by Feng Yue
Ye Qingxuan sucked in a breath, relaxing the faint fatigue from his limbs. Thankfully, Lola had taken most of the pressure and he was mostly unharmed. Lifting Jiu Xiao Huan Pei, he closed his eyes. He had not practiced in a long time. It would not be unfamiliar, right? An undetectable melody sounded, melting into the silence and spreading.
Bolero.
Water vapor quickly converged, forming strands of perception threads. They extended in all directions, growing and growing until stopping at the fourth measure. He had four-hundred meters of perception.
It was not that he could not continue, but that the melody would go from hidden to sonorous if he continued. He would not be able to keep restraining it. It would not be worth it if he caused Avalon’s Shadow’s weird mutations.
Four-hundred meters was already out of the regular detection range for the complicated sewage system. It was enough.
Ye Qingxuan quickly discovered many touch-activated traps. He gathered his spirits; he was close.
The parliament probably did not expect for anyone to follow them into Avalon’s Shadow. Their traps were very simple. They would be set off if a demon passed by, but they were easy for a musician to undo. It was easy as pie for someone like Ye Qingxuan who used the translation method and was an expert in music theory.
To be safe, he checked repetitively. Confirming that these were not chain reaction traps and nothing strange was hidden, he sneaked past. Who knew what would happen after he undid the traps? He still had to be careful.
The Bolero threads soon perceived something. Someone was guarding the front.
He was living.
256 Surprise Attack
The youth closed his eyes and sensed in the darkness. From the perception thread, he could feel the figure behind the corner two-hundred feet away. The man was guarding an entrance to the sewage. Aether rippled around his body; he was a musician.
This was the deepest part of Avalon’s Shadow, yet he could still communicate with aether. He should be at the top of third level musicians. According to the perception threads, he had covered his body in different equipment for this situation. From the messy aether waves, there were at least three pieces of equipment. He may be a dark musician.
There was no one around him and the entrance behind him had signs of being opened. He should be the one left behind to guard the entrance, so he must have something to send emergency signals.
The perception threads lay above the dust and extended quietly. Ye Qingxuan could feel the countless traps and alarms around and on the man. It was obvious that the surroundings had been changed into a battleground. He could feel the slightest movement. It would be difficult for a sneak attack. But if Ye Qingxuan tried to fight him directly, the enemy could send an alarm when given the chance and reinforcement would come quickly.
Taking on dark musicians who were all more powerful by himself… Ye Qingxuan could not even bear to think of the end. He could only find another way.
After thinking, Ye Qingxuan smiled. “Let me see,” he pulled Jiu Xiao Huan Pei out and looked down, “just how much emotional trauma has Avalon’s Shadow left you?”
-
Herbert sat on the ground in the darkness with a deer-head instrument, deep in thought with his eyes closed. He played the instrument mindlessly but there was no sound. However, the seeds he planted grew quickly. The roots dug into the rock and they sprouted. The thin veins grew across the stone tiles and wall.
The thin vines were mutants he had developed with care. They were not eye-catching but were filled with numbing poison. It could numb a mammoth in an instant and paralyze it.
This was his most infamous tactic. Using the development method and music score from scripts passed down his family, he had killed many musicians and stolen their research material and inheritance. Because of this, he was able to go from a folk musician with no background to such a well-developed state. But when he gathered enough materials to become an official musician, he realized that he was a jack of all trades, not sophisticated in any one topic. It was difficult to continue on the path of becoming a musician.
This was why he accepted the parliament’s invitation and traveled so far for this exploration. He wished to find precious texts and methods from the Royal Musician Division. However, he realized that it was not as perfect as he had imagined when he arrived.
This d*mn place was nothing like Anglo’s capital. Instead, it was even eerier than the legends of the Dark World. What was in King Arthur’s scepter that had created such a group of demons and such a strange place? And he could not help but get goosebumps and cold sweat. There was also that d*mn freak on the horse. Was King Arthur crazy enough to turn his knights into demons too?!
