Volume 7 - CH 4

Chapter 4: The Messenger and the Bracelet

Atlantis 9:46 AM

“The match resumes!”

The sounds around me had completely disappeared, and all I could see was the array beneath me, still continuously rotating without a change in its course.

“The ice and flame illusionary weapon, Fiery Cloud Felling Spear, indeed lives up to its fame.” The opponent that came out was also a black robe. His hand extended in a straight line and then he took out a straight blade that resembled a Japanese sword. “Yǔ wǒ qiāndìng qìyuē zhī wù, ràng tiǎozhàn zhě jiēshòu nǐ de xuèxǐ.”

[T/N: The one who signed a contract with me, allow the challenger to receive your bloodbath.]

That blade was bright red, like blood.

“Blade of Blood, Chief of Kings.” Mohander curved into a smile then stopped a few steps away from Senior.

The opposing purple robe was the same as me, standing within the huge array as well.

I had a feeling that I’m going to die.

“The Royal Weapons’ Blade of Blood, has been well known for ages.” Glancing at the opponent’s blood blade, Senior was still coldly smiling.

The surrounding temperature seemed to have started to drop. I swear, this time my perception was definitely right because icy cold fog was already rising up from the water. The entire floor of the stage instantly became a vast expanse of white.

A second later, the white fog turned blood red. I could vaguely see the water below turning blood red as well, very eerie.

“Chief of Kings, renowned as a blade of calamity.” Bending down and picking up a bit of the red fog, Senior opened his hand to let it dissipate. “One of the seven great calamities, the weapon of blood.”

“That’s right.”

In the blink of an eye, Mohander had already appeared behind Senior. Spinning his blade, he aimed to slash the back of Senior’s neck. “So just give up your life!”

That speed was already one where I couldn’t see anything at all.

Quickly dodging that, Senior took less than half a second to reappear on the shrine’s staircase. Red sheet ice immediately covered the entire staircase, and exuded an icy fog. “Thunder.” He stretched out two fingers in front of him and drew a straight line down. A purple bolt of lightning suddenly released a loud crack before racing down and directly striking the blood red water.

Large ripples appeared on the surface of the water, then started to emit smoke.

A pained voice came from the surface of the water. Mohander, who had originally disappeared, fell off from the water’s surface. Less than half a second had passed and he had promptly righted himself. Touching his toes to the water, he then rose back into the air.

Watching this scene before me, I suddenly thought of something. Aren’t these arrays beneath me and the opponent, supposed to prevent the opponent from using any spells? So why is Senior able to use the purple lightning?

“Chu! Behind you!” Senior, who was standing before the shrine, suddenly looked back. By the time I realized it, the silver spear in his hands was already casting towards me. In less than a blink of an eye, I saw something silver graze by my cheek before flying past me.

A heavy “dong” sounded out. I turned around, just in time to see the silver spear piercing through an unknown black fish creature.Asit heavily fell back, enormous red splashes appeared on the surface of the water. I froze for a moment then unconsciously went back a step, until I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to move around on this array. By then, it was already too late.

The faint glow from the array’s activation vanished in the next second. Starting from the outermost, countless symbols and totems crumbled and fell as if they were crushed into powder.

From beneath the crushed powder, and stepping on the black fish floating on the water, a dark purple shadow leaped high up and landed right in front of me. “Caught you.” Behind that purple robe, was a huge teleportation array.

Time suddenly stood still, making the surroundings seem like it was in slow motion. I could only watch on helplessly as that purple robe came closer and closer, with small yet sharp long needles appearing within his hands.

I saw him curving into a smile, his lips slowly moving. Then as if we were suddenly connected through a phone line, his voice softly, very softly, rang out beside my ears: “You’re someone that King Bishen wants…”

“Chu!”

