Chapter 456: Evil God Festival · Houseboat |
Under the panicked shouts and obstruction of her jiejie, Little Aoi ran back along the small mountain path she had just descended without looking back.
Under the inextinguishable, raging fire, the sound of clashing weapons and slaughter rang through the forest, mingling with the crackling and popping of burning timber.
Little Aoi covered her mouth and nose. Under the onslaught of heat waves and ash, she looked up at the Luming Shrine standing at the highest point. She took two deep breaths, clenched her fists, and continued to run upward.
Inside the shrine.
Bai Liu’s right hand dragged a long whip covered in bloodstains. With a cold expression, he used two fingers of his left hand to push open the door of the tabernacle.
The heavy wooden doors of the tabernacle slowly opened.
Bai Six gripped his whip. Smiling, he used the sharp bone spurs on the whip in his right hand to heavily entwine the neck of Tawil, who was already bound by dense silk threads, forcing Tawil to lean back.
The black bone spurs pierced into the fair, thin skin of Tawil’s neck. Crimson blood slid down his front, dripping bit by bit onto Tawil’s blood-spattered white outer robe.
Tawil’s silver-blue eyes were weakly half-closed. He looked up at Bai Liu standing at the doorway, his voice sounding raspy because his throat was throttled by the whip in Bai Six’s hand: “You finally came.”
Bai Liu’s gaze rested on the neck of Xie Ta where the bone spurs had pierced and blood was gurgling out. His tone was still calm, but his grip on the whip was so tight his knuckles turned white: “Why did you think I wouldn’t come?”
“You spoke to me.” Tawil curved his eyes and smiled very, very faintly. “I thought you had left with your prince charming.”
His silver-blue eyes shimmered like rippling water as he gazed intently at Bai Liu, his tone very serious, as if anticipating something: “Since you’ve come to find me now, are you prepared to choose me as your prince charming?”
“What a beautiful fairy tale.” Bai Six smiled as he looked at Bai Liu, the whip in his hand that was constricting Xie Ta’s neck tightening even further. “I know how you managed to make Xie Ta feel pain for you.”
Bai Six’s playful gaze moved back and forth between Bai Liu and Xie Ta, finally resting on Xie Ta’s blood-stained profile. He looked down and curled the corners of his mouth:
“You trained it. You deliberately made a monster fall in love with you.”
“What a brand-new way to solve the problem.”
Bai Six smiled, as if exchanging game tips with Bai Liu in a very relaxed setting: “I’m quite curious how you did it?”
“—Making an evil creation like this, one that can remember the memories of all world lines and possesses no humanity or human emotions, feel love for you?”
“Even God has no way of doing that.”
Bai Six looked up, scrutinizing the Bai Liu across from him with great interest: “—Why were you able to do it?”
Bai Liu did not answer him. His right hand swung the whip down toward Bai Six without hesitation. At the same time, his left hand reached forward, placing his palm between Bai Six’s whip and Xie Ta’s neck. The moment his hand curved back to protect Xie Ta’s neck, he backhandedly tore away Bai Six’s black bone whip.
*(T/N: Don’t you dare touch Xie Ta you bastard!)*
Bai Six sidestepped to dodge the white bone whip Bai Liu swung down at him. A smile remained on his face, but there was no emotion left in his eyes. He tightened his right hand, once again pulling the black bone whip that Bai Liu had torn away back around Xie Ta’s neck. Simultaneously, he flicked his wrist inward; the bone spurs flared out even more aggressively, sinking deeper into Xie Ta’s skin.
The white outer robe on Xie Ta’s neck was completely soaked with blood. The bone spurs piercing deep into his throat made it so he couldn’t even make a sound.
“I suggest not pulling on this kind of barbed bone whip haphazardly,” Bai Six said to Bai Liu with a smile as he turned his head. “It will pull the head right off.”
Bai Liu’s eyes swept over coldly. A type of aggression that was very rare for him, very overt, emerged from his pitch-black eyes. His right hand gripping the bone whip loosened. The instant his hand flipped forward, the bone whip in his hand transformed into a sharp short knife. With lightning speed, it swept past Bai Six’s neck as he barely dodged—it looked like it was about to take Bai Six’s head off!
