"..."
The Raven was silent.
"It shouldn't be like this, right?"
Huai Shi murmured softly, "I know not everyone should like . I might not fit in or be popular. But, maybe sotis so people's actions deserve punishnt, yet none of them deserve to die. They are all living people, just like . They shouldn't die, just like those people in those clubs shouldn't die. Even though they might have sinned, they are innocent in this."
"So, I don't like the things you've been saying." Huai Shi looked into her eyes, emphasizing every word, "—I really, really, really don't like it."
"...Oh dear, why so fierce?" The Raven turned her head away, seemingly sobbing in sorrow. "Big Sister, I'm also doing this for your own good. Besides, this entire bird, your Big Sister, is yours now. Can't I do a little testing before we begin our cooperation?"
As she spoke, she blinked her tear-filled eyes. "Considering my utter sincerity, can you give
a chance to nd what's lost? If Plan A doesn't work, we still have Plan B."
Unfortunately, a raven making such a face wasn't cute at all.
"...What's Plan B?"
"It's very simple." The Raven glanced at him one last ti. "Since you're unwilling to kill others..."
She said, "Then the only option is to kill you."
That instant, darkness fell before Huai Shi's eyes.
Huai Shi had a long dream.
In the drifting haze, he seed to have just finished work and was preparing to go ho. As he waited for the subway, he disdainfully rembered an incompetent employee he had fired during the day. Then, a roaring sound ca from the depths of the tunnel.
Before he could put away his phone, he heard a vengeful voice behind him: "Die!"
The next mont, a pair of hands shoved his back.
He stumbled, was flung into the air, and then he plumted towards the tracks. The subway's headlights grew brighter and closer. Then, Huai Shi was crushed, torn apart. The last thing he heard was the clear snap of his Skull shattering.
Indescribable pain washed over him. He didn't have ti to scream, nor even to fear, as his consciousness quickly blurred.
Then, he seed to beco a business titan who held sway over the global economy. Now trapped with no way out, he was cornered in a park. His own assistant, having betrayed him, delivered a final ultimatum to surrender.
Huai Shi smiled coldly, then raised a handgun towards him.
BANG!
A soft noise ca from a distant helicopter, and Huai Shi could no longer feel his body. In his last mont, he heard his assistant's bewildered cry, "Don't shoot, he's not…"
Shot in the head?
In the midst of confusion, Huai Shi had not yet reacted when, like a chain of nightmares, he suddenly beca a middle-aged, flamboyant uncle, wearing strange powered Armor, carrying a gun, storming into the Louvre to fight with bizarre insectoid creatures, then dying quickly.
Damn, I want to reload... was his last thought this ti.
Reload? Reload what? Go reload Rem!
He began to mock 'himself', yet he couldn't laugh anymore. It seed he was now hanging from the city gate, nails driven through his hands, yet he felt no pain. His whole being was drifting, as if drunk, and he stupidly smiled at the white-haired person in front of him.
However, why is this person glaring at ? What have I done wrong?
Soon, the Moonlight flashed, and his head was severed.
This ti it was decapitation.
Then, amid frenzied cheers, he seed to be tied to a stake, burned alive in flas, as people shouted excitedly, "Die, Heretic!"
And then he died again.
Like that, he died over and over, different kinds of death: poisoned, drowned, hanged, burned, minced, rushed into the ergency room, accidentally pushed, killed by various people and himself over various matters.
Over and over and over again.
Die, die, die, die, die, die, die, die.
He didn't know how many tis he had died.
By the end, he was almost numb, his consciousness fading completely. Is this the end? He sank into Deep Sleep as if liberated.
In the last mont, he seed to look back at the source of all the phantasms, and finally, he glimpsed the essence of those deaths. Those deaths beca flurries of pitch-black pages. Countless black movents overlapped, like snow. They converged into a sea of Sorrow and despair, sketching out a silent world.
Perhaps that was what the Book of Fate truly looked like.
A cold world dying alone.
The room returned to silence, with just the delicate sounds of the Event Branch continuously inscribing on the Book of Fate.
The ethereal Raven gazed quietly at Huai Shi, looking through his shell as though she could see the vibrant Source Substance burning within him.
Despite it being only one person's consciousness, the sparks that flew when thoughts clashed within it shone as bright as flas.
The Raven glanced at the Book of Fate and sighed involuntarily. "Indeed, had it not been constantly extracting Source Substance, you would have awakened years ago..."
Ever since she had woken from the book, she had been observing Huai Shi continuously.
That's how she could conclude from various signs that Huai Shi had probably already stepped one foot past the threshold of Sublimators. Otherwise, a re mortal would hardly be acknowledged by the Book of Fate as its holder, and she would not have bet on him so readily.
Now, on the current opening page, beside the na Huai Shi, the words 'Stress Period' within the parentheses grew increasingly heavy, as if gathering strength, attempting to transform.
But every attempted Transformation seed to encounter an invisible resistance, returning to its original position.
