Chapter 125: Rainstorm, Tokyo, Bloody Storm Auction (9) |
Inside the auction house of the Mirror World, the members of the White Raven Brigade were engaged in a fierce battle with Li Qingping and Blue Arc.
Meanwhile, Qi Yuanli acted as if he were taking a leisurely stroll. He pulled a wooden chair from atop the auction stage, stepped down, and dragged it behind him as he slowly made his way to the center of the auction house.
He set the wooden chair down and took a seat right in front of the soundly sleeping Zhou Jiuya.
Crossing his legs, Qi Yuanli fixed his profound gaze on Zhou Jiuya. He stroked his chin, pondering for a brief moment, before ordering the crows circling above his head to descend. Flapping their wings, the birds crashed into the faint layer of golden light enveloping Zhou Jiuya.
The crows were blocked by the barrier, yet they attempted to ignore the surging golden radiance and force their way inside. However, in merely two seconds, they were engulfed by the golden light and melted into a flurry of scattered ashes.
Qi Yuanli slightly arched an eyebrow, his eyes catching a fleeting silhouette flashing from within Zhou Jiuya's cuff.
Tilting his head in mild curiosity, his black earrings swaying in the wind, he murmured, "So that is how it is."
Right at that moment, a hulking figure dressed in pitch-black ninja attire emerged from the shadows behind him.
Oda Takikage arrived at Qi Yuanli's side, lowering his voice to ask respectfully, "Leader, you were looking for me?"
Oda Takikage looked up at the slumbering Zhou Jiuya and gave a firm nod.
"I understand."
Having said that, Oda Takikage's body instantly vanished into the shadows beneath his feet.
Immediately after, a squirming shape could be seen appearing within Zhou Jiuya's shadow.
But the very next second, accompanied by the flash of a ring-like shadow from Zhou Jiuya's cuff, the squirming shape beneath the seat stopped moving completely. A tide of golden light swept downward, forcefully expelling him from Zhou Jiuya's shadow.
In the blink of an eye, Oda Takikage's figure shot outward like a loose arrow.
He adjusted his posture in mid-air, bending his knees slightly to land firmly on one of the pillars inside the auction house. He then melded into the shadow cast upon the pillar's surface and soon reappeared by Qi Yuanli's side.
Oda Takikage reported, "Leader, I failed."
"It is fine, that is completely normal."
Qi Yuanli gazed at the fleeting silhouette in Zhou Jiuya's cuff, pondered briefly, and then slowly curled the corners of his lips.
He said, "I think I have a good idea of who this person is, but this makes things a bit tricky..."
"Leader, just who exactly is this man?" Oda Takikage asked with a frown.
Qi Yuanli rose from his chair and explained at a leisurely pace, "Zhou Jiuya of the Lake Hunt. His Celestial Drive, the Tonggu Compass, allows him to grant the corresponding power of antiques by collecting them. The more precious the antique, the more powerful the weapon it becomes in his hands. This layer of Protective Golden Radiance comes from the bracelet on his wrist, the Wordless Boat. It was one of the items auctioned off at the last underground auction in Tokyo."
"The Lake Hunt?" Oda Takikage muttered to himself. "So that is how it is... No wonder his methods are so bizarre."
"Try not to alarm Zhou Jiuya. As long as he remains asleep, he makes no difference to us." Saying this, Qi Yuanli shifted his gaze from Zhou Jiuya to Oda Takikage. "How are things on the other side?"
"The Young Miss and the Blood Progenitor were pulled into the film world by the Film Demon."
"Ke Qirui, huh..." Qi Yuanli thought for a moment. "Do not worry, the Blood Progenitor and Ayase should be out very soon."
With that, Qi Yuanli cast a sidelong glance at Blue Arc, who was currently tangled in combat with three of the Brigade's members, and then looked over at Li Qingping.
At that exact moment, Li Qingping rose from his seat.
He strode toward the White Wolf, simultaneously crushing the card in his hand. An orange, dragon-shaped crest of light flashed briefly in the air before vanishing.
"It seems... the guests this time truly exceed our expectations," Qi Yuanli suddenly remarked.
Reflected in his profound pupils, an ochre-red gigantic phantom slowly ascended into the sky, covering nearly half of the auction house. Immediately after, a deafening dragon roar echoed outward, the ancient bellow expanding like a catastrophic tsunami.
The entire Mirror Auction House rumbled and trembled. The crystal chandeliers on the vaulted ceiling flickered wildly, the plaster peeled from the violently shaking walls, and massive clouds of dust cascaded from the ceiling like a waterfall.
