Chapter 702: End
Blood flowers danced wildly, gray smoke spiraled.
In just a few short minutes, the number of online viewers in both live broadcast rooms began to skyrocket, turning into a terrifyingly high number in the blink of an eye. Countless fanatic viewers flooded into their two broadcast rooms, just to witness this unprecedented battle of the century.
This wasn’t just a battle between two widely recognized powerhouses who had climbed their way up to the top ten of Nightmare through countless bloody battles; it was a life-and-death struggle between a proxy captain of the cruise ship and an Executioner of Nightmare.
This was not an exciting plot you could see every day!
All the viewers’ hearts were in their throats, their attention tightly drawn to the screens. Their gazes were greedily glued to the monitors, like sharks tracking the scent of a prey’s blood, unwilling to let go of even the slightest detail.
This was a carnival for gluttons.
Who would win, who would lose?
Who would live, who would die?
Gladiate, slaughter, choke each other’s throats, and bite off each other’s flesh!
What a spectacular live broadcast! What exquisite entertainment!
The corridor had already fallen apart, no longer showing its original appearance.
The walls and floor had shattered like crushed ice, leaving only a few places to stand.
“79.”
Buzz.
Buzz.
A roaring sound echoed in his ears.
The mechanical voice belonging to Nightmare echoed in his ears—that chilling, sharp voice. It didn’t recite the terms of cooperation, didn’t offer tempting rewards, nor did it reiterate the price of breaking the contract. It simply counted down indifferently, mechanically, and evenly.
“78.”
“77.”…
A total countdown of 120 seconds.
This was an ultimatum.
Once the countdown ended, the contract would be torn up, with no room for redemption.
“Tell me…”
The woman’s coquettish voice rang out.
She walked forward unhurriedly, step by step, her bare feet stepping on the floor covered in cracks and semi-coagulated blood. Beneath her feet, red vines like giant pythons slithered into the distance, their thick roots piercing deep into the ship’s hull, recklessly absorbing energy from it. They pushed open the walls and floors, which were already as fragile as thin paper, layer by layer, swimming beneath the disintegrated corridor like deep-sea monsters, making a hair-raising scraping sound.
“Why bother with all this?”
In stark contrast to her soft, almost joking tone, accompanied by a loud boom, deep red vines violently burst out from under the floor, carrying a thunderous, mighty force, striking straight in Hugo’s direction—
The countless wisps of gray smoke, like drifting clouds and scattered mist that had unknowingly filled the air, tightened in an instant.
Just like that, the blood-colored vines were forcibly intercepted in mid-air, unable to advance even an inch.
Hugo abruptly raised his eyes. The next second, the smoke stretched out, and the blade-like gray threads constricted tightly towards the middle.
The vines began to disintegrate.
In the blink of an eye, only blood-colored fragments remained, scattering across the ground like flower petals.
The thick, rotting floral scent rose like steam, dyeing the air into an ominous pink.
“You sacrificed everything and gave up all your personal will, just to exchange for the position of a Nightmare Executioner.”
The smiling female voice drifted over from afar, sometimes close, sometimes distant.
“The things you’ve done for Nightmare, the blood staining your hands, someone like me who joined halfway could never catch up to.”
“But when your goal is right at your fingertips, you actually gave up?”
The last minute.
“You’ve clearly walked this path for so long, but to fall short at the final moment, isn’t it a pity?”
Buzz.
The roaring sound grew stronger, like steel needles piercing into his mind.
“To go to this extent just for someone you’ve only cooperated with in a few instances, someone whose true background you don’t even know, is it really worth it?”
“Do you even know what you’ve given up?”
Amidst the blood-colored residual flowers and gray smoke, Hugo seemed to hear a voice.
Faint, distant, yet familiar.
“…Captain.” “Captain?” “Captain, Captain!”
Cheerful, bright, concerned, carefree, and completely without grievance—
Hugo’s footsteps paused, and he involuntarily turned his head, looking in the direction the voice came from, searching aimlessly.
“Cap… Captain…” “Captain!!!”
Intermittent, weak, pained—shrill, terrified, despairing, screaming hoarsely.
“Captain, save me… save me…” “Don’t, don’t leave me behind, I don’t want to die yet!” “Captain, I miss my parents so much…”
“Retreat quickly!!!”
