Huai Shi felt like he couldn't catch his breath.
In the dimness, he held up the candlelight, stepped onto the staircase, and slowly descended... as if he were walking step by step into the seabed.
Below his feet, layers of darkness rippled like the tide.
Huai Shi felt his toes were a bit numb.
He stopped, moved his feet a bit, and felt a slight stiffness in his ankle—areas the light didn't reach were gradually petrifying.
The deeper he went, the stronger the curses echoing in the darkness beca. Even if he just held up the light, even if shadows ford for a re mont, a faint petrification ford on the skin's surface.
Luckily, as long as he didn't venture too deep, this process was still reversible for soone with Soloist's resistance.
He paused, moved his stiff body in place, and looked around.
Beyond the lonely descending stairs was the vast darkness.
It made no sense at all.
Considering the distance he had traveled, he felt if he exerted a little more effort, he could have walked back to the Iron Crystal Throne. Yet, he still hadn't left the range of the Control Center.
Now he suddenly felt this long journey might have just begun.
He needed to continue downward...
Guided by a lingering shadow, as if seeking his own demise, he plunged into the darkest depths.
Huai Shi thought he must be crazy.
The darkness, solidified into reality, was too cold, as if to strip away all his warmth and freeze him in place. Even a Soloist felt weary. It was just a sha that the Candle-Holding Crows were all unleashing their full might behind him; otherwise, summoning them could at least have provided so light.
During his long trek, he took a mont to catch his breath and continued his descent.
"Beelzebub, are you there?"
He wanted to find soone to talk to. If that wasn't possible, even a passage from the Tong Lin Legends would do.
"I am not..."
Beelzebub, who rarely lost interest in talking, sounded listless. "Leave alone. I'm suffering so much I could die."
"What's wrong?" Huai Shi asked.
"Man, are you still asking what's wrong?" Beelzebub complained. "Don't you realize you're basically doing a butterfly-stroke marathon in a cesspool? I can hardly breathe."
"What the heck?"
Huai Shi was astonished. Looking around, he said, "It's been tens of millions of years. Where would there still be manure?"
"taphorically speaking, do you get it?"
Beelzebub profoundly felt the hardship of his fly-life. "Aren't you also suffering terribly? Multiply that by ten thousand, and that's how I feel."
"Can it be that bad?"
"I feel as if every second more than a dozen cabinets are crashing onto my toes. What do you think? If the Three Sages System were still in place, I would have already filed a complaint against you for abusing an Event Spirit!"
Beelzebub spoke irritably, "Before I degenerated into a handgun, I was Osiris's radar system, you know! Even though my detection range has drastically decreased, there's no way I can tolerate this. You just feel a little uncomfortable; I'm about to suffocate."
"What exactly are you sensing?"
"I don't know how to tell you... Let's say, for example, it's like you're walking alone at night and suddenly realize that the night road is buzzing with activity, with a hundred thousand people standing silently in Hell, stealthily watching you, having already prepared pots, pans, and other ingredients to start a mukbang the mont you show up."
"Honestly, if I had a mouth, I would have thrown up already... Can I fire a couple of shots? I'd feel better after firing two shots!"
"Don't even think about it. Suck it back in."
Huai Shi coldly stuffed the handgun back into its holster.
Thanks to Beelzebub's interruption, he felt much better.
But in truth, without Beelzebub's reminder, he could feel it himself... the pain and madness that perated the air like the tides.
They undulated with the darkness, like sand grains in the tide.
Even a casual grasp could pinch a handful of Apocalypse ashes.
Sotis, when passing broken fences and indistinct machinery, touching them would allow him to feel the resentnt and rage stored within the steel.
The despair of Source Substance combined with the sedint of Hell was so intricately fused that it beca an unbearable existence.
It was as if he was passing between tombstones.
Each tombstone conveyed people's screams and moans, recording every mont of their descent into death.
Fortunately, the journey in the deepest darkness didn't last too long.
Because the road had co to an end.
He saw Condra's hunched figure once again.
Standing in front of a door covered in cracks and scratch marks, he looked like a lost ghost.
As Condra slowly turned his head, his swollen face finally peeled away, revealing countless rapidly spinning gears and tiny machinery beneath...
Like a beast hollowed out by insects, those tiny parts writhed as if alive, slowly protruding from within before retracting.
His lips silently opened and closed.
As if he was saying sothing.
But then he abruptly vanished, leaving no trace behind.
Huai Shi raised his hand toward those behind him. The Paradise Guard gripped their weapons, ready for battle, as they advanced with him, bit by bit.
They approached that dust-covered door that had been sealed for countless years.
