Chapter 246: The Code Name “Tyrant”
Chapter 246: The Code Name “Tyrant”
“Whizz, whizz, whizz…”
Just as the Mothers extended their scissors and severed an invisible connection, the Red-Cloaked Psychic Monster underwent intense convulsions.
Countless taut threads violently snapped back through the air with a sharp whistling sound. The Red-Cloaked Psychic Monster, standing rigidly beside the building, began to sway as if finally freed from restraint.
Then, in a sudden recoil motion, the Psychic Entity unleashed another violent wave of force.
Unlike the earlier waves emitted every minute, this one was significantly stronger, laced with streaks of crimson light.
It was as though the countless threads constructing its form erupted to life, raging uncontrollably in all directions.
Yet when this terrifying surge radiated outward, the first barrier it encountered was Mother.
Standing at every corner—below buildings, within alleyways, behind apartment windows, atop abandoned cars, inside coffee shops beside malls—countless Mothers formed an array of steadfast points. Under the Crimson Moon’s glow, their smiles were gentle and enchanting. Every shockwave colliding against them struck what seemed an impenetrable wall, harmlessly dissolving away.
Not only did these threads fail to breach her presence; they violently recoiled upon impact.
There was no sign of a direct collision, only a silent, natural rebuff. Where she stood, passage was impossible.
The threads flowing from the monster could no longer forge connections with any other being in the city.
…
Except for Lu Xin.
Lu Xin stood atop the rooftop, closest to the monster.
He not only endured the impact but received far more than before. A single thread had linked to him earlier—now, thousands of tendrils surged toward him simultaneously.
An indescribable emptiness instantly hollowed his heart.
It was a desolation so profound it crossed into agony. The pain was unreal—neither from physical wounds nor psychological trauma. It simply was—an inexplicable void.
He felt untethered, adrift in a place without ground.
This sensation dissolved every remnant of his desire for the world, second by excruciating second. With no longing left, only one outcome remained conceivable:
Death.
In this extreme void, death became the sole reality.
Even Lu Xin briefly entertained the thought. His hand drifted toward his bag, intending to draw a gun.
Then, put its barrel to his head and fire.
Huff…
Breathing out a sigh saturated with despair, Lu Xin accepted this emotional onslaught.
He no longer pleaded for Mother to save him. He’d chosen another path.
Deep within him resided a door.
Always, Lu Xin would only open it when truly desperate.
But this time, without a shred of hesitation, he threw it wide.
Thus, as the threads descended and emptiness threatened to drown him, the Crimson Moon cast a shadow behind him—impossibly concentrated. It seemed to devour every trace of darkness nearby, swelling into a mass ten times deeper than any other shadow. An unnerving chill permeated the air.
Within that Shadow, a pair of eyes snapped open—dripping blood-red.
Snap! Snap! Snapsnap!
The instant those eyes unsealed, sharp twanging erupted all around Lu Xin.
Every thread binding him snapped simultaneously.
Those enveloping him burst apart; those surging toward him ricocheted away. Amid the monstrous tide of assault, the moment Lu Xin’s Shadow opened its eyes, all forces were deflected—streaming harmlessly past him.
The boundary screamed privacy: no foreign power may trespass here.
Heh… heh heh heh…
A dry chuckle crawled out. The Shadow abruptly lurched upward, seeking to engulf Lu Xin.
Yet this time, Lu Xin spun around and stared down at it.
His gaze, behind his Glasses, held unnerving calm. Caught in that stare, the Shadow hesitated—pausing its ascent. Instead of swallowing him whole, it suppressed its writhing energy, settling back onto the ground like dark, trembling ink.
Two crimson pupils locked onto Lu Xin’s eyes.
“I need your help today,” Lu Xin declared levelly to his Shadow.
Mocking, hollow laughter seemed to echo in his ears.
And on the ground, that Shadow churned like a furious black tide—surging, shaking, ready to drown him whole.
“Don’t laugh like that.”
Lu Xin frowned slightly and said, “That sort of laugh makes me feel trusting you might be a mistake.”