An extremely familiar yell woke me up with a start. I took a step back but that part of the array had already crumbled off, letting me step right off and fall into the blood red water. The moment I passed through the water, I felt like I nearly suffocated. The surroundings were very quiet, so quiet that it’s like nothing exists. I slowly sank down but couldn’t touch the bottom.

There was a black thing like a soft cloth that gradually unfolded itself before my eyes.

Then in that blurry state, a face strangely appeared but it seems very familiar.

***

Do you want to be saved?

***

That face asked me then lowered its blurry black hands.

I want to, of course I want to. Being surrounded by this silence is so terrifying. It’s as if this place never had any living things before, and that not even I seem to be alive. Thus, I reached out my hands and held onto that black thing.

In that same second, I was instantly dragged up by force. Above the water, I could immediately hear the clamor as well as uproar of the audience.

I coughed and spat out the water I swallowed. My whole mouth was filled with the fishy smell of blood, almost making me throw up.

Honestly, right now I have an overwhelming desire for this damn bloody water to return back to normal. It’s so stinky, so incredibly stinky, that it’s simply unbearable!

“Take a look ladies and gentlemen, the blood technique on the water stage is being forced back!”

The announcer’s voice was suddenly relayed over. A huge uproar instantly rose up around us. Following those voices, I mechanically lowered my head to look. Just now, the fine powder that had broken off from the array slowly emitted light, like stars underwater, as they rapidly expanded. Then, the color of the blood red water retreated and its original deep blue look was restored.

A wave directly hit me on my head.

***

I heard a fine bell-like sound, but before I could carefully listen to find where it came from, that purple evildoer, who missed just now, had once again reappeared in front of me.

“Not bad, but just where can you flee to this time?” He stood in midair and then crouched down. He directed a slight smile at me, instantly covering me in countless goosebumps.

I secretly peeked at the movements in the shrine, where Senior and that black robe were currently fighting each other. After losing his weapon, it became a bit harder for Senior to cope. I suppose it’ll be rather difficult for him to immediately rush over to my side.

Looks like this time I’ll die for certain.

The purple robed Tenju slowly pulled out long, thin silver needles, “Don’t worry, you only need to obediently sleep until the General Assembly ends…”

In that second, I thought of how just now under the water, I had held onto that blurry black hand that seems to be there and yet not there.

The surrounding water suddenly exploded, just like the scene in the movies that’s often played whenever a huge sea monster appears. From below, a long black leg charged upwards and abruptly swept over, causing entire waves to violently surge. Tenju, who was originally in front of me, felt the disturbance and before the black figure could hit him, he had already jumped clear of it.

Drops of water fell on my face as if it was raining.

Then I saw that beneath the water, was a blurry black face with only yellow eyes that continuously turned. After that, it turned completely black, and slowly expanded right beneath where I was floating.

That face was very familiar, I seem to have been frightened by it, not too long ago…

“Chu! Hurry up and come up!” Senior’s voice almost sounded like he was close by. I came to my senses just in time to notice that the waves had washed me up not too far away from the shrine. As soon as I saw that my savior was right in front of me, I immediately scrambled on all fours up the stairs of the shrine.

After reaching the top, I truly felt that the shrine was even bigger than when I’d seen it from the periphery. Just the shrine’s gate was already three stories high, not to mention the white stone statue inside. The entire shrine was high enough to reach the sky. The snake-bodied woman inside almost touched the elaborately carved ceiling, its lifelike snake scales faintly glowing from the reflection of the waves.

Senior suddenly appeared in front of me and dragged me inside the shrine. Before I could even say anything, the opposing black robe appeared within the shrine at almost the same time.

The scarlet blood blade sliced down between us. Senior was one step faster and pushed me out of the way. He then did a backflip and, borrowing the strength from forcefully kicking the shrine’s gate, jumped up on the beams. One of the gates that was heavily kicked, made a heavy crashing sound and then bounced backwards. It hit the wall and after that, bounced right back again, directly getting stuck in the entrance with a “peng” sound.

