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Chapter 691 - 688 - BE21 - "Pact with the Lord

Chapter 691: Chapter 688 - BE21 - "Pact with the Lord

"Huff..."

The cold wind lashed his face.

Su Ming’an stared blankly at the heavy snow outside the floor-to-ceiling window, his fingers covering his throat, a surge of nausea welling up, liquid sliding down from the corner of his mouth, gradually soaking the floor with a pool of red blood.

He lowered his head, his vision a blur, an indistinct noise emanating from his throat.

"Teacher?" The concerned voice of Tretiya came from beside him.

Su Ming’an focused on the floor, feeling as if his vision was plummeting forward, about to tumble to the ground at any moment...

Right, there was no time to waste, he had to hurry...

He used the wall to stand up.

If he wanted to stop the nuclear explosion, he had to kill Lin Guang, the holder of the authority; and to kill Lin Guang, he definitely needed to wait until Cloning Ming arrived.

If he couldn’t wait for Cloning Ming to get there, he would have no choice but to let Tretiya, the only one with Combat Power, do the killing. But Tretiya would surely lose her Combat Power due to the "d-r-e-a-d" command.

Noel with red eyes, Yamada tamed by Lin Guang, Luna dead, Lu far away in Doomsday City... Nobody was available to assist him, and even if he could move troops from the battlefield, there was simply not enough time.

A dead end.

A three-way dead end.

—The nuclear explosion in Lin Guang’s City of Gods, the final battlefield of the Dawn War, Yuanyuan killed by the Key Legion...

How could he achieve a perfect strategy on all three fronts?

How was he to wring out the last bit of his Ability to save them?

He was upfront, desperately trying to stop the nuclear explosion, tormenting himself to injury, while players like Edward only thought of attacking Yuanyuan, killing his companion.

That was precisely why the world celebrated with champagne at the death of Edward, and even those neutral bystanders couldn’t bear to watch.

Because of these short-sighted players who went against the bigger picture, he had manually turned what should have been a victory into a hellish difficulty.

...But if he didn’t help, he himself would become hell.

Some obeyed orders, others fought to death to protect.

He didn’t even have the space to pity himself, as self-pity would result in self-collapse. He couldn’t ignore Yuanyuan lying dead next to the Blood Pool, shattered by shellfire.

[A little faster...] he thought to himself.

With a "click", he took out a medicine box from his backpack pocket, containing a total of eight Mentality Stability Capsules and four Mentality Stability Elixirs. These were all his reserves made back in the central laboratory, enough to last him till the end of the instance, or even into the next one.

But now, he urgently needed them, even though he had never taken such a large dose at once before.

"Click" "Click" went the medicine box as he opened and closed it, swallowing eight capsules in succession, his shaking vision quickly stabilizing. The floating snowflakes seemed to gain a layer of gray, the piercing green light on the ground gradually turning into a soft gray, like the mist floating in a dream.

These soft colors slowly embraced him, perhaps this was what people meant by feeling as warm and comforting as a mother’s embrace. He had never felt so at peace before.

[Just a little faster...]

"Clang—" The syringe hit the floor, and Su Ming’an staggered over the broken needles, leaving behind four puncture marks on his neck. The approaching figure from the depths of the corridor, Yamada Machiichi, looked like a blob of gray and black Shadow, like a Flying Bird passing before his eyes.

"Su Ming’an..." Yamada Machiichi quickly noticed Su Ming’an, and he stopped in his tracks, stunned.

That clumsy, utterly disheveled young man with stiff eyes and a pale face, lacking any Spirit—was that Su Ming’an?

What on earth had happened?

What on earth had happened that he couldn’t fathom?

Yamada Machiichi had a vague feeling that at this moment, Su Ming’an seemed to be living in another world. In his cold eyes, Yamada Machiichi felt as though he was no more than an NPC. This speculation and intuition caused him to panic.

"Su Ming’an, what happened..." asked Yamada Machiichi.

Su Ming’an didn’t respond to him; he took the wheelchair and swiftly ascended into the sky.

In his eyes, it was as if the deep blue light saber was engraved, thrusting once into his chest and once into her neck. Her eyes full of despair lingered in front of him...

[A little faster...]

The cold wind lifted his black hair, and the simultaneous intake of twelve doses of medicine made him feel as if he was floating among the clouds—even the audience’s barrage of comments turned into a flurry of indistinct white light and shadow.

Upon reaching the rooftop, he stretched out his hand and controlled the AI Yeah to hack into the central control panel. Minutes later, a soft "crunch" of footsteps on snow came from behind him.

