Chapter 145 The sound of the suona carries beyond the mountains. Only two madmen can treat each other as equals...

After the great shock, Marco Polo calmed down.

He suppressed his urge to assert his presence and discreetly observed his surroundings. He smelled a faint, cloying, burning odor, like the smell of burning candles, coming from the chains that bound him, the chains that had originally been worn on his body.

Some were broken, dragging long ropes, with gems and pearls scattered all over the ground like stars in the night sky.

"...You really surprise me. I used to wonder what it was about you that caught the teacher's eye. I'm ashamed of my ignorance back then. Xue, you're truly a miracle. I know some things about your previous experiences in the game. Forgive my curiosity, but what other surprises can you possibly create?"

Mr. Marco Polo was dressed extravagantly and spoke in a passionate aria. If he weren't tied up, he would definitely have rushed up to give Xue Chao a hug.

Xue Chao stared at him in the darkness, like an audience member who had wandered into the wrong show. No matter how hard the actors on stage tried, they didn't suit his taste and couldn't stir his emotions.

“Mingyang’s death wasn’t orchestrated by Holder, it was you,” he said.

Marco paused, his expression subtly shifting: "Requiem, huh? A former mainstay of the orchestra, it's a pity I never got to witness his brilliance..."

"I have the key. Are you going to kill me now?"

Xue Chao's casual remark silenced the incessantly chattering Marco. It was as if he hadn't listened to anything Marco had said from beginning to end, nor did he care to analyze the truth or falsehood in Marco's eyes or the cunning motives behind them. His mind was as clear as a mirror, only allowing himself to think. Thus, all of Marco's deduced confrontation scenarios and prepared rhetoric were useless.

Marco Polo briefly lost his expression. Although he guessed that Xue Chao's earth-shattering actions couldn't possibly be just to win back some points in the host competition, he thought that Xue Chao picking up the key was also an attempt to probe his intelligence, whether openly or secretly.

After all, his teacher thought it was just a bluff, and he was about to inherit all of his teacher's mantle, yet he was going to such great lengths; there must be a reason for this.

However, none of this mattered to Xue Chao. Marco Polo instantly understood that to regain the right to negotiate, he had to abandon those fancy schemes and reveal his own inner madness.

Only two madmen can have an equal dialogue.

“You’re angry.” Marco dropped his “enthusiastic senior brother” stance, rested his head on the silk top hat that had fallen to one side, and laughed. “Oh, this is very interesting. You only mentioned the key, but you’re angry about the dead woman. You’re confrontational with me, but you don’t actually have any opinion about me personally… Oh, look at your confused blue eyes, poor thing, can you even see your own heart clearly?”

Xue Chao's mind was indeed in turmoil.

Since Pu Fengchun turned into blood, his thoughts were scattered as if blown away, becoming like snowflakes falling from the sky.

It seemed to be a mixture of many emotions. He wanted to see them clearly, but they were like a translated foreign poem. If he picked one up and looked at it, it was like a common word that became unfamiliar after staring at it for a long time. He realized that he could not use reason to dissect his emotions for the time being.

But he can succumb to his emotions and then use reason to protect his venting.

Therefore, he did not stop Jiang Ming from appearing. Logically speaking, he awakened the boss for the key. Now that he has the key, he can use the broken-winged butterfly to enter the dream and try to strengthen the seal of the evil god. He may not be unable to take this path.

But he didn't want to do that anymore. A cold fire ignited in his heart, and he made a bolder decision.

He decisively imprisoned Risen's soul, using it as leverage to negotiate with the tiger for its skin, quickly clearing the dungeon and arriving before Marco Polo.

"When I talk to people like you... it seems like my first question is always about someone's life or death, 'Who did you kill?' 'Did you kill them?'... I don't even know I'm so compassionate." Xue Chao said self-deprecatingly, then asked quietly, "In the scenario where Mingyang died, even though you weren't the host, you still interfered in other people's rooms like this?"

The first half of the sentence silenced Marco; he was a little surprised.

Because of the brief interaction, this junior brother was someone who almost never revealed himself to others. His thoughts and ideas were hidden in indifference and laziness, so when he made a move, it was astonishing. Others couldn't keep up and could only think he was crazy.

“No, no, you don’t have such weak emotions; it’s your desire for control that’s causing this,” Marco Polo exclaimed. “This is a common problem among hosts, or rather, a virtue. Simply manipulating my room is no longer enough for me. You’ll find that as long as you have power, as long as you’re smart enough, you can even control other worlds. How wonderful! You feel it now, don’t you?”

“My senior is still at large, which means he must be quite capable. Is he really that good-tempered?” Xue Chao smirked. “That shouldn’t be the case. Wasn’t he being hunted down by the company because of his ‘rebellion’? Ah, he’s too busy taking care of himself to let you take advantage of the situation.”

