Free Web NovelDon't know how long he had been sinking in the nightmare, like falling into a gap between reality and darkness, forever unable to escape.
Then...
Suddenly, those terrifying scenes that made Suolang Baima's heart pound disappeared.
Amidst a cacophony of voices, he opened his eyes, and after seeing the scene before him, he was stunned for a moment, confusion and doubt flashing in his eyes.
The sun was setting in the west, and the afterglow of the setting sun dyed the earth with orange-yellow colors, giving the city a hue like a yellowed old photograph.
In the city, vehicles were rushing through, their wheels rubbing against the ground, making subtle, grating noises.
Below the overpass, the intersection, comparable in scale to Tokyo's Shibuya, was crowded with people, yet it was very quiet; everyone seemed to have lost their voices, not a single person spoke, and the only sounds heard were dense footsteps, slight coughs, and the vibration of phones in silent mode.
People stood with their heads lowered, silently at bus stops, silently hailed taxis, and silently walked forward, the scene harmonious yet eerie.
Why is this happening? Is this also a dream? Suolang Baima frowned.
His reason told him that he was still in the dream woven by that damned Witch Seed, but the smell of car exhaust in the air, the warm breeze brushing his face, and even the faint body heat emanating from passersby brushing past him were all so real.
Filled with doubt, he turned and stopped a passerby who was walking past him.
"Hey, I say, this is..."
Before he finished speaking, when he saw the passerby's face clearly, his pupils suddenly contracted, and his voice stopped abruptly.
The passerby's face was blurred, as if covered by thick fog, or like a shifting, shapeless, eerie substance, churning and flickering within a mass of shadow the size of a face.
Having just escaped from the nightmare and still shaken, Suolang Baima was startled by such a sight, and instinctively, he abruptly backed away from the passerby.
The passerby who was backed away staggered a few steps on the spot, fell to the ground, knocking down more passersby, and for a moment, the crowded street full of people fell down one after another like dominoes.
There was no dodging, no screaming, no cursing... Except for the thud of bodies colliding and falling, there was no sound at all; everyone was like a corpse, allowing their limbs to become entangled with others.
Watching this eerie scene, Suolang Baima felt his scalp tingle, swallowed hard, and turned to leave.
However...
Just as he turned around, a rustling sound came from behind him, sounding like something crawling on the ground. He paused, his movements stiff as he turned back, and then he saw a terrifying scene.
Those fallen passersby, like some kind of monsters, were crawling rapidly on all fours, constantly approaching him. The shadows on their faces were wriggling wildly, and soon condensed into a human face that Suolang Baima was extremely familiar with.
Lu Ming, the faces of all the passersby turned into Lu Ming.
The expressions on their faces were either crying or laughing, angry or sad, but they were all repeating the same sentence. ƒreewebηoveℓ.com
"Why did you kill me?"
"Why did you kill me?"
"Why..."
All the whispers converged, gradually becoming bizarre and distorted, buzzing in Suolang Baima's ears.
Some substance even darker than darkness seeped out from their eyes, ears, mouths, and noses, turning into shapeless black shadows that enveloped Suolang Baima.
The entire city shook violently, and buildings were twisted and pulled during the vibration as if melting, seemingly ready to devour people.
An intense feeling of fear emerged in Suolang Baima's heart without warning. He suddenly realized that the terrifying existence he had seen that rainy night was hidden within the bodies of these "Lu Mings".
Terrifying sounds rang in his ears again; the wind rustled, thunder rumbled, mountains murmured and sang softly, and the fierce wind shrieked incessantly.
Thus, facing the surging fear once again, Suolang Baima couldn't help but cry out loudly.
"I didn't, none of us killed you! Our plan was just to get the thing Qinan Bamboo left behind, we didn't intend to kill you, please, let me go?!"
"Don't come over, don't..."
All the "Lu Mings" suddenly shouted in unison, "Who is Qinan Bamboo? What did she leave behind?"
Remembering that thing, Suolang Baima pondered for a long time, opened his mouth, and just as he was about to say something, his body suddenly convulsed violently.
The next moment, the "Lu Ming" in the dream suddenly broke free from Lu Yibei's control and crawled onto Suolang Baima as if going mad. As if to prevent him from speaking, pairs of powerful hands tightly gripped his throat.
"Crack—crack—!"
Accompanied by the crisp sound of bones breaking, blood filled those unwilling eyes...
----
Suolang Baima died suddenly. Lu Yibei didn't even have time to dispel the dream, give him medicine, or treat him.
But...
Why did the dream suddenly go out of control?
Who is Qinan Bamboo, and why does Old Dad have something of hers?