Just one strike, one strike… Six layers of protection had been split apart. A dark musician known for defense and resilience had been pulverized. Herbert had almost been cut in half from the wind. If the leading musician had not used a secret trick to muddle the knight’s mind and won the chance to escape, they would have all died.
The one who had invited Herbert to join had died when they first entered the city. Herbert had not even dared to get close and just watched him get eaten from a distance. Now, he no longer hoped for any texts or rituals. He just wanted to leave this d*mn place safely.
This was why he chose to be the guard—it was safer. He could call for reinforcement if anything was wrong, or escape quickly if there was a problem inside.
It had already been an hour. His original tension and fear had relaxed, but he still did not dare let his guard down. He continuously planted his seeds, ready to fight at a moment’s notice. However, a doubt that he could not face kept appearing in his mind.
Was this really useful against these creatures?
There seemed to be a soft chuckle in the darkness. Herbert shot up, gripping his alarm. “Who’s there?!”
No one replied.
He looked around repeatedly in defense, but after a long while, all he could hear was the chilling wind from the cracks. It sounded like someone chuckling and singing. The voice wrapped around eerily.
It was wind. It was only wind.
He sighed and his trembling finger finally became stable, but he quickly heard a laugh in the wind again. The wind came from the far distance and had the aura of disaster.
The sound…the sound…was it the sound of a war stallion neighing?!
The horse’s hooves sounded from far away. They clattered on Herbert’s heart—those were the hooves, the hooves! They were like thunder and lightning beating against the earth, causing the earth to shake and dust to fly. Even the poisonous vines curled slightly.
The hooves pounded against the tiles. They had instantly become close. The almost-tangible pressure surged in like a tide, rushing into his limbs like solidifying cement until he was immobilized. Herbert was practically suffocating in that instant.
Was it it? It was…that d*mned creature!
Boom! The wall at the end of the tunnel before him crumbled. Broken tiles flew and darkness surged in. The headless stallion neighed in the darkness. On its back, the fallen demon knight unsheathed his sword. The heavy sword vibrated and sliced through the wind with a dragon-like roar.
Percival!
Herbert subconsciously pressed the alarm in his hands but he could not press it down as if it was broken.
Press! Press! Press! Press! Press… But there was no reaction no matter what he did!
Screaming, Herbert threw it away and grasped his deer-head instrument, strumming it harshly. The eyes of the sleeping deer-head flew open. Strange green light shone from its eyes.
It opened its mouth and screamed out a hoarse melody. The poisonous vines between the rocks shot forward to wrap around Percival. But Percival vaporized abruptly and re-solidified after it passed the vines. The dragon-scale sword roared in his hands and it swung down! It was over…
Herbert felt his vision go black.
Thud! As if a siege hammer had been rammed into his chest, he flew up an
d crashed against the wall. Immense pain spread from his chest to all his bones. He had broken at least four ribs, suffered internal bleeding and a concussion, and lost all sense of aether. But…why was he not dead?
“I’m not dead?” he murmured painfully, opening his eyes wide in confusion.
Before him, the wild dark knight dissipated, disappearing in a puff of black smoke. All that remained was an eerie shadow. He stood before Herbert with a cane, staring coldly. His left hand moved nimbly; the alarm that Herbert could not press had been torn to pieces, falling to the ground.
“Good evening, sir.” Ye Qingxuan pressed the cane against Herbert’s throat, forcing his chin up so he could look at Ye Qingxuan. “The weather’s good tonight. It’s a good time for a chat, don’t you think?” Under the black hat, the youth’s lips curled into a cold sneer. “I believe you’ll tell me everything you know.”
-
It was Die Nebensonnen in the beginning. Using Herbert’s fear of Percival, Ye Qingxuan had caused him to panic merely by mimicking a horse’s neigh. He then successfully guided Herbert to hallucinate the dark knight.
