Chapter 789: Shattered Fairy Tale
by xennovel‘That is…’
Lu Xin’s arrival instantly cast a shadow over this breathtaking fairy tale world.
Every creature in this world turned to him in dumbfounded silence.
From the water-fetching dwarfs to the band performing on the lawn, the fluttering fairies, the little angels scattering starlight, and even the girl in the bridal gown who had been painting—their activities all froze.
High in the air, even Sissi’s floating head, now growing faintly translucent, halted in its drift.
She lowered her gaze slightly and looked at the man who had intruded into this fairy tale world.
She sensed a latent wickedness within him—a stark contrast to this pristine realm.
Yet, somehow, he seemed strangely familiar to her…
Could it be that, like him, she too belonged to the forces of darkness?
……
……
‘Just as I thought…’
Lu Xin surveyed the world, a quiet marvel in his heart.
Who would have believed that Sissi, who outwardly resembled a demon, harbored such earnest longing within?
Previously, Doctor An’s plan had been to use Sissi to counter the forest’s mental pollution.
However, neither the Research Institute nor Doctor An had truly expected this high-level creature of the Forbidden Zone to wipe out all the contamination—after all, around the Institute lay a barrier of ‘forbidden’ power that even the outside world dared not pry into.
That was the real priority.
Sissi was merely meant to draw out that forbidden power so that he could handle the cleanup himself.
Yet, Doctor An seemed to have miscalculated.
The emergence of this forbidden power was too eerie and stealthy.
At the time, their eyes saw Sissi battling the forest’s mental monsters, appearing outwardly normal. It was only her younger sister—ever intrigued by Sissi—who noticed something amiss and hurriedly alerted them.
It then became apparent that Sissi’s gaze had grown slightly deranged.
In response, he immediately raised his hand and grasped one of the blood-threads emanating from Sissi, sensing the shift in her mental power.
Only then did he realize that the forbidden power they had been waiting for had already descended upon her.
Doctor An had intended to lure out that forbidden power through Sissi, but he nearly triggered the gravest of consequences.
Fortunately, the danger was detected just in time.
……
……
‘This is all fake.’
Mulling over these thoughts, Lu Xin flicked his cigarette butt onto the grass and stomped it out before saying to Sissi suspended in mid-air:
“Come on. I’ll take you back.”
“……”
“Fake…”
Sissi’s eyes in the air grew even more bewildered.
Whoosh…
In that instant, every creature in the fairy tale world locked eyes with each other.
Then they all launched their attack simultaneously. The lawn at Lu Xin’s feet transformed into numerous tough, charred, eerie tentacles that swiftly wrapped around him, while rows of vicious, tooth-lined maws bit at his legs.
The fairies fluttering above the grass puffed out their chests in unison.
Their slender bodies split apart to form massive mouths complete with grimacing gaping maws.
In the distance, dwarfs swung their arms with force, brandishing spiked, wolf-tooth clubs.
Angels with little wings in the sky instantly darkened in expression as countless feathers stained with blood began to fall…
“Devil…”
“You’ve polluted this beautiful heaven…”
“Stay away from us…”
Bizarre monsters swarmed around Lu Xin, and the surrounding air turned pitch black in an instant.
Lu Xin heard a series of shrill curses and relentless accusations.
Overwhelmed by this world’s rejection, he was suddenly bombarded with a violent mental impact and various forms of contamination.
Even the deepest emotions within him stirred, leaving him feeling increasingly abashed.
……
……
In a heartbeat, the fairy tale world transformed into a demonic playground.
Every symbol of beauty now twisted into a warped malevolence, lurching at Lu Xin with terrifying speed.
Meanwhile, the girl in the white wedding dress seated by the fountain hastened her painting.
As Sissi’s image gradually emerged on the canvas, she inched toward transparency mid-air.
“Is every creature merely a form of pollution?”
Lu Xin closed his eyes briefly and exhaled deeply, absorbing the chaos, exclusion, and the weight of reproach surrounding him.
Then a look of disdain crept onto his lips.
“Is your idea of beauty truly beautiful?”
“Even if it isn’t fake, it wasn’t built by your own hands…”
“They say those who enjoy the fragrance of flowers in the Garden are noble…”
“But it’s the ones who tend the blooms that are truly noble…”
“……”
Lost in thought, he suddenly opened his eyes as black particles vibrated at a frantic pace.
