Chapter 1241: Chapter 58: The Chatterbox
Bologue felt he was trapped in a twisted illusion, and with his free fall, every moment was filled with uncertainty and chaos.
His vision was blurred, as if shrouded in a layer of fog, making it hard to tell reality from hallucination. His sense of touch was magnified several times over; the instant the air brushed against his skin, it brought a pain like knife cuts, every contact unnaturally stimulating and distorted.
Bologue’s hearing was affected as well. The sounds around him became warped and chaotic, sometimes dull and low, sometimes shrill and piercing.
All his senses were dislocated and tangled together into one big mess.
Bologue complained inwardly, "Feels like being locked in a spinning washing machine."
As he fell, Bologue was also ricocheting wildly. All kinds of office desks, trash cans, and some monsters that, like Bologue, were keeping their bodies balanced and falling vertically, were suspended in midair.
Bologue bounced between the obstacles like a pinball. After forcibly suppressing all the abnormalities in his heart, several strands of Silver Hand shot out from his sleeves, stretching infinitely to the shaft walls around him, clamping firmly onto the surface, thereby slowing Bologue’s descent.
The Rhombus Shields floating around Bologue’s body pieced themselves together into a metal floor, catching him steadily. Using his Command over the Rhombus Shields to carry himself, Bologue suspended himself in midair.
"Like stepping on your left foot with your right."
Bologue habitually cracked a joke in his heart, but the anticipated response never came. Only then did he belatedly realize Aimou was not with him.
Ever since he and Aimou had confirmed their relationship, Bologue had been trying to make himself more interesting, more so-called charming. Obviously, a cold-blooded violence freak did not have much charm, so the gore-fest movies that once packed his cabinets at home were reduced by more than half, replaced by all sorts of family-friendly comedies.
Palmer was deeply worried about Bologue’s transformation, but after Bologue dragged Palmer to a few stand-up shows, Palmer also started to develop a bit of a taste for humor.
"Chopping people while cracking deadpan jokes... I think that bit kills."
That was Palmer’s review.
Bologue nodded in agreement and worked hard to learn the comedians’ sense of humor. He knew his own pathological, violence-addicted personality was not going to change, so he might as well do what Palmer suggested—add a few strokes of wit to himself on top of the coldness.
And so Bologue gradually became what he was now.
"Clay-pigeon shooting!"
This time Bologue shouted it out loud. He raised the shotgun and fired repeatedly at the falling monsters above his head. They still tried to hunt him, but before they could get close, they were blasted into pieces by the pellets, turning into burning fragments that fell toward the hazy glimmer further below.
After a few shots, Bologue ran out of ammo. He looked a bit unsatisfied, but there was nothing he could do—no office worker would fill their personal locker with nothing but ammunition.
He hurled the shotgun with all his strength, smashing yet another monster away. Bologue grew active, excited; even his blood was boiling restlessly.
"Bull’s-eye!"
Bologue shouted in delight, and then the wave-like shrieking drew close again. Bologue swept his gaze around; on the vertical shaft walls, dense swarms of monsters were still leaping desperately, trying to break free of gravity’s pull and devour Bologue whole.
After the excitement, Bologue’s expression grew controlled once more, and he mocked them inwardly.
"Just like fleas."
Many people thought Bologue was taciturn, but what they didn’t know was that although his exterior was cold, his inner monologue was extremely intense.
In Palmer’s words: put nicely, Bologue was a man of depth; put crudely, Bologue was a bit of a repressed show-off.
Bologue himself wasn’t aware of this, and neither was anyone else... how could they possibly know what Bologue was thinking? Not until Aimou stepped into the depths of Bologue’s heart.
"Bologue."
At times like this, Bologue would inexplicably think of Aimou.
After one Heart Overlapping Shadow, Aimou couldn’t help complaining, "Bologue, do you know you talk a lot?"
"I talk a lot?"
Bologue doubted that very much. He hadn’t spoken a single word from beginning to end.
"I mean the stuff in your head. God, is there ever a time when your thoughts actually stop?"
Bologue did indeed have the bad habit of overthinking; sometimes even he found himself exhausted by it.
"Do you hate it?"
Aimou fell silent for a moment, then spoke in a tone Bologue couldn’t quite describe.
"It’s just a bit unexpected."
"Unexpected how?"
"Unexpected that you look so indifferent on the outside, but have so much inner drama. You’re so good at deadpan jokes—ever thought about doing underground gigs?"
The Rhombus Shield was holding Bologue up as he descended slowly; the surrounding clamor gradually faded away. Bologue instinctively slashed his Blade as his thoughts slowly tore themselves free from memory.
Only after that did Bologue, using Aimou as proof, confirm that he really did have a whole lot to say inside, and also that his crash course in comedy over this period had actually paid off—he really had gotten a lot more humorous, though unfortunately he was only good at deadpan jokes.