"Red Dragon... Wales. The Generation-grade Anecdote Fragment closest to the Mythical rank."
The White Wolf gazed up at the towering, monstrous phantom, murmuring softly to himself.
Legend had it that once certain exceptionally gifted Anecdote Envoys reached a specific level of mastery, they could achieve true resonance with Generation-grade and Mythical-rank Anecdote Fragments.
They could merge with the Anecdote Fragments, becoming one entity.
Thus, at this very moment, Red Dragon Wales did not appear in the auction house as a mere summon. Instead, it manifested as an ochre-red draconic phantom enveloping Li Qingping's body, shielding both him and the Second Prince within its ethereal form.
The crimson dragon spread its massive ochre-red wings, casting down a shadow that blotted out the sky, making the entire world seem to dim in response.
The White Wolf stood stunned for a long moment before letting out a low chuckle. A glint of dark excitement flashed through his cloudy left eye.
"Now this is more like it."
He whispered to himself. Immediately following his words, his body suddenly began to expand.
In just two seconds, he transformed into a colossal wolf over twenty meters long. Every inch of his massive frame rippled with bulging muscles, and his entire body was bathed in a radiant light as bright as daybreak, making him look like a descending deity.
Li Qingping arched his eyebrows. "No wonder... so it was a demon in human form all along, and one from the highest echelons of the demonic races at that."
The Wolf of Celestial Day stomped its four limbs against the ground, cratering the auction house floor with four pits ten meters deep. Driven by the sheer force, it launched itself forward with a deafening boom that tore through the air.
The two behemoths were neck and neck in height. The roar of the Wolf of Celestial Day rang out like a booming bronze bell. Bellowing furiously, it swiped its massive claws at the crimson dragon phantom, the attack wreathed in the dazzling radiance of daylight.
Li Qingping stood his ground, his expression awe-inspiring, his long black hair whipping wildly in the wind.
"Roar!" Amidst the dragon's bellow, a sweeping torrent of ochre-red flames surged forth as its gigantic tail lashed out horizontally, colliding head-on with the claws of the Wolf of Celestial Day.
In that singular moment, blinding white light clashing like polar day met the purgatorial flames. Amidst the deafening explosion that followed, thousands of web-like cracks shattered across the Mirror World.
The Wolf of Celestial Day's gargantuan body was sent flying backwards over hundreds of meters, violently smashing into the pillars of the auction stage.
It was as if an artificial natural disaster had been unleashed; the entire world quaked as if the heavens and earth were flipping upside down.
Accompanied by a crisp, continuous crackling sound, mirror-like fissures rapidly spread out across the space in all directions.
The crystal chandeliers were completely incinerated by the residual flames. The only light left illuminating the auction house was the divine radiance glowing from the phantom of Red Dragon Wales.
Like a miniature sun, it hung high above everyone's heads.
At the same time, a streak of deep blue lightning darted wildly throughout the auction house. It ricocheted and spiraled between the pillars, violently lashing electric arcs in all directions. The electricity wove together into a massive blue net, possessing enough lethality to instantly electrocute any ordinary person who wandered into it by mistake.
Blue Arc utilized the terrain to constantly evade the pincer attacks from the three Brigade members. After a long while, he finally skidded to a halt.
He reached out to steady himself against a pillar and turned his head toward the clash of the two titans. A flash of astonishment crossed his bloodshot eyes.
"What is..."
Just then, An Lunsi struck an invisible billiard ball from a distance using his billiard cue.
The pillar beside Blue Arc shattered instantly. Transforming into a streak of lightning, he barely dodged the attack and reappeared behind another pillar.
The Ripper darted forward like a fired cannonball, gripping a dark red long saber that brutally pierced straight through the pillar.
The blade continued its trajectory, violently impaling Blue Arc through the abdomen from behind.
Blue Arc furrowed his brow tightly and coughed up a mouthful of fresh blood, his entire body pinned by the blade. The Ripper wrenched the saber upward, twisting the cold steel within his flesh. The motion sheared through countless ribs and came frighteningly close to piercing his heart.
"Get off!"
But Blue Arc unleashed a guttural roar, gritting his teeth as he forcefully raised his lightning-wreathed palms to grip the long saber impaling his stomach.
Immediately, the crackling arcs merged into a wave of pulse energy that explosively blasted outward.
The blast sent the Ripper and her long saber flying back several meters. The moment the blade was violently extracted from his body, a spray of Blue Arc's blood gushed outward.