A strand of black hair was sliced from Bai Six’s temple, slowly spinning as it fell to the ground. A few drops of blood splashed onto the falling hair.
Bai Six slowly straightened his head from where he had leaned away to dodge. Then he lifted his eyelids and stuck out his tongue, licking the blood dripping from the left side of his face. His gaze gradually became excited: “Now this is interesting, Da-ge.”
“Let me see more—what interesting skills will the future me have?”
Before his voice even finished falling, Bai Liu didn’t stop for a moment. He grabbed the black bone whip strangling Xie Ta’s neck with his left hand, using the momentum of his body to pull the black bone whip away from Xie Ta’s neck over a wide range. Simultaneously, he exerted force from his waist, flipped over, and delivered a fierce kick toward Bai Six’s spine.
Bai Six braced his shoulder to take Bai Liu’s kick head-on. Blood seeped from the corner of his smiling mouth. He didn’t protect himself at all; instead, he quickly yanked the black bone whip controlling Xie Ta’s neck, dragging Xie Ta and Bai Liu (who had his hand protecting Xie Ta’s neck) into the air.
Following this force, Bai Six grabbed Bai Liu’s right foot which was pinned against his shoulder and pushed back. The whip lashed out viciously toward Bai Liu’s blind spot as he flipped backward.
On the ground, the black bone whip with its spurs fully flared carved a large hole into the wooden floor. The wooden planks on either side of the hole flipped up, revealing a pond directly beneath the hole.
The goldfish inside the pond were swimming about obliviously. The shimmering light on the water’s surface and the colors of the fireworks reflected from the black night sky merged together, making these leisurely swimming goldfish look as if they were swimming in a summer festival night sky filled with brilliant fireworks.
Bai Liu knelt on one knee beside this large hole. His back was held perfectly straight. His waist was less than five centimeters away from a sharp bone spur that had been struck into a vertical position behind him. He gripped the black bone whip with one hand and looked up coldly at Bai Six standing on the other side of the hole.
Bai Six looked with great interest at the black leather glove that had appeared out of thin air on Bai Liu’s hand: “Short knife, glove… so is it a transformation-type skill weapon that I possess?”
“Or rather—” Bai Six said with a smile, “Can I use my own skill weapon to utilize other people’s skill weapons?”
Before he could finish asking, Bai Liu decisively threw the short knife in his hand. Bai Six dodged with a fluid movement. The short knife that brushed past the side of Bai Six’s neck transformed in mid-air into a bottle of poison.
During the spinning process, the poison bottle’s cap was flung off. In a state where the poison was already flowing out, it fell into the pond behind Bai Six.
The pond was instantly dyed a bubbling black, and a thick toxic mist rose into the sky. Bai Liu clearly heard the sound of his own health bar dropping rapidly, but he ignored it completely. The moment the short knife left his hand, he instantly summoned the white bone whip into his right hand, gripped it tight, and lashed it out without the slightest pause.
The white bone whip followed the large hole Bai Six had just struck open, tearing up an entire strip of the wooden planks where Bai Six was standing and sending them flying into the air.
“Plop—!!”
Bai Liu heard a clear sound of falling into water. It was obvious that Bai Six had fallen into the pond where he had just thrown the toxic mist.
After completing this entire set of his commonly used combos, Bai Liu stood up and moved quickly toward the direction where Xie Ta had just been flung. Meanwhile, the corner of his eye scanned the pond below. The whip in his hand turned into a gun, firing rapidly at every spot where bubbles rose.
“Bang bang bang bang—!!”
Bai Liu stood in front of Xie Ta, facing the pond with a cold expression. Although there was no movement in the pond anymore, the gun in his hand was not lowered; he remained alert, aiming at the pond.
