Free Web NovelChapter 369: Chapter 173: The Hero’s Journey
Dark, gloomy.
There indeed are faint lights from distant stars, but their luminescence is far from enough to illuminate the surrounding endless darkness.
It only felt like he had just stepped into the edge, yet it seemed as if he had already delved deep within.
Lin Rui had never seen such a strange realm before.
"Where is this?"
He had a feeling that this domain was created by someone rather than being a natural one.
But if that were true, this domain was too powerful, for his golden temporal power... had vanished.
Everything seemed to have been dissolved, and he felt as if he had completely become an ordinary person.
This feeling, which he hadn’t had for seven hundred years, made Lin Rui somewhat panicky.
He realized that the master of the domain might truly be a being of Great Demon King caliber.
In the darkness, Lin Rui heard the sound of chains dragging across the floor, a sound that conveyed a sense of ancientness.
It was as if he had come to an ancient world and seen a god in chains.
His body slowly started reacting with fear, and Lin Rui realized that even though his conscious will wasn’t afraid... his instincts had already begun to fear.
"I must leave!"
This thought was so intense, but as he turned around, he found that he simply could not leave.
Just as he had thought earlier, though it seemed he had only just touched the fringe, in reality, this domain, like a monster, had completely swallowed him up.
Once entered, there was no leaving.
"Calm down... calm down, right now I’m just an ordinary person, and even running away would be too late..."
Lin Rui forced himself to calm down.
But it was very hard to really do so.
Even though he had been humanity’s strongest for seven hundred years, in possession of the First Generation Mask’s temporal power, he still felt an unconscious fear when facing the unknown.
The sound of the dragging chains got closer and closer.
The overwhelming aura approached like a storm.
"Is it because I lost my power... that the sensation has become so intense?"
"No... No, this creature is truly stronger than a Great Demon King..."
Lin Rui chanted in his heart not to be afraid, but his back was already soaked with sweat.
He couldn’t see who this person with the chains was, but for the first time, he felt as if he had one foot already in the Underworld just by facing this person.
The breathing sounds in the darkness gradually became more rapid, and Lin Rui noted that the other party remained silent, his fear growing stronger.
This was an existence humans could not contend against.
Perhaps there really were gods in this world? This strange space and the powerful unknown existence...
What exactly was the origin of the world?
Who were they?
Why had his world become what it is now?
For some reason, faced with this immense, ancient presence, Lin Rui subconsciously started to ponder the origins of the apocalypse.
As if this person held the answers.
"Kill, not kill, kill, not kill, kill..."
From the silence came the hoarse voice of the other side, tinged with a touch of madness; with each mention of "kill," Lin Rui felt a sense of elation from the other party.
But when it came to "not kill," it seemed as though the other party found it quite boring.
This person seemed to be counting something, and Lin Rui recognized this scene. He had seen it in films before the apocalypse seven hundred years ago.
The weak humans encountered powerful villains who would use a very absurd way to determine the fate of human life and death.
Odd numbers meant death, even numbers meant life.
Lin Rui never thought he’d encounter such a situation himself.
He really wanted to go into a state of suspended animation, but the problem now was... with the temporal power taken away, even if he entered suspended animation, could he really return to reality?
"Ah... I must be prepared to die, it seems this time it’s for real."
Lin Rui began to observe his surroundings, what in the darkness could serve as a reference?
The only thing that the counting person might use as a reference for odds and evens seemed to be the stars scattered around him. Soon, Lin Rui had confirmation, as with each word spoken by the unknown existence in the dark, he noticed one by one the stars were dimming.
For some reason, he immediately felt the vast array of stars was an odd number.
He was sure to die.
This was somewhat pessimistic but Lin Rui was not very despondent, he just smiled and suppressed the fear in his heart with a smile.
"My name is Lin Rui, can you let me see your face?"
"Kill, not kill, kill, not kill, kill..."
The entity in the dark did not respond to Lin Rui, continuing to count the stars instead.
