168 Palm From the Sky

A horrifying melody surrounded the hand of ash. It radiated with deathly aether. Everything in its path was ruined—the walls weathered, the ground separated, and there were cracks in the wind. Everything was destroyed by the hand in an instant! Reality was distorted!

Everyone’s faces were white from fear. This extreme power was only a step away from the Scepter level, and every Resonance musician dreamed of having it, but this was only the strength of one hand and it had already reached this extent. What strange monster was it?!

Red Eye gaped as the hand rose clenched into a fist, and then slammed down on him! The only thing he could liken it to was the sky falling. A glob of meat then shot out from the black hand and splattered onto the nearby musician’s face, eliciting shocked screams. The giant palm swept from side to side in the tight space. Black air heaved and grasped many musicians before returning inside the vortex. Painful cries came from the still vortex. It was the cry of falling into hell. The chilling noises of chewing sounded. Then all was silent.

The blood-red vortex continued to spin, but the hand and dog were gone. The faces of the survivors were still deathly pale. It had only been a single hand and yet half of them had disappeared in an instant. Even the mysterious Red Eye had died! Some people shook, already thinking of ways to escape.

"Don’t panic. Stabilize the Blood Path!" the robin voiced.

The man with the strange mask had replaced Red Eye and stood at the center. "The Royal Musicians are going to be here soon. The most pressing task at hand is to solidify the Blood Path and take it…Red Eye, are you alive? If you are, then get to work."

"Recovering…now…" Beside the robin was Red Eye’s remains. His body had been turned into minced meat. But in the meat, the half of his head that remained still had a single red eye open. His sigh was hoarse. "But I can’t use this body anymore. What a pity. It’s been three years and I’ve gotten used to it…"

The pile of ruined flesh burst into flames, sizzling with a destructive aura. The remaining half of Red Eye’s head hovered in the air. It side-eyed the musicians who had never seen such a thing before and ordered coolly, "Let’s start. There’s not much time left. Perform the ninth movement of the Codex Calixtinus as a symphony."

The musicians swallowed and forced themselves to calm down as they obeyed. The aether began rippling again. Under the piercing hymn and melody, the Blood Path vortex slowly began to cave in. It released a blinding light, and the insubstantial state slowly solidified, but painful cries abruptly sounded amongst the musicians.

The musician at the very front suddenly stopped singing and began rolling on the ground in pain. He had clearly stopped, but his voice still continued. In that wild song, his body withered bit by bit. The vitality in his flesh and blood was sucked into the caving vortex.

A second musician followed, then a third, and a fourth…Terrified, the musicians wanted to leave the resonance, but they found that they had stepped into the quicksand. Even if they wanted to stop, the melody and wild aether inside them would urge them on, ravage their bodies, and force them to burn up the rest of their lives, pushing this satanic song to its climax!

Breath of Boiling Blood! This was a technique that the former Rain Artist had used before, but now it became the hidden trap in the music score. Other than the robin and Red Eye, every single musician was sapped dry.

Bits of light flew from the openings of the empty shells and converged before Red Eye. The light transformed into an ancient leather scroll. Lines of scriptures were written in blood, describing how to use life and fresh blood to hold the ritual and please the gods in exchange for the reward. It was the Codex Calixtinus! This was the copy created by the lives of sixteen musicians.

The robin turned to look at Red Eye. His eyes were eerie and cold, rather than angry. "Those are my men. Aren’t you afraid I’ll be angered if you just kill them like that?"

"They’re just a group of cannon fodder that knows too much. Even if I didn’t do anything, you’d take care of them too, right? But if I do it, the trash won’t go to waste." Giving it no mind, Red Eye just glanced back at him with his single remaining eye. "Besides, my two brothers died because of you. You owe me."

"You better not ask for more." The robin looked away and raised his head toward the vortex in mid-air. It had solidified into a glow the size of a fist and was slowly descending. This was the sign of the Blood Path, created at the cost of the battle of downtown. From now on, he would be able to use this to open the Blood Path at any time and enter the dark, shadowy world. Under the mask, he revealed a faint smile and reached out to grab the ball of blood light, but in that moment, his body shook and his eyes turned fierce. "Who is it?!"

A chilling laugh sounded behind him. "You’ve worked hard." It was the Professor’s hoarse murmur.

The alchemy equipment under the robin’s long robe was activated immediately, forming layers of guards. He grabbed the ball of red light immediately after.

Red Eye acted immediately. He spewed out a green ripple that expanded in all directions. A black shadow was revealed in the ripple’s path, despite nothing being there.

The Professor was revealed, but he did not hesitate at all. He sped up and charged toward the sign. His left hand reached out, grabbing the rim of light. His prepared right hand rose from his sleeve and pointed the silver flute at the other two. "I have a gift for you."

The music score within the flute was awoken. The icy melody burst out of thin air and instantly brought forth a freezing wave. Was he from the School of Modifications?

