CHAPTER 679: THE NIGHTMARE’S RETALIATION

Shen Nianzu was just voicing his guess aloud, but when Noir did nothing but stare intently at him without a word, he immediately recognized it as a silent admission from the man himself.

He sucked in a sharp breath, his mind reeling in shock and disbelief. No fucking way...

"You plan to—what?!" Only then did Jin Jiuchi come back to his senses. His display of shock was even more exaggerated than Shen Nianzu, almost like his entire person was about to jump three feet high. If not for Noir avoiding him like a plague, he would have grabbed the man’s shoulders and shook him back and forth to express his astonishment. "Xinxin can be resurrected? He really can?? Does it mean he will come back to life?!"

"That’s the best scenario," Noir elaborated with a calm demeanor that belied the insane thing he had done. "However, it’s best not to hold out too much hope, since the person who comes back later might not be the Gu Luoxin you know. After all, his soul was fractured the moment he died. Even if I piece him back together, he... will no longer be the same."

Both Shen Nianzu and Jin Jiuchi fell silent upon hearing that, utterly speechless.

Shen Nianzu pressed his lips together. He didn’t want to be a spoil sport, much less dictate what the other person should be doing, but... he still felt the need to say something as Gu Luoxin’s team leader.

"You told us not to hope, so why are you still doing this?" His gaze toward Noir was a complex mix of sorrow and longing—perhaps even a hint of pity.

This was a resurrection they were talking about, for God’s sake! For a mere mortal to go against the natural law, to fool heavens and snatch someone back from the maw of death... how heavy of a price did he have to pay? What kind of sacrifice did he have to make? Just imagining it sent a trickle of dread down Shen Nianzu’s spine. The speed in which Noir had shot up the leaderboard was nothing short of a legend; even until now, the forum was still buzzing with discussions about him, calling him God with awe and reverence...

One had to know brutal, how impossibly difficult it was to accomplish such a feat.

Even he and Jin Jiuchi, who had been throwing themselves into Cycles with barely any rest, saw little improvement in their ranking. And that was because the higher the rank was, the harder it was to climb. Not to mention the top 3 which had remained unchanged for years. The fact that Noir had replaced the Divine Oracle in the second rank, all in mere half a year, spoke volumes about the unimaginable lengths he must have gone through.

It would be a lie to say that he didn’t feel overwhelming joy when he first heard that Gu Luoxin could come back to life but...

Opening his lips, Shen Nianzu uttered dryly, "Like you said, he will no longer be the person we all know. Even then, are you still going to see this through...?"

"Yes," Noir did not hesitate even for a millisecond, leaving the silver-haired man choked speechless.

At this moment, Jin Jiuchi suddenly interjected,

"I don’t get it. How can he no longer be Xinxin?" He scratched his head in confusion. "It’s Xinxin’s soul. Even if it’s incomplete, it’s still Xinxin. Look at me— I used to have my soul split in half as well. Did it mean I stopped being Jin Jiuchi? Of course not! Right, Nian’er?" He thumped his chest proudly. In this regard, he had the most say because of his rich firsthand experiences!

Shen Nianzu’s pupils trembled, the words hitting him like a lightning bolt. "Even if it’s incomplete... it’s still Xinxin...?" he muttered under his breath, almost in a daze. Once again, Jin Jiuchi’s frank, simple—even slightly childish—comprehension managed to dispel the fog in his mind with the force of the bulldozer, making him see the light once more.

He couldn’t help but smile bitterly to himself, "Sorry, I have thought too much again."

"He’s right." For the first time ever—and maybe the last—Noir agreed with Jin Jiuchi. "Whether it’s complete or not, there’s no difference. For me, he’s still Gu Luoxin and..." he continued with a soft, low voice, "... that’s enough. More than enough."

"Besides," he added after a brief pause, "I have all the time in the world to collect the fragments of his soul. Piece by piece."

Shen Nianzu’s fingertips trembled by his side. He wanted to say more, yet his throat constricted so tightly he couldn’t get a word out. Did you see this, Xinxin? You always said he’s out of your league and your love would remain unrequited forever, but did you see what he has done for you after you’re gone? If only... if only you could see this...

You would be so happy, wouldn’t you?

Even I... can’t confidently say I have the courage to do the same thing if I were in his shoes.

In the end, all the words Shen Nianzu wanted to say coalesced into a single sentence spoken with sincerity that came from the depths of his heart: "I wish you luck."

Jin Jiuchi quipped from the side, his excitement palpable. "How much longer until Xinxin is resurrected? Can I see him after he wakes up? Who knows, he might remember one thing or two about his best bro Jin Jiuchi—!"

