Chapter 501 - 442: Brianna: Vanishing Illusion, Appearing Person

Chapter 501: Chapter 442: Brianna: Vanishing Illusion, Appearing Person

Brianna’s heavy blow passed through Jin Xueli’s neck almost without obstruction, striking empty air. The sudden loss of resistance nearly sent her stumbling forward—she quickly braced herself with her hands on the ground and regained her footing.

Something fell into the grass of the small garden with a soft THUD.

Brianna stared blankly at the empty space before her, blinking a few times.

Was it a surprise? Not really, since this had happened before. But then again, it was a surprise, for that very same reason.

"...Jin Xueli?" she called out tentatively.

Of course, no one answered. The small garden was utterly empty. Besides her, there was no one else.

The Jin Xueli who had been speaking with her moments ago now seemed like a hallucination from her muddled state.

’She disappeared again? What’s going on? There really was a Jin Xueli here just now, right?’

Brianna even swept her arms through the air a few times, as if Jin Xueli had merely turned invisible.

She didn’t hit Jin Xueli, but she did hit her own hand on the iron gate.

’...This time, Jin Xueli’s disappearance shouldn’t have anything to do with ???.’

’Because this is the Nest. The game master shouldn’t waste energy using ??? on the Nest—even if he did reshape and remold the Nest, so what?’

’It’s already an unpredictable and bizarre place. What difference would changing it again make?’

’If the "baffling condition" affecting Jin Xueli has nothing to do with ???, then what’s causing it?’

’And what exactly is wrong with her? Does she disappear when hit, only to reappear with amnesia?’

For the moment, Brianna couldn’t think of an answer.

When Jin Xueli vanished, something seemed to have dropped... She looked down and searched in the grass. When she saw it, she froze.

She slowly picked up a cell phone, examining it over and over.

’...Jin Xueli’s phone?’

’Wait a minute.’

’Wait, wait, wait. The person with Jin Xueli’s phone must be Jin Xueli herself, so it wasn’t some strange thing impersonating her... which means, oh no, where did I hit the real Jin Xueli to?’

’So angry, I can’t take it. I feel awful. I want to smash someone’s face. But not the phone. Can’t break the phone.’

Brianna quickly let go of the phone. Before it hit the ground, she had already struck the small garden’s iron gate with several backhanded blows, bending it with a series of BANGS. She grabbed the iron bars, ripped them clean off, and flung them away.

The twisted, broken gate flew into the night and crashed heavily to the ground, the reverberating echo momentarily drowning out Brianna’s ragged breathing.

’Calm down... Calm down and think. This is a little strange.’

’Jin Xueli had plenty of things on her. Her keys didn’t fall, her clothes didn’t fall, but only the phone dropped?’

’What about everything else?’

’Right—’ A jolt went through Brianna as she realized. ’Jin Xueli came to get the radio. Did the radio drop?’

She quickly felt around on the ground, but couldn’t find it.

Indeed, only the phone had dropped... Brianna tapped the screen, and it lit up with a photograph of the Blackmoor City skyline at night.

December 6, 2026, 2:13 AM

Face ID unlock failed.

Brianna pictured her own horrifying appearance at that moment, contrasting it with Jin Xueli’s face—delicate, flickering, like a white pebble submerged in clear water.

’That’s what you call a world of difference, I guess.’

She was about to put the phone into the small pouch around her neck when she suddenly remembered something else in it: a "cosmetic styling product." It was a convenient disguise Brianna had specially commissioned from a cosmetician, modeled after Jin Xueli’s face. All she had to do was press it onto her own face, and she’d look eighty or ninety percent like Jin Xueli.

Brianna looked at the half-open door ahead.

’If Jin Xueli didn’t take the radio with her, then it might still be in the room. I need to look like Jin Xueli to get inside and search...’

’I have to use it now?’

Though reluctant, Brianna knew the Illusion was more important. She took out the cosmetic product, carefully leaned in, and buried her face in the white, clay-like "mask."

The "mask" immediately vanished onto her face. Brianna held up the phone and aimed it at the camera—the lock icon, as expected, opened smoothly this time.

She casually scrolled through Jin Xueli’s message list and found that the latest one was a notification from the Nest Dominance Game to all participants, announcing the emergence of ???.

After that, there were no other messages.

Brianna disabled the phone’s auto-lock security feature, placed it in the small pouch around her neck, and crawled into Jin Xueli’s room.

The bloody mess she had left in the room still splattered every wall.

The no-longer-existent Jacqueline had been reduced to countless minute fragments, food for the creatures of the Nest. She could almost hear innumerable things, invisible to the naked eye, slurping and feeding in every corner of the room.

Knowing her way around, Brianna opened the cabinet and reached inside to sweep its contents—she froze.

She straightened up, turned on her phone’s flashlight, and ignored the pair of bare feet standing on top of the cabinet, focusing only on carefully scanning the inside—that’s right, it was empty.

The radio was gone.

Brianna stood there dumbfounded as howls, not blood, surged through her mind in waves.

’What happened? Who took it? Did it disappear with Jin Xueli?’

’What if it disappeared with her? No, that’s not right, impossible. She couldn’t have had the radio on her.’

That old-fashioned radio was heavy, boxy, and bulky. Not something you could just stuff in a pocket.

’When Jin Xueli came out the door just now, her hands were empty, and she wasn’t wearing a backpack...’

’Did a third party take it?’

’Is Jin Xueli an idiot? If a third party had taken it, she wouldn’t have looked so calm when she came out the door—no, it couldn’t have been taken by a third party either.’