Then, bearing the burden, Ye Qingxuan took advantage of Herbert’s panic to control his fingers with the perception threads, making him unable to press the alarm. Thankfully Herbert was already frightened. If he had any determination to raise the alarm even if it meant sacrificing himself to forcefully set it off, Ye Qingxuan would not have been able to win so easily. After all, an illusion could not kill.
The final success was the ‘sighing’ arm. He punched through all defense with one fist and smashed him into the wall. In half a minute, Ye Qingxuan used all his tricks to control Herbert. Thankfully the shoes Charles had made had thick rubber soles. The vines could not pierce into the robe either. Otherwise, Ye Qingxuan would be paralyzed on the ground now for anyone to kill.
Unfortunately, other than the deer-head instrument that required special playing techniques, this guy only had a few bags of seeds. However, he also had two rings with shield and attack effects. Ye Qingxuan took them without hesitation.
After asking a few questions, Ye Qingxuan could not help but sneer. “The parliament, as expected. How many people came? What level are you all?”
After the torture from Black Friday, Herbert surrendered easily. “Four—fourteen. Five died already, nine are left. There are eight without counting me. Two are Resonance level and the leader is Disturbance level.”
“How did you enter?”
“Avalon’s Shadow will wake soon. One of us is Hyakume’s priest. He opened the path with the god’s power.”
“And you came in to die?” Ye Qingxuan laughed coldly. “How do you plan to exit?”
“I don’t know. The leader has all the methods.” Herbert shook his head bitterly. “I’d escape long ago if I knew how to get out.”
“Why did you come to the Royal Musician Division?”
257 The Strange Parliamen
“Why did you come to the Royal Musician Division?” Ye Qingxuan regretted it as soon as he asked because the guy’s face was filled with confusion. The shock of “What, this is the Royal Musician Division!” was written all over. He did not know anything! Then what use did he have?
Furrowing his brows, Ye Qingxuan was about to speak, but the broken alarm by his foot suddenly trembled with a strange sound. It traveled far instantly, causing his expression to darken.
“N-not me!” Herbert yelped when he saw Ye Qingxuan’s face change. “I didn’t do it! It’s someone else’s alarm! Someone else!”
The cane on his throat pressed down, almost suffocating him. The hoarse voice said, “You have five seconds to explain.”
“This alarm connects to another touch-activated trap. I don’t understand either.” Tongue-tied, Herbert screamed but his eyes suddenly brightened. “I know, there must—must be other people who followed us in!”
“No sh*t, I did!” Ye Qingxuan furrowed his brows. But when he heard the faint crashes and shuddering above him, he understood what Herbert meant. Did someone have the same idea as him? Regardless, he did not have much time. Looking down at Herbert who was crying pathetically, he could not help but sigh.
Seeing Ye Qingxuan like that, Herbert froze. Understanding something, he yelped, “Don’t kill me! I can give you the secret implantation technique of the School of Choir to you…and money. I have sixty-thousand gold coins in my account. Sixty-thousand!” He looked at the youth and forced a fawning expression onto his face. “I’ve heard of you before. You’re the Vengeful Spirit, right? You don’t kill people.”
“Yes, you’re right. I can let you go.” The youth lowered his eyes and slowly moved the cane on his throat away. Herbert was ecstatic, but then he felt a hand on his forehead. “But you’ve done so many immoral things with those dark musicians. Are you really innocent?” The youth’s voice was filled with pity and overlooking coldness. “I can let you go, but will the people who you killed let you go?”
Herbert froze. His relieved eyes changed, the fawning smile and politeness disappeared, replaced by sinister eeriness. He looked up at the youth but his gaze was dragged into the youth’s eyes.
Those eyes…seemed to be filled with hellish pain. Flames licked inside them—that was the resentment of the dead burning with heart-stopping beauty. Then a black river rushed over and swallowed him.
Herbert fell onto his back under the plaintive melody and sank into an endless nightmare. Ye Qingxuan slowly retracted his hand and left. After two steps, he paused and looked back. Having a mental breakdown, Herbert spasmed continuously but his body turned gray bit by bit until he stopped moving in the end.