He placed his hands on his hips and laughed out loud, "But of course, I don’t mind reminding him all over again!"

Unfortunately, he was ignored as if his words were mere air. With utter nonchalance, Noir turned to leave, a pair of massive bone wings sprouting from his back, stirring up a strong gust around them. But at that moment, he suddenly warned Shen Nianzu:

"Be careful."

Shen Nianzu blinked, taken aback.

"I’ve done a couple of things to provoke the Nightmare. It might get desperate and retaliate soon."

Before Shen Nianzu could even process the information contained in that sentence, Noir flapped his wings and flew away, leaving him befuddled and restless. What exactly had Noir done to provoke it? Also, the Nightmare getting desperate and retaliating? That sounded utterly ominous no matter how casual the other person’s tone was!

The more Shen Nianzu dwelled on it, the more uneasy he became.

He turned to Jin Jiuchi, about to say something, when he found the man staring at the direction Noir had flown off to with a serious and contemplative look on his face.

Shen Nianzu’s heart involuntarily skipped a beat. He very seldom saw such a look on Jin Jiuchi’s face. Jin Jiuchi did not think—and when he did, usually it meant he was about to drop a bombshell.

And facts proved that Shen Nianzu had known his lover quite well, for the next moment he heard the man ask:

"What do you think has happened to him since Xinxin died?"

"...What do you mean?" Shen Nianzu asked, puzzled, unable to make head or tail of that abrupt question.

"He..." Jin Jiuchi rubbed his nose, seemingly considering how to relay his discovery. "He smells... different. Not like a human anymore. In the past, this scent has always been faint on him so I didn’t give it much thought but..." halfway through, he suddenly smacked his palm with a look of belated realization. "Ah, so that’s how it is! I get it now!"

Facing Shen Nianzu’s confused eyes, Jin Jiuchi exclaimed with emotion, as enthusiastic as though he had met a fellow native in a foreign land, "Nian’er, Nian’er, Noir is a nightmare creature—like me! He’s just like me!"

Shen Nianzu stared at him blankly for two full seconds before his expression abruptly changed, "He’s... what?!"

***

To say that Shen Nianzu was shocked would be an utter understatement.

What were the odds that two of the players he knew turned out to be a nightmare creature? Besides, Noir was different from Jin Jiuchi. He had left many traces on Earth since he was a child up until adulthood, and that wasn’t something that could be faked! He had lived and behaved entirely like a human all this time... so how did he become a nightmare creature all of a sudden?!

What exactly had happened during the past half a year?!

Shen Nianzu’s thoughts perfectly aligned with Jin Jiuchi at that moment.

Alas, he was not given the time to ruminate deeper on this matter, for more shocking news awaited them once they returned to the real world.

"...reports of unexplained deaths have risen sharply since the last quarter. The National Defense Department released an official statement this morning, confirming that the situation is part of a new global phenomenon and urging the public to remain calm..."

It all started when a high-risk prison in the middle of the sea was destroyed from within by an inmate with supernatural power, resulting in massive casualties and more missing prisoners. Around the same time, people across the country started dying one after another— their deaths strange and abrupt, utterly abnormal, with no clear motive. When tallied, the total number was enough to send chills down everyone’s spine.

And then breaking point came when a popular blogger posted that they had just survived a mysterious disaster and gained a supernatural ability. While they didn’t mention the Nightmare Cycle, some of the vague keywords were enough to alert those in the know.

The post blew up overnight, with many netizens sharing similar experiences.

Even if some remained skeptical, they couldn’t help but waver when similar reports were found overseas.

They could dismiss the first blogger as attention seeker, but what about the dozens that followed? The hundreds?

Chaos began to ripple outward, spreading through society akin to a hairline crack widening in glass.

This forced the government to take drastic measures and subtly introduced the existence of the Nightmare Cycle as a global phenomenon—just enough to quell the rising panic and alarm.

Staring at the news on the television, Shen Nianzu felt his limbs growing cold as if the blood in his veins had frozen into ice shards. Outside the window, the wind whistled fiercely as if to announce the arrival of the heavy storm that would soon be upon them.

Beside him, Jin Jiuchi clicked his tongue lightly. "Look at it getting desperate."

"Retaliation..." the emerald-eyed man’s words echoed in Shen Nianzu’s mind once more, prompting him to murmur, "This is the Nightmare’s retaliation."

It gave humanity no time to prepare. More and more players were pulled into the Nightmare Cycle, the deaths piling up so rapidly they could no longer be hidden. This was the Nightmare’s goal all along:

—to announce its terrifying existence to the oblivious humans on Earth and destroy the fragile peace they had fought so hard to maintain all this time.