Chapter 353: We Meet at Last

The dim evening sun shone diagonally through the window, casting a blurry patch of light on the dusty floor.

Old furniture stood askew, large spiderwebs clung to the corners of the walls, and the air was filled with the decaying smell of old wood.

Ansu sat on a rattan chair by the window, staring blankly outside.

He could not remember how long he had been sitting like this. It felt like several years, or perhaps a lifetime.

When a person grows old, they always become too lazy to move, finding even the act of raising a hand to be an effort.

The window glass reflected his shadow—gray hair, a face full of wrinkles, and dull, lifeless eyes. He just quietly watched the street scene, as if he were going to sit alone in this empty old house until he died of old age.

Just then, a faint sound suddenly came from behind him.

Ansu turned around with difficulty and saw a youth wearing a tattered felt hat, tiptoeing in through the windowsill.

The youth had clearly not expected anyone to still be in the house. Seeing Ansu sitting there motionless, he shuddered in fright.

“O-Old mister? Why are you sitting there so still?”

The youth patted his chest to catch his breath. “I thought this old, broken mansion had been abandoned long ago...”

But once he clearly saw Ansu's senile appearance and cloudy eyes, his slight tension and wariness quickly vanished.

He simply stood up straight, his eyes sweeping recklessly around the room, seemingly weighing which items could be exchanged for a few coins.

“Old man, where is your family? Your children? Is there no one looking after you?”

Ansu spoke slowly, his voice as raspy as sandpaper:

“I... have no family.”

He did not mind the youth's sneaky behavior; instead, he stared at him, a rare spark of interest rising in his heart.

Finally, someone had broken in who could keep him company and talk to him.

He had been lonely for far too long...

But when the words reached his lips, he did not know what to say. He had been disconnected from the world for too long—so long that he could not remember what the outside looked like... even his own past had blurred into a haze.

In the end, he just sat in the rattan chair, watching the “kind-hearted” youth carry a pile of bottles, jars, and old bronze ornaments as he swaggered out of the house.

“I'm leaving, old man! I'll come see you again tomorrow!”

The door creaked shut, and dead silence returned to the room.

In the dusty beam of light, dust motes drifted lazily down.

Ansu slowly turned his head back, thinking dizzily that he would probably die of old age on that old bed...

Only when his corpse rotted and began to smell, with the odor drifting into the neighboring yard, would someone call the police to have them collect his body.

Just now... should he have warned the young man, lest he push the door open next time and be scared half to death?

This thought turned very slowly, like a rusted gear.

Ansu always felt that something was missing from this house.

It was so empty.

It wasn't that some piece of furniture was missing, but rather a person—or perhaps many people...

This place should have been filled with bursts of laughter and joy, with people who had always accompanied him.

But now, only boundless loneliness remained, slowly rising like a tide, heavy enough to suffocate him.

In his daze, intermittent voices came from outside the door again.

That youth... had come back?

“Tsk, Ansu Morris is actually the most cooperative one. He's just standing there waiting to die?”

A slightly playful male voice rang out, his tone filled with mockery.

Another voice, colder and dripping with even more murderous intent, replied, “Everyone's deepest fear is different. Who knows what kind of monster he's seeing right now? Stop talking nonsense, Angelu. [Hurry up and kill him.]”

Everyone's deepest fear... is it?

What on earth...

...is going on?

Before Ansu's cloudy, elderly brain could think, a burst of piercing murderous intent suddenly smashed through the door, rushing straight at his face.

Churning mana condensed into a massive pitch-black spear, carrying a foul wind as it pierced straight through Ansu's chest.

And this fatal blow also violently shattered the chaotic dream.

Ansu slowly opened his eyes.

A faint magical glow flashed around him, and his figure vanished into thin air.

In the spot where he had just been standing, where the ground had been directly pierced by the massive magical strike, only a scarecrow wearing a comical mask remained.

Magical Scarecrow

Effect: Upon taking fatal damage, automatically teleport to any location within 100 yards. Consumes a small amount of mana. Single-use item.

