Chapter 298: A Profile

“What the—!”

Everyone was stunned when the Maria Butterfly fragment was flicked into the open. Dreamchaser barely stopped himself from swearing out loud. An Xuefeng’s blade faltered for a fraction of a second.

That fraction gave the Puppet Master a breath of relief; in an instant she was about to plunge into the Abyss and leave; but, the Puppet Master uncharacteristically didn’t go. Her upper body lurched forward desperately, reaching with everything she had to grab the fragment, but someone had already beaten her to it.

The black leather glove was nearly soaked through with blood, the blade edge drenched in it as well. That blue-violet fragment drifted down like a tiny butterfly and settled at his fingertip, coming to rest on a small patch of black amid the surrounding red.

The black was ringed by far more red. Uncertain whether a cat’s claw could have scraped the fragment free, Wei Xun had as a backup measure wrapped the Puppeteer’s crimson cloak around the blade edge only for the cat’s claw to prove more than up to the task.

All of this happened in the span of a breath. Wei Xun’s eyes and hands moved as one and he seized the fragment. But before he could secure it, An Xuefeng moved abruptly and hauled Wei Xun back a dozen steps, all the way to the edge of the platform.

The Return Journey Saber lay across his body. His other arm had Wei Xun locked in an iron grip, pressing down firmly on the hand that had taken the butterfly fragment.

“Hide it…”

Warm breath trembled faintly against Wei Xun’s ear. That was all An Xuefeng had time to say. Then a thunderous roar detonated inside Wei Xun’s skull, louder than any thunderclap, nearly enough to knock him unconscious. And the same detonation went off simultaneously inside the minds of every single person in the virtual hall.

Those with weaker constitutions were knocked out on the spot. By normal convention they should have been automatically sent out of the virtual hall or returned to their Agency residences, but this time the Agency did not act; it simply left them where they were, slumped at odd angles across the ground. Tourists at the Special tier and above, and Tour Guides at the Yi level and above, could barely manage to stay conscious, though the terrifying reverberation left even them half stupefied.

Only those of still greater strength could grasp the true meaning of that resonant alarm. This was one of the Agency’s near-highest level warnings.

【Alert! Alert! A powerful energy intrusion has been detected within the Agency. A powerful energy intrusion has been detected within the Agency!】

【Highest-level defense systems have been activated. Search commencing immediately. Search commencing immediately!】

The Agency’s voice was ice-cold, tremendous in its authority. In that instant everyone felt as though a hook had seized the top of their skull and was pulling, as though a thread ran through every soul and the Agency had drawn them all taut at once.

【All movement prohibited. All departure prohibited. Violators will be expelled. Repeating: violators will be expelled.】

Wei Xun’s head rang and rang. A flood of crimson information seemed to surge directly into his mind, swallowing him like a tide of blood. A suffocating, out-of-control feeling crashed over him; his heartbeat accelerated beyond anything he could regulate, and for one instant he had almost no command over his own body; the way it had been on the very first day he entered the Agency, nearly purged for a violation before he understood the rules.

A burning, scorching agony swept his whole body. The sharp alarm blurred in his ears into meaningless, frantic noise. At the edges of his vision Wei Xun could faintly make out a blue-violet luminescence, like a thin pale-blue membrane that had settled around his sight and isolated him from the crimson system alerts.

Strangely, amid all the chaos, Wei Xun’s mind remained clear, his thinking even faster than usual.

Was this the Maria Butterfly fragment? Was this what the Agency was calling a powerful intrusion?

But didn’t the butterfly represent the Agency itself? [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] Why was it being called an intrusion?

When he’d handled the butterfly fragment on the Agency bus before, something had happened; was it because of the container holding the fragment at the time, or because the fragment could not be exposed directly in the virtual hall?

The Maria Butterfly fragment inside the Puppet Master’s body had been embedded in her flesh and hadn’t become a butterfly tattoo the way his had. What was the reason for that?

But in the next instant Wei Xun had no space to pursue any of it. His pupils contracted sharply; his SAN value plummeted.

Wei Xun saw something he could not comprehend.

The virtual hall, always blazing with light, went dark; a darkness more terrible than any power failure. And from within that boundless dark, a pair of enormous, deep-red suns appeared.

No. They were not suns. They were a pair of enormous, deep-red eyeballs. With pupils. With whites. Like two colossal searchlights.

Those eyes fixed themselves directly above An Xuefeng’s head, as though examining something.

And their appearance seemed to be a herald. Countless deep-red eyeballs materialized in the endless dark, as though above every single person in the virtual hall, a pair of watching eyes had silently appeared.

******

Inside the Shepherd Alliance, in the special confinement room whose door should have been sealed shut, the door stood merely ajar. The Hair Ghost leaned against the wall with his eyes closed, humming a little tune with apparent contentment, as though waiting for someone to return.

