The End
Chapter 716: A raging fire that consumes all
“…”
The moment he realized the source of the burning sensation on his wrist, Wen Jianyan only felt his heart sink, and couldn’t help but abruptly look up.
His other companions all fell beside him, their eyes tightly closed, seeming to have fallen into a deep sleep.
But Wu Zhu was nowhere to be found.
The bronze Bodhisattva statue stood with its three faces: one showing anger, one joy, and one sorrow. Three massive faces with different emotions looked down silently. Above their heads was a red sky—no, not the sky—through the layers of red ripples, an inverted world could vaguely be seen.
In an instant, Wen Jianyan felt his hair stand on end.
Because he suddenly realized that was the surface of a lake.
And he was inside a lake of blood.
The lake was the core.
—So that was it.
Throughout the entire Nightmare, the lake was an unavoidable existence; it was both a “mirror” and a “womb.”
It both suppressed the Old God and nurtured a New God.
And here, it wasn’t just the center of all the merged instances, but also the home turf entirely controlled by the Evil Bodhisattva.
Wen Jianyan shuddered and sharply withdrew his gaze. His body hadn’t completely regained sensation. Cold, viscous red liquid dripped down his hem. He gritted his teeth, forced himself to stand up shakily, and staggered to the side of his unconscious companions: “Hey… wake up, wake up!”
No matter how he called, everyone had no reaction, seemingly having fallen into a death-like slumber.
Suddenly, footsteps came from behind.
From far to near, sounding exceptionally clear in the darkness, making one’s blood run cold.
“?!” Startled, Wen Jianyan suddenly turned his head to look.
That face belonging to the “Gentleman,” pale and bloodless, appeared not far behind him. A pair of cold eyes without emotion looked down at him. Like a narrow slit cracking open in the air, unfathomable darkness radiated from behind. Being stared at by such a gaze, Wen Jianyan only felt an endless chill rise from his feet, climbing rapidly up his spine.
“…I really didn’t expect you to actually wake up.”
A declarative tone, very flat, without fluctuation.
“You always seem to be able to surprise me time and time again.”
Suddenly, Wen Jianyan’s gaze was attracted by something and unconsciously fell behind the other party.
Guided by Zhang Yunsheng’s flat voice, one after another, cold and gloomy shadows emerged from the bottomless darkness, stepping forward. Their pale faces appeared under the red light, their painted eyes stiff and bizarre, their blood-red lips curled high—they were those paper dolls from Antai Community!
Clang, clatter.
Accompanied by their approach, eerie sounds of metal clashing came from the darkness.
“!!!”
Wen Jianyan couldn’t help being horrified and subconsciously backed away.
However, identical footsteps sounded from behind.
Startled, he turned his head to look.
Unknowingly, the darkness beyond the bronze Bodhisattva was already filled with countless paper dolls. Wearing hair-raising smiles and moving with stiff steps, they approached step by step.
Clang, clatter.
Wen Jianyan had to stop in his tracks.
Right in the center of the bronze Bodhisattva statues, the young man stood all alone.
“Indeed, your awakening was unexpected,” the other party’s voice sounded from not far away, containing a smile, unstoppably drilling into his ears, like maggots attached to bone, following like a shadow. “But you should know yourself, this can’t really change anything, can it?”
“…”
Wen Jianyan’s body was tense like a bowstring. His gaze moved across the paper dolls surrounding him from all sides, pondering, searching. A layer of cold sweat had unknowingly seeped out on his forehead.
Yes, he did know.
Only he alone had awakened, while the others were still in deep sleep, without the slightest sign of waking up.
In other words, this time…
He was isolated and without help.
“It’s already like this, is there still any need to resist?”
On the faces of the paper dolls, one after another, bearing the exact same bizarre smiles, they all stretched out their pale hands toward him together.
“It saves us some trouble, and you suffer a little less, isn’t that good?”
There were too many paper dolls, and Wen Jianyan was all alone. In just the blink of an eye, he had already been tightly surrounded, all his actions shackled, any struggle snuffed out.
Zhang Yunsheng approached step by step with a smile, carelessly appreciating the young man’s futile resistance.
“As long as you are willing, this beautiful dream can continue forever—a lie undiscovered is the truth; since a perfect world can be maintained infinitely, then what is the difference between it and reality?”
