绝代双骄 林志颖

It was a vast expanse of desolate, dark, scorched earth, with rough rocks everywhere, and the hills and mountains and the abyss criss-crossed on the flat surface like hideous and ugly scars.

The blood moon hung on the far end of the sky, half-hidden behind the ragged horizon.

Under the dim moonlight, there was no sign of life remaining on the vast, silent continent, and it was silent and terrifying.

Ge Xiu lowered his head, moved his finger lightly, and then tentatively removed the dark element covering the wound.

The gruesome wound that cut through his whole wrist no longer brought any pain. The reddish-brown blood coagulated into a thick layer of protection, covering the slender wrist. The uppermost blood scab has become thin and delicate, revealing the new pink tender flesh underneath.

He quickly checked the wounds left on his body from the previous battle, and found that he didn’t know when it started that deep or shallow bloodstains begun to heal quickly, and some were even completely disappeared, leaving only pale skin stained with mottled blood.

On the inside of the wrist, the cyan blood vessels and the faintly visible light red marks intertwined, looking evil and mysterious, the life-like totem was slowly twisting, trying to break through the shackles, to tear through confinement of skin.

The red traces of the totem became deeper, to the point where it couldn’t be ignored.

Ge Xiu looked up at the nearly round blood moon placed on the horizon not far away.

He could feel that his strength was gradually increasing as the moon cycle became closer to the full moon.

The dark elements within a few kilometres were gleefully excited, entwining around Ge Xiu’s side and fingertips, enthusiastically moving under the control of his mind. As long as he wished for it, they could be turned into whatever various shapes he wanted.

This kind of power was fascinating, but it was also extremely dangerous – this was a delayed-action equivalent exchange. Although he still didn’t know what was the cost, it would be paid off sooner or later.

…How wonderful.

Ge Xiu took a deep breath slowly. The dry and icy air scratched his throat* and poured into his lungs, bringing a slight tingling pain, as if to confine the dark element that was dancing and pulsating in the air into the body, embed into his own bones and blood.

The extremely dangerous feeling was as though dancing on the tip of a knife, it stimulated all the nerves in his body, making him trembling with excitement from head to toe.

The demons before were probably looking for him, and the totem on his body might also be related to it.

If he guessed right, then the pursuit would be here soon.

The smile on Ge Xiu’s lips deepened uncontrollably, and the depths of the pitch-black pupils was suppressed the almost euphoric excitement. The scarlet blood moon in the distance reflected in his dark irises, making them resemble a pair of round cold red scimitars, shining in the dark.

So… what should I play next?

He thought happily.

The fingertips hanging on his side moved slightly, and the abundant dark elements rushed forward like a docile pet, flatteringly clinging to his body, and the little wolf who limped and followed him was also covered in the same way. It perfectly covered the fresh breath belonging to living creatures, letting them perfectly blend into the rugged wasteland.

On the silent wasteland, the whistling wind was like an icy blade, sweeping past the ground, ruthlessly erasing all traces.

·

A huge teleportation array unfolded between the canyons, painting the steep rock walls into a blood red.

Several tall demons stepped out of the teleportation array, all of them tall, with huge bone wings folded behind them, and the long curved horns on the top of their heads reflected some of the scarlet light.

Apparently there was a massacre in the narrow valley.

Countless broken corpses and internal organs covered the ground and rock cliffs, red and yellow intertwined, almost completely covering the original colour, the fishy smell was wafting in the air, and it was so dense it almost seemed tangible.

A bloodied member of demon race had already been waiting in front of the formation. He knelt on one knee in a pool of blood and lowered his head to the ground: “Sir.”

The pupil of the leading demon was dark purple. He coldly glanced at the subordinate who was covered in mixed blood of the worms and the blood of the demon race, and frowned in disgust:

“You were so humiliated by the low-intelligence creatures in the abyss. Ace, remember to receive punishment after you go back.”

The demon named Ace trembled and dropped his head down again: “Yes.”

The nobleman stared at him deeply for a few seconds before suddenly commanding:

“Raise your head.”

Ace didn’t dare to hesitate, and immediately raised his head obediently when the other’s voice fell. A handsome face stained with blood was revealed in the other’s sight.

The nobleman gracefully stepped over the corpses of insects everywhere, walked in front of Ace, stretched out his long, sharp, black and curved nails, and pressed them to Ace’s forehead.

In the next second, the chant of incantation sounded.

As the profound and complex syllables reverberated, a horrible howl of pain broke through Ace’s lips, and the terrifying screams that didn’t seem to belong to a living creature echoed in the valley, but the nobleman who was casting the spell had a heart from stone, and his expression haven’t changed at all as his lips moved, completing the rest of the spell.