Lu Yibei thought, dispelled the dream, and opened her eyes. Immediately after, she saw Jiang Li standing beside her, a long saber in her hand, its bone-chilling blade piercing Suolang Baima's body.
Lu Yibei was stunned for a moment. She raised her head to look at Jiang Li, her eyes dry, as if fire was burning in them. Biting her lip, the slightly uncontrolled words squeezed out from between her teeth were heavy and powerful, like stones hitting the ground.
"Why did you kill him?! I was just about to get the answer!"
"Damn it, I was so close, I ♦ would have known everything!"
"..."
Jiang Li looked at Lu Yibei expressionlessly, withdrew her long saber, and gave it a gentle shake, flicking off the bloodstains on it.
She understood the pain of having a happy family and then losing everything. She had also bared her fangs and claws like a cornered beast. Lu Yibei's reaction was already quite good.
After a moment, when Lu Yibei finished speaking and her emotions had calmed down slightly, she walked forward, and despite Lu Yibei's struggles, she pulled her head to her chest and held her tightly.
"It's alright, it's all over."
Jiang Li's gentle voice sounded in her ear. Lu Yibei's body trembled slightly, her fervent gaze dimmed, and she felt an urge to cry but desperately suppressed it.
"Do you think my methods were too cruel, and you couldn't stand it anymore, so you acted?" she whispered.
"No," Jiang Li said calmly, "you did very well, it's just..."
"It's just that his Spirit Mark had gone out of control, and his body was undergoing urban legend transformation. If I let you continue, it might be dangerous."
Every year, Night Watch operatives lose control of their Spirit Marks and their bodies undergo urban legend transformation, turning into terrifying monsters, due to the influence of negative emotions.
Fear is also a negative emotion. Under the stimulation of intense fear, it was completely normal for Suolang Baima's Spirit Mark to lose control.
Lu Yibei looked at Suolang Baima's corpse and only then discovered that his skin had somehow turned a strange bluish-gray, with scattered moss-like growths on it, like moss on a plateau. Beneath the skin, there were many strangely shaped tumors, raised like unbloomed lotus flowers.
The moss-like growths and tumors spread and proliferated at a speed almost visible to the naked eye, but as the support of Spiritual Energy was lost, the urban legend transformation stopped, and they quickly withered and collapsed.
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"I'm sorry..." Lu Yibei withdrew her gaze, lowered her head, and softly apologized for her earlier uncontrolled behavior of getting angry at Jiang Li.
Jiang Li looked down at Lu Yibei and feigned surprise, "Hmm? You actually apologize to people?"
"..." Lu Yibei was silent for a few seconds, then looked up at Jiang Li and said expressionlessly, "What I want to say is, I'm sorry, your armor is digging into my face, could you move?"
Jiang Li, "..."
After a long while, Lu Yibei whispered, "Thank you."
"Mhm." Jiang Li nodded slightly.
----
After rummaging through Suolang Baima's body for a while, finding a few urban legend core entities, some herbs, and a curved saber, Lu Yibei thoughtfully arranged a grand cremation service for him.
Jiang Li watched silently from the side as Lu Yibei used a Spell to "whip the corpse," flames rose everywhere until Suolang Baima's body was completely reduced to a pile of black ash. She then scattered the black ash into the wind, shaking her head helplessly.
Was it necessary to be so thorough?
After scattering Suolang Baima's ashes, Lu Yibei walked towards Jiang Li, clapping her hands, and said dismissively, "And he calls himself an A+ rank Ling Neng Zhe! He only had that little bit of stuff on him, not even as much as Hu Yue and his group."
"Pah! Poor bastard!"
Jiang Li, "..." Perhaps this was Lu Yibei? She had recovered from her sadness so quickly and started thinking about these strange things.
Just as Jiang Li was complaining inwardly, Lu Yibei seemed to remember something, her eyes lit up slightly, and she looked towards the distant woods. "Speaking of which, when I was coming, I found a peeping guy over there. I accidentally killed him, so I need to go deal with that."
Hearing Lu Yibei say this, Jiang Li thought of the Eclipse Society totem on her back and how it had suddenly become agitated when Berses's voice appeared in her ear. She frowned slightly, then calmly said, "Mhm, shall we go take a look together?"
"You can look, but if he dropped anything good, you can't snatch it from me!" Lu Yibei said, "I killed him solo, so everything he had belongs to me."
Actually, Lu Yibei was quite willing to share the things in her hand with Jiang Li. When you're out in the world these days, as the saying goes, "A friend helps you up, a girlfriend helps you up multiple times." How could she not appease Jiang Li?