Not knowing if his strength for struggling was exhausted or if his original will had been shaken, Wen Jianyan’s movements gradually weakened.
He hung his head, panting rapidly and irregularly.
Like a pitiful trapped animal, letting out faint, broken murmurs.
Zhang Yunsheng stood in front of him, looking down from above at the prey already under his control.
He leaned down with a hypocritical smile and brought his ear close:
“Hmm? What did you say?”
“…” The young man abruptly raised his eyes, enunciating clearly and roundly, “I said, go to hell.”
Almost the instant his voice fell, a bright light suddenly flashed. A short bronze knife appeared in Wen Jianyan’s hand, held in a reverse grip with the point hidden in his palm. Just in the instant it was raised, the extremely cold blade swept through the air, and the paper doll shackling Wen Jianyan’s right arm was torn apart!
The evil object forged from bronze cut through iron like mud. In just an instant, the paper doll was already decapitated and staggered back.
The young man gritted his teeth tightly, a fierce light flashing in his eyes. His fingers tightly gripped the blade body, and with a kind of reckless, almost self-mutilating ruthlessness, he thrust straight forward—not caring about torn flesh or exposed broken bones, not caring about severed limbs or gushing blood—going all out, desperately pressing forward at any cost!!
Before that madness of perishing together, the paper dolls were powerless to stop him and could only scatter outwards.
Everything happened in a flash of lightning.
Caught off guard, Zhang Yunsheng was thrown to the ground.
Almost before he could react, the dynamic of offense and defense had already reversed.
This time, it was actually Wen Jianyan who gained the upper hand!!!
The young man held the sharp blade, one hand gripping the other’s collar tightly, his clenched knuckles turning white from the force. He looked down from above at the astonished face below. In that instant, he recalled every corpse, remembered every instance, every blood debt!!
All the hatred and fury swept over.
His eyes flashed with an intense emotion never seen before. The sharp blade glinted in his palm, the tip already accurately aimed at the heart—
Kill him.
An eye for an eye, blood for blood.
—Kill him!!!!
Clang, clatter.
The blade tip thrust violently downward.
“Ahhhhhhhhhhhh—”
A heart-piercing scream erupted from deep within the throat.
Accompanied by a squelching sound, flesh was cut open, and the tip of the knife plunged deep into the body.
The surroundings suddenly fell into dead silence.
“…”
Wen Jianyan panted heavily, his whole body trembling slightly uncontrollably, and slowly looked up.
At some unknown point, everything in front of him had changed.
The bronze Bodhisattva statues surrounded him on three sides. Compared to a few minutes ago, they seemed to have become even taller. The three faces of anger, joy, and sorrow looked down from high above. At their feet, a giant circle had formed. Heavy gold and copper chains were pulled taut, vibrating under the action of some force, emitting clear sounds of metal clashing.
Clang, clatter.
In the center of the circle, was the Old God pierced by countless bronze chains.
The chains pierced deeply through the prisoner’s pale and robust body, sinking into his shoulder blades, chest, abdomen, and ribs.
Although trapped right below the bronze Bodhisattva statues, He still hadn’t stopped resisting, even at the cost of broken bones and torn flesh—compared to when He was previously suppressed in Antai Community, He was no longer that weak. This time, His strength far exceeded before. Even though He was in the core of the merged instances, the base camp that suppressed and divided His power, facing the bronze Bodhisattvas forcefully blessed by Nightmare—in His desperate struggle, the power shackling Him had already begun to loosen. As long as there was enough time, He would surely be able to gradually free Himself.
But…
A few minutes ago, the resistance stopped without warning.
Because the perpetrator this time happened to be the only person in the whole world He couldn’t bring Himself to hurt.
He sighed softly and helplessly lowered His eyes. His arms, containing terrifying power, just wrapped loosely around now, holding the blade-wielding lover in His arms like a precious treasure, letting him press the sharp knife against His heart.
But strangely, the expected pain didn’t arrive.
He froze for a moment and lowered His eyes.
“…” The young man in His arms gritted his teeth tightly, all color draining from his lips, his whole body trembling, panting rapidly. He forced his fingers to grip the blade tip tightly, the sharp blade piercing through the flesh and blood of his other hand. Unable to even let out a scream, cold sweat had already soaked through his clothes.
