Origin
Chapter 670: With your name, engrave my skin.
Not long ago.
With the departure of the freed god, the piercing golden light had completely vanished, and the graveyard had returned to darkness.
A burial mound, much taller than the surrounding graves, lay wide open. The massive mirror was shattered into pieces, the irregular glass fragments reflecting the lightless sky. People dressed in black with masks on their faces stood scattered around. The air was dead silent, cold, and windless.
They stood wordlessly around the grave, shoulders slumped, exuding an aura of gloomy despair that even their masks couldn’t conceal.
It was over. It was all over now.
There were no other methods left.
Imprisoning a god wasn’t something they could just casually attempt again after failing.
What’s more, the most crucial “cage” had suffered irreversible damage.
Even when the mirror was intact, this ritual was extremely difficult to succeed in, requiring favorable timing, geographical advantage, and meticulous preparation. Now, after the god had broken free, there was no hope of ever succeeding again. There was even a high probability that He would withdraw His blessings from now on—even the only candle fire that could be lit in the darkness might be extinguished in the future.
“There’s no way, there are no ways left…” a muffled sigh came from beneath a mask, the tone desolate. “In this situation, we are powerless to turn the tide…”
The plan to imprison the god was already a last stand, a final gamble.
Now that they had failed, they had also lost all routes of retreat.
After this, the night would only grow longer, until they were no longer able to resist, and the entire world would plunge into darkness because of it.
Amidst the atmosphere of decay, the old woman—who had been standing dumbly in place for so long that one might suspect she had turned into one of the tombstones—suddenly moved. Trembling, she tightened her grip on her cane, thrust it hard into the ground, and slowly squatted down. Her wrinkled old hand opened and slowly grabbed a handful of grave soil. Under the erosion of the soil, her fingers began to turn pale green at a visible speed, as if rapidly decaying.
“A-Ma, what are you doing?” A townsman beside her was stunned by her action and quickly stepped forward to stop her. “Q-Quick, let go—”
Although the human-skin clothes and masks could block the curses from the ground, it didn’t mean they could directly touch the grave soil without being eroded.
“No need.”
The sand and soil leaked down from between her fingers. Eventually, the old woman opened her palm, and only a piece of irregular mirror shard remained inside.
She placed the shard in the palm of the townsman beside her and instructed the still-dazed man:
“Go, collect all the fragments.”
Her voice was as hoarse and old as ever, harboring some kind of terrifying power.
“But…” the townsman stared blankly at the shard and asked in confusion, “What use is there in collecting them?”
Even when the mirror was whole, trying to imprison the god inside it required an immense price and effort. Now that the mirror was shattered, even if they found all the pieces, it wouldn’t have the same binding power as before.
However, the old woman didn’t answer directly. Instead, she turned to look at someone else. The pale white mask hid her face, with only a muffled voice coming from beneath:
“How is it on the railroad’s end?”
The person asked froze for a moment but still answered:
“There are still a few stations left unfinished, but the final section of the tracks has already connected to the Dead Sea. The port should be completed very soon.”
The small population in the town wasn’t just because their lineage had dwindled over the generations; it was also because another portion of the people were not in the town.
They had other missions.
“Very good.” The old woman nodded solemnly, leaning on her cane as she slowly walked down the tall, empty burial mound. By contrast, her figure appeared even more hunched. “We originally planned to hold the ritual first and wait for the ship to arrive, but now we have to reverse it… There’s no need to lay the rest of the tracks. We will go to the coastline and directly start the third ritual.”
“…”
Watching the old woman’s back as she walked away without turning her head, the crowd stood blankly in place, looking at each other in confusion.
What? Do it again…?
But things had already come to this. All advantages had been lost; how could there possibly be any chance of success now?
…The Dead Sea.
Hearing Uncle De’s words, Wen Jianyan suddenly shuddered.
These two words were not unfamiliar to him.
After all, on the cruise ship, he had risked his life and gone to great lengths just to get his hands on the “Dead Sea Scrolls.”
However, up until this moment, he had never deeply pondered the underlying meaning behind this name. After all, the “Dead Sea Scrolls” actually existed in reality. As an item in an instance, whether it was genuine or a fake bearing the same name, it made sense… But now, Wen Jianyan suddenly realized with a shock.
It seemed there was a far more terrifying, more subtle explanation.
In his mind, the sea beneath the Lucky Cruise involuntarily surfaced.
A boundless, bottomless pitch-black seawater tightly connected to the equally colored sky.
Deep in the seawater quietly floated pale, faceless corpses, one after another, silently drifting along the current until they were swallowed by the pitch-black, boundless end of the world.
Calling it the “Dead Sea” was no exaggeration at all.
Thinking of this, Wen Jianyan only felt a layer of cold sweat inexplicably break out on his back.
