Has the World Ended?

The sky had turned into a sea of fire, and the earth was drowned in murky darkness. Huge shards broke through the burning clouds one after another, crashing down upon the corrupted earth. Every passing second, the entire world was being twisted and torn to ruin. Yet amid this portrait of doomsday, a mysterious figure cloaked in a dark-red gradient trench coat stood perched upon a cliff. He gazed toward the distant meteor shower, a wine glass held in his right hand, as though this magnificent spectacle were something to celebrate with a drink. Who was he? What had happened? Why had things ended up like this? Suddenly, a red-haired woman stepped out from the fiery sea in the sky. She wore a short black skirt, her eyes seeming to churn with an ocean of blood, and held an exquisitely carved longsword in her hand. The moment she stepped forward, the sky was cleaved in two by a razor-sharp sword intent; merely looking at her figure made one's eyes sting with pain! At that moment, the mysterious figure seemed to sense the gaze from behind him. He turned his head slightly, on the verge of revealing his true face. Igola strained to open eyes that didn't exist, doing everything he could to catch even the slightest detail of this mysterious man— "Cough, cough, cough!" Igola shoved Yaxiu's hand away violently, wiping his wet lips as he cursed, "What the hell are you doing?!" Yaxiu looked utterly bewildered. He raised the water bottle in his hand. "Feeding you water. What else, drowning your head in the toilet? I wish I could, but unfortunately there isn't a single drop of water in the bowl. If you don't want it, forget it. Harvey, do you want any more?" "I don't want to use the toilet here." Harvey's voice was faint. He sat slouched against the wall, his dark complexion unable to conceal his weakness. Yaxiu pondered for a moment, then tightened the bottle cap and set it aside. "Then we'd better save it. Maybe they'll bring food later..." Only now did Igola finally have time to take in his surroundings. The three of them were inside a small room of about ten square meters. The floor and walls were completely padded. Light seeped through crevices in the walls, and in the corner stood an integrated toilet with a built-in sink. There were no windows whatsoever, save for a vent pipe in the corner of the ceiling, which was slowly puffing out a warm white mist that dissolved swiftly into the room's air. He checked his gear. His knife, self-defense firearm, and multi-tool keychain were all gone, but his metal hairpiece remained. If bent straight, it became a metal spike, which offered some small measure of protection—though it had exceptionally high requirements for the enemy: they had to be completely unguarded and stripped of all protective equipment. Yeah, it was only lethal if the enemy was in bed or taking a dump. Igola tried to stand up and plug the vent pipe, but found his entire body limp and utterly devoid of strength. Unable even to stay on his feet, he collapsed right in front of Yaxiu. "That's an anesthetic healing spray," Yaxiu said languidly. "Haven't you noticed all of us are speaking without any energy?" "You always sound constipated when you talk. How was I supposed to tell?" Igola rolled up his sleeve and discovered that the graze from the sniper bullet was actually starting to scab over. He couldn't help feeling a bit surprised—while it couldn't compare to a healer, the healing effect was already superior to ordinary first aid. "Do either of you know the date and time?" he asked suddenly. Yaxiu said, "May 2nd, 1:00 AM—we've probably slept for less than an hour. But there might be a time difference between different countries, so it might not be 1:00 AM outside." Igola didn't ask how Yaxiu knew the time without a chip or a watch. Pressing his hand against the floor, he felt a faint vibration. "We're in a moving transport. Probably a vehicle, though I've never seen a compartment with such impressive soundproofing and shock absorption..." He tapped the collar around his neck. "Have you tested this thing yet?" "Channeling sorcery power triggers a powerful electric discharge," Harvey said placidly. "If you want to test it, I recommend pulling down your pants and sitting on the toilet first. Not that testing it right where you are matters—these pads are highly absorbent, so any mess from your incontinence will vanish soon enough." Igola gave Harvey and Yaxiu an odd look. "Considering you volunteered that information, I won't ask how you know it... Any other intel?" After a brief silence, Yaxiu said, "Before passing out, I heard someone say, 'I can only pick up three outlanders'... This wasn't an ambush for the adventurers; it was set for us. They even knew Ronald and Langna wouldn't make it across." "A miracle of the prophecy faction or the destiny faction." Igola was unsurprised. "What happened to the werewolf and his prey?" "Ronald died saving Langna," Yaxiu said succinctly. "I didn't see what happened after that." Yet Igola merely raised an eyebrow and let out a soft "oh," without a hint of surprise on his face. Yaxiu suddenly had a strong hunch and asked, "Did you know all along that Ronald would do that?" "To be precise, I taught him to do it," Igola said with a smile. "After all, I felt rather sympathetic toward him, so I intended to collude with him in secret, thinking we could gang up on Langna together after breaking out of prison. But he had no interest in that; he wanted 'true vengeance.' And as it happened, I had dug up some intel on Langna, so I told him the method for true vengeance." "You lied to him?" "I never lie," Igola said. "I merely fulfill others' desires." "Hilarious. Is god just another name for a liar?" The cult leader and the swindler stared cold daggers at each other, until the necromancer suddenly spoke up: "Even if Ronald and Langna didn't come through, why haven't the other adventurers crossed over? The Hunting Festival wouldn't be called off because of us. If anything, the adventurers should have received a new bounty mission to hunt us down." Yaxiu spread his hands. "Look how badly we terrified those adventurers... For all we know, they're huddled in the war zone right now, demanding Gerard sign a written guarantee not to arrest them before they dare continue participating in the Hunting Festival. With a delay like that, it'd be efficient if they can resume regular operations by tomorrow evening." "Or perhaps