The urge to flee wreaked havoc in his mind but Xia Jienan gritted his teeth and forcibly gathered his scattered focus back together.
Finn’s gaze darkened. He dragged Xia Jienan toward the direction of the carriage. Xia Jienan, who was still lying on the ground, steadied himself and immediately began to struggle.
“I have to go over there right now! Finn! If you still have even the slightest bit of fatherly feeling left for Sean… then you should let me go!”
“No.” Finn looked thin and slight but his strength was considerable. Dragging Xia Jienan posed no difficulty at all. “He asked me to get you out.”
“This is the only way to survive. You’re an outsider to begin with, you shouldn’t have gotten involved with us in the first place.”
“But Sean and I are friends!” Xia Jienan jammed his foot into the axle of the carriage wheel, preventing Finn from hauling him up. “Friends don’t stand by and watch each other walk into danger… Do you even know what he’s about to do?!”
The last sentence was shouted out. After the shout rang through the air, Finn’s movements stalled for a moment. He released Xia Jienan where he was and turned away, going to look for something to knock him unconscious with.
While shouting, Xia Jienan hurriedly rubbed the rope binding his feet against the rough edge of the axle, sawing at it with all his strength. At the same time, he yelled, “I really want to save him! Even if there’s only the slightest chance, don’t you want to keep living happily with him?”
Finn suddenly turned back and roared, “There was never any chance from the moment I abandoned him!”
“Then are you going to abandon him again?!”
“Don’t think I’m going to survive!” Finn bellowed. “If it weren’t for sending you away, I wouldn’t even be able to leave!”
“Then none of us leave!”
Xia Jienan stared straight at Finn. With a sudden, forceful kick, his newly freed leg came down on the carriage wheel. Using the momentum, he slammed his hands toward a nearby hook. After several sharp snaps as the ropes broke apart, he immediately used his already-cut hand to pull two daggers from the soles of his shoes.
Finn took several steps back, reaching for the crossbow hanging behind him.
The instant his hand moved, a blade shot past his fingertips and embedded itself into the wall. Finn reflexively withdrew his hand, only to hear Xia Jienan say, “You can try and see whether you’re faster at grabbing your weapon or I’m faster at striking.”
Finn panted heavily, his face flushed red. “Despicable outsider!”
“I never said I was a good person,” Xia Jienan replied coolly. His demeanor was completely different from the agitation and near-madness he’d shown moments ago. “Turn around, unless you don’t mind losing a hand.”
The veins at Finn’s temples bulged violently. “I’m not afraid of death!”
“But why do you have to die?” Xia Jienan countered instead. “From the look of things, there’s no way out anyway. Why can’t you believe me?”
“……” Finn fell silent. After a moment, his shoulders slumped, as if he had suddenly aged ten years in an instant. “Go.”
“If you don’t want to leave, there’s nothing I can do to force you out.”
Xia Jienan secretly let out a breath of relief. He kept his eyes on Finn as he backed away toward the doorway.
The moment he stepped out of the stable, he was ready to sprint in the direction of the Anthony estate.
He had barely taken two steps when Finn’s voice sounded from behind him.
“Wait. Ride it.”
Xia Jienan turned around. Finn was standing at the entrance, holding a gun in one hand and leading the horse he had just been feeding with the other.
“If you go on foot, nothing will make it in time and, take this.”
Xia Jienan froze for a second. He walked back, took the gun and mounted the horse. Before leaving, something seemed to click in his mind and he asked, “You knew all along?”
Finn turned his head away and went back into the stable. “Go. While I still don’t feel like stopping you.”
Xia Jienan sat on the horse in silence for a while, then said, “I’m sorry.”
All of a sudden, he understood. Finn might know what had once happened to Sean. Perhaps Finn had returned to Guerrero precisely because of this matter.
The Finn who had once gone missing most likely knew the hidden truths of this world. He refused to acknowledge Sean and though he was unafraid of death, he still insisted on sending Xia Jienan away, only because he knew…
If he didn’t leave, he would have to kill Sean.
A vessel for the god’s descent, having lost his reason yet still clinging to the last shred of kindness, Sean had hoped to send him away.