A human’s warm palm was pressed tightly against the position of His heart.
The knife tip pierced deeply through the back of the hand.
At the critical moment, Wen Jianyan had suddenly forcefully changed his motion.
He placed his own palm under the knife, forcefully blocking the falling blade.
Blood gurgled out from the young man’s pierced palm, flowing down the man’s rapidly heaving chest below, red and gold blending together, so scalding hot it made one tremble.
“…”
Wen Jianyan slowly raised his eyes, meeting the pupils above that were dilated with shock and panic. He lightly pulled at his pale lips, revealing half of a not-so-good-looking smile.
“See…”
“I knew it was you.”
—The way the paper dolls controlled him was too mild, too gentle. At the moment he took his desperate stand, they were even more constrained, as if afraid of hurting him.
Who would treat an enemy like that?
In the distance, outside the three faces of the bronze Bodhisattva statues.
Zhang Yunsheng stood in the shadows, wearing the Gentleman’s face, staring intently down at everything happening not far away. His expression was calm and gloomy, and he slowly clapped his hands:
“Amazing, truly touching.”
Looking at the two people located in the center of the circle, Zhang Yunsheng’s voice remained soft and slow:
“However… how long can you maintain this kind of ‘clarity’?”
This was the core where multiple instances overlapped, an area where, after countless crises were superimposed, all anomalies were maximized along with it—besides the suppressed and imprisoned Wu Zhu, no human willpower could contend with it, even if Wen Jianyan was lucky this time and briefly saw through the illusion.
But as long as he was under the gaze of the bronze statues, he would sooner or later fall into a second, a third… even a countless number of nightmares.
Until he lost his judgment of reality and completely lost himself in nothingness.
“Can you distinguish when the illusion begins and when it ends?” His voice echoed beneath the blood-red lake surface, like a ghost. “When you encounter the next crisis, will you surrender without a fight, or rise up to resist?”
“—Do you still dare to make a move?”
“If you don’t dare once, what about twice, three times, four times?”
Sure enough, next, everything happened just as Zhang Yunsheng predicted.
The gaze of the Bodhisattva statues was everywhere.
Under such a silent stare that made one have nowhere to hide, Wen Jianyan, situated in the center of the circle, once again lost his sense of reality. He broke free from Wu Zhu’s embrace, slowly stood up, and raised a pair of unfocused eyes, looking around.
What did he see?
Was the illusion this time beautiful, or terrifying? Urgent, or soothing?
Zhang Yunsheng had no interest in exploring.
He only knew that no matter what, the other party had already become a fish in a net, a bird in a cage. No matter what Wen Jianyan thought or did at this moment, it could only be in vain, without any meaning.
And all he had to do was quietly wait, and that was enough.
The already prepared perfect stage wouldn’t be wasted.
The final step to becoming the New God was to completely end the life of the Great Old One.
And this step would be carried out by Wen Jianyan himself.
—What a grand slaughter.
—What a perfect curtain call.
In the center of the bronze statues surrounded on three sides, the young man staggered, like a drunk person, seeming to have completely lost his direction. The increasingly crisp sound of chains clashing echoed around, like a trapped beast desperately trying to break free from its bonds, but that sound didn’t seem able to reach Wen Jianyan’s ears.
He was still stumbling forward.
Wen Jianyan finally stopped his steps, and not far from his feet, were his companions who had fallen into a deep sleep.
Zhang Yunsheng watched this scene with great interest, anticipating.
Would he choose this time’s victim from among these people?
Who would it be?
The young man lowered his eyes, his gaze landing emptily on the several unconscious people. Then, he raised his hand.
His blood-soaked, trembling hand—that was his right hand, the hand that should have been holding the knife—was placed flat in the air, the palm opening bit by bit.
Golden divine blood mixed with bright red dripped down from it.
—Wait!
Seeming to suddenly realize something, Zhang Yunsheng’s expression abruptly changed.
At almost the same time, Wen Jianyan raised his head and looked straight in this direction. As their eyes met, Zhang Yunsheng saw clearly that his gaze was so clear, so sharp, without a trace of wavering, without a trace of confusion!
He pulled a sneer, as if provoking.
