Chapter 110: You will witness my return.”
The scarlet moonlight reflected on the snow, dyeing the entire mountain red.
The increasingly close cries were like the piercing cold wind, drilling straight into one’s bones. An Wujiu felt his hands had already frozen stiff, seemingly glued to the stone coffin, unable to let go.
The blood moon in the sky grew larger, as if slowly approaching. Daylight had already reached a dead end before it, forced to the point of only a final sliver of light remaining, with the whole earth about to be shrouded in a blood-red hue.
“Is it there?”
An Wujiu looked in the direction pointed by Toudou Sakura. It was the mountaintop, where a strange blue flame was burning, with eagles and vultures circling above.
Thick fog inexplicably rose all around, swallowing the entire snowy plain bit by bit, engulfing the small mountain. Perhaps due to the scarlet moonlight, or maybe because of the corpses within the stone coffin, a faint stench lingered in the dense fog.
Everyone worked together to carry the stone coffin toward the mountaintop. As they approached, they realized the flame was taller than a person. The stone coffin was heavily placed on the ground, sending snow and dust flying, invading their nostrils.
An Wujiu coughed a few times and looked down into the distance. The eerie “wailing” sound still hadn’t disappeared, appearing irregularly, stretching out, piercing through the entire city in the water.
A voice appeared, but it wasn’t the familiar holy voice. It was a strange language they couldn’t understand, murky and thick, as if it emerged from deep within the throat.
Everyone looked around after hearing it, feeling as if it came from the fiercely burning blue flame.
But An Wujiu felt it wasn’t so.
“Since everyone is here, let’s begin.”
He turned his head, looking at the person who said this.
It was Noah. Her eyes were staring straight at the flame, completely reflecting its light, turning into a strange and enchanting blue, and all signs of life had disappeared from her face, as if she were a fake, controlled puppet.
She repeated the earlier words, as if controlled by the flame, compelled to speak in a language they could understand.
An Wujiu softly called her name, and Noah stiffly turned her neck to stare at him.
In an instant, the blue spreading in her pupils contracted and faded away, returning to normal.
“What’s wrong, Wujiu-ge?”
Her voice was filled with childlike innocence, but to An Wujiu’s ears, it overlapped with the voice from the flame earlier.
An Wujiu felt extremely uncomfortable, as if sharp metallic sounds were repeatedly flashing in his mind, “What were you looking at just now?”
Noah raised her hand, pointing at the flame.
She said it was the fire of the gods.
An Wujiu didn’t understand her meaning. The next moment, the flame issued new commands, once again in the murky, strange unknown language.
And Noah spoke to convey it to everyone.
“Begin the sacrifice, humans who understand the divine oracle. Everything of yours belongs to the supreme Lord.”
As soon as she finished speaking, An Wujiu felt his hands moving uncontrollably!
Like him, everyone was the same, driven by some unknown and mysterious force to automatically make various actions. Lao Yu pulled Andrew out of the stone coffin, Matsubara laid him flat on the ground, Wu You pressed down on his chest, Nan Shan made the unconscious Andrew drink a liquid from a stone vessel, Yang Ce and Zhou Yijue together lifted the heavy stone plate and placed it before the flame.
Noah stiffly struck the drum, while Megan set up the stone frame and sharp stakes. Toudou Sakura held the object that seemed to be a musical instrument, slowly raising it to her lips.
Toudou Sakura blew the ancient instrument, hoarse, low moans mixed with sharp sounds, blending with the heavy drumbeats. Each sound felt like a sharp knife, stabbing into their chests one by one.
Fear crawled on their skin like reptiles.
An Wujiu’s hand was trembling, his arm stiffly bending inward. The mysterious force seemed to be searching for something within him, causing his hand to grope uncontrollably until it finally grasped the dagger.
His legs and feet also moved beyond his control, step by step approaching Andrew’s body.
“Come, humans.”
“Everything you have comes from me—sunlight, rain, strength, the mysteries of life, the precious knowledge to survive… all these are granted by me.”
His body suddenly sank, knees unable to support him, kneeling on the ground.
“I gave you life!”
The voice was vast and loud, while they were just a few insignificant humans on a small mountain in the icy world, standing in the midst of thick fog, unable to see anything around them. Only the scarlet full moon overhead grew larger and heavier, pressing down on them, its edges seemingly about to touch the mountaintop.
It was so large it almost seemed to have no boundaries.
Shen Ti’s heart ached emptily, a vague and unreal feeling. He noticed everyone seemed driven by an unnatural force, moving rhythmically like machines.
Even An Wujiu was the same.
