Chapter 178#
Price 01#
This sentence was not broadcast.
After the blood characters appeared, time began to flow again, and everything that had been still suddenly resumed. Almost everyone looked up to the sky.
Someone’s swinging blade fell with inertia, but just before it struck its target, it was blocked by an invisible force.
The hunting was over; all killing was forbidden. And then what?
Someone muttered the line aloud: “Pay the price for your choice? Who?”
The “hunt” was a chase between hunters and prey. If the hunters failed to kill all the prey, it would make sense to say “pay the price for your failure.” “Pay the price for your choice” was a bit awkward.
The people who had been locked in combat fell into silence.
A heavy atmosphere grew in the night.
Fear, unease, and doubled hatred toward the prey who had chosen to resist.
In the city.
On an empty street, in an inconspicuous spot, the grate of a sewer moved. It was pushed open a crack, revealing a pair of eyes.
Then a figure covered in filth climbed out, collapsed weakly onto the ground, and took deep breaths of fresh air. From head to toe, they were smeared with strange-colored sewer sludge; only a head of blond hair was vaguely visible.
“Phew, damn, I finally survived three days… It’s good to be outside.”
“Punishment is punishment. One more day is one more day.”
“‘Pay the price for your choice’? Am I the only prey left alive? No way, no way.”
In the Duchess’s wardrobe, two slender girls crawled out from under a magnificent wide skirt.
A boy covered in soot climbed out of the mill’s chimney.
For three days, hunters had searched the city without rest, but one or two places had been spared.
The wandering hunters who saw these prey emerging from their hiding places glared with hatred, but it was no use.
Looking at the word “all” in “collective punishment,” the hunters felt a little more at ease.
So what if they escaped the hunt? They’d still be punished.
At the circus, deep inside the castle, the doctor leaned by the window, leisurely packing away his wires. His gaze fell on An Fei, who was still standing on the high platform.
At that moment, An Fei was quietly standing aloft. The demon with black wings flew back from elsewhere and landed beside him. The night backdrop framed their figures like a perfectly composed painting.
Just as he was about to admire it, the crazy lolita floated over with her parasol, ruining the mood.
The doctor murmured, “Pay the price for your choice… That’s one person, not many. Who is that sentence directed at?”
Based on the information gathered these days, Mr. An Fei, who had shown no power at all, was the one orchestrating everything.
Besides that, he seemed to be the “boss” of the others. Though these people all had their own issues worth treating, it was undeniable that they were all very powerful.
“Could it be him? But why is he dressed all in black?” he muttered to himself, his voice lost in the wind.
“Boring.” Rose landed on the high platform, twirling her parasol like a spinning top. “Knowing it’s impossible to kill all the prey, yet setting this up anyway. Hehe. All this trouble—who are you greeting?”
Yu Feichen rested his elbow on An Fei’s shoulder, leaned in, and whispered in his ear, “Is the circus your way of greeting back?”
“Sort of.” An Fei looked down from above, surveying the entire Mist City. “But it’s not over yet.”
Time froze again for an instant. The crazy lolita’s spinning finally stopped.
“Oh, new rules are out.”
New words appeared on the low night sky.
“Arrive at the lowest level of the underground casino within ten minutes.”
“Those who are late will bear the consequences.”
The underground casino was more than half the city away from the circus.
Yu Feichen estimated the distance, picked An Fei up horizontally, and spread his demon wings, swooping there on the night wind.
The crazy lolita hopped toward Murphy. “It’s raining, open your umbrella~”
There was no rain in Mist City, and Murphy didn’t want to admit he knew Rose, but his hand was already grabbed.
The two rose into the air with the help of the parasol, wobbling through a few ups and downs before crossing most of the city.
Hina and the Goddess of Fate walked to the castle terrace to observe the location of the underground casino.
Of course, they also inevitably saw Yu Feichen and An Fei flying far away, as well as Kratos and Murphy.
Hina: “So far away, how are we supposed to get there… Damn it, why do they all have someone to carry them? I’m jealous.”
“Are we supposed to run? Wait, you, you, you—”
But the Goddess of Fate’s crystal ball was slowly changing.
