Chapter 56

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Chapter 56: Purgatory Reunion (VIII)

The news caught Qi Leren off guard. The Illusionist’s strength was unfathomable. If it was the Village of Dusk, Qi Leren didn’t need to worry about his safety at all, but this was the Underground Ant City.

An underground world ruled by field-level masters, where humans and demons coexisted, and every month, an army of demons vastly impacted this underground fortress, and there is a gap leading to the underworld in the depths of Purgatory…

It was too dangerous here, and the place the Illusionist had gone missing was the royal palace of the Dragon Ant Queen.

“What was the Illusionist going to see the Dragon Ant Queen for?” Qi Leren instinctively guessed that it might be the Dragon Ant Queen who detained the Illusionist, but he didn’t know why the Illusionist had come to the Underground Ant City. Chen Baiqi hadn’t told him, and Qi Leren hadn’t asked about it while on the way to Ning Zhou.

“This…..” The contact Celia hesitated. It was likely that she couldn’t disclose the mission information casually. Although Qi Leren had come with the Illusionist, he was not an executive officer of the Court.

Hesitant, Celia glanced at Ning Zhou again. She remembered that this man was the Holy See’s special envoy in the Court.

Ning Zhou asked: “Have you contacted the Court?”

“The letter requesting instruction was sent out yesterday, but I’m afraid I won’t receive a reply until next week,” Celia said.

“Tell us what happened, it won’t help to wait any longer,” Ning Zhou said lightly.

“Yes, Mr. Ning Zhou. The thing is, the Prophet has a secret agreement with the Dragon Ant Queen, which stipulates that when the next Dragon Ant Queen succeeds the throne, the Prophet will send someone to witness. When the Prophet received an invitation from the Dragon Ant Queen, he appointed the Illusionist to witness the handover ceremony,” Celia said with a heavy expression. “Before leaving, the Illusionist agreed that he would contact us every day, but there’s been no news since he entered Dragon Ant Queen’s royal palace.”

“Didn’t you go to him?” Qi Leren asked in wonder.

“We went, but we couldn’t enter the palace without Dragon Ant Queen’s edict or the Prophet,” Celia said.

Qi Leren thought about it. The royal palaces of the Dragon Ant Queens of all previous dynasties were not in the same place. Their royal palaces were magnificent, huge and unfathomable, and even horrible to ordinary people—because their royal palaces were their last tombs.

Since the day they began to reign, they had been building magnificent tombs for themselves. The deeper they dug, the bigger they were. With huge manpower and their own almost terrible power, the tombs Dragon Ant Queens were a huge city, which was built from the day they had begun to reign and would not stop until the day they died.

Strangely, except for the first Dragon Ant Queen, who lived a long life, every Dragon Ant Queen has been in office for only 20 years. This Dragon Ant Queen had been in office for 22 years. She had been a young girl 22 years ago, and now she was as old as an elder.

Her underground tomb had already been built so large that it could be called a magnificent underground city.

This was also her palace.

“But there is a clue…” Celia gritted her teeth and told the information. “On the morning when the Illusionist went to the palace, a gambler saw him in an underground casino that demons frequent.”

“Have you verified it?” Qi Leren asked.

“I sent someone, but the informant who went to verify didn’t come back. Recently, the number of unidentified missing people in the entire Underground Ant City is several times that of the past, which is very alarming,” Celia said gravely.

“Has there been a similar situation before?” Qi Leren asked again.

Celia was silent for a moment, as if thinking something. For a long time, she sighed softly: “I’ve never experienced it, but I have heard of some things… This situation is very similar to the period when the previous Dragon Ant Queen fell more than twenty years ago. The order of the whole Underground Ant City had completely collapsed, and the tension between demons and human residents had intensified. Although it wasn’t the time for the demon tide, demons poured out from every corner, and neither humans nor demons could easily survive the disaster… It was a very horrible and chaotic period. Every time power has been handed over, there was blood shed. Think about it, this is the death of a field-level master. Her death is a devastating blow to the field under her rule. Although the Dragon Ant Queen is in a special situation that she can pass on the field in some way, this inheritance is by no means easy. In the final analysis, it’s our lives that are too fragile. The weak clinging to the strong can’t endure the rain and wind. Even those who are close to God’s existence will fall one day, let alone vulnerable ordinary people like us.”

