"Audience," begin interfering with the performance!
Thump—thump—thump—thump—
Inside the theater, countless "Audience" members watching the performance simultaneously began stomping their feet, a dull, thunderous roar rolling on without end!
Countless gazes projected from the theater toward the three stars in the firmament. At this moment, the power of the "World-Ender" level emanated along with the scarlet pupils, like an invisible, formless super-beast roaring silently at the three stars!
They were rejecting the Divine Path;
they were intimidating the Divine Path!
The next moment, the three stars in the sky trembled violently!
The divine radiance enveloping Chen Ling shattered inch by inch, like a heavenly road to the divine starting to collapse from the very bottom...
The Divine Path was terrified.
They saw the monster behind Chen Ling. Having originally favored Chen Ling, they now feared his existence and were unwilling to let that monster tread upon their path... just as no one would willingly invite a fierce tiger to be a guest in their home.
Therefore, they severed their own Divine Paths and retreated to avoid the sharp edge.
The three rays of divine radiance enveloping Chen Ling shattered, and the Path to Divinity rapidly receded. At this moment, whether it was Chen Ling or Qian Fan and the others present, all of them were dumbfounded...
Chapter 39 Despair
"What... what is this situation?" an Enforcer was dumbfounded. "[Divine Favor]... can be revoked?"
If the simultaneous descent of the three Divine Paths granting [Divine Favor] was still within their understanding, then the scene before them completely transcended their cognition...
Having lived for so many years, they had never heard of anyone obtaining [Divine Favor] only to have their Divine Path severed afterward.
"Just as expected."
Outside the courtyard, the shadowed man nodded slightly.
"To finally obtain [Divine Favor] in a desperate situation, only to watch them retreat with your own eyes... It's truly a pity." Having stayed at Chen Ling's house for so long, Chu Muyun naturally knew how much Chen Ling yearned for the Divine Path, and pity involuntarily arose in his heart.
"A pity?" The shadowed man gave him a peculiar look.
"There are millions of people in this world who possess a Divine Path, but he is the only one who has fused with a 'World-Ender' Calamity and still maintained his sanity... He is already a unique existence in this world, what is there to pity?"
Chu Muyun shook his head and said nothing.
Inside the courtyard.
Chen Ling stared at the three rapidly receding Divine Paths, frozen in place...
He had been abandoned by the Divine Path.
That was likely the only hope in this world that could possibly free him from the control of the "Audience."
He did not know what had happened, only sensing the dread emanating from the Divine Path. He looked back over his shoulder and, faintly, could see those pairs of eyes gradually vanishing into the void.
"It's you guys again," Chen Ling laughed bitterly.
"Of course, I should have guessed it long ago... Once I step onto the Divine Path, it means there is a possibility of breaking free from your control. How could you possibly let it go unheeded?"
"You are dying for me to stay on the stage forever, becoming marionettes for your amusement and pastime..."
Chen Ling's smile gradually turned eerie, and deep despair surfaced within his pupils outlined with blood... Even the Divine Path retreated under the deterrence of the "Audience." As an ordinary person, he simply could not figure out how to shake them off.
Rather than being a marionette for the rest of his life, Chen Ling would rather choose death.
The gods' favor receded like a receding tide;
Chen Ling, clad in crimson robes, was left alone, propped upon the skeleton, laughing despairingly and madly.
"Come on, you bastard surnamed Qian!" Chen Ling laughed wildly. "Don't you want to kill me? Do it! Shoot me right in the head! Remember, if you want to kill me completely, you have to shoot twice!"
Qian Fan was dazed for a moment before finally snapping back to his senses. He looked at Chen Ling, who appeared deranged, and a murderous intent flashed through his eyes.
"Although I don't know what's going on here... Since you've lost your [Divine Favor], then go ahead and wait for death!"
He raised his gun muzzle once more, aimed at Chen Ling's head, and pulled the trigger!
Bang—!!
This time, no miracle occurred.
The bullet pierced Chen Ling's skull, instantly snuffing out his life, carrying away half of his shattered head as red and white splashed across the ground.
The courtyard plunged into dead silence.
Qian Fan and the others stared at Chen Ling, who was left with only half a head, and their hanging hearts finally settled...
It wasn't that they were cowardly; it was just that everything about Chen Ling was far too bizarre—so bizarre that it made them doubt whether this fellow was even human, and whether he could truly die.
But now, regardless of what he was, he was dead.
"This kid... is too unearthly." Qian Fan put away his gun, spat onto the ground, and turned to walk into the house.
The moment he turned around, he saw the other two Enforcers standing beneath the eaves, their eyes wide with terror...
"What are you doing?"
