No one saw where that spear came from. Light and darkness clashed at its tip, and violent currents swirled around its edge. As it surged forward and ascended into the sky, eerie violet magical energy stacked and poured into it.
At a certain moment, its power reached its peak, suddenly streaking across the dark night like a meteor piercing the firmament. This pillar of dazzling light shattered the gloom shrouding the theater!
Moonlight spilled into the opera house, and the people saw the body of the Artist shatter within the silver-white radiance. That pitch-black silent mask was covered in cracks, turning into gray powder that drifted in the air. Its life force rapidly faded to a low point, something that had never happened during its previous deaths.
Xu Xiaoyou let out a long breath. The giant die behind her faded into a phantom, its rotation no longer violent as it vented long trails of steam. All the blood-colored eyes in the void closed, their mockery vanished.
Before returning to the Star of Art, she had spent 1,000 destiny points and assigned the effect of Destiny Moment to Angelina, obliterating the Artist in a single strike of the spear.
Tang Xin stood beside her, looking up at her. She cautiously reached out and interlaced her fingers with Xu Xiaoyou's, offering a smile.
What concerned Xu Xiaoyou was why the favorability plot 【The Girl Who Fell into the Starry Garden】 had not ended even as the great play reached its finale.
In the audience, the survivors only then noticed their own breathing and heartbeats.
Was the Artist truly killed this time?
The question could not help but sprout in people's minds.
In the next moment, a sudden change occurred!
The Artist's body twitched violently. Black sludge-like matter surged out of its corpse, swirling around the shattered mask and rushing toward Xu Xiaoyou.
Xu Xiaoyou's gaze turned sharp. The Hundred-Bone Whip materialized in her hand, and she lashed out at the mass of black sludge, intercepting its path.
Everything happened too suddenly. At the moment the finale of Storm Song arrived, lightning flashed across the sky. Just as people were freed from that searing white light, the thunder roared in!
"Watch out..."
The mass of black sludge evaded Xu Xiaoyou's whip at an incredibly subtle angle, brushing past her. By the time she realized its true target, it was already too late.
The blue-haired girl who had been holding her hand was swept into the air by that irresistible force, rising to the theater's dome. The rules of silence transformed into an endless black aura that poured into her body, twisting the girl's limbs, tearing her skin, and finally snapping her wings.
After a brief moment of agony, Tang Xin slowly closed her eyes and fell from a height of dozens of meters. Xu Xiaoyou stepped forward but was pushed back by a tsunami-like black wave of aura erupting from the girl's body.
Tang Xin's twisted limbs were like a puppet's, pulled up by invisible threads. Her hands hovered in mid-air as deep-blue light-gauze formed a conductor's string sword. That elegant and proper black evening gown trailed on the ground, with stardust drifting between the folds of the skirt.
A pitch-black silent mask formed over the right half of her face. Her left eye, which had once been as peaceful as the deep sea, was now dim and lusterless, leaving only a hollow silence.
The overwhelming urban legend aura stated a fact at every moment: the Artist had not been killed. She had returned in another, more powerful form.
Xu Xiaoyou looked at the Tang Xin before her. Whether in facial features or temperament, she was so similar to usual, yet so foreign. She had clearly never let go of the other's hand, yet the girl had still inevitably fallen into the abyss.
Many memories of her past time with the girl appeared in her mind like shells on a seashore.
Tang Xin's eyes were vacant. Her slender index finger rested on the hilt of the conductor's string sword, lifting it upward. Music scores flowed around her, encircling the sky above the entire opera house. The tide of sound was even more violent than a tsunami, surging out from beneath the girl again and again. With the swing of that string sword, the overture of destruction began.
Everything within a hundred-meter radius of the girl began to crumble. Great cracks appeared in the floor, and marks like the tears of a beast spread along the walls all the way to the dome. The audience seating began to collapse into the ground, as the screams and wails of the people echoed under the heavens.
Xu Xiaoyou's eyes trembled. She tried to step forward multiple times, but each time she was pushed back a hundred meters by the sound waves generated by the girl's string sword.
She saw tears flowing from the girl's left eye, condensing into black droplets at the corner of her eye.
