An intangible wind blew, and he felt as if he was falling from the clouds in the sky. Before he could say anything, he was enveloped by a sudden sensation of weightlessness, continuously falling, falling, falling.
Whoosh...
Li Fufeng opened his eyes and suddenly sat up in bed.
The room was pitch black, with faint light filtering through the window cracks. He leaned against the bed, staring blankly for a while.
Everything that happened in the dream was crystal clear in his mind, without the usual haziness that comes with regular dreams.
No, this wasn’t just a dream.
“Nightmare Trial... Return to the Void...”
Thinking of Return to the Void reminded him of the Heavenly Master of Divine Calculation’s previous warning.
But even Qi Jiu hadn’t given such a specific timeline, so specific that it made him feel urgent, as if the hunting dogs in pursuit were closing in, their sharp claws threatening his throat.
Li Fufeng desperately hoped this was just a dream born from overthinking after hearing Qi Jiu’s warning. Even someone as determined as him couldn’t help but want to escape when faced with the cruel reality Bai Yi had revealed.
However, such weak thoughts only lasted for a moment.
Soon, he regained his composure and shook his head with a bitter smile. “Actually, the authorities have been preparing for doomsday for a while, but we all thought we had at least a few years. Who knew we wouldn’t even get that much time...” He wondered if Yao Country’s previous preparations were sufficient?
...He didn’t want the bloody tragedies from the nightmare world to become reality on Blue Star.
Just then, his phone on the bedside table rang.
Li Fufeng picked up the phone, his eyes glancing at the time displayed on the screen: 4:30. The caller was Liu Ningshuang, and he knew why she would call at this hour. In that blank dream space, he had also seen Liu Ningshuang.
Sure enough, as soon as he answered the phone, Liu Ningshuang’s anxious voice came through:
“You had that dream too, didn’t you?”
“Was it because of that dream?”
Their voices overlapped as they spoke almost simultaneously.
They knew the answer without needing to respond.
A long sigh came from the other end of the phone.
“...So it really wasn’t just a dream!”
Liu Ningshuang’s dejection was audible even through the phone.
“I wish it was just a dream...”
Li Fufeng felt as if he had eaten bitter herbs, the bitterness sliding from his tongue down his throat. He tried to speak in a lighthearted tone. “I also saw Chu Xingrui and the others in the dream, so we won’t need to notify them specially...” �
“Let’s exchange our experiences in the nightmare world first. I was thrown into a world made up of many small islands...” They briefly described their Nightmare Trial instances and found they had entered different nightmare trials, but similarly, they were all worlds on the brink of destruction.
Combined with what Adams had said about “every nightmare world being a real world that was already destroyed,” the implications behind this made their hearts even heavier.
Without realizing it, the heavy darkness outside the window had been replaced by the white light of dawn, with the intersection of night and day stretching across the sky like a gradient ink painting.
“There will probably be quite a few people going to the Special Case Investigation Team early today.”
They reached an agreement after exchanging a few more words.
Li Fufeng was already fully dressed. He walked to the window, pulled open the curtains, letting the morning light flood in, and smiled again.
“Whatever happens, we should report this first.”
“Return to the Void is coming much sooner than expected. We don’t have any more time to waste.”
****
Chenxing Empire, Imperial Palace.
The empire’s eleventh princess, Fina Andre, woke up in the hotel’s soft bed and stared blankly for a while.
She felt as if she had had a long nightmare.
As her mind gradually sorted through everything about the nightmare, the princess’s expression went through several changes – horror, unease, hesitation, and finally determination.
“The previous plans will probably have to be scrapped...”
“...Should I contact the Shadow Council?”
There wasn’t enough time for her to gradually change this country and guide everything in the direction she hoped for.
An unknown catastrophe was about to destroy everything, and she knew very well that her beloved country didn’t have enough cohesion – this was a country constantly competing with foreign nations internationally while various internal forces fought among themselves.
Even during the recent natural disasters and calamities that erupted within the empire’s borders, while the state machinery worked non-stop to aid citizens, it didn’t prevent the power struggles among the upper echelons. Fina felt that if these useless back-and-forth conflicts could disappear, at least several hundred thousand more people could have been saved.
With such distinctive features, who wouldn’t recognize him?
“You...”
“So it’s you.”
The man who had long been on various countries’ wanted lists with bounties, who had appeared mysteriously during the recent disasters, killing countless corrupt nobles, causing his bounty to rise repeatedly, and even inspiring a group of Skywalkers to emulate him, seemed completely unaware of the dangerous impression he gave to ordinary people.