Then in the next instant he snapped his eyes open and stared upward with sudden alarm. The small living bead that had come out with him seemed to sense something too; it bounced in frenzied agitation.

“Who’s watching me?”

He murmured. A creeping sense of danger sent the hair on the back of his neck straight up. He had a close bond with the Puppet Master, and the Hair Ghost could feel that the Puppet Master was in catastrophic trouble; trouble that showed every sign of spilling over onto him as well.

Forget it. The new Hair Ghost, Little Red, was done pretending. Without a moment’s hesitation he scooped up the living bead and teleported himself back to Wei Xun’s residence, then dove straight into the Abyss node. On his way, he stuffed whatever of Wei Xun’s precious and portable belongings he could find into the Abyss node for safekeeping.

Better to lie low first.

******

In the virtual hall, the packed red eyeballs were nearly filling every corner of the darkness. They varied in size, the smallest like grains of sand, the largest like manhole covers, but none of them came close to the one hovering above An Xuefeng’s head. It occupied nearly two-thirds of the darkness above the platform. The remaining third was divided between two pairs of eyes.

One slightly larger pair floated above Dreamchaser’s head. One slightly smaller pair floated above the Puppet Master’s.

In the next instant, Wei Xun watched a thin red beam fall from the great eye and strike the wound on the Puppet Master’s shoulder, the place where the Maria Butterfly fragment had been embedded. And then…

The Puppet Master became a handful of ash.

The tough skin the Madman’s Blade had failed to cut through no matter how many times he tried. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] The mind Dreamchaser had been unable to shred through multiple attempts. The half-body An Xuefeng had needed the Return Journey Saber’s full power to sever. Under that thin red beam, all of it became ash.

Only a thread of pale-black energy, nearly formless, fled in a panic and vanished into the Abyss rift that had been torn open earlier.

A normal Abyss node was under Agency management, but the Puppet Master’s private node, unregistered by anyone, saved her life. She fled in disarray, not daring to look back at the butterfly fragment that had been taken from her, but in her last dregs of strength she had still managed to take the Puppeteer’s headstone with her.

Not a loss. Not a loss at all…

Watching the red beam reduce the Puppet Master to ash, Wei Xun closed his aching eyes. He discovered that no one else seemed able to see those eyeballs, nor to perceive the light they had discharged. Whether Dreamchaser or the Puppet Master, neither had reacted, not even a flicker of emotion when the red beam fell.

Nothing. Not a single reaction.

Only An Xuefeng, who held him, went suddenly rigid, as though sensing something, and pressed down on Wei Xun more tightly.

After reducing the Puppet Master to ash, the deep-red eyeballs gradually receded and disappeared, as though their purpose had been served. The darkness dispersed. In the virtual hall, those who had collapsed began climbing to their feet as though nothing had happened, apparently having forgotten entirely that they’d lost consciousness at all, still excitedly discussing what had occurred on the platform. The higher-ranking Tour Guides and Tourists who still remembered what had happened said nothing, their expressions heavy with something that bordered on dread.

“Look, look; the fog on the platform is clearing!”

Someone exclaimed, and countless eyes turned. It was true; the fog had lifted. The Agency’s broadcast hadn’t resumed, but those in the virtual hall could still make out a general impression and An Xuefeng standing at the very edge of the platform was the clearest of all.

“Dreamchaser is still there! I knew Captain An wouldn’t actually fight Dreamchaser!”

“Captain An is standing so close to the edge, this is the closest I’ve ever been to him, I’m going to cry!”

“Is the inauguration ceremony over? Where’s Bing-1? Shouldn’t there be a closing speech or something?”

“Look at who Captain An is holding in his arms!”

“What, why are they still holding each other? This, this this…”

“Does this count as going public?! Honestly I already thought Captain An’s gift-giving was suspicious today!”

“So bold… but I love it. The East District’s number one Tourist should be exactly this bold!”

“An official announcement, it’s almost an official announcement; oh my god, my heart is racing!”

Those who knew nothing were always the happiest and most carefree. Everyone else had expressions of profound gravity. At this moment, even Yin-Yang Butterfly, watching An Xuefeng and Bing-1 pressed close together, could not find a single shred of ease in his heart.

An Xuefeng and Bing-1 still hadn’t moved.

“Brother, you said it wouldn’t…”

Wouldn’t the powerful energy intrusion the Agency had warned of still need to be resolved?

******

On the platform, Dreamchaser exhaled sharply and walked over to them at a quick pace, breathless, dropping his voice to an urgent murmur.

“Get out of the virtual hall quickly… let’s talk when we’re back.”

But An Xuefeng still hadn’t moved, and Bing-1 in his arms had his eyes shut.

The enormous eyeball above their heads had still not left.