"Fan, Brother Fan..." One of the Enforcers raised a trembling hand. "He, he, he, he, he, he..."
Qian Fan frowned, turned back following the Enforcer's pointing finger, and his pupils suddenly contracted!
He saw that scarlet corpse propped upon the skeleton suddenly straighten its torso with eerie stiffness. The drooping half-head slowly lifted, and the shattered skull and flesh began to churn frantically!
The half-remaining eyelid snapped open, and bloodshot eyeballs stared fixedly at Qian Fan!
"You bastard surnamed Qian!!"
"Didn't I tell you to shoot twice?!!"
"One shot can't kill me!! It can't kill me!!!!"
His fractured vocal cords ground against each other frantically, producing a teeth-gritting sound. At this moment, even the experienced Qian Fan and the other two were scared out of their wits, their legs turning so weak they nearly collapsed directly to the ground!
"Monster... Monster!!" an Enforcer roared in terror. "He's not human! He's a monster!!"
"Shoot!! Hurry up and shoot!" Chen Ling roared madly. "Shoot my other half-head! Come on!!!"
This bizarre scene fell into the eyes of the three, and even Qian Fan's hands began to shake...
"I get it... It's you!" Qian Fan seemed to have thought of something. "You're the Calamity that descended that night!!"
Hearing these words, the other two Enforcers snapped out of their daze, their faces turning even paler.
They were truly terrified.
You had to know that of the two Calamities that had crawled out from the Ash Realm, one was Third Order and the other was Fifth Order. Neither of them was something they could handle...
Qian Fan gritted his teeth, drew his gun from his waist once more, and tremblingly aimed at the red-robed monster imprisoned within the skeleton.
Matters had reached this point; he had no other choice but to fire.
However, the moment he pulled the trigger, his pistol felt as though it had been grabbed by something, the barrel twisting into a tangled mass right before his eyes!
Qian Fan only felt a massive force slam into his chest, and his entire body flew backward like a kite with a broken string, crashing through the courtyard doorway and heavily smashing onto the ground.
The remaining two Enforcers widened their eyes, staring fixedly at the patch of void ahead, yet they could not see the figure of any attacker at all!
There was nothing there.
But in Chen Ling's eyes, it was not so.
A familiar red-robed youth stood amidst the flying heavy snow, slowly turning to look at him... His eyes were brimming with tears.
"Brother..." he said. "Brother, you can't just die like this. You can't just accept your fate like this!"
Chen Ling's skull was slowly repairing itself. His scarlet eyeball stared in a daze at Chen Yan, and the madness finally subsided a fraction.
He spoke in a hoarse voice,
"Not accept my fate? Then what else can I do... Keep acting as a plaything for them? What meaning is there in that?"
"But if you die now, you'll have nothing left."
"If I don't die, I have nothing left either," Chen Ling murmured. "Even if I survive, they will constantly interfere with my life. They can create one of you, so they can create a second, a third... Sooner or later, I will be driven mad by them."
"Brother! As long as you're still alive, there will always be hope... isn't that so?"
"...Hope?"
Chen Ling looked into Chen Yan's blood-red eyes, fell silent for a long time, and suddenly laughed.
"I get it." Chen Ling turned back to look behind himself, his bloodshot eyes seemingly staring at something.
"You're scared!!"
"You know that if I die one more time, I will truly die completely!!"
"You're afraid that if I die, there will no longer be anyone left to perform for you, so you conjured up his appearance, trying to trick me into staying alive, right?!!"
"Brother..."
"Give me illusory hope, watch me struggle with all my might to chase after it, and when I'm finally about to reach it, shatter that so-called hope... That's what you want!"
"Brother!"
"You want to control my life, you want to toy with my mind, keep dreaming!!!"
"Brother!!!"
An angry roar interrupted Chen Ling's ferocious roar.
He turned back to look and saw Chen Yan standing there with a face full of tear tracks, the gaze he cast toward Chen Ling filled with entreaty.
"Brother... I'm real, you have to believe me... Everything I said is true."
"I..." Chen Ling was stunned for a long time, struggle and pain surfacing on his face. "A-yan, I know, I just..."
Chen Yan took a deep breath, wiped the tear tracks from the corners of his eyes, and an unprecedented determination surfaced in his eyes.
"Brother, you aren't without hope..."
He reached his hand into his robe and drew out a cloth bag. As the mouth of the bag was untied, cinnabar-like colored glass beads tumbled out one by one.
"The path they severed..."
"I will reconnect it for you."
Chapter 40 The Twisted Opera Divine Path
Cinnabar-colored glass beads plummeted into the snow, divine radiance flowing like brilliant stars scattered across the human realm.
"This is..." Chen Ling was stunned.
