Inside a restaurant on the island, after ordering her food, Li Yue took out the notebook Lane had given her. It seemed to contain many records. As she opened it, a small slip of paper fell out, appearing as though it had been added recently specifically for her to see.
God's night is boundless.
Your existence is light, a light that constantly fades.
You are that one lonely instant. (Excerpt from Borges' 《The Book of Sand》)
The annotation was signed by Rein. It was likely a quote he had transcribed from somewhere. Although she didn't know his intent, he had certainly written these words for her.
Inexplicably, she thought of Yakutsk and Parvati. It seemed she had fled from both places in a hurry after losing everything.
She felt guilty for Mr. Roland's death and her inability to change the reality of the Inner Ring oppressing the Outer Ring. She could only leave, carrying all that pain and guilt with her.
To avoid leaving regrets behind, she had left with a heart full of them.
The side dishes were served slowly. This was an ordinary little restaurant where she had found a familiar dish—reportedly a modified version of a Royal Court dish. Li Yue considered that since this place wasn't truly far from the Royal Court, it wasn't strange for the culture and customs to be slightly influenced.
Perhaps the ancestors of the people here were refugees from the Royal Court or exiled criminals?
She didn't know and couldn't be bothered to find out. She simply used a spoon to gently scoop up a small piece of congealed blood. This was a delicacy formed through a complex process of mixing fresh plasma with salt, seasoned with chili, pepper, Sichuan peppercorns, and other spices and sauces. As Li Yue ate, she felt a sense of comfort; it had a familiar taste.
A light drizzle began to fall. After finishing her lunch, Li Yue borrowed an umbrella from the shopkeeper and walked alone back toward the inn. The rain here seemed to carry the scent of sea salt. The world was a vast grey blur; adults were busy gathering laundry they had just put out to dry, while children played in the rain in small groups.
Walking through this rain, an umbrella was like a boat rowing upside down through the sky. She walked aimlessly through the downpour, stepping into puddles and accidentally shattering the sky beneath her feet.
She let out a long sigh. Something even more terrifying than a storm seemed about to appear. She looked toward the far end of the island, where someone else was also looking back.
A pair of feet emerged from the rising tide. It was a small old man with a hunched frame and a forehead that bore a faint purple hue.
The people busy returning home did not notice him. Aside from the vassal of Death, no one noticed him. He stood there, waiting quietly for a moment. Everything seemed calm, or rather, the heavy rain continued as if nothing at all were happening.
He seemed a bit weary. With a smile, he let out a breath and pointed his hand at a woman by the roadside. A purple worm appeared at his fingertip and shot out with incredible speed. Before she could react, the purple worm burrowed into her neck.
She was startled and reached up to check her neck, but it was already too late. Her body swelled violently, and countless tubes sprouted from her skin, firing off worms that had finished breeding inside her in an instant.
Then it was a pair of passersby, then dozens more, then an entire residential area. The rioting monsters were like a storm even more violent than the rain. Under this downpour of purple, houses were reduced to nothing in an instant, leaving only writhing monsters. They fused together in clusters, roaring, screaming, and crawling.
“You really don't hesitate at all. I originally wanted to move the battlefield to the sea,” Li Yue sighed. Several passersby ran past her, and in a mere instant, their limbs began to twitch. They twisted 180 degrees, then another 180 degrees. Their heads were wrenched around as if they wanted to get a good look at this vassal of Death.
“But thinking about it, your magic really is more powerful the more living people there are. Even if we moved, you would still kill everyone here.” Li Yue drew her blood sword. The aura of death surrounded her, and a single trail of blood-red tears flowed from each of her eyes. Her body began to change instantly. By the time the surroundings had turned into a scene of deathly silence, she, dressed in her divine raiment, had completed her combat preparations.
“Your tracking ability far exceeds my imagination.” Li Yue released her Death Abyss, puzzled as to how she had been found. The pitch-black sea surface instantly covered the entire island. When she began to sense her surroundings, she finally noticed something was wrong.
How were there so many mutated monsters hidden beneath the surrounding sea? His body felt as if it held an entire mountain of flesh. What the hell... wait... the surrounding islands... how is there not a single living person left on them?
Li Yue froze, then it dawned on her.
“So it was a process of elimination... killing your way through island by island... Truly worthy of an academic; even your research methods are rigorous.” Li Yue let out a cold laugh and summoned the red moon in the sky, completely bathing the area covered by the Death Abyss in the light of a blood moon.
Li Yue gripped the blood sword in a reverse hold, pointing the blade at the ground. Then, she gently loosened her grip. The blood sword plummeted into the Death Abyss. The moment it touched, the Death Abyss surged violently. It was as if countless red eyes had snapped open. A blood-red tide poured out, rushing through the ruins of the buildings. Every life it touched was instantly reduced to nothing.
A massive and pure amount of life force surged from the crimson tide beneath her feet, seemingly absorbed into Li Yue's body. Feeling this vigorous life force, she felt nothing more than a slight sensation of being bloated.
Like a blood demon feasting, Fen'ao in the distance was also shocked by this scene. All the mutants began to swarm toward his body. Even so, massive amounts of skeletal remains appeared on the battlefield as the blood-red tide seemed to settle.
The crimson tide swirled around Li Yue's body, gradually enveloping her entirely as if she were being submerged within it. They clustered around her, wrapping her body in a cocoon.
Li Yue quietly sensed it all. It felt like an instinctive sensation. The massive life force seemed to be bringing changes to her body. It was as if the Death Abyss had been in a state of hunger since she had absorbed it, never fully merging with her. But now, that massive void of life force was being filled.
Everything seemed to go quiet. Fen'ao's body trembled slightly as he constantly murmured...
“Perfect life...”
Crack. Like the sound of something shattering, the giant red cocoon in front of him began to break apart.
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