One drop, two drops, three drops.
Scalding hot gold-red blood dripped from his fingertips, smashing onto the bodies and faces of the people in deep sleep.
“——!!!” Accompanied by a sharp gasp, the first person opened his eyes, followed by the second, the third.
Since Wu Zhu’s blood had awakened him from the first layer of the nightmare, which was the most tightly woven and unidentifiable one, then it would be the same for the others.
Wen Jianyan’s other hand, pierced by the blade, hung by his side. The blade wasn’t pulled out; he gripped it tightly in an almost self-mutilating way, just forcefully twisting it in his flesh. With every movement, tendons were cut, bones broken, and flesh separated.
It was precisely by this method that he maintained his clarity!!!
“…”
Zhang Yunsheng’s face completely sank at this moment.
He couldn’t care about anything else and took a fierce step forward—he couldn’t let things continue to develop like this!
“Crack, crack…”
But, before he had time to do anything, a clear sound of metal cracking came from not far away.
Under some ominous premonition, Zhang Yunsheng looked towards the sound.
The surrounding darkness had come alive at some unknown point, slowly gathering towards the depths of the circle’s center.
Wu Zhu leaned his body forward, ignoring his flesh tearing and blood flowing. The bronze chains sunk deep into his body had been pulled taut to the limit, vibrating under monstrous strength.
He raised his head from below. Under his deeply pressed brow bone, were a pair of fierce, furious, crazy eyes.
Narrow, inconspicuous fine lines began to appear at the connections between the chain links. At first very slow, very few, but as a certain critical value arrived, like an avalanche, spiderweb-like cracks began to spread madly!
The blood-soaked upper body exerted terrifying force, and terrifying power erupted from the knotted muscles!
“Uurrrraaaaaahhh—”
The next second, the chains were completely torn apart. The bronze metal links broke apart and scattered, smashing onto the ground with a clatter!
In an instant, the darkness gathered in the center of the circle exploded. Accompanied by a chilling roar, it surged outward like a tidal wave. Under such terrible impact force, even Zhang Yunsheng couldn’t help but stagger backward, retreating more than ten steps continuously before barely steadying his figure.
Swept up by the black waves, everyone was pushed away from the center of the three-faced Bodhisattva.
One after another.
All the sleeping people woke up.
Their expressions were either terrified, bewildered, or blank—it seemed as if half of their souls were still left in the other world, completely unaware of where they were, nor understanding what had happened.
Not far away, Zhang Yunsheng steadied his body, a storm brewing on his expressionless face.
“Since you refuse a toast, you’ll have to drink a forfeit.”
Behind him, one figure after another emerged—there were paper dolls with eerie smiles, fully developed frogs that were pale and slimy all over, and various other terrifying monsters that had appeared in the instances. Every single one of them had the same red slit cracked open on their bodies, blood-red eyeballs drilling out from within, rolling around rapidly.
So what if they successfully woke up from the illusion?
Nothing would change because of this.
The merging of all the instances meant that all the monsters were at his command. Unlike before, this time, they were existences enhanced and mutated by Nightmare. And the other side was just a few ordinary people who had just woken up with their talents overdrawn. The only combat power that could be considered a threat had only just broken free—what’s more, they were currently in such a unique area. Here, as time passed, the bronze Bodhisattva statues would only become larger and larger.
And they were the only existences that could divide and suppress Wu Zhu.
Looking at the monsters closing in from all directions, everyone suddenly sobered up. The things that happened before falling into the illusion rushed into their minds, and their real memories began to revive.
“Wait…?” Figaro staggered to his feet. His pupils trembled violently, and he looked around—having just woken up from a pleasant, deceptively real dream, they immediately had to face such a terrifying life-or-death situation. This was simply a heavy blow to the head for anyone. “What exactly is going on?”
“What else could be going on!” Ji Guan gritted his teeth, reaching out to support Wen Jianyan beside him, “Everything that just happened was fake… that’s what’s going on!”
“I figured that out too!!” Figaro almost broke his voice, “The problem is, how do we fight in this situation? I’m asking you how we fight???”
They couldn’t fight.