"Brother, do you know... that red star represents 'Opera'." Chen Yan raised his head, looking at the receding Divine Path in the firmament, and spoke slowly. "Ever since the day I started studying drama on my own, I would occasionally sense its existence... It wanted to take me away, but I didn't want to leave.
Every time it receded, I would leave behind a fragment of it. I thought that once I gathered enough, perhaps I could take you, take Mom and Dad to the place it points toward, and see what lies at the end of 'Opera'...
It's just a pity that in the end, I only managed to collect thirty-six pieces.
"Now... I can't go anymore."
Chen Yan smiled helplessly. He slowly gathered all the cinnabar glass beads and threw them with all his might toward the retreating Divine Path in the firmament!
The next moment, countless rays of divine radiance burst forth from these Divine Path fragments, rapidly interweaving in mid-air to reassemble into an ethereal, ribbon-like Divine Path, chasing after the retreating Divine Path!
"Brother, you have to survive... Will you go and see what exactly lies at the end of the Opera Path for me?"
The two sections of the Divine Path collided in mid-air, brilliant divine light illuminating the firmament!
The "Opera Divine Path" was reconnected;
The cinnabar stars in the sky had never expected that their Divine Path could be forcibly retained. The divine radiance trembled in mid-air, seemingly trying to drag it back...
At the other end of the Divine Path, the youth Chen Yan stood quietly. Even though his body appeared thin and frail, his talent for the "Opera Path" was exceptionally formidable, transcendent, and as steady as Mount Tai.
He stubbornly nailed the Opera Divine Path right in front of Chen Ling!
The Divine Path had forsaken Chen Ling,
but Chen Yan had not;
"What happened??"
Outside the courtyard, the shadowed man and Chu Muyun stared at the sky in simultaneous astonishment. Beneath the cinnabar stars, a fractured path was being repaired to completion at lightning speed!
"Why has the Opera Divine Path been pinned in place??"
"It chose Chen Ling? How is that possible?!"
Even Chu Muyun, who was always calm and astute, could not help widening his eyes. The two of them carefully swept their gazes across the surroundings of Chen Ling in the center of the courtyard, yet discovered no anomalies whatsoever... In their field of vision, they could see nothing.
"Wait... something's not right!"
"What's not right?"
"That Opera Divine Path is wrong. It has been twisted... I've never seen a Divine Path like this."
"A twisted Divine Path—what happens if you walk up it?"
"If a road has its signposts altered, then who knows where its ultimate destination is? Heaven? Or perhaps... hell?"
"You mean..."
"Hurry and stop him!! He must never walk onto that twisted Divine Path!!!"
Two figures rushed toward the courtyard at high speed!
Chen Ling stared in a daze at Chen Yan standing upon the Opera Divine Path. Whether it was his imagination or not, his figure seemed to be fading away bit by bit...
"A-yan... A-yan!"
Chen Ling's pupils constricted slightly. Finding strength from unknown origins, he forcibly pulled his shoulder away from the skeleton cage bit by bit. The sharp bone tips tore through flesh, and scarlet blood dripped down his arm onto the ground, quickly pooling into a puddle of blood.
Clenching his teeth hard, he still couldn't help letting out a hoarse scream. It took more a dozen seconds for him to completely break free from the cage, stumbling as he ran toward Chen Yan!
"A-yan!" He reached one hand out to grab Chen Yan, but his hand could only pass lightly through the void...
Previously, he had always been able to touch Chen Yan.
"Brother, this time I really have to go." A pure and gentle smile, unique to a youth, surfaced on Chen Yan's face. "This path is a bit different from other Opera Divine Paths... It will make your life twists-and-turns and rugged, but perhaps it can allow you to shake off those things."
"Where are you going?" Chen Ling's complexion was ashen from massive blood loss.
"Returning to where I belong... At the same time, I will become the cornerstone of your Divine Path."
Chen Yan took a step back, fully revealing the Divine Path before Chen Ling's eyes.
His figure all but faded away and vanished, leaving behind only a single voice lingering by Chen Ling's ear.
"Step onto this path, and the world will belong to Big Brother."
"Chen Ling!! Stop right now! You can't walk that path!!"
Chu Muyun's voice rushed over, but Chen Ling acted as if he hadn't heard.
Clad in a crimson opera robe, he stood at the edge of the Divine Path, slowly raising his right foot, and then...
stepped upon it.
Thump—!!
The instant his foot landed, the ribbon-like, ethereal Divine Path instantly solidified, resembling a blood-red staircase ascending to the firmament.
The next moment, this staircase to the heavens rapidly shrank beneath Chen Ling's feet, ultimately transforming into nothingness...
That twisted Divine Path seemed to have vanished, or perhaps...
it was already beneath Chen Ling's feet.
