Chapter 185: Feeling Their Despair
“May the great general return… may the great general return…”
Watching the seemingly irrational Xia Lianqing and a group of Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers, Luxianbei silently sighed and walked toward the struggling Shen Baiwei.
A great man once said, “Do it yourself, and you will have enough to eat and wear!”
Some things still have to be done by oneself.
“d*mn it, you’re full of cr*p!” Shen Baiwei cursed, her chipped front teeth making her words slurred.
“Shh—!” Luxianbei made a shushing gesture at Shen Baiwei and slowly said, “Be good, shut up, or I’ll eat you up!”
Though it was just a threat and she didn’t intend to actually harm Shen Baiwei, her emotionless face, cold eyes, and unsettling tone resembling poison still made Shen Baiwei’s heart skip a beat, and she suddenly quieted down.
Indeed, from the past she had glimpsed, calamity had exhibited horrific behavior in the riot in Peach Source, cooking urban legends right in front of everyone.
If provoked, she might actually eat someone?
Taking advantage of Shen Baiwei’s silence, Luxianbei immediately began her work, reciting the spell formula while pouting and binding her, her movements flawless.
You see, she had started practicing relevant tasks when she helped her father bind braised beef and pig trotters since she was eight.
In less than a minute, she had bound Shen Baiwei into a glowing cocoon with hundreds of sealed spell formulas and reinforced cloth strips through a defensive spell.
“Wuu— wuu—!”
With her speech ability restricted by the spell formula, Shen Baiwei lay sprawled on the ground, her mouth wide open as if trying to yell, but only incomprehensible whimpers escaped her lips, accompanied by streaks of bl**d seeping from her mouth.
She struggled desperately, resembling some kind of glowing larva, her eyes wide open, as if she wanted to claw two pounds of flesh from Luxianbei’s body with her gaze.
“Don’t look at me like that, I’m doing this for everyone’s good…” Luxianbei frowned.
Seeing Shen Baiwei giving her that wronged yet fierce look, with tear-brimmed eyes, she felt a flicker of conscience; after all, in some sense, she was ruining someone else’s dreams and wishes.
However, after a brief consideration, she found a way to ease her conscience—she took Shen Baiwei’s glasses, tore a strip of fabric from the curtain by the bed, and precisely covered Shen Baiwei’s eyes.
With her vision taken away, Shen Baiwei suddenly struggled even more violently, so Luxianbei frowned and raised her hand, delivering a heavy chop to the back of her neck.
A dull thud accompanied by a faint cracking sound of bones echoed, Shen Baiwei’s legs kicked out abruptly, and her whole body slumped down.
That perfectly solved the problem!
She had always hated seeing others cry, and since she couldn’t bear it, she simply chose not to see it; out of sight, out of mind.
Like a black widow spider wrapping up its catch, Luxianbei hoisted the bound Shen Baiwei, wrapped in hundreds of sealing spell formulas, over her shoulder and stood up.
She intended to go next door; after seeing Xia Lianqing and the Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers in their bewitched state, she was somewhat worried about Nanling Yaohua and Huaiyuan Jun’s condition.
“May the great general return… may the great general return…”
Xia Lianqing and the Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers continued to murmur, like monks chanting, their voices inducing drowsiness.
As the sound echoed in the room, the open window gradually drifted away. The moment Luxianbei stood up, her vision suddenly blurred, as if she had strained her eyes, causing double vision.
In a daze, a vague, weak, and untraceable guidance made her look out the window. The moment she gazed outside, her vision cleared up.
The sky was vast, shimmering with pure white light, darkening as it receded into the distance, stained a deep blue, and finally swallowed entirely by darkness at the edge of her vision.
Though there seemed to be nothing there, Luxianbei sensed something extraordinarily massive and majestic stirring within that line of darkness.
Beneath the sky, the dilapidated buildings of Yumen Pass, which seemed to be littered with corpses, glimmered faintly at the edges, as if filtered through some special lens.
During the time Luxianbei had just been preoccupied with handling Shen Baiwei, the golden figure, enveloped in sacred white light, had quietly changed.
Its frame, which originally seemed palm-sized and could only be discerned as a vague humanoid silhouette, had inflated several times at an unknown moment.
The golden substance covering its surface, like an active amorphous fluid, shifted and morphed, and after some time of “growth,” extended out non-plant-like proliferative tissues from its spine and limb joints.
