earth."
Thinking of the star's unfortunate fate, Rocket Raccoon finally cracked a long-absent smile. He snorted and said, "There are plenty of unlucky stars in the cosmos, but it's indeed rare for one to be as unlucky."
"You should say that I am unlucky. At that time, I had been sent by Yondu to spy on that pool ball. To be honest, both the leaders and the inhabitants there were really great. Although there weren't too many people, and their civilization wasn't developed, their reaction was very prompt, and they were united."
"Their only planetary shield was activated within milliseconds of the collision, so the initial impact didn't cause devastating damage to the planet itself."
"But the funny part is, the younger brother of the leader thought the collision was a plot by his elder brother to kill him. So, he decided to strike first and killed his brother, then illegally activated the thrusters. As a result, the citizens were unprepared and the massive kinetic force splattered them all over the walls, turning them into human paste."
"What I'm trying to say is, civilization is very fragile in the face of such disasters."
"In my opinion, humans are not as united as the inhabitants of that pool ball. Faced with such a large-scale disaster, wouldn't someone fire a shot? I can't believe no one did."