Uh…regardless of whichever god is being worshipped here, sorry to bother you, but if there’s any divine retribution and the like, please don’t look for me, thank you.

“Looks like it’s rather difficult for your school’s black robe to take you into account.” Tenju, who was endlessly pestering me, once again appeared before me. He leisurely brushed off the drops of water on his clothes, and slowly walked step by step into the shrine. “Clear Wind Academy’s black robe is indeed quite strong, but I guess it won’t take long before he’s defeated. After all, your Senior still has yet to seriously fight with him.”

Senior wasn’t being serious?

Nn, actually I also seem to have that sort of feeling. It’s just that I didn’t dare to say it so blatantly ou loud.

Tenju snapped his fingers and I suddenly couldn’t hear the sounds of the audience outside. The surroundings quieted down, except for those two that were still having a heated standoff up on the beams. “This place really is so inconvenient, everything that we say will be transmitted outside.” He narrowed his eyes and curved into a cold smile. “Now it’s better, I’ve already placed down a third basic barrier, so we can have a relaxing little chat.”

He crossed his arms and leaned against the door. I guess he wouldn’t be able to make a move in this short time, but this person had always gave me a bad feeling so I still took a few steps back to increase the distance between us and to express my peace of mind.

“You might be the one I’m looking for. If you cooperate a little, I wouldn’t hurt you, I’ll simply let you sleep for a bit. After the General Assembly, I’ll let you wake up to meet my master.” Without even introducing that master, Tenju quickly got through the main point.

“What master?” I was stunned, unable to understand what he had just said. Isn’t he a representative player of Clear Wind Academy? Why would he still have some kind of master?

“You’ll know once you see him.” He said the most useless sentence ever. And I would also like to tell him, it’s very likely that I still wouldn’t know who he is even after I meet him.

“You…” Just as Tenju seemed like he wanted to say something, a golden stream of fire simultaneously fell down from the sky. Abruptly smashing into the ground between us, it didn’t take long for the flames to immediately burn wildly.

“Tsk.” The purple robe, who was interrupted, frowned as he glanced up. A black shadow jumped down alongside the flames.

“What kind of nonsense are you saying to our school’s player!”

Senior, who had shaken off his opponent, stood in front of me as he coldly said.

Next, the other black robe also came down, but it wasn’t a perfect landing where he landed on his feet. Instead, it was more like a sack had directly fallen down with a heavy crash. He was safely caught by Tenju who did a turn.

Small, black totem marks appeared on Mohander’s forehead and he had completely lost consciousness.

Casually searching for a place to put him down, Tenju didn’t have the look of one-about-to-face-an-impending-disaster at all. Instead, he curved into a smile that makes one’s hair stand on end. “Nothing much, I just wanted to make a negotiation with him, where each of us would get what we want.” He shrugged, then took off the purple robe on his body. Underneath it was a simple black outfit.

Where each of us would get what we want?

I was a little curious about his words.

“Chu has nothing to negotiate with you!” Senior snorted, then pushed me back.

I don’t know why, towards this feeling Senior gave me today, I kept feeling that it was rather odd. Including the matter where he had me go buy drinks or something, this whole thing could only be described as “strange”.

“Is there really nothing, or is he himself still unaware of it.” His eyes stared straight at me like a snake. Tenju stepped forward and the golden flames immediately extinguished. He stopped in front of Senior. “I think, he should be curious as to why he came to this world…You guys never tell him anything, you want to monopolize…”

A faint light flashed, and hastily dodging backwards, Tenju had a few strands of black hair on his forehead cut off.

The interior of the shrine began to freeze. Just like what I had previously seen during the match with Barbulis, thick heavy ice walls slowly covered up the entire interior, giving off a white fog.

“You’re not someone from Clear Wind Academy, who are you?!”

Senior’s tone had completely changed.

***

There was a moment when I seemed to have recalled where I’ve seen that black shadow before, but I forgot it in the next second.

