Restoring the fate of the world was a very broad mission.

While Xiao was searching for the way to crystallize Xinya's power, he didn't forget to complain about the mission. Even though he was the one who relayed it to his host, he didn't make it.

In the first place, Feng Xinya didn't know what the fate of the world was—would it be destroyed by the zombies or would humans successfully counterattack the apocalypse?

This was the main reason the little system could not handle the injustice.

"How could you restore something if you don't even know what to restore?! Should we push for human sovereignty? Or are we supposed to create the first-ever Zombie Kingdom ah?" Xiao was not as perceptive as his host, so he didn't realize how many clues had been thrown to them already.

Restoring the fate of the world meant that the current fate of the world was not aligned to its original fate.

The reason Feng Xinya felt that the mission was particularly easy and doable was that it in itself was the biggest hint provided to him by the system. Clearly, there was an outlier in this world apart from himself that was able to singlehandedly change the fate of the world by their actions.

With Feng Xinya's knowledge of his own world, it didn't take a genius to know that the only things capable of changing an entire world's fate either didn't belong to that world in the first place, the residents of that world had transcended beyond the world's control, or the "god" of the world was directly interfering.

In the case of transcendents, unless they were eccentric, it would be very rare for them to involve themselves in the fate of the world. After all, the price of such was their life. When the residents first transcended, they were required to vow to never interfere in worldly disputes and letting go of all ties. This was a universal law that existed in every world, including his own.

Feng Xinya believed that the gods were transcendents simply playing as gods, and as this wasn't his world he wouldn't rule out those scammers' possible involvement in its happenings using loopholes in the oath. Even if the so-called gods interfered using those loopholes, their efforts would be limited. So limited, that they couldn't physically interfere but were rather required to designate proxies. However, proxies wouldn't always retain the goals and missions assigned by the gods. Additionally, there were many variables in terms of the proxies' personalities and loyalties. After all, they were only human. If the proxies betrayed their gods, usually nothing would befall them. This was because the gods could only designate a limited number of proxies and would be reluctant to throw away their chess piece so thoughtlessly.

As for beings that didn't belong to the world, Feng Xinya was a prime example. He could change the fate of the world even without knowing the original fate with just a few words to different people if he wanted to. That was how influential foreign beings were.

So, imagine if there was someone who was aware of the fate of the world. Although prophets claimed to have the power of foresight, they were inevitably still residents of the world and were unable to change anything.

However, if someone foreign had the knowledge of the future, then they could at the very least completely derail the world's fate. If they willed it and had the capabilities, then it was even possible to control the world's fate. Feng Xinya felt that this was the most likely cause of the world's "collapse."

There could have been involvement from gods in addition to that, but in the end, the one Feng Xinya would be disposing of wouldn't be the god but its proxy. He didn't give a damn about the god as long as he could complete his mission without going the extra mile.

As for the culprit responsible for changing the fate of this world, it wouldn't be farfetched to claim him to be Sima Lei's murderer.

After all, if it was only having extensive information on Sima Lei and enmity toward him, anyone would be able to fill in that role. However, the murderer knew of the crystal nucleus and even destroyed it without bashing the victim's head open only two days after the meteor shower, while most people remained unconscious for the next four or five days.

Presumably, the murderer had used his own ability, but even that would be enough to verify his status as an outside influence due to his unusual familiarity with a supposedly new power.

Although Feng Xinya would have to venture outside to find out the current standard of the country's ability-users to finalize his argument, he was confident that his speculation was not wrong.

Feng Xinya wasn't completely sure how much time had elapsed from the last scenes from Sima Lei's memories to the current time. If he wanted to find that man, it was probably too late.

Nevertheless, he knew that man hated Sima Lei enough to personally disable him before leaving without confirming his death. By doing so, even if Sima Lei survived, he'd be useless in the apocalypse which would be a life worse than death for such an authoritarian military man who'd always been at the top of the food chain.

Using the man's hate for Sima Lei, Feng Xinya wouldn't even need to personally search for him before the man would end up throwing himself into the pit on his own. All Feng Xinya had to do was make Sima Lei's name resound throughout the apocalypse. Then, after capturing the man to extract the original world's fate from him, Xinya could devote the rest of the time ensuring that the world followed the correct road to its original fate.

"Done?" Raising his right brow, Feng Xinya indifferently inquired about Xiao's progress in finding the solution to the most pressing matter.

"Huh? With wha...Oh! Uh, there are too many nove—I mean, invalid theories that I have to filter through. I estimate that I'll need a minimum of 12 hours before I can give you a confident report..." Xiao quietened down at the chilly aura emanating from his host at his response before quickly interjecting, "I mean 6 hours...3. Yes, 3!"