Red Eye’s pupil moved. He flipped open the scroll before him, and the hymn sounded out of thin air. The pile of skeletons were yanked from the ground and dragged toward the overwhelming cold tide, but the tide passed through the wall like an apparition and it swept away everything except for Red Eye and the robin!

This was not Modifications—this was Illusions! Red Eye realized it immediately, but he was submerged in the hallucinatory melody. This was the trap that the Professor had set just for them! In an instant, layers and layers of frosty hallucinations surrounded him. A wind vane, a river of frozen tears, a Bodhi tree, a recollection, a ghostly fire, a spring dream, loneliness, a street sign, an inn…

Perfect "mental images" rushed into his mind one after another, invading his thoughts. There was the freezing winter wind, or the flowing icy river, or the frosted Bodhi tree, or the eerie, ghostly fire. Then it became a gentle spring dream and he felt so lonely…In an instant, his mind was torn to pieces. He had been swallowed by the hallucination without his permission.

This was Winterreise, written by Saint Schubert of the School of Illusions. In the freezing winter, it was like an endless dreamlike travel. This music score was not the most destructive, but even the most powerful musician would be trapped by the twenty-four cages. He would never be able to leave once he fell in. Red Eye was caged in by the illusion immediately, but it gave the robin a sliver of a second to escape.

The layers of guards around the robin burst and blocked the cold tide. Then, a black robin flew out from his pocket. The phantom beast had taken the blow from the illusion for its master. The pieces of consciousness in its mind had been killed by the hallucination, destroying the bird instantly. The robin, however, was unharmed. He had escaped from the trap that the Professor had planned for so long!

No one had expected the robin to be a musician from the School of Summoning! Sparks floated from his fingertip and flew toward the corpses surrounding him…When the sparks wormed into the corpses’ noses and mouths, the bodies swelled up. Burning light could be seen under the skin, as if the blood and flesh had been ignited. In an instant, the corpses were nothing but empty bags of skin. A tidal wave of sparks surged from their pores, charging toward the Professor. It was a swarm of phosphorescent insects. It was harmless to dead objects, but it was the natural enemy to living flesh!

The Professor’s movements did not change. He still charged directly toward the sign, not caring about the tidal wave of phosphorescence at all. Something rippled through the swarm, and a giant boom sounded. Light danced wildly as a burning figure ran through it all.

The Professor had pushed through the torture from the insects and used his demonic blood to fight against their gnawing. After sacrificing so much, he was only a finger’s breadth away from the blood light!

The robin had miscalculated! Shock flashed through his eyes, but he quickly grew ruthless again. Gritting his teeth, he slid the ring off his forefinger and tossed it in the air. "If you want to take everything straight on, then try taking this!" he thought.

The ring flew toward the Professor. The inlaid ruby cracked soundlessly and turned to powder. An eye appeared in the crystal light of the gem’s powder. It was the Fleeting Glimpse! Endless malice and wildness seeped from the single eye. It was practically tangible. The Professor shook as if he had been struck by lightning. His body stopped abruptly, and he quickly tried to escape.

Under the stare of the "eye," the Professor’s palm shattered bit by bit, turning into a pile of deformed flesh. His entire body was tainted by the gray aura of defeat, and seemed to be close to toppling over. His shield was useless, his defense was useless, his caution was useless…Gazed upon by that eye, all defense was meaningless.

Even though the Professor had dodged it quickly, he had barely escaped being turned to ashes! If he was not powerful in both Mind and Illusions, he would have gone mad already and become a fanatic follower of the eye…

"The Eye of Satan!"

The Professor fell to the ground and broke his own left shoulder. The warped arm dropped onto the ground and started moving like a living thing, crawling around. It had become a dependent of Satan!

How did the robin have an eye from Satan Hyakume? This was a fleeting glance cast at humanity from the god that was responsible for sin and evil. It was enough to destroy any mortal being! In an instant, the tides had been turned.

"This was specifically prepared for you uninvited guests! How does it feel, Mr. Moriarty?" The robin began cackling as he looked down on the writhing Professor.

He reached out to catch the descending ball of blood light. As it was about to be in his hands, his smile became distorted in excitement. No matter how hard anyone tried, it belonged to him and would always be his! No one would be able to take it away from him!

"Wow, you’re laughing so happily! Did something good happen?" a youth’s voice suddenly rang in the darkness.

Boom! The entire laboratory shook as if a giant had smashed down his hammer. The air pressure changed dramatically, and a furious wind swept through all directions.

In an instant, the shaking sigh turned the dome to pieces, and the heavy shards fell to the ground, whistling. As the broken pieces flew, the wild mutants poured in endlessly from the darkness, charging toward the robin. Then the Vengeful Spirit descended from the sky, going straight for the blood-red sign!

"What a nice thing. It’s mine now!"