Chapter 81
Chapter 81 [Reality and Illusion]
Indulgence.
Opening his eyes.
The same snowy mountain, the same peak.
What was different was—
There were no snow monsters here; there was only a short man hiding inside a thick, plush cloak.
“You, how is that possible!? You are merely a fictional character, how could you step out of my imagination!”
The man let out a scream.
He retreated frantically, dropping the dark green book in his hands onto the ground.
Ye Qiyan walked up to him calmly and reached out to pick up the book.
[Reality and Illusion]
[A node connecting two worlds, recording the stories that take place within a certain area of another synchronized world. By consuming a large amount of Mental Power, it can influence the reality of the other world to a certain extent.]
So it was because of this book that the events in that world happened.
There wasn’t much content in the book.
The first few entries were the same as what the three-headed person said.
Until the scientific expedition team was on their way to the third supply point, when the neat handwriting turned into a crooked shape.
And on the latest page, another entry in neat handwriting had appeared.
[Explorers have broken into this world, riding a Train and searching for the most precious item in that space.]
“Is this talking about me?”
Raising his eyes to look, that short man got up to flee.
Raising his gun to shoot, a bullet precisely grazed past his left ear.
“Ah!”
Fresh blood drenched his cheeks.
The man rolled on the ground in agony.
“Don’t come over, you, you’re just a character in my imagination, you’re fake! You!”
“Has he gone mad?”
Ye Qiyan shook his head and gave an order. The Raven Demon, which had been hovering in mid-air all along, flew above him and grabbed the man’s shoulders.
“Ah! Let me down, let me down!”
The Raven Demon grabbed the man and suspended him in front of Ye Qiyan.
“Did you write this sentence?”
Looking at that line of neat text above, the man’s voice trembled as he roared loudly:
“I, I won’t tell you, you outsider, ah!”
Crunch—
The Raven Demon crushed the man’s shoulders.
Seeing this, Ye Qiyan chuckled lightly and snapped his fingers. The Raven Demon loosened its claws and dropped the man onto the snow.
“Alright~ I’m not a bad person. Answer my question, and I’ll let you go.”
“Really?”
“Of course.”
The man’s body trembled, his two arms limp on the snow and devoid of sensation. He didn’t realize why he had actually believed the words of the person before him.
“I, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you everything! The neat handwriting in this book isn’t mine; it just appeared on its own. Those crooked words on it are mine—I made the expedition team get lost, made them eat each other, and finally fused those three people together. Also, also that snow monster, that was my creation!”
Gritting his teeth, he used his mouth to bite out a drawing from the pocket on his chest.
On it were snow monsters of all shapes and bizarre appearances.
They looked completely identical to the snow monsters he saw in the other world.
[The Painter’s Snow Monster Family]
[A monster painting drawn by a trashy painter]
“Where did this book come from?”
“Right here. That day, in order to gather inspiration for my art, I ran to this place and happened to see this book.”
“I only know this much, can I go now!”
“Of course.”
Watching the man turn around and struggle to walk away.
Even though, with his shoulders shattered, he probably wouldn’t be able to make it down the mountain.
However…
“Go, bring him the Harbinger.”
Caw—!
The Raven Demon let out a shrill cry.
Flapping its wings, it grabbed the man’s body and flew high into the sky.
Screams echoed endlessly. Accompanied by the sound of bones shattering, this space returned to peace.
“…So, can the mission be considered complete? Speaking of which, how am I supposed to go back?”
If he used the anchor’s Voyage ability, he could directly return to the Train.
But in that case, his Roadhog would be left behind on the mountain.
This station hasn’t yielded much harvest so far, and if he lost Roadhog on top of that, wouldn’t that be a huge loss?
He had to think of a way.
“Can this book send me back?”
Picking up a pencil from the man’s body, he wrote a line of text on the latest page.
[The door connecting both sides has been opened.]
As the final stroke fell, a distorted fluctuation emerged at the place where he had arrived.
“Raven, go in and take a look.”
Summoning another Demon Raven to fly inside, after a moment, the raven returned safely. Only then did he step inside, returning to his original Station World.
“It really works. That’s right, a Platform should at least provide a way for people to pass through.”
This station wasn’t very difficult for him.
That was because he possessed multiple Demon Cards, the anchor, and high-level equipment support.
What if it were someone else without these things?
I’m afraid they would have been beaten to death by a dozen snow monsters at the third supply point.
No, perhaps they would already have been helpless the first time an unhittable snow monster appeared at the second supply point.
“It seems something is still missing.”
Having resolved the person behind the scenes, Ye Qiyan still didn’t feel like this station was completed.
He flipped through the contents of the book.
In the end, he figured out what was missing.
“Where is the Guide?”
From beginning to end, there had never been any content about the Guide in the book.
According to the book’s contents, the note in the photograph appeared directly inside, and although the content was similar to what he saw, there was completely no mention of the so-called “Guide”.
Suddenly, an extra line of text appeared on the book in his hands.
[The holder of the book has realized the discordance. The world reincarnation is about to begin. Three hours later, everything inside the snowy mountain will be reset, unless you find the Guide.]
“???”
Seriously?
Can he just choose not to think about it?
How did reincarnation elements get brought into this?
“So after going in such a huge circle, the final task is to find the Guide?”
It left him speechless.
However, it wasn’t completely without clues.
He still remembered the note in the photograph he saw for the first time.
The Guide’s message was to head to the third supply point, as that was the way out, and finally, it must be destroyed.
He had been to the third supply point and hadn’t found any way out, let alone anything that must be destroyed.
Did he miss something? Or rather…
The three-headed fused person?
Mounting Roadhog and following the map, Ye Qiyan headed towards the third supply point in the direction he came from.
That place should be the final stage of this Platform.
“What a hassle, but it’s also quite interesting.”
As expected, humans really do like to torture themselves.
Compared to the comfort in the City of a Thousand Stars…
He actually preferred having adventures in such critical and dangerous places.
For some reason, the road down the mountain was even harder to walk than the way up.