A thin black thread was pulled out from between Ace’s eyebrows.

Immediately afterwards, the wisps spread into a hazy mist, shrouding the two demons, one standing and one kneeling, as countless moving shadows drifted in the air.

A slender figure of the young man appeared between the intermittent pictures, as if a wisp of smoke was wafting in the dark, which could be blown away with just one breath.

The colour of the purple pupils of the demon aristocrat became darker, and it became more and more striking in the dark. He chased after the figure of the young man with his gaze, and traced the bright red lines on his skin during the battle, with a greedy and fanatical expression.

Finally, Ace convulsed and fell down, smashing heavily into the dirty and smelly corpses.

The nobleman withdrew his hand, rubbed the sticky human blood between his fingers with his fingertips, brought it closer to the tip of his nose, sniffed deeply, and whispered almost obsessively:

“…That’s right, it’s him.”

He took out the silk handkerchief from his pocket, and graciously wiped the blood-stained fingers clean, and then threw the delicate and expensive handkerchief on the ground stained with blood and corpses without pity. He beckoned his hand and commanded: “Block this area, expand the teleportation array, and let goblins and golems start a comprehensive search** from here. Send demons to patrol the sky and do everything possible to find him before the full moon.”

He added curtly with a gloomy and cold expression: “The Mage Tower has calculated the exact date of the full moon – it’s in three months.”

His subordinates took the order to leave.

“Sir Melville, are you sure?” A high level demon standing aside frowned and slowly said, “This full moon night is three hundred years earlier than we expected.”

Melville raised an eyebrow mockingly: “Do you not trust my mage tower? His Royal Highness Edmund? Then you might as well let your army do the fortune-telling for you.”

“Pay attention to your attitude.” The other party’s expression darkened. “Besides, if it wasn’t for your mage tower’s initial error in management, how could we lose his track.”

His words were obviously a heavy blow.

Melville’s face also became extremely unsightly. He stared at the other person coldly, took a deep breath and finally decided to end the quarrel and bring the focus back to the really important topic:

“The God of Dark is on the top, I personally verified the results of this prophecy several times in the mage tower – after March, the blood moon will have reached the top.”

At this moment, the large-scale magic teleportation arrays were already arranged, from the valley to the top of the cliff, several huge scarlet teleportation arrays lit up one after another, and the enslaved goblins and the magic puppets made by magic servants continuously poured out from it, densely packed like a huge number of ants, gray-green and black-red almost completely covered the surface as far as the sight could see and they all waited for the command of the master who had the power of life and death over them.

The huge bone wings stretched out from backs of the high level demons, setting off a strong air current.

The nobles with purple pupils stood high above as they looked down at the rapidly increasing servants on the ground, chanting spells in the ancient and complicated demon language.

The dark elements rushed and gathered, swept down like a storm, turning words into a physical imprisonment, deeply engraving on the servants’ souls:

[Find].

At the moment when the spell took effect, a huge army dispatched instantly, rushing in all directions like a torrent of waves, a magic dog that was good at tracking traces rushed into the distance, ran across the black ground, carefully searching for all possible traces. The lower-ranking subordinate demons flew up and hovered in the air, leading an army of lower level demons to search.

Melville looked down at the magnificent scene below, and said in a prophetic tone:

“He can’t run far.”

Ge Xiu did not run far.

He didn’t have the slightest intention to escape.

Compared to when he was found on a cliff, his ability to hide his traces had improved to an incredible level, but he would always leave some traces and his aura to the chasers so they could investigate and follow, so that the dark servants who were looking for him would always have the illusion that he was right in front of them, but he’d always disappear into air in the last moment – like some kind of weird and cruel game. A seemingly weak hope led countless searchers astray, and when they thought that he was about to be captured, he would dissipate from their hands like a wisp of smoke.

Before anybody realised, something seemed to have changed.

In the beginning, it was just the disappearance of some magic puppets.

Manufacturing of middle and low-level puppets only required a sufficient amount of steel and magic spar. An experienced demon mage could create dozens of hundreds of demon puppets in just a few minutes. The goblin in charge of supervising the puppets didn’t even try to find the missing ones – maybe they just fell into some cave or a specific ditch during the process of searching, which was completely within the expectations of losses.

Unexpectedly, one day the magic puppets began to fail in large numbers, and fell one after another like in a chain reaction.

This finally aroused the vigilance of the demons. While urging the mage to find the cause, they dispatched a large number of goblins to conduct a detailed comprehensive search** to find the locations of the missing puppets, and finally found clues.