He had turned to stone.
Ye Qingxuan furrowed his brows at the strange transformation. He did not know his music score had this odd feature. If it was not him then there was only one answer.
The youth looked around in the darkness. Wind blew past, bringing with it a faint laugh. It seemed that there had been someone watching him ever since he entered Avalon’s Shadow, being happy or sad for him, cheering him on. Perhaps this was a hallucination; perhaps it was not. Anything could happen in this f*cked up place. He decided to stop scaring himself now.
-
When he crawled out of the narrow opening, he found himself in the backyard of the Royal Musician Division. It used to be a garden but it was clearly not anymore. There were only shriveled and dried rhizomes stuck haphazardly in the dirt. They looked like an odd art piece made of steel wire under the faint light.
Light—there was light here.
Ye Qingxuan looked up and saw a lantern hanging on the wall in the near distance. The light was weak and the lantern was covered in dust as if it had been burning for a millennia.
Under the dim light, the barren garden had an unsettling atmosphere. Using the marks in the dirt, Ye Qingxuan found signs of people leaving as well as some alarm traps. These dark musicians really were careful. They had left traps after arranging sentries.
Under the seemingly-average traps, the perception threads sensed a chain-reaction of explosive traps. The aether within those was enough to blow half of the garden into the sky.
Just as he was sneaking around the trap area, the ground suddenly shook. A fulmination sounded by the door in the distance. The shaking almost set off the traps; Ye Qingxuan’s face paled in fright! It would be really sad if he died for these stupid reasons.
He quickly ran to the safe zone and closed his eyes in deep thought. He pulled the perception threads into one spot and floated toward the source of the sound. After going past various buildings, the threads began to sense the scene.
The perception broke the moment it was created. The water vapor threads had evaporated due to the terrifying power at the scene.
Ye Qingxuan’s forehead throbbed as if a hammer had hit it. He opened his eyes; his body was covered in cold sweat. For a moment, he could not see anything. He could only feel the darkness that hovered like mist.
The darkness was burning. If he had not c
ut off the connection simultaneously, the burning would probably have rushed into his mind along the perception thread. Then things would be fun.
If he had died because of this, it would probably be number one in “The Hundred Thousand Ways to Die in Avalon’s Shadow.” Of course, the prerequisite was that someone was bored enough to write a book like that.
It was clear that the Parliament’s brash move had attracted something terrifying and big. It was now ramming against the enchantment around the Royal Musician Division. The enchantment, long abandoned, would not be able to survive for long. Ye Qingxuan and the dark musicians of the Parliament did not have much time. So what did these guys want?
Fleeting moonlight appeared around Ye Qingxuan once again, causing his body to become thin and difficult to detect. He followed the marks quickly. He was getting excited at the thought of putting a leg in this dramatic event, stirring things up, and feeding those guys some sh*t!
-
Dim moonlight swept under the eerie building. The illusion Lola put on Ye Qingxuan’s body was clearly very high level, and contained music theory from the disturbance level. The distortion level was the peak of the resonance level. Going from ‘resonance’ between the musician and the world, to limited ‘disturbance’ of reality, to ‘distortion’ of the laws of physics—this level was power was the peak for a musician. If one went further, it would be the path to becoming a scepter and saint.
Especially since Lola was focusing on thought realization and could switch between reality and illusions by choice, she would enter the territory of ‘nothingness’ and ‘not nothingness’ if she continued to rise. Though this path was difficult, its power was incredible.
Moonlight covered his body and dragged him into another world where there were no obstacles. While it was exhausting, he continuously passed through various barriers and enchantments. Most of the enchantments set by the Royal Musician Division were nonexistent before the moonlight.
The more he traveled the more chills he felt. He became more and more cautious. He was now at the heart of the Royal Musician Division building and should be in the side hall. Though this ancient building no longer had any life to it, the lanterns were still lit.