Chapter Forty-Two: Fallacy
Where was his sister? Ander stared in disbelief at the bottom of the fissure’s central pit—there was nothing there.
“Move, quickly!”
Sandro’s shout jolted the two at the edge of the pit from their stupor. They barely had time to react before Camille grabbed each of them by the leg and tossed them to safety.
Camille himself hurled forward in a desperate leap and rolled, narrowly avoiding the collapse of a nearby three-story building.
As the thunderous crash of the falling structure echoed, the tremors beneath their feet abruptly ceased, vanishing as suddenly as they’d appeared.
Aiden’s face grew pale; he cared little for lingering dangers. He rushed straight to the rubble of the fallen building, drew his engineering shovel, and began digging frantically, murmuring Lily’s name over and over.
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Tick... click... tick... click...
A sound, reminiscent of the slow, dying ticks of an old mechanical clock, echoed in Lily’s ears, reverberating through her dreams.
This endless, originless mechanical noise brought her no comfort. Quite the opposite—it made Lily, even in her deep unconsciousness, increasingly restless.
Tick... click... tick... click...
The sound grew louder, more urgent. Suddenly, Lily sat upright, her arms flailing unconsciously, desperate to drive away the headache-inducing noise.
The world fell silent.
After a second or two of erratic movement, Lily gradually stilled, finally opening her tightly shut eyes, which had been squeezed closed from pain and irritation.
“Where... am I?” Lily’s mind was blank. Her head felt woozy, thoughts sluggish. Before her floated the carved wooden head of a horse, which somehow wore a sly, cunning grin.
It was the first time Lily realized that horses could make such an expression.
Before she could react, the wooden horse’s head, still smiling, slowly faded away, dissolving into the void.
???
Lily was utterly confused.
---
She finally had a chance to look around—but there was no need. Darkness surrounded her, so deep she couldn’t see her own hand. How had she managed to see that horse’s face in such pitch blackness?
At that moment, a glowing ember drifted from her chest, startling her. It landed nearby, then began to move, trailing a glowing tail as it crept off to her left.
“What is this? Why did it come from my chest... Is it telling me to follow?” Lily pondered for a moment, then quickly struggled to her feet, stumbling after it; her legs were numb.
As she walked, her memory slowly returned.
First, she’d been paralyzed by the gaze of something terrifying. Then came the sudden earthquake that tossed her into the air, and finally... finally she’d fallen into the black cavern beneath her feet.
“So am I underground?” Lily was uncertain.
It was too dark. The only light came from the glowing ember and its trailing tail. She could hardly make out her surroundings, but the ground was surprisingly smooth—she made her way through the darkness without tripping.
Who would build such a smooth road underground?
Moreover... Lily sniffed the air. There was no scent of earth, no dampness, no smell at all.
There was no way to judge.
Watching the glowing ember drift ahead, Lily recalled John’s description—after being “erased” and then reappearing in the room, he’d told her, Hugh, and Aiden about the embers with long, trailing tails. She wondered if this was the same kind he’d spoken of.
Yet she had no memory of the ember within her own body. If it hadn’t appeared on its own to lead her, she might never have known it existed.
“Where... are you taking me?” Lily hesitated for a long while before finally deciding to ask the ember, taking a desperate chance.
She instinctively used the Summer tongue.
She didn’t expect much—the ember was tiny, and its nature was unknown; whether it could communicate was a mystery. But to Lily’s surprise, the ember paused ahead, then swiftly floated back toward her, hovering nearby. In midair, it used its glowing tail to write a single character: “Error.”
Then the ember dropped to the ground again and continued forward.
The moment she saw the character, Lily understood—she’d probably ended up in another world.
---
Dejected, Liu Shiqin walked away from the embankment and suddenly felt a faint tremor beneath her feet. She thought it must be an earthquake, but then heard the distant crash of something massive striking the ground to her northeast.
This...
Liu Shiqin hesitated, debating whether to investigate.
She feared the disturbance might be caused by a supernatural creature. After all, she’d already seen variants of Fei prowling the streets, collecting metal objects. She wouldn’t be surprised if someone told her there were Baize variants in this city district.
Ultimately, she decided to check. Her reasoning hinged on one thing: the earthquake.
According to her memory, since the “Two Point Four Mist” had enveloped the globe, not a single geological disaster had occurred. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions—all had vanished, even in island nations like Daoqi, perched between tectonic plates, which hadn’t seen a single quake since.
So this sudden earthquake in Dunlun City was bizarre, utterly inexplicable.
If it were merely a battle between supernatural beings, Liu Shiqin couldn’t imagine what size such creatures would need to be to cause an earthquake and such distant commotion.
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“If you want to leave, go ahead. I’m staying here for my sister!” Ander’s eyes were bloodshot as he sat atop a massive slab of stone thrown from the collapsed three-story building, glaring at Dunn and Sandro.
“Ander! With all this chaos, those monsters might arrive any moment. If we don’t leave, we’ll die here,” Dunn’s voice was cold as he pressed on.
“Do you want to get us all killed?”
“Don’t you see Aiden’s already packed up? Don’t you trust his judgment?” Dunn gestured at Aiden, who had slung his backpack once more.
Aiden looked haggard, his eyes lifeless, his hands wrapped in bandages. He’d bloodied his hands desperately digging through the rubble, leaving them raw and torn. Finally, as he slid from the debris, it was as if something clicked within him; he quietly let Sandro bandage his hands and packed his bag.
“Aiden, say something...” Ander turned to him, his voice pleading, tears long since dried.