Chapter 35

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03:17.

As the ground shook more and more frequently, Lin Jue finally woke up from his monochrome world.

His mind remained chaotic and unclear. Even though the world was still the same, it was as if his brain had been soaked in alcohol, dulling and making a joke of all of his senses. Even just the sound of the wind rustling through the dried leaves of the plants on the windowsill aroused his maniacal killing-intent.

In the past half an hour, he had sentimentally latched onto Song Hanzhang’s hand and whispered to him, absorbing every detail on his face, from the lines on his dry lips to his every eyelash. He even wanted to kiss his cooling skin.

The world was colorless. The world was ringing. Eerie black-red blood flowed along the ground like a river past them. The air was filled with a thick scent of blood. The sound of water, quiet laughter, frolicking, the occasional scream, these sounds echoed non-stop through his mind.

More and more, closer and closer, until they were no longer in his mind but rang out next to him. His ears were able to judge where these illusionary sounds came from, but when he searched with his eyes, all his right eye could capture was a deathly quiet world in black and white.

The hallucinations overwhelmed him.

He needed to change places. It was too noisy here.

Lin Jue carefully carried Song Hanzhang on his back and left the collapsing building with difficulty.

The world in front of him became stranger than before, and this mutated building turned more terrifying than ever in Lin Jue’s eyes – even though his perception of terror no longer affected him – dark red liquid flowed down from the rusted walls, flowing into a shallow river of blood.

Lin Jue carried Song Hanzhang and walked through this black-red river. The faces of countless players just before their deaths emerged from the river like drowned ghosts; they howled and wailed but he paid them no attention, trampling each and every hideous phantom underfoot.

Leaving the dormitory building, burning red covered everywhere that the eye could see. The cracks in the ground had almost devoured the entire south dormitory area. This place would soon become a joyhouse of lava.

Lin Jue walked towards the east, through the South Plaza, towards the greenhouse.

He didn’t feel tired, nor did he feel that the road was long. He carried another person’s weight and walked alone through the collapsing world until he reached the far shore.

Inside the greenhouse, Lin Jue laid Song Hanzhang down.

It was quiet here, and safe, and quite far from the encroaching lava. He couldn’t always carry Song Hanzhang, so he chose to stow him away here, just for now.

Moonlight flooded through the glass dome; this place of lush vegetation had been transformed into a paradise of decaying grass. Amidst the withered greenery, Song Hanzhang lay quietly sleeping.

Lin Jue stood beside him for a long, long time, and thought for a long, long time.

He knew he didn’t have much time left to delay. Dan Liang, Gu Fengyi, and Liu Qingqing’s corpses were all past the five minute deadline. He had to find the remaining three people of 2022 and use their corpses as sacrifices. He was no longer afraid of fighting. The need to revive Song Hanzhang gave him endless courage and perseverance; even if he had to go kill Lu Ren, he wouldn’t be afraid.

But saying goodbye was such a difficult thing; he couldn’t make himself turn and leave.

He still couldn’t understand so many things.

Who killed Song Hanzhang? If it was someone from 2022, why were no markings transferred? But if it wasn’t someone from 2022, was it a monster? The wound must have been caused by a sharp weapon, and it was an accurate one-hit KO.

Using a clean attack for a painless death; it was as if everything was planned. The thought flashed through Lin Jue’s blank mind but it was so quick it was like lightning in a storm, hurriedly disappearing between the clouds.

The box was also no longer on Song Hanzhang, that witch box bound to Lin Jue. He could only assume that someone from 2022 had used a monster to kill Song Hanzhang, then taken his witch box and Song Hanzhang’s weapon – the dagger Lin Jue took out from the fountain and gifted Song Hanzhang.

Why? It was just a normal dagger, why did they take it?

Countless questions rolled around his mind but they were stirred into chaos by the approaching hallucinations.

Lin Jue’s head felt as if it was about to split open. These hallucinations tormented him to the edge of breaking down. He even started hearing Song Hanzhang’s voice, repeating everything he had said from memory.

03:33, it really was time to leave.

Lin Jue once again gazed at Song Hanzhang’s lifeless face.

The moon was quiet and gentle, illuminating this world sinking into hell, and this person falling into a demon.

Lin Jue leant down, and finally left a kiss on Song Hanzhang’s cold forehead.

“It’s late, sleep for a while first, I’ll be back soon.”

He said calmly, as if the broken wailing from before was all just a dream. They would only shortly be separated, and they would soon be reunited.

But as he turned to leave, the surrounding world became heavy and dark; that almost solid sense of stickiness appeared again. Lin Jue looked up. The distant moon was devoured by the thick darkness, the black gel more solid than any previous illusions.

It was almost like that time Song Hanzhang deliberated hypnotized himself and triggered his negative emotions.

That incident was truly too dangerous, digging at one’s own trauma too terrifying… that illusion didn’t form from simple memories, but rather a highly twisted world of reality and illusion. Even their surroundings were out of touch with reality. Even though they were standing in a classroom painted with blood and gore, countless misformed monsters sitting behind their desks, the scene changed into a library covered in corpses and blood once all those monsters were killed, countless zombies rushing to them after.

