Chapter 449: Gods (20) – Who Walks Alone

The premeditated explosion kept raging. Shrapnel and a wall of heat slammed into Si Qi; great tongues of fire licked across his body as the stench of scorched flesh mingled with the reek of blood.

He raised a hand to his cheek and neck and found it dripping—scarlet blood flecked with gold poured over him like a waterfall. His crimson suit drank up the red, leaving only intricate veins of molten gold.

Lin Jue had stocked enough explosives to wipe out both terrorist and hostage in one strike, resolved to leave no chance of survival.

Tingfeng’s trio leapt backward the instant the blast rang out, but human legs can’t outrun the chemistry of saltpeter and sulfur. Expanding gas swallowed their fleeing steps; after the smoke, only three broken, dying bodies remained.

Old Qi… I think I’m really done for…” Yu Jinsheng coughed up several mouthfuls of blood yet clung to a last thread of life. His unfocused gaze found Si Qi. “Everything I did back then—I was wrong. Turn back; don’t worry about me…”

What ever gave you the illusion I’d care whether you live or die?” Si Qi sneered, warm blood sliding anew from the corner of his mouth.

He looked just as wretched: countless fine cuts, iron shards and grit embedded in torn flesh. Still, a god does not die easily; even reduced to a skeleton, the basic protocol—like Qi in the ‘Carnivore’ instance—would keep running.

“It’s not yet time to turn back.”

Pain had passed the threshold; Si Qi barely stayed lucid. He sank part of his mind into his mental palace, ordering nearby Rose Monsters to mass at the tunnel mouth—and sure enough, gunfire rattled overhead.

The Bureau of Anomaly Affairs had set an ambush, clearly not trusting a mere bomb to finish a god. They were ready to knife or shoot the pieces, determined to erase every last chance of survival.

“Any living thing in the tunnel—whoever it is—shoot on sight,” someone ordered coolly.

The aftershock of the subterranean blast still rolled. Smoke filled mouth and nose; particulates coated his nasal lining and slid into his throat. Si Qi doubled over, coughing violently, spattering droplets of blood.

A shell fragment had stripped the flesh from his right calf, exposing a blood-slicked white bone. Limping, he steadied himself against the clammy wall, advancing step by step, leaving a trail of crimson handprints.

“He’s badly wounded—keep the fire up!”

“Use the special rounds; they’re effective against anomalies!”

Voices rang out. A figure stepped into the tunnel first, raising a pistol through the smoke.

The shot bloomed on Si Qi’s left shoulder. After a certain point pain turns to numbness. Back against the wall, he sent the Rose Monsters charging into the passage, placing themselves between him and the Investigators.

The long-missing Sea-God Scepter suddenly materialised in his hand; its alabaster shaft quivered, emitting a mournful hum.

Most storable props had vanished along with the Eerie Game—why, of all things, had the Sea-God Scepter returned now?

There was no time to ponder. He clenched his fingers, pressing the rod into his own flesh.

Crimson blood wound down the shaft, shifting midway to a gold-tinged scarlet and molten gold. Bathed in a god’s blood, the scepter glowed milky white. Sound of tide and rain surged at his ears; overhead came a hushed “sh-sh-sh” rustle.

Rain—in an instant Jiang City was drowning in a torrential downpour.

Grey curtains of water crashed from thousands of metres up, raising billows of mist that swallowed the streets. Runoff surged like a tide into sewers, tunnels, every low place; within seconds the flood reached Si Qi’s ankles, and the blood-diluted puddle became a pale-pink lake.

“Anomaly density spiking—watch for contamination!”

“Si Qi is boxed in at the tunnel mouth three o’clock from Riverside Estate—call for backup!”

The Investigators warned one another grimly, their words shredded by the roar of rain.

Rose Monsters from across the city felt no pain. Bullets thudded into them yet they never broke stride, rushing to Si Qi’s side one after another.

Vines and rain veiled every line of sight. Amid the chaos, ghost and human shapes blurred; the world fused within the downpour as though all spirits, debts and hatreds might melt away.

Si Qi lay prone along a monster’s spine. Layer after layer of his dripping blood coated the creature’s hide, provoking an ecstatic roar from the aberrant beast.