However, Lu Yibei was a little worried that if she gave the things to Jiang Li, she would turn around and hand them over to Night Watch as criminal evidence.
Let Night Watch get it for free? How could she tolerate that?
Jiang Li rolled her eyes at Lu Yibei and said expressionlessly, "It's all yours, then."
----
When Lu Yibei and Jiang Li arrived in the mountain forest and found Berses's body, they discovered that his corpse was already unrecognizable.
The corpse was highly decomposed, looking as if it had been dead for a long time, and had turned into a mass of dark red flesh emitting a foul odor.
The smell was like a corpse fermenting in water, enough to make anyone recoil.
Jiang Li stared silently at the highly decomposed corpse for a while, completely unable to discern any features related to Berses from it. She could only shake her head helplessly, then glanced sideways at Lu Yibei and said, "This is the guy you said you accidentally killed? He's rotten like this..."
"Killed half a month ago?"
"This..." Lu Yibei examined the corpse from left and right for a while and frowned, "I just killed him. As for why he turned out like this... maybe he has some special constitution like 'rotten mud that can't be plastered onto a wall'?'"
Jiang Li, "..."
Some urban legend do indeed have the characteristic of rapid body decomposition after death, but...
Where could that guy be?
Just as Jiang Li was contemplating, a sudden explosion came from afar, the earth trembled violently, the magnitude no less than when the city barrier's bombardment fell.
Emerald green flames erupted from the core area of Taoyuan, spreading out like a giant tree reaching across heaven and earth, its branches stretching across the land, and thick smoke soared straight up into the sky.
The next moment, Lu Yibei's phone vibrated. She took out her phone and glanced at it; it was a message from Inspector Xing Yuan.
【The west side has fallen. A force of eighty to a hundred people is approaching Taoyuan.】
After reading the message, Lu Yibei's expression sank.
The city barrier bombardment ended and entered the cooling phase. The real threat that Ju Meng spoke of was coming.
----
Meanwhile, deep within Taoyuan.
Mountains collapsed, and the cave where the Fusang Divine Tree originally grew fell into the ground. The mountain rocks scorched by flames shimmered with a crystalline luster.
The giant pit formed after the mountain collapsed was pitch black inside. Sharp columnar crystals towered like fangs among the rock walls. At the bottom of the giant pit, Ju Meng's urban legend core entity was already shattered, with only a mass of vermilion halo surging within her body, which was almost just an empty shell.
She was pierced through the body by a slender crystal, suspended in mid-air as if lifted by a spear, her hands hanging powerlessly.
She was heading towards death, the trees were heading towards death, and the earth was also heading towards death, but something was emerging from death.
In a daze, a gentle voice sounded in Ju Meng's ear, like a girl gathering herbs murmuring an ancient ballad in the mountain forest, very, very far away, its content unclear.
However, when she gathered her last bit of strength to listen attentively, she found that there was no sound echoing in her ear.
Had she failed? But that was probably to be expected, right? Ju Meng thought sadly.
The moment that monster with the Power of Cuan Yang broke free from its restraints, she felt that she had already failed.
To kill that guy, she had to rely on the power of the city barrier, but if she couldn't restrain it in place along with the Fusang Divine Tree, the power of the city barrier couldn't be fully utilized.
So, in order to keep that guy there, Ju Meng detonated her urban legend core entity.
The old urban legend core entity was already dead, and the new urban legend core entity had not yet condensed into shape.
Such a severe injury was difficult for even Ju Meng to bear, let alone the remaining power of the city barrier constantly destroying her body.
As her consciousness gradually dissipated, a series of bizarre illusions began to appear before Ju Meng's eyes.
Countless bubbles danced around her, and the flowing light of Spiritual Energy outlined a magnificent picture that was difficult to describe with words. Then, her vision fell into chaos, just as she had seen when she was first born.
"...The hall is full of beauties, but suddenly only you and I catch each other's eyes."
In a trance, she heard a whisper again. This time it wasn't in her ear, but seemed to be inside her body, carrying an echo like a tide, bringing a sense of peace.
This is... a description of the Power of the young master of fate?
But why? Ju Meng thought in surprise. Before she could figure out what was happening, she followed the low murmur sounding within her body and began to chant.
"Entering without speaking, leaving without saying goodbye, riding the swirling wind, carrying the cloud banner..."
"Entering without speaking, leaving without saying goodbye, riding the swirling wind, carrying the {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} cloud banner..."
"..."
As she chanted word by word, it was as if something was piecing itself together in the deepest part of her soul, supporting her consciousness as it gradually rose.
For a moment, Ju Meng felt that she was awakening...
