Chapter 166

Chapter 166: Chapter 164: "You Are Our Last Hope"..."

Su Ming’an didn’t answer.

The one who should have answered the people’s Qin Wang had already passed away.

He was merely a passerby, solely on a mission, who had taken over Qin Wang’s body.

The enmities and affections of these people had nothing to do with him, and he did not care about them. He had only invested effort because it was related to the mission. Beyond that, everything was irrelevant to him.

He closed his eyes, only feeling his consciousness gradually dispersing.

"Huh..."

He heard a sound of wind, ringing beside his ear, scraping past his earlobe, like the fluttering wings of a fledgling bird.

The originally chilling trend suddenly stopped, and he felt his body being rapidly pulled up by a force, like a sapling being yanked from the ground. Amidst the "crack crack" sound of the strong ice being forcibly broken, he felt the dry, cold wind brushing past his face.

He opened his eyes.

The man in black was covered in fresh blood, as if donned in a blood-red coat.

He had a huge gash on his body. Blood was still crazily gushing out of it.

Everything around him seemed to freeze, the spreading ice and snow suspended in mid-air, with every speck of mud thrown up by the energy clearly visible.

Chen Yang was pulling him, blocking the bitterly cold ice that was rapidly pouncing from the surroundings. A large umbrella opened up, shielding against all the wind and snow.

He exerted all his strength to break through Holy Initiation’s defense line and lifted Su Ming’an before the ice could fully solidify.

"I don’t know why Qin Wang chose you,"

Chen Yang was severely injured. After forcibly breaking the defense line to pull Su Ming’an out, his tone became fragmented, interspersed with beastly painful gasps, every word sticky with blood:

"... but I know you no longer have a choice."

Chen Yang said, using all his strength, he threw him from the midst of the ice and snow:

"You are the person chosen by Qin Wang, and you can only be our last hope..."

As the ice slowly froze, while he was lifted up, flung into the high sky, and quickly enveloped by the light of space, Su Ming’an composed himself and saw the man in black amidst the crystalline ice cold, his eyes bright as blazing fire.

"...Although it’s shameless to entrust such a significant mission to someone from outside," Chen Yang said as frost slowly covered his body, gradually freezing his movements completely.

"But... please forgive us, for being able to carry his hopes..."

Chen Yang’s voice grew fainter, his words progressively breaking apart. The watery color in his eyes quietly slipped down, like a glimmer of wave light quietly passing by in a wave.

A cold, dark blue spread out intensely from him as the center, as if a thick layer of oil paint was splashed across the surrounding space.

Su Ming’an steadily watched him.

The gaze of this man, at this instant, overlapped greatly with Hui Shuhang in the first round.

For Hui Shuhang in the first round, what welcomed her was an utterly valueless death ending.

Her body had once scattered like feathers, leaving not a single trace, abruptly decomposing and vanishing before his eyes.

They were all so eager to keep him alive... even if the cost was that they would die like moths to a flame. They had always been fixated on a ’future,’ blindly believing that Qin Wang would succeed, even though they themselves would never see that future again.

The guide of the night dies in the night, never to see the dawn.

Su Ming’an suddenly grasped the meaning of Hui Shuhang’s words.

On seeing Chen Yang’s astonishingly bright eyes, Su Ming’an felt a sense of déjà vu.

It seemed that somewhere, he, too, had been lifted up with such selfless commitment, the look in the other’s eyes was the same, as if viewing him as the hope of the entire world.

Later on, such gazes became more and more common, gradually numbing him. It seemed in every instance world, he could see people like this, looking at him this way.

He watched Chen Yang as he fell, until that patch of inkiness completely vanished from his sight.

As he was gently lifted and enveloped by the spatial halo, he saw, not far away, Holy Initiation’s eyes also looking at him, filled with dead stillness.

With the teleportation already in motion, the delay caused by Chen Yang meant that Holy Initiation could no longer prevent him from leaving.

