Chapter 55 The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons and the Gambling Game "A book..." Fio...
“Books…” Fyodor began slowly, his voice deep and magnetic, as if reciting an ancient legend: “It is a very interesting concept. It is not a physical book, but a vessel for the rules of this world, a tool that records and can rewrite reality.”
He observed Zhu Yi's reaction; the other listened intently, his wine-red eyes widening slightly.
“What is written down will become reality, even if it is absurd and defies common sense,” Fyodor continued, his tone calm yet possessing a seductive power. “It can erase existence, and it can create new life. In a sense, it represents one of the roots of this world, something countless people dream of… [the all-powerful wish-granting machine.]”
Fyodor paused deliberately in his speech. He saw Takeichi's pupils contract slightly, though he quickly recovered, but that momentary wavering did not escape his notice.
"Mr. Takeichi is interested in books?" Fyodor leaned forward slightly. "Is there some wish you wish to fulfill?"
"A wish?" Zhu Yi lowered his head and said in a hoarse voice, "It's probably to make ghost stories disappear, to close the door between the underworld and the real world, and to let me live my life as an ordinary person."
As if he had thought of something, Zhu Yi turned around, a complicated expression on his face, and looked at Fyodor with a look of determination: "Mr. Fyodor, we can have one last, and largest, collaboration."
Fyodor raised an eyebrow, signaling him to continue.
“You know about my constitution, and you’ve also noticed it,” Zhu Yi said slowly. “I not only have a special ability to perceive ghost stories, but I’m also a guide to some extent.”
“My very existence is the ultimate temptation for certain powerful supernatural tales.” He raised his eyes and stared at Fyodor, his wine-red eyes seeming to surge with dark currents: “I can be bait, a bait more powerful than ever before.”
A hint of interest appeared in Fyodor's eyes: "A decoy?"
“Yes.” Take nodded, his tone carrying a sense of desperation: “I can unleash my aura and create an unprecedented night parade of a hundred demons in Yokohama.”
"To concretize and materialize the strange tales that are hidden in the city and attracted to them in a short period of time, and to make them erupt on a large scale in specific areas."
The scenes depicted by Takeichi are chilling.
Countless ghost stories simultaneously appear on the streets of Yokohama, and fear will continue to spread. He will gamble all the ghost stories on a high-stakes gamble.
If successful, the amount of energy collected will be astronomical.
“That sounds dangerous, especially for you,” Fyodor calmly pointed out the problem: “How can you guarantee you won’t be consumed by the rampaging ghost stories, and how will you control the situation?”
“This is the stake. Even if they think my actions are crazy and want to stop me, it’s the only way. I think your goal is the same as mine.” A near-mad smile appeared on Zhu Yi’s face: “I have a tool to control ghost stories, used to construct a temporary domain, like a giant Venus flytrap.”
"I position myself at the center as bait, attracting and temporarily trapping the strange tales that are drawn in."
"As for controlling the situation," Zhu Yi continued, throwing another bait to Fyodor: "Such a large-scale upheaval will not be ignored by the Armed Detective Agency, the Port Mafia, or the Special Abilities Division, because it has shaken the foundation of this city. It may allow the book you have been searching for to briefly show its traces."
"In this chaos, it may be the perfect opportunity to make contact with or even acquire a part of its power."
He knew Fyodor's obsession with books, and using books as bait was enough to tempt the demon and make him willing to play the role he needed in this dangerous feast—drawing most of the firepower from the Armed Detective Agency, the Special Abilities Division, and the Port Mafia.
Fyodor fell silent, his deep purple eyes swirling as he stared at Takeichi, weighing the risks and rewards. Massive chaos, the opportunity to access the book… it was all incredibly tempting, but the main risks lay in Takeichi potentially losing control, and interference from other organizations.
"Location?" After a long silence, Fyodor finally spoke.
"Yokohama city center, shopping mall." Takeichi revealed the final stage he had already chosen.
A mad plan to sacrifice the entire city is underway.
Fyodor's lips finally curled into a genuine smile: "A very interesting proposal, I accept it."
...
Meanwhile, the Armed Detective Agency.