The surrounding temperature continued to linearly lower, so low that my feet seem to have followed suit in being frozen to the ground. A very familiar pressure pressed down on my head, making me break into a cold sweat. A nauseating feeling, like that night in the construction site when we were hiding from someone, was surging up from my throat. Feeling faint, my vision blurred and I almost fell backwards.

“You’re indeed a black robe who was taught by the three of them. Such a keen perception, a normal robe level would still fall short of you.” Tenju combed back his hair, and dark blue hair slowly extended out from his fingers. In a blink of an eye, it had already reached the length of his waist. He tossed out a piece of string and tied his hair into a ponytail behind his head. His eyes turned blue with a tinge of gold, and finally his face became distorted. A completely different face appeared in the next second. “If we haven’t met in this kind of situation, I really would’ve wanted to have a proper fight with you.”

Senior was obviously stunned for a moment, “You’re…Andellar! Evil…”

“Hush, this is a little secret.” Swiftly cutting off Senior’s words, the face-changing person held out his index finger and placed it on his lips that were curved up in a cold smile. “I had to go to great pains just to infiltrate the General Assembly’s competition, only to act as a messenger for my master and to do a little negotiating with this student. Don’t be so hasty to reveal my identity, especially in the situation where you aren’t feeling well, right?”

Not feeling well?

I looked at Senior with surprise. I totally didn’t realize that there was something wrong with this person, other than his words being a bit strange.

“Chu, hurry up and leave the shrine!” Lowering his voice as he said this beside my ears, Senior pushed me back again. “You’re not one of Clear Wind Academy’s players, what did you do to the real purple robe Tenju?”

“Nn…let me think.” With that ice-cold smile still hanging on his face, the face-changing person seemed to think for a moment. “That’s right, for the sake of convenience, I completely took over his identity. So I had already thoroughly disposed of the person along with his soul. The taste of a purple robe’s soul is still a bit lacking, I wonder, how would a black robe taste?”

“Hmph, that’s only if you can eat it!”

“Then you’ll rather respect than obey.”

[T/N:恭敬不如從命 I believe it means that it’s better to be obedient rather than simply being respectful. So I think he’s saying that Senior’s not taking his advice.]

The violent gold and black fires seem to almost collide at the same time. Then, the second they touched, a violent explosion immediately occurred.

“Chu! Hurry up and run!” Picking up the unconscious Mohander on the side, and throwing him towards the entrance, Senior took out a white charm. “Jùfēng, liúhuǒ, chéngwéi wǒ shǒu shàng pò dí de bīngqì ba!” An spear-like illusionary weapon appeared within Senior’s hands. He took one step forward, and directly hacked at the face-changing person’s head with the spear’s blade.

[T/N: Hurricane, meteor, become a weapon in my hand to destroy the enemy!]

I didn’t dare to even stop, simply rushing towards the exit of the shrine.

Just as I stepped over the threshold, and thought I could rush outside to call for help, an intense pain suddenly burst out on my face. To the point where it was like someone had taken an iron hammer and fiercely smashed it at your face, with a force that completely doesn’t care if you get disfigured. “Wa!” I heard the sound of my cry and fell backwards.

“He placed a barrier at the shrine’s entrance, break it!” Senior’s voice once again came from behind me.

Of course I know that I have to break it! But how am I supposed to do that? I’ve never learned how to break a barrier before, would it break if I threw an incense burner? Probably not, right?

Then I looked at my own hands. Forming a circle with my hands and putting them before me, I remembered something that even elfin children can use. “Shuǐ zhī chàng, fēng yǔ fēng qǐwǔ míng, yī zhī shuǐ dāo kuáng.” Please, you definitely have to work! Even though I haven’t practiced at all, but seeing how serious this situation is, please let me successfully use it!