“Don’t go over there, he’s beyond saving, we must keep moving forward—hurry!!”
“It’s no use, it’s already over…”
“Captain, don’t go over there—”
“Don’t look back, Captain, run away!!”
“Leave us alone, don’t mind—” “Captain, go quickly, you can survive!!”
“Captain,” an incredibly ear-piercing scream echoed from his memory, as if tearing through the thick fog of time in an instant, emitting from the depths of distant space-time, and exploding in his ears in the present, “Watch out!!!”
“Crack—crack crack—” An agonizing, bizarre scraping sound rang out before his eyes.
Hugo raised his eyes. Deep within his sharply contracted pupils reflected the blood-colored flower tip that was close at hand.
It was only half a centimeter away from piercing his eyeball, but it was caught tightly in the nick of time, suspended motionlessly in mid-air.
“Hehe…”
The woman’s laughter was soft and eerie. Accompanied by the laughter, the flower peeled off again, vanishing without a trace.
Hugo panted, blood dripping down from his slashed palm, accumulating into a small pool of blood on the ground in the blink of an eye.
He slowly raised his eyes, staring at Dan Zhu not far away.
The woman with half her face in bloody makeup was smiling brightly, a red flower blooming in her hollow eye socket.
On the ground behind her lay the lifeless Ye Lin.
The first Nightmare Executioner.
Sold his soul to Nightmare, at all costs, by any means necessary, just in exchange for the rebirth of his dead lover.
In his ears, the cold and ruthless countdown continued to echo.
Before he knew it, it had reached the final ten seconds.
“9”, “8”, “7”…
“…”
Hugo looked at Dan Zhu without saying a word.
Through that weird and glamorous face, he seemed to still be able to see the once bright and beautiful contours.
Hugo stared at her fixedly, unblinkingly, and deeply, as if wanting to look through this corrupted, twisted, and alienated body to see some long-gone figures.
Those figures he had left behind, whom he had absolutely no way of ever seeing again.
The figures smiled and waved at him.
Calling him “Captain.”
Finally, Hugo withdrew his gaze. He slowly opened his mouth, his voice very light.
This was the first time he had answered Dan Zhu’s question since the battle began.
“…I know.”
—No one knew better than him.
Deep within the cruise ship.
The further down they went, the more fragmented and extremely complicated the stairs became. It was completely impossible to distinguish directions in them. What was worse, the deeper their location, the harder it was to ignore the weirdness around them.
They felt like they were walking in the belly of a giant beast.
The darkness was like some kind of gelatin, sticking tightly to their skin, bringing a lingering sense of dampness.
The walls were soft, the ground sticky. With every step they took, there seemed to be a faint sound of water.
The sounds of water echoed each other, turning into some kind of murmuring whisper—some far, some near, impossible to hear clearly. It sounded like human voices, yet not like human voices. It was as if tiny, dense teeth had appeared inside their bodies, gnawing at their bones from the inside out, bringing an itch and a numbness that could almost drive a person mad.
Their thoughts rapidly dissociated, as if they were uncontrollably falling asleep…
“Watch out!!!”
No. 8 suddenly raised his voice.
Wen Ya was startled, waking as if from a dream.
Her reaction was extremely fast; she immediately raised her arm, blocking Orange Candy who was following behind her.
“What’s going on?” Orange Candy also jolted.
Wen Ya, still in shock, took a few steps back, panting heavily.
If she had taken another half-step forward just now, she would have fallen directly off the edge of the stairs, plummeting into the endless abyssal rift.
“You guys don’t belong here,” No. 8 said. “Staying here for too long will cause problems.”
“What problems?”
Wen Ya calmed her heartbeat a bit and asked.
No. 8: “Your spirit and will will be dissolved, digested, and eventually become a part of this place, until you are swallowed by the darkness and completely disappear.”
When he was leading Wen Jianyan along this path earlier, the reason he repeatedly emphasized that the other party had to stick close to him was for fear of this exact situation happening.
“Like dropping Sanity (SAN)?” Orange Candy asked.
No. 8: “You could understand it like that.”
Su Cheng: “Is there any way to improve it?”
No. 8: “Unfortunately, no.”
“But don’t worry too much,” he said as he stepped forward again. “If I remember correctly, we’re almost at our destination.”