Like steel forged from innurable skeletons, the door was entwined with vein-like contours resembling limbs, forming a complicated lock that 'stitched' the door firmly closed.
But at that mont, the door emitted a sharp, piercing sound.
Dust rained down, and the ancient text hidden beneath it was revealed.
He did not know how much hatred and despair one must harbor to wield an Axe and leave such deep grooves and marks. rely looking at the text, it was as if countless screams abruptly resounded, like a tidal wave.
Huai Shi's vision darkened, and he staggered backward.
But the illusion quickly dissipated.
It turned into a ferocious roar, like that of a beast licking its wounds, mixed with painful whispers.
"The sun has disappeared, so we will produce the sun."
Those ancient words softly spoke in his ear, "If the night leaves us, then we will create the coming of the night. We will take back everything we have lost..."
"Even if it ans losing everything!"
With profound pain and anger, those words seed to be engraved in his mind, causing Huai Shi to feel dizzy.
As he struggled to breathe, the massive door before him slowly began to open. On the door, intertwined limbs shattered and broke, falling to the ground and smashing to pieces.
And amidst the ear-piercing roar, darkness that had been sealed for countless years erupted from it.
In Huai Shi's hands, the fla he held aloft was snuffed out by the tempest.
Above his head, the Crown belonging to the Prince of Paradise suddenly appeared and lit up, struggling to hold back the oppressive darkness for him.
It illuminated the deepest part of the darkness.
Scars left from tens of millions of years ago...
In the magnificent hall, akin to one used for sacrifices to the gods, there were now no adornnts or arrangents, making it terrifyingly vast and empty. But with the arrival of light, everything slumbering in the darkness was revealed.
It resembled the seals set up by Alchemy.
Countless Lock Chains extended from the matrix-like Mystic Rituals, hanging down, entwining each other, tightly binding a writhing mass of darkness within this hall.
But now, as the doors opened, that darkness that had slept for tens of millions of years was awakened, surging madly as if boiling.
It struggled frantically.
Huai Shi was chilled to the bone.
Sothing was wrong.
There was a problem...
Why was this like a sequence from a ga? Why did arriving here feel like entering a dungeon? Why did it seem like monsters would automatically engage once players reached this point? Why could he suddenly understand those words?
From the start, his actions had fallen under sothing's control.
Including entering this place!
At first, it was just a subtle premonition, but now he was completely certain.
Strangely, the image of a majestic Skeleton clad in formal attire erged from his consciousness. Just as he was about to understand sothing, he suddenly heard a piercing scream.
"—■■■!!!!!!!!!!"
His head throbbed painfully.
As if witnessing a volcanic eruption up close, he could feel the nearly substantial despair, pain, and anger burst forth from the bound darkness.
The sound of breaking Lock Chains was endless.
As the darkness rapidly transford and burst forth, countless restraints turned to dust, floating down to the ground.
Suspended in midair, the thick mass of darkness suddenly swelled.
Sothing was wriggling below.
Suddenly, a hand-like limb pierced through, followed by another, and then another... Three desiccated palms tore apart the darkness.
Just like a baby erging from foul-slling black Plasma during birth, dripping with viscous fluid, it landed on the ground, convulsing and struggling frantically.
One could vaguely discern a human form, but the limbs had beco extrely grotesque; most of his body had liquefied into a black, viscous substance. It was the essence of Source Substance ford from countless despair and agony, within which shattered bones could be glimpsed.
As the liquid of suffering and despair fell from the broken shell, it revealed an outfit resembling one made of steel. What once appeared to be elegant and magnificent robes was now incomplete, reduced to fragnts akin to wreckage.
Despite his body being grotesquely distorted, he tenderly cradled a peculiar and magnificent Wind Lamp in his arms, cherishing it more than his own life.
After such a long passage of ti, it still looked as new, without a single scratch or sign of decay.
Now, under the writhing mass of darkness, the deford Skeleton bathed in black rain, slowly raised the Wind Lamp in his hands, holding it high.
Within the Wind Lamp, a pale fla ignited once again.
It illuminated that shattered face.
And the pitch-black liquid flowing from the eye sockets, like mottled tears of blood.
At that mont, Huai Shi finally saw the Control Center.
A living... Control Center, right in front of him!
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Sorry to keep you waiting. I've been experiencing severe writer's block recently, so I've decided to recomnd a friend's book as a sacrifice to the writing gods!
"Gun of Ashes," also known as Old Century Evangelist or Steam Punk 2077. Set in the Victorian Era with steampunk elents, it tells the detective adventures of kicking in doors... Well, roughly.
Please check it out!
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