Chapter 62: You Are Ultimately Not Her
Looking at the pitch-black muzzle pointed straight at him.
In Emis’s sky-blue eyes, however, there was no fear or terror.
There was only concern, and a hint of confusion.
She tilted her head slightly, gently extending her fair hand to test the temperature on Rast’s forehead with the back of her hand.
“Rast, what’s wrong? Do you have a fever? Or has the trauma to your mind not fully healed yet?”
Emis spread her arms open, as if wanting to embrace Rast into her chest.
“It’s okay now. Whether it’s Deep Blue Port or that Frostwater Town Miss Shiltina mentioned, it’s all in the past.”
“You’re in Canaan now. There’s no Iron Cross, no mist, no contamination…”
“Even if the Iron Cross Plague really breaks out in the real world, it’s fine.”
“Because—I’m here.”
“This time, let me be the one to protect you, Rast.”
Hearing that sweet, crisp voice in his ears, so intimately familiar.
Rast slowly raised the muzzle of his gun.
This revolver, which had accompanied him for over two hundred years and moved like an extension of his own arm, now felt as heavy as a thousand pounds.
Even moving it a tiny bit had become exceedingly difficult.
“These are indeed the exact words the real Xiao Ai from my memories would say.”
“But—you are ultimately not her.”
In the next instant, he pulled the trigger of the revolver.
Boom!
The muzzle of Iron-Crested Moon burst with fire.
The bullet spun rapidly in the blaze, piercing through the chest of the golden-haired girl.
Her chest suddenly exploded into a bloody hole.
Yet unexpectedly, no splattering blood followed.
Instead, what replaced it was dissipating white mist.
Wisps of smoke curled around Emis’s slender figure, making her golden-haired form flicker like a ghostly mirage.
Emis simply stood there in a daze, staring at the hole blown open in her chest and her body that flickered on and off.
Only after a long while did she look up again at the young man before her.
“Sorry… I didn’t know I was fake. Even Canaan… was fake too.”
Her voice trembled, and tears streamed down her pale, delicate face.
In that shattered interplay of light and shadow, Emis gazed at Rast for a long, long time.
Those sky-blue eyes were filled with longing, and deep reluctance.
“Sorry for dragging you down… I almost got you mentally contaminated. But truly—I just wanted to always stay by your side.”
“To go to Starfall University with you. To see those golden plains with you. To go on adventures in the Nightworld.”
“To grow up with you, mature with you, grow old with you. And one day, when we’re too old to walk anymore… to return to Canaan, lie side by side in lounge chairs, watching those undulating snow-capped mountains, feeling the passage of time.”
“Ordinary, yet always new.”
“But it’s okay…”
She seemed to have thought of something, and her voice no longer trembled, letting out a small breath of relief.
“Even though I’m fake, the Xiao Ai in your memories—and Canaan—are real.”
“As long as she’s there, Rast, you won’t be lonely… even if the one by your side isn’t me.”
“Enough.”
Rast closed his eyes once more.
Bang, bang, bang—
The remaining five bullets in the chamber were emptied in single-action rapid fire.
The blinding flashes were strong enough to be sensed even with his eyes closed.
When Rast opened his eyes again, the golden-haired girl before him had already vanished.
What replaced her was a world cracking apart with jagged fractures, slowly falling into pieces.
The dining car, the cabin, the small town of Canaan, the lake outside the window, the windmill, and the snowy mountains…
They all tore apart like canvas oil paintings ripped by some external force, riddled with disjointed cracks.
Rast’s breathing grew heavier.
He panted heavily.
Then, with a slightly staggering motion, he once again raised the pitch-black muzzle of Iron-Crested Moon to his own temple.
Boom—
The snowy mountains, the lake, the forest, the border town…
The entire world collapsed within that sudden burst of blinding light, returning to pure, utter void.
…
When Rast opened his eyes again.
What greeted him was a scene that had returned to darkness.
This was a gloomy, oppressive world—Frostwater Town, inside the guest room of the mayor’s mansion.
He jolted up from the bed and looked out the window, only to see that in the dim sky where the moon should have been, there was now a twisted crimson sphere.
That sphere of red was composed entirely of grotesque flesh, constantly roiling and writhing.
And the Frostwater Town beneath the night sky was now fully shrouded in thick fog.
The fog, which had previously lingered only on the town’s outskirts, had now entirely breached its borders, enveloping all of Frostwater Town.
The once pale fog, under the blood-red light of that moon, had also become tainted with a crimson hue.
Rast rushed out of the room, opening doors one by one to check inside.
Sure enough, the blood-colored mist had silently infiltrated the house.
The fog condensed and merged… eventually forming strands of thread.
These white-and-red mixed threads surrounded him from all directions, making Rast feel as if he were trapped in an enormous spider’s nest.
Even his own body was tangled in the chaotic web of silk.
He fired repeatedly, breaking apart the obstructing threads before he finally saw the full picture.
They were enormous cocoons woven from threads.
These blood-tainted white threads had encased every living creature in Frostwater Town—whether humans or pets like cats, dogs, cattle, and sheep—into one cocoon after another.
Then, using the victim’s memories as a blueprint, the threads weaved illusions, causing the people trapped in the cocoons to sink into dreamscapes.
Until their minds and souls were silently corroded, polluted, and ultimately lost within the dream.
Their real-world bodies, meanwhile, were controlled by the blood mist.
They became puppets, stripped of self and soul, their very existence erased, manipulated by the threads.
Even Rast himself had just been inside one of those thread-woven cocoons.
He had simply succeeded in breaking free of the illusion, escaping the threads’ manipulation.
“Judging from the spiritual imprint’s fluctuations, Shiltina must be trapped in one too.”
Rast quickly located Shiltina’s room.
The density of threads in Shiltina’s room far exceeded that of any other, nearly blotting out the sky and transforming the space into a silken cave.
Rast took a deep breath and suppressed the urge to fire and shatter the massive cocoon before him.
He knew that Shiltina was currently in the same state he had just escaped—a dreamscape woven from the blood mist.
Even if he destroyed the cocoon now, all he would see was her slumbering physical body, and doing so might further damage her mind.
So, he opened the revolver’s chamber and ejected the bullets.
Then, he once more aimed the gun at his own temple.
Boom—
As the trigger was pulled, the mental command to “kill the self” was issued.
At the same time, using the residual connection left from their prior spiritual contact…
Rast’s spirit and consciousness entered Shiltina’s mental world, guided by the imprint he had left within her soul.