Wei Xun cautiously opened his eyes. [Read on RanaTranslations🌸] To them, the virtual hall was still completely dark. They could see Dreamchaser, but couldn’t hear him speak; it was as though an invisible barrier had sealed them away, cut off from the Agency.

In the darkness, only that pair of enormous, deep-red eyes.

The Maria Butterfly fragment had probably drawn them here.

How to make the great eye leave?

The Puppet Master had given a fine demonstration, but Wei Xun had no intention of surrendering the butterfly fragment he’d just obtained. An idea stirred. Wei Xun shifted slightly in An Xuefeng’s arms; small movements were still possible even with the Agency’s prohibition, and opening and closing his eyes hadn’t caused any issue.

Wei Xun wanted to flick some blood from where the Maria Butterfly tattoo was and send it further away, to see if he could draw the great eye off. But An Xuefeng still held the Return Journey Saber in one hand; the other was pressed firmly down on his.

He wasn’t permitted to make any moves.

“I…”

The Agency hadn’t prohibited speech; Wei Xun tried to say something quietly to An Xuefeng, but a hand closed over his mouth.

Where had An Xuefeng gotten a third hand?

The aura surrounding Wei Xun was still familiar, only now it came in layers. Wei Xun’s lashes dropped. The hand over his mouth was broad and strong; only it looked as though it had been in darkness for a long time, the skin a little pale. The sleeve had slid back, and from the depths of that black robe sleeve came a faint sense of something soft and slippery, something with the texture of a tentacle.

It was ***.

The hand over his mouth belonged to ***.

An Xuefeng and *** had both come. Wei Xun had known since the moment the Latitude 30 Degrees authority was shared. At that time, he had set down the Sun charm temporarily, and two pairs of hands had rested on the two tokens, one on each side, then been caught by An Xuefeng’s two hands.

The hand wearing the Tour Guide’s authority ring belonged to An Xuefeng. The hand wearing the small octopus ring belonged to ***.

Feeling An Xuefeng’s resolve was absolute, Wei Xun stopped struggling. Since An Xuefeng and *** had both come out, they certainly had their own way of handling things. ***’s hand, which had been over Wei Xun’s mouth, sensing that he wasn’t going to speak, shifted upward and covered his eyes instead, thoughtfully leaving gaps between the fingers.

Through those gaps, Wei Xun could observe what was outside more safely.

***’s other hand pressed down on An Xuefeng’s hand, which was already holding down Wei Xun’s back.

Wei Xun found he rather enjoyed this sense of being restrained, of having his perception controlled. It made him relax instinctively.

The setting was wrong for it, but with everything pitch-black before him and no one watching, it hardly mattered. Relaxed, leaning against An Xuefeng’s chest, Wei Xun’s mind ran faster; and ***’s sudden materialization made Wei Xun abruptly aware of a blind spot in his own thinking.

A powerful energy intrusion. Was it truly because of the Maria Butterfly fragment?

Or, was it only because of the Maria Butterfly fragment?

The Agency’s warning had sounded the moment he flicked the Maria Butterfly fragment free; but it had also sounded the moment the Latitude 30 Degrees tokens’ lockdown failed and collapsed. Before that, the four Latitude 30 Degrees tokens had shielded all of their presences. In theory, the pyramid and the Book of the Sunken Atlantic could be counted as two separate tokens.

Two tokens, one concealing the fluctuations from An Xuefeng’s movements, and the other… was it concealing ***?

Could a Principal appear in the virtual hall? Would a Principal appearing in the virtual hall count as a powerful energy intrusion?

No, no; no matter how he reasoned it, *** shouldn’t be connected to it, because *** had only appeared just now, and there had been no energy fluctuation beforehand. But Wei Xun felt his line of reasoning held up.

Four Latitude 30 Degrees tokens. Four people…

The enormous eyeball still hovering above them. Eyes of that magnitude, watching the first among all, were they fixed on An Xuefeng? Or were they fixed on…

Wei Xun instinctively tightened his grip. His other hand, the one clutching the Maine Coon’s paw.

But when he applied pressure, Wei Xun found his hand empty.

Empty.

A falling sensation struck for an instant, and Wei Xun’s mind went blank. Sensing something being pulled from his hold, Wei Xun tightened his grip by reflex.

“Tch.”

A light sound of mild irritation made Wei Xun’s eyes fly open. He tilted his head back to look. He couldn’t see what was happening outside, had no idea how many people in the virtual hall had simultaneously risen to their feet in disbelief. Even with Dreamchaser raising the fog at once, the number of people who glimpsed that silhouette was not small.

The darkness blocked everything, except the one thing darkness could not absorb. That deep, blood-soaked crimson.

In this moment Wei Xun’s eyes held only that red.

Red, the crimson of blood; a corner of a cloak caught in Wei Xun’s grip.