With the previous warning, this time, the group acted more cautiously and stayed even closer together than before—Wen Ya even suggested whether they should hold hands and walk together, but this was firmly and unhesitatingly rejected by Orange Candy, so they had to drop the idea. Just like this, they closely followed behind No. 8, walking slowly downwards along the seemingly endless stairs.
Finally, after an unknown amount of time…
No. 8, who was walking in front, stopped without warning.
Immediately after, accompanied by a soft click, a dark yellow crevice opened in the darkness. As the crevice widened, a faint, but genuinely existing ray of light shone in from the outside, landing on everyone’s faces.
“We’re here,” No. 8 said.
That’s right.
Negative seventh floor had arrived.
After walking out of that incredibly bizarre passage, the door disappeared the moment it closed, leaving only a smooth, seamless wall.
“Finally out,” Orange Candy cursed softly while vigorously rubbing her arms, which were covered in goosebumps. “The stuff in that stairwell made my whole body uncomfortable…”
Wen Ya didn’t reply, she just raised her head and looked around.
Probably because this floor had once been flooded by seawater, a heavy, fishy, damp smell floated in the air. The carpet had long been soaked and rotting, with stagnant black seawater pooling in the depressions. At the half-open entrance to the auction, a sign with words written on it lay crookedly on the ground, half submerged in the seawater. The text on it had been corroded beyond recognition, only barely allowing one to make out the words “Under Repair.”
The entire floor was devoid of any trace of a person, presenting a scene of ruin and dilapidation.
Wen Ya’s gaze fell on the surrounding walls, and she couldn’t help but freeze slightly.
Those portraits that were originally hung on the walls, serving as passages between the outer and inner auctions, had actually disappeared at some point. Only empty, bare walls remained. If it weren’t for the square marks still left on the wall surfaces, one would almost think there had been nothing there to begin with…
But, what was going on?
Why did the paintings disappear?
Was there some deeper meaning in this that they hadn’t figured out yet?
Just as she was lost in thought, suddenly, a creak came from not far away. The main doors of the auction were being pushed open from the inside.
The next second, the temperature plummeted, and invisible darkness spread out from within.
Deep in the darkness, pale, dripping wet shadows could vaguely be seen, walking outwards shoulder to shoulder.
They must be the corpses that were brought in along with the seawater through that rift when this floor was flooded!
“Haha…”
Watching those corpses slowly walking out from the auction hall, Orange Candy laughed out loud uncharacteristically. She narrowed her eyes, a blood-red light seeming to ripple in the depths of her eyes. The corners of her mouth tipped high, sketching out an excited smile.
“Wonderful.”
She took light steps, skipping forward. Letting her wrist hang loose, the long, heavy, rusted, and massive blade was dragged behind her, leaving a deep cut in the ground and making an agonizing scraping sound.
The little girl giggled, her laughter sharp and high-pitched, carrying a sort of abnormal madness.
“I’ve been holding it in for so long just now, not letting me do this, not letting me do that… Finally, there’s something fun to play with.”
Inside the tilted train.
Accompanied by a soft click, the door to the driver’s cabin slowly slid open inward.
At that moment, everyone present almost forgot to breathe. They stared intently at the open door in front of them, the shock written all over their faces.
“This… this is…”
Unlike the others, Wen Jianyan, who had opened this door with his own hands, appeared excessively calm.
“Let’s go, it’s time to go in.”
Saying that, he stepped forward, walking straight into the driver’s cabin.
Wu Zhu followed behind him, not leaving his side for a single step.
After passing through the iron door, the driver’s cabin of an old-fashioned train appeared before them. The area here wasn’t considered too big, and because several of them had walked inside, it felt slightly crowded. The furnishings here were very simple, with only two things really—a console covered in dust, and two old, dirty seats placed in front.
In front of the console was a hazy window. Outside the window was complete darkness; nothing could be seen clearly.
Figaro took a step forward and cautiously extended a finger to swipe across the console. A black trail appeared on the dusty metal surface.
He rubbed the dust on his fingertips, finally unable to suppress his curiosity, and asked:
“So, how do we operate this now?”
“How do we get this thing to start, and, how do we make it drive to where you want it to go?”
Wen Jianyan didn’t answer immediately.
Because he didn’t know the answers to these questions either.
Having the authority to enter the train’s driver’s cabin didn’t mean that all problems could be easily solved.
