Mizushima Kawa Sora’s eyebrows twitched violently, her clenched fists crackling.
But soon, she exhaled and her expression returned to calm.
"You’re deliberately provoking ," she said, "Aren’t you afraid I’ll kill you right here?"
"I’m not afraid," Su Ming’an’s hand rested on Xiber’s shoulder, "...because I have the strongest Guide."
Xiber lifted her eyelids and gave him a surprised glance.
"The strongest?" Mizushima Kawa Sora sneered, "Are you kidding ?"
She couldn’t believe that, even now, Su Ming’an was still bluffing.
She really couldn’t think of any way he had left to turn the tables. She had wanted to ask about her sister’s condition, but it seed he wouldn’t speak.
"Do it," Mizushima Kawa Sora said to Dian Si.
Dian Si’s long sword ca chopping down.
"Xiber," Su Ming’an turned his head, looking naturally at Xiber, "It’s ti for you to make a move, isn’t it? Stop hiding, or we’re both going to die."
However, Xiber still watched him without moving a muscle.
"...I don’t have anything to strike with," she raised her shotgun with a very indifferent tone, "Shoot Dian Si with a shotgun? I’m afraid it couldn’t even penetrate the flas..."
Su Ming’an was slightly taken aback.
The next mont, a fierce heat pressed down in an instant from above.
He was in Shadow State, possessing immunity to attributes; Dian Si’s Fla Sword couldn’t touch him at all, but Xiber was different—if she died, she would really be dead. Did she truly have no move left?
"—!"
Just as they were about to be swallowed by the flas, a dark shadow flashed abruptly.
It spread its wings, blocking in front of him, devoid of any defensive asures, as if it could be engulfed by the flas at any mont.
But Dian Si, who had already brought down his sword, had his expression change dramatically the instant he saw the Raven. With a forceful left hand on the right, he fiercely retracted the sword. The backlash from his own energy made him cough up a great mouthful of blood.
"God... Divine Envoy!" Dian Si’s complexion turned pale in a flash, disbelief filling his eyes. He was staggering, as if he might fall at any mont.
The sll of slightly singed feathers spread through the air while the Raven cawed arrogantly.
It hopped onto Su Ming’an’s shoulder, affectionately rubbing his cheek, staring down Dian Si in a show of defiance.
"Dian Si!" Mizushima Kawa Sora never expected why Dian Si would suddenly hold back. With that sword strike, she was left with no way out, but he actually stopped midway.
Dian Si’s sowhat murky eyes stared at the Raven for a mont, his white beard trembling.
"Let’s go, adventurer," he imdiately turned around, not looking back, ready to leave.
Mizuzhima Kawa Sora’s eyebrows were upside down, she faintly realized that, in the instant that black bird appeared, sothing had quietly changed.
"That is the Divine Envoy of Lord Bai Shen, the Raven." Dian Si turned to leave without hesitation, "Whoever it chooses must be soone with a great degree of compatibility with Lord Bai Shen, just like Fengchang... In any case, I must not strike at him before the succession ceremony of the First Tribe. I’m sorry, adventurer. For now, let us find another way..."
Mizushima Kawa Sora hadn’t expected Dian Si’s loyalty and faith toward Bai Shen to also beco an unfavorable factor for her.
—He would actually give up attacking because of a black bird.
This ant that even if she t Su Ming’an again, he might not take action against him.
Watching Dian Si leave with his tail between his legs, Su Ming’an gradually saw his current situation more clearly.
Although the Raven had called him "Lord Bai Shen," in the eyes of others, he wasn’t truly Bai Shen. He still needed to collect Bai Shen’s three great symbols of Authority, as well as the Energy and Faith spoken of in the Oracle.
For the ti being, these locals would only revere him because of the Raven’s presence, treating him like a figure similar to Fengchang, but would not truly regard him as Bai Shen.
The Raven cawed and perched on his shoulder. It seed to have no direct combat power, even blocking the fire with its body. Su Ming’an was about to say a few words to Xiber when he suddenly heard a "whiz."
It was a golden bullet.
The reason he could see the bullet was that it had been struck down and fell to the ground.
The one who intercepted the bullet was Dian Si, who very precisely struck down a bullet that had co from the neighboring mountaintop, preventing it from hitting Mizushima Kawa Sora.
... Soone was sniping from the neighboring mountain.
Su Ming’an looked up and saw Dian Si suddenly wave his hand in the direction of the incoming attack—counterattacking!
