Chapter 110
Chapter 110
Lu Xingshan stood on empty air, looking down at Mourning Remains.
His face was ashen and withered. If not for the life still flickering in his eyes, anyone would have mistaken him for a corpse.
Multicolored curse inscriptions wove and intertwined in the air, forming an intricate array. It rotated slowly, releasing waves of energy that made the heart palpitate.
From inside the Safe Zone, the people could make out only his distant back.
At that range, he looked no larger than an ant, yet that silhouette carved itself deeply into every pair of eyes and every memory.
Amid the silence, Xue Chuan howled over the communication channel.
“Holy shit!”
“Walking on air! A mighty Dou Ancestor!”
“Run, children! He’s about to unleash the Buddha’s Fury Lotus!”
Lu Xingshan’s back stiffened almost imperceptibly. It lasted only an instant, but Qin Lan could vaguely sense his urge to curse someone’s mother.
Apparently, he had heard.
“That curse inscription…” Qin Lan narrowed his eyes as his heart clenched.
The inscription was not targeting him, and he was watching from a great distance, yet it still radiated an overwhelming threat.
Qin Lan had no doubt that if he faced it himself, he would have no possibility of survival.
“No. He wouldn’t…” Luo Yue said, trembling. Her pupils shook with terror, grief, and disbelief. “How did it come to this…?”
Qin Lan’s heart sank.
Even he understood what those words meant.
Everyone possessed one ultimate move they could use only once in their life.
Perhaps it meant exhausting every drop of curse energy to double a group of summons and brutally gang up on an opponent.
Perhaps it meant randomly pulling an extraordinarily dangerous cursed artifact from a pocket and using it to perish with the enemy.
Or perhaps, after having your wages withheld, it meant reaching an “amicable resolution” at knifepoint with a crooked employment agent.
Lu Xingshan’s ultimate move was sealing.
The price of that seal was everything he possessed.
Strength. Curses. Life.
All of it would be consumed by this single inscription.
[Beep, beep.]
[Lu Xingshan (Director) is requesting a call.]
[Accept / Decline]
For once, Qin Lan actually had the option to reject the call.
He stared at the interface, desperately wishing it resembled those previous occasions, when every choice had been some absurdly domineering variation of [Accept / Agree / Okay / Yes / Sure].
“Little Qin.” Lu Xingshan sounded the same as always. Nothing seemed to have changed. His voice held the same familiar warmth and composure.
“That anomaly has my friends’ blood on its hands. I have to make it repay the debt.”
“The threat of the Abyss is more terrifying than you imagine, but I’ll leave you enough time… enough to grow until you can look it in the eye, enough to crush it.”
Qin Lan remained silent and waited for him to continue.
Lu Xingshan’s voice held apology and melancholy.
“If I weren’t the director of the Anomaly Hunter Bureau, perhaps I could’ve spent my days playing cards, walking my bird, and going fishing whenever I felt like it.”
“But I have to stand in front of the Safe Zone now.”
“That child Luo Yue probably won’t accept my explanation, so I’ll leave comforting her to you…”
Qin Lan tugged at the corner of his mouth and forced dull words through his throat.
“Director, is there any other possibility?”
“Like you suddenly laughing and saying you tricked me, then mocking me for making a face like some weepy woman?”
“This sudden heroic tragedy routine is a bit much for me.”
Lu Xingshan laughed, though his voice was much weaker than before.
“I wish that were possible.”
Silence returned.
Qin Lan did not know how to respond. Countless words rose in his throat, only to be blocked by an inexplicable emotion.
Lu Xingshan coughed.
“I can hold back that thing called Shan Bai for three years.”
“Within those three years, you must surpass me. Only then will you have any hope of opposing it. That shouldn’t be difficult for you…”
His voice grew weaker, but his tone became lighter.
“I once thought you could take over my position someday… but then I realized it would only restrain you.”
“Your stage is far greater than mine.”
He sighed.
“I was born on this land. I grew beneath its sky. I watched its people and took their weight upon my shoulders.”
“If I can die watching the young take flight, I suppose that’s a fine ending.”
“Don’t disappoint me.”
The call disconnected.
The curse inscription in the heavens crashed down with irresistible force, carrying everything Lu Xingshan possessed–his will, his memories–as it fell toward the earth.
Unexpectedly, there was no earth-shaking explosion and no strange, brilliant spectacle.
Everything abruptly returned to calm, as though nothing had happened.
Outside the Safe Zone, the horrifying amalgamation of corpses dissolved into nothingness. Not even a trace of its curse remained.
Shen Qiu and Fang Yue did not reappear either.
The only thing left behind was a translucent curse inscription.
It flickered, streaked across the sky like a meteor, and struck an instance in the Fallen Zone that had been sealed off by the Anomaly Hunter Bureau.
Fairytale Town.
The instance that appeared to be only 3-Star.
The instance where the Abyss had appeared and drawn the gaze of a being from the other side.
The source of the disaster.
Its entrance was completely covered, just like the peak 4-Star anomaly. Not a single trace remained.
Only a displeased whisper could faintly be heard.
[Tsk. What a troublesome fellow…]
[There were clearly better choices, yet you insisted on doing it this way…]
The whisper vanished, completely isolated.
Inside Safe Zone 088, Qin Lan lowered his head and stared at the map on his communicator. The point representing Lu Xingshan dimmed until it went dark.
He said nothing for a long time.
It was not only Lu Xingshan. The coordinates of the two Anomaly Hunters from the Central Region had already gone dark as well.
Luo Yue sobbed quietly over the channel.
Even Xue Chuan turned uncharacteristically serious.
“The fissures have changed.”
“I can sense that the transit space they lead to has been disconnected from the larger world behind it.”
“But… I don’t know how many anomalies remain inside that space.”