“I am at the entrance of the underground casino,” Fate said.
As the words fell, Fate’s figure vanished from the terrace.
The Goddess of Wisdom took off her witch hat in anger and beat the railing in frustration: “I hate you all.”
Suddenly.
Hina turned around. What came into view first was dazzling golden hair.
Gold—she wore a ring-shaped feather ornament on her head that looked holy in the night, and behind her was a platinum greatsword.
“Agate—”
Agate was a woman of few words. When Hina rushed to hug her, she reached out to hold Hina’s waist.
Gravity seemed to lose its effect on her. With a light tap of her boot on the ground, Agate lifted the red-haired witch and flew toward the underground casino, her cloak and hair streaming behind her.
Hina felt an instant sense of balance.
Xiao Yu’s wings were dark and dull, and Kratos and Rose’s parasol was a flamboyant lunacy.
—Agate flew the best.
The figures flying across the sky one after another stunned the people on the ground.
The next moment, everyone raced toward the casino.
The alleys were narrow and crowded, and the walls were hard to climb. It had already been chaotic when they attacked the circus, and it became even more congested as they charged toward the casino.
After several massive stampedes, they still had to climb over the collapsed bell tower.
“Damn it, what kind of sick joke…”
When Yu Feichen landed at the casino entrance with An Fei, most people still hadn’t arrived.
Back in this place. The nearby department store had been burned to a charred ruin, and the smell of ash still lingered.
Unlike the dark store, the casino was brightly lit.
Night had just fallen; it was when guests started arriving. Luxurious carriages were parked in front, and gentlemen in suits, nobles in formal wear, and ladies with feather fans entered through the right side. Ragged commoners, smoke-stained gamblers, and barely dressed strippers went in through the left side door.
Inside, the lavishly decorated lobby was noisy.
When Yu Feichen and An Fei walked in, a casino attendant smiled and asked, “Dear guests, which floor would you like? Do you have a reservation?”
“The lowest floor.”
“Please follow me.”
They followed the attendant down a spiral staircase, going lower and lower. The crowd thinned—NPCs left at other floors.
By the time they reached the last floor, the attendant had disappeared somewhere. Only the two of them remained.
The noise above was far away. This place seemed to be a world of its own.
The wide, sunken hall stretched endlessly. Chandeliers and satin ribbons hung from the ceiling. The hall was divided into three tiers, each with a thousand carved seats arranged in a staircase pattern, spaced far apart with wine racks and small tables beside them, like miniature boxes. The three levels of seating surrounded the lowest central circular arena.
The arena was large enough for horse racing. The floor was rough gravel, edged with sturdy carved railings. Dark stains were scattered irregularly across the gray-white ground—some splattered, some smeared—old bloodstains that hadn’t been cleaned properly.
First impression: it looked more like a colosseum than a casino.
Dozens of guests with gray fog on their shoulders were already seated sparsely on the carved seats—probably hunters who had been active near the casino.
The Goddess of Fate was already there. She had arrived first but hadn’t sat down. Seeing the two men, she walked over and nodded to An Fei.
An Fei walked down the steps and stopped on the second tier, facing east.
There, a row of special boxes stood out.
The lighting was brighter, and the seats were much wider than all others—soft leather instead of iron, fully equipped, and even different in color. Clearly, these were the VIP seats.
In peaceful worlds, VIP seats at theaters and cinemas were highly sought after, but in a permanent night fragment dungeon, standing out was unwise. And these seats were far too conspicuous.
None of the earlier arrivals had chosen them; they were scattered in inconspicuous regular seats.
Without hesitation, An Fei walked over and sat gracefully in the center.
That single move drew everyone’s eyes. They hadn’t been to the circus and didn’t know An Fei, so they muttered to themselves: Who’s this high-and-mighty person? Looking for death?
Later arrivals, upon reaching the last floor, also noticed him at first glance.
Under all kinds of stares, An Fei remained unfazed. He even glanced at the wine rack nearby.
Yu Feichen didn’t have much choice.
He simply opened and decanted the wine in plain sight.
He really hadn’t practiced that.