"Swoosh—!"
He saw a trendously shocking scene: the mountaintop collapsing.
The blazing white flas, like a flood dragon, struck the direction where the bullet ca from. It razed the mountaintop, hundreds of flas wildly dancing around that sword strike, turning the nearby sky golden. The mountain peak, along with the people and trees, vanished without a trace.
Dian Si, ranked third as a Judicator, produced a sword strike from a thousand ters away, directly flattening an entire mountaintop.
Although uncertain if the player who dared to make that snipe was still alive, the god-like, overwhelming spectacle made Lv Shu and the others acutely aware of the terror of those leading Guides.
Lv Shu’s Guide, Lilina, was only capable of listening to the voices of plants and small animals, controlling them to release Poison Gas, but Dian Si simply flattened everything, including people and mountaintops.
This was absolute Strength, and absolute Strength Suppression.
Dian Si sheathed his sword, looked at Su Ming’an once more, sighed, and then imdiately left.
In fact, Dian Si was already sowhat reluctant to join this war.
Fengchang, as well as this young adventurer before him, were both favored by Bai Shen, and he truly did not wish to be their enemy.
...
After Mizushima Kawa Sora and Dian Si left, the team heading to the First Tribe set out.
Teacher Fang, Su Ming’an, and three others, along with the elderly woman and her son, were mbers of this team. The reason the old woman joined was that, at the succession ceremony, kind people would distribute relief food and clothing for free. With this batch of supplies, she could help the people of the small settlent continue to live.
According to Teacher Fang, it would take at least one night from here to the First Tribe, so if they did not find enclosed buildings along the way, they would need the help of a Soul Stone.
Aside from Xiber, who had a Soul Stone that could last for two nights, only Teacher Fang had a small Soul Stone, which she considered a treasure and was very reluctant to use.
When asked about the origin of the Soul Stone, she remained silent, indicating she didn’t wish to speak about it.
As ti gradually moved into the afternoon, the squad rested by a small creek. While Su Ming’an observed the mud by the water, Xiber sat down next to him.
She opened her robe and washed her arms, which were full of thorn scratches. The congealed blood and old scabbed wounds mixed together looked particularly horrifying. She seed to get injured often and didn’t seem to care much about her wounds, leading to untreated and worsened conditions.
"I can’t believe Raven is following you," she said softly, her tone emotionless.
"You know Raven?"
"Just a ssenger of Bai Shen, who doesn’t know him, hiss..." She pressed her temples, seemingly suffering from a headache, "...strange, I really seem to have forgotten a lot of things."
"Hee hee hee, haha..."
While they were talking, a man hopping and skipping suddenly passed by them, splashing into the river with a splash and drenching Xiber with water.
Seeing this, a tinge of shyness appeared on the man’s face; he scratched his head, lingered for a while, then turned around and left, with the incessant apologies of an old woman following behind him.
Su Ming’an, watching Xiber soaked to the bone, with even her hair clinging to a fluttering river fish, thought she would be angry, but to his surprise, she calmly took the fish from her hair and threw it back into the river.
"That guy is called Chang Sheng," Xiber said while combing her hair, "...he’s a simpleton who is only concerned about growing taller, not smarter. He may seem strange, a person on the verge of a Curse outburst, and quite dangerous, right?"
"I don’t think he poses any danger," Su Ming’an said.
"You have a different opinion because you are an adventurer from afar; you wouldn’t know the harm we people can cause when a Curse erupts," Xiber said. "Life before must have been good for you; outside the Black Wall, things are peaceful, without the Curses of our Qiongdi."
Xiber thought he was from outside the Black Wall.
At this mont, Su Ming’an saw the man squatting down by the river picking up stones. The man specifically looked for small ones, licked them after picking them up, and then happily stuffed them into his pocket.
"What is he doing?" Su Ming’an asked.
Xiber laughed softly.
"...He’s picking ’sugar’," she said.
"Sugar?"
"That’s his story," Xiber said, lowering her head to bandage her cleaned wounds. "Chang Sheng’s story is quite short and simple. Do you want to hear it?"
Su Ming’an nodded, listening to such stories of others helped him understand the world’s background.
"Chang Sheng’s earliest story... should be before he was exiled from the Tribe," Xiber said. "At that ti, a child in the Tribe got lost accidentally. It was he who sensed sothing was wrong, and in the middle of the night, he braved the Black Mist to find the child and bring him back.
