Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
In a flash, Pippen jumped up from the ground.
It was like power within burst out of his body, and his whole frame had extended a few sizes. Some of his joints were ruptured from the brutal action in that instant, but his speed was incredibly fast.
As if a huge iron ball brushed past his body and flew away, Ye Qingxuan’s eyes saw a flash, then everything turned pitch black.
Dazed, he felt himself knocked into the wall.
In the moonlight, Pippen leaped into the air, held on tight to the black box, then turned and threw it into the darkness.
Soon after, the furious wolf pack jumped up from the ground and tore him into pieces. With numerous bone fragments, chunks of flesh and blood flying around, the black box flipped and stumbled, and finally stopped at someone’s feet at the end of the street.
A large silver wolf followed very closely, like a shadow of the box. The guy looked at the silver wolf’s grim face and smiled. He bent over, and pressed down on the black box.
Crash!
In a blink of an eye, the black box set off a deafening sound.
With a violent sound, an invisible power like a hammer crushed the wolf’s head into the green stones of the ground. Blood flew onto the box like mercury, and whitened a corner of the stone.
The black box started to slowly crack until it completely turned into powder. The exquisite clarinet fell into the hands of the man, no longer trembling after the burst as if it had finally been returned to where it belonged.
“What a pity, Wolf Flute.” The guy took off his hat, and revealed his white pupils. “A nice trap, but it did not work on me, and killed an innocent man in the process. Are you regretting it now?”
He seemed very old, his face wrinkled, nothing like the thirty-something-year-old man Wolf Flute had described. But those white eyes moved with a coldness, more chilly than the wolf pack. If beasts gave a man fear, then this ruthlessness and cruelty could freeze a man’s soul.
“Sorry, no.” With the wolves growling and circling around came the voice of Wolf Flute, “He already died when you controlled him with the ‘worm’.”
From Pippen’s broken skull, a leech-like black organism crawled out from his ear. It had originally lived as a parasite in Pippen’s brain. It crawled out and swam quickly through the pool of blood, leaving a trail of blood behind it. It came to the feet of the Rain Artist, and finally wrapped around his wrist, hardening into a strange bracelet.
The Rain Artist looked down gently, admiring the worm bracelet on his wrist. He sighed softly, “You see, I paid a great price for this reward. It had helped me through many difficult times, including this one.”
As he was talking, he looked around at the scenery with a surprised and admiring expression on his face. “It is hard to imagine. I have chased you a long way here, and ‘it’ is hidden in this ridiculously small town.”
“I won’t let you have it,” a dark voice spoke as if from all directions.
“I dare not carry with me something as terrible as this. My order was only to destroy it.” The Rain Artist suddenly laughed. “Similarly, I can…” he paused, the clarinet in his hand suddenly rising up with a chilling bang, “…destroy you!”
The explosion sounded like a dying whistle. When the whistling spread, numerous boiling sounds followed. The sea breeze suddenly started dancing furiously, the sound of the wave became blurry. A huge amount of aether awoke from the whistling sound. It came together from all directions, swallowing every drop of the vapor.
The air suddenly became extremely dry. Every breath came with a burning sensation. Then a pale fog spread from beneath the Rain Artist into the air like a suffocating mist.
The fog immersed the entire street, everything was blurry.
Then, water drops appeared from out of thin air, colliding like a rainstorm in the fog, as fast as arrows. Along their way they took away any warmth in the air, leaving behind a layer of frost.
Suddenly, where the fog had enveloped, heavy rain began to pour.
Silver wolves roared into the mist, but they had lost his trail and could no longer find the man.
Musicians of the School of Modifications were best at manipulating the nature of objects, swaying storms and frost, making flames and iron walls. Among all musicians, they were the best suited for the battlefield because of their great destructive power!
With the clarinet singing, he quickly finishing playing a measure, summoning a suffocating fog storm heavy enough to freeze any ordinary man.
“Huh, went back to hide in his shell,” Wolf Flute spat. His pupils turned vertical like an animal, staring at the fog and the rain.
…Krommer Variation Opus 74, also known as “Demon of Rain”.
But this was not the most dangerous, not even close.
So he needed to be very alert.
–
In the fog, the clarinet suddenly sounded.
The sound, like countless people sobbing in the rain, spread quickly. It was like iron bees beating their wings, like ghosts calling out, wandering in the fog.