"—Lewis!"

The voice of Lin Guang, laced with anger, came from behind, and the luminosity of hundreds of cannon fire bombarded towards Su Ming’an. Hearing the voice, Su Ming’an was already prepared. The wheelchair’s shield immediately rose.

From the beginning to the end, Su Ming’an didn’t so much as cast a glance at Lin Guang, his gaze completely fixed on the control interface; he never looked back, his eyes only filled with the blinking route map and guard points.

[A little faster...]

"Click—" The Defense Value dropped to zero amid the relentless bombardment, the shield shattered, and a strong force came, sending the wheelchair flying with a "clang."

Su Ming’an fell to the ground, his mood tranquil. He had managed to eliminate even more guards this time, and his Cloning skill would allow him to arrive a full fifteen minutes earlier.

"Crack—"

Lin Guang gripped Su Ming’an by the neck, lifting him high, while Su Ming’an remained still.

The red beacon lights of the air traffic barrier shone on their hair, lingering on the clenched hand of Lin Guang. The faint ’cracking’ sound, reminiscent of popping beans, reverberated, Su Ming’an’s entire senses constricted to a single black dot. His bloodshot eyes calmly observed Lin Guang as he tightened his grip, as if facing a mindless planktonic creature.

His gaze had become so indifferent that it couldn’t mirror anything.

"..."

The next moment, Lin Guang suddenly let go.

Trembling, he stepped back, looking at Su Ming’an who had fallen into the snowy blanket. He didn’t want to admit that he had just been scared, that he had actually felt fear from Su Ming’an’s gaze.

"Cough... cough cough cough..." Su Ming’an coughed, his five fingers leaving slippery trails of blood on the wheelchair’s armrest.

"Don’t stop the nuclear explosion." Lin Guang extended his hand.

But Su Ming’an couldn’t possibly not try to stop it.

If the nuclear explosion were triggered, Che and the other key NPCs would all die. Su Ming’an couldn’t wait until Caius Tower ended to witness the aftermath of a total annihilation from the explosion—the save point would have been set by then.

[A little faster...]

He still reached out, scrambling forward, quickly followed by the crisp sound of bone cracking from his right leg, as Lin Guang the "Bone-Crushing Expert" started his work again, twisting and breaking his right leg.

But this time, even Su Ming’an’s breathing rate did not change.

Twelve doses of Mentality Stability Elixir, coupled with the lingering anesthesia in his body, he felt almost no pain.

What kind of terror can a person become when they do not feel pain or fear death? Was he still a person now, or just a mass of flesh that could move autonomously?

"Whoosh!" The Judgment Balance flashed by, and a blade pierced through Lin Guang from behind. His clone, Ming, emerged from the shadows and killed Lin Guang.

A thicker layer of heavy snow fell down, as if burying all the pain along with it. Lin Guang fell forward, his outstretched hand drooping into the snow, and the blood quickly seeped into the snowy surface.

Struggling, Su Ming’an sat up in the wheelchair, coughing.

[A little faster...]

This time he definitely had a chance. He was a full fifteen minutes earlier, and the injuries on his body were the lightest they had been in three cycles.

Perfect.

It couldn’t have been better.

"Lewis..." The voice behind him gradually vanished, melting into the cold.

Amidst the drifting night snow, the warning lights ceased.

Su Ming’an raced forward, heading toward the Blood Pool. Edward’s skeleton had been shattered by the triple strike of the earthquake.

He rushed to the opposite side of the Blood Pool, where the girl’s black hair, dense like a spider’s web, enshrouded her slender figure at the center of the net as if she were a butterfly trapped above a flame. Her eyes were tightly shut, her breath barely perceptible.

—She had been abandoned here, left to live or die, waiting for death. How desperate must she have felt if Su Ming’an hadn’t come?

At the beginning, in the instance where she became a corpse, as she watched the artillery fire barrel toward her immobilized body—whose reflection would be in her eyes before death? How heartbroken would she be?

Su Ming’an pulled her up, she opened her eyes, and the wheelchair carried them away from this boundless hell.

He had made it in time, and nothing would happen now.

"Ming’an, put me down. I have the deficiency disease..." She extended her charred hand, trying to push him away.

However, Su Ming’an simply shook his head, "I have the Missionary Halo; I can save you."

Yuanyuan’s condition seemed better than in the previous two instances, which was the best news.

"Alright," Yuanyuan nodded, "Then I’ll also try my best. I’ll strive to be rescued..."

"What would you like to hear?"

"I want to hear about the novel you didn’t finish four months ago."

