461: Three hundred and eighteen.
Their guardianship.
461: Three hundred and eighteen.
Their guardianship.
“`
Lu Li’s hesitation lasted only a mont.
Suddenly, a muddy, filthy hand extended from the swamp, grasping Lu Li’s wrist.
Anna retaliated in an instant, her invisible force severing the muddy hand.
Yet the Spirit-Calling Gun and Fran’s bracelet slipped from his grasp, plunging into the mire.
The Spirit-Calling Gun smoked as if it had fallen into lava, and the bracelet was engulfed by the mud, bubbles gurgling to the surface.
More hands reached out from the mire, seizing Lu Li’s body, dragging him downwards.
Hiss—
An ethereal fog erged from the holster of the Spirit-Calling Gun as the swamp fully subrged Lu Li’s lower half, creeping up his chest.
Countless, nauseating arms of sludge erged from the mire, entangling Anna in such a way that she couldn’t rescue him.
Jojo, who had retreated under a withered tree not far off, saw that Lu Li’s chest had sunk below the swamp, and Anna, fighting back in anger, couldn’t free herself from the muddy arms.
She clenched her teeth, ducked to avoid the mud raining from the sky, and hurried toward Lu Li.
She threw herself in front of Lu Li, tightly grasping his raised arm, her teeth gritted with the intent to drag him back.
But her strength was trivial compared to the countless arms of sludge beneath the swamp.
Just as Jojo, covered in mud, felt hopeless and desperate, she suddenly realized the area had quieted.
The sounds of tearing air and the slap of mud against the swamp disappeared, leaving only a continuous flow of cold malice seeping from Anna’s direction.
Jojo, lying outside the mire holding onto Lu Li, blankly looked up, her eyes seeing sothing she couldn’t comprehend.
Barbarically grown vine-like muddy arms froze mid-air, slowly retreating backward into the mire.
Jojo turned her head in astonishnt as the mud shredded by Anna, like living creatures, trickled back into the swamp.
What mattered more was that Lu Li was no longer sinking.
Jojo cautiously released the arm she was gripping, and just as she suspected, Lu Li was no longer being devoured by the mire.
But why… because of the Mother of the Marsh?
Silence persisted on the cleared ground, and as the last arm and the last piece of mud fell back into the mire, everything returned to normal, as if nothing had occurred.
Except for Lu Li, who was still stuck in the swamp.
The silence lasted several seconds, broken by the swelling mud in front of Lu Li.
A pair of hands, caked in muck, reached out from beneath the mire, one robust and the other slender, like a man’s and a woman’s.
The rugged muddy hand held a clean, old teal bracelet.
The slender muddy hand reached toward Lu Li, gently touching his face.
Everything fell to a hush following this gesture.
A barely perceptible sorrow spread through the clearing.
Watching all this, Anna quietly retracted her power, descending to the ground, listening to the diminishing sound of the Sanity Value Counter.
She didn’t let her guard down entirely, still gathering so force above Lu Li—though what had just happened made it clear that this was pointless, and would only an Anna would release him before he was agonizingly torn in two.
The slender muddy hand delicately stroked Lu Li’s face.
Despite its dirtiness, the cold palm left no stain besides its chill.
Only Lu Li, exposed from the chest up out of the mire, began to rise slowly, the slender muddy hand leaving him.
What was strange was that the parts of him that were subrged rose without any sign of muck, as though he’d fallen into a pile of leaves rather than a foul, slly mud swamp.
The mire spat out his Spirit-Calling Gun too, its Sequence 1 bloom of a rose still clean and beautiful as a work of art, surrounded by mist.
Lu Li reached for the Spirit-Calling Gun, and at that mont the robust muddy hand approached him.
Anne tensed, but the rugged muddy hand simply drew closer to Lu Li’s arm, placing the bracelet back onto his wrist.
Lu Li’s feet erged from the mire, the swamp treating him as tenderly as a baby being returned to shore.
The rugged and slender arms didn’t leave, standing quietly in the mire, like…
Two aged figures gazing into the distance.
Lu Li slightly lifted his wrist, looking down at it.
“`
The dark green bracelet looked out of place on his wrist, and it didn’t fit well.
After all, he wasn’t its true owner, nor was Fran.
Lu Li took off the bracelet that had been worn by the thick, muddy hand, squatted down, and slid the old dark green bracelet onto the wrist of a delicate hand.
It fit perfectly, as it belonged to this hand all along.
The delicate mud hand paused, slowly sinking with the thick mud hand into the mire.
The silt that swallowed both hands closed back up, reverting to its original camouflage color.
Sowhere deep inside, Lu Li suddenly felt the surroundings empty out.
He tentatively reached out to touch the marsh, finding only the soft mud that was common in the swamp.
It, or rather, they had left.
“It’s over,” Anna murmured softly.
A breeze carried a blood-red rain down, while a quiet rustling filled the air around the clearing.
Anna and Jojo fell into silence.
Amidst the stillness, the two of them, along with a resentful spirit, continued forward into the Withered Forest.
In the silence filled only with the sound of their footsteps, a mix of sad, sorrowful, and lancholic negative emotions emanated from Anna, lingering around them.
Anna had long beco so powerful that her emotions could affect those around her, just like the Elm Forest.
But before this, she had always controlled them well.
It wasn’t until Lu Li was in danger and she lost her Sanity Value, followed by the sadness from the “Drowning Man’s Mire,” that her control slipped.
Only Lu Li could hear it, the long-silent Mother of the Marsh whispered, “It…
is not a good tenant…
Why did it spare you…
”
“Because of emotions.”
Lu Li’s voice made Anna look up.
“Emotions…
what are they…”
“The feelings that drive you to do anything, you can find out from your servant’s mories,” Lu Li said, lifting his hand to cover the wound on his abdon.
The tugging when he sank into the mud had caused the wound to split slightly, although no blood seeped through the bandages.
“I know it…
but I cannot understand…”
“Shadow Swamp is your territory, a group of uninvited guests invaded and summoned your enemies, trying to take over your land and kill you, your resistance to the silt is called anger.”
The Mother of the Marsh, like a child avid for knowledge, kept murmuring low, “I have no anger…
I was rely expelling…
killing them…”
“You are angry, you just don’t realize it.”
The Mother of the Marsh stopped talking, perhaps thinking about it or maybe disagreeing with Lu Li’s idea.
“Blink.”
Lu Li stopped, tilted his head for a few seconds, then looked forward, following the flickering Shadow Figures moving through the dense jungle, and continued, “You think that’s the survival instinct, but instinct is a part of emotion, and emotion is also part of instinct.”
The Mother of the Marsh murmured slowly, “I need to think about it…”
The sculpture no longer emitted whispers.
“What did it ask?” Anna’s questioning voice sounded beside him.
Lu Li turned towards the striking crimson pupils in the dim light, “It couldn’t understand what just happened.”
Anna understood, “They thought you were Fran…”
“Mm.”
Lu Li nodded, turning his gaze back towards the front.
A large Banyan Tree ca into view amidst the Withered Forest, conspicuous and yet easily overlooked in the gloomy environnt.
They were nearing the depths of the swamp.
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