The End
Chapter 720: Essence
Roll, roll.
Eyeballs of various sizes, turning repeatedly, ruled the sky.
Inside the auction house, the ceiling had completely disappeared, and the surrounding air was like solidified blood.
Nightmare invaded, reality fell.
The pitch-black ocean was dyed red, and blood waves moved without wind, tumbling as if boiling. The corpses floating within silently opened their eyes, their gray, cold eyes staring upwards. In the distant, icy land, the originally peaceful soil layer began to float from bottom to top, as if something was struggling to crawl out of the tombs—the supernatural forces buried in the deep layers of the world were all awakened, starting to riot.
Must—must—
Wen Jianyan heard his own rapid, disordered heartbeat, and the panic originating from instinct clamored in his mind.
He had to get out of here quickly!!!
However, his feet seemed to have taken root, unable to move a single step.
Under the gaze of the eyeballs above, clothes seemed to cease existing. Every inch of skin, every thread of muscle, every nerve was stripped and exposed, with nowhere to hide.
The blood-red air seemed to have the heavy pressure of ten thousand jun, forcefully grinding each of them into the ground. Even though their bodies had entered a fight-or-flight stress state, they forcefully couldn’t even move a single finger.
Pain. Every part of his body was in pain, from head to toe, from teeth to hair strands, from flesh to soul… They were scorched by that fiery red gaze, the torture seeming endless. Even if everything was burned to ashes, it wouldn’t stop.
Everyone was like this.
Under this overwhelming terror, they couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t run away.
The eyeballs overhead seemed to be falling, enlarging, and approaching boundlessly—until they swallowed them deep into those pupils of all sizes.
“Close your eyes!”
Suddenly, a hand covered his eyes.
Free from that terrifying gaze that made one lose their sanity, Wen Jianyan only felt his knees go soft, and his whole body planted downwards. Before falling to the ground, a cold hand, like an iron hoop, caught him.
“Hold on to me!”
A low, suppressed voice sounded, pouring into his ears in an undeniable way amidst the chaotic and crazy vortex.
“—”
With almost no time to think, Wen Jianyan desperately grabbed that arm close at hand, like a drowning person grabbing the only driftwood nearby.
The wind howled.
The concept of time suddenly blurred.
A second was stretched into a century, yet all this seemed to happen within a breath.
Not knowing how long had passed—maybe a second or two, maybe five minutes, ten minutes—
Finally, the palm blocking his eyes moved away.
Wen Jianyan panted heavily. The icy air, carrying the smell of blood, rushed into his lungs, bringing a pain like being cut by a knife.
His brain was still chaotic, almost unable to process any information.
By his ear was a continuous buzzing sound.
The surroundings were very blurry, everything seemed to be covered in a layer of fog, only a vague outline could be seen.
“…”
Wen Jianyan shook his head, closed his eyes forcefully, and his vision finally cleared up bit by bit.
He looked around and froze.
—Wait, he remembered this place.
This was the “backstage” of the auction house.
The last time the Lucky Cruise Ship opened, he had followed Figaro to this place… Although they hadn’t completely escaped danger, at the very least, they wouldn’t be exposed to that unbearable “stare.”
Suddenly, Wen Ya’s anxious voice came from beside him.
“Ji Guan… Ji Guan!”
Wen Jianyan startled, withdrew his gaze, and abruptly turned his head to look.
Half a step away, Ji Guan hung his head low, his face as pale as paper. Cold sweat had completely soaked his hair, and he had completely lost his voice.
A psychic’s constitution was like a curse, robbing him of his mobility the instant Nightmare completely descended. Seeming to sense the host’s weakness, the tattooed evil ghost on his neck opened its eyes, its bruised-black eyeballs rolling coldly. Ji Guan’s skin was pushed up high into a bizarre arc, as if something was trying to break free from beneath.
To the side, Orange Candy tilted her head, staring at the incomprehensible scene before her. On her tender little face, her expression repeatedly alternated between confusion and clarity.