Lin Rui thought the person sounded a bit deranged.
He spoke again:
"Unless something unexpected happens, I should be from the future, but I don’t know how far back I’ve gone."
"The city I come from is called Baichuan City. Mankind built a refuge there... outside of High Tower, a place for survival."
The person did not respond, as if they couldn’t hear Lin Rui’s voice, and just continued to speak.
Lin Rui’s fear was repeatedly suppressed, only to surge up again time after time.
Only when facing this person did he feel as if he had returned to seven hundred years ago, becoming that utterly helpless young boy.
But that boy had lived through seven hundred years, and even without power, his nature had been transforming towards that of a hero.
If death was inevitable and could not be averted, then at least make this death... meaningful.
Lin Rui began to narrate the reason he had come here, more and more stars were becoming dim. The speed at which they dimmed was also increasing.
Several times, he was startled by the sudden increase in the speed of the other party’s speech.
But in the end, Lin Rui mustered up the courage and decided to finish telling his own story.
He really couldn’t think of how to survive.
"It might be decades, perhaps centuries... Maybe later or even earlier, it’s the past, but that future will certainly come. If one day, a being as powerful as you will no longer stay here, I hope on the most dangerous day of the refuge... you could help humanity."
"Hahahaha... What am I even talking about... Are you a disaster or a miracle? I’m not certain at all what kind of existence you are. I never imagined... that one day I could meet such a powerful monster."
"But I’m so unwilling... I’m probably going to die, right? Speaking of which, I forgot when exactly humans stopped belonging to this world."
"Actually, huddling in High Tower was quite nice."
"Seven hundred years without any problems, I suppose in the future... Forget it, I dare not say, I always feel like I make more mistakes the more I speak today..."
"Hey, why don’t you kill me? But before that, let’s have a chat, shall we?"
Lin Rui was very scared.
He talked about a lot of things, about the establishment of Baichuan City’s shelter, about the various crises he faced.
But the other party didn’t stop, the stars were continuously dimming, with only a quarter of them remaining.
Only when he mentioned one sentence did Lin Rui notice the person pause for a moment.
"At least humanity once fought."
Behind and before this sentence, the monster in the dark didn’t care, but this sentence itself seemed to remind the monster of something.
He paused briefly for a second, and then... continued to count the stars.
After that, no matter what Lin Rui said, the other party didn’t pay attention.
The dazzling stars became fewer and those dim stars were lurking in the night.
The countdown to death turned out to be so prolonged.
For the first time, Lin Rui felt so helpless. Since he met his senior 700 years ago, he thought he would never feel this helpless again.
"I still really like my friends, even though after the apocalypse came, they made the wrong decisions over and over. Even though they just treated me as a burden."
"But if I could go back, I would still save them."
"Yet after seven hundred years, I’ve tried countless times, and still I couldn’t return to that time..."
"Luckily later on, I made new friends."
The faces of Bai Wu, Wu Jiu, Jiang Yimi, Liu Mu, Nie Chongshan, and many others flashed through Lin Rui’s mind.
At this moment, Lin Rui was like a man on the guillotine, waiting for the sluice knife to fall.
"It’s just such a pity, I don’t seem able to continue protecting them anymore, haha... this feeling is really uncomfortable."
As his words ended, Lin Rui noticed there were only a few stars left.
Suddenly, he discovered something, he was so excited he felt like jumping up...
Even numbers!
As the being in the darkness shouted not to kill, the remaining number of stars was even!
This meant that he had survived!
It’s hard to imagine, even facing Jing Wu in combat, on the brink of death, and ultimately pulling through at the last moment, he had never experienced such a surprise of escaping from great danger before.
But now, the monster hidden in the darkness, after counting all the stars, the last word from his mouth when he said not to kill, Lin Rui really felt the joy of having narrowly escaped death.
"Kill, not kill."
The tone of the monster in the darkness was very impatient, it was not to kill.
This made him somewhat displeased.
Lin Rui wanted to say something, but suddenly found he could no longer speak. A powerful force restrained him, making him unable to move an inch.