The wooden plank under his feet shook slightly. Bai Liu’s gaze narrowed. He fired six times in quick succession at the plank beneath his feet, then raised his hand to change the magazine and chamber the gun. He lowered his gaze, aiming the muzzle at the direction where the water ripples were moving under the planks, and fired another six cold, precise shots.
Silver shell casings fell with a clinking sound.
This continuous area-of-effect attack didn’t stop or focus until a system notification rang in Bai Liu’s ear:
>[System Notification: Player Bai Liu hit player Bai Six with the skill weapon (Rose Revolver).]
Blood spread out beneath the dark ripples. Bai Liu’s gaze instantly locked onto the spot in the dark pond where the blood was diffusing. An intense sense of aggression leaked from his pure black eyes, like a scaleless dragon fish provoked by its prey. He wouldn’t leave the prey any room to counterattack or escape. He accurately and ruthlessly opened his mouth full of poisonous spines and fangs, biting down again on the prey’s wound.
Bai Liu raised his left hand. With a calm expression and pitch-black eyes, he aimed at the point where the blood was spreading and pulled the trigger.
“Bang bang bang bang bang bang—!!”
Six clean, decisive shots emptied the magazine. He raised his hand to swap the magazine, followed the moving blood-stained point with his aim, shifted his shoulder back to cushion the recoil, and pulled the trigger again. Another six shots.
“Bang bang bang—!! Bang bang bang—!!”
The system notification rang in Bai Liu’s ear:
>[System Notification: Player Bai Liu hit player Bai Six with the skill weapon (Rose Revolver), player Bai Six’s health value is decreasing…]
>[System Notification: Player Bai Liu hit player Bai Six with the skill weapon (Rose Revolver)…]
>[System Notification: Player Bai Liu…]
After Bai Liu had chased and emptied an unknown number of magazines, blocking every possible spot where Bai Six could have climbed up, and with silver shell casings littering the floor around his feet, the content of the system notification finally changed:
>[System Notification: Player Bai Six’s health value has reached zero. Withdrawing from the game.]
>[Congratulations to player Bai Liu for killing player Bai Six!]
Bai Liu’s dark eyes stared at the still surface of the pond for a while. With a flip of his hand, the gun transformed back into a whip.
He raised his hand and lashed the whip into the pond, stirring it left and right. When it hit a certain heavy corpse, his wrist paused. He flipped his wrist, forming a loop with the whip, coiled it around the waist of Bai Six’s corpse at the bottom of the water, pulled it up, and swung it out, tossing it onto the wooden floor.
Bai Six’s corpse had its eyes closed, lying on the wooden floor like a heap of unresponsive rotten meat. The wooden floor shook twice from the impact.
Bai Liu walked up to the corpse and looked down coldly, observing the body as if he were looking at a stone.
Bai Six’s face was ash-gray, devoid of any blood. There were very obvious traces of poison corrosion on some parts of his skin, which had split open.
Bai Liu hooked his toe under the corpse’s elbow, and with an upward flick of his ankle, he kicked the corpse over so it was lying face down with its spine facing up. Bai Liu half-closed his eyes and observed the back of the corpse for a long while. His gaze slid down from the spine, stopping at the center of the corpse’s lower back.
Then, with a calm expression and swift movements, Bai Liu struck with his whip, tearing open the clothes on the back of the corpse to expose the skin. He reached out and produced another bottle of poison, preparing to pour it onto the bone groove in the center of Bai Six’s back.
But in the second before he could pour it, Bai Liu’s sleeve was pulled.
“What are you…” Xie Ta, who could only crawl on the ground due to being pulled by the silk threads, lightly tugged at Bai Liu’s sleeve and then slowly raised his head.
There were terrifying, bloody holes on Xie Ta’s neck where the bone spurs had pierced through, and blood was still seeping out. Yet he seemed completely indifferent to the injuries on his own body, looking up at Bai Liu with his whole heart. He blinked his eyelashes, which were clumped with water, and asked softly: “—doing?”
Bai Liu looked down: “I’m going to use poison to corrode his skin, and then extract his spine.”