Bologue suddenly let out a sigh. At this moment, he wished Aimou were here too, to listen to his cold jokes, and preferably give him some feedback.
Moving around alone in a hellhole like this was no small strain on the mind.
"Guess this counts as a kind of neurosis too."
Bologue came back to himself, muttering under his breath. Besides overthinking, he’d realized that whenever he was in an overly oppressive environment, he couldn’t help but recall some beautiful things to dilute the sense of pressure brought on by the rotten situation in front of him.
This was probably a bad habit he’d picked up back in the Black Prison. To resist the loneliness and the dark, Bologue would often talk to himself and immerse in the past.
Once that brief bit of self‑therapy was over, Bologue’s gaze turned sharp again. The Rhombus Shield carried him, dropping toward the hazy glimmer at the bottom of this monumental shaft.
Bologue had no idea what was down there; anyway, as long as he could get the hell out of this place, that was enough. If the monsters were flesh and blood, Bologue might at least have some interest in swinging his sword, but unfortunately they were all made of pure Ether, and Bologue had zero interest in that.
Dozens of seconds later, Bologue was getting closer and closer to that hazy light. Blazing white streams of radiance filled most of his vision. From that light Bologue sensed extremely intense Ethereal Fluctuation, but when he tried to push deeper, a repulsive force burst out of the hazy glow.
It was rejecting Bologue.
At the same time, without a sound, a smooth, immaculate cube suddenly extruded from one side of the shaft wall.
Just like what Bologue had seen inside the Order Bureau—the pristine blocks that made up the Cultivation Rooms.
Bologue’s heart went a little cold. Then the cube rapidly multiplied and expanded; they stacked together in an interlocking, orderly way, forming a high wall that completely cut Bologue off from the hazy light.
From Bologue’s point of view, the deep well had suddenly grown an extra layer of bottom. But in the eyes of those monsters, a gigantic wall had shot up from the curved office floor.
The monsters scrambled up the wall and began rapidly crawling toward Bologue. As the distance shrank, the direction of gravity also warped. At first they were still on all fours; very soon they straightened up, the wall turning into solid ground beneath their feet as they broke into a full sprint.
"Can’t you just behave for once?" Bologue cursed at the Ruins District. "Are you going through your rebellious phase or what?"
This time, the Ruins District actually responded to Bologue’s scolding. He suddenly noticed that everything around had gone quiet. Apart from the approaching footsteps, these monsters no longer let out any irritating howls. In fact, even their movements had become strangely anthropomorphic.
Anthropomorphic.
Bologue had never thought he’d use a word like that to describe this pack of monsters, but that was the reality.
Previously these monsters had been pure beasts, moving and attacking in all sorts of twisted postures. Now, one by one, they straightened their backs, clamped their arms to their sides, clenched their fists and swung their arms back and forth, their form as standard as long‑distance runners.
A weird thought popped into Bologue’s head: these monsters looked like actual employees, properly clocked in and at work.
Whatever, who cares?
That was what Bologue thought. He’d been in the Ruins District for not even ten minutes, and one damned thing after another had already lined up to greet him. He’d had enough. He gave up trying to understand this place by normal means and decided to carve out a path with sword and blade instead.
The Rhombus Shield shot out violently, stretching into a long, narrow Blade that cleaved through a huge swath of monsters, cutting them into fragments and splitting a tight corridor through the swarm for Bologue.
Shattered, surging Ether churned along that narrow corridor, like fireworks welcoming Bologue’s arrival, glittering nonstop.
Bologue was starting to understand why the Order Bureau had given up exploring the Ruins District. In this hellish place, anything could happen.
No time left to complain. Bologue strode forward, chopping off head after head. Just as he was slaughtering and at the same time thinking about what to do next, a shade of green he’d never seen before flickered at the edge of his vision.
He snapped his head around and saw, on the shaft wall ahead—also the curved office floor—at the far end of the wall, a dim sign lighting up, casting a striking green glow and, at the same time, illuminating the text upon it.
"Emergency Exit."
Bologue’s movements suddenly sped up. He didn’t care about any lurking plots or schemes. All he knew was that he, this headless fly, had finally found a clear direction in this chaotic maze.
But before Bologue could be happy about it, he heard a raspy, distorted voice from within the horde besieging him.
"We have located the intru...der. He is currently in the Logistics Department, office level six."
Following the sound, he saw one monster standing still amid the rushing swarm. Its back was ramrod straight, head slightly bowed, right hand raised, holding a rolled‑up newspaper.
It continued speaking to the newspaper.
"Logistics staff are attempting to suppress the intruder."
Then Bologue saw that one of the monsters had actually hoisted an entire locker onto its shoulder and was sprinting along. The locker door hung wide open, and with every violent jolt, shotgun after shotgun tumbled out, only to be quickly scooped up by the surrounding monsters.
In that eerily silent march, the sound of rounds being racked into chambers was deafening.