On his shoulder, the blood-red Pattern Mark gradually faded away, but the pain remained.

Su Ming’an spat out a mouthful of blood and gradually sank into unconsciousness, his figure disappearing amidst a sea of spatial white waves.

The forest under the slanting daylight was left with nothing but a deathly silence covered in snow and ice.

As Su Ming’an gradually regained consciousness, the first thing he noticed was the cold spreading throughout his body.

The air was somewhat dry and cold, and he could hear the crackling of sparks, it seemed there was a fire burning.

There were sounds of a spoon tapping against a porcelain bowl, clear and not far from him, as if someone was eating.

He did not open his eyes, but first checked the comments streaming.

Even without opening his eyes, by viewing these comments, Su Ming’an could gather some information about his current situation.

Logically, he should have already escaped successfully. Chen Yang in his last moments had broken through the restrictions and used Spatial Teleportation, allowing him to leave.

And from the health bar now fully restored, it appeared Holy Initiation had not been able to follow, and he had not encountered any danger while unconscious...

Now, the question was, where had he been transported?

He slightly opened his eyes.

The wind, tinged with the scent of flames, slapped his face as he faced a figure with a jet-black ponytail turned away from him.

Her figure appeared slender, yet her back was ramrod straight, and through the strands of her hair, he noticed a silver star on her shoulder.

He did not see the sky, but the roof of a tent instead.

...He was inside a tent.

The woman sitting at the entrance to the tent, her back turned to him, blocked most of the wind blowing in.

He could faintly hear voices outside the tent, suggesting that after being transported and knocked unconscious, this group had found him.

Given that he was inside a tent, and not tied up, the situation didn’t seem too bad.

He stood up, making a slight rustling noise, and after noticing that some protective props that Hui Shuhang had fitted him with were gone, he heard the woman’s soft voice.

"Awake?" she turned her head, her ponytail tied with a red cord fluttering like a butterfly.

The flames from the fire reflected on her face, casting brilliant streaks of light across it, as she tilted her head with a flask of wine in hand, her eyes cool as a serene lake.

She had a pair of jet-black eyes and silky black hair, with soft facial features, looking nothing like the typical inhabitants of the Otherworld with distinctly exotic features, but rather like someone from East Asia on Zhai Xing, which gave him a feeling of encountering a familiar in a foreign land.

...But he knew that the person in front of him was definitely not from Zhai Xing.

At most, she just looked like one. He had heard that this world contained different races of beings, their appearances varied greatly.

What made him so sure was a system notification:

Since entering this World Replica, this was the first time Su Ming’an had seen a negative favorability.

Based on this favorability, it seemed she didn’t recognize him as Qin Wang nor knew what he was holding, treating him merely as a casualty from the Regular Army, which explained the low favorability.

If not for his Ruler’s identity forcing enemy camp NPC’s favorability to at least a "Cold" level, given the Revolutionary Army’s hostility toward the Regular Army, he feared he might have been chopped up while unconscious.

Still, her attitude didn’t seem too friendly.

"Don’t wander off when you wake up, just stay inside here," Dan Shuang looked at him, her tone exceptionally cold, "The outside is full of the Revolutionary Army, I can’t guarantee what will happen to you if you go out."

Su Ming’an smiled, "No worries, I won’t wander off. Thank you for saving me."

"Hmph..." Dan Shuang glanced at him, her gaze sweeping over the clothing he wore, embroidered with the Regular Army’s emblem, "Seeing your outfit, you seem to hold a significant status, must be a wise person. Behave, and I won’t cling to your identity once we arrive at the destination."

Su Ming’an blinked.

"...I can tell, you have no abilities, not a ripple of energy wave on you." said Dan Shuang, "Though it’s said war shouldn’t involve those without military power, you’ll still have to cooperate nicely with us as repayment."

Su Ming’an realized that Dan Shuang was indeed very direct.