He saw An Wujiu kneeling in front of Andrew, drawing out a shimmering obsidian dagger from his robe in the blood moon’s light.
“Come, use these sacred hands to pierce his chest!”
“Carve out the heart with obsidian, offer it to the ice-blue sacred flame!”
An Wujiu felt icy cold all over, using all his strength to resist the force enveloping him.
His hand started to tremble, and his heart suddenly stopped for a moment.
Then, unexpectedly, his heart began to beat violently, faster than humanly possible. A scorching heat pumped from his heart, rapidly and intensely spreading throughout his body.
Green, vast expanses of green flowed across the land, as if directly into An Wujiu’s eyes.
He fell heavily backward, but not onto the cold snow, instead into Shen Ti’s arms.
His eyes were tightly shut in pain, his fingers loosened, and the obsidian dagger dropped to the ground.
“Wujiu, Wujiu…” Shen Ti tried to wake him, but to no avail. Before he could wake up, the dagger beside them was suddenly picked up by a pale hand.
Shen Ti looked up, his pupils dilating instantly.
It was Noah.
Noah gripped the obsidian dagger with her small hands, raising it high above her head, then fiercely plunging it downward.
“Noah—”
As Shen Ti shouted while holding An Wujiu, warm liquid splattered onto his face, and his left eye was covered by a layer of scarlet montage.
“I need a heart that is still beating!”
The voice repeated in a low murmur, everything before them as eerie as a nightmare.
Shen Ti frowned, cradling the unconscious An Wujiu, ready to leave, but the next second, the vultures and eagles circling in the sky swooped down, targeting Noah.
Noah bent down, intending to place the offering in the central recess of the stone plate.
Shen Ti initially wanted to watch, but he was no longer his former self. He knew An Wujiu would save Noah if it were him.
So he did the same, tackling Noah and shielding her face with his body. The black birds attacked her hand, snatching away the still-beating offering.
They tore it apart and devoured it, disappearing in an instant.
Shen Ti looked up, meeting Noah’s blue eyes. A strange smile appeared on her lips, as if mocking and delighting in his act of saving her.
This must be an illusion.
Shen Ti stepped back, reaching out to pull Noah up, but Noah only extended her bloody hand without letting him hold it.
The instrument in Toudou Sakura’s hands emitted a mournful wail. Shen Ti vaguely heard Noah uttering a few words but couldn’t make out the content, only seeing her lips move in the fog.
There was a strange noise behind him. Shen Ti turned to see the stone coffin sealed, a rough tombstone breaking through the soil, standing before the coffin.
The tombstone read Andrew Greco.
“Rest, heavy body, your heart is with the gods.”
Noah’s rose-colored lips moved, translating the strange words of the flame with an innocent voice.
“I need to consume your fragility, confusion, anger, fear, despair, the deepest despair—enough to allow me to be reborn.”
“You will witness my return.”
After saying this, Noah fell to the snow as well. Simultaneously, the once fiercely burning flame instantly shrank to a spark and disappeared in the wind.
The thick fog gradually dispersed, and the people who had been controlled by an unknown force slowly regained clarity. An Wujiu, asleep in Shen Ti’s arms, had blood oozing from the corners of his mouth.
“Wujiu-ge, Wujiu-ge!”
Wu You, waking from the illusion, also noticed the unconscious An Wujiu. He immediately crouched down, reaching his fingers to check An Wujiu’s breath.
He wasn’t breathing!
“Wujiu-ge!”
Shen Ti couldn’t believe it. He pressed his hand against An Wujiu’s chest, pressing hard, feeling as if the lines under his skin were about to burst out.
At that moment, An Wujiu’s heart gave a heavy beat.
He slowly opened his eyes.
What Wu You couldn’t have expected was that An Wujiu’s pupils had turned green, reflecting a blood moon within the gem-like green.
But it only lasted for two to three seconds before An Wujiu’s pupils gradually darkened, returning to their natural black.
“It’s over?”
An Wujiu’s voice was weak.
Wu You nodded, “It’s over. Let’s… let’s go back.”
As he finished speaking, he heard Noah’s scream.
Toudou Sakura was holding her, covering her eyes.
That evening, they seemed to have experienced the most terrifying nightmare, with uncontrollable hands and uncontrollable lives.
Shen Ti also saw An Wujiu’s eyes at the moment he awoke, identical to his own.
On the way back to the temple, An Wujiu’s mind kept replaying the scenes of the dusk sacrifice, intertwined with memories of his childhood. It felt as if he had seen these scenes in his childhood, perhaps in a book or narrated by his mother at his bedside before sleep.
He raised his hand, clutching the fabric over his left chest.
