Free Web NovelJust like a curtain falling after a performance, as the twin-tailed girl plunged into the sea, the scene before her eyes was gradually swallowed by darkness.
Just as Lu Yibei thought everything was over and was bewildered by what she had just seen, a strong sense of dizziness suddenly struck her.
Although there was no {N•o•v•e•l•i•g•h•t} sound of wind, nor any sensation of weightlessness, she clearly felt herself being thrown into the sky by an unknown force.
The world spun.
Then, as if hitting something, everything in the darkness vibrated.
Immediately after, the darkness before Lu Yibei's eyes suddenly opened up, and countless black mists, like shredded cloth strips blown by the wind, drifted into the void.
The curtain lifted again, and countless illusory bubbles emitting a dreamlike glow burst into view.
Lu Yibei flew towards those bubbles, getting closer and closer, and when she finally touched the first bubble, a memory suddenly surfaced in her mind. freewёbnoνel.com
It was real and clear, as if she had personally experienced it before.
She was familiar with that feeling.
It was somewhat similar to how she had inexplicably gained a new life when she first entered Dream City.
She saw a dilapidated city.
Under the shroud of thick smoke, on the ruins of the city, twisted and deformed steel frames resembled a giant skeleton.
The small shrine in the center of the city was the only intact building.
It had the flavor of an unknown wild flower quietly blooming on the ruins after a Disaster.
One could vaguely see many injured people moving about in the shrine.
A beautiful young Miss dressed in a Miko outfit stood alone by the window of the small chapel's attic, gazing into the distance, as if talking to someone, muttering to herself.
“It's been three days since the agreed time, why hasn't Disaster arrived yet? She wouldn't have met with any accident, would she?” freёwebnovel.com
Lu Yibei, “???”
What the hell? What's going on? And who are you, Miss?
She hadn't yet recovered from the shock brought by the twin-tailed girl who fell into the sea, when a similar scene was replicated before her eyes, and her mind instantly seemed to crash, her thoughts coming to a standstill.
“Don't worry! She'll be fine, even if she's delayed by something on the way, she'll definitely come.”
A familiar voice sounded, carrying a firm power.
Lu Yibei froze for two seconds before recovering from her brain-dead state, and was astonished to find that the voice was actually that of the twin-tailed girl.
But where was she?
Didn't she fall into the sea?
After all that, if she still wasn't dead, wouldn't she be even more resilient than Hua Sang?
Following the direction of the voice, after searching for a moment, Lu Yibei finally noticed the “little thing” perched on the Miko-clad girl's shoulder.
It was a small fish, palm-sized, seemingly made of glass, with a dreamlike glow shimmering within its crystal-clear body, and two long tentacles, like a pair of twin tails, extending from its forehead all the way to its caudal fin, dancing like ribbons and emitting a brilliant starlike glow.
It was practically a creature straight out of a beautiful fairy tale!
Wait! Why was a fish talking?
But the voice was the same as that of the twin-tailed Miss from before...
Could it be that she didn't die after falling into the sea, but instead became a urban legend? Lu Yibei wondered.
Just as she was pondering, a clamor interrupted her thoughts.
In front of the shrine, a flock of white doves, as if startled, let out harsh cries and flapped their wings towards the sky. It was sunset, and the afterglow filtered through the thick smoke, casting a layer of dried blood color on the white doves.
The injured people in the shrine, seeing this, also let out terrified screams like the startled white doves.
“They're here, those man-eating monsters!”
“What do we do? We're all going to die, going to die!”
“......”
In the forest surrounding the shrine, menacing black shadows emanating an ominous aura appeared, dense and numerous, completely encircling the shrine and silently advancing.
From the outlines of those black shadows, Lu Yibei could even make out the shapes of objects like televisions, book shelfs, tables, and chairs.
Pink Fluffy Rabbit? In her mind, she suddenly recalled those people who had been corrupted by the Pink Fluffy Rabbit's authority and fused with objects.
“Whoosh—!”
Just as the foremost black shadow was about to emerge from the forest, a whooshing sound suddenly erupted, and a streak of light flew through the air, landing at the foot of the black shadow, exploding with a roar and stirring up a storm.
On the shrine's attic, the Miko-clad girl slowly lowered her bow, her sharp gaze sweeping over the black shadows in the forest.
As long as I am here, you shall not approach the shrine by half a step! Although the girl did not say these words aloud, she truly accomplished it.
One day, three days, ten days...
She fought with all her might against the urban legend, suspected to have been born from the corruption of the Pink Fluffy Rabbit, protecting the shrine and the people seeking refuge within it.