And now, returning to the Anthony estate himself was precisely for the sake of…
Xia Jienan took a deep breath and gave a bitter smile. “What an impossible choice.”
Before the sky was completely swallowed by darkness, Xia Jienan arrived at the vineyard of the Anthony estate.
The stone tower concealed beneath the grapevines was emitting a faint, eerie glow. As he made his way inside, he saw no groups of believers. The entire vineyard, no, it could be said the entire Anthony estate, seemed devoid of living people.
Xia Jienan rushed to the center of the stone tower formation. The sight that greeted him was both expected and unexpected.
Standing at the center was a figure clad in a yellow robe, his face covered by a pale mask. Lying collapsed behind him was the butler.
Facing him was Sean.
Time rewound to the moment Ye Yuzhi knocked Xia Jienan unconscious.
He bound Xia Jienan’s hands and feet, led a horse out of the estate’s stable and left the Anthony estate with him.
Perhaps luck was on his side, the people stationed at the side gate had just left, allowing him to escape smoothly.
He remembered Godmother Alide mentioning that a man named Carl could help them leave.
Following the address he later obtained from Alide, he quickly found Mr. Carl’s residence.
When he knocked on the door, Carl’s tone was unpleasant but the moment he opened the door and saw Ye Yuzhi, his expression instantly crumpled, as if he were about to burst into tears.
Why?
The thought flashed through Ye Yuzhi’s mind. He didn’t waste words and told Carl, “I need to ask you to send him away.” He pointed at Xia Jienan.
“Alide said I could rely on you.” After a pause, Ye Yuzhi added another sentence.
Carl came back to his senses. He didn’t look at Xia Jienan and asked instead, “If it’s you asking… anything is fine.”
“Aren’t you leaving?” he asked cautiously.
Ye Yuzhi shook his head. “I have something very important to do. It’s dangerous… Please take him away.”
“He’s my friend. Don’t let him come looking for me. He’ll stop me… I want to save everyone.”
He said a jumble of incoherent, disjointed words. Stepping back slightly, Ye Yuzhi said, “Please. It has to be before the descent.”
Carl remained silent for a long time. It was as if someone were pressing his head down; finally, with great difficulty, he nodded.
Ye Yuzhi bowed, left both the horse and Xia Jienan with Carl and immediately hurried back to the Anthony estate.
After returning, he followed the unfinished plan Xia Jienan had left behind, bringing food and wine to the guards, then dragging everyone who had gathered in the dining hall and fallen unconscious into the small cellar off the kitchen and locking them inside.
Once that was done, he finally let out a small breath and followed the sensed center toward the place where those people had been moving things.
It was the vineyard.
Some of the decorative pillars in the vineyard made Ye Yuzhi deeply uncomfortable. The faint murmuring voices, like the buzzing of insects, clung to him no matter how hard he tried to shake them off.
He dug his fingernails into his palm and forced himself to walk forward. When he reached the very center, the nightmare crashed down on him like a tidal wave.
That familiar rolling sound appeared once more. Ye Yuzhi silently recited prayers, clutching the fabric over his chest and struggled to take another step inward.
At the heart of the stone pillar formation was a massive ritual array laid out entirely in blood, glowing faintly.
As the person standing upon it let out a shout, countless yellow cloth strips burst forth from the yellow-robed figure’s garments, shredding the piles of corpses and decaying flesh nearby.
Blood and fragments of flesh flew into the air, like an incomparably gruesome rain. The air was thick with the nauseating stench of rust.
Ye Yuzhi covered his mouth and nose in discomfort, gripping his gun with one hand and fired a shot through the gaps in the grapevines toward the figure.
However, the yellow-robed man moved faster than he did. Almost instantly, he stepped in front of the other person.
The bullet sank into the robe as if into seawater, not even raising a ripple, swallowed without a trace.
“Who dares to interrupt the god’s descent?” the person behind the yellow robe demanded sharply.
Ye Yuzhi stepped out from behind the stone tower, gun still in hand, aimed at them.
That person’s gaze lingered on his face for a moment before he suddenly burst into laughter. “So it’s you. My lord truly blesses me!”
