470: Chapter 8 Under the Moon_3 470: Chapter 8 Under the Moon_3 The familiar sense of emptiness came again, rising endlessly within his heart.
After all, his life was as meaningless as his ability.
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He was tired from walking and chose a random shop to eat in.
He went into a convenience store and bought some cold drinks.
After drinking two bottles, he carelessly crushed them with telekinesis and threw them away.
Dragging his weary body, he walked under the glow of the street lamps.
Was he on his way home, or had he already left Thorn District?
He couldn’t tell…
From some point on, he couldn’t see the lights anymore.
There were no other pedestrians on the street.
Was he unaware that he was stepping into a hallucination again?
Vaguely, he smelled something abnormal.
It clashed with the peaceful streets, something that didn’t belong in the background.
Yes, Gongsun Ce thought hazily, he must have seen the past again.
But that was fine.
He continued moving forward with the illusion; maybe he could see more scenes.
Perhaps he would be able to see what was behind the illusion, to see the truth of his own death.
Gongsun Ce quickened his pace, following the source of the smell.
Dark clouds covered the moonlight, obscuring everything before him.
Thus, he used his invisible powers as antennae, feeling for the path through the darkness.
“Huh…”
He walked briskly, unconsciously deviating from the main path and ending up in an alley.
The weird smell grew stronger, like a rust-like scent, right at the end of the narrow alley—
At that moment, Gongsun Ce stepped into nothingness.
No, that was an illusion.
His feet were still standing on something, but it wasn’t the ground; it was thin like air, sticky like sludge.
His right foot sank deep below the surface, as if devoured by darkness.
“Ah…”
Relying on his eyes, which had barely adjusted to the dark, Gongsun Ce observed where he was standing.
His senses weren’t wrong.
The ground had become a strange muddy mess.
Not just the ground, the walls too, twisting like plasticine, and the air literally turned into liquid, making breathing feel like being underwater.
Some kind of damp liquid seeped into the distorted ground, exuding a strong presence that drew his attention.
An unusual smell.
With the tang of rust.
An ominous, blood-like odor.
He slowly looked up, following the source of the flowing blood.
The dark clouds drifted away, the moon gradually emerged.
As the white light poured down, he gradually glimpsed the full horror.
Hair.
Nails.
A severed arm.
Torn flesh.
Broken bones.
Organs scattered in blood.
What was once human life, was now harshly piled up, indistinguishable pieces of flesh.
A gruesome corpse, as if mauled by a large beast.
At the very front of that dark red scene.
She stood there, silently.
“…”
She was like the night itself, a young girl.
Wearing a simple short-sleeved skirt like a female student, with waterfall-like black hair cascading down her back and an incongruously large black long-handled blade held in her seemingly frail right hand.
She stood in front of countless bodies, in a pool of blood, seemingly unaware as she turned her back on the young man who had stumbled in.
Despite being a delicate girl, she was eerily in harmony with the bloody nightscape…
Like a ghostly figure standing alone in hell.
“You—”
Instinctively, Gongsun Ce made a sound.
The clouds had fully dispersed, and she turned around under the bright full moon, amidst the corpses and pools of blood.
Her doll-like delicate face showed not a hint of life, exuding a surreal artificial quality.
Unable to perceive any emotion, devoid of expression, only the momentary beauty etched into the young man’s mind with the moonlight, making him forget to breathe.
The girl silently raised her left arm.
And then, a flash of black lightning filled his vision.
A sharp piercing pain appeared on the side of his neck, as if bitten by a venomous snake.
Gongsun Ce lost consciousness.