Watching the girl fight in bloody battles again and again, Lu Yibei repeatedly had the urge to help, but reality told her that she was merely an observer and could do nothing.
Trees have their day of wilting, and people have their limits.
After enduring for over ten days while surrounded by urban legend and with no supplies whatsoever, the girl ultimately lost.
Although she had never been defeated when facing those urban legend, she was defeated by the very people she protected.
She was a high-level Psychic, and surviving for over ten days with only a small amount of food and water was not a big problem for her, but the people hiding in the shrine under her protection could not.
In a state of extreme hunger, even a slight temptation could break their last psychological defense, leading them to fall into corruption, embrace material desires, and become urban legend.
The girl never expected that the final blow that severely injured her would come from behind.
It was sunset again that day, and the severely wounded girl lay on the shrine's rooftop, the afterglow reflecting on her face, making it as crimson as her blood-soaked clothes.
After a long time, perhaps it was a final burst of clarity before death, the girl's cloudy eyes suddenly became clear. She turned to look at the small fish perched on her shoulder and murmured, “Disaster, in the end, still didn't come!”
“She...” The small fish was silent for a moment, then said in a very low voice, “She, she will come, she must have been delayed by something, she must...”
“XX, don't lie to me! I already know everything.” The girl interrupted, “I've known for a long time that that woman has abandoned us, we've long become bait she threw out to buy time.”
The girl spoke the small fish's name, and Lu Yibei tried hard to hear it clearly, but only heard a harsh static sound.
“It's just that I initially held a faint hope that she would offer a little help after resolving her current matters, but I never expected... Well, I guess we were just being sentimental, weren't we?”
She too had once deeply trusted Disaster...
After hearing the girl's words, the small fish remained silent for a long time.
When the sun had completely set below the horizon, it finally decided on its words and spoke to the girl, “Actually, she's not the kind of person you think she is.”
After waiting for a moment, there was no response, and only then did it notice that the girl had already stopped breathing.
The dark clouds that had covered the sky for several days had quietly dispersed at some point, and the cold light of the stars and moon fell upon the girl's pale face, serene and sweet, as if she were merely sleeping.
The small fish curled up beside the girl, quietly accompanying her until the sky began to lighten again with the first hint of dawn. A look of determination suddenly flashed in its eyes, and then, with a violent spasm of its body, it spat out a seven-colored urban legend core.
Then, it clumsily moved its fins, carving the girl's name onto its urban legend core, as if commemorating her in this way.
Lu Yibei, “...” Holy crap! It actually carved characters onto its own urban legend core!?
Such an act, if done by an ordinary person, while not quite on the level of carving into one's heart, would at least be like cutting open flesh and carving onto one's ribs.
What a ruthless fish!
As an observer, Lu Yibei quietly watched the small fish swallow its carved urban legend core back into its body, then frowned slightly.
She wondered if it was just her imagination, but she was surprised to find that the small fish's translucent body seemed to have dimmed considerably, as if shrouded in a layer of black mist.
...
Like mist being blown away by the wind, the scene before her eyes gradually dissipated, and the memories of the Miko-clad girl in her mind also became blurry.
It was like data that was immediately deleted after being read.
Immediately after, Lu Yibei saw those hazy bubbles again, and before she could react, she ran into the second, third, fourth...
Thus, one memory after another continuously flooded her mind.
The simple shepherdess on the Mongolian grasslands, the lonely nun on Ben Nevis, the Miss playing the zither by the Qinhuai River...
All kinds of people passed away before her, and their deaths were directly or indirectly related to “Disaster.”
After seeing so much, Lu Yibei began to suspect that the “Disaster” mentioned by those girls had nothing to do with her at all, but merely happened to use the same codename. Yet, as those vibrant lives vanished before her, she had a very strange feeling.
She felt that she had caused their deaths!
This was what the Demoness Seed urban legend core within her told her; whenever a scene of a girl's demise appeared in her mind, the Demoness Seed urban legend core would vibrate violently.
It was as if it was celebrating, emitting joyful cheers.
If her hands weren't stained with blood, how could the Demoness Seed urban legend core react this way?
And that small fish always accompanied those girls until their lives came to an end, then in a suffocating silence, it would take out its urban legend core and engrave their names on it.
Again and again, its eyes gradually grew numb, and its movements became mechanical.
Its body grew dimmer and more distorted, and then Lu Yibei finally noticed something.
That small fish was the huge fish-shaped black shadow she had seen before she fell unconscious!
And all of this was its memory...