Qi Leren’s heart was heavy. In this short yet long time, he had experienced too many feelings that he couldn’t experience in peacetime. Too many people were wandering here, but they were still struggling to survive. Whether it was life, emotion, or the connection between people, it was too fragile in this cruel and turbulent world. Here, what was cherished would be destroyed, entrusted would be shattered, praised and degraded, and beautiful things would be broken one by one, but you couldn’t even blame anyone.

Because they were really, really, too weak… The people who used to live in Maria’s “dream” would eventually face this demon-infested world, because the “god” who had once sheltered them had also fallen. How long could the Village of Dusk under the Prophet’s protection be stable for?

The old Devil had fallen, the Holy Nun had fallen, and the Dragon Ant Queen was about to fall. This group of people were almost “God” in the eyes of ordinary people and couldn’t be detached from the laws of the world’s order.

Qi Leren felt powerless. He didn’t know whether his hand could fight against this cruel world. He wanted to protect a person, a person who was not recognized by the Holy See and would not compromise with the Devil, a person who drifted to hell but yearned for heaven. He wanted to accompany this person and give him a last harbor.

But could he really do it? Qi Leren couldn’t help but doubt himself. Even though he had pushed open the door to a half field, the road ahead was still so long. He was just like a child looking at the night sky. After the dark clouds in the sky parted, he saw the bright starlight, which pointed the way forward for him. But it was the light of hundreds of millions of years ago, which was hundreds of millions of light years away from him. He could see it, but he could not touch it.

Suddenly there was a slight touch on his fingertips. Qi Leren froze and hooked Ning Zhou’s hand behind him with his own.

The temperature from another person’s life soothed the restless soul. Qi Leren forgot that Celia, the Court’s contact person, was standing in front of him, and turned back to Ning Zhou and said, “Let’s go to the underground casino.”

Ning Zhou squeezed his hand hard: “Mm.”

“Also, please send another letter to the Courthouse to explain that I’ve found Ning Zhou. We’ll stay in the Underground Ant City for a while, and we’ll help find the Illusionist.” As Qi Leren spoke, he suddenly found Celia was silently watching them hold hands, and suddenly wanted to take it back. As a result, Ning Zhou held him too tightly, and a slight struggle didn’t work at all.

Qi Leren took a peek at Ning Zhou. He had no expression on his cold face, as if he didn’t feel anything wrong with the contact’s line of sight, so he held the hand of someone of the same gender silently, calmly, and like nobody was watching.

On the contrary, Qi Leren felt as if he had been caught holding hands secretly by a school principal. His heart was beating fast and his face was red.

What was happening? Wasn’t Ning Zhou super shy? At the beginning, during the Witchcraft Sacrifice, he had obviously blushed!

This confusion plagued Qi Leren the whole way. On the way to the underground casino, Qi Leren’s thoughts were full of this problem, absent-minded, and he was distracted several times. After being stared at by Ning Zhou several times, he guiltily beat around the bush: “There’s so many people here. Isn’t it not good for us to hold hands?”

It wasn’t good, it made them stand out. In the Underground Ant City full of coldness and malice, two men who walked hand in hand had a completely different impression from the group of lonely passers-by who wished to be separated from strangers by a few meters. But the surprised eyes of passers-by didn’t affect Ning Zhou at all. He was unmoved and insisted on holding hands.

Hearing Qi Leren’s question, Ning Zhou stopped and looked at him, and there was a hint of shock in his expression.

Qi Leren was confused and stupidly looked at him in wait for a while.

The two people looked at each other without speaking.

“Aren’t we…” Ning Zhou said two words and paused again. Qi Leren inexplicably felt that his expression at the moment seemed a little nervous. “…Aren’t we going to get married?”

Qi Leren: ???!!!

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