When it was running on the tracks previously, the train had its fixed route. It would only stop at stations where tracks were laid and a station existed, and there also had to be relevant passengers on board.
Last time, it was because Hugo was there.
As an officially checked-in member of the cruise ship, his “destination” was on the cruise ship. Therefore, under the influence of Wen Jianyan’s talent, the train was able to crash into the cruise ship—and because his talent failed, it stopped running, ultimately forced to lodge deeply into the cruise ship, becoming a chunk of iron that not even Nightmare’s instance restructuring could eradicate.
But this time…
Even if Wen Jianyan could use his talent one more time to create another train station on the negative seventh floor, they didn’t have any passengers to act as “guideposts.”
“…”
Wen Jianyan’s brows knit tightly together. He involuntarily rubbed and rotated the Ouroboros ring at the base of his finger, not knowing what he was thinking about.
Suddenly, right at this moment, an astonished voice came from behind.
It was Blond.
“Hey… look over there. On the console, is there something exactly identical to yours…”
Wen Jianyan froze. Following the direction of Blond’s finger, he saw a faint flickering silver light in front of the dust-covered control panel.
His heart skipped a beat. He quickly stepped forward and used his cuff to wipe away the dust on it.
Directly in front of the console, there was a small, flat, oval-shaped depression. However, unlike the tightly shut main door of the driver’s cabin from earlier, here, it wasn’t empty, but had long been inserted with a “key”—eighty percent of the “key” was sunk deeply into the console, but the part facing outwards was a snake head biting its snake tail.
“It really is the same,” Figaro said in surprise.
Wen Jianyan raised his hand, trying to pull the key out—but he failed.
The Ouroboros seemed to have grown together with the console; it couldn’t be pulled out at all.
Wen Jianyan’s heart suddenly began to pound wildly.
Indeed. If the key to the train had always been in his hand, then how had it been starting up for such a long period of time?
If the “Ouroboros” here was the true key to the train, then everything made sense—after the train was started, the Ouroboros was permanently left in the driver’s cabin so it could run endlessly and continuously.
Ji Guan’s confused voice rang in his ear: “How amazing, they actually left a spare for this kind of thing…”
The Ouroboros ring deeply branded at the base of his finger seemed to faintly start burning up.
All memories related to it seemed to flood into his mind at this moment.
“No, it didn’t exist in itself,” Wen Jianyan murmured. “Someone made it… made it specifically for me.”
What?
Hearing Wen Jianyan’s abrupt words, the others were all stunned.
However, Wen Jianyan didn’t seem to explain further. He just lowered his head and began to frantically search through his backpack.
Although the Ouroboros ring first appeared in the Fantasy Amusement Park, its origin was the Ping’an Asylum. And the Ping’an Asylum was an instance that developed from “creating a god” and “imprisoning a god.” The origin of the instance, which was also the source of information for the humans in the Asylum, was a torn piece of human skin parchment.
It told them how to create a god, and also guided them on how to imprison a god.
Namely, the Ouroboros ring.
Then, where did this torn page made of human skin come from?
Wen Jianyan stopped his movements, and a thick, dust-covered book made of human skin appeared in his palm.
That’s right.
It was a torn page of the [Dead Sea Scrolls].
And the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of Uncle De.
That old and weary voice seemed to echo in his ears once more. He said—”I… no. This is the only way we… can atone.”
That’s right, the Ouroboros ring he was currently wearing wasn’t the original one that started the train.
Instead, it was a ring re-forged under the guidance of the torn page of the [Dead Sea Scrolls].
A “spare key.”
Since the “spare key” had already been prepared, then the “spare anchor point”—
Wen Jianyan could hear the roar of his own blood flow. His fingers seemed to tremble slightly in nervousness. He slowly took a deep breath, forcibly steadying his breathing, raised his hand, and slowly placed that thick ancient book—which felt as delicate as the skin of a living person—onto the console.
Then, he reached out and twisted the key.
The second the key was turned, the ground beneath their feet jerked violently.
Boom!
Everyone present was energized. At this moment, they clearly realized what Wen Jianyan was trying to do.
He was attempting to start the train!
Just as everyone held their breath, fully concentrated, their gazes tightly locked on it, suddenly—
“Wait!!”
Standing at the very back, Ji Guan, who also had the strongest spiritual vision, jolted. He seemed to have sensed something. “Something’s wrong.”
