CH 78

[Whole body trembling, Karina picked up a lighter from the school office and shoved the flame onto the bandages of the monster.

Fwoosh–

The light caught, instantly devouring the freak on the other side of the door.

“Wuuuuwu, grauuuuuughaaaa!

The monster’s scream was so sharp that it pierced Karina’s eardrums.

She finally glanced at the student ID she pulled from the monster, eyes filling with tears.

On the card, lay the image of a beautiful blonde girl laughing brilliantly.

Karina folded the slip, lips quivering in pain.

She didn’t know what she killed, but if she hadn’t – she would’ve died instead.

Shkuududu— [1]

Karina vigilantly turned her head and squinted down a long corridor to the left, where a knife was sliding against wood.

In the dark void of the hallway, a boy with short blond hair plunged a blade into the wall beside him, then raised his head, exposing a visage full of burn scars.

Grin tinged in savagery and malevolence, the teen sneered. “Wonderful performance, I’m eagerly anticipating your next act.  Jiejiejiejiejie!”

Karina tumbled into the deep blue pool of his gaze, gasping breathlessly.

This figure was the pure embodiment of humankind’s deepest fears.

“…Who are you?” Karina projected as she forcefully quelled her terror.

Unfortunately.

There was no longer anybody in front of her.】

——From《Nightmare》

Zhou Yu regarded the silhouette at the end of the hall with deep-looking emerald-green eyes.

It was him, the person who appeared in his dreams before.

So it wasn’t all just a dream?

If it wasn’t, then who are you?

Was this shadow the thing that’s been helping him out?

Vincent and Kenny were almost frightened out of their wits by Zhou Yu, and then noticed that the onyx-tinged monster had also followed them down the corridor; they got so desperate that they nearly burst into tears.

“No no – let us go, the gods are real, I don’t dare bully people anymore!” Burly Vincent was holding tightly to Kenny, crying like a three years old child.

“Wuwuwuwu – I’m sorry, Zhou Yu, please hurry up! Let us in the classroom! It’s a monster that will kill people–” Carrying Kenny on his back, Vincent tried to scramble into the classroom. reminding Zhou Yu to rush in too.

Zhou Yu’s eyebrows bowed slightly; walking into the corridor to avoid the two guys desperately squeezing into the classroom.

He continued to look up at the petrified figure.

That person was still unmoving with their hands over their face.

The teen hesitantly watched them with a limpid gaze.

This person felt so familiar…

Due to the long distance, he couldn’t see the man’s features, only the vaguely burnt traces of his exposed palms.

In the last dream, he asked if he was Morris, but the guy denied it.

Zhou Yu then thought that he missed Morris so much that he was seeing him everywhere, even his dreams.

“Who are you?”

The black-haired youth tried walk-in g closer to the man so that he could discern his appearance. 

But the next moment, the figure disappeared into thin air.

That person had run away.

Zhou Yi strode up to the person was just now and stared at the spotless floor.

Was he dreaming now? Or was it all just his fantasy?

Zhou Yu raised his fair palm, fingers trembling slightly.

He wished this was all just a dream.

Because if that was really Morris, he couldn’t imagine the kind of suffering he’d been subjected to.

Maybe not, maybe I’m overthinking it.

The dark-haired and green-eyed boy covered his eyes with the palm of his hand and breathed out slowly.

“Wuwuwuwu! Help! Heellllp!”

Plaintive wailing shoved Zhou Yu out of his unstable mental state.

He released a sigh and turned his gaze to a walkway not far from where he was standing.

Striding into the corridor revealed Jean, who had tucked his head into the trash can. With a blank face, Zhou Yu asked, “What are you doing?”

He had wondered why the sound of crying was slightly muffled.

Jenny continued to shake his brains out [1], and slammed into the nearby wall with his can-covered head. It probably hurt a lot.

Zhou Yu kicked the trash can on Jean’s  head aside, then turned away.

Jean ended up witlessly sitting in the corridor with a pile of trash on his face.

Zhou Yu, now slightly confused, returned to the classroom to pick up his bag and leave for the day.

But as soon as he retrieved his schoolbag, Zhou Yu felt someone tug on his trouser leg, so he looked down.

Vincent and Kenny, who were crouched in the corner, slowly crawled over with an optimistic countenance: “My dear classmate, uh, the monster, he, is he gone?”

Zhou Yu watched the two burly men shrink  into balls with a dagger-like glare, and deadpanned, “No, they are still guarding the door.”

Hearing that, Vincent shuddered and retreated into the corner, afraid to look around again.

Zhou Yu cast their plight out of his mind and left the room.

At the same time, not forgetting to stomp on one of the slow-looking Jean’s feet as he passed by.

These three guys had always taken advantage of the weak, and he’d already had enough of it for years.

Although Zhou Yi had no idea why he was so terrified in the past, it was a lesson in the end, and he was very forgiving for not striking them down when they were already in a predicament.

Outside the building, Zhou Yu took out the umbrella in his bag wistfully.

This brand new umbrella is still as clean as ever. The light blue fabric was like a morning sky, causing an innate feeling of calmness in people.

He once told Morris that he liked the color blue very much.

Especially shades that were particularly similar to Morris’ eye color.

Remembering that, Zhou Yu’s own dark emerald eyes dimmed.

Who is that unusual but familiar-seeming man?

