Chapter 75: City of Redemption (10) Black, White, and Gray
Wen Yin froze.
The sticky substance that landed on her ankle gradually turned into the grip of human fingers.
The outline of his slender and powerful fingers perfectly fit the curve of her ankle and slowly closed.
That cold touch, that specific grip...
Just as her mind was shaken by the all-too-familiar touch, a distorted and hollow whisper rang out close to her ear.
"Wen...yin..."
With a kind of scalp-tingling desire and paranoia.
The next second, before she could react, the cold hand suddenly pulled her hard.
“Hmm!”
Wen Yin only felt an irresistible huge force coming at her. The world was spinning, and her body suddenly lost weight, as if she was falling from a high altitude and being thrown into the sticky and cold deep sea.
The darkness around was no longer nothingness, but had become a solid package.
They adhered tightly to every inch of her skin, slowly squirming and squeezing, trying to drill into her mouth, nose, ears and eyes, bringing a feeling of almost suffocating oppression and the fear of being completely swallowed up.
Her vision was completely deprived, and her senses fell into a quagmire of chaos.
However, this terrible feeling of falling and being wrapped did not last long.
As if in the blink of an eye, all the pressure suddenly disappeared.
The feeling of weightlessness turned into a solid touch.
The suffocating, sticky darkness around them receded like a tide.
Wen Yin took a deep breath and found herself still lying on the simple wooden bed. She had not been dragged into some bizarre alien abyss.
However, the scene before my eyes has completely changed.
All color disappeared from the room, leaving only varying shades of... black, white, and gray.
Walls, furniture, beds...
Everything looked like something out of an old black-and-white photograph, covered in a layer of dead gray.
The air stopped flowing, and a dusty feeling of stagnation permeated the air.
The surroundings were eerily quiet, a kind of frightening deathly silence.
Wen Yin couldn't tell what time it was. She could only see the only light in the room, which came from the narrow window on the roof.
A beam of pale moonlight slanted down from the window, casting a clear spot of light on the ground, forming an extremely glaring contrast with the dead black and gray background around it.
[Host. ]
The children's voice of 028 sounded.
[Our location has not changed, we are still at the original coordinates of the City of Redemption.]
Wen Yin seemed to still hear the sticky call from before. She nodded lightly, walked carefully to the door, and gently pushed open the door that seemed to be made of gray cardboard.
The exterior of the house is still in black and white.
The tables and chairs were tilted and covered with thick dust.
The spider webs in the corners and the debris scattered on the ground showed that this cottage had been forgotten by time for many years.
There was no sign of life at all, and the woman and child were nowhere to be seen.
Wen Yin pushed the door open.
The scene outside the door made Wen Yin's breathing catch slightly.
As far as the eye can see, there is an endless black and gray background.
The streets, houses, the outline of the city wall in the distance... everything has lost its color and details, leaving only monotonous and depressing black, white and gray silhouettes.
The whole world seemed to be muted. There was no sound of wind, no chirping of insects, and not even a trace of human voice.
She subconsciously looked up, trying to find the source of the bright moonlight.
However, there was no moon, no stars, and not even clouds in the sky.
The entire sky above is a white light that is evenly distributed, soft but has a strong presence.
It was like a huge curtain of cold light, covering the entire black and white world.
The ground beneath her feet and all the buildings within her sight were immersed in a dead black and gray.
The sky is white and the ground is gray.
This is completely opposite to the gray sky and the earth shrouded in holy light in the real world.
She thought it was the bright light of moonlight, and its source was this strange sky emitting white light.
Wen Yin stood on the quiet street where black and white were reversed, feeling as if she was standing in the negative of a world.
The air was stagnant and everything was silent, except for the sound of one's own heartbeat and breathing.
[Host, there is something ahead!]
028 had just finished her reminder when, in the deep gray and white silence at the end of her sight, a black shadow as thick as ink was rushing towards her in a completely distorted manner.
It didn't look like running, more like a human-shaped shadow flowing across the smooth gray ground.
Wherever it passed, even the monotonous background color seemed to be swallowed up by it, becoming even darker.
The incident happened suddenly. Wen Yin grabbed a defensive item exchanged from the system in his hand without thinking, and his body tensed up.
However, the black shadow, which was filled with ominous and crazy aura, suddenly stopped when it was less than three steps away from her.
It just stood there abruptly, like a black statue that suddenly solidified.
The shadows that made up its body rolled and squirmed violently, constantly changing into various twisted and hideous outlines, but always maintaining a rough human male form.
Wen Yin held her breath.
There were no clear facial features on the head of the black shadow, only a deeper dark vortex.
But Wen Yin could clearly feel that a gaze filled with strong obsession was shooting out from the vortex and was fixed on her.
It was studying her.
Wen Yin didn't move.
After a suffocating stillness, the black shadow suddenly became agitated.
The shadows around it boiled even more violently, and then let out a sharp roar.
No! It's not!
【Who are you? ! 】
Where's my wife?! Where's my child?!
【This! Is! My! Home! !!!】
The roar was filled with the rage of the invaded territory, as well as a disappointment and pain that almost tore the soul apart.