The monsters, exultant, clustered round him on blood-thirsty instinct, yet held a respectful distance under the soul-contract—like loyal guards escorting him toward the exit.

Gunfire quickened, then choked abruptly as several patterned tentacles slid from thin air, plugging each muzzle tight.

“Drop the guns—now!” an Investigator shrieked, voice cracking in terror.

Under the tentacles’ intrusion the barrels blossomed outward; exploding chambers shattered hand bones. Meanwhile fish-bones and shells carpeted the ground, gnawing at their ankles.

Screams rang out in succession, yet Si Qi had no leisure to kick them when they were down. Drawing the pistol at his waist, he fired steadily, clearing a path while his monsters burst through the encirclement.

A thread of sky-light leaked in, then widened into brightness with every gasping step—at last he burst from the tunnel and set foot once more on Jiang City soil.

A last-century leviathan drifted overhead, its vast black shadow sliding across the ground; at its helm steered the spirits of sailors lost at sea, a chill aura pressing down on the crowd.

Everything warped: the sky dimmed to the orange-yellow tint of the Hopeless Sea instance; silver-white fish-scales and feathers littered the ground, while cement turned into fine golden sand.

Rain, too dense to be real, stitched a false ocean; deceived sea-creatures leapt through the downpour, flying toward the Sea-God Scepter. Whale skeletons dived at the Investigators, and skeletal arms clawed from the earth to snare their feet.

The Clock Tower and coconut palms glimmered on the city’s horizon; airborne fish hummed ancient chants. With every minute the phantoms grew solid, until a towering white idol—three fish-heads, countless tentacles—rose from the ground, its dead eyes gazing down in cold indifference.

This far exceeded what the Sea-God Scepter alone could effect; it felt rather like the Sea-God in person. Si Qi realised the deity—Lu Li—was here in Jiang City. Which side was He on? Helping him, or conspiring with Lin Jue to set a trap?

Sirens wailed “woo-la-la”; red-and-blue lights flickered uneasily. Several military trucks drifted to the road’s far end, flinging up curtains of spray. Rifled soldiers and Investigators leapt down; their guns damp and useless, they closed in on Si Qi with nothing but flesh and determination.

At the moment they were only a step apart, a two-storey-high wall of water crashed down, shattering the newly formed encirclement into disarray. The Rose Monster, carrying Si Qi on its back, sprinted toward the Riverside Estate; the iron gate coiled with vines hovered at the edge of sight, and one after another rotting corpses dangled like welcoming lanterns.

Wuu—

A long, mournful cry rang out from a higher dimension, striking at inspiration and soul, piercing time and space, seemingly endless. It resembled the final whistle of a ship lost at sea, or the weeping of countless infants drowned in amniotic fluid; sorrow swept through every listener, drawing tears from their eyes.

The funeral mass had already begun. Si Qi had a vague inkling of what was happening, but no time to sort out the logic and reach a definite conclusion. Controlling the Rose Monster grew heavier; its steps faltered beneath him, as though it might collapse at any moment.

The sky lost its colour, shifting from orange to the grey-yellow of parchment, until only the grey-white of an old photograph remained. White rain shrouded the black city; black and white shadows wove through the streets. One by one the anomalies around him fell, and the rose beast beneath him froze like a statue.

Si Qi tumbled off and hit the ground without a thud. His gold-red blood turned ash-grey the instant it touched the puddles. A crack raced across the surface of the Sea-God Scepter in his hand; within seconds it spider-webbed, and the emblem of divine authority crumbled silently into dust.

Every sound vanished—along with pain and every other sensation—as though the monochrome world were observing a grand moment of silence, men and gods and ghosts all swept within it. Floating galleons, schools of fish, and skulls alike dispersed into smoke; the mirage-like outlines of buildings faded away.

Si Qi pushed against the ground and staggered upright. Only now did he grasp Lin Jue’s scheme and Lu Li’s fate.

The brief overlap of the Hopeless Sea and Jiang City had indeed been wrought by the Sea God’s might—a death-throe of the dying divinity and a harbinger of the rite to slay a god.

Where a god falls, every past and future anomaly, mystery, and absurdity shall perish together.