“Move aside.” A low, hoarse voice came by his ear.
Wu Zhu stepped straight forward. He lowered his eyes and reached out his hand.
His fingertips were cold and pale, still stained with golden blood, and just like that, straightly, tapped lightly on Ji Guan’s neck.
“—!”
The next second, Ji Guan sharply drew in a breath of cold air and abruptly opened his eyes. The blue veins on his neck bulged, and an expression of pain appeared on his face.
The instant the fresh blood touched his skin, the evil ghost seemed to immediately feel some kind of suppression. A trace of fear flashed in those bruised-black eyes. It retreated bit by bit, and the spot that was pushed up high and repeatedly throbbing flattened down, returning to its original state once again.
Seeing Ji Guan’s condition return to stable, everyone couldn’t help but let out a collective sigh of relief. However, when their gaze landed on the person who brought all this about, the hearts they had just let down couldn’t help but rise again.
The man was expressionless, his skin like shattered porcelain. Irregular cracks extended from the side of his face down into his neck, deep within which golden blood could faintly be seen flowing gurglingly.
“I said,”
He raised his head, his intensely golden eyes looking as if they were about to drip blood.
“You will not die here.”
His gaze landing on the scars on the other party’s face, Wen Jianyan stepped forward, his voice uncontrollably tightening:
“You…”
Before finishing his sentence, he pursed his lips and straightforwardly offered his wrist: “Do you want blood? Hurry—”
“…No.”
Wu Zhu held his wrist, not biting down like he usually did.
He lowered his eyes to look at Wen Jianyan, paused, and said,
“I don’t.”
Wen Jianyan’s pupils suddenly contracted tightly, his chest feeling as if it had suffered a heavy blow. The pain that struck at this instant was even fiercer and more terrifying than just now when exposed under Nightmare’s fatal gaze, so much so that he had to grit his teeth tightly to keep from making a sound.
The meaning of “I don’t” was nothing more than— “It’s useless.”
Finally, they had to face the elephant in the room.
Nightmare had completely descended, and reality was lost right here.
Everything would be destroyed…
Bearing the brunt of it was the god who had once been loved by humans, and then betrayed and abandoned.
“So,”
Yang Fan suddenly spoke.
His voice was very soft. He half-raised his head, looking into the sky with unseeing eyes.
“…Did we… fail?”
“…”
It was dead silent all around. No one answered his question, because there seemed to be no need to answer anymore.
Everyone present was an arrow at the end of its flight, no longer possessing any combat capability.
However… even if they did, so what?
Even if they were all in their prime, the current situation wouldn’t change at all.
Personal power was so insignificant beneath the malice that had mutated and eroded the entire world.
It was still just a mayfly trying to shake a tree, a mantis trying to stop a chariot.
Hugo leaned back against the wall, using a single hand to pull out a cigarette and bite it at his lips. Although his movements were still not skillful, at least they weren’t as clumsy as before. He slowly exhaled a breath and said very calmly: “To be honest, I never thought I would be able to make it this far.”
He let out a hoarse laugh, his tone even holding a rare kind of relief:
“…Anyway, it was nice meeting you all.”
Since the world would end right here, then, dying just like this seemed fine too.
Wen Jianyan, who had remained silent the whole time since just now, suddenly moved out of nowhere.
He fiercely took a step forward and forcefully yanked away the cigarette Hugo was biting.
Under the other’s astonished gaze, he crushed the cigarette out, threw it away, and simply and crudely cursed: “Fuck your last words.”
His voice was sonorous, his enunciation clear and round.
Hugo froze, his hand still suspended in mid-air, not dropping down.
The young man raised his eyes, the rims red, his eyeballs showing ruthlessness:
“Go die somewhere else if you want to die, I’m still planning on living to a ripe old age.”
“…”
Everyone was stunned.
They stared fixedly at Wen Jianyan with astonished expressions. For a moment, the world seemed to fall into silence.