Before his words could fall completely, a bullet skimmed past his cheek, forcing the rest of his sentence to a dead halt. He recoiled instinctively, shrinking behind the yellow-robed figure, no longer daring to make any sudden movements.
Ye Yuzhi held the gun with both hands and adjusted his stance slightly. “Please refrain from meaningless resistance.”
The man frowned, about to mutter something under his breath, when another bullet struck the ground right beside his foot.
“Please refrain from meaningless resistance.”
So it really can’t be stopped anymore? the man thought. He lifted his gaze toward the sky and said quietly, “Even without resistance, it’s already over.”
The light of Aldebaran had begun to spill across this land.
The next second, a brilliance like a comet impact erupted violently from the formation beneath their feet, surging straight toward the heavens. Yellow radiance was wrapped in boundless darkness.
The sky was swallowed. Daylight was replaced.
So close to the epicenter, Ye Yuzhi was instantly blinded, seeing nothing at all. He could only raise his gun, aim in that direction and fire three shots in quick succession.
When his vision finally returned, only the yellow-robed figure remained before him. The one who had been speaking to him moments earlier had collapsed on the ground, apparently no longer breathing.
Ye Yuzhi stared at the yellow robe in front of him, his head erupting in violent pain, as if it were about to explode.
The yellow robe was like an illusion, clearly standing right before him yet its shadow seemed to have already stretched into his mind, stirring up tempestuous waves within his consciousness.
The senses that had been stripped away all came crashing back at once. The pain on the back of his hand was now unbearably clear.
It must be done. It has to be done. This is the final chance…
That thing is coming, crawling along the nerves, through the blood vessels…
Call upon that one… call upon It… cleanse this place… take away the abomination…
Otherwise, even my consciousness will,
“Sean!”
In the haze, it seemed as though someone shouted a name.
Who is Sean?
Ye Yuzhi stared blankly in the direction of the voice. A man who seemed vaguely familiar stood outside, a gun in his hand, anxiously shouting something at him.
But the meaning was completely incomprehensible. The words spilling from his mouth could not be understood, the strange intonation clashing with his expression…
And yet, it felt inexplicably reassuring.
Ye Yuzhi closed his eyes, as if grasping a thread of life amid towering waves in that instant.
He suddenly opened them again, smiled faintly toward the man and mimicked his language. “Please.”
Then Ye Yuzhi murmured softly:
“I offer myself to You.”
In that instant, something even darker than before erupted from his body, surging outward and directly dissolving the nearest yellow-robed figure.
The yellow robe that had nearly plunged the entire world into despair vanished just like that. The presence of the “King in Yellow,” which should have descended into this world through this body, also withdrew and concealed itself.
But it was not over.
Twisted, chaotic contents, interwoven with madness and terror, poured endlessly out of Ye Yuzhi.
Limbs warped and melted. His features were on the verge of disappearing.
Xia Jienan fired three shots straight at Ye Yuzhi’s head. After several dull, wet sounds, everything came to a halt.
The entire world seemed to fall silent for a brief moment. Then came a wail that pierced the eardrums, sounding like both a scream of agony and a cry of jubilation.
The night sky was like a piece of black cloth, torn away from the heavens by an invisible hand.
Everything was so quiet, as if nothing had ever happened.
But Xia Jienan, his face pale as death, knew that he might never be able to forget it.