Pondering over what had just occurred, a walking Zhou Yu didn’t realize that an overly muscled man had walked up to him until their shoulders collided. Narrowly escaping a fall, his umbrella hit the ground instead.

“Ungh.”

Zhou Yu groaned in pain, and then he looked up at the man who collided with him.

Looking at this man, Zhou Yu’s pupils shrank.

This was an unusually tall guy wearing a huge down jacket.

His clothing was near-bursting with the exaggerated muscle, it was a very strange sight.

The man glanced down at the skinny boy who ran into him. “Watch where you’re going!” he growled indifferently.

After which he took a step and continued walking to his own destination.

Zhou Yu picked up the umbrella that he’d accidentally dropped, knocked off the dust that tainted the sky blue fabric, and gazed at the man’s back.

This person had a strange aura of discordinance around him, as if he didn’t belong to this town…no, maybe it could even be said that he didn’t belong in this world.

!!!!!!

Zhou Yu, who was just about to continue in his way, gripped the area right above his heart.

A film-like vision suddenly apperated in front of Zhou Yu’s grimace, giving only a few seconds to process the images.

“What … ugh!”

Zhou Yu grasped the tree beside the sidewalk and slowly leaned on it to calm the waves crashing through his head.

The scenes rose quickly and fell just as swift, before changing to another.

*

A man with a face similar to Fen’s ran desperately down an empty corridor, a figure with black full-body scars split his head in half, and blood stained the entirety of the walkway.

*

Blond-haired Jenny was tied to a hospital bed, a chainsaw cutting her body into pieces while blood splashed, she screamed, and the scarred man sneered in twisted joy.

*

In a dark church, a woman in a black robe and a compassionate smile looked at the blond teen kneeling at her feet in captivity. Beside her was a black-veiled Jenny and a proud Fen.

*

The boy with blue eyes glared daggers as he was lashed to a cross, and he cursed all present to forever be banned from reincarnation.

*

The visions ended with the view blocked by a curtain of flames.

Zhou Yu couldn’t bear this type of stimulus; he paled significantly as his brows furrowed in recognition.

Morris….. That was Morris!!!!

The pale, dark-haired young boy had always been consistently frigid. This child’s eyes widened…

And a single tear slipped down his visage.

Reaching out to wipe away the drops that flowed uncontrollably down his face, Zhou Yu’s green eyes, rendered limpid by a teary film, were muddled with confusion.

What were those just now?

That was all real.

For a reason unknown to him, Zhou Yu was more or less certain that the illusions he experienced just then were not his fantasies, but actual events that had already happened.

So, the flame-blackened man…is Morris?

Rain started sprinkling from the perpetually overcast skies.

It dripped on Zhou Yu and a bit of his clothing got wet.

He shook open the umbrella with a trembling hand and walked towards one of the city’s churches.

He needed to examine the church that was shown in his mind.

Whether or not the events in the vision had actually occurred or not could be verified when he got there – although he very much hoped that the whole thing was just a momentary nightmare.

After Zhou Yu woke up, his Morris would still be the cheerful and happy young boy who had never encountered disaster.

This city was a small, backwater area, meaning that there only existed two churches that everyone went to.

Zhou Yu remembered that he’d been to the place multiple times as a child, so he’d recognized the church in the visions almost immediately.

The church in which Morris was kidnapped to and forced to kneel in the vision was undeniably the older one that people rarely entered.

Zhou Yu’s steps grew farther and farther apart, and he finally just straight-up ran.

He found it absolutely necessary to get to the church as quickly as possible.

The cold wind whistled past Zhou Yu, blowing his umbrella, and the hand clutching it, away and behind his torso. 

Zhou Yu squinted as he closed his umbrella and ran through the rain, down a path where few pedestrians traveled. 

The rainfall wasn’t very heavy, but the chilling winds sliced through Zhou Yu. After a while, his already pale cheeks were painted a little grey.

Very quickly, a familiar figure appeared in front of the hastening teen, and the youth immediately stopped.

“I’ll give you the money! Hurry, give me God’s Blessing! Quickly!” A middle-aged man with a rotund stature clung to a black car on the curb, pleading to it intensely.

Eugene?

Zhou Yu carefully hid behind some bushes by the roadside in order to eavesdrop in relative safety.

Something’s up.

Eugene, this abusive father, had been lying on the ground in pain from the drawing’s curse just yesterday. How did he get here?

“This amount is not enough to show the Lord your piety, my dear Eugene.” A gentle, feminine voice wafted from the inside of the vehicle. “But God is a tolerant being, so…. I’ll be tolerant as well, just this once.”

A moment later, a tall, suited bodyguard got out of the car and handed Eugene a small bag of white residue.

Eugene traded this powder for the bag of change in his embrace, forking it over to the guard who was still standing there.

He held this small pouch of God’s Blessing like his most precious treasure. [1]

“Thank you, thank you for your kindness! Thanks to your arrival, I can be freed of this devil’s curse! In the future, if you have any orders for me  Archbishop, I, Eugene, swear to follow you till the borders of life and death!”

“You’re welcome, Eugene. You and I are both believers of God. It should be natural to help each other, but maybe you really did need a little help this time.”

There was an unspoken intent in the gentle voice: “Bring your son Zhou Yu over to see me.”

Zhou Yu’s emerald eyes were pure ice.