Soon, an invisible force pulled the feather pen, moving it onto the blank space at the upper part of the page, drawing a curved arc.
With the passage of ti, the arc slowly extended, gradually evolving into a perfect circle, yet the final tiny gap simply wouldn't close.
"Still a bit short?" Raven murmured in astonishnt.
Generally speaking, the Stress Period is when a person's true nature erges from the Sea of Silver, their Source Substance becos independent, and gradually returns to the consciousness.
During this process, the unique Soul of a Sublimator would be forged.
This period is usually very brief, distinct from the structure of the Soul. The shortest record in history took only five minutes and twelve seconds, while longer periods were no more than five or six months. It was the first ti Raven had seen soone who hadn't passed the Stress Period after six or seven years.
Even if these years were spent mostly in the 'Empty Blue' state due to extractions from the Book of Fate, wasn't this a bit too exaggerated?
Originally, she thought that with the impact of those past death records in the book, it would only take a few minutes for Huai Shi to naturally break through the bottleneck. But unexpectedly, this guy was already at the threshold, yet he just wouldn't step through!
The forging of the Soul was just lacking that little bit. Just a tiny bit...
What exactly is missing? Raven couldn't help but squint.
There was sothing crucially important that she had overlooked.
This feeling was extrely frustrating, but no matter how she pondered, she couldn't figure out why.
The existence of a Soul is the sublimation of essence and consciousness, containing the quintessence of humanity. It's precisely because each person is unique that there are so many completely different Souls in the world.
A halting in the construction process could only be due to one reason: Huai Shi himself.
Even if she wanted to use the Event Branch to check Huai Shi's records, she could only access the content after Huai Shi found the Book of Fate at the age of ten.
Past that point was nothing but blankness. However, through the descriptions between the lines, she could clearly see that Huai Shi was trying to conceal sothing. What it was, however, she couldn't discern.
Unless Huai Shi spoke out, it would remain an eternal secret.
In the midst of Raven's contemplation, the incomplete circle underwent another Transformation.
Pitch-black ink erged from within, following the curve's Transformation, forming the outline of a 'waning moon.'
...Could it really be the Moon Phase? In her mont of astonishnt, Raven softly exclaid, "How rare."
Although the construction of the Soul was not yet complete, its attributes had already erged—in the classification of the Book of Fate, the Moon Phase corresponds to the Source Substance of a person, which is the Soul itself.
The Abilities of Souls categorized under the Moon Phase mostly involve interference with the Soul, such as mind control, consciousness modification, and spiritual healing. This branch is a symbol of the bizarre and the mysterious for the majority of Sublimators.
Raven shook her head slightly disapprovingly. "Unfortunately, the scope is too small," she murmured. "Too small..."
Though one may achieve montary success through the strange and the fearful, reigning in the shadows, the center stage of this world will never be reserved for those who only hide in the darkness.
Ti was hard to track, but Huai Shi's breathing grew labored, his eyelids fluttered as if he was about to awaken from Deep Sleep.
She sighed, and the Event Branch slowly lifted, gently touching the center of the moon circle and leaving a dot of ink.
And Raven's color grew even paler.
"The opportunity is yours, Huai Shi," she whispered. "Whether you can build the bridge, from the ethereal to reality, that's up to you."
"All set."
The confidant burst into the office excitedly, holding a portable hard drive. "Master, all the surveillance footage from the mont that bastard Chen Quan snatched away the box until now is here."
"Were you careful?" The man known as Master seed like he hadn't slept in a long ti, his eyes red. When he lifted his head, his bloodshot eyes looked ferocious.
The confidant shivered subconsciously, managing a smile. "Rest assured, I had soone else do it. We didn't leave our nas. Even if soone investigates, they'll only trace it back to him."
"Very well." The Master took the hard drive and didn't ask for any further details. He paced back and forth in the office for a long ti before finally making up his mind and stomping his foot.
"Go and tell those old n and won to co to Mass on weekend evening. Whoever doesn't co, need not ever co again."
The confidant was taken aback. "But didn't we just have one the day before yesterday? They're used to coming at the end of the month…"
"Then find so other excuse, can't you!" The Master burst out in anger, glaring at his face. "Do I have to think of excuses for you? Will it work if it's the Heavenly Father's birthday?!"
"Sure, sure, sure, your word is final." Not daring to provoke further, the confidant scurried away.
In the quiet office, the slightly prematurely aged middle-aged man was silent for a long ti. He closed the door, and after hesitating for quite a while, finally plugged in the hard drive and began to look through the fragnted information.
From the man suddenly pulling out a gun in the warehouse, killing soone, stealing the Sacred Relic, then getting injured in the counterattack, an explosion, and fleeing... until he slipped into an alleyway.
As the tiline swiftly advanced, a young man carrying a violin case entered the box. Soon after, he erged from it, and the footage froze once more.
It stopped on that slightly youthful face.
"It's you..." The Master leaned closer to the screen, his crimson eyes glaring intently at the young man in the footage.
Reviews
All reviews (0)