From a distance, it looked as if tree branches had broken through the soil, penetrating the buried corpses beneath, growing out from the backs of those corpses.
Delicate strips intertwined, forming the shape of a colossal flower bud.
That flower bud, half shrouded in brilliantly radiant light, layer upon layer, intricate and mesmerizing, seemed as if it would bloom the most magnificent miracle flower of this world at any moment.
The other half appeared withered, having lost moisture and most of its tissue, leaving only the intertwined fibrous network resembling petals, which outlined various complex and splendid patterns.
Those patterns seemed to depict gold, swords, livestock, wine cups, or even some special characters conveying indescribable messages.
At the tips of those branches, numerous small hands of dreamy-colored flame flickered, writhing and continuously extending into the void, as if trying to grasp something from it.
Compared to Jumeng’s approachable deity, the figure in the sky appeared much more like a legendary divine being.
It seemed akin to the first miracle at the beginning of the world, just looking at it made one want to raise their arms and cheer “Miracle!” But if someone shouted “Reproduce!” at the Stinky Sister, they were probably not a follower but rather a pervert attracted purely by her beauty.
Though Luxianbei never believed in any deity and understood that all gods were essentially urban legends, she felt that if someone who knew little about urban legends saw the scene in the sky at this moment, they would undoubtedly blindly worship that figure as a deity.
Even some spiritual ability users and urban legends might as well.
Just like this…
Luxianbei looked at Xia Lianqing and the Longxiang Army Armor Soldiers, shaking her head helplessly.
They were still calling out continuously.
In their calls, Luxianbei suddenly felt a burst of heat in her eyes.
In the next second, accompanied by the feeling of heat spreading from deep within her eyes, Luxianbei saw the line of extreme black, which finally swallowed the pure white light at the horizon, as if it twitched.
Soon after, a faint shadow gradually approached that golden figure, as if dark clouds were drifting in from afar.
After a few breaths, a bizarre scene appeared in the sky above Yumen Pass.
The sky seemed to be cut in half by some terrifying force; one half still radiated sacred light, while the other, though also engulfed in white brightness, had cooler, grayer tones, tinged with a barely visible crimson, suppressing gloom.
“…”
Something large was about to arrive?
The atmosphere had built up to this point, so it would be quite rude if there wasn’t a big guy appearing…
But what could that be?
With a mind for amusement, Luxianbei thought as she shifted her gaze downward beneath that half oppressive and gloomy sky, trying to find the source of the abnormality within the fortress.
Unfortunately, the height of Dai Mu Institute’s third floor provided limited visibility, and hidden behind the undulating dilapidated buildings, she could only see partial, fragmented scenes cut out by the edges of structures, and within those scenes were spiritual ability users or urban legends in a frenzy.
Some sat dumbly on the rotting rooftops, holding a bowl of steaming noodle soup, hunched over and sobbing as if a loved one had just passed.
Some squatted on the open ground, clutching a piece of charcoal, continuously sketching some strange patterns on the ground, murmuring to themselves, “I understand now, that’s it, I get it all…”
When the charcoal ran out, they bit their fingers, continuing to draw with their bl**d, intertwining red and black to outline a disturbing, evil pattern.
That seemed to symbolize some demonic urban legend’s totem.
“Wow, I made it, my son made it!”
Suddenly, a joyful scream came from afar, followed by a figure with disheveled hair dashing past the dirty hole in a mud wall.
On the winding street, people in bizarre outfits wandered back and forth as if in a large cosplay event, with even mechs towering two to three stories high mixed in, making Luxianbei enviously feel an urge to join them.
If it weren’t for the fact that they looked like a group of soulless zombies, she might have regretted not making an actual wish for Bai Xiaohua to appear.
It was simply a chaotic dance of demons; she couldn’t see anything useful. The only thing that proved something terrifying was approaching was the giant on the small gray palace in the city center, who had, at some point, crawled onto the roof.
That enormous body, covered in rotten flesh, would make deafening sounds even with slight movements, as the bizarre swarm with human faces flew around its chest cavity, which could already be seen as bony.
Although its deep-sunken eye sockets had lost flesh and bl**d, Luxianbei readied a state of vigilance from that pitch-black void.
Perhaps the direction it was gazing at was the very place where the big guy was about to emerge? Luxianbei thought, squinting her eyes.
At that moment, she felt as if an illusion had appeared, sensing a change within Yumen Pass that was somehow different from before.