Wen Jianyan had one hand pierced by a sharp blade, was physically exhausted from fighting the illusion head-on, and had lost too much blood. Ji Guan was powerless to provide support. Not to mention Bai Xue had no combat power, he would also bring negative buffs to the teammates beside him. Because they were in an area that was too close to the core, the blond youth’s talent was over-stimulated, and he couldn’t open his eyes at all. And the only non-human in the team was covered in injuries, a bloody mess.
Monsters from different instances surrounded them on all sides, and giant, bizarre bronze Bodhisattva statues looked down from above.
And they were beneath the surface of the lake…
No path to retreat, nowhere to escape.
Looking at the few people not far away, tense all over and helpless, a gloomy smile spilled from Zhang Yunsheng’s lips.
—Since you are unwilling to die in a beautiful dream, then come embrace the nightmare-like reality.
Right at this moment.
Suddenly, a sharp suona horn sound came from behind.
Without any warning, the sound was like a sharp weapon piercing through the silence, making one involuntarily startle in horror.
…What?
In an instant, everyone jolted and subconsciously turned their heads to look in the direction the sound came from.
A voice with indistinguishable gender suddenly sounded, sharp and high-pitched, making one’s blood run cold.
“The—auspicious—time—has—arrived—”
A blood-red bridal sedan chair slowly came out from the darkness. Lanterns hung on both sides of the sedan chair, one red, one white.
Red for joy, white for mourning.
Four paper dolls with smiling faces carried the coffin, hopping forward. Through the red curtain, a gloomy and bizarre red figure could vaguely be seen. She sat straight up inside the sedan chair, a pair of pale, cold hands folded on her lap, the nail polish bright red like blood.
Wen Jianyan was stunned, his lips moved, and he said softly:
“…A-Yuan.”
The instant the bridal sedan chair appeared, the world became dead silent.
“…”
Looking at the bridal sedan chair not far away, Zhang Yunsheng’s expression drastically changed. For the first time, he felt such a heavy sense of crisis.
Behind him, the monsters seemed to lose their ability to move, standing stiff and motionless in place, unable to move a single bit anymore. Only the red eyeballs on their bodies were still rolling madly, but to no avail.
Changsheng Building was a coffin, a place where humans saved themselves to suppress ghosts.
The female corpse in red could never leave Changsheng Building. But, as long as she was within Changsheng Building, her ruling power was conceptual-level; all ghosts and monsters would be suppressed by her.
In order to gather the suppression of the Old God and the creation of the New God in the same place, in order to make the bronze Bodhisattva statues—the only thing capable of suppressing Wu Zhu—appear here, the instances had to merge, and all the cores had to overlap along with it. However, this also meant…
Changsheng Building would also be equally introduced here.
—Spinning a cocoon around oneself, eating the bitter fruit of one’s own making.
Wen Jianyan was the first to react. He turned his head and shouted hoarsely: “Kill Zhang Yunsheng!!!”
As soon as his voice fell, everyone woke up as if from a dream.
Knowing deeply that they had no way to retreat at this moment, Figaro also threw caution to the wind. He rushed forward rapidly, the scimitar in his hand gleaming. Ji Guan followed closely behind. Zhang Yunsheng reflexively backed away, but before he could dodge, he was shackled by the darkness. Unable to retreat, he could only watch helplessly as the other’s blade embedded deeply into his chest.
However, as the scimitar was pulled out, the wound recovered in an instant.
“Ha…”
He laughed.
“Still not giving up, are you?”
“I’ve said it before—I cannot be killed.”
Suddenly, a sentence flashed in Wen Jianyan’s mind, one that Bai Xue had told him who knows how long ago.
—When life has no meaning, death also loses its meaning.
That’s right, Zhang Yunsheng wasn’t even considered alive at all, so how could he die?
Seeming to realize something, he abruptly turned his head and looked at the blond youth beside him whose eyes couldn’t open: “Quick! Help me find something!”
The blond youth froze and subconsciously turned his head: “Find what?”
“I don’t know either, anything will do, no matter what it is—” Wen Jianyan clenched his teeth, soon tasting the flavor of rust in his mouth. His speaking speed showed no sign of slowing down. “Accessories, weapons, props, in short, anything that might bind Zhang Yunsheng’s soul to his current body—”
Why didn’t Zhang Yunsheng appear right from the beginning?
Why had he always been a formless black hole in past instances?