At that moment, battered by defeat, he resolved to sever ties with both Doctor An and that eccentric doctor. He was, after all, a man for the hard work—and was that any less worthy of pride?
Crash…
While he pondered this, the black particles in his eyes swirled vigorously, and a bizarre distorted force field erupted around him in an instant.
Every monster charging at him—or rather, every beautified Pollution Source—felt the odd force field emanating from him. They stared blankly as their eyes began to bleed and their bodies started to melt away inch by inch.
Indescribable, divine.
Even compared to higher-tier mental beings, he stood apart.
The entire world, woven together by the power of ‘fantasy’, began to crumble the moment Lu Xin unleashed his mental power.
It disintegrated without any intermediate process.
……
……
“Huh?”
The scene was so sudden and overwhelmingly forceful.
Even the bride in white by the fountain, who had been relying on others to drag Lu Xin so she could finish her painting, gasped in shock. She instinctively looked toward Lu Xin, only to quickly cover her eyes in the next moment.
Yet, even in her peripheral vision, she caught sight of Lu Xin.
Through blurred vision, she saw a figure enveloped in mysterious black particles, with a dark halo crowning his head.
The glare pained her eyes, causing them to bleed.
In the final split second before this collapsing world, she grabbed her easel, staggered backward, and tumbled into the fountain.
Crackle…
Glass shattered repeatedly in a relentless cascade.
All that was once beautiful crumbled and dissolved amid the violent tremors induced by the black particles.
Lu Xin and Sissi found themselves back in the dark forest, where everything faded as fast as colors in an oil painting. The eerie woodland remained entwined with countless black shadows and massive vines, and his mind was still besieged by an endless murmur of delirium and a piercing pain like that of steel needles.
The only difference from before was that Sissi, floating in the air, now appeared blank.
Her body had turned semi-transparent.
It was as if, at some unknown moment, half her color had been stripped away.
……
……
“It’s that painting…”
Lu Xin was the first to register it and immediately stepped forward.
In that fantasy world, Sissi had already been half-absorbed into the painting. Although his interference had caused that world to shatter, the bride from that fantasy had escaped through the fountain clutching half of the painting.
Thus, the Sissi of reality had lost half of her essence—a sign she had suffered a severe blow.
But…
He wouldn’t let her escape.
The moment he realized it, Lu Xin reached out with his right hand.
As his hand extended, it turned pale, and a black nail pierced its palm.
At that moment, the fantasy world from before had completely shattered—its fragments nearly vanished.
Time was measured in mere microseconds now.
The instant Lu Xin reacted, his pale right hand plunged into the remnants of the shattered fantasy world. It reached through the debris into the area of the fountain, then passed into another patch of forest space that edged closer to reality…
Whoosh…
Across several spaces, his hand brushed against something soft. He instantly grasped it, a smile flickering at the corner of his mouth.
“Got you…”
“……”
“……”
At the same time, Sissi, suspended in mid-air, snapped awake—but her strength had abandoned her, and she began to fall rapidly.
Dark streaks of blood dripped and quickly coiled around her, weighing her down.
She was plummeting from a great height, on the verge of a disastrous crash.
Then, in that split second, a white shadow zipped swiftly from beneath her and caught her body, softening her descent.
She managed to reduce her falling speed and landed gently on the ground.
But almost immediately, a surge of hostility and alertness rushed back along with her clarity of thought.
She instantly sensed an abnormal surge of mental power so near it could touch her.
The blood-threads that had just been coiled around her scrambled upward and, in a surreal flash, stabbed toward that source of mental energy.
Yet, just before connecting, they hesitated—suspended mid-air for an instant.
At that moment, riding a peak of mental energy, she sensed through those blood-threads the presence of a little girl.
Dressed in a slightly dirty white dress with messy black hair and eerie white eyes, the small girl lay on the ground like a little beast, her face filled with curious wonder.
It was as if she were testing and hesitating, extending her little hand as if to pull Sissi up.
Sissi froze, momentarily moved by the unexpected kindness from this odd, same-age little girl.
A tangle of blood-threads writhed into delicate arms that intertwined with the little girl’s hand.
……
……
The little girl in the white dress beamed happily as she tugged Sissi up and wrapped her arms around her.
Patting her head with a tiny hand, she softly said, “Don’t be scared. Let my brother handle him.”
“My brother is amazing…”