The chiselled by violence metal shell was covered with bone-deep claw marks and traces of magic, the armour was cut open, and the spell spar inside was missing.

Now no one dared to neglect this matter again. This incident was reported quickly. The wizard responsible for making the magic puppet urgently modified the magic puppet spell and changed the original self-driving to remote controlling by the wizard. Once the spar was destroyed by external force and taken out, it would explode. The small-scale disappearance finally stopped.

But Ge Xiu was still missing.

And the goblins continued to provide all kinds of clues day after day, as if the opponent was a team composed of 800 people scattered, and each clue lead them to opposite directions and different paths. The demons responsible for commanding and hovering in the air and search couldn’t deal with it, because there were few of them proficient in that they were always exhausted.

The search has reached a dead end.

Eight demon subordinates and two high-level demons have died at the hands of perturbed nobles this week, and Edmund, who was in charge of the search plan, was a violent and bloodthirsty existence among the high-level demons himself, and there were more than a few demons who died under his lively torture and dismemberment. There were countless dead goblins and servants. Sometimes it was simply because the food provided was not to Edmund’s appetite, or simply because their behaviour was not in line with his liking. The whole team was filled with trepidation and fear, no matter which race, they were all walking on a thin ice.

As the master of the mage tower and the planner of the entire operation, Melville was much calmer.

In the final analysis, the magic puppet was a machine driven by dark elements, and the opponent was able to thoroughly study the spell carved in the spar in such a short period of time, and even found a way to counteract it. This not only showed that the opponent’s strength has increased more and faster than expected, it also proved that the other’s dangerousness was far beyond what he had imagined – then, the comprehensive search was far from reaching expected results.

He must change his strategy.

Melville looked out through the huge window carved from the pale stone. The dense dark element covered and engulfed the entire prominent city. In the distant sky, a crimson blood moon hung high.

This huge eye almost completely opened, looking down indifferently and mercilessly.

The dangerous atmosphere filling the air made the entire Ester city restless. The bloody smell of the violence and killing filled every alley in the city. The dense and heavy darkness covered the evil and greed, but the whole city’s madness and restlessness still carried through the dark elements that violently fluctuated.

The time was almost there.

The dust in bone-inlaid silver funnel on the table dropped down silently, and the only remaining gleaming dust accumulated on the narrow neck, and the dark vortex revolved in the center, as if prophetizing the upcoming last moment of all times.

The blood moon was coming, but the most important link has not yet been filled.

Melville exerted a little force, crushed the spell stone with his fingertips, and the bloody dust drifted down from between his sharp fingers and was swallowed by darkness.

A short sound came from the transmission array.

“Withdraw the goblins, leaving only the modified high and medium demonic puppets, all the demon subordinates and high demon races will be assembled to the mage tower.”

Under the sky of eternal night, there was no grass on the wasteland filled with strange rocks.

The gloomy gray mist permeated everything, and the rugged and steep terrain was full of scattered huge stones and narrow gaps. A masked magic circle and two alarm circles that would be triggered upon anyone going through this place were cleverly hidden in two of them. Although the rocks were relatively simple and rough, they were hollowed out to contain the huge amount of dark elements inside.

The space under the rocks was chaotic, full of countless discarded and broken incantation stone remains, as well as many strangely shaped and ugly parts. Those things piled up under the rocks, almost filling up all of the open space, leaving only narrow passages that could barely accommodate people.

A swift gray shadow swept across the wasteland and slipped into the gap silently and skilfully. The formation method seemed to be familiar with his breath, and accepted his entry without impediment and resistance.

Elinor stared at the mess inside the rock, and frowned.

For this period of time, he had been going out to find where was the place he fell from – this could be the key to leaving Calvary.

Ge Xiu never restricted his actions.

In addition to covering him with a layer of magic circles to cover his breath when Elinor returned, he was studying the black and shiny spell stones and the charms that were slyly found and stolen from the team that searched for him and pursued him. This research reached to the point of obsession.

What Elinor found difficult to understand was how this human being could make such a mess of every temporary residence.

Although he was on four paws, he had to tidy up as much as possible every time he returned to the hiding place, but he could never keep up with the speed of Ge Xiu’s destruction.

The little wolf leaped lightly, jumping over the discarded spell stones accumulated on the ground twice, and quickly reached the center of the cave.

In the middle of a mess of simple scrolls and metal scraps and parts, the slender young man curled up his legs, bonelessly nesting in the depression of the rock, staring attentively at the semi-finished product wrapped in the dark element in his palm. He had black shades under his eyes, but his dark eyes shone with a feverish look, a kind of almost pathological excitement.

Nobody knew how long he has been without rest.