It turned out the answer was always out in the open.
—He had lost his anchor of existence very early on.
Even the last thing that could house his existence, that brain located in the captain’s cabin of the cruise ship, was destroyed due to his interference.
If he didn’t rely on the “Gentleman’s” already dead body, if he didn’t follow certain conditions, he would never be able to appear!!
In an instant, a flash of inspiration hit him.
He hissed: “The location is on his neck, in the area attacked by Lin Qing—”
Even though any level of fatal wound could heal, the ferocious scar on his throat always remained. And in Fukang Comprehensive Hospital, the time Lin Qing severely slashed his throat with a scalpel was the only time Zhang Yunsheng lost consciousness.
“…Okay, I understand.” Seeming to have made some kind of resolution, the blond youth took a deep breath and abruptly opened his eyes!
The instant he opened his eyes, screams uncontrollably poured from his throat. In just an instant of opening his eyes, his sclera, irises, and pupils had all completely turned a fresh blood-red—previously in Fukang Comprehensive Hospital, he had already been almost unable to open his eyes. This time, forcing himself to open his eyes had almost exhausted all his willpower!!
The eyeballs turned into bloody water, melting bit by bit at a terrifying speed, flowing down his cheeks.
But even so, the blond youth clenched his jaw tight, never closing his eyes again, but forced himself to cast his gaze on that familiar figure not far away.
Once, the original owner of that body had tried to gouge out his eyes on the cruise ship, telling him this was “the only useful thing on his body”—and this time, relying on his own will, he used his already mutated sight to patrol over the other party’s dead corpse, searching for the only way to completely kill the other party.
Seeming to sense the danger, Zhang Yunsheng’s face had already become extremely dark at this moment. He raised his head, looked up at the blood-red sky deep within the lake surface overhead, his lips moving, murmuring in a low voice.
The next second, the ground began to vibrate.
“Rumble!”
The ground sank downwards.
Wen Jianyan froze, raised his head, and his gaze landed on those bronze statues.
The bronze Bodhisattva statues around them, already massive as mountains, continued to grow at a terrifying speed.
Those bronze faces that fed on human desires.
It brought the solution for the residents of Wu Town to leave the darkness—it brought the means of wish fulfillment for the people in the compound—it brought him and all the others present the dreams they desired most.
The bronze statues grew larger again.
The ground below couldn’t bear it and cracked open.
“Urgh—!” Wu Zhu’s body jolted. Within his golden eyes, the pupils narrowed into slits, and a muffled groan spilled from his throat.
“Rumble!!”
Another loud sound.
The Bodhisattva statues expanded by several zhang.
Clang.
From the dark void overhead, came a heart-palpitating sound of metal clashing. Brand-new bronze chains descended from above, and with an unstoppable force, in just a few seconds, they once again pierced through Wu Zhu’s shoulder blades, chest, abdomen, and ribs.
Drip, drop. Drip, drop.
Golden blood surged out from his body, and everything around was vibrating madly.
Not far away, Zhang Yunsheng had already begun to break free from the gradually weakening darkness.
Wen Jianyan abruptly turned his head. His hand, which had been pierced by the dagger at some point, tightly gripped Wu Zhu’s arm. The unhealed wound split open, and scalding hot, viscous fresh blood gushed out, landing on his skin, injecting him with final strength.
His eyes were like raging fire, his voice hoarse, almost unrecognizable from his original voice:
“Pull him into the circle together with you!!!”
—Why didn’t you dare to step into the center of the circle just now?
—Zhang Yunsheng, a Nightmare puppet who lost his existence, an obedient agent of sin, what is your desire?
The instant Wu Zhu was pulled back into the center of the circle by the chains, the surrounding darkness equally strangled Zhang Yunsheng, dragging him forcefully under the gaze of the bronze Bodhisattva statues!!!
“No, no—!!!”
Zhang Yunsheng’s expression twisted.
However, the instant he entered the center of the circle, his struggle suddenly stopped, as if his hands and feet were bound by some ghost from the past.
“I, found…” Yang Fan’s voice sounded like it was squeezed through his teeth. He staggered two steps, “It’s… a knife… in the deepest part… of the throat—below the fifth… and sixth cervical vertebrae—”
The darkness tore open the wound on his throat, but the body below was still healing at an inconceivable speed. Even with such inhuman strength, it could only advance with difficulty through his squeezing, squirming flesh, searching and groping bit by bit.