Not far away, Wu Zhu’s gaze landed on Wen Jianyan’s face, and a smile suddenly appeared on his lips.
Yes, this was why he couldn’t control himself from being fascinated by him… addicted to him in the very beginning.
That was the ever-leaping flame of life that could absolutely never be extinguished. Even in the most desperate, darkest times, he would reveal a contemptuous smile to the sky—you can kill me, but there is absolutely no possibility of making me admit defeat.
As if feeling the gaze Wu Zhu cast upon him, Wen Jianyan raised his eyes and looked straight over, not avoiding or giving way, meeting his eyes:
“…I have to go back again.”
His speaking speed was very fast:
“Can you still keep us from being observed?”
“I can.”
Wu Zhu agreed without even thinking, not even blinking an eye—it seemed that as long as it was a request made by Wen Jianyan, whether it was reasonable or not, regardless of the price, he would satisfy it at any cost.
“Good.”
Wen Jianyan turned his head to look at Figaro: “You come with me.”
“…” Figaro was stunned. He looked around left and right, before hesitantly pointing at himself, “Me?”
Besides him, there was no one else.
However, before he could think of an excuse to politely decline, he had already been irrefutably dragged away by Wen Jianyan.
Figaro was more familiar with the structure of the auction house than anyone else, naturally he could tell this was the path leading to the front stage—seeing that terrifying red light getting closer and closer, he hurriedly grabbed Wen Jianyan backhanded: “Wait wait wait—what exactly are you trying to do?”
He lowered his voice, his tone unable to hide his shock: “Going back now, do you want to die?”
“No.”
The light was faint, the other’s face couldn’t be seen clearly, only his eyes could be seen flashing in the dark.
“Exactly the opposite.”
Figaro froze.
But, before he could voice his doubt about this, he only heard Wen Jianyan continue on his own:
“—Haven’t you thought about it? Why did only the ceiling in that specific location collapse just now?”
Su Cheng said, Nightmare came riding this ship, and will leave riding this ship. But, where did it come from, and where is it going? The answer is unknown.
However, one thing is certain, the cruise ship is the beginning of everything, and also Nightmare’s most core carrier.
And on the cruise ship, this auction house is the most special area besides the captain’s cabin.
And this isn’t just because it is open to “humans” and “ghosts” respectively at the same time.
Of the three areas on the cruise ship, the accommodation area takes up eleven floors, the casino area takes up six floors, and the auction house only has one floor, but its manager possesses status and authority equal to the managers of the other two areas. Even though every area was destroyed the last time Wen Jianyan came, only this floor was completely and thoroughly restored—besides these, the key that made Wen Jianyan certain of this guess was that those oil paintings, which related to whether Nightmare could maintain its connection with this world, had always been displayed here as a passage connecting the two auction houses.
Although the captain’s cabin is the core of the cruise ship, the auction house has inextricably linked, indescribable connections with Nightmare itself.
And at the instant Nightmare descended just now, Wen Jianyan was captured by the sight of those countless blood-red eyes. But, even so, in the crevices of shock, fear, and panic, he still allocated a trace of attention and realized—the ceiling above collapsing was not caused by structural fragility. It was a perfectly round hole, with smooth edges, matching the original patterns on the ceiling so perfectly, as if it was designed to be like this in the first place.
Like an open deep pit, and also like an open-air gladiatorial arena.
On the cruise ship, only the area above this place had such a situation appear.
Why?
“…” Hearing Wen Jianyan’s question, Figaro froze for a moment.
Among everyone present, he was the one most familiar with the cruise ship and its internal rules. Of course he could understand the implied meaning in Wen Jianyan’s words.
Thus, he couldn’t help but raise his head and cast his gaze forward.
A thick curtain hung in front, becoming the only fragile barrier between the backstage and the front stage.
Through the gap in it, one could glimpse a corner of the auction house.
Countless eyeballs rolled above, and red light as thick as blood spilled down from above. And right in the center of the circle watched by countless eyes, was the high auction stage that had already been completely restored.