He recalled the words Su Cheng had told him on the cruise ship—”The Nightmare arrived on this ship.”
If taken literally… then this sea was probably the exact area connecting “this world” and the “other world,” and the Nightmare had crossed the sea on the cruise ship, coming from the “other world” to “this world.”
And at the place where they washed ashore, a small, crooked stone stele was planted in the ground, with two mottled words written on it:
“Port.”
Beneath the stone stele was a bluestone paved road deeply buried in the yellow earth, and if one followed the bluestone road all the way forward…
It would lead to the station.
Wen Jianyan only felt a shiver quietly crawl up his spine, freezing his blood.
The answer floated to the surface just like that.
So that was it.
How did the Nightmare come?
It was actively welcomed in by the people of this world who built the port and constructed the long road.
“…”
Wen Jianyan gritted his teeth fiercely, forcing himself to pull back from the terrifying vortex of his thoughts. He looked up at Uncle De not far away and thanked him solemnly:
“…Thank you.”
After saying this, he grabbed Wu Zhu’s arm, his voice suppressed, as if trying desperately to curb some intense emotion: “Let’s go.”
Just like that, Wen Jianyan pulled Wu Zhu along and left the tailor shop without looking back.
Wu Zhu lowered his head and glanced at the hand on his arm.
The other party didn’t hold back his strength at all. Veins bulged on the back of his pale hand, his deeply lined finger bones tightening firmly, the tips of his fingers turning white from the force, sinking deeply into his arm.
He didn’t understand why, but he still offered his arm further into the other’s palm so he could grip it tighter.
“What’s wrong?” Wu Zhu asked.
Hearing him speak, Wen Jianyan seemed to finally realize something. As if afraid he was hurting him, he instead relaxed his grip.
He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and gritted out word by word:
“It’s not over yet.”
Yes, it wasn’t over yet.
Wen Jianyan had previously thought that when he shattered the mirror and saved Wu Zhu from the fate of being buried deep, the fate of this world would be forever changed… But he was wrong.
It wasn’t over at all.
The failure of the second ritual only made the townsfolk resort to unscrupulous methods, even going so far as to bind themselves deeper to the Nightmare… directly welcoming it into the port, just to regain a greater advantage!!
Wen Jianyan looked up at Wu Zhu.
That carefree, handsome face, those golden eyes lowered, were currently looking at him without any distraction.
He hadn’t yet had the time to become gloomy, treacherous, hateful, and extreme.
“………………”
In that instant, some unfamiliar and intense emotion churned in his organs. Wen Jianyan even had to clench his jaw to prevent them from surging out of his throat like a tide. He abruptly raised his hand, grabbed the figure standing before him, and forcefully pulled him over without giving him a chance to speak.
He forcefully, viciously smashed his lips against his.
After a brief half-second, this kiss that wasn’t quite a kiss was forcibly broken by the initiator.
Unlike his incomparably intense and forceful action just now, Wen Jianyan’s tone at this moment was suppressed and calm:
“Go to the port.”
He licked away his own fresh blood from the corner of his lips and rubbed Wu Zhu’s cheek.
“Hurry.”
The port.
Perhaps because the final section was built too hurriedly and hastily, the railroad tracks hadn’t been fully laid to the coastline. Only a half-stele was stuck crookedly in the soil, with the word “Port” hastily written on it.
Several figures dressed in black stood at the end of the coastline, remaining silent.
Before them was a terrifying, profound, boundless ocean.
The sea surface was very calm, without wind or waves, yet there seemed to exist something far more terrifying than wind and waves, invisibly pressing down upon the ocean, almost swallowing all light.
Time seemed to have long lost its meaning, and a deathly silence swallowed everything.
Only those few figures stood motionless by the sea, like wicked reefs.
In front of them stood a massive mirror.
The mirror surface seemed to have once been completely shattered. Countless exaggerated cracks stretched across it, crooked like scars that couldn’t be erased. On every shard, there was still-wet human blood. It was densely packed, increasing the closer it got to the center, until it intertwined into a bloody, shocking fist print right in the middle of the mirror.
A hunched figure slowly moved.
She walked step by step toward the sea, raising a pair of ancient hands high, chanting a bizarre incantation.
Behind her, everyone did the same. They raised their hands toward the sky. Every pair of hands was incredibly pale from excessive contact with the grave soil, like lifeless corpses.
The eerie syllables gathered into a torrent, hovering in the lightless sky.
At some point, the sound of the waves had grown deafening.
In the pitch-black fog that light couldn’t penetrate, a massive shadow was approaching from the other side of the world.
Splash, splash.
The sound of the rolling waves, lifted by the human voices, gradually became deafening.
The bow of the ship broke through the thick fog.
A terrifying shadow capable of crushing a person dropped down. In contrast, the figures on the coast seemed so insignificant, as if they would be crushed to death in the next second.