At some point, the screams and wails of the people stopped. The girl at the center of the storm placed her finger against her pale lips in a shushing gesture. Zippers appeared in unison over the mouths of tens of thousands of people, quickly sealing shut, preventing even a single wail from escaping.
Tang Xin swung the conductor's string sword to the sides. A nobleman in the audience seat underwent a collapse from the inside out, torn inch by inch into jumping, bright-red musical notes. The painful wails suppressed in his throat became the sound represented by this note, and his life flowed into the score above the theater in another form.
Tang Xin's fingertip guided the conductor's string sword downward. Another nobleman attempting to flee was crushed into a bloody mist by heavy pressure.
Hundreds of invisible giant hands extended from the hem of the girl's evening gown, wandering above her like countless life-seeking demons and vengeful spirits. Once they caught the scent of a prey's blood, they would swarm and tear them apart.
No one could escape this trial.
A second, third, and fourth note slowly joined the score, becoming part of a melody.
The performance continued; death played out.
Destruction meant rebirth.
An official was found dead in his home, a letter of 'suggestions' addressed to the Life Daybreak Supervisory Association resting on his desk.
A politician was refined into a musical note. A girl who had suffered at his hands, her clothes in tatters, looked in terror at the dead man before her. She screamed loudly, but none of the security guards outside the door responded; they had all been painted into the walls, becoming permanent, unfading pigment.
A man who knew his sins were heavy learned that his former accomplices were being killed one by one. He knelt on the ground, confessing his crimes to an unknown entity. As he straightened his body, the world was already spinning.
A banker who had used the 'Creative Drawing Seedling' predatory loan scheme to trick students, driving them to suicide while he profited immensely, was found dead on the street.
An investor who had aggressively promoted 'Bubble Apartments,' causing countless young people to be poisoned by debt and burdened with loans they could never repay in their lifetime, became a lusterless statue.
Dozens of kilometers away, at the station, the Minister of Food Safety waited anxiously for the Heart's Desire train, cold sweat dripping from his forehead. He was the culprit behind the 118 Keyboard District child food poisoning incident.
He had simply packaged toxic food contaminated with heavy metals as high-nutrition 'ecological food' and sold it at low prices to unknowing orphanage directors, leading to the direct or indirect deaths of 136 children.
Standing with him were many remnants of the Belvedere faction. For their own interests or political struggles, their hands were more or less stained with the blood of the innocent.
They had also watched the livestream and felt a premonition of disaster. They had abandoned their wives or husbands, used connections to get tickets, and gathered here to flee the city.
The train entered the station.
The moment their eyes lit up, punishment descended. One of them disintegrated on the spot, and those traveling with him screamed, pushing and shoving to get onto the train.
An invisible giant hand crushed the entire train into scrap metal, and all these politicians died violently the moment before the train departed.
Above the theater, hundreds and thousands of notes flowed on the score, refined from human souls.
Looking up from below, they were like fish drifting in this pale, rotten ocean, struggling, screaming, and wailing, performing a solemn melody of mourning with their collective pain. The magnificent scene deeply shocked all the spectators present.
Finally, it was time for the more innocent ordinary people.
"Look at the people you saved, their ignorant gazes, their numb indifference."
"They will not understand you, let alone be grateful for what you have done."
"You are not a savior, just a demon with the blood of countless lives on your hands."
"What is the point of doing all this? They will not stand up to speak for you."
"People will loathe you and fear you!"
"Destroy it. Destroy everything in this world!"
The girl was already trapped in a chaotic mess of thoughts, unable to extricate herself. Various chaotic words constantly bewitched her, turning into sharp thorns that pierced her body and drained her consciousness. The fragmented memories of thousands of lives in the world of ice and snow fell like raindrops, mixing into the gale, buffeting her body and pouring into her mind.
Tang Xin wept sadly.
She saw those fearful faces, heard the words of people accusing and cursing her, and saw countless resentful gazes condensing from the cold, dark void, piercing through her chest. The pressure was so heavy she could not breathe, and she was willing to sink deeper and deeper into these chaotic thoughts.
What was she doing?
Had she hurt innocent people?
She couldn't...
She couldn't hurt more people.
And she certainly couldn't hurt the person important to her.
Seizing a one-in-a-million moment, Tang Xin slowly raised the conductor's string sword. Xu Xiaoyou stood in place, silently watching all this happen.