"Not kill?"
The monster in the dark was silent for a long time, and finally the sound of chains rubbing again rang out, his fingers pointed slightly in the realm of darkness.
A star lit up.
Suddenly, he said excitedly:
"Kill! Kill! Kill kill kill kill!"
A string of ’kill’ drained Lin Rui’s hope bit by bit. Facing this man... he was powerless. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
Finally, there was light in the darkness! All the stars at that moment suddenly became dazzling, far brighter than before they dimmed.
At this instant, Lin Rui seemed to see countless stars being destroyed in scorching heat, and also countless stars beginning to be born.
Everything in the void, as if a corner of the universe.
A hand was placed on Lin Rui’s forehead, and at that moment Lin Rui raised his head and finally saw the person’s face.
The first impression given to Lin Rui was wildness.
Hanging long hair, solid but not overly inflated muscles, the man looked quite proportionate, but the scar on his chest was startling.
He appeared younger than Lin Rui, but in his eyes, madness and vicissitudes coexisted.
"Kill!"
The breath of death, like a giant wave capable of destroying coastlines, swept over Lin Rui, who in front of this city-engulfing deluge... was like an ant.
He could do nothing, just at this moment he was very clear that his journey was supposed to end here.
"Death is just the beginning of the next journey... but it seems like... I don’t have a next time."
Lin Rui’s body began to decay, like rock turning to sand peeling off bit by bit in a storm. At the same time, his body was undergoing a certain transformation due to an immense grudge invading it.
Evil Fallen Transformation. But this transformation, facing the power of this madman, was meaningless, merely making his death more unsightly.
Lin Rui didn’t know what he remembered, but at the end of his life, he actually smiled, showing a strange beauty of life withering away.
With a snap, a piece of the mask fell to the ground from the decaying body.
The golden Temporal Power seemed to finally break free from the body under the threat of death...
But it was already entirely futile, this bit of temporal power—faced with the monster in the dark, so powerful and vast—it couldn’t make the slightest difference.
Lin Rui had also realized that his life had reached its end, his vitality devoured by an overly powerful force, and the only reason he still had consciousness... was probably the lingering before death.
Even now, even if the powerful monster in the dark did nothing, he couldn’t escape this death.
Ironically, at this moment, the monster in the darkness suddenly became lucid.
"No... no... why are you here?"
"You were clearly killed by me once... why are you still here?"
The temporal power that emerged at the brink of death, along with the mask that fell to the ground, allowed the monster in the darkness to finally regain a moment of clarity from its madness.
In his eyes, now both crazed and weathered, there was only endless regret.
Countless stars burst at this moment.
Outside the dark starry sky, that patch of snow, the cities, the deserts, the lakes, and various other places mingled together started to continually disintegrate and split apart.
As if a tremendous force was madly colliding with this space.
"Why is it you! How could I have killed you... how could I have killed you..."
The monster began to agonize and wail in pain. The immense power fluctuated with its emotions, bombarding the outside world indiscriminately.
Lin Rui’s eyes shone feebly as the world in his sight blurred, except for this madman who still seemed clear.
He always felt like he had seen him somewhere... but on closer thought, he shouldn’t have ever met him.
It was then that Lin Rui came to the realization that these chains should be the means by which the monster imprisoned itself.
"Is it because the power was too great, afraid of doing something foolish?"
"So lonely... how many years have you been in this place?"
Lin Rui’s voice had become barely audible, but the madly howling man still heard it.
His eyes clouded with mist, wanting to pour power into Lin Rui, but it was meaningless. The decay and destruction of Lin Rui’s body were irreversible.
The monster tore dreadful wounds across its own chest in self-reproach, but all these wounds healed instantly.
Only the original wound remained.
That was left by some guy wearing a mask many years ago.
That person had told him, saviors do exist, and perhaps one day, someone will convey to him that humankind is still resisting.
But by then, he had completely lost his sanity. After seriously injuring the owner of the mask, he began to wander the world.