In the face of this nightmare-like scene, the humans raised their pale hands high, welcoming the ship of bones into the port.
Wen Jianyan rested his forehead on Wu Zhu’s shoulder, hugging the other’s waist with both hands, forcing himself to ignore his internal organs convulsing from the rapid movement. “Port” was merely a human designation, and the coastline of the Dead Sea was far too long. To find the exact location, they could only follow Uncle De’s suggestion and track along the railway.
However, they would still make it in time.
No matter what, in this timeline, Wu Zhu hadn’t been fragmented yet; He was whole.
Whole meant powerful.
And the Nightmare was an outsider.
He said that although it would take some effort, as long as he wanted to, he could still drive them out.
Wu Zhu never lied, Wen Jianyan knew this very well.
And Wen Jianyan also knew very well—the Nightmare feared Wu Zhu far more than it showed, even if it was just facing a fragmented, incomplete shard—otherwise, it wouldn’t have been so eager to seek a substitute just to create a more obedient, more easily controlled “new god.”
They would make it in time, there was still time for everything.
The Nightmare hadn’t had the time to establish its forces and lay down its roots in this world; everything could still be changed.
The ship docked.
Within the increasingly thick shadows, a bizarre shape stepped off the ship. As it approached, its form gradually condensed, until it left the thick fog and possessed a human shape.
Its face was hollow, devoid of facial features.
“Your god was not imprisoned,” an eerie noise emanated from deep within the hollow face, yet miraculously, they could discern what it was saying. “What happened?”
“A minor situation,” the old woman said. “Don’t worry, we are resolving it.”
“As long as He is still here, we cannot completely enter.” The “person” shook its head. Looking through the holes in its face, there was only boundless darkness. “You failed.”
“No… we just need you to do us a small favor.”
The old woman tremblingly reached out her hand. In her hands, she held a pitch-black box. In the center of the box lay a dull metallic pendant, looking like a heart.
However, the “person” only glanced at it before looking away as if losing interest:
“You should know, it’s useless.”
“Since He is still ‘whole’ right now, no matter what this thing used to be or what value it had, it’s just an ordinary ornament now, completely worthless.”
“I know,” the old woman said. “But the situation will soon change.”
“But before that, like I just said, we need you to do us a small favor.”
“…Urgh!” Wen Jianyan’s vision suddenly went black, and an intense sense of terror abruptly surged from the bottom of his lungs.
It took him two seconds to realize what this sudden, oppressive presence was.
It was pain.
Insects grew beneath his skin, maliciously gnawing with their teeth, devouring his flesh, veins, and bones.
The dizziness disappeared. Wu Zhu seemed to sense something and stopped his steps.
“What’s wrong?” His voice carried a rare astonishment.
Wen Jianyan didn’t answer.
He couldn’t answer.
The sudden, intense agony even robbed him of his ability to speak, leaving him unable to make a single sound.
It hurt.
A heart-wrenching, unprecedented pain.
The young man leaned against his chest, his head weakly tilting to the side, exposing a neck as fragile as a bird’s. His black hair stuck to his sweaty skin, his chest heaving weakly and rapidly.
Shattered, mirror-like cracks gradually appeared on his skin.
He was shaking violently.
Like a fallen leaf in the wind.
No, I have to heal him immediately—
Wu Zhu lowered his head, frantically touching his hand, his face, his chest. His movements were very careful, as if terrified of hurting him, but his touch had no effect whatsoever.
The human curled up in his arms, his body temperature dropping rapidly amidst his trembling.
…No, no.
No, no, no!!
Every method failed, every attempt completely failed—what was going on? Why wasn’t it working?
“I… I can’t heal you.”
From the depths of his golden eyes emerged overwhelming fury, like a terrifying, man-eating beast driven to a dead end, bordering on madness.
“Why can’t I heal you?”
—”What favor?”
—”We want to imprison a person.”
The old woman pointed at the blood-stained, reassembled shattered mirror behind her: “Imprison the owner of this blood.”
“A human?”
“Yes, just a human.”
“What’s the use of that?” The voice carried unconcealed disdain.
“It is of great use.”
Appearing during the first ritual might have been a coincidence.
Saving him during the second ritual might have been faith.
However, regardless, the god shouldn’t have reacted like that.
He didn’t kill him.
He took him away.
“That human bears the god’s name.”
“He carries a token with the god’s aura.”
“Although it sounds somewhat absurd, I believe… the god loves him.”
Not in the way a god loves the world.
But loving as a human would.
With a human’s desires, and with a human’s weaknesses.
This time, the hollow-faced “person” finally looked squarely at the shard: “Oh?”
“Do you know that human’s name?”
“No,” the old woman replied. “That is precisely why we need you.”
“Find his name from your world, using your language, and trap that human in this mirror.”
