Chapter 500 - 441: Brianna: The Second One, The Second Time

Chapter 500: Chapter 441: Brianna: The Second One, The Second Time

When she could no longer hear the fading sound of the car engine, Brianna listened for a moment to the patter of the fine rain in the silent world.

She lowered her head, looking at the pile of dying embers in her chest where a few sparks had flickered, now growing cold again.

She scoffed, then froze for a moment.

To think that even in this state, she could still be moved, a few warm embers stirred, by a stranger and a few cheap words.

Though they had already died out, Brianna couldn’t swallow her disgust at herself for so easily becoming naive.

’How disgusting. Did you really think the world would finally offer you a sliver of kindness?’

She raised her hand and dug her five fingers viciously into her own cheek. Her nails tore through the skin that had lost its ability to heal, carving deep furrows. The scraped-off fragments of skin and flesh packed tightly into the crevices of her nails.

’You deserve this, Brianna,’ she told herself.

But she didn’t feel the pain.

Only a flicker of regret, but it passed in an instant. Her face wasn’t fit to be seen anyway.

Brianna glanced back. Her body stretched out between heaven and earth, with no end in sight.

’...Time to go back.’

She couldn’t shorten her body—if she could, she wouldn’t have ended up in this state. To go back, she could only circumvent her own body, crawling back alongside it, inch by inch.

That endless, pale expanse of a human back was always in her peripheral vision.

The farther she had come, the farther she would have to travel parallel to her own body, and the longer she would be tormented by that sight in the corner of her eye.

Even if Brianna returned to the Nest, this irretrievable section of her body would still form a tight link between the Nest and the human world.

When dawn broke, the entirety of Blackmoor City would discover a monstrous body coiled across the road. Children would scream and poke her. People would try to hack her apart. Some would climb on her and jump up and down, while others, sickened, would repeatedly declare they couldn’t even look at her...

She didn’t dare think about it any further.

She could feel a monstrous wave of hatred, stirred by her imagination, powerful enough to drag her into the abyss of becoming a resident, turning her into one for good with no hope of climbing back out. She was afraid she would start screaming, rush into the nearby buildings, and smash every human in the world into a bloody pulp.

’Think about Morando think about your goal you can do it you definitely can become beautiful like Jin Xueli and then go find Morando no no no no no no no don’t’

She lowered her head, prostrate in the ruins of the public housing construction site, and let out a long, sharp, furious roar between the rubble and broken bricks.

Once she finally managed to compose herself, Brianna, panting, crawled back into the Black Abyss Belt.

She had thought that this time, without the Host to guide her, if she ended up dissipating and vanishing in the Black Abyss Belt, it couldn’t be helped—no, it might not even be a bad thing.

But after crawling for only a short while through the thick, black fog, the roads and high-rises of the Nest gradually materialized before her.

’What’s happening?’

It had taken her a long time to crawl out. Stunned for a moment, Brianna suddenly remembered.

"Once the Black Abyss Belt is squeezed into the human world, it loses its ability to make people dissipate," the Host had once explained. "As a ’quarantine zone,’ it can no longer separate the human world from the Nest. In the end, it can only fade away."

’...This little bit of isolation that protected the human world... it’s disappearing so quickly.’

She stared, almost blankly, at the wet, dark road ahead, and at the flesh-colored resident standing at the intersection, pretending to be a traffic light.

"Ahem," the resident said, displeased to see her. "I thought someone had arrived."

It bent its upper body back from a ninety-degree angle to an upright position and closed its eerily glowing green mouth. Its mouth and two eyes were three round holes arranged in a straight line.

"How did you get through the Black Abyss Belt unharmed?"

The traffic light resident, seemingly unaware of the situation, looked at the black fog behind Brianna with a hint of envy. "I want to go so badly... I’d definitely be an excellent traffic light in the human world. How many people did you kill this time? Do you kill people, or do you use them for something else?"

Brianna didn’t want to bother with it and just kept moving forward.

After crawling for a while, she suddenly stopped and said to the traffic light resident, "Someone guided me through the Black Abyss Belt. A normal resident would have dissipated long ago."

The traffic light resident sighed wistfully. "I knew it."

It said no more. From its "pole," which was formed by its bundled-up body, it extracted a leg. It lifted its foot high and walked through the air, quickly heading to the next intersection, probably to disguise itself as a traffic light again and wait for an unsuspecting Hunter to wander into its trap.

How long would that sentence hold it back—no, how long would the lingering power of the Black Abyss Belt hold back the residents? Brianna didn’t know.

She couldn’t be bothered to think about it.

In the end, the human world behind her was just another cold, unfamiliar place. It hadn’t shown her much kindness.

If she kept crawling around the Nest, coiling back and forth without ever stopping, would there come a day when the ground of the Nest was no longer visible, completely covered by her body?

Brianna actually laughed at the thought, but the sound was harsh and grating.

But near the room where Jin Xueli had landed, Brianna’s body was nowhere to be seen. When she had left, the accompanying Vulture had picked up a section of her body and moved it away.