Edogawa Ranpo suddenly stood up, ran quickly to the window, and leaned halfway out to look at the sky.
"No! No! Absolutely not!" Edogawa Ranpo exclaimed to himself, his eyes wide.
"What's wrong, Mr. Ranpo?" Everyone was startled by his actions and looked over.
Dazai Osamu, with a solemn expression, also came to the window. He saw that the once clear blue sky was turning gloomy at a visible speed. What was even more unsettling was that a strange red vortex, resembling a giant eye, was slowly forming in the center of the dark, swirling clouds, exuding an ominous aura.
“That guy… Takeichi has gone mad!” Edogawa Ranpo’s eyes sharpened, and he spoke rapidly: “He wants to turn the entire Yokohama into a giant ghost story den, forcibly tearing apart the barrier between reality and the underworld.”
“We must stop him.” Kunikida Doppo stood up.
Fukuzawa Yukichi walked to the window with a furrowed brow. He looked out at the scene that resembled the end of the world—the entire Yokohama was shrouded in an eerie gloom, as if an invisible pressure was spreading, foreshadowing an unprecedented disaster.
"Ranpo, where is the enemy's approximate location?" Fukuzawa Yukichi's calm and powerful voice instantly quelled the somewhat agitated atmosphere within the club.
Edogawa Ranpo closed his eyes, and using his extraordinary reasoning ability combined with the unusual information in the Yokohama sky at that moment, he quickly concluded: "The center of the chaos... is in the center of Yokohama, in the shopping mall!"
"Notify the Special Abilities Division, highest alert!" President Fukuzawa Yukichi immediately gave the order, his calm voice carrying an unquestionable determination: "Immediately evacuate the people in and around the shopping mall! Atsushi, Kyoka, cooperate with the police. Ranpo, Dazai, Kunikida, come with me to the shopping mall."
“Yes!” Atsushi Nakajima and Kyoka Izumi immediately responded.
"Yes." Ranpo and the other two answered in unison. Dazai Osamu's face lost its usual frivolity, and his iris-shaped eyes looked towards the building.
A final battle concerning the safety of the entire city is about to begin.
...
The rooftop of a shopping mall in downtown Yokohama.
Zhu Yi stood alone on the top floor of the building, looking down at the brightly lit city below. The evening wind blew his hair and the corners of his clothes. His face was as pale as paper, but his wine-red eyes were unusually calm, as calm as a stagnant pool.
The world's rejection grew stronger, the entire space was squeezing him, constantly urging him to leave.
A system panel floated in front of him, displaying the ever-increasing and rapidly depleting Mystery Value.
"Let's begin," Zhu Yi said softly.
The next moment, a force spread out from the center of the building.
The sky began to turn an eerie color, as if veiled by a hazy filter, and countless fragmented whispers, seemingly from another dimension, drifted from certain corners of Yokohama.
On the ground, the city lights began to flicker, and illusory shadows emerged from the walls, the ground, and even under the feet of pedestrians, transforming into all sorts of bizarre and indescribable forms—faceless children, black shadows, weeping women, broken and tattered dolls… Urban legends that had once appeared in various corners of Yokohama, or even those that existed only in legends, were forcibly materialized at this moment, like a hundred demons descending upon the world.
Panic erupted in an instant. Screams, cries, and running filled the building. Zhu Yi could see people pushing and shoving each other below as they ran out of the building one after another.
As the center of everything, Takeichi is under unimaginable pressure. Even with the help of the system, forcibly restraining such a large number of ghost stories is a huge and irreversible drain on his mental energy.
His face grew paler and paler, veins bulged on his temples, a trickle of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth, and his vision was blurred by the crimson color. He was bleeding from almost all seven orifices, looking extremely terrifying.
Zhu Yi slowly raised the bell.
"Ding, ding, ding—"
Three clear, yet ominous, bell sounds echoed across the rooftop. As the sound spread, the cracks on the bell rapidly widened, then with a "crack," it shattered completely.
Without the support of the key prop, Zhu Yi could no longer hold on and collapsed to his knees, coughing violently, with more blood gushing from his mouth.