A thunderous gunshot rang out—Andrew had fired again.
Blue Arc's body reacted to the sound on pure instinct. The second his feet touched the ground, he dragged a trail of lightning behind him as he darted backward!
The pitch-black beam formed by the bullet whizzed past his chest and struck the Ripper instead. The Ripper quickly hoisted her long saber to block the bullet's kinetic force, but the sheer momentum drove her entire body into the solid wall.
'I need to leave... there are too many of them, and Xiaomai is still waiting for me outside.'
With that thought in mind, Blue Arc took a deep breath. He transformed into a bolt of lightning, weaving through the pitch-black auction house like thunder flashing amidst heavy cumulonimbus clouds. He left behind a trail of blood-tinged electric arcs, his fresh blood scattering all across the floor.
As he sprinted, the blood spewing from the gaping wound in his abdomen was vaporized by the intense lightning, forming a gruesome mist of blood.
"Hey, hey, hey, is this guy insane?"
Andrew and Robert, standing on the auction stage, paused in shock. Neither dared to clash head-on with this mad dog, so they hastily dodged to the opposite side.
Ultimately, Blue Arc bolted unimpeded through the large door on the auction stage that connected directly to the real-world auction house.
In the very next second, the brilliant light of the crystal chandeliers spilled over him, illuminating his blood-soaked face and bringing a glimmer of brightness to his dimming eyes. However, what greeted him at that moment was not the hope of survival.
It was... four more members of the Brigade.
At this moment, Xia Pingzhou, Lan Duo Duo, Ayase Origami, and the Blood Progenitor stood completely blocking his path within the real auction house.
Immediately after, a ghastly white paper dragon abruptly unhinged its maw. It lunged at his face with a terrifying roar, consuming Blue Arc's entire field of vision.
Blue Arc faltered slightly. The booming thunder of his lightning instantly ceased as he brought himself to a screeching halt at the very last second.
In that brief, fleeting moment, he gritted his teeth and slammed his palms together.
Then, he violently pulled them apart. Thousands of deep blue electric arcs danced frantically between his hands, eventually condensing into a massive Lightning Sphere. The surrounding air was tinged a terrifying deep blue by the violent electromagnetic force.
Blue Arc looked up at the paper dragon looming right before him and thrust the Lightning Sphere forward with all his remaining strength. The paper dragon's body was instantly obliterated by the rampaging deep blue lightning, leaving not a single scrap of paper behind.
"Bang!" Suddenly, a deafening gunshot erupted from behind him.
Andrew's bullet fired from the Mirror World, carving a dark purple trail through the air. It passed straight through the Wooden Door, hurtling relentlessly toward Blue Arc's back.
In the final fraction of a second, Blue Arc managed to raise his right hand to shield his back.
The very next moment, his pupils constricted violently. The bones in his hand shattered instantly, followed by the vicious snapping of his right arm. The sheer kinetic energy of the bullet sent his entire body hurtling over a hundred meters away. He dragged a gruesome, blood-red trench across the floor before finally tumbling and crashing heavily onto the corpse of a bodyguard.
"Oh yeah!" Andrew cheered loudly upon seeing his bullet land squarely on Blue Arc's back.
Blue Arc's entire body convulsed wildly in violent spasms. A moment later, he slowly clawed his way up from the bodyguard's corpse, collapsing onto his knees in the middle of the auction house, completely exhausted.
He blankly raised his eyes. From beneath his shattered helmet, his hollow gaze swept across the auction house, entirely littered with crisscrossing corpses.
Dead bodyguards were strewn everywhere... bodies lying flat, bodies slumped against the walls, bodies severed entirely in half. The mere thought that Su Zimai might be somewhere among this pile of corpses instantly ignited an overwhelming terror within his heart.
A terror that blazed to its absolute peak.
"Where is Xiaomai..." he mumbled in utter horror, struggling desperately to stand up. "Where is Xiaomai..."
Lan Duo Duo turned her head to look at the blood-drenched Blue Arc and mumbled, "Oh my, it looks like someone got lost."
"Then let's send him on his way," the Blood Progenitor suggested with a tilt of her head and a chilling smile.
Xia Pingzhou and Ayase Origami remained completely silent.
At that moment, An Lunsi, who now only had half a face left, stepped through the Wooden Door. He raised his billiard cue, readied an invisible billiard ball, and aimed squarely at Blue Arc's back.
Andrew set up his sniper rifle from within the Mirror World, the crosshairs locked precisely on the paralyzed, kneeling Blue Arc.
