Chapter 333: ’Man’ in Red
He was driven to his knees, his massive axes clattering to the stone.
His squadmates collapsed around him, groaning in breathless agony, pinned to the earth by an invisible, insurmountable weight.
Zechuan walked forward.
His footsteps were completely silent.
His face was a mask of cold, melancholic, utterly terrifying indifference.
It was the exact face of the Tragic Prince the entire sect believed him to be.
He stopped in front of the kneeling, gasping brute.
"You know nothing of the dark," Zechuan whispered, his dark eyes looking down at the man with absolute, chilling apathy. "And you have spoken out of turn in the presence of my Martial Uncle. You are unworthy of the tokens you carry."
He didn’t touch them, just twitched his fingers.
The heavy leather pouches containing the Crimson Blade squad’s gathered Sovereign Tokens were violently ripped from their belts by the invisible vacuum, flying through the air to land neatly at Zechuan’s boots.
The pressure increased, pushing the foreign disciples to the brink of unconsciousness.
"Activate your talismans," Zechuan ordered, his voice echoing with hollow finality. "Or the void will consume your cores."
Terrified, weeping, and completely broken, the brute and his men frantically channeled what little Qi they had left into their escape talismans.
Flashes of teleportation light erupted across the courtyard, and the entire squad vanished from the realm, eliminated in less than thirty seconds without Zechuan ever drawing a weapon.
The courtyard fell dead silent, save for the soft chiming of the abandoned tokens hitting the stone.
Ji’an stood frozen.
Her spatula felt heavy in her hand.
’He is a monster,’ her instincts screamed, her heart pounding. ’The airhead routine was a lie. This is the real him. This is the abyssal villain. He is ruthless, cold, and absolutely terrifying.’
She braced herself, fully expecting him to turn that cold, bottomless stare upon her.
Zechuan turned around.
The terrifying, suffocating aura of the abyss vanished instantly, popping like a soap bubble.
The dark, bottomless voids in his eyes brightened, returning to their wide, innocent, puppy-dog state.
His posture slumped back into its comfortable, slightly clumsy slouch.
He bent down, happily scooping up the discarded leather pouches, and bounded over to Ji’an, practically tripping over a loose stone on his way.
"I got the shiny coins, Uncle Ji’an!" Zechuan cheered, holding the pouches out to her with a big, brilliant, incredibly goofy smile.
He tilted his head, looking at her expectantly.
"Did I do a good job of acting scary?" Zechuan asked, his voice returning to its normal, soft cadence. "The Sect Leader told me that when I interact with people who aren’t him, I have to look ’brooding and melancholic’ so they won’t try to steal my lunch money or take advantage of my polite nature. He made me practice in the mirror for three weeks before the ceremony!"
Ji’an stared at him.
She stared at the pouches of tokens in his hands.
She stared at the genuine, proud, completely un-ironic question on his face.
Her soul almost physically detached from her body, hovered over the Sunken Ruins for three seconds of pure, existential absurdity, and slammed back into her physical shell.
"It was an act," Ji’an whispered, her voice cracking.
"Yes!" Zechuan nodded enthusiastically. "The Sect Leader said my natural disposition was ’too soft for a world of wolves.’ So he taught me the ’Poker Face of the Tragic Prince.’ He said if I just stare blankly and lower my voice, people will be too intimidated to bother me! Was it effective? Did they look scared?"
"Zechuan," Ji’an breathed, pressing her hands over her face, alternating between a desire to scream and a desire to laugh hysterically. "You didn’t just look scary. You looked like you were about to devour their souls and plunge the continent into an era of darkness."
"Oh, wonderful!" Zechuan beamed, entirely missing the horrifying implications. "I am very good at following instructions!"
Ji’an dropped her hands.
She looked at this ridiculously powerful, lethal, completely clueless airhead who wore her brother’s face.
He wasn’t a villain.
He wasn’t a mastermind.
He was just a very strong, very simple guy who was trained by the Sect Leader to act like an edgelord so he wouldn’t get bullied by the other prodigies.
The entire sect was terrified of a man who was essentially a puppy in a black cat suit.
All the frustration, all the paranoia, all the anxiety that had plagued Ji’an for the last twenty-four hours completely evaporated.
She couldn’t hate him.
She couldn’t fear him.
He was too absurd.
Ji’an let out a long sigh.
She reached out and snatched the pouches of tokens from his hands, securing them to her red combat belt.
"Alright," Ji’an muttered, irrevocably adopting the most dangerous entity in the sect as her new, clueless sidekick. "You did a very good job of acting scary. I’ll give a ten out of ten for that. Now, let’s go loot that golden chest before the fog catches up to us. And if you trip over another rock, I am making you carry the wok on your head."
"Understood, Uncle Ji’an!" Zechuan replied happily, following her toward the center of the ruins, completely content to let the grumpy chef dictate his life.
As they walked toward the treasure, the shadows in the distance began to lengthen, and the true dangers of the Illusory Shattered Realm slowly began to wake.
The first day was ending, but the tournament was far from over.
And somewhere in the freezing tundra to the north, a silver-haired immortal was carving a path of glacial destruction through the map, desperately hunting for the ’man’ in red.
***
The fundamental flaw of designing your own custom survival-horror dimension was that you knew exactly how miserable you were supposed to be.
When the twilight of the first day fell over the Illusory Shattered Realm, the sky did not bleed into a gentle, starry night.
The artificial firmament above them shifted into a deep, oppressive violet, and the ambient temperature plummeted.
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