It was hard to describe what it was, just a subtle shift in humidity and temperature in the air, quietly changing, making it difficult to perceive.
Bound like a cocoon, Shen Baiwei couldn’t speak or see but felt the changes inside Yumen Pass more clearly than Luxianbei.
It was a strong emotion from the past, which under normal circumstances, would absolutely serve as excellent nourishment for her spirit patterns power.
Unfortunately, right now, her spirit patterns power sensed her thoughts and was “throwing a tantrum,” having absolutely no desire to feed, even watch helplessly as she was controlled by the calamity.
It was just too unfair!
In a fit of anger, Shen Baiwei kept squirming, like a snail burned by a spark.
As time passed, with that invisible, intangible, hard-to-perceive change continuously accumulating in Yumen Pass, the core of Luxianbei’s mythological species urban legend suddenly trembled.
It was as if Xia Lianqing had requested her help, even more fervently.
In a daze, she seemed to hear a voice whispering in her ear, “You finally came…”
As if someone knew she would be here, no matter how many years passed.
In an instant, sorrow flooded in like a bursting dam, sweeping her away.
Only then did she finally realize that there seemed to be many more “people” inside Yumen Pass.
Though they couldn’t be seen or touched, she could vaguely feel they were there or perhaps had once been there.
They were deeply trapped in anguish and were loudly calling for help, but no one could reach out to them, only gazing at the gradually dimming sky and sighing deeply, ultimately left with a despair so thick it couldn’t disperse.
Feeling their despair, she felt sorrow.
Unknowingly, tears trickled from the corners of Luxianbei’s eyes, quietly streaming down her face like pearls unthreaded…
————
At the Siye Association Headquarters in Shengjing, Z Country, outside the second observation room’s corridor.
“Lord Wordless Book, where are you going…?”
Though it felt somewhat intrusive, seeing Wordless Book hurriedly walk along the corridor toward the exit, a young female operative of the Siye Association couldn’t help but ask the question.
Isn’t it just better to leave the trivial matters to those secretaries to handle?
Could it be that she was headed to the No. 3 remote conference room to help the one who was arguing?
She had heard that person had already started arguing with several disaster overlords from other organizations…
She recalled hearing from her colleague on duty outside the No. 3 remote conference room that intense arguments were echoing from inside.
It seemed that the guardian had stated that the Siye Association already had two guardians and one very special operative who had entered Yumen Pass and definitely wouldn’t make a mistake, but the major spirit energy organizations didn’t trust that the Siye Association could resolve it alone, insisting on sending their personnel to participate, which resulted in the argument becoming fierce.
What happened afterward was unclear; during heightened discussions, that guardian waved a hand and cut off all probing.
“I’m a bit tired; I’ll go to the rooftop for a while to clear my mind…” Wordless Book pulled out a pack of ladies’ cigarettes and a lighter from her jacket pocket, waved them at the operative, and continued on her way.
After walking through the long corridor and taking the elevator, she didn’t head to the rooftop as she mentioned, but rather left the building housing the Siye Association Headquarters, winding through the labyrinthine alleys of the courtyard and arriving on the main street, heading toward an inconspicuous café.
“Dingling—!”
Accompanied by the crisp sound of a small bell, Wordless Book pushed open the café’s door. Upon entering, she spotted the clean yet wild-haired boy waving excitedly at her.
Expressionless, she walked over and, before sitting down, asked, “Is it done?”
“Don’t be in a hurry, sister!” The boy grinned widely, pushing several plates of cake with different flavors in front of Wordless Book, “I didn’t know which one you liked, so I ordered them all.”
“Not done?” Wordless Book frowned, “Then I’m leaving.”
“Hey, hey!” The boy saw Wordless Book turning to leave and hurriedly stood up to shout, “It’s done, it’s all done! Isn’t it just the scene inside Yumen Pass?”
He said this while handing her a tablet displaying the imposing black-armored silhouette.
“I think the reason for the reduction in the nocturnal erosion over there is probably this. It was previously said to be called… what was it… Shaman Queen? Would you like to check the details now or finish your cake first?”
Glancing at the cakes on the table and then at the tablet in the boy’s hand, Wordless Book replied flatly, “Now.”
“Then…” The boy scooted aside, patting the empty space next to him, “Sister, come sit here and watch together?”
Wordless Book, “…”
