Chapter 49: The Cost of Moving Forward

When Chen Ling emerged from Xiaofang’s General Store, it was already dark.

Chu Muyun waved to him and walked straight towards Aurora City, while Chen Ling stood at the store entrance and, after watching him leave, headed in the opposite direction.

The heavy snow had stopped, but what followed was the intense cold of melting ice and snow.

Chen Ling walked along the deserted, snow-covered path, his breath misting faintly in the darkness. His right hand rubbed the USB drive in his pocket, and his eyes gleamed with an unprecedented brightness.

"Restart..."

Chen Ling took a deep breath and resolutely walked into the darkness.

With a clear goal, the shadow cast by the "Audience" seemed to fade considerably.

What if I'm an actor on a stage? What if my life is interfered with? Unless you kill me, I must go back... Even if I die, I'll die on the way home.

Before that, he had to grow quickly while concealing his identity as a member of the Twilight Society. Becoming an Enforcer seemed like a good choice.

The Twilight Society did not object to members joining other organizations; in fact, they encouraged it. This meant members could better conceal themselves and even use their positions to assist other members.

"I become, I participate, I disrupt, I escape..." Chen Ling chuckled self-deprecatingly. "This policy is really well-formulated."

He returned home and lit the kerosene lamp on the table. The orange flame illuminated the empty room, and the cold wind seeped through the gaps in the wooden walls, making a low humming sound.

Chen Ling sat down at the table, took out the envelope Chu Muyun had given him, and read it carefully by the lamp's light.

"Infiltrate the Ancient Repository of Military Arts and steal the fragments of the Military Dao foundation?"

Chen Ling raised an eyebrow in surprise.

The letter detailed a map of a portion of the Ancient Repository of Military Arts, with a corner marked in red. If there were no surprises, that would be what the Red King wanted him to steal.

Chen Ling finally understood why Chu Muyun had said that only he, among the entire Twilight Society, could complete this mission.

Because Chen Ling was an Enforcer who had just passed the assessment as the top candidate, he was qualified to enter the Ancient Repository of Military Arts. Furthermore, he possessed the skill of "No-Form."

Apart from Chen Ling, no one else would have a chance to enter the Ancient Repository of Military Arts.

But why would the Twilight Society want the fragments of the Military Dao foundation?

Chen Ling continued reading. The Red King did not explain this in the letter, only stating that a member of the Twilight Society would meet him then, assist with his movements, and cover his retreat.

After reading all the contents, Chen Ling pondered for a moment, then fed the letter into the candlelight.

The paper curled, and the bright flame reflected on Chen Ling's face, flickering silently in the darkness.

That night, after Chen Ling fell asleep, he did not enter the theater.

He had a dream.

He dreamed he was back in the era before the Great Cataclysm, standing at the familiar doorway of his home, inside an elevator, watching his mother holding his posthumous portrait, weeping uncontrollably.

Chen Ling felt his heart wrenching, even though his chest was empty.

"Mom... I'm not dead," Chen Ling murmured, stepping out of the elevator, wanting to embrace the family member he cared about most.

"Mom, I'm still alive, I want you all to be alive..."

Just as his foot was about to step out of the elevator door, the elevator car plummeted!

An intense feeling of weightlessness engulfed Chen Ling as he struggled helplessly inside the car. The elevator shaft seemed to stretch infinitely, and in the endless descent, he could only watch his home recede frantically into the distance.

Thud—

Chen Ling fell to the ground.

It was an endless darkness. The lights of "home" seemed to have transformed into stars, adorning the unreachable firmament. Chen Ling stood in the darkness, like an ant cast into the abyss, foolishly stretching out his hand, trying to touch the starry sky.

Just as despair welled up in him, a blood-red divine path extended from beneath his feet, stretching all the way up to the unreachable stars.

That was his way home.

A twisted, eerie, scarlet road... On both sides of the path, countless crimson eyes watched him, their gazes filled with mockery.

Chen Ling was standing on the first step. He wanted to ascend higher as quickly as possible, but just as he intended to take the next step, he found his foot couldn't reach the next step no matter what.

Chen Ling froze. He looked down at his feet and found a line of crooked small print on that stone step.

"Complete a performance involving at least fifty people, ensuring no one survives after the performance ends."

The moment he saw this line of text, the confusion in Chen Ling's heart grew stronger.

He looked back behind him and suddenly noticed another line of small print on the steps he had already climbed:

"Lose the person who loves you most, and become them."

A line was drawn across the surface of this small print, as if it were a completed performance item, now trampled under his feet.

Chen Ling seemed to understand something. He looked again at the twisted path leading to the firmament, and terror appeared in his eyes.

This was a living path; this was a monstrous path!

The next moment, everything around him shattered.

At midnight, Chen Ling woke up from his dream.

He lay pale on the bed for a moment, then frantically rushed off the bed to his desk, picked up a pen and paper, and as if afraid of forgetting, quickly jotted down the words from the next step:

"Complete a performance involving at least fifty people, ensuring no one survives after the performance ends."

"Is this the price for advancing on the Twisted Divine Path? Or... a condition?" Chen Ling muttered to himself.

Chen Ling knew that what had just happened was far more than a simple dream. His not entering the theater after falling asleep today was itself an anomaly. Perhaps this dream was a hint from his own Divine Path? Or... from A'yan?

"This path is different from other Divine Paths... It will make your life winding and arduous..." Chen Ling recalled what Chen Yan had said before he embarked on the Twisted Divine Path, and fell into deep thought.

Other people's Divine Paths shouldn't have something like a "cost," otherwise Chu Muyun would have warned him today. So, were these words on the steps unique to his Twisted Divine Path?

Was this what Chen Yan meant by "winding and arduous"?

Chen Ling looked at the line of text he had written on the paper, his expression complicated. But now he had embarked on this path, and this path would be his only way to escape the Audience and his only choice to return home.

Even so, how was he supposed to complete this "horror performance" involving at least fifty people?

Chen Ling sat at the desk, pondering for a long time.

As if something occurred to him, he slowly wrote four characters after the sentence:

Ancient Repository of Military Arts

Then, he wrote a question mark.

The pen tip paused on the final dot of the question mark, dark ink bleeding onto the page. Chen Ling sat there like a statue, unmoving.

The aurora pulsed in the sky outside the window.

Chen Ling didn't notice that at this moment, in the grand theater of his mind, the countless shadowy figures seated in the audience had their lips slightly curved upward.

As if smiling.