’Because neither her phone nor Jin Xueli’s had received a notification.’

Whenever a target Illusion changes hands, the Nest Dominance Game sends a notification to every participant, stating which Illusion it was and who now possessed it—just like last time, when Chaisi had snatched the Black Cube from Brianna.

’Since there’s no transfer notification, does that mean the radio is still in Jin Xueli’s possession...?’

’But she clearly didn’t have it on her... Did she hide it somewhere else?’

’That’s it. She said she was meeting a friend. So it’s possible she moved the radio to a different spot ahead of time, which is why she felt safe meeting someone here...’

Brianna had suffered too many setbacks and blows tonight; if spread out, they could almost fill another person’s entire lifetime.

When just staying sane was a struggle, it was no wonder she was slow on the uptake, only now slowly remembering that one sentence.

"I’m meeting a friend."

Jin Xueli was meeting someone. A Hunter with a Path.

Brianna’s mouth fell open, then immediately clamped shut.

Fear was like a great, slimy mass of snakes, coiling tightly around her organs. If she opened her mouth, it felt like she would be forced to vomit out all the churning screams inside her.

’Run, run, run, run, run, run, run, it’s over, it’s over, it’s over, what if, what if, what if—’

She whipped her head around and started crawling toward the door. Her palms were cold and slick; she lost her grip and dropped the phone.

It was as if someone were tightening an iron Coil around her neck, turn by turn. No scream could escape this shell of a body. Tears seemed to well in her eyes, her back was covered in cold sweat, and she couldn’t see anything clearly. Her hand fumbled on the floor several times, but she couldn’t get a firm grip on the phone.

’Run, run, run.’

’I’m begging you.’

She didn’t know who she was pleading with.

’Just this one thing, please don’t let it happen, please, please, I’m begging you, please don’t—’

’As long as I get out right now, crawl away right now, it doesn’t matter if I leave a piece of my body behind, because she never described me in detail—’

"...Jin Xueli?"

Just as Brianna crawled out of the room and into the back hall, before she could even reach the main door, that voice cut through the dimness.

She lay frozen in the dark foyer, not daring to move.

’No, no, no.’

’If I don’t make a sound, don’t move a muscle, maybe fate will overlook me, maybe it will let me go.’

"Jin Xueli?"

The voice was closer. The newcomer’s footsteps stopped where the small garden’s iron gate used to be. A soft CLICK—the safety being taken off a pistol.

"There’s a resident here. It went into your room."

When two calls went unanswered, her voice changed completely—cold and rational, as if delivering a report. "Jin Xueli, no matter what’s happened, if you can still hear me, don’t be afraid. I’m coming in."

’...Don’t.’

Brianna clenched her jaw so hard her teeth nearly chattered from how violently she was shaking. She hunched her shoulders, curled into a ball, and buried her face in her hands.

’Don’t. Don’t see me. Don’t come to save her.’

Morando was approaching the doorway step by step, her footfalls cautious and steady.

’Don’t save her. Don’t see me. Don’t save her, don’t save her.’

’...Why are you still walking forward? Is Jin Xueli that important to you?’

Brianna’s face was buried in her hands.

’Ah, right. This is Jin Xueli’s face now.’

’Ah, as scared as I am, as much pain as I’m in, there is actually a solution.’

’Really, the solution is right in front of me, how did I not think of it? Instead of just cowering in a ditch trembling, it would be better to just kill Morando. Kill Morando. Make her die just as ugly a death and become a resident too, keeping me company in the Nest for all eternity. Kill her. Kill her.’

’Then everything would be perfect.’

Brianna opened her mouth.

After her death, her vocal cords had withered and worn away. Her voice bore almost no resemblance to the one Brianna had in life. Naturally, it didn’t sound like Jin Xueli either—but that didn’t matter.

She slowly crawled forward a few steps. Hearing the rustling, Morando immediately stopped outside.

"Morando..."

Brianna called out in a low voice.

It felt like a lifetime ago. To think that in this life, she’d have the chance to call her name one more time. And this final time she uttered the name, it was to send its owner to her death.

With that trembling call, Brianna slowly revealed her face from the shadows behind the door—Jin Xueli’s face.

She finally saw Morando.

She finally saw Morando.

She wished she could keep looking forever.

She wished someone would rip the image of Morando from her retinas so she would never have to see it again.

"D-don’t come in... There’s a trap inside..."

Morando lowered the gun she had raised a little upon seeing Jin Xueli’s face. As expected, she didn’t move, only swept her gaze quickly around the doorway, inside and out. Her eyes, moving in the darkness, were like a shimmering sea—a flash of light, then dark again.

"Tell me what happened."

"Please..." Brianna’s eyes were half-closed, putting on the appearance of being too grievously injured to go on. "P-pull me out... I can’t hold on..."

Morando’s entire body was tense. She stared at Brianna’s body in the doorway, as if afraid it would suddenly lash out from behind.

’...She doesn’t recognize me.’

She was so desperate to save Jin Xueli. She walked up the steps, still maintaining a hair-trigger alertness, and quickly crouched down outside the door, extending a hand to Brianna.

’I could take her head off right now, actually.’

But Brianna couldn’t stop herself.

She reached out as well, placing her hand in Morando’s. After all these years, she was finally holding her again, hand in hand, as if they were crying to each other, promising never to say goodbye again.

Morando suddenly lowered her eyes.

’Too late.’

"...Tell me, why?"

Brianna murmured, her other hand forming a sharp blade as she plunged it into Morando’s abdomen.