✦ ✧ ✦
Nycreth
[Translator]
☕ A LITTLE SOMETHING FOR THE TRANSLATOR
The coffee spirits are watching. 👁️☕
☕ BUY THEM A COFFEE →
✧ (づ｡•ㅅ•｡)づ ☕ ✧
✦ thank you for reading ✦
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ChaptersChapter 1 · Guerrero’s Lair (1)Chapter 2 · Guerrero’s Lair (2)Chapter 3 · Guerrero’s Lair (3)Chapter 4 · Guerrero’s Lair (4)Chapter 5 · Guerrero’s Lair (5)Chapter 6 · Guerrero’s Lair (6)Chapter 7 · Guerrero’s Lair (7)Chapter 8 · Guerrero’s Lair (8)Chapter 9 · Guerrero’s Lair (9)Chapter 10 · Guerrero’s Lair (10)Chapter 11 · Guerrero’s Lair (11)Chapter 12 · Guerrero’s Lair (12)Chapter 13 · Guerrero’s Lair (13)Chapter 14 · Guerrero’s Lair (14)Chapter 15 · Guerrero’s Lair (15)Chapter 16 · Guerrero’s Lair (16)Chapter 17 · Guerrero’s Lair (17)Chapter 18 · Guerrero’s Lair (18)Chapter 19 · Guerrero’s Lair (19)Chapter 20 · Guerrero’s Lair (20)Chapter 21 · Guerrero’s Lair (21)Chapter 22 · Guerrero’s Lair (22)Chapter 23 · Interlude (1)Chapter 24 · The interlude (2)Chapter 25 · The interlude (3)Chapter 26 Part 1 · Calling in the Wind (1)Chapter 26 Part 2 · Calling in the Wind (1)Chapter 27 · Calling in the Wind (2)Chapter 28 · Calling in the Wind (3)Chapter 29 · Calling in the Wind (4)Chapter 30 · Calling in the Wind (5)Chapter 31 · Calling in the Wind (6)Chapter 32 · Calling in the Wind (7)Chapter 33 · Calling in the Wind (8)Chapter 34 · Calling in the Wind (9)Chapter 35 · Calling in the Wind (10)Chapter 36 · Interlude (4)Chapter 37 · Interlude (5)Chapter 38 · Interlude (6)Chapter 39 · Interlude (7)Chapter 40 · Interlude (8)Chapter 41 · Interlude (9)Chapter 42 · Welcome to Doville (1)Chapter 43 · Welcome to Doville (2)Chapter 44 · Welcome to Doville (3)Chapter 45 · Welcome to Doville (4)Chapter 46 · Welcome to Doville (5)Chapter 47 · Welcome to Doville (6)Chapter 48 · Welcome to Doville (7)Chapter 49 · Welcome to Doville (8)Chapter 50 · Welcome to Doville (9)Chapter 51 · Welcome to Doville (10)Chapter 52 · Welcome to Doville (11)Chapter 53 · Welcome to Doville (12)Chapter 54 · Interlude (10)Chapter 55 · Interlude (11)Chapter 56 · Interlude (12)Chapter 57 · Interlude (13)Chapter 58 · Interlude (14)Chapter 59 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (1)Chapter 60 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (2)Chapter 61 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (3)Chapter 62 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (4)Chapter 63 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (5)Chapter 64 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (6)Chapter 65 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (7)Chapter 66 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (8)Chapter 67 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (9)Chapter 68 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (10)Chapter 69 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (11)Chapter 70 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (12)Chapter 71 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (13)Chapter 72 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (14)Chapter 73 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (15)Chapter 74 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (16)Chapter 75 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (17)Chapter 76 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (18)Chapter 77 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (19)Chapter 78 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (20)Chapter 79 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (21)Chapter 80 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (22)Chapter 81 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (23)Chapter 82 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (24)Chapter 83 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (25)Chapter 84 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (26)Chapter 85 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (27)Chapter 86 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (28)Chapter 87 · The Tunnel in the Dark Night (29)Chapter 88 · Tunnel in the Dark Night (30)Chapter 89 · Interlude (15)Chapter 90 · Interlude (16)Chapter 91 · Interlude (17)Chapter 92 · The Promise of Hamelin (1)Chapter 93 · The Promise of Hamelin (2)Chapter 94 · The Promise of Hamelin (3)Chapter 95 · The Promise of Hamelin (4)Chapter 96 · The Promise of Hamelin (5)Chapter 97 · The Promise of Hamelin (6)Chapter 98 · The Promise of Hamelin (7)Chapter 99 · The Promise of Hamelin (8)Chapter 100 · The Promise of Hamelin (9)Chapter 101 · The Promise of Hamelin (10)Chapter 102 · The Promise of Hamelin (11)Chapter 103 · The Promise of Hamelin (12)Chapter 104 · The Promise of Hamelin (13)Chapter 105 · The Promise of Hamelin (14)Chapter 106 · The Promise of Hamelin (15)Chapter 107 · The Promise of Hamelin (16)Chapter 109 · The Promise of Hamelin (18)Chapter 110 · The Promise of Hamelin (19)