Xie Ta was silent for a long time. He coughed lightly and asked in a raspy voice: “Why do you want to do that?”
“Xie Ta.” Bai Liu knelt down. He reached out his right hand to grip Xie Ta’s jaw, tilting the other’s chin up. The gaze he used to look at Xie Ta was cold and calm. “Do you really not know why I want to do this?”
“You remember the memories of other world lines. That proves you are the Xie Ta of those other world lines. You’ve had an unknown number of spines extracted by the [Bai Six] at my feet, and by an unknown number of [Bai Six]s in so many world lines who look exactly like me.”
Bai Liu stared into Xie Ta’s silver-blue eyes: “Why didn’t you say anything while I was torturing you?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that I’m forcing you to develop feelings for someone who looks exactly like the bastard who skinned you and pulled out your tendons?”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you know you’re in a game and not a real world line? You even know I’m a player and that I’m very likely trying to clear the game by making you feel pain through this method?”
Xie Ta’s breathing hitched slightly. His gaze became somewhat confused, as if he didn’t understand what Bai Liu was saying: “…Are those things important?”
“My world is only the game.”
Xie Ta’s silver-blue eyes were completely filled with the reflection of Bai Liu alone: “To me, this is reality.”
“To me, you are real.”
*(T/N: I’m not crying, you are!)*
Bai Liu fell silent. His fingers gripping the poison bottle curled inward.
Xie Ta’s face was stained with blood. Wearing his tattered white outer robe, he slowly propped himself up to sit. Covered in blood yet incredibly pious, he knelt on the ground, slightly tilting his head to look up at the kneeling Bai Liu. His tone was serious and earnest:
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a game to you. It doesn’t matter if it’s for the sake of clearing the game.”
“Now, can I be your prince charming?”
Bai Liu remained silent for a long while. His posture shifted from a squat to kneeling like Xie Ta, and then he looked directly into Xie Ta’s eyes.
In this moment, Bai Liu could clearly see nervousness and an indescribable anticipation in Xie Ta’s silver-blue eyes. He heard his own heartbeat and Xie Ta’s heartbeat gradually quickening.
“Thump-thump, thump-thump!”
The frequency of their two accelerating heartbeats gradually merged together.
“I don’t want a prince charming who will die,” Bai Liu lowered his eyes and said. “Will you die?”
Xie Ta took a moment to react. He answered very quickly, even with a hint of panic: “I won’t die. I’m a monster!”
Bai Liu slowly raised his eyes and said: “Then let’s make a deal.”
“You give your soul, life, and love to me.”
“I give my wishes, faith, and love to you.”
Xie Ta said: “Okay.”
He asked very seriously: “Does the deal require me to do anything else?”
“My deals require money as a medium.” Bai Liu looked at Xie Ta. His lips pressed together slightly, and he gave a faint instruction: “Close your eyes.”
Xie Ta obediently closed his eyes immediately.
Bai Liu gazed at Xie Ta’s blood-stained face. His own eyelids slowly lowered, his long lashes casting a shallow shadow on his face, and his gaze fell upon that single coin hanging over his heart.
—That was the task manager Bai Liu used to enter the game.
It was also the symbol used by those foolish players, controlled by their desires, to ring the bell and make a wish to the evil god.
Bai Liu was silent for a long time. He took this coin into his mouth, pressing it under his tongue. He tasted a cold, metallic flavor, like rust, and also like the blood on Xie Ta’s body.
“Is it ready?” Xie Ta’s eyes were closed. He turned toward Bai Liu and asked very softly.
At the very instant he finished asking, Bai Liu, who was kneeling on the ground, leaned forward. He raised his right hand to cover Xie Ta’s eyes, and then closed his own.
Their lips met.
“What was that just now?” Xie Ta asked unclearly while his eyes were covered. He licked the foreign object that Bai Liu had passed into his mouth and asked softly, “Is it a coin? It’s making my heart beat so fast.”
“No,” Bai Liu’s voice was very soft. “It’s a kiss.”
*(T/N: Screaming, crying, throwing up. Let my babies be happy!)*