The blood-red eyes within the shadow’s head seemed to deepen in color.
Lu Xin could hear a voice, suppressing anger, sneering, “You really trust me?”
“Of course. After all, we’re family.” Lu Xin spoke patiently. “Family should support each other. What’s the point in constant suspicion? Honestly, I know if you ever got the chance, you’d leave this family. I’ve thought countless times about escaping myself. But in the end, you never got your chance, and I decided to accept my family. So why should we keep distrusting each other?”
“Wouldn’t it be better if we found a better way to coexist and actually help each other?”
When he spoke this final sentence, he seemed utterly sincere.
Even the shadow was silent for a long moment. The light of the Crimson Moon behind it cast its outline with exceptional clarity. Looking closely, one could see within the shadow rippling patches of black, like waves.
“Are you saying this now,” the shadow finally spoke after a long silence, its voice suddenly harsher and filled with more anger, “because you’ve obtained the key item for the Second Stage, and now you feel confident?”
“No.” Lu Xin shook his head. “I pursued the Second Stage precisely to better communicate with you, to get along better with family.”
“It’s because I trust you that I’m saying this now.”
“And the reason I trust you,” Lu Xin continued slowly, his gaze meeting those blood-red eyes, “is that every time I’m near you, I can feel what you feel…”
He paused. “What I feel from you isn’t anger.”
He stated, “It’s pain.”
“The pain of hating one’s own weakness, the pain of hating being useless…”
“…”
The Shadow suddenly surged like an angry wave, swelling two or three meters high, completely enveloping Lu Xin. This immense pressure directly repelled the Psychic Energy radiating from the Red-Cloaked Psychic Entity behind them, forcing it to flow in other directions. The shadow stood, wrapping around Lu Xin’s neck, its blood-red eyes level with his, seeming ready to tear him apart.
“You’re talking nonsense…”
“You’re useless! A useless idiot who understands nothing…”
“You don’t know anything! Nothing at all!”
“……”
Lu Xin endured the mania, anger, and torrents of painful Will washing over him from the shadow, maintaining his own calm. “It’s true I might know very little. After all, I’ve lost even many of my memories. I don’t even know what parts of ‘family’ are real or not…”
“But I’ve thought carefully,” he said steadily, “and I’ve managed to confirm there is still one thing about myself that is real.”
He pointed towards his own chest.
Because the shadow currently overlapped with him significantly, pointing to his own heart meant pointing to the shadow’s heart as well.
“My feelings are real,” he stated.
The sincerity in those words calmed the shadow’s frenzy slightly, although it still trembled uncontrollably.
“That’s why I needed to say this to you.”
Lu Xin lowered his hand, looking at the shadow with peaceful seriousness. “I will truly regard you as family. We will help each other. I will feel what you feel. I will alleviate your pain. If one day, I possess sufficient strength, I will help you escape this pain. Even if I never find that strength, I will keep striving to do it – to do the things a family member should.”
“What about you?”
His expression, exceedingly calm, gradually took on a cast close to indifference. A strange light shone in his eyes.
“Right now, I am sincerely asking you—”
He gritted his teeth slightly, his gaze fixed on his shadow. His expression was intense, yet his words remained gentle.
“—do you agree?”
“Or…”
“…do you insist on making this family miserable?”
……
……
“Bzzz……”
The Red-Cloaked Psychic Entity swayed, slowly opening its eyes.
A pale hand, heavy and ponderous, began to lift, reaching down towards Lu Xin.
Clearly, Lu Xin’s earlier rejection of the Emotion radiating from it had drawn its attention.
Its body stood one hundred and twenty to thirty meters tall, its hand absurdly large.
Heavy and slow, it lifted, grasping towards Lu Xin on the rooftop, blocking the Crimson Moon overhead.
Every inch of its skin seemed formed from despairing, profound Psychic Energy. It carried an aura of utter hopelessness that spread from the heart, reaching down from the sky towards Lu Xin, or perhaps the rooftop itself.
Lu Xin stood with his back to the Crimson Moon and to this Red-Cloaked Psychic Entity.