Ayase Origami flicked her sleeves, sending thousands of paper butterflies fluttering gracefully forward.
The Blood Progenitor condensed her own blood into a longbow mid-air, tightly drawing back a blood-red arrow.
"My, my... poor Mr. Blue Arc. Not only could you fail to protect a single person, but now you are even going to lose your own life," the Blood Progenitor taunted mockingly.
"Tell me, someone tell me... where is Xiaomai?"
Blue Arc hung his head low, his dim eyes staring at the blood-soaked floor. That was not someone else's blood... it was the life fluid pouring from his impaled abdomen. Like a macabre fountain, it gushed out, entirely dyeing his shattered armor crimson.
His helmet could no longer conceal his face, but the thick coating of blood masking his cheeks managed to hide the true extent of his pathetic state.
"Tell me! Where is Xiaomai—!"
He glanced down at the blood pooling over his hands, then jerked his head upward and unleashed a hysterical, agonizing howl.
In the dead silence that followed, only a single member of the Brigade answered his question.
Xia Pingzhou stayed quiet for a moment before speaking. "The person you are talking about... she already got away."
Blue Arc froze initially. A moment later, his frenzied expression suddenly softened, and he slowly lowered his gaze.
In that very second, countless thoughts flashed through Gu Qiye's mind.
'Xiaomai is still alive...'
'That is good...'
'Speaking of which, am I about to die...?'
'It really does not feel real at all.'
'What a shame... I still haven't even joined Rainbow Wing to uncover the truth behind Mom's death.'
'If, if only on that day... the day Mom died, I had already awakened my supernatural ability.'
'Would I have been able to save her?'
'If I could have just run a little faster, just a tiny bit faster, could I have saved her then?'
'Would this family not have turned out this way?'
'But Mom is already dead.'
'No matter who is in danger, they are someone else's family too, someone deeply loved by another.'
'If they die, a family shatters. Their children would be so pitiful...'
'Just like what happened with Mom.'
'If I had saved Mom, if I hadn't had to watch her die right in front of my own eyes, Dad would never have become like this...'
'My little brother and sister could have grown up healthy and happy in a good environment. They wouldn't have had to come home every single day to face a dad as drunk as a skunk, as if... as if it were a constant reminder to them. A reminder that Mom is dead... and that she will never come back.'
'I possess the power to prevent others from ending up like me, so what right do I have to stand by and do nothing?'
'Failing to save just one person might leave someone who loves them in eternal agony. It might shatter an entire family...'
'Therefore... if I cannot save everyone, then what kind of hero am I?'
'But...'
'But even so...'
'I have saved so many people.'
'And in the end...'
'Who is going to come and save me?'
'Father still refuses to even look at me. The same goes for my brother and sister. And Mom... she is never coming back.'
'That's right... who would ever come to save me?'
'No one... will come to save me.'
Thinking up to this point, the blood flowing down his forehead felt heavily over his eyelids, forcing them to flutter shut.
Kneeling on the ground, his arms slumped by his sides like severed reeds. He tugged his blood-stained lips into a relieved smile and slowly closed his impossibly heavy eyes.
However... at that exact moment when all was silent, the sudden, booming toll of a bell echoed abruptly within the auction house.
As the deafening toll rang out, the entire world seemed to fall deathly still for a fleeting second, much like the chimes of London's Big Ben striking midnight.
At this moment, a colossal Bell Tower manifested and loomed directly in front of Blue Arc. Its hour hand spun at a terrifying speed before locking instantaneously dead on the "12".
Noon is nigh.
In that singular instant, the flow of time around them ground to a creeping halt. Whether it was the whistling blood-red arrow hurtling through the air, the thousands of paper butterflies, or the trajectory of the invisible billiard ball...
Everything slowly came to a complete standstill, frozen perfectly in mid-air. Even the flicker of sheer astonishment crossing the faces of the surrounding Brigade members was impeccably preserved.
Immediately after, a pitch-black silhouette tore through the frozen world, materializing abruptly right in front of Blue Arc.
Blue Arc was slightly taken aback. Through groggy, half-opened eyes, he looked up. In that brief second, he saw the profile of a man wearing a black cape and a blood-red Z-Shaped Breathing Mask.
"He is..."
Before he could even utter the man's name, the sound caught in Blue Arc's throat, and his eyelids finally sealed completely shut.
At the same time, Ghost Bell slowly lifted his head. A hoarse, metallic voice grated out from behind his mask as he growled, enunciating every single word:
"If you dare touch him... I will slaughter every last one of you."