When he returned carrying the child who had fainted from hunger, the parents thought he had kidnapped the child and beat him with a vine. His mind wasn’t fully developed, and he couldn’t even speak clearly, so he could only take the beating. Others just felt he deserved it, and not only did he deserve it, but he should also be driven out, as the Tribe didn’t need soone who only grew in size. His incomplete mind was seen as a danger to them.
Later, when the child woke up, the truth ca to light. But the parents who had beaten him didn’t want to apologize, for Chang Sheng couldn’t speak, couldn’t reproach them. So, they just covered themselves with their blanket and made it as if nothing had happened..."
Xiber seed to understand these small matters in the Tribe very well, her discourse clear and logical, nothing like a child who hadn’t received a complete education.
She said when she first t Chang Sheng, his mother had brought back so resources from the First Tribe, including a piece of candy for him. He kept that candy with him day and night, taking it with him to als, keeping it in his pocket while working, and running around with it in his hand. One day, so children played a prank on him, secretly replacing his candy with a stone, but he couldn’t tell the difference. He just kept holding onto the stone, living with what he believed to be ’sugar’ in his heart, too precious for him to eat.
Then one day, his "sugar" was lost and he was very sad. His crying made the nearby children laugh with delight.
Another ti was when the neighbor, Aro, said she would give Chang Sheng another piece of sugar if he helped her pick sweet potatoes. He went imdiately, but he did not know that this was not about picking sweet potatoes at all, but about stealing from another tribe. When caught, Aro, being young, was spared, but he, the grown man, was treated as the instigator who tempted Aro into stealing and was severely beaten.
Speaking of this, Xiber lifted her eyelids and glanced at the man who was laughing strangely behind his back.
On the skin of his exposed nape, there were whip marks that had not yet faded, causing him to limp when he walked.
"...and then his leg was crippled," she said. "He completely beca a burden who couldn’t do farm work. After discovering his curse was on the verge of erupting, he was cast out as a worthless piece of trash.
Perhaps because it had been a really long ti since soone talked to her, she had a serene expression while telling the story.
"...But after being misunderstood and driven out by everyone, Chang Sheng finally obtained the countless ’sugar’ he had always dread of."
"The pebbles by the river?" Su Ming’an said.
"Yes," Xiber said. "In Chang Sheng’s eyes, what ’sugar’ truly is, whether it’s sweet, has any taste, or can chip your teeth, no longer mattered.
What he wanted was just like the ’sugar’ he had always believed in, the piece he accidentally lost as a child, the piece he was deceived into wanting by Aro when he was older.
As long as it’s the ’sugar’ he believed it to be, no matter how much others mocked and said they were just stones, now that he has a pocket full of ’sugar’... he is happy now."
"Xiber," Su Ming’an said, "are you happy?"
Xiber turned her head and looked at him.
"My happiness is not important," she said. "To ’beco the god of this land of Qiongdi’ is the sugar in my heart. Don’t ask why I want to beco a god, I know it is difficult, but that is my wish..."
Silvery white hair fluttered by her ears, revealing the old burn scars on the back of her neck.
Su Ming’an suddenly noticed that pinned in the hair near the back of her head was a bright red flower.
Noticing his gaze, she plucked the flower from her hair. The bright red blossom lay in her palm, like a calm fla.
"This was a gift from soone when I was young," she said. "...Why are you staring at like that? Do you really want it that badly? It’s rare to see you like sothing. I thought all you ever did was stare blankly into the distance."
"...I am thinking," he said.
"Really? Well, I can’t tell that you’ve thought of anything," she chuckled as she pushed a flower seed into his palm: "Flowers in Qiongdi usually have a hard ti blooming due to the severe pollution. However, this flower is an exception; it’s called ’Cursed Fire’ and is a precious bloom, possessing certain fire-resistant properties that can effectively repel flas.
"Its flower language signifies ’waiting’ and ’hope’. It doesn’t need sunlight, doesn’t need rain or dew, it just needs to stay close to a person and, after enduring a certain number of years, it will bloom.
"—If you like, you can take it. Whether you keep it in your pocket or string it on your wrist, it’s up to you. But I warn you, it needs at least five years to bloom, and I doubt you’ll be around to see it."
"I will see it," Su Ming’an looked at the seed in his hand. "I will see the flowers bloom... just like you will definitely see the ocean."
Xiber’s expression shifted slightly.
She stared blankly at the flowing stream, seemingly lost in thought.
...
[NPC (Cici), Favorability: 35 10]
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