His attention seemed entirely focused on his feet, on the long, distorted, deformed shadow cast by the Crimson Moon.
He didn’t notice the Psychic Entity’s grasping hand at all.
Whooshing…
Layers of plaster and bricks were ripped off the rooftop by the chaotic psychic energy unleashed by the massive hand of the Red-Cloaked Psychic Monster. The once-flat roof instantly became pitted and scarred, turning dilapidated, the debris sent hurtling towards Lu Xin.
Down below, Little Sister, stubbornly clinging to the monster’s leg, looked up with a trace of worry.
From behind a window in a three-story building opposite, Mother’s gaze also held a flicker of concern.
Her worry wasn’t for Lu Xin, though, but for something else.
…
“Fwip!”
Just as the Psychic Entity’s hand was about to seize Lu Xin, he turned around.
As if startled by the terrifying force propelled by the rampant mental power, he instinctively raised a hand to block.
Compared to the Red-Cloaked Monstrosity’s enormous hand, his own was pitifully small; of course, it wouldn’t hold.
Yet, as he lifted his hand, the Black Shadow behind him stirred.
The Black Shadow trailing behind him, with its pair of blood-red eyes, swelled rapidly. Like a living thing, it stood erect, mimicking his gesture. As his hand rose, the shadow’s arm likewise lifted, planting itself squarely beneath the descending giant hand of the Psychic Entity.
Then, the entire building groaned with a grinding, sickening sound of twisting steel and concrete.
Every single pane of glass shattered simultaneously, fragments spraying everywhere.
The Psychic Entity’s massive hand was stopped by Lu Xin’s Black Shadow.
Beneath the shroud of the Black Shadow, Lu Xin snapped his head up, glaring at the Red-Cloaked Psychic Entity. Blood Threads filled his eyes.
The Red-Cloaked Psychic Entity seemed devoid of the usual agility of Psychic Entities, possessing only an emptiness that bordered on profound indifference.
However, meeting Lu Xin’s gaze, a vestige of living characteristics stirred within it. Instinctively, it tried to withdraw its hand – likely a reflexive impulse, as only by retracting its limb could it raise it again to strike at Lu Xin.
But as it attempted to lift its hand, it discovered the appendage could not budge.
Standing on the rooftop, Lu Xin used his Black Shadow to halt that phantom palm. Upon closer inspection, it wasn’t exactly blocking; where the Black Shadow met the red palm, tendrils of darkness seeped into the entity’s hand.
“Fuck your emptiness…”
Lu Xin suddenly spoke, his voice hollow yet laced with excitement and cruelty.
Immediately after, he gave a sharp backward tug, yanking the shadow’s arm towards him.
The force was immense. Even the Psychic Entity, easily a hundred and twenty or thirty meters tall, was jerked off balance, stumbling slightly.
At the same moment, the Black Shadow near Lu Xin twisted violently, as if countless shifting light sources surrounded it.
The shadow itself distorted and began to swell uncontrollably.
What was once shadow trailing behind Lu Xin abruptly stretched forward, surging onto the body of the Red-Cloaked Psychic Entity.
The Red-Cloaked Psychic Entity was immense. Even this swelling shadow failed to engulf its entire form.
But it was enough.
The shadow surged forward, enfolding one arm of the Red-Cloaked Psychic Entity.
The entire limb, from the hand to the shoulder blade.
At the apex of the shadow, the silhouette of a humanoid figure could vaguely be discerned. This figure raised its arm, extending from it a long, bar-like shape. Judging by the form, it resembled a kitchen knife used for chopping…
Lu Xin lifted his arm and swung it forward.
The shadow mirrored his action; the humanoid figure within swung its knife.
“Schhlick!”
The limb of the Red-Cloaked Monster, dozens of meters long and three or four meters thick, instantly separated from its colossal torso and began to drift gently downwards. A palpable sense of vitality rapidly drained away from the severed arm…
“Giggle, giggle, giggle…”
An excited laugh bubbled up from below.
It was Little Sister, who had been tirelessly casting her contamination on the Psychic Entity only to be flung away repeatedly.