Under the terrified gazes of countless people.
The conductor's string sword was held against her own neck. The wind gently brushed the stray hairs near her mouth. Tang Xin's eyes brimmed with a blue full moon. She seemed to be crying, yet also laughing. It was unclear if it was grievance or regret, but a broken curve outlined this expression.
The wind stopped and the sound ceased. In the sky seen by the person she loved, the girl pulled with force, as if plucking a string on a cello!
Blood splashed across the sky.
At the beginning of the memory was a hazy beach.
Waves pushed crystal-clear shells onto the sand, shattering into white foam against the coastal rocks. The cries of seabirds faded, and the rushing sound of the ebbing tide lingered in her ears.
Tang Xin opened her eyes blankly. Her body felt incredibly light at this moment, no longer in pain, no longer in sorrow. The peaceful night sea breeze gently blew the girl's white gauze dress. Consciously, she smoothed her dress, tucked the loose hair behind her ear, and leaned over to pick up a shell.
The scene changed as she picked up the shell. She saw a bright classroom. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the leaves, gently caressing the children's desks.
Laughter was mixed in with the sound of reading. She walked into this small world and saw children chasing and playing, running in the warm light.
She unknowingly walked to the desk of a little girl in the corner. The girl had long sky-blue hair. Her small face was dusty, and she had a band-aid on her cheek. She sat in her seat with her head down, thinking about something.
The name Sevinah lingered in Tang Xin's throat. She realized with a start that this was not Sevinah, but herself.
To be precise, it was her as a child.
No wonder everything felt so familiar yet strange.
In her childhood, she could not see a colorful and vibrant world.
She watched that thin, small figure tightly clutching a box of crayons, staring at her own desk. Compared to the children chasing each other, the little girl seemed out of place in her surroundings, giving off a sense of inexplicable... stubbornness?
She had heard many people call her stubborn before. Only when she saw her past self with her own eyes did she realize just how fitting that word was.
At this time, the laughter of children suddenly came from her ears.
"Everyone, look at the painting Sevia made."
The nearby children gathered around to watch. Only then did Tang Xin notice a drawing on the little girl's desk. In the painting, there was a bird in the azure sky. It held a branch in its beak, flying aimlessly in the vast world, not knowing where it was going.
"The colors are all wrong. How can a bird have blue wings? Aren't all the birds in the Morning Star picture books red-winged?"
"Exactly, exactly. Why would a bird fly over the sea holding a branch? I can't even understand what it's trying to express."
Tang Xin stared at the painting in a daze. What was she thinking when she painted this little bird back then?
Hearing the words nearby, the little girl did not argue. She just sat in her seat without moving, silently clutching her crayons. The children's ridicule echoed in her ears, but she seemed not to hear it, immersed in her own world.
Blue-eared pitta, blue macaw, black-naped monarch, blue-fronted redstart, common kingfisher—as long as the little girl wanted, she could easily name these blue-winged birds to refute the children around her, but she did not choose to do so.
She just stubbornly sat in her seat holding the crayon box.
"Sevia, is this your painting? It's beautiful. Can you tell the teacher where this little bird is flying?" The preschool teacher noticed the situation and came over, squatting in front of the girl and speaking softly.
The little girl still did not respond.
"See? This little monster is definitely a mute. She stays by herself all day. Who knows what crazy things are going on in her head? Let's not play with her."
"Exactly!"
"Monster, little monster. You're a monster just like your monster mother."
After hearing the word 'mother,' the little girl's grip on the crayon box tightened noticeably. It was only when the teacher frowned and drove the children away that things eased slightly.
Tang Xin didn't quite understand. As long as she responded and spoke what was in her heart, she wouldn't be bullied by the other children. Why didn't she choose to do that?
While she was lost in thought, she heard the little girl say softly, "My name isn't Sevia."
Before the teacher could react, the little girl had already clutched her crayon box and hurried out of the classroom. Tang Xin was stunned and instinctively chased after her. After an unknown amount of time, the little girl stopped in the corridor and turned to face Tang Xin.
In the bright light, Tang Xin could not see the other's expression clearly, only vaguely seeing the change in the little girl's lips.
"You, come with me."
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