She figured he had no abilities, likely just an ordinary person inside the Regular Army, not a soldier directly opposing them.

Yet she still chose to bring him with them, saved him without killing, and now needed his cooperation...

Su Ming’an understood—he was probably seen as some kind of bargaining chip.

After all, the insignia on his form was clearly that of the Regular Army nobility.

He watched as Dan Shuang walked out, her back to him, utterly unguarded against him.

As she reached to pull the tent flap closed, he extended his hand, wanting to touch her shoulder.

"Bang!"

A violent burst of energy suddenly erupted from her body, and Su Ming’an deliberately did not assume a defensive posture, instead solidly taking the hit.

"Bang!"

The tent was suddenly pierced, and he was violently flung out, crashing through thick trees and stirring up a swirl of grass and leaves. The scattered blood, like droplets of oil, flew around and directly stained the ground with a trail of red dots.

The conversation outside stopped completely.

Then, the rustling sound of grass and leaves started, as if someone wanted to come over and see.

"...What happened?"

"It seems that the kid from the pseudo-army was thrown out."

"Was it the Second Commander’s doing? I’ll go check..."

"I already said we shouldn’t have saved that guy lying on the ground. Even if he has no ability, we shouldn’t have brought him into the Revolutionary Army..."

"—Don’t move!"

A loud female voice rang out, stopping the Revolutionary Army group that wanted to come and see; then, the girl with a ponytail pushed through the grass and came over first.

She looked down at Su Ming’an, who was lying on the ground in his blood-stained clothes, and slightly furrowed her brow.

"...Are you alright?" she asked, stepping closer.

"Not very," Su Ming’an said, feeling a sudden pain in his chest.

He saw a very obvious debuff hanging below his health bar in his field of view.

Su Ming’an knew that this cursed mark was still on him, that even though he had been teleported, the debuff imposed by Holy Initiation still existed on him.

Although he didn’t lose much blood, dropping three hundred points before it stopped; this time bomb always existed, forcing him to be cautious.

"—Get up; you get up first."

As he bowed his head to spit out blood, he suddenly felt a shadow blocking him and a fair hand reached out to him.

He looked up and saw those deep black eyes.

"I’m sorry; I’m just used to fighting with the army and didn’t realize you were someone without any abilities..." Dan Shuang grabbed his hand, and then, a bit of energy began to transfer into him from her hand.

"I told you not to run around or move, just stay in the tent. We aren’t trying to harm you, just want to exchange you for some supplies..." Dan Shuang kept talking, even though he hardly responded, as if comforting herself, "I know my actions involve the innocent and are no different from your pseudo-army’s leaders, but we really are low on supplies... If we don’t bring some back soon, I really worry that those who are about to starve will also rebel..."

"It’s okay; I understand," Su Ming’an smiled slightly: "I know."

"You?" Dan Shuang raised her eyebrows: "What do you know, you who look like a noble deluxe?"

"Your city is in danger, the Regular Army and the roaming Demon Beasts are coveting it," Su Ming’an spoke softly.

Although his body was covered in his own blood and the ground had a bright red patch, his expression was very serious, as if he didn’t feel much pain:

"You are just a group of ordinary people driven mad by labor and locust plagues, with shortsighted vision, no military discipline or rules to speak of, acting impulsively; looting and plundering people wherever you fight. Even if you rise up temporarily, it’s nothing but digging your own grave, a collapse is gradually in sight..."

"Click!"

A crisp sound.

The girl’s hand suddenly clutched his neck, her action extremely sudden.

Her palm was not delicate; it seemed to have very hard Sword Cocoons, the rough fingertips rubbing against his throat. As the force gradually tightened, he endured the pain, squinting his eyes, and saw a sudden hysterical blaze in her eyes.

"Are you mocking me too?" she said nearly through gritted teeth, increasingly applying force with her hand, her gaze like a falcon watching a rabbit, or like waves crashing onto a beach crab, with a very intense, surging and decisive sentiment.