He seemed to confirm something as he muttered softly, then bowed gracefully like any visiting guest, even speaking politely. “Good morning, Imperial Princess. Please allow me to confirm, did you suddenly contact the Shadow Council because you’ve decided to execute our plan?”
“Yes, that’s right, but...”
–Before Mueller’s call, when Fina made her decision, she had already contacted the Shadow Council through the connection Leiyin had left.
But K’s appearance still gave her quite a shock. She almost thought she would become another name on his kill list, making his bounty rise even further.
Fortunately, that wasn’t the case.
But the truth behind his sudden appearance shocked her even more–
“You’re actually a member of the Shadow Council?” Fina spoke with complex emotions, “I never would have guessed.”
It also deepened her terrifying impression of the Shadow Council.
Regarding K as a person, relevant departments in various countries surely had thick files on him.
He had always operated alone. Many transparent or dark organizations had noticed his abilities and tried to recruit him, resulting in either being ignored or receiving a “house call” in return, adding another entry to his bounty list. Even the “Skywalkers” who claimed to worship him never received any of his attention, and his kill list was hard to find any pattern in – while it included corrupt nobles, scum, and villains, it also contained many ordinary people who had comparatively few misdeeds.
Most terrifying was that nothing seemed able to sway this person, whether money, power, or beauty. Those who died by his hands included many important figures who had tried to buy him off with these things, but all ultimately met their death.
And this person even viewed their deaths as art. He had even planned games where his prey killed each other.
As the files she had read before surfaced in her mind, Fina seemed to see those people who had been toyed with and driven to death by this man step by step, and her heart couldn’t help but feel a faint suffocation and chill.
And such a person was actually a member of the Shadow Council?
Was he a member from the beginning, or did he join later?
–She had only accidentally come into contact with and learned about the Shadow Council organization during the recent disasters.
Merchants who profited from national disasters, politicians who hindered disaster relief by holding empty positions, nobles who only cared about their own survival and ignored disaster victims’ deaths, criminals who committed evil acts during disasters... they all suddenly died during that period, making the Chenxing Empire’s disaster relief work run much more smoothly. It was through this that Fina accidentally came into contact with the Shadow Council and learned that all this was their doing.
This seemed to be a huge organization that operated in the shadows, not following procedural justice but using itself as the standard of justice.
Realizing K was one of its members also made Fina understand something.
In those bloody files, K’s displayed enjoyment of killing, toying with prey, and immersion in pleasure were certainly not fake. But in these files, there were also many hit-and-run assassinations where there was no process of toying with people’s hearts, as if they really were, as those “Skywalkers” praised, justice descending from heaven.
–This was undoubtedly contradictory.
But now it made sense. The former was his hobby, the latter was Shadow Council missions.
In any case, a Shadow Council that could recruit such an undoubted pleasure killer became even more mysterious and frightening.
If not for the special factor of Return to the Void, she would never continue to let such a mysterious organization go unchecked...
But appropriate probing wasn’t a problem–
“I thought you weren’t someone any organization could constrain.”
Speaking thus, she observed the man’s expression.
“Ah.” The man who had maintained a perfect arc of a smile had his lip corners curve slightly upward, and a faint ripple flashed through his eyes. Fina, who was carefully observing his micro-expressions, judged his pleasure, this emotion seemed to be something he hadn’t deliberately hidden, but openly allowed her to observe, “I thought so too.”
Fina: “...”
What did that mean? Was he dissatisfied with the Shadow Council? Or was the Shadow Council a special exception? Since he didn’t like being constrained by organizations, why did he stay in the Shadow Council? Was there a reason he had to do this... Get out of Chenxing, you riddler!
K only said one ambiguous sentence, successfully making Fina fall into a new round of mental storms.
The man’s deep emerald eyes swept over Fina who was in a frantic mental storm, even the upturned corners of his lips carried a trace of playful pleasure, showing no intention of explaining.
Fina could only keep her various thoughts to herself, waiting to discuss them with others when she had time. She remembered her purpose in summoning the Shadow Council. “What Mr. Leiyin said before...”
“He asked me to tell you that since you’ve made your choice, the Shadow Council will also begin acting according to plan.”
Fina was stunned for a moment, quickly thanking him. But Leiyin could have come himself for this kind of thing, was this person actually running errands?
The man seemed to see through her thoughts, bowing slightly with his light golden hair brushing across his cheeks, he looked up at Fina.
“Originally he should have come, but I have a question that needs your answer, Princess of the Chenxing Empire.”
“–Do you want to become Empress?”