“Left… further left…”
Yang Fan raised his head. His two eye sockets were filled with blood that couldn’t stop flowing, flowing down his pale cheeks, leaving shocking trails of blood. His voice was intermittent.
“Keep… going down…”
“…Further down,” his voice became lower and lower, weaker and weaker, “Left side—”
“Right.”
Finally, a happy smile appeared on that blood-soaked face. The last drop of blood drained from his eye sockets, leaving only two empty holes, his breath like a thread:
“That’s right, it’s right here.”
A bizarrely shaped knife was gouged out.
That was precisely the blade the Gentleman had once used to end his own life—he used it to slaughter countless anchors, turning them into props, and his own body… was also accidentally made into the final vessel by this existence.
The darkness grabbed it and threw it out of the center of the circle.
Clang!
The knife fell heavily to the ground, clattering as it landed in the distance.
“No, no, no no no no no—” Not far away, deep in the center of the circle, Zhang Yunsheng’s face was ferocious. His body erupted with infinite power at this instant, actually forcefully breaking free from both the bronze Bodhisattva’s desire dreamscape and the darkness controlled by the Old God together.
He staggered forward, pouncing ahead.
But, before he had time to do anything—
Crack.
Accompanied by a slight, soft sound, it was as if his body’s pause button had been pressed.
Zhang Yunsheng’s steps stopped, unable to move forward half a step anymore.
His expression had long lost its composure, instead freezing in shock, horror, and disbelief. His eyeballs rolled slowly in his sockets for an instant, then landed fixedly on the human standing just a few steps away from him.
That child who was once so thin, so fragile, had unknowingly grown into this tall, beautiful young man now. He had changed too much, making it almost difficult to connect him with that pitiful little kid who was thrown into the dog cage.
Under his horrified gaze, the other party slowly, bit by bit, raised his eyes.
Deep in those eyes surged intense, crazy emotions. The gaze was almost exactly the same as in his memory, as if looking back from the end of time—as bright as snow, as intimidating as a knife—almost like the incarnation of that raging fire that burned away sin, burned away his body.
In that instant, the two figures seemed to overlap again.
Once, that child looked at him just like this, leaping orange-red flames reflecting deep in his eerie pupils, dropping the burning flame toward the corpse oil on the ground.
Now, the young man carried the same gaze, standing bathed in blood in front of him. With a blood-drenched, scarred hand, he tightly gripped the dagger, his whitening fingertips tightening inch by inch. And the tip of the dagger was deeply embedded in the only medium connecting his body and soul.
Zhang Yunsheng only felt a chill shoot straight up into his heart.
In an instant, he seemed to return to more than ten years ago again—thrown once more into that great fire that burned his skin and rotted his bones, torturing him severely—since then, every moment, every second, his body and soul suffered the torture of raging fire, ultimately forcing him to sever a part of himself to survive.
Thus, an indescribable, very unfamiliar emotion slowly rose from the bottom of his heart. He had forgotten the existence of this thing for far too long, even having to spend several seconds before finally remembering it…
It was called fear.
On the body of the blade, spiderweb-like cracks spread rapidly at an uncontrollable speed.
“…”
Wen Jianyan stared at him fixedly. His lips trembled, twisting, stretching up, slowly drawing out an icy smile.
The tip of the knife advanced another inch.
“No—!!!!!”
Crack!
Accompanied by a sharp, crisp sound, that knife, which existed as the medium between the Gentleman’s body and Zhang Yunsheng’s soul, just cracked, shattered, and then—turned into powder.
The moment the blade shattered, the last trace of light belonging to Zhang Yunsheng’s sanity fled bit by bit from the depths of those eyes. No matter how unwilling, how in disbelief he was at the last moment… everything vanished into thin air along with it, turning into nothingness.
The Gentleman’s body swayed and slowly tilted to one side.
At the neck, the torn wound could no longer heal. From deep within that old scar, fresh blood gurgled out.
—He crashed down.
That great fire that had burned for decades without extinguishing…
At this moment, finally burned out.
The author has something to say:
Violent delights have violent ends.
