Chapter 248: Come Here
“It’s you.” He Jia’an looked at the conjoined man and woman emerging like a blooming flower of flesh and blood, his line of sight lingering for less than a second before shifting away; the mental pollution unintentionally emanating from the other at this moment was something he currently could not bear.
“Perhaps I should have come a step late.” The female body had a peerlessly bewitching face and a graceful feminine silhouette, but beyond that it was a blurred and twisted mass of flesh; she looked at He Jia’an’s disheveled state and smiled sweetly as she spoke.
Hearing this, He Jia’an said coldly: “I haven’t forgotten what happened that night. Your rescue of me now is meaningless. One day, I will do everything in my power to kill you or expel you.”
“Hehe, you wouldn’t think you can do it, would you? Just with you, or that rotten blade in your hand?” Miss Zhao, the mastermind behind the Night of Collapse in Cuizhu City, covered her mouth and chuckled lightly.
Seeing the two sides at daggers drawn, Xin Junmao hurriedly stepped forward to smooth things over and had Miss Zhao return to his body, with him taking the lead in the subsequent actions.
“Yes, my good master.” Miss Zhao smiled charmingly, seeming to obey Xin Junmao’s every order without question; she retracted her “sea of arms” spreading around the surroundings and slowly drilled back into the flesh hole on Xin Junmao’s back.
Xin Junmao seemed to be enduring pain, frowning nonstop and gritting his teeth tightly; Miss Zhao was like a mischievous viper, deliberately slowing her burrowing movements.
Seeing this, He Jia’an immediately wanted to slash with his blade, but he was stopped by Xin Junmao; only then did Miss Zhao cackle strangely and quickly retract her entire body into Xin Junmao’s.
“I really don’t know if you’re still human now.” After Xin Junmao recovered a bit, He Jia’an finally couldn’t hold back and said.
Xin Junmao: “I don’t know, but I know I’m not normal now. I’ll try my best to hold onto my humanity.”
Seeing a former ordinary citizen turned into this state, He Jia’an couldn’t help but inwardly sigh at what kind of monstrous thing this mad world could force an ordinary person into.
“Listen, Xin Junmao, I do need your help now. I can’t completely clear all the advent rituals in Kisaragi High School on my own.” Speaking of this, He Jia’an recalled the merman who had sent him here, and his expression darkened as he cursed, “Where the hell did that damn Drake run off to this time.”
Hearing this, Xin Junmao smiled and explained: “Drake has other arrangements. He still needs to break the advent rituals in the reality world.”
“Reality world?” He Jia’an suddenly understood. “Right, this is the Inner World, a reflection of reality. Even though the time flow is different, if advent rituals exist here, the corresponding places in the reality world might also have them.”
“Then let’s begin.” Xin Junmao nodded and said. As the completely naked him took a step forward, He Jia’an grabbed his shoulder.
Xin Junmao turned around and somewhat surprisedly heard He Jia’an say to him: “My spirit is growing more chaotic, on the verge of collapse. If I become a madman, or if this broken blade controls me, please… kill me. But no matter what, in the end, you must liberate the blessings here and let them disperse, so they won’t be deliberately gathered and exploited by people again.”
Xin Junmao seemed somewhat moved. He patted He Jia’an’s arm in return and agreed.
“Also, I want to ask you a question.” He Jia’an asked seriously. “You often enter the Inner World. Is the Ushi-Oni existing in this world Li Yingqi?”
Hearing He Jia’an’s words, Xin Junmao’s expression changed slightly. He paused in silence for a few seconds, then said gravely: “That might no longer be the person you knew. It is… it is the residue digested by the Gluttonous Daughter.”
Hearing this, He Jia’an’s gaze became somewhat dazed. He released his hand on Xin Junmao’s shoulder and left without another word.
Watching He Jia’an’s departing back, Xin Junmao heard another burst of silver bell-like pleasant laughter from inside his body. He calmly rebuked: “Look at what you’ve done…”
He Jia’an quickly suppressed his low spirits. His current mental state did not allow him to delve too deeply into any negative emotions. His mental state at this moment was like standing barefoot on a sharp thin cone, with eternal falling darkness abyss all around him. The only way to temporarily avoid falling was to maintain balance through enduring physical pain.
To keep his spirit teetering on the edge of collapse, He Jia’an needed to divert his attention. While searching for possible locations of advent rituals on one side, he also deliberately approached the activity sites of those blood race members.
Merely relying on slaughter with the demonic blade in hand, the shadow residing in the demonic blade was like an evil spirit in hell, trying to drag him into the boundless depths…
After headquarters S-grade investigator Matsumoto Gin and the opposite shore region’s former S-grade investigator from the Mysterious Group, He Jia’an, had been out of contact for over an hour, the Chosen Alliance members finally turned their search direction to the Inner World. But when they tried again to shuttle through the Inner World using the organization’s developed scientific instruments, they found that the passages to the Inner World were already hard to open, and even if opened, they would only see an apocalyptic scene of a “sandstorm” sweeping in.
And in fact, those “sandstorms” revealed through the temporary space channels were far beyond what natural phenomena of the reality world could compare to. Amid the violent “flying sand and stones” lurked Inner World creatures that had been caught and torn apart; their shrieks and strange roars composed a symphony that made brains tremble, roaring like hell while trying to crawl out of that utterly awful world. But what truly inspired fear were the countless “particles” disguised as the sandstorm—those were fragments voluntarily broken down by the master of the Inner World.
The space channels hastily opened by the Chosen Alliance in their urgency to rescue people unfortunately became gateways for the disaster to invade the reality world, bringing seeds of despair to Sakura Island on fierce winds.
As swathes of blood-red demonic wind shot from the earth into the sky of Taomuki City, the sky above Taomuki City gradually revealed scenes of the Inner World. Gloomy clouds and misty fog gathered, and beneath the thick clouds flickering with faint red light fell suffocating gray fluff. Sensitive plants, like mad believers sensing the summoning, withered and rotted one after another, ultimately turning into gray fluff scattered in the air, offering their lives in sacrifice toward one direction.
At this moment, the hospital where Misaki Naomi was located was in complete chaos. Power had failed inexplicably, life-support devices in the ICU were switching to battery power, and all critical patients were entering their final countdown. Medical staff were either rushing back and forth to the bedsides of these near-death patients or trying to calm the panicked hospital patients.
Misaki Naomi naturally saw the doomsday scene unfolding in the city and heard the commotion in the hospital. Out of curiosity, she opened the door only to find that the investigators who should have been guarding outside her hospital room had vanished. Shouts and cries echoed through the hospital corridors as people ran, screamed, stood dazed… and even took their own lives.
“Come here… come here…” Faced with such a scene, Misaki Naomi was at a loss. Whispers that seemed audible only to her quietly reached her ears. Suddenly entranced as if bewitched, she followed the direction of the voice and slowly walked into a hospital service elevator flickering with strange red light.