"Alright." Su Ming’an began to recount the story.

The wheelchair skimmed over the sea of blood, and this time they even made it into the city, a breakthrough they had never achieved before.

The air, much warmed, lifted their hair. Even Yuanyuan’s complexion seemed somewhat improved.

Colorful streamers fluttered under the eaves in the streets and alleys, like rainbows greeting the wind, and it was now the cross-year moment. Many people were looking up at the splendid fireworks in the sky.

As midnight approached, the fireworks lit up the sky, and even the sound of the wind carried the joyous pitch of celebration. While people watched the fireworks, they also saw a wheelchair whizzing through the air.

"—That wheelchair, it looks like the Lord of Acto City!"

"—How come he’s come to this small city?"

"It’s a good omen! A great omen, Lord! How’s the frontline battle going, can our warriors come back..."

"Is the Lord here to celebrate the New Year with us?"

The voices of the people intermingled; Su Ming’an couldn’t hear them clearly, his vision had even narrowed to a small point. He maneuvered the wheelchair, taking Yuanyuan toward a place with medical equipment.

He burst into the hospital, rushing past the astonished doctors and nurses, and closed the door of a room.

"Lie down for a moment." He laid Yuanyuan, oozing with organizational fluid, on the bed and found life-sustaining medications like Strengtheners. Her body had begun to cool, her eyes slowly narrowing, like a ship gradually sinking.

"So tired..." she said.

"Just hang on a little longer, listen to my voice."

Su Ming’an’s voice was low; the effect of the anesthetic had worn off, and the previous pain from being strangled slowly took over his brain.

The blood seeping from her body was like burning flames, amidst the white bedding, it resembled an oil painting, like those from Pascal Kinyar’s novels about Yu Country that he had recommended to her.

And he was reciting this novel to her:

"[But why do you still paint, when everything is going to be consumed?]"

He took out a syringe, and as he spoke, his throat burned like fire:

"Each person brings his own tiny torch to add to the great bonfire that lights up the world."

Sometimes a thin mist or a tall mountain is enough. Sometimes, a tree swaying and bowing under the onslaught of a fierce wind is enough. Sometimes, even the night is enough, and there’s no need for dreams to reveal those things that don’t exist or have been lost in the dark night to the soul..."

Even if it’s just a mist, a tree, a night’s color.

He liked this novel precisely because of this passage.

Gripping the syringe, Su Ming’an turned back, the liquid in his hand moving slightly as he prepared to inject her, his narration continuing without pause:

"I think there’s another interesting part, where their emotions clash profoundly.

He says, ’I am in pain, madam, I suffer from being unable to touch you...’"

He paused abruptly.

She lay on the pristine bed with her eyes closed, white sheets on either side thrown back like the wings of an angel, spread out beside her, with no hint of life’s vibration between her chest.

"...Yuanyuan?"

Su Ming’an stood still.

He inserted the syringe into her arm and reached out with his other hand, searching for her breath...

"She replied, ’Sir, aside from the gentle breeze, nothing else can touch me...’"

*Clang*—

The syringe fell to the ground.

He stopped talking, his gaze stiffly shifted, and a dark, unclear moan emanated from his throat, swallowing the sudden taste of blood that welled up from his chest.

In his fingers, he felt no wind.

Doctors and nurses, hearing the noise, rushed in "whoosh" and saw Su Ming’an standing still by the bed.

"Lord..."

His expression was frozen in a moment, his lips turning blue. His gaze remained stiffly suspended in the air.

He slowly turned his head, looking at the doctors and nurses, his mouth corners stiffly curving up in a straight line.

It was as if invisible threads were pulling at his lips, forcing them upward, making him smile gruesomely like a clown, his eyes losing focus.

He realized a fact.

A terribly gruesome fact.

The air felt like a sharp knife, causing him to bleed profusely and shake all over. Despair erupted like magma from the gray matter folds of his cerebral cortex, filling his skull. His words were like teeth clamped on him, his mouth tasting a mixture of bitterness and blood.

"It’s too late." He smiled, his arm falling limp, as if mocking himself, "So it was indeed too late..."

His laugh was brutal and rushed; he gasped with each chuckle, as if he was on the verge of drowning.

The woman on the bed was already dead.

He laughed, yet increasingly felt the pain of suffocation, his throat burning fiercely, and every chuckle was a form of self-punishment.

The doctors and nurses hesitated for a moment, none of them smiling.

Only a young man with low emotional intelligence followed suit, laughing foolishly.

"Haha, what are you laughing at, Lord? Stop laughing, I want to laugh too, hahaha..."