When Chu Muyun and his companion rushed to the scene, they found only Chen Ling standing alone with his head bowed, rooted to the spot.
"Chen Ling, didn't you hear me calling you just now?" Chu Muyun walked up frowning, about to say more when he suddenly came to a halt.
"What is it?" the shadowed man asked.
Chu Muyun's voice rang out once more.
The shadowed man was stunned for a moment. He turned his head to look at Chu Muyun, only to find that the latter hadn't opened his mouth to speak at all...
"What is it?" Immediately following that, his own voice rang out from ahead as well.
The two of them looked forward simultaneously.
A piercingly cold wind swept across the snow. The youth draped in the crimson opera robe stood with his back to them, his neck twisting backward in an eerie fashion...
"Chen Ling, didn't you hear me calling you just now?"
"What is it?"
"Chen Ling, didn't you hear me calling you just now?"
"What is it?"
"Chen Ling, didn't you hear me call..."
The voices of Chu Muyun and the shadowed man intersected as they spilled out from Chen Ling's throat. At the same time, his face constantly switched between the two of them...
Yes, switched.
On Chen Ling's face, it was as though an extra calendar-like mask could be torn off at will. With every sentence he spoke, he would transform into the appearance of the corresponding person, and by the next sentence, it would automatically tear away to become another person's appearance.
Eyes, stubble, black moles, voice—every single detail was perfectly restored. Watching Chen Ling's face constantly switch between their own respective faces, the two of them felt a wave of creeping horror!
"What... what is wrong with him?" the shadowed man asked blankly.
"Generally speaking, stepping onto the Divine Path means ascending to the 'First Order,' and every time you ascend an order, you automatically master a corresponding path skill... His appearance should be the result of the First Order skill of the Opera Divine Path."
"The First Order skill of the Opera Divine Path is face-changing?"
"Diamond 7 told me that the skills awakened by most Opera Divine Paths at the First Order are [Thousand Faces], which is an extension of an actor's most basic disguising ability... Listening to the description, it sounds very much like Chen Ling's current situation."
"Then why does he look so out of it?"
"His Divine Path was twisted, so the skill he awakened should be twisted as well... If nothing unexpected happened, he has been backlashed by his own skill."
"I see... No wonder he kept mimicking our voices just now."
"But he's not mimicking them anymore..." Chu Muyun looked at Chen Ling, who had suddenly fallen silent, and frowned as he spoke. "I suddenly have a bad premonition..."
The shadowed man was about to open his mouth to ask what kind of premonition when Chen Ling raised his head once more...
A layer of skin was torn right off his face.
Atop Chen Ling's neck, the barrel of a pitch-black, massive pistol locked onto the two of them.
Chapter 41 Beneath the Skin
Watching with their own eyes as Chen Ling's head turned into a gun barrel, Chu Muyun and the shadowed man were both dumbfounded.
"Bang—!"
Chen Ling's vocal cords simulated the sound of a gunshot.
A dazzling flash of fire burst from the muzzle. The two figures standing directly ahead snapped out of their shock and swiftly dodged aside!
Sweeping across the snow at astonishing speeds for dozens of meters, they finally came to a halt.
Looking back over their shoulders, they discovered that no bullets had been fired from the barrel at all; only continuous sparks were erupting from the muzzle, seemingly simulating the posture of firing.
"This..." the shadowed man asked blankly. "Did Diamond 7 ever mention whether [Thousand Faces]... can transform into a gun barrel?"
"No," Chu Muyun shook his head. "[Thousand Faces] is the ability of disguise, and can only alter appearances, but he... he seems to be able to transform even inanimate objects."
"Then that's way too monstrous. Is this the power of that twisted Divine Path..."
"But powerful strength usually implies a greater price."
Chu Muyun calmly gazed at the red-robed figure in the snow who imagined himself to be a gun barrel, his expression somewhat complex.
"Bang—bang—bang!"
The gun barrel personified by Chen Ling fired continuously into the void, like a soulless walking corpse.
Until his muzzle "saw" Qian Fan and the other two, who were scared out of their wits beneath the courtyard house, and suddenly halted his movements... He seemed to be thinking.
"He still retains some sanity?" the shadowed man asked in surprise.
"Instinct, I should say," Chu Muyun said flatly. "The instinct for revenge."
Meanwhile, Qian Fan and the other two, targeted by the gun barrel, turned ashen-white once more. They had just witnessed Chen Ling reconnecting his Divine Path, tearing apart his body, and then transforming into a madman going rat-a-tat-tat... The successive shocks to their cognition had already brought their brains to a near halt.
"Damn it... Why won't you die? Why won't you just die?!"