His gaze sharpened, and he abruptly looked towards the back. His voice broke the tense and deathly silent atmosphere inside the train at this moment, pulling everyone’s attention back:
“Someone’s coming!”
“?!”
Everyone was startled and turned their heads to look up and towards the back.
In the darkness, through the chaotic debris, several blurry silhouettes could vaguely be seen.
They were coming silently from above the train.
“It’s Oracle!!!” Blond’s pupils contracted. He recognized the identities of the newcomers in the dark and couldn’t help but cry out in alarm.
Behind the members of Oracle stood a figure wearing a hood. The shadow cast by the hat blocked his face, but it couldn’t cover the deep, knife-like red mark on his neck.
Although Hugo’s temporary defection had hindered Dan Zhu’s pursuit, it didn’t mean that Nightmare had no other usable cards left in its hand.
As they walked forward, they were holding bizarre items that even the most veteran anchors had never seen before. With the fastest speed, they calmly and silently destroyed the interior of the train, smashing the windows and tearing off the doors. The entire process was silent, without a single extraneous noise.
Obviously, they were trying to sever the isolation effective against Nightmare that the train could create, by destroying the interior space of the train.
Wen Jianyan’s eyes flashed sharply, and he made a prompt decision:
“Blond, you stay here. Ji Guan, leave Chen Mo here and act together with Figaro—at all costs, you must stop them from destroying the train!”
He raised his hand and grabbed Wu Zhu’s arm.
“The back of the train has already been destroyed. This time, they’ve probably been strengthened by Nightmare,” Wen Jianyan spoke very fast. “Be careful, don’t get hurt, and don’t let anyone else die here, understand?”
“And,”
The youth raised his eyes, ordering calmly and slowly.
“As for these people, make absolutely sure they die thoroughly this time, with no possibility of getting back up—even if you have to use more extreme or cruel methods, it doesn’t matter.”
“—Chop them into pieces, grind them to powder, or mince them into mush, whatever you want.”
“…”
Wu Zhu’s pupils contracted like a beast smelling blood. He curled the corners of his lips, “Okay.”
The heavily injured Chen Mo and the non-combatant Blond were left at the front of the train. Everyone else left here at top speed, heading to the back.
Wen Jianyan took a deep breath, throwing all the sounds coming from behind out of his mind.
His gaze landed on the console in front of him, fully concentrated, free of any distractions.
Then, he took a deep breath and activated his talent.
[On the negative seventh floor, there is also a station where one can stop].
The dice roll needed to be above 98 for reality to change.
The number Wen Jianyan rolled was 1.
“…” Wen Jianyan’s heart sank. He knew his luck was bad, but he didn’t expect that in such a crucial situation, he would actually roll such a ridiculous number.
It seemed he could only once again—
Bang!
As if interfered with by some invisible force, the Dead Sea Scrolls, which had been resting quietly on the console, were suddenly flipped open. The yellowed pages, exhibiting a delicate skin texture like that of a human, began to turn slowly, page by page.
The number changed before his eyes.
With every page turned, the number increased by one.
Just like the probability that had skyrocketed wildly under the influence of the ghost infant before, this time, the exact same thing happened again. The probability was being influenced, twisted, and changed by some bizarre power…
The pages turned faster and faster, faster and faster, making an astonishing fluttering sound, and the expected dice roll also rapidly climbed, climbed, and climbed!
Then—Smack!
The book closed.
The probability stopped at a number:
—”409.”
408 pages of the ancient scroll, 408 pieces of the dead’s skin, 408 unresigned lingering souls.
Plus the “1” that Wen Jianyan had just rolled, making it exactly 409.
He didn’t use his second Apple.
The lie was established directly.
Accompanied by the growing sound of mechanical operation, the train that was just like dead iron a moment ago was rapidly waking up. Through the hazy windows, two piercingly pale headlights could be seen lighting up. However, what they illuminated was not the knotted, chaotic interior of the cruise ship, but a bottomless, empty darkness, as if an alternate dimension had been opened.
That’s right.
Wen Jianyan guessed correctly.
These “human skin parchments,” this volume of the “Dead Sea Scrolls.”
It was created from the very beginning to change all this. Every page inside was a “passenger,” and all of their goals were completely unanimous.
That was—the end of Nightmare.