The man stood with his legs apart, leaning forward, one arm casually draped over his thigh, the other elbow resting on his knee. He lowered his head slightly, his palms pressed against his temples, slowly turning his head. His long, black curly hair swept across his pale face, and his sharp phoenix eyes appeared and disappeared, like hidden thorns.

The tavern was quiet, with only the sound of nightingales singing outside. Suddenly, he asked, "Mingyang, was he the one you chose?"

“That’s right, the key was obtained through ‘inheritance’,” Marco Polo said frankly. “The key’s last trace was in Li’s investigation team’s instance. They had already decided on it and had the authority to designate it. I couldn’t enter the instance, so within the limited options, it was most appropriate for the key to fall into Requiem’s possession.”

The former band members still have a presence among the upper-level players. With a little effort, Marco can make contact with them, rather than searching for a needle in a haystack.

Moreover, he is now in dire straits, plagued by illness, and nearing the end of his life. He can no longer withstand the power of the key, and his former player friends are no longer in contact with him. He has only a limited number of people he can entrust with his affairs, and they are all weak, making it easier for Marco to retrieve the key.

Most importantly, Marco had met Mingyang once before. Mingyang was a pushover, the kind of person Marco despised the most, but secret intelligence suggested that pushovers might be suitable as the carrier of the key.

Although he didn't know the reason, he had his own understanding: a pushover is like a house with unlocked doors and windows. It may seem perfect, but in reality, it can leak wind and rain at any time, and anyone can come in and sit down. It is the easiest to be corrupted.

Their hearts seem to be born to inhabit others, so they are terribly weak.

Marco's blatant contempt stirred Xue Chao's heart. He actually sensed something amiss with the deaths of the master and apprentice, as if they themselves had participated in the selection of death... But in the beginning, it was indeed because they had bad luck and were chosen by Marco Polo.

Whatever made Pu Fengchun's eyes look "sweet as honey" when he died, Xue Chao only felt that it was a scheme.

Marco Polo laughed provocatively: "You said I would kill you, but actually you want to kill me, don't you..."

Xue Chao suddenly produced a knife from the hand resting on his lap, bent down, and cleanly plunged it into his heart. The movement was so fast that if this were a movie, it would have happened in the next frame. The tavern was already completely silent.

After a long, eerie silence, he replied indifferently, "You guessed right." It was as if he himself had just come to his senses, drawing his sword and standing up.

However, as he reached the door, he suddenly turned around and found that Marco Polo's body was gone.

Suddenly, the layered gemstone necklace wrapped around his neck from behind, twisting it fiercely in a cross motion. Xue Chao sensed it in advance, raised his knife, grazed his own artery, squeezed it, pried open the necklace, and slashed it with his backhand.

Instead of dodging, the attacker charged forward, narrowly missing the blade. Something was cut open, and the attacker seized the opportunity to grab it and tear it to shreds.

“Why do you look unhappy? Wasn’t that an illusion you created to test my trump card? Now you see it.” Marco Polo grabbed Xue Chao’s arm for leverage, flipped himself in front of him, turned around, opened his arms, and retreated to his reappeared “corpse.” “My trump card requires just such an illusion.”

Xue Chao looked at Marco lying on the ground and then at another Marco who looked exactly like him and was full of energy: "The complete separation of consciousness and body."

"That's right."

The Marco Polo standing in front of Xue Chao was his consciousness separated from his body.

Whether it's an illusion or a dream, it's an "illusion" relative to reality, a place where consciousness exists.

Therefore, it precisely facilitated the embodiment of consciousness, allowing Marco Polo to more easily separate his body from his consciousness.

In the dream I just had, there was a battle between two consciousnesses.

Ma Ke successfully separated his body and soul, realizing that this was not reality. So his consciousness launched a feint attack on him and shattered the dream.

"And your illusion is constructed around my mind, isn't it? You underestimate me, Xue. You've handed over the initiative in the illusion to me."

He's right. This "illusion" is Marco Polo's dream, and Marco Polo has the ability to reclaim control of the dream once he realizes it's not reality.

That's right, it's not a prop... it's his own ability, just like a player's special ability.

But isn't the host supposed to have no superpowers?

Marco Polo seemed to read his mind: "Don't be afraid to admit it, you've already guessed it, otherwise you wouldn't have used the illusion of consciousness to test me. The most important attribute of a host is mental strength. If one's consciousness is not strong and one's spirit is not stable, one cannot become an excellent host."

"You've already experienced what it's like to be a Keeper of Secrets. To adapt to such an impact, your mind will also evolve. Cats grow tails for balance, fish are streamlined to swim faster in the sea, and your consciousness must also possess unique power."

Just like Marco's consciousness can leave his body and exist independently.