Only after the freezing aura was retracted did Xiao inwardly let out a sigh of relief. If he had a physical body, he'd be standing in a deep puddle of sweat.

Although Feng Xinya pressed for Xiao to find the solution to crystallization faster, he didn't particularly need his ability at all. He'd already made his sword, and his soul was running Sima Lei's body without much expense.

It was only because Sima Lei's body needed the crystal nucleus to completely recover that Feng Xinya wanted Xiao to quicken his pace. After all, the only reason the body required his soul to expend itself—albeit very minutely—in the first place was because its recovery was incomplete. The moment he implanted the nucleus inside of his brain, he would no longer have to provide fuel for the body.

To Feng Xinya, even the smallest of expenses had the possibility to make a big difference. The energy he was using to fuel Sima Lei's body could have been considered as good as wasted. His ability to manipulate bones was connected to his soul, so Feng Xinya wanted to consume as little as possible in this stepping-stone of a world so that he could kill Radley sooner.

Observing from the window, Xinya saw that the zombies from outside had finally reached the opened front door of Sima Lei's mansion. Beside the charred bed was a dresser in which Sima Lei stored an emergency handgun and bullets, but Xinya didn't have to look inside to know that the man had removed it to make Sima Lei's survival more difficult if he'd managed to live.

As Sima Lei was a Major General, he also had a collection of weapons in a hidden room. Xinya also didn't bother checking to see if the man had already robbed the place clean, as it was clear as day that the man had tried all he could to ensure that Sima Lei did not have an easy way out. Furthermore, one bone sword, Xinya's combat skills, and Sima Lei's body would be more than enough to dispatch herds of zombies.

Sima Lei slept with a plain black sleeveless t-shirt and a pair of loose, baggy army green pants. While beheading the zombie chef from earlier, its liquids had poured out all over the bottom of Xinya's face and below, so it was imperative that he found himself some cleaner clothes to wear before heading out.

If it were any other person, maybe they would not have been able to take the rancid smell of pus and zombie blood, but Xinya still felt that the sweet and intoxicating scent of human blood was the most detestable.

The formerly heavy body was no longer a burden to him with the expense of his soul as he walked leisurely to the closet across the master bedroom. When he looked outside, from the somber and ashy color of the sky coupled with Sima Lei's memory, it appeared to be winter.

It took no longer than two minutes for Feng Xinya to pick out a dark gray military-style jacket to wear over a sleeveless white shirt and dark ash-blue jeans. Although it may have been cold using human standards, Xinya cared more about his mobility when choosing his wear.

By the time he stepped out of the room and reached the staircase, the faster zombies were already halfway up the stairs. The moment they caught sight of Xinya's figure, their movements instantly became aggravated as they stumbled and fell over themselves and the steps to reach him at the top of the staircase.

Akin to a deity apathetically overlooking mortals from above, Feng Xinya waited for as many zombies to reach and gather within his sword's range before swinging it horizontally to behead them without much force from their necks. Their falling headless corpses hindered the next horde of zombies while Xinya didn't so much as take a single step from his initial spot at the top, but the cycle continued until there were none left in the wide mansion.

It had only been twenty minutes since he'd first brandished his sword when Feng Xinya flourished it again towards the last group of three zombies that dared to approach him.

From these zombies' and the chef zombie's actions, Feng Xinya could guess that they did not rely on mere sight or sound as their means of detection. When he'd first crossed over to this world, the chef zombie had already made its way to his room without Sima Lei's mute corpse having made any sound prior.

It could have been that the man had lured the zombies to his location, but that would leave too many loopholes to explain the following horde that he'd just dispatched. While the man could also have initially led the horde to his manor, the zombies would have to have been attracted by something that was noticeable enough to occupy their attention and keep them heading towards Sima Lei.

Xinya figured that if it was not his scent that had attracted them from so far away, then perhaps it could also have been a sensing ability that only zombies had. It couldn't be helped that he'd never encountered zombies before, not to mention this was an entirely foreign world to him. He could only experiment with possible theories as he went. If the zombies had a sharp sense of smell or a perceptive ability, then he'd need to find out the range.

The dark blood of forty or fifty zombies dripped down the broad staircase, their bodies piled up toward the bottom. Although he was on the second story of his mansion, the elevation was equivalent to the third story of an average building.

Nevertheless, instead of trying to make his way through the hill of corpses, Feng Xinya jumped from the railings and skillfully landed on the hardwood floor without breaking a sweat.

While he waited for his faulty system to research the way for a normal human materialize a crystal nucleus, he decided to take a stroll outside the perimeters of Sima Lei's residence to check out Z City's current situation.