Chapter 642: Audience's Eyes

At this moment, Chen Ling finally understood why Plum Blossom 8 had said that character wouldn't move: it was a corpse.

From its appearance, it resembled a soldier in armor, clutching a broken sword. Its massive body was like a towering mountain. The corpse knelt dead in the darkness, and though its features and attire were abstract, it radiated an immense sense of oppression.

At the edge of the broken sword and the corpse, a small, blooming flower floated quietly, swaying gently without any discernible breeze.

“That’s it!” Even from a considerable distance, Plum Blossom 8 already seemed affected by the soldier. Veins bulged from his temples, and his expression gradually turned sinister.

Chen Ling, however, felt nothing. Carrying Plum Blossom 8 on his back, he stepped into the soldier’s vicinity, moving deeper with each step. He looked back to see the pursuing characters hesitate slightly, seemingly wary of the soldier’s presence. Yet, they only slowed down a bit, not stopping their chase.

“Is this not far enough…?” Chen Ling’s eyes narrowed slightly.

Chen Ling continued deeper. After several more steps, a muffled groan of pain sounded from behind him.

He looked back to see Plum Blossom 8’s eyes were bloodshot. His hands gripped Chen Ling’s shoulders tightly, squeezing like iron clamps.

Chen Ling knew Plum Blossom 8 wasn't acting intentionally; he was merely influenced by the soldier's emotions. Fortunately, Plum Blossom 8 was only a Green God Dao practitioner, whose inherent strength wasn't formidable. Given Chen Ling's physique, this amount of force was negligible.

“Sorry…” Plum Blossom 8 met Chen Ling’s gaze and spoke hoarsely.

“It’s nothing,” he replied indifferently.

As Chen Ling advanced, he, too, began to feel the emotions emanating from the soldier—an extreme rage and unwillingness, as if it wanted to crush the sword hilt in its hand and shatter the earth. Its eyes stared fixedly at a point in the void, and an incredibly powerful will permeated the air.

Chen Ling’s steps did not slow down in the slightest because of this, as he heard roars coming from behind him, growing closer.

One step, two steps, five steps…ten steps.

“Damn them…they all deserve to die!!” A roar came from behind Chen Ling. “Why them?! How dare they?!”

“We did nothing wrong!! Why did they start this war?! The ambitions of those politicians! Why use the lives of us ordinary people to pay the price?!”

“Mother is dead, sister is dead, the neighbors are dead too…everyone is dead! Everyone is dead!! Why can’t I do anything?!”

“I’m sorry…truly sorry…Mom, I’m useless…I should have protected you…”

“I will kill them…I must kill them!!”

The hands gripping Chen Ling’s shoulders tightened even more. Plum Blossom 8 seemed to have gone mad, roaring furiously at the void in front of him!

Perhaps the torment of the past half-year had already left Plum Blossom 8’s mind tattered, or perhaps the emotions contained within the soldier’s corpse were simply too overwhelming. Plum Blossom 8 had completely lost his sanity, assimilated by the emotions, and fully immersed himself in the role of the soldier.

Seeing this, Chen Ling could only suppress the soldier’s emotional influence and delivered a swift strike to Plum Blossom 8’s back of the neck.

Thud—! With a muffled thud, Plum Blossom 8’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed completely onto Chen Ling’s shoulder.

Plum Blossom 8’s mental state was already at its limit; if this continued, the influence wouldn't be temporary. If Chen Ling hadn’t directly ‘forced a shutdown,’ this top genius of the Green God Dao might not have lasted until they left 'Guernica' before becoming a vegetable or an idiot.

After Plum Blossom 8 fainted, the void fell silent once more, leaving only the continuous roars of the characters behind them.

By this point, most of the pursuing characters had been forced to stop behind Chen Ling, daring not to advance further. Only the woman engulfed in flames and the woman holding the child were still relentlessly chasing, not yet reaching their limit.

“Let’s see…who can endure longer,” Chen Ling muttered, gritting his teeth and continuing forward with Plum Blossom 8 on his back.

As Plum Blossom 8 had said, the soldier’s emotional intensity was several times that of other characters. Even before Chen Ling fully approached him, he could already feel an emotional impact greater than that of other characters up close.

It was an uncontrollable pain, with blood vessels crawling up his eyeballs, just like Plum Blossom 8 earlier. He could feel his mind raging, every muscle in his body trembling with anger, wishing he could just hack off Plum Blossom 8’s head with a single strike, to slay an enemy and offer it as a sacrifice to heaven…Of course, Chen Ling strenuously resisted.

But he wasn’t sure how much longer he could endure.

“Calm down…calm down…it’s all fake,” Chen Ling forced himself to take deep breaths, striving to maintain his sanity.

“I’m just an ‘audience member’…Everything I see and hear has nothing to do with me…”

Chen Ling closed his bloodshot eyes, and the image of the ‘audience’ inside the theater appeared in his mind. He continuously gave himself psychological cues, trying to suppress his ‘empathy’ to the lowest possible level—this was his only way to survive.

But even so, illusory images constantly appeared within Chen Ling’s tightly shut eyes.

Bombs falling from the sky, burning towns, women desperately falling from rooftops engulfed in flames, mothers holding breathless infants, frightened black oxen crashing around, passersby crawling in despair with their legs blown off…

And in these hellish scenes, he could only watch helplessly as bombers flew overhead, destroying the city…because in his hand, there was only a ridiculous broken sword. No matter how furiously he roared, he couldn’t harm the bombers in the slightest.

Unprecedented anger, helplessness, and guilt surged into Chen Ling’s heart. His fists clenched unconsciously, and his chest heaved rapidly like a bellows!

“I am an ‘audience member’…”

“I am just an ‘audience member’!!”

“None of this concerns me…I am not part of it.”

Chen Ling’s murmurs echoed in the void. At this point, his consciousness was already blurred; he was merely walking forward mechanically. As his self-hypnosis repeated itself, pairs of scarlet eyes, belonging to the ‘audience,’ opened in the void behind him!

Moreover, as Chen Ling’s murmuring frequency gradually increased, the ‘audience’ eyes in the void rapidly multiplied. In just a dozen seconds, they seemed like countless red stars hanging across the sky!

Audience Expectation Value: 3

The ‘fourth wall’ gradually materialized around Chen Ling, tearing a grotesque gap in the intense emotions emanating from the soldier’s corpse. At this moment, the numerous surrounding characters seemed to sense something, and expressions of horror appeared on their faces!

“I am…I am…”

“I am… an ‘audience member’.”

Streaks of redness diffused from the depths of Chen Ling’s pupils. As his eyes unconsciously opened, the scarlet seemed to emanate from within his eyeballs, trailing like embers of flame at the corners of his eyes, obscuring the apricot-red ‘Painted Rouge’ makeup beneath his skin.

At this moment, a pair of exaggerated, crescent-shaped red eyes, almost identical to those of the ‘audience,’ were revealed in the void!