He thought the mask’s owner had died, but in fact, the mask’s owner was still clinging to a breath.
And eventually, with the guidance of a woman, he waited for his own successor.
Lin Rui.
He was the successor of the mask’s owner.
The moment the madman in the darkness saw the mask, he thought of the person he had once killed.
Overwhelmed with self-reproach and guilt, the most painful thing for him in the past seven hundred years was that he had killed the wrong two people...
One was the heroic figure wearing the mask, and the other was the scientist fighting against Evil Fallen.
"I’m sorry... I’m sorry... I didn’t know you were still alive, I’m sorry!"
The words of the severely injured mask owner echoed once again in the ears of the madman:
"Do not despair... do not fear the being in the High Tower, nor lose faith in mankind. Perhaps one day... humans will emerge from the High Tower, and when that day comes, I will surely convey this message to you..."
That day, he would surely convey this message to me.
Years later, the madman had forgotten this conversation.
Until now, when he regained his clarity and saw the mask, he remembered what this human before him had said on the brink of death.
"The city I come from is called Baichuan City. Humankind has built a refuge there... it’s a place of survival outside the High Tower."
The immense guilt made the madman let out a cry of anguish, his mournful wailing echoing among the stars.
That person with the mask... had truly fulfilled his word, humankind was truly still struggling...
He hadn’t deceived him, finally bringing the long-awaited message.
But he... had once again mistakenly killed him.
"Don’t cry now... it’s so strange, when it’s clearly me who is dying," Lin Rui said with a bitter smile as he fell to the ground, no longer having the strength to stand.
His body began to crumble piece by piece, and maybe in the next second, he would die completely.
"Don’t die! Don’t die! I’ll give your power back to you!"
The golden temporal power lit up the entire space, each star actually representing causality.
These causal links began to burst frantically.
Powerful temporal forces were injected into Lin Rui’s decaying body, but it was all meaningless.
At the end of his life, Lin Rui actually saw some memories that didn’t belong to him.
It was still the madman before him, just that his hair wasn’t quite as long at the time.
He was sitting with him, as if they were talking about something.
This scene seemed warm, and Lin Rui finally understood, this person... knew his master.
At that moment, many things connected, no wonder the master said he was almost killed... was it really him?
He was self-imprisoned here because of guilt, wasn’t he? He seemed to mistake me for the master... He really was a madman... The master was the true hero, and I... was only someone who clamored to be a hero.
Lin Rui wanted to lift his hand, but he no longer had the strength; he wanted to forgive this madman.
Because he could feel the very real sorrow and remorse.
But he couldn’t do it.
The consciousness grew increasingly blurred; he couldn’t even see the madman before him clearly anymore.
Recalling the past... Lin Rui realized how foolish he had been.
"I have always been obsessed with the past... I have always wanted to save you all, but time after time when I wake up, I still can’t find you."
"I should have understood that some things are simply unchangeable. I should have, like my mentor, grasped the future."
Bai Wu’s words, that the opportunity to change the world lies not in the past but in the future, are what Lin Rui truly realized only now.
He was too obsessed with the past, attempting time and time again to return and change something, only to find that what he truly did paled in comparison to what his senior had achieved in less than a year in this world.
"Heroes never die, but I’m not a hero... I’m not a qualified hero. Haha, even in death, it’s so inexplicably mundane..."
Lin Rui closed his eyes. His heart seemed to forget how to beat.
He was supposed to be dying.
In a daze, he saw countless lights and shadows, in the bustling Food City where he once had a crush, within the group he had always wanted to be a part of, standing in the campus of Food City, waving at him.
The sunlight was gentle, the noise of summer cicadas filled his ears, and the air carried the scent of sunbaked earth. Everything outside the school gate was familiar.
As if the apocalypse had never arrived.
He knew he was truly dying because otherwise, why would he see these things...
Yet, Lin Rui always felt that he still had some things left undone... that there were regrets in life even greater than being unable to save his old companions.