Xue Chuan paused.
“If we’re lucky, maybe only a few. A dozen at most.”
“If we’re unlucky…”
He did not finish, but Qin Lan understood.
Even though Lu Xingshan had temporarily resolved the threats of the 4-Star anomaly and the Abyss, the fifteen spatial fissures remained an enormous danger.
With the being called Shan Bai isolated, the anomalies went mad. Their attacks grew fiercer and more frequent, like a dying creature’s final counterattack.
Unless they made a decision quickly, Safe Zone 088 still faced annihilation.
Helplessness was the only thing anyone felt.
Qin Lan remained silent, uncertain how to answer.
If he did not deal with those fissures, Safe Zone 088’s destruction was only a matter of time.
If he entered one, he might face the combined assault of an unknown number of 3-Star anomalies.
Even if he were powerful enough to kill one with every punch, they might still exhaust him to death on the other side.
If Qin Lan died, who would deal with the being from the Abyss when it broke through the seal three years from now?
Could they ask Anomaly Hunter Bureau headquarters for help?
Lu Xingshan had tried. He had also subtly conveyed terrible news to Qin Lan–the Central Region’s most powerful Anomaly Hunters were in no position to act.
Otherwise, Fang Yue and Shen Qiu would not have been the only two to arrive.
It was a difficult choice.
“Old Qin,” Xue Chuan suddenly said. “If you really intend to enter a fissure, I suggest writing your last words first.”
“If you die without leaving a body and I have to write your eulogy afterward, your buddy isn’t exactly cultured.”
“The best I can manage is something like, ‘My brother Qin Lan was actually pretty good-looking’… If you don’t mind, that’ll work.”
Qin Lan did not even have the energy to call him a jinx.
“Fair point.” He gave a self-mocking laugh. “But now that you’ve suddenly asked me to write my last words, I don’t know what to put.”
“Qin Lan was here?”
“Or ‘Missing you from the other side of the fissure’?”
Xue Chuan thought for a moment, then offered a reliable answer.
“At least say goodbye to the people you know. What do you think?”
“Going off to die without telling anyone looks pretty cool, but it’s also fucking stupid.”
Fair point.
Qin Lan rubbed his chin and realized Xue Chuan’s suggestion actually made sense.
“Hey…” Luo Yue’s tearful curse came over the channel. “Before you two assholes discuss all this unlucky crap, could you remember that other people are listening?”
“Why does someone have to die? Why do you insist on doing this?”
She cursed between uncontrollable sobs.
Xue Chuan answered casually. “Because someone’s always going to die.”
“If it isn’t you, it’s me. If it isn’t me, it’s him. Otherwise, it’ll be someone else.”
“As long as the death means something, that’s not so bad.”
“As the saying goes, if I do not enter hell, who will–”
Qin Lan’s mouth twitched as he resisted the urge to curse. “Listening to you, anyone would think you’re the one about to die heroically.”
“You bastard… You used up all the cool lines. What am I supposed to say now?”
Xue Chuan’s chuckle came through the communicator.
“Don’t worry, brother. We’re close enough that it doesn’t matter which one of us says them.”
Qin Lan could not help calling him a beast.
Still, Xue Chuan’s interruption genuinely lightened his mood.
Even the unknown threat of death he was about to face no longer seemed quite so heavy.
“All right, brother. Take your time thinking up your last words. Tell me when you’re done. I’ll read them aloud at your funeral with real passion and feeling.”
After delivering yet another astonishing statement, Xue Chuan continued, “Gotta go. I’ve still got work to do here.”
Then he left the channel.
During the time that followed, Qin Lan found a chance to meet Luo Yue and Tang Qingqing once more.
After he entered the fissure, the two of them would leave Safe Zone 088 and return only once the crisis had been confirmed resolved.
When it came time to say goodbye, Qin Lan could not squeeze out much.
He simply explained a few things that needed handling afterward and told Tang Qingqing to improve her strength and take good care of Luo Yue.
Qin Lan had never been good at dealing with women.
Especially women who would not stop crying.
With both Luo Yue and Tang Qingqing red-eyed at the same time, the pressure was immense.
After some thought, Qin Lan opened his communicator and tried to contact Su Xiaoyue.
His request rang for a long time, the beeping repeating over and over, but no one answered.
“Mm… A message it is.”
Qin Lan actually felt relieved.
Leaving Su Xiaoyue a message about these heavy matters was much easier than telling her directly.
He was still arranging his words when an unusual tremor suddenly ran through the air.
The fifteen fissures were shaking.
“What is…”
Qin Lan turned in shock toward a fissure nearby.
Under his astonished, bewildered gaze, it shuddered violently, then began collapsing bit by bit.
Messages erupted across the public channel at once.
Without exception, every report announced the collapse of another fissure.
The sudden good news struck Qin Lan like a hammer, leaving his mind spinning.
Was it over?
Had the Safe Zone been saved?
“Holy shit!”
“I don’t have to write my last words!”
Coming back to his senses, Qin Lan shouted excitedly over the channel. “Bastard, you wanted to attend my funeral? Wait a few more years! I’m blessed with incredible luck, understand?!”
Xue Chuan did not answer.
“Playing cool and silent now? Are you that disappointed you won’t get to make things up in my eulogy and slander me?”
“Gone mute? Where are you?”
Qin Lan laughed and called for Xue Chuan repeatedly.
Still no answer.
At last, Qin Lan sensed that something was wrong.
Xue Chuan’s silence. The sudden collapse of the fissures…
A thought struck like thunder, turning Qin Lan cold from head to toe.
“Xue Chuan!”
“Fuck your mother! Answer me!”
The wind continued to blow, carrying dust and the smell of blood across the devastated land.
The sky remained gray-white.