Those monsters weren’t strong, and there were no markings from killing them, but there was a despairing number of them.

Back then, the two of them killed until the last of their strength ran out before they finally found the real monster of the illusion. After an arduous fight, it was Song Hanzhang who finally found its weak point and let them escape from that terrible illusion.

After that experiment which almost ended in catastrophe, Song Hanzhang never tried to hypnotize himself again.

But even then, the viscous blackness had never been this strong.

Lin Jue carried the quiver, Gu Fengyi’s crossbow in one hand, his spear in the other, and allowed the darkness to devour him.

The dried vegetation vanished, along with the moonlight, but the flowing scent of blood remained under his nose. Sudden music sounded next to his ears, cheerful and lighthearted like that ball at midnight where the three teams had met.

Was he hallucinating again? Lin Jue frowned. But as he opened his eyes, it really was that ballroom!

No, not entirely.

Those corpses that had once chased after them relentlessly were fallen like puppets with their strings cut, collapsed in a pool of endless red. And that sky which had been covered in an eerie mist now revealed a giant phantom, like the shadow of an extraordinarily large fish as it slowly swimmed through the universe. It was unaccountably huge and terrifying.

The wishing fountain in the middle of the ballroom had long since been turned into a puddle of blood, the red liquid gurgling out of it along with creatures soaked in it. They fell heavily onto the ground that was already pooling with bloody water and crawled on all fours, over the obstructing corpses, straight towards him.

Too slow. Lin Jue frowned impatiently and was just about to face them head on when he heard Song Hanzhang’s voice behind him. “Don’t go.”

Lin Jue turned around immediately. Song Hanzhang’s body was right behind him; he had followed him into this illusion!

The blood from the fountain continued to spread. It would eventually go beyond him and take the sleeping Song Hanzhang with him.

Lin Jue finally felt a sense of urgency. He had to quickly get rid of these monsters so the blood wouldn’t dirty Song Hanzhang’s clothes.

The monsters from the fountain crawled closer and closer. Lin Jue raised his crossbow awkwardly and aimed – they were so slow in his mind that targeting them was almost effortless. But as he pressed down on the trigger, the arrow didn’t hit the monster like he had expected. The recoil made him lose control of the bow and the bolt went completely off track.

It was no good without practice; he would try it again after leaving here. Lin Jue decidedly threw down the crossbow and faced the enemy with his familiar spear.

The monsters crawled through the blood, closer and closer. When the fastest one was within three meters of Lin Jue, it changed. It no longer crawled with haste; it stopped, as if storing up energy before an attack.

Left? Right? Height? Speed?

Lin Jue’s good eye didn’t skip over a single detail.

Lowered back limbs, storing up strength, leaning forwards, its body tilted sideways – to the left!

Just as that bloodied monster leaped up for its killing move, in that split-second, the world became so slow that the monster’s fierce lunge turned into an old cassette tape, flashing before his eyes one frame at a time.

The monster screamed as it leapt, lunging towards Lin Jue’s blind spot, but Lin Jue’s spear was faster. The cold head lay in waiting as if already prepared, and with one stab, it hit the target! The sharp force stabbed through the monster instantly. Lin Jue flung the spear forward with both hands to throw the monster’s body, hitting another creature that was crawling towards him head on. The two collided and slid through the pool of blood, splashing forth a wave half the size of a man.

A second, third, fourth… More monsters rushed him, eager to rip open his skin, suck dry his blood, and feast on every inch of his flesh and bones.

The chaos continued for a while. The fountain which spewed out countless monsters grew tired, but Lin Jue was unable to register his body’s protests. He kept fighting tirelessly like a machine, until he was completely broken.

The ground was covered in corpses and sticky blood. Lin Jue leaned against his spear and fell into a long silence at the sight of the dominating red in front of him.

It was still noisy, and there were still shadowy phantoms swimming through his vision. His eyes alone could no longer separate illusion from reality. Maybe it was the side effect of that painkiller, or maybe something really had happened to his mind, but the world in Lin Jue’s eyes was twisted strangely. Just then as he was fighting, he heard Song Hanzhang’s voice several times and saw many players who had already died. He was completely relying on his instincts to differentiate his hallucinations from the real world, but this instinct was only sharp during fights and he was returned to being troubled by countless voices and phantoms once the fight ended.

Lin Jue turned around to Song Hanzhang’s body, his good eye stinging.

Right next to that corpse, another Lin Jue caressed Song Hanzhang’s face and whispered to him.

The spreading pool of blood stopped by them as if there was an invisible barrier that separated them from the bloody illusion.

Good, it didn’t dirty Song Hanzhang’s clothes. But the person next to him was too much of an eyesore.

Lin Jue lifted his spear, stepped through the pool of blood which had risen to his ankles, and walked towards them.

The other him raised his head. His face was intact, clean, without any blood and without that wound which slashed across more than half of his face.

Lin Jue watched him, and he watched back. They were separated by an invisible barrier, blocking the pool of blood.

Like a magic mirror: one side showing an innocent and pure past, the other reflecting the bloody present.

A provocative smile appeared on the other him’s face as he said soundlessly: He’s mine.

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