Why was Shen Ti the only one completely unaffected during the sacrifice?
Why could he also break through that mental restraint, while the others could not?
An Wujiu had long known Shen Ti was special, but he wanted to understand why he too was special.
The temple was dead silent. The twelve who had come here were now eleven, with one having become a tombstone on the mountaintop. Silently, they chewed and swallowed dry corn cakes to maintain basic survival, while the lingering fear from hours ago was like a bone stuck in their throats.
An Wujiu knew he would soon lose his sight but would also gain an important piece of information.
He drank the water from the stone cup, the icy liquid almost freezing, slicing through his throat like a blade. He saw Toudou Sakura’s trembling hands and Lao Yu’s vacant eyes.
He thought, if they stayed here long enough, they might all go insane.
The holy voice appeared at this moment, “Everyone, curfew time is approaching. You’ve had a long day; please return to your rooms and rest early.”
He particularly emphasized, “Tonight, each of you must sleep in your respective rooms because someone will surely leave tonight. You no longer have the antidote for resurrection.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the lights in the hall flickered.
The group, following the instructions, left the place in a daze. Shen Ti wanted to follow An Wujiu, but An Wujiu stopped him.
“I fear you might break the rules because of me.”
An Wujiu raised his face and planted a kiss on Shen Ti’s cool lips.
“I’ll be fine,” he reassured Shen Ti.
In the dark corridor, Shen Ti watched An Wujiu’s silhouette fade away until he disappeared around a corner, then turned and left.
In the room, the bone-chilling cold wrapped around An Wujiu’s body. Before his vision disappeared, he accessed the three Easter Egg cards he had obtained from the panel.
“Would you like to draw the Easter Egg contents now?”
An Wujiu responded to the system sound, “Yes.”
Today’s ritual had deepened the fear in his heart; he was afraid of truly losing Shen Ti and his companions.
The first card jumped out in front of him, the back of the virtual card facing An Wujiu, with a brightly colored egg on it.
“Please click.”
An Wujiu extended his index finger and touched the card. The card began to shake and eventually shattered into countless light dots, which then gathered again to form a new white card.
“Sorry, your first Easter Egg card did not draw any function card.”
Wasting a card just like that?
An Wujiu’s palms were almost sweating. He selected an orange card again, took a deep breath, and touched the egg on the card.
The shattering light dots flew like fireflies, swirling in the deep red room, and finally condensed into a new card. This time, the card was still white.
An Wujiu felt a bit disappointed, thinking his luck was indeed bad.
If he could, he’d rather find someone to draw for him, but after a quick thought, he realized that none of his friends or companions seemed to be particularly lucky either.
The white card flipped over, and contrary to his expectations, the front of the card was beautifully illustrated with an image of a beautiful witch holding an ancient clock, with an SS mark on the lower left corner.
“Congratulations, you have obtained the Time Conversion Card.”
Time conversion?
An Wujiu read the instructions on the card.
“This card is limited to a one-time use. The player can use their life points to exchange for time before the game ends, thus achieving time reversal. All of the player’s life points can convert to a reversal of half the game’s progress, and so on. The player using the card can choose the desired time for conversion, and the system will automatically deduct the corresponding life points.”
This function was stronger than An Wujiu had imagined. He thought it would extend the game time, but according to the description, it was a rewind.
Even if it could only be used once, it was already very powerful. He could rewind to a moment when his companions hadn’t encountered danger.
An Wujiu saw a glowing orange dot on the bottom right corner of the card. He clicked on it, and other cards appeared before his eyes.
“Below are the same type of skill cards, which can also be obtained by drawing Easter Egg cards.”
An Wujiu looked at them. There were three cards in total. As he expected, one was a time extension card, the middle one was a card to stop others’ time, and the last one was a time reversal card.
The rightmost card had an SSS mark, indicating it was one of the rarest cards.
The pattern on it depicted many intersecting silver-gray lines, overlapping with a galaxy.
The card was labeled “Space-Time Card.”
Its description was simple: the player holding this card could dissolve the boundaries of space-time, reverse, and accelerate it. However, this came at a great cost, such as losing almost all life points or reducing their abilities by ninety percent. The specific cost varied from person to person.
The more powerful the skill, the greater the price it demanded.
An Wujiu wanted to click on the third card, but the system notified him that he had exhausted his drawing attempts for the day and could not draw any more.
At that moment, An Wujiu lost all vision and was plunged into darkness.
Soon, a bloody arrow appeared before his eyes, pointing towards the door.
“Night has fallen. The gravekeeper, please open your eyes.”
“Please go to the graveyard and verify whether today’s sacrificed player is good or evil.”