[T/N: Song of water, wind dances with wind, a wild water blade]

Sure enough, a transparent water blade lived up to my sincere pleas, as it directly sliced at the invisible barrier at the shrine’s entrance. But the moment it sliced down, the entire water blade dispersed, so I knew that it was unsuccessful in destroying the barrier.

Just as the water blade dispersed, the shrine’s entrance which originally had nothing there, actually had bits of yarn-like things gradually floating up. They completely covered up the front of the shrine with black lights that glowed bit by bit.

This is the barrier?

“Chu, move aside!” Nailing the face-changing person’s clothes together with the body on the shrine’s wall with his spear, Senior stood at the same spot, reaching out his hands and closing his eyes. “Huǒ zhī xiǎng, shuǐ yǔ léi qǐbīng xiāo, sì cān jīngléi bào.” With a size that was so many times bigger than the water blade, the lightning that was isolated in the sky outside of us, directly struck down on top of the entire shrine.

[T/N:Peal of fire, water and lightning roaring, willfully join with the lightning and explode.]

The sound of thunder could be heard from the sky. At the same time, the yarn that glowed with a black light seemed to have cracks forming. Around the entrance, appeared spiderweb-like fragmentations. Bit by bit, a small opening was cracked open, but the barrier still held.

“Just once more, and it’ll break!” I moved the black robe, who was still unconscious on the ground, to the side. Senior, who was standing not too far away, had caught his breath, and then lifted his hands.

Then, there was silence.

Through the circle that Senior formed with his hands, I saw that the face-changing person was standing behind him, for who knew how long, with a smile that made his whole face look very sinister. As he smiled, veins appeared one by one on his face. “I’ve said this already, it’s best if you cooperate a little.”

I was stunned, completely unaware of the reaction I was supposed to have. In front of me, was something that has never happened before. A silver stream of light went through Senior’s right shoulder. The slender tip of the needle had a drop of thick, red blood. It then dripped down without a single sound, forming a red circle that spread outwards on the ground.

“Don’t try to oppose me.” The face-changing person slowly pulled out the thin needle from behind, and as soon as it came out, Senior’s shoulder was immediately spattered with a large amount of blood. The entire floor of the shrine was instantly dyed in a bright color.

Just as we all thought that Senior would collapse, he suddenly turned around. A small, flat ice blade abruptly stabbed into the side of the face-changing person’s neck, and then extended out on the other end.

“Chu! Hurry up and think of a way to leave, he’s the first expert of Evil King Bishen’s men!” Senior directly fell on his knees, as his shoulder continued to bleed all over the floor.

The first expert…

So that day in the construction site, that sedan chair we saw, was actually this person!

Without falling down, the face-changing person just stood on the same spot and reached out his hand. Little by little, he slowly pulled out the ice blade stuck in his neck. Strangely, not even a single drop of blood had flowed out. “I’ve already said that this is a secret, so why do you have to expose me so soon?” He was still smiling, and that blade melted within his palm in the next second. The hole in his neck horrifyingly began to slowly seal up.

I was shocked to realize that I was actually unconsciously trembling, and couldn’t stop it no matter what.

Andellar gave me the feeling of an absolute terror… terror that I can’t escape from.

“I am the messenger of Evil King Bishen, here to make a small little negotiation with you.” His blue eyes stared at me, narrowing and opening again.

“I…I, don’t want to…” Forcing my mouth open, even my lips were shaking, shaking to the point where my words sounded a bit vague and unclear. “I don’t know anything…”

Save me, save me, save me, anyone is fine, just save me!

***

You want to be saved?

***

An old voice, that seemed to be there and yet not there, drifted over.

I subconsciously turned around at once. At the other end of the entrance and barrier, I saw a huge, black shadow, and on it were two yellow eyes.

At that moment, that entire memory returned, and I finally remembered what that thing is.

That thing that was eaten by the eyeball in the KTV, and after I had brought it back with me, it stayed on my wrist, the bracelet’s original body.

***

“Old man, save me!”