’That Vulture... did it leave on its own, or did it dissipate in the Black Abyss Belt?’

’It probably dissipated.’

’Anything that ever stayed with me was bound to disappear eventually.’

As Brianna thought this, she opened the iron gate to the back garden.

Just as she was about to crawl up the steps, the door to Jin Xueli’s secret hideout was suddenly thrown open from the inside. Startled, Brianna snapped her head up, her eyes meeting Jin Xueli’s. Both of them froze.

"What are you doing here?" they both asked at almost the exact same time.

"I should be the one asking you that—"

They both started speaking at the same time again. Brianna immediately held up a hand and cut them off. "Shut up."

Jin Xueli shut her mouth.

"You took a hit and vanished on the spot. So it was a form of self-protection?" Brianna said, choosing her words carefully. "Is it some kind of Illusion? Does it teleport you away randomly when you’re about to take a fatal blow?"

As she spoke, she sensed something was wrong.

Because Jin Xueli’s expression made no sense.

If she had escaped from Brianna’s clutches with an Illusion, why wasn’t she the least bit afraid upon seeing her again?

Not only was she not afraid, but her eyes were also shining brightly, the very picture of surprise and delight at seeing an acquaintance.

"What attack? What are you talking about?"

Jin Xueli tilted her head, her expression so innocent it made one want to slap the skin right off her face. It was as if Brianna was still something worth looking at. ’What’s with the act? Why bother pretending?’

"Ever since I met you at the gas station, I’ve been looking for you. I wanted to thank you... Oh."

’Oh, what? Doesn’t she remember that we just saw each other tonight?’

Jin Xueli’s mouth fell open, as if she understood something but couldn’t quite put it into words.

"You’re saying... you met a ’me,’ and when that ’me’ was attacked, she vanished before you could save her?"

’Who wants to keep saving you? Wasn’t last time enough? No... it’s better to let her misunderstand.’

"Yes," Brianna said. "What do you mean, ’that me’? Are there many of you?"

"It’s a long story... I can’t explain it to you."

Jin Xueli sighed, but there was no real weight to it. It was more like the sigh of someone who finds their road blocked and is annoyed by the detour.

"Let’s just say a very strange situation is happening to me... But hey, it might be a blessing in disguise. This situation might actually solve a hidden problem of mine for good."

"Stop speaking in riddles," Brianna said, growing impatient.

"Sorry, this is too important. I can’t speak plainly." Jin Xueli paused, then suddenly raised an eyebrow. "Huh? But... you—what are you doing here?"

She looked from her hideout back to Brianna.

A trace of doubt finally began to surface in her eyes.

"I left something here," Jin Xueli said hesitantly. "Before tonight, no one knew about it but me. I arranged to meet a friend here. When I heard a noise just now, I thought... But why did you come here?"

Brianna, of course, had come for the radio.

If she had known tonight would turn out like this, she wouldn’t have held back and left the radio untouched.

If she could just take Jin Xueli’s radio, she would instantly become the player with the most target Illusions. But from the looks of it, Jin Xueli had beaten her to it and already taken the radio?

Brianna summoned all her strength to adjust her expression, forcing what she thought was a gentle smile.

Jin Xueli was still some distance away.

If she spooked her, Jin Xueli could dash back into the room. Brianna wouldn’t be able to get in, and a simple matter would become complicated.

"I have nowhere to go," she said in a low voice. It wasn’t a lie. "I can only stay in the Nest, exposed to the elements... Look at my hair, my face, my body, I’m so filthy. I heard this building offers rooms for people to stay, so I came over..."

Jin Xueli bit her lip, her expression unreadable. It was hard to say if she believed her or not. She was a Hunter, after all.

"But this is a reward I received after clearing a scenario..." she said softly. "I don’t think it’s open to the public..."

Brianna was silent for a few seconds.

"Is that so," she finally said with a small laugh, turning her body. "Then I’ll be going."

However, the back garden’s iron gate was narrow. Her body had blocked the entrance when she came in, leaving little room to crawl back out—which was why the Vulture had helped move her body last time.

In truth, its efforts had been pointless; Brianna could have smashed the iron gate to pieces in a few blows. There were plenty of ways to get out.

"Can you help me?"

Swallowing waves of shame and humiliation, Brianna turned her head to Jin Xueli. Though she had turned, she couldn’t look at her, staring at the ground instead. "I can’t get out."

"I see," Jin Xueli said after a moment’s thought. She smiled and walked down the steps. "I’ll help you move."

’Do you trust me just because I saved your life once?’

Brianna watched her bend down, watched a loose curl slide from behind her ear and sway gently across her slightly pale face.

She watched the fleeting expression that crossed Jin Xueli’s face as she reached for her waist.

’Even if you trust me, you still think I’m disgusting up close, don’t you?’

As Brianna made her move, she felt an urge to cry.

This night was so long.

This afterlife, like an endless night, stretched on and on, just like her body.