the Void Realm passage has been sealed," Igola guessed. "Since they could accurately predict our arrival, they might well have prepared a means to seal the passage." Harvey sighed faintly. "Meaning, we can't count on the adventurers coming to save us..." At that moment, complicated feelings welled up in all three of their hearts. To escape the Blood Moon Country, they had gone through hell and high water to scare off the adventurers and trick Gerard. Yet after finally crossing the Void Realm passage into a new world, before they could even draw a single breath of free air, they had been captured without a clue as to why. And right now, their greatest hope of escaping happened to be the pursuers from the Blood Moon Country. Igola shook his head, brushing away every trace of budding regret and resentment, and turned to look at Yaxiu. "What about your Severing Self miracle?" "I've tried it," Yaxiu said. "But this thing counts as an external object, equivalent to a sorcerer channeling a spell continuously. The Severing Self miracle can clear my negative status for this exact second, but as long as I'm wearing the collar, the binding status is reapplied the very next second... It has to be physically removed." "I imagine a device prone to discharging electricity at any moment wouldn't have a very pleasant temper if someone tried to tamper with it by force." Harvey gave the collar a slight tug with his finger, and the silver band immediately glowed with a dangerous red light. "A restraining collar, a suicide-prevention padded compartment, anesthetic healing spray..." Igola muttered. "It's not strange that we were ambushed and caught. What's strange is why they possess such professional transport equipment. Unless they procured this whole setup specifically for us, it means their usual clientele also needs to be housed in a place like this." "What kind of people require transport like this?" "Death row inmates, lunatics, slaves?" Yaxiu guessed. "Corpses are a possibility too," Harvey said. "Don't kid me. Isn't a body bag the standard transport setup for a corpse?" "Yaxiu, as a cult leader, how can you not understand? Fresh corpses possess special value, particularly that lingering residual warmth—it's practically the final echo of life. Watching a warm corpse slowly turn into a chunk of meaningless meat, that wondrous sense of bearing witness... surely you can understand that, Yaxiu?" "Who on earth could understand that?!" Listening to the two of them ramble aimlessly, Igola, who was in terrible mental shape, instinctively wanted to cut them off. But he soon realized something was wrong: Yaxiu and Harvey's complexions looked as ghastly as heavily made-up orcish dancers, neither properly awake nor able to fall asleep. This anesthetic healing spray, on top of paralyzing and draining them of strength, seemed to keep them from sleeping as well. It suppressed their physiological functions as much as possible while locking them in a state of insomnia. Compared to putting prisoners straight to sleep, this drowsy yet sleepless state was far better suited for dealing with sorcerer prisoners. It could wear down a sorcerer's mental strength by sheer attrition until, over time, they couldn't even maintain basic coherent thought. If an interrogation became necessary, prisoners in this condition were much more likely to spill information—a concept Igola had picked up while reading mind-faction books on interrogation. Yaxiu and Harvey might not have understood the underlying theory, but having realized they couldn't sleep, they were instinctively engaging in intense conversation to stimulate their minds and preserve their mental faculties as best they could. Igola quickly reined in his thoughts, carefully contemplating their current situation. In truth, their situation wasn't all that terrible. After all, had they been ambushed by a foreign country's military, by now their memories would either have been forcibly extracted or they would have become the warm corpses Harvey loved so much. It wasn't that Igola judged other countries by Blood Moon standards; rather, the axiom that "those not of our land are sure to be of a different mind" was universal common sense. Although he didn't know who had used a prophecy miracle to foresee their arrival so precisely, it at least proved they possessed utility value. Whether as research subjects or as slaves, there was ultimately hope of surviving. If this country also favored civilization over barbarism, a place where social rules could bind the strong, then Igola was even confident he could carve out a grand career here. For a mind sorcerer, rules and human nature were the mightiest weapons. Thinking of the prophecy faction, Igola couldn't help recalling his dream from just moments ago. That had been the result of the Revelation sorcery spirit activating in his slumber—a rare phenomenon whose patterns Igola could never decipher. He had triggered revelations in his dreams several times in the past, but most had been meaningless images. The only time it had proven valid was after he first met Amy at the Apocalypse of Gambling and Lust, when Igola suddenly dreamt of Shattered Lake Prison. He hadn't attached any importance to that revelation back then, but looking back now, it had likely been an omen of his imprisonment. Still, the imagery in that dream had been far too exaggerated... Had the world been destroyed? It wasn't that Igola questioned the possibility of the world ending; he questioned himself. How could a "blind man" like him, who hadn't even reached the Silver realm in the prophecy faction, have any right to glimpse such a distant, colossal future? Even a Four-Winged Legend prophecy sorcerer might not be able to foretell the fate of the world, could they? And who was that mysterious figure watching the world's destruction? Perhaps the Revelation sorcery spirit had inhaled the anesthetic spray too and was just playing back scenes that had already taken place in the past... Meanwhile, Yaxiu and Harvey's banter had trailed off. Although they desperately wanted to fight off the lethargy, their dopamine secretion seemed to be suppressed. The more they talked, the more exhausted they grew, until all they wanted was to shut their mouths. No, I need something stimulating to do. Yaxiu willed it in his mind, and the familiar game interface floated before his eyes, displaying the current time in the upper-right corner. Time to pull some cards.