"Even using SSS-level items can't last too long..." Zhu Yi muttered, "This is troublesome."
Although he lost a high-level item, he found the book's location. After all, within the system's controlled area, the book could be detected as soon as it emitted even a trace of its aura.
Despite the excruciating pain that felt like his brain was being torn apart and his physical weakness, he sent the coordinates to Fyodor through the system's encrypted channel. Just as the message was successfully sent, hurried footsteps came from the rooftop entrance.
"Takeichi, stop!" Kunikida Doppo charged forward first, followed by Fukuzawa Yukichi, Edogawa Ranpo, Dazai Osamu, the rest of the Armed Detective Agency, and the late-arriving Sakaguchi Ango.
They had clearly fought a hard battle and were somewhat disheveled.
Zhu Yi supported himself on the ground, slowly stood up, and turned to look at them.
His face was stained with blood, and his clothes were disheveled, but his wine-red eyes remained calm.
"Do I need to apologize?" he asked softly, his gaze slowly sweeping over Sakaguchi Ango, whose expression was complicated, Kunikida Doppo, who was clutching his notebook, Dazai Osamu, who remained silent, and all the Armed Detective Agency members who looked like they were facing a formidable enemy.
He seemed to be asking a question, or perhaps he was asking himself a question.
"I still have to say it..." Without waiting for any answer, Zhu Yi said to himself, a relieved yet tired, almost pure smile on his face. Only then did a trace of emotion appear in his eyes. The smile contrasted sharply with his current disheveled appearance, making it seem particularly eerie.
"Grab him!" Edogawa Ranpo instantly understood the meaning behind that smile and shouted immediately.
As Edogawa Ranpo spoke, Takeichi leaned back without hesitation, his body lightly plunging off the edge of the rooftop and falling into the chaotic street a hundred meters away.
"Takeichi!" Just as everyone was trying to grab him...
“Mr. Natsume?” Takeichi’s hand was held tightly by the other person. Natsume Soseki’s hat was blown off by the wind on the rooftop due to the violent movement and tumbled down the building, but the other person’s eyes were still fixed on Takeichi. The other person’s complex and indescribable emotions finally turned into a soft sigh.
“Takeichi.” Natsume Soseki’s voice carried the concern of an elder.
“…Mr. Natsume.” Takeichi hovered in mid-air, looking up at him, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes, but he quickly regained his composure.
"Do you know what you're doing right now?" Natsume Soseki asked, his voice still clear despite the whistling wind.
“I know.” Zhu Yi’s answer was brief and affirmative.
“Then, one last question.” Natsume Soseki stared into his eyes, as if trying to see into his soul: “Everything you have done has such great significance to you, but you… will not truly threaten the foundation of Yokohama’s survival, will you?” This question was crucial, concerning his stance at this moment, and also his judgment of the true nature of the young man before him.
Zhu Yi met his gaze and finally answered, "Yes."
He will not truly threaten the foundation of Yokohama; his ultimate goal in creating this chaos and inciting the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons is not destruction.
After answering Natsume Soseki's question, the tension in Natsume Soseki's heart eased a little.
Takeichi's gaze shifted downwards, landing on Natsume Soseki's hand, its veins bulging as it gripped him tightly.
His voice became very soft, with an almost pleading tone.
"Could you... let me go, sir?"
That wasn't seeking death, but rather a journey, a journey toward a mission that he had to complete alone.
Natsume Soseki looked at him, still not letting go. This young man, whom he had once thought only had special abilities and needed to be guided and cared for, now seemed to carry the weight and secrets of the entire world.
“You…” Natsume Soseki began, his voice hoarse.
"Please..." Zhu Yi lowered his head, his voice choked with emotion, and pleaded again.
Just then.
Zhu Yi's body suddenly twitched. He had forcibly contained and restrained too many strange tales, and the human body and mind had long reached the limit of what they could bear, or even exceeded it!
"Ugh—!" Zhu Yi let out an uncontrollable scream of pain, his body convulsing even more violently, and the blood gushing from his seven orifices surged even more fiercely.
His gaze began to glaze over, and the barrier of his reason was crumbling.