The wall destroyed by the train was restored to its original state, and the scorched marks on the wall had already faded.
Even though only the blink of an eye had passed, the auction house had already completely restored to its original appearance, even more complete and exquisite than before they first came in.
The first floor was completely empty, every dead corner bathed under the red light, with nowhere to hide.
On the second floor, heavy, dark red curtains like condensed fresh blood hung down, completely blocking everything inside. Not the slightest bit of the scene could be seen from the outside, only a pitch-black expanse, seemingly possessing some kind of fatal attraction that made one unable to look away—
Suddenly, a beam of light lit up faintly behind the velvet curtain.
“?!”
His heart palpitated, his expression astonished, and he couldn’t help but abruptly take a half step back.
This is…
Just like that, right under Figaro’s helpless gaze, one after another, the private boxes on the second floor lit up in succession.
“Do you know the identities of the ‘people’ inside the boxes?” Wen Jianyan’s voice came by his ear.
“…Distinguished guests.” Figaro came back to his senses and answered, “Their identities are kept secret. Even I don’t know exactly what kind of people sit inside each box, at most I can only guess.”
“You’ve participated in so many auctions, how many times have you seen the situation where a large number of boxes light up?”
Figaro froze.
This question…
He steadied his mind and said slowly: “Once.”
In regularly held auctions, the boxes on the second floor rarely lit up. Even if they did, at most there would only be two or three, and that was already the limit.
There was only one exception.
That’s right, it was during the time Wen Jianyan was auctioned.
At that time, almost the lights of the entire second-floor boxes lit up. Figaro still clearly remembered now that when he saw this scene at the time, a faint doubt had arisen in his heart—because the numbers didn’t match.
The top three guilds, the top ten of Nightmare, mercenary organizations.
However, no matter what method Figaro used to calculate, he couldn’t match the participants one-to-one with the number of boxes.
The number of lit-up boxes far exceeded the number of qualified individuals he was familiar with.
Receiving the answer, Wen Jianyan only felt his heart unsteadily sink downward, as if in an instant falling into a bottomless abyss of ten thousand zhang.
He remembered, in that auction.
No one heard the sound of bidding, only sign after sign slowly popping out from below.
Thus, the price kept pulling higher, until soaring to a terrifyingly high price of twenty billion.
Who bought him? Or rather, “what” was it?
Wen Jianyan had never found a definite answer.
Until now.
Until this moment.
At this point, all the broken evidence, the incomplete clues, connected into a line in front of him.
That exorbitant price, one that no human could afford to bear, what was it used to buy? —An ordinary top ten of Nightmare? No, how could that be.
In an instant, Wen Jianyan felt his hair stand on end.
He was put on that auction block in the identity of a “manufactured candidate for the New God.”
Because of this, he could be auctioned for such an exorbitant price.
True, although the top-ranked anchors from their world seemingly also had the right to use the boxes, it was strictly limited to the “outer auction.” They could only participate in the most superficial auctions for items related to maintaining their own lives and elevating their own status. And the true owners of the boxes were a world apart from them.
Ghosts? No.
—Real ghosts could not go up to the second-floor boxes. They would stay in the first-floor lobby in the identity of guests, purchasing the human body parts they needed—up until now, the only existence Wen Jianyan had seen that could enter the boxes was Wu Zhu.
Even though divided, weakened, and deprived, he was still a genuine god.
And this, was the essence of the “distinguished guests”.
They—no, it should be They—perhaps came from other worlds, or perhaps from higher dimensions.
But no matter what, they were all customers, consumers.
It turned out that the Fantasy Amusement Park had hinted at the essence of everything very early on.
The world they were in was a factory, and they were nothing but “products,” which would be sold far away after production, processing, and packaging.
*
What is Nightmare?
It is a broker.
It puts the entire world they are in onto the auction block.
Waiting for the right price to sell, highest bidder gets it.