“I knew this guy wouldn't be so easy to deal with.”

A cold laugh came from the shadows. A mysterious man with dark brown curly hair stepped out slowly, his gloomy gaze landing on Ansu.

The bald mage beside him, Angelu, also revealed himself.

“You can escape once, but you won't escape a second time!”

Locking onto the position where Ansu had teleported, Angelu's figure flashed as he charged to kill once more.

The place where Ansu landed was a steep slope. Because his consciousness had still been lingering in the state of an old man, his hunched body immediately lost its balance, and he almost fell off.

But his survival instinct was faster than his conscious mind. The 0th Circle magic Mage's Hand condensed in an instant, steadily supporting his body.

Ansu's mind jolted as if suddenly realizing something, and he quickly scanned his surroundings—

Writhing flesh covered the ground, and a thick, dark red liquid flowed slowly, gathering into a river.

And right in the center of this mountain of flesh and sea of blood, a massive, slowly pulsing heart hovered in midair. Countless blood vessels spread out in all directions, like a dense net that filled his entire field of vision.

The Filthy Heart.

So that long dream, which felt as though it had consumed an entire lifetime, was all its doing.

This thing's ability was actually bizarre to such an extent. It could peer into a person's heart and construct an incredibly realistic spiritual world... digging out the things they feared most, bit by bit.

A true hard crowd-control...

Even he had fallen for it.

Danielle, Sean, and the elders were nowhere to be seen. They had probably all fallen into their own nightmares... and were then taken out by the enemy in the meantime.

Ansu stared at the slowly pulsing Filthy Heart, his brow furrowing deeply.

So, the fear at the deepest part of my heart is this?

Loneliness.

Having no one by my side, being forgotten... until dying silently.

Eternal loneliness.

...

Ansu looked down at his wrist.

The blood-eye curse mark had already spread, its hideous crimson patterns like writhing vines coiling along his forearm.

He pulled open his collar and saw that the skin on his chest, shoulders, and neck was also covered in dense, bulging capillaries. They resembled distorted, crimson spiderwebs slowly spreading beneath his flesh.

He suspected that in his current state... the next step would probably be transforming into a writhing mass of tumorous flesh, becoming yet another source of corruption.

A biting murderous intent, wrapped in a foul wind, suddenly closed in.

Almost instinctively, Ansu conjured a high-tier magic shield. A thick, deep blue barrier of light unfolded in front of him.

In the next instant, the Academy Magic, Radial Greatsword, carrying a bone-chilling cold, hacked down and slammed heavily against the shield.

The two forces of mana collided violently, sending a shockwave sweeping in all directions like a giant wave. Ansu and his opponent were both knocked back several steps simultaneously.

Angelu stabilized his footing, a flash of astonishment crossing his eyes. “You... are already a high-tier mage?”

When he had met this guy in Norvigel last month, he was just an insignificant mid-tier mage whom he hadn't spared a second glance.

Yet in just a single month... without relying on any academy inheritance or resource allocation, he had actually managed to cross the chasm between a mid-tier and high-tier mage? What kind of monster was this guy?

Ansu only cast a glance at him, his gaze bypassing the steep slope to land on the mysterious figure on the other side.

That was someone he had never formally met, yet was incredibly familiar with.

The demon leader, Barcas.

“We meet at last, Ansu Morris.”

Barcas narrowed his eyes, carefully sizing up the disheveled youth covered in crimson scars, his expression suddenly turning somewhat complex.

It was a scrutiny mixed with both doubt and incomprehension.

“Is this all you've got?”

“No decent counterattack, and no visible trump cards... This doesn't seem like your style. Aren't you, Ansu Morris, always able to see through my schemes at a glance, forcing me to exert all my effort just to deal with you?”

This youth in front of him, who looked as if he would be swallowed by corruption at any moment.

How exactly did he expose my arrangements time and time again, completely tearing to shreds the plans I had spent so long preparing?

...