It suddenly took a step forward, and its shadowy limbs swung violently, as if it was going to tear the strange being that occupied its home into pieces in the next moment!
Wen Yin's heart was beating wildly, but in this crazy roar full of information, an idea flashed through her mind like lightning.
The woman's sad face and words appeared before my eyes.
"My husband...was out hunting two years ago when he encountered a foggy tide and never...never came back..."
The obsession displayed by the shadow before him, the strong sense of belonging to home, and the vaguely discernible outline of an adult male...
A bold guess was formed.
She took a deep breath, suppressed the urge to use the props, and faced the boiling malice that was about to pounce on her. In a tone as calm as possible, she tentatively called out a name:
"Patton...?"
That was the name of her late husband that the woman mentioned inadvertently while chatting.
It seems to have some kind of strange magic.
The moment the words fell, the madly roaring black shadow suddenly froze in place.
Everything froze at this moment.
After a few seconds, the rolling black fog actually gradually faded away, revealing the outline of... a human male's face.
The face was one of extreme pain, with two empty holes where the eyes should be and the mouth wide open.
Although it was distorted and terrifying, Wen Yin could still recognize the face.
The face of the male host with a simple smile matched the one she had seen in the simple family portrait in the woman's house during the day.
It's really him.
The husband swallowed by the gray mist in the woman's mouth.
He did not disappear completely, but existed in this black, white and gray world in this strange form.
Barton's empty eyes were still fixed on Wen Yin.
He seemed unable to understand why this strange intruder knew his name.
Until the petite human girl across from him, who looked completely out of place in this hopeless black and white world, spoke clearly, as if afraid of disturbing something, two names that were engraved deep in his soul:
"Lena and Tommy...they're both fine."
Wen Yin's voice was very soft, but like a faint ray of light, it penetrated the chaotic darkness.
"They...miss you terribly."
"Lena...Tommy..."
These two names seem to possess incredible power.
Patton, who was made of black shadow, trembled violently.
The shadows around him began to fluctuate violently again.
On his hideous face, extreme pain and an almost erased tenderness were madly intertwined and fighting.
After a few seconds, a ball of thick black liquid slowly slid down from his empty eye sockets.
It seemed like... tears.
Belonging to this black and white world, tears of despair that can never return.
"She...they..."
Patton's voice was no longer the crazy roar from before, only a very faint trace of clarity appeared in his struggle.
"Okay... okay..."
He seemed to be using up all his remaining strength to fight against some instinct that was dragging him back into chaos, trying to maintain this brief moment of clarity.
Wen Yin had no time to feel sad about the passing of time, and could only seize this precious opportunity to ask questions.
"Mr. Barton, where exactly is this place? How do I get out?"
Hearing this question, the brief clarity on Patton's face was once again covered by immense confusion and despair.
The shadow shook his head stiffly, his voice broken and desperate:
"This is a world in the gray fog..."
"I can't get out once I come in..."
"As time goes by... you will slowly... become... like me..."
"Forget yourself...become part of...'them'..."
His words were chilling.
At this moment, there was a "ding..." sound, and an extremely distant bell sound came faintly from a certain direction.
As the bell rang, Wen Yin clearly saw that the sky above her head, which was emitting white light evenly, seemed to dim a little, just like when night falls and the sky darkens in the real world.
At the same time, the shadows surrounding Patton in front of him began to boil unsteadily again.
The face that had just revealed a hint of human form began to distort and blur again, and the clarity in the eyes quickly dissipated.
"The holy light... has weakened..."
His voice became intermittent, distorted and struggling, as if he was fighting an invisible force.
"It's getting dark outside... Everyone here... is going to... go out... and move around..."
"Hide..."
He used almost the last bit of his willpower to force out a warning, his voice becoming increasingly strange.
"Here are all... magnified... the dark desires of human nature..."
"Be careful...they..."
The last few words almost became a vague murmur and roar.
The next second, the entire black shadow in front of Wen Yin suddenly disintegrated and turned into a thick shadow that lost its specific shape.
The shadow suddenly rushed towards the house next to it and disappeared in an instant.
Wen Yin was left alone, standing on the black and white street that was rapidly becoming dark.
The dead air around them began to flow, bringing with it a cold, voyeuristic feeling.
In the distance, something seemed to begin to wriggle in the shadows, making a rustling sound.
It was as if countless indescribable creatures were awakening from their slumber and were about to begin their night patrol.
Wen Yin's eyes quickly swept across this increasingly dangerous black, white and gray world, and finally, they locked firmly on the highest point of the entire city outline.
There, the outline of the spire of a magnificent building is still clearly visible even in the monotonous black, white and gray tones.
And the bell sound just now, which seemed to be able to penetrate the barriers of time and space, came from that direction.
It is a temple.
Even in such a strange and upside-down world, the temple still seems to occupy a special place.
As Gashir fell into a deep sleep, his holy light weakened...
The cold and familiar touch of fingers that forcibly dragged her from the real world into this darkness...
And at this moment, the coordinates of the temple, the only one that seems to maintain some kind of order in this hopeless place...
A bold idea took shape in an instant.
"028, let's go there."
The girl in the soft robe looked straight at the dark grey spire of the temple.
"To the temple."
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