"Takeichi!" Upon seeing this, Dazai Osamu immediately stepped forward and grabbed Takeichi's other hand. The other person stopped convulsing, and the two of them pulled Takeichi up together, but Takeichi seemed to have no reaction to the outside world.
“His spirit can’t hold on any longer.” Edogawa Ranpo’s face was grim. “His human side is about to collapse.”
As soon as Edogawa Ranpo finished speaking, Takeichi's body began to undergo strange changes visible to the naked eye. Something seemed to be wriggling under his skin, sometimes clear and sometimes blurry, and the surrounding space was slightly distorted because of his unstable presence.
He is being forcibly dragged back from "Human Bamboo One" to his original essence as a ghost story.
Before his spirit completely collapsed, Zhu Yi used his last bit of clarity to issue instructions to the system in his mind.
[Execute the final contingency plan and remove the human form limiters.]
[WARNING! Final plan confirmed: Stripped of human form, the existence will transform into a higher-dimensional, fantastical essence. This process is irreversible. Confirm?]
【confirm. 】
If he doesn't do this, he will completely lose control and become a monster who knows how to destroy. Not only will the plan fail, but Yokohama may also suffer a serious blow because of him.
In order to gain control of the power and achieve his ultimate goal, he must pay a price—sacrificing most of his human emotions and physical form.
[Command received. Begin removing the human form limiters...]
As the seals on Takeichi's body gradually dissipate, a certain power begins to awaken. It is not the power of the ghost stories, but a power that belongs only to Takeichi and is above the ghost stories.
The mental pollution that had enveloped him was instantly suppressed by this new force, and the strange changes in his body began to stabilize.
But he is no longer "Zhu Yi" who belongs to humanity.
Instead, it belongs to the "Bamboo One" category, which is essentially a ghost story.
His figure became tall and hazy, as if shrouded in a red mist. His originally wine-red eyes were now like solidified blood-red stars, devoid of any human emotion.
Unable to look at, unable to understand.
Unlike humans, although their essence is supernatural tales, they exist above the rules of supernatural tales.
To this day, Takeichi still doesn't know what he really is. In the ever-repeating and restarting timeline, he and Oba Yozo change day after day... But Oba Yozo still possesses his own consciousness, his part as a human being.
Perhaps, Oba Yozo is the center of the world.
Fortunately, even though he lost part of himself as a human, Oba Yozo allowed him to experience the joys and sorrows of being human once again.
Everyone stared in disbelief at Him, who was suspended in mid-air.
Having experienced mental corruption before, Edogawa Ranpo instantly closed his eyes and shouted, "Don't look! Don't look! Don't think—"
Although he reacted quickly, Edogawa Ranpo was still slightly affected, and warm liquid flowed from under his nose.
...
When everyone regained consciousness, they were all kneeling on the ground, too weak to even lift their hands to support themselves. They could only hunch their backs and squeeze out a few painful groans from deep in their throats.
Blood seeped from his seven orifices faster than he breathed. Warm liquid dripped into the ground as tiny droplets formed from the corners of his eyes, nostrils, mouth, and ears. Dazai Osamu tried to raise his hand to wipe it away, but the moment he touched his cheek, he was jolted away by the excruciating pain.
It wasn't a pain on the surface of the skin, but rather a sensation as if something had burrowed deep into the skull, gently tugging at the brain.
The piercing sound in my ears was impossible to discern its source; it was more like a low-frequency hum that was repeatedly rubbing against my eardrums, causing my nerves to twitch.
Ango Sakaguchi barely managed to lift his head. In his vision, the world was constantly distorting, and something seemed to be writhing around him. The piercing sound in his ears became even louder. Ango Sakaguchi painfully covered his ears, and he even couldn't help but want to puncture his eardrums. In the end, reason prevailed over his actions.
“Takeichi… where is he?” After a long pause, Sakaguchi Ango raised his head and saw that Edogawa Ranpo had already stood up and was looking into the distance.
"He's gone." Edogawa Ranpo's emerald green eyes looked at Sakaguchi Ango: "He's going to find what he wants now."
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