A crimson Tour Guide’s cloak, draped across the back of a tall man standing before Wei Xun. His spine was straight, yet he carried none of a soldier’s rigidity; he seemed entirely at ease, as though he had received etiquette training from birth, like an aristocrat from an ancient line. No, not like an aristocrat. The air around him was one of contained, powerful, cold authority.

More like a ruler who held absolute power. Even touching the hem of his cloak felt like an act of desecration.

Wei Xun didn’t care about any of that. He held on with everything he had, utterly refusing to accept that this time he would see only a back. If he’d had the strength, he would have grabbed that cloak and spun the man around on the spot. A second passed; only one second, though under Wei Xun’s resistance it felt like forever. But against cold, absolute resolve, Wei Xun’s strength was not enough in the end; that corner of the cloak was slowly being pulled free.

It hurt.

It had never occurred to Wei Xun that reaching beyond his level to hold a cloak could hurt this much. His hand was almost breaking, yet still he would not let go. Physiological tears ran down his face and fell across the hand *** had pressed over his eyes.

*** seemed to recoil as though burned. An Xuefeng let out a quiet sigh.

In the next moment, the hand that had been pressed against Wei Xun’s back, holding down the hand that gripped both the butterfly fragment and the corner of the cloak, lifted. And together with Wei Xun’s hand, it seized the crimson cloak and held.

An Xuefeng’s strength was tremendous.

***’s strength was equally tremendous.

Two forces combined and doubled, nearly tearing the cloak clean off. It was enough, finally, to wrench the man’s head partway around.

He glanced over with a cool, unhurried sweep of his eyes.

Black hair fell loose against his ears, a little longer than Wei Xun’s, reaching down to a clean jaw. He wore a black-and-gold mask, as magnificent as a sun-god bird. When his gaze landed on An Xuefeng it was full of impatience and disdain, but when it moved to Wei Xun’s face, every emotion in his eyes drew back and stilled, becoming like the surface of a deep pool.

And Wei Xun, meeting that gaze, went motionless.

One eye was a deep, pure black. The other was a deep, deep blue-violet.

That blue-violet eye, it looked remarkably like Wei Xun’s own.

He had gone still, and naturally loosened his grip. The moment Wei Xun let go, An Xuefeng and *** released their hold as well. The man took one step forward, and the immense pressure that had been blanketing An Xuefeng and Wei Xun vanished in an instant. As Wei Xun had suspected, the great eye had not been watching An Xuefeng at all. It had been watching him, the Puppeteer’s remnant soul consciousness, revived through the cat.

The red beam from the eye descended without a sound, arriving suddenly. It had only refrained from falling before out of concern for injuring the Agency’s number one Tourist.

“Tch.”

The instant the beam descended, the Puppeteer tilted his head slightly, something like a mocking scoff escaping him. When the beam reached him he vanished, and Wei Xun’s pupils contracted sharply. At the same moment a sharp crack rang out.

The Sun charm in his hand shattered completely. And the Puppeteer stepped forward, exactly as though it had all been planned, straight onto the Sun charm, toying with the Agency as though it were nothing. No ash rose the way it had from the Puppet Master. No one could say whether he had passed back through the Sun charm to the Inca Sun Gate, or whether…

The crimson cloak, soft and loose, flew back into Wei Xun’s hand. In his empty hand, a small cat appeared, cold and yielding, deeply asleep.

The darkness retreated. The eyeballs departed. The silence broke. Noise returned.

Wei Xun exhaled sharply, clutching the small cat tight, as though the heart he had been holding suspended somewhere above himself had finally dropped back into his chest.

Even with new questions upon questions flooding in, Wei Xun’s heart was, at last, at rest.

However much he wanted to go examine the newly obtained butterfly fragment, there were still many things in front of him to resolve. The Mutual Aid Alliance’s inauguration ceremony, for one. So, when he looked up and saw Dreamchaser standing before him, Wei Xun let out a breath of relief.

“Dreamchaser…”

He could leave everything that followed to Dreamchaser to handle in full. He just…

“You…”

“You two…”

Dreamchaser stood frozen, his pupils shaking. He seemed almost to stammer, going back and forth, unable to settle on what to say. He breathed deeply several times, looked at An Xuefeng, looked at Bing-1, repeated the cycle several times, and finally turned a long, quiet look on Bing-1. That gaze held what seemed like countless layers of feeling.

But in the end, Dreamchaser held it in, and said in a hollow, subdued voice:

“The Puppeteer came back… you two kept that quite well hidden.”

Wei Xun: ?

Wait.

“How did you know?”

The words came out of Wei Xun before he thought to stop them. Dreamchaser drew a breath, said it through clenched teeth, the words forced out like they were being squeezed through the gaps:

“It’s not just me; by the time today is over, the entire Agency will know!”