The shattered mirror had lost the vast majority of its power and could no longer trap the god inside. However, if it were merely a human, it was still possible.
“This is meaningless. No human can withstand such a curse; he will die in agony before he is even trapped in the mirror.”
“Meaningless? No… quite the opposite.”
He didn’t know how much time had passed, nor did he know what had happened… Wen Jianyan only felt the bone-piercing pain being stripped from his body. It left as quickly as it came. In just a few short breaths, it was almost as if nothing had ever happened. Body temperature and vitality rapidly poured back into his body, and Wen Jianyan found his body to be almost as vibrant and strong as at the very beginning.
He froze and opened his eyes.
“You’re awake.”
Cold fingers devoid of warmth touched his cheek. Wu Zhu let out a long sigh of relief, seeming to finally have a huge weight lifted off his mind. “Does it still hurt?”
“No…” Wen Jianyan shook his head, propped himself up in the other’s arms, and prepared to answer the question he just asked.
However, halfway through his sentence, he suddenly realized something was wrong.
His pupils shrank abruptly, and he whipped his head around to look at Wu Zhu—the other’s expression looked no different from before. His gaze was as focused and passionate as ever, without any distractions, as if no other existence in the entire world mattered besides him.
But this wasn’t what Wen Jianyan actually noticed.
His gaze moved down, his pupils trembling, scanning urgently and in panic.
Below Wu Zhu’s neck was a marble-pale chest. Eerie golden lines gradually appeared on his skin, deepening and solidifying into pitch-black curse marks at a visible speed, like words written in a bizarre language, tightly winding into his limbs and tightening like chains—those lines were so familiar… they were exactly the same as the curses on the other’s body in his memory.
An ominous premonition assaulted his heart, like watching a noose tightening around his neck.
What… what did you do?
Wen Jianyan stared at him fixedly. He wanted to grab the other and question him sternly, but when he opened his mouth, he couldn’t make a single sound.
What the fuck did you do??!
His throat seemed to be blocked by some chaotic, unventable emotion, pressing heavily on his chest, making him unable to breathe. At this moment, Wen Jianyan almost couldn’t distinguish whether what he was feeling was a blazing fury that could burn his bones and blood to ashes, a hatred that made him want to strangle the other to death, or simply the most ordinary, straightforward… fear.
—”This is where all the meaning lies.”
By the coast, the face beneath the mask seemed to smile.
“That’s great…”
Wu Zhu lowered his head, pressing his forehead against Wen Jianyan’s forehead, and smiled: “You don’t hurt anymore.”
“…”
Wen Jianyan was stunned.
In that instant, he seemed to understand something.
When the two first met, Wu Zhu didn’t know how to transfer his injuries yet—when Wen Jianyan anxiously asked, he had looked so confused, seeming completely unfamiliar with this method—but later, in his own timeline, Wu Zhu transferred his injuries over and over again, and it became the only method he knew how to use—Why?
When did it change?
And what… made him change?
Wen Jianyan stared blankly at him, subconsciously reaching out a hand, seemingly wanting to touch Wu Zhu. But before his fingertips touched the other’s skin, he quickly and panickedly withdrew his hand.
It was almost as if he was terrified of getting the answer to this question.
—”It is precisely because the outcome is unacceptable, therefore, even if He knows what it is we truly want…”
—”The god will still willingly step into the trap and offer Himself in substitution.”
“…”
Wen Jianyan blinked, and a drop of water suddenly smashed down.
He paused and took a few seconds to realize… what had just fallen seemed to be his own tear.
Cold fingers landed on his cheek, wiping away the warm water with their pads.
The god, covered in curse marks and scarred all over, said softly:
“Don’t cry.”
His voice grew even lower than before, “I won’t hurt.”
Liar.
Wen Jianyan knew he was lying.
That pain was transferred from him. No one knew better than him what that felt like, and Wu Zhu would bear it forever. The time he would bear these curses would be a hundred times, a thousand times, ten thousand times longer than him… Constantly, endlessly.
“Really… Look.”
Wu Zhu pulled Wen Jianyan’s hand over, leading his fingertips to trace his chest, guiding him to identify them, while his voice grew softer bit by bit.
“Wen…”
“Jian…”
“Yan…”
Just like how Wen Jianyan had initially taught him how to pronounce it, this time, it was Wu Zhu teaching him how to measure these strokes.
“…”
Another drop of water smashed onto the curse marks, smudging the ink-like blackness above, revealing the endless, flowing gold beneath—that was Wu Zhu’s fresh blood, a wound that would never heal.
It was his name.
At this moment, Wen Jianyan finally realized what the other wanted to tell him…
Because it is your name.
So it will not hurt.
With your name, engrave my skin.
The name of the one beloved, is the only curse that can bind a god.