Xue Chao was aware of his "unique power"—his consciousness could split into countless eyes in the first instance, taking into account every perspective, as if he were a natural-born monitor.

When consciousness and body are separated, the consciousness will not die easily, but the immobile body is definitely a weakness, because the consciousness will eventually return.

It would have been better to turn the tables on him in the dream and catch him off guard, but Marco didn't—he still had tricks up his sleeve. Just like he had the Flash Butterfly with him, Marco must have also brought an S-rank item!

As Xue Chao attacked, the colors before his eyes suddenly changed in the blink of an eye.

Objects themselves have no color; the light reflected from an object is transmitted to the brain via the optic nerve, and the color is formed in the brain through this reflection.

Now, all the colors in his eyes were in disarray, especially Marco himself. He had at least twenty or thirty colors on him. The silk and gemstones were already changing, and now the red turned green, the green turned blue, and it even turned into a strange rainbow, swirling and flamboyant. This caused him to lose his balance in the sudden change, and Marco took the opportunity to attack, which indeed added many wounds to him.

Xue Chao adopted a passive defensive stance, squinting his eyes and forcing himself to adapt.

The tavern descended into chaos as they fought back and forth. Xue Chao's injured arm couldn't withstand Marco's leg attack, and his waist slammed against the bar. He had been waiting for this opportunity. When Marco attacked again, he nimbly dodged Marco's attack, crouched down, and swept Marco's knee back. As Marco leaned forward, he grabbed his hair and slammed him against the bar, preparing to throw the strange "color ball" inside.

The changing colors constantly distracted him, but also made his target more vivid.

But suddenly everything went black before his eyes, all colors turned black, as if he had been deprived of his vision, which inevitably created gaps in his movements. Marco sneered, twisted his body, kicked Xue Chao into the bar, snatched the knife from his hand, and stabbed him.

The same position can be seen as Marco's retaliation.

Marco was also badly injured. Looking at Xue Chao's eyes, which were wide open in pain but still seemed empty, he gritted his teeth and laughed, "What a monstrous adaptability. It only took a dozen moves to force me to use my trump card."

Xue Chao turned his face to the side, his breathing labored, his thick, black curly hair spread across the floor, revealing a pale jawline covered in cold sweat and beads of blood, like a flower in full bloom.

With the outcome decided, Marco could now speak calmly and eloquently: "I admire you, Xue. You are a worthy opponent. Your ingenious thinking, your do-what-you-want personality... We could have been friends. Perhaps it's not too late now. Hand me the key, I..."

He was still on top of Xue Chao, holding the knife, and as he spoke, he spat out blood.

He clutched his chest in bewilderment, realizing he wasn't injured at all!

It felt like... like his body had suffered a fatal injury, and his consciousness was slow to register!

He turned around, but the body lying on the ground was gone. During the fight, he had been guiding the two away from there. Xue Chao had tried to sneak up on his body twice, but he had disrupted the colors and concealed them. He had deliberately forced the person to the bar counter, which was furthest away from his body... Where is his body?!

Something intangible shattered, just as he broke his dream.

His peripheral vision caught the blue-purple hue of the silk, and he abruptly turned his head to face his own.

He was pressing down on his own body, a knife stuck in his chest, blood flowing from their mouths simultaneously.

He...he just killed...what happened, how could this be!

A sharp pain shot through his head, and the memories that had been erased resurfaced. He remembered!

He experienced everything that happened after he woke up until he shattered the illusion!

Erasing a memory—that's Risen's special ability!

He offered Risen so many benefits, like peeling off a layer of skin, because he was attracted to Risen's ability to not only trace other people's memories but also to extract specific fragments of those memories!

As a result, that wretched brat betrayed him!

From the moment he woke up until he shattered the illusion, it was the little devil who made him "travel back to his memories." So he didn't actually break the illusion; rather, his consciousness broke free from his memories!

Then...then he truly fell into the illusion created by Xue Chao, an illusion constructed by his mind, wrapped around his memories, one link after another.

He was facing Xue Chao, who already knew that he could separate his body from his soul.

He thought he was leading Xue Chao step by step toward death, but in fact Xue Chao was guiding his consciousness step by step closer to the true location of his body, so that he could end his own life.

Marco Polo's emotions were stronger than ever before. Even with the "emotional suppressor" given to him by Holder, he still felt immense fear—fear of Xue Chao and of death.

No... He's about to become famous overnight, replace Holder, and get the key to the final victory!! He's going to become a legend!

He tried to draw his knife in terror, but a slender hand grasped it, gently yet firmly pushing the knife a little further into the ground.

The man bent down, the faint, natural scent of plants emanating from him like the tide that washes over the shore, coming and going, leaving only a whisper in his ear.

"dream."