Watching the massive arm plummeting, she was thrilled. She shot skyward.
Spreading her arms wide, she embraced the enormous arm.
In the next instant, the arm twisted violently, stitches and seams instantly spiderwebbing across its surface as if woven with frantic speed.
“This is fun…”
Little Sister shrieked with delight. Hugging the colossal arm with both hands, she swung it like a huge club with all her might, smashing it back into the Red-Cloaked Monster.
“Whump!”
Where it struck, the Monster’s body visibly distorted.
“Heh… heh… heh…”
Lu Xin fixed his bloodshot eyes on the Red-Cloaked Psychic Entity. The surrounding Black Shadow flailed and writhed chaotically like a nest of furious serpents.
He pointed a finger at the Red-Cloaked Psychic Entity and spat out the word with venom:
“Trash!”
Thwack!
The Red Cloak monster seemed to perceive the terror of Lu Xin, or rather, the Black Shadow attached to him.
It still gazed indifferently ahead, but from its severed shoulder blades, red tentacles instantly stretched out like shredded flesh. Yet each tendril pulsed with independent vitality.
They coiled toward Lu Xin’s Shadow like snakes, as if attempting to burrow inside.
But it was useless.
Every scrap of flesh that touched the Black Shadow instantly withered, convulsing in agony.
“Hiss…”
The Red Cloak monster extended its other arm, slamming it heavily down toward Lu Xin atop the building.
Enraged by the genuine pain Lu Xin caused, its fury intensified. Successfully striking its target, it engulfed both Lu Xin and his Shadow entirely within its palm. The distorted air compressed violently before shattering apart. The friction of immense Mental Power erupted into shockwaves capable of shredding any physical matter.
Debris flew wildly as gale-force winds swept through.
Its palm lifted, waiting for the dust to settle.
Then it saw – the enormous rooftop had collapsed by two entire levels. Only a few jagged concrete pillars remained standing.
Lu Xin stood on one such pillar.
He looked up at the Psychic Entity, a faint smile still playing on his lips.
Though swept by the colossal psychic force moments before, he showed no adverse reaction, appearing utterly unaffected.
Only his Shadow had grown more chaotic and widespread due to the disrupted surroundings.
The more complex the terrain, the larger his Shadow expanded.
“Heh heh heh…”
Lu Xin let out a hollow chuckle. Around him, the bizarre, enormous Shadow surged forward simultaneously.
This time, it dispersed even wider, covering a vast area.
Lu Xin swung an invisible blade in his hands, bringing it down in consecutive, precise chops.
The sickening sound of bones being cleaved echoed from the East Sea Grand Hotel. Lu Xin—or rather, his Shadow—chopped with methodical intensity. Each strike landed accurately on the toughest parts of the Red Cloak monster’s Spiritual Entity.
One strike? Two strikes? He kept going until those resilient points cracked, then fractured completely.
“Schlik!”
The Black Shadow spread to the monster’s remaining arm, and the sound of frantic chopping erupted again.
That arm too fell away.
The Black Shadow reached its legs; both suddenly snapped clean through.
When the Shadow finally reached the monster’s neck… the Red Cloak monster’s head tumbled down.
This Red Apostle was being dismembered limb from limb by his Shadow.
CRASH!
An immense body possessed immense mass.
As Lu Xin’s Black Shadow spread, dismembering the entity entirely, its colossal form began to collapse. Like a many-storeyed Tower crumbling, it broke apart section by section, crashing down.
The Psychic Energy released during the collapse shattered the East Sea Grand Hotel’s reinforced glass windows floor after floor into fragments.
Stone, steel, concrete—everything warped violently under the psychic backlash.
Standing atop the hotel ruin, Lu Xin looked down upon the collapsing Red Apostle.
He was lofty, aloof, his expression tinged with disdain.
……
……
“What… is that…?”
Mr. Su and Minister Shen paled at the sudden explosive roar from the East Sea Grand Hotel.
Only Professor Bai, outwardly calm, seemed unable to suppress his excitement: “That is my greatest anticipation for Lone Soldier…”
“The power codenamed… ‘Tyrant’!”