Lin Jue had plainly exploited this, dragging him back into the human realm to trap him in a city where the mystic died, using mortal power to ensure he never escaped.

Wherever he looked, the rose-bearing vines recoiled as if scorched by an invisible blaze, their leaves blackening and curling. The corpses that had hung in the air dropped one after another, drifting like fallen leaves into the puddles, eyelids closing, expressions serene.

The mind palace was pitch-black; the great tree that once bore soul-leaves had vanished. The Crimson High Priest card was bound by golden chains, cutting off any faith-granted boons. The Colosseum, the Statue of the Joyous God, the Insomnia Virus—every anomaly had lost contact with him; he could no longer trigger their outbreaks.

The rain still fell, no longer violent but silently mourning a god’s passing, dissolving the escaping spirit and divine power into mist to feed the battered world.

Si Qi felt the itch of wounds closing; correspondingly, all that belonged to anomaly and deity dissolved in the water. He was reverting to an ordinary man, as though returned to the moment two months ago when he first entered the Eerie Game.

Yet there was still a chance—if he could find Qi Si’s body, make himself whole, and then kill himself at once, avoiding death by a God-Slaying Sword or similar weapon, a slim hope of survival remained.

Si Qi broke into a run, passed the estate gate, and sprinted toward the unit entrance.

Behind him, Investigators scattered by the wave clambered up, regrouped, and gave chase; grey spray leapt skyward like rain falling in reverse.

A woman in camo with a buzz-cut stepped ghost-like from the corridor and levelled a long gun at him. Si Qi found her in Qi Si’s memories: holder of the Immortal Witch Priest card—Li Yunyang.

A bark rang out; a scruffy black dog darted from nowhere and clamped its jaws on Li Yunyang’s calf. The gun barrel jerked; the bullet grazed Si Qi’s arm, trailing a grey ribbon several metres long.

Seizing the moment, Si Qi slipped into the elevator and pressed “11”. As it rose he leaned against the cold iron wall, meeting the eyes of the corpse lying in the car—indirectly slain by him when the rose devoured its heart. Perpetrator and victim now shared a fleeting peace in the enclosed box, an image as absurd as theatre.

He had no time for sentiment; the instant the doors opened he rushed into the corridor, keyed in the code, and pushed the apartment door wide.

Dust billowed up as cold wind poured in, drifting through the air. Such squalor was unthinkable for a neat freak’s home; it looked long unoccupied.

A bad premonition flared. Si Qi strode to the second bedroom: the quilt lay neatly folded, no white-shirted youth in sight.

He spun into the master bedroom; the two skeleton specimens that should have rested on the bed were likewise gone.

Qi Si’s body was not here—he had moved it before the final instance began, presumably to Qijia Village.

Part of the memories in his mind was a lie; he could no longer tell whether Qi Si had planted false suggestions beforehand to trip him now, or whether some higher being had tampered with his cognition so that he, master of the Statue of the Joyous God, could never see Qijia Village whole.

The fact was that fabricated information had driven him into Jiang City, to throw himself into the Bureau of Anomaly Affairs’ net like a desperate gambit—sacrificing himself while burning Lin Jue’s fallback, paving the way for someone else’s grand design.

“So that’s how it is… so that’s how it is…”

Staring at the empty rooms, Si Qi suddenly bent double, laughing till tears ran… Bureau of Anomaly Investigation.

Lin Jue, bronze sword dripping golden fluid, rode the elevator up, walked the narrow corridor, and entered the office.

The computer powered on after scanning his iris; hundreds of messages scrolled across the screen—requests for next moves from every district, situation reports from field teams.

One message arrived from headquarters in Beidu: a surveillance video.

Chu Yining, hair streaked with grey, sat amid paper covered in writing, expression grave, speaking rapidly:

“For twenty-two years I’ve pondered, and finally I see His plan. Every human stands upon His chessboard; human wisdom itself is part of the god’s design… ‘Because I died, I returned’; Xiao Fengchao too returned after death; the others will be the same… including Qi Si. We must not let Him return. Though I don’t know what it would trigger, trust in a god’s unconditional malice and you’ll never be wrong.

“Tell Fu Jue: no matter what, do not kill Qi Si—never, ever.”