This immense regret, lying between life and death, caused him unbearable pain.
Perhaps by stepping through these school gates, he could make up for the past seven hundred years that were irrevocable, but...
How could he be a hero if he just died like this? If he learned that the refuge could not be established, how could he die in peace?
Lin Rui, on the brink of death, suddenly opened his eyes, his body seemingly gaining strength in that moment... He clutched the hand of the madman tightly:
"I beg you... I beg you... don’t forget what I said... don’t forget Baichuan City! Please!"
Lin Rui’s hand clenched the madman firmly, his thoughts were so simplistic they bordered on childish—
Taking advantage of the madman’s moment of guilt, he had to impart the crucial information of Baichuan City and the refuge.
It might be a disgraceful act, begging the person who killed him to do something so elusive, but it was all he could do now, preferring to struggle for the shattered future rather than be tempted by a beautiful past, even if it meant not fitting the typical heroic mold!
At this instant, the madman could feel the enlightenment of this man that transcended life and death.
What a grand will this was?
Even as his body turned to sand and decay, he could still inflict a slight pain on him.
"Humans have struggled for seven hundred years... I beg you! Don’t let their hopes be in vain... I don’t know what happened between you and my mentor... I also don’t know why Destiny arranged for me to come here, but I’m going to die, so please, please save Baichuan City!"
The man, crying, seemed like the crying boy of many years ago, his eyes dry of tears, his body already too decayed to function normally as a human.
But he still pleaded, desperate to convey that longing!
The madman didn’t have the chance to respond, unable to imagine that someone he had devoured could act this way in complete absence of life.
As his body fell to the ground once more, Lin Rui’s heart, eyes, limbs, and torso all cracked. Like a stone sculpture that had fallen, his body’s transformation into Evil Fallen... halted halfway.
The madman’s response behind him... he could no longer hear.
"Do not dwell on the past, but forge ahead into the future."
As he approached death, Lin Rui finally embraced that sentence, the immense temporal power taking his body away into some space-time, but he had truly died. Where this dead body would appear, and in what form, in which space-time, no one knew.
The journey of the Masked Strange Person thus came to an end.
...
...
The journey to death within his dreams changed once again.
In the end, Lin Rui did not step into the campus.
He stood outside the school, sincerely waving towards those inside.
Parents, teachers, classmates, and the group that fled after the apocalypse came; perhaps if he entered, the person he used to like would like him back.
Perhaps, after entering, no one would treat him as a burden.
Perhaps in the world inside this campus, everyone would love the Masked Strange Person... but that was ultimately the past.
Lin Rui turned around. The world that was behind him now lay before his eyes.
It was endless darkness, completely different from the beautiful world he saw just a moment ago.
The world lay in ruins, with nothing but rubble from various buildings on the streets.
In the distant darkness, there was a slender road.
This road might pass through the profound darkness to reach true light, or it might lead into a deeper darkness, eventually ending in death.
But Lin Rui still chose this road.
Because he saw a person wearing a mask, waiting for him on that road.
"Do you regret coming here so soon?"
"No, I don’t."
"What is scarier than death is the cycle; those who play with time will inevitably be played with by time."
"Master, I’m already dead... Can’t your words be a bit less cryptic... "
"Master? Hahaha... My relationship with you is much more than just that of a mentor and student."
Lin Rui didn’t understand the meaning of these words; he just smiled and said:
"I may not regret it, but I still feel that my death was too undignified. This world truly has many powerful existences beyond understanding,
But in the end, it seems like I did one good thing, even if I can no longer witness the finale of this cause and effect."
"As long as you have tried your best, you need not dwell on it."
"Speaking of which... do I qualify as a hero now?"
On the dark road, two generations of Masked Men walked side by side, heading to the depths of Huangquan.
Lin Rui didn’t get a reply from his mentor, as if the question of whether he was a hero or not was not worth answering.
But if someone were to look behind them, they would notice the two figures gradually merging into one.
He was a hero, always had been.