Elinor’s golden pupils flashed, he let out a short low growl from his throat in a warning.

Ge Xiu raised his eyes and swept them over the little wolf not far away. The whole person was still immersed in the state of extreme excitement, even his voice was full of unusual enthusiasm:

“You are back!”

He stretched out lazily his weist, the slender waist stretched into a flexible and graceful arc. Little wolf’s golden eyes’ red vertical pupils stayed secretly on the pale skin exposed on his waist for a few seconds, and then moved to his face, the pupils gleaming with deep and unpredictable colours.

Ge Xiu dexterously passed through the stacked messy obstacles in the cave, as swift and as elegant as a cat.

He raised his hand and touched the wolf’s head, and rubbed his dodging back ears regardless of the other party’s wishes, then narrowed his eyes and laughed:

“Is the scenery outside particularly interesting?”

Of course, very interesting.

Thousands of magic puppets and goblins dug three feet deep in a radius of almost a hundred miles, countless dogs barking under the blood moon, the sky was occupied by the circling demons and other dark races, and they were doing everything they could to find a human’s tracks, but they were being so easily misled and played by with by their prey, exhausted in the vast wasteland, it was indeed a very interesting sight.

It was hard to imagine that it was work of just a single human.

In this process, except for the occasional hunting of the magic puppet, he rarely even asked for Elinor’s help.

This felling of danger like dancing on the tip of a knife seemed to be his fuel and power he used to live. He was completely intoxicated by it, like a lunatic.

Just like a flame.

Extreme, pure, dangerous, charming.

Elinor stared fixedly at the human being in front of him, his pupils shrunk into a vertical thin line, line of sight slowly sweeping through his white and slender limbs and handsome and harmless face. He stuck out the tip of hid tongue to lick the tips of his claws.

Ge Xiu smiled and walked towards the entrance of the cave, covering himself with a dark element as he walked, and then skilfully stepped onto the rocks at the entrance of the cave and peered out.

The protective circle dutifully hid his actions, and through the gap between the rocks, showed Ge Xiu the scene outside in front of him.

Dark elements, dense and light, flowed in the wasteland like unrestrained mist. It was pure darkness without a trace of moonlight. It could conceal all living creatures in it, but it couldn’t hinder Ge Xiu’s sight.

The goblins were retreating, and the high-level and intermediate-level puppets stayed where they were. A bone dragon hovered over the demon clan and the dark mage flying over their heads flapped his huge wings and flew toward the city lurking in the shadows in the distance.

Ge Xiu curved his lips silently, his eyes gleaming with eagerness in the dark.

He turned his head to look at Elinor who was still sitting not far away, patted his thigh, and said, “Come on, we should go.”

In just a few minutes, a dark black fire ignited under the rock, the remaining traces in the depths of the cave were completely erased, and not a breath was left behind.

·

The demons and dark wizards gathered in the wizard tower, waiting for Melville’s order.

As the manager of the army, Edmund was dissatisfied, but the search he organized during this period was not very effective, so he had to reluctantly bow his head and allow the elite under his command to follow Melville’s dispatch.

The nobleman with purple eyes sat on a bone seat, looking down at the black demon underneath, and said coldly:

“A bunch of trash.”

The demon underneath shook his whole body, and his head dropped lower.

“Played around by a human who has never received magical education… The Dark God is here, if you weren’t needed to implement my next plan, you’d be apologizing with your death now.”

Everyone knew that Melville wasn’t joking, one by one they knelt on the spot silently, the huge and gorgeous room was filled with deathly silence.

Melville swept his oppressive gaze across the demons, his pupils flashed with suppressed violence and anger. He took a slow and deep breath, restrained the bloodthirsty impulse in his heart, and then commanded: ” This year, the primitive spar produced in the northern mountains will be transported with bone dragons, so that all the wizards could engrave the binding runes at the fastest speed.”

He raised his hand to invite his confidants, and exhorted: “Come, take the amplyfing score to the highest .”

Edmund sitting in the second place raised his eyebrows:

“What are you going to do?”

Melville tapped the armrest of the seat rhythmically with sharp black nails, and the thin lips curled up into a tyrannical smile:

“What do you think I am going to do, Your Royal Highness Edmund? Of course, I am doing everything possible to get this cunning mouse hidden underground.”

—————————————————–

*should be throat but there was typo in original text and I couldn’t figure out what else ah

**地毯式搜索- lit. carpet search, comprehensive search

Little Theater:

Elinor: Please stop making a mess out of every temporary home, cleaning up with those small paws is horrible!

Ge Xiu: *completely covered under the different parts and garbage he found somewhere* i can’t hear you ʅ(́◡◝)ʃ