Chapter 266: I Have Returned
“Since Kurt is not dead, where is he now?”
Captain Edgar of the Inspection Corps asked, still maintaining a defensive posture, shielding Philip behind him, his sharp gaze locked onto the old mage. As an experienced inspector, he was more concerned about potential, yet-to-appear threats.
Pole Derrien’s cloudy eyes slowly turned to him, his wrinkled face revealing no emotion, as if answering the simplest of questions.
“He can’t go anywhere,” the old mage’s voice was calm and even. “Kurt and I have been entangled here for a hundred years. He is no match for me at all. Over this past century, his strength has been completely depleted. More importantly, as a ‘Lord,’ he is forever bound to this land by his own authority. Once he leaves this sunken city, leaves these ruins he considers his territory, his residual soul will scatter instantly, like a shadow exposed to the scorching sun.”
He paused, his withered fingers pointing towards the petrified Undead Pirates in the plaza, his tone carrying undisguised mockery.
“He hasn’t been idle all these hundred years. He has been continuously splitting off his insignificant residual souls, attaching them to certain specific items as mediums to lure andSeduce those foolish individuals greedy in heart, attempting to borrow external power to break the balance here. Unfortunately, his power is truly too weak, so weak that it can only affect some mortals with unstable minds. Of course, there are also some exceptions, such as these pirates…”
Hearing this, Li Wen’s heart stirred. The Twin-tailed Mermaid statue and the seduced Joseph were clearly products of Pole Derrien’s description.
“And now? What has he done?” Moria pressed, more concerned about Kurt’s current whereabouts.
“Who knows,” Pole Derrien shrugged, feigning indifference. “Perhaps he has already died in some unknown corner.”
Just then, a sharp voice suddenly rang out from a corner, interrupting everyone’s thoughts.
“I know! I know where he is!”
All eyes immediately focused there. Spade K, scrambling out from behind a stone pillar, pointed to the young Player slumped motionless on the ground not far away, his face pale as death, a smug, twisted excitement on his face.
“It’s him!” Spade K’s voice became somewhat shrill with excitement. “He was the one who brought down that tower just now! You all saw it, right? Think about it carefully, how could someone who looks like a total noob destroy a Mage Tower? He must have been possessed by that Soul Lord fellow! He’s the Mole!”
Only then did everyone react. It seemed there was indeed such a thing.
Yang Yi’s classmates’ expressions changed drastically. They looked at Yang Yi with disbelief, their eyes filled with shock, suspicion, and a hint of betrayed anger. They recalled that Yang Yi’s actions all along had indeed been peculiar. He always deliberately separated from the team and acted mysteriously. While everyone else was fighting for survival, he had silently arrived at the base of this spire.
“Yang Yi,” those few turned their gaze to Fu Qingyan. Fu Qingyan could only speak helplessly, “If you did it, you did it. If you didn’t, you didn’t. What have you been hiding from us?”
Faced with everyone’s questioning gazes, especially Li Wen’s cold stare hidden in the shadow of his hood, which seemed to penetrate everything, Yang Yi’s psychological defenses finally collapsed. He trembled violently, his lips quivering, and finally, with a crying voice, he confessed everything.
“I… I didn’t mean to…” His voice was intermittent, filled with fear and regret. “When we were on the ship, after the pirate was repelled and the statue shattered… I heard a voice…”
“He said he was an ancient deity, betrayed and sealed here. He said I was chosen by fate, his Apostle, and as long as I helped him regain his freedom, he would bestow upon me supreme power and glory… I… I thought this was my fortunate encounter, the biggest hidden quest in the game…”
Hearing this, Li Wen understood. The secretive Player who was eventually killed by the statue beneath the Port Beren church that night, and the crying Yang Yi before him, gradually overlapped.
“I didn’t… I really didn’t do anything extra!” Yang Yi waved his hands frantically, trying to defend himself. “I… I just followed his instructions and posted a few messages on the game forum, slightly… slightly revealing some information about ancient ruins and treasures in Black Reef Bay, wanting to… attract more people to help… I didn’t expect things to escalate this much…”
“You damn son of a bitch!” a furious curse interrupted Yang Yi’s defense. Spade K’s face had turned the color of liver by now. He rushed forward in three quick steps, kicked Yang Yi to the ground, and if not for Joker holding him back, he would have likely beaten the culprit half to death on the spot.
“So it was you, you goddamn bastard, spreading fake news on the forum!” Spade K trembled with rage. He finally understood that he had led the entire Divine Cult of Eternal Blessing into this death trap solely due to this cowardly liar in front of him. “I spent so much money, so many brothers died, and it was all because of you!”
The other companions, except Fu Qingyan, also glared at Yang Yi, feeling that Yang Yi’s act of unilaterally leaking important team intelligence was very wrong.
Just as the situation was about to spiral completely out of control, an icy and calm voice suppressed all the noise and anger.
“Kurt, is he still with you now?”
Li Wen, without anyone noticing, had walked up to Yang Yi and was looking down at him. His gaze from under the hood was sharp and cold, piercing deep into Yang Yi’s soul.
Yang Yi shivered involuntarily from this oppressive aura. He instinctively touched his head, a look of bewilderment and even deeper fear on his face.
“No… he’s not…” he replied, his voice trembling, with a crying tone. “When that tower collapsed… that voice in his head just suddenly disappeared… it hasn’t sounded since…”
This answer caused everyone’s hearts to sink.
Kurt’s residual soul had detached from Yang Yi, its fragile host. So, where had he gone? Or rather, had he found a new host?
A terrifying thought simultaneously surfaced in everyone’s minds.
At that moment, at the other end of the plaza, the body that had been pierced by countless lances of light, which everyone had considered undoubtedly dead, suddenly moved.
Joseph Vilburad, the fervent follower of the Flesh Path, slowly sat up from the ground in an extremely stiff posture. The spears of light inserted into him instantly turned into motes of light and disappeared the moment they touched his body.
He raised his head. On his bloody, mangled face, almost unrecognizable as human, all the wounds were rapidly healing at a visible speed. And his eyes, originally filled with madness and brutality, were now a deep, emotionless, abyss-like deathly grey.
He calmly scanned everyone in the plaza, his gaze revealing the indifference of an absolute superior, looking down on all beings as if they were mere ants.
Finally, his deathly grey eyes met Li Wen’s cold gaze.
He grinned, revealing a row of clean, neat teeth, and in an ancient, strangely rhythmic, and chilling tone that seemed to freeze the soul, he slowly spoke:
“I have returned.”