Inside the fog, a sudden harsh whistle came through the endless tornado, effortlessly punching a big hole in the silver wolf’s neck.
The silver wolf’s head was broken, hanging on its neck. It rolled on the ground in the rain, but then it was completely cut by something behind it.
Eventually, that silver wolf dissipated leaving small, deep holes in the ground.
In those holes, there were many long and thin iron pieces.
These iron pieces embedded into the earth, still with burning lights. But once out of the fog, the heat disappeared, as if the fog took it away, back to where it came from.
This was one of the reasons why the Demon of Rain was known as the music of massacre. Through many different combinations of notes, it could produce Exploding Iron, which contained a force of destruction so powerful, that it was nearly undefeatable.
The fog was alive. It was a living thing. It constantly absorbed light and heat from its surroundings, which was why the temperature had become so cold. Then the fog would explode as a “medium” along with the Iron.
No matter how heavy the armor, or how sturdy the walls, the impact of the fog could not be stopped.
If someone was hit, they would probably be ripped in half. With only a loud noise, the upper half of the body would have to say goodbye to the lower half. Or perhaps the whole body would become mincemeat.
This was the most dangerous aspect of the Rain Artist because killing was his talent.
The music continued, and the rain became denser. Shards of very thin iron shot in all directions. The iron easily cut through the wolves’ necks and the claws, killing them instantly.
But with Wolf Flute’s even more depressing notes, more wolves had appeared from all over the earth.
It seemed like it would never end. The summoning from Wolf Flute continued to bring more wolves from the void–almost a whole pack of wolves had shown up.
Those wolves, almost as tall as humans, were no ordinary creatures. They were born from the aether, with no weakness, no blood, no fatigue, and with no fear.
With the flute Nai playing, they expanded again, showing a strange ice blue. The bodies became mistier as if they would melt into the fog.
“Do not hide, Mr. Wolf Flute!” in the rain fog the Rain Artist suddenly growled. With a flashing light, the wall was split, the stones collapsed, dirt flew everywhere. In the dust, the shadow of Wolf Flute was finally revealed.
A piece of the iron cut through the wall and barely missed his throat, leaving him with a striking bloodstain.
“Wheelchair?” The Rain Artist took a big step forward. “When did this happen?”
Iron whistled past. Like a strong crossbow with bursting arrows, the iron converged into a tornado and charged ahead.
Wolf Flute’s body suddenly tilted. The two wheels of the wheelchair slid on the ground. It made a full circle then backed away. The iron rain went right past him and left a honeycomb-like hole on the wall, causing the shingles from the structure to fly away.
“Wow, you don’t say,” Wolf Flute cocked his eyebrow and patted the armrest of the wheelchair. “This thing is easy to use, and it is good for my laziness. It’s super convenient! I’m falling in love with it.”
“Keep your playful words and go to hell with them.” The Rain Artist lifted his withered face, in his dark eyes, his white pupils started to shrink. “No more nonsense!”
He lifted his clarinet to his lips, playing a sharp tune. The white fog suddenly trembled, boiling over, and the color turned scarlet, like blood.
Blood red?!
“Breath of Boiling Blood?” Wolf Flute opened his mouth like an animal and ground his teeth, “Music that requires blood as sacrifice really fits the style of your evil cult.”
A sharp and mournful performance suddenly turned to a higher pitch, with red fog swirling, countless rain drops colliding, and the sound of friction like a roar of thunder. With this thunder, suddenly there were six burning flashes.
It was a very thin and sharp iron piece. They had the speed of arrows in the rain, swung with a trill, like an evil spirit screaming.
This was the Exploding Iron that should have only been single shots. Mixed in with the rain, they could launch as one with a shape of a fan, and no one would be able to escape it in this narrow space.
But now there were six of them! Even Wolf Flute, who had seemed nonchalant, felt pins and needles in his scalp. The Breath of Boiling Blood, this evil technique, sometimes did make one… f*cking jealous!
How come there were no such techniques for the musicians of religious disciples? Even if they were not allowed to use other people’s blood, they could at least use their own!
Wolf’s eyes were envious.
Six shots each time. The Rain Artist must have paid a hefty price for this. Unfortunately, whether he was insane, or was just trying to show a great respect for his enemy by displaying such elaborate combat, it would be extremely tough to fight back.
After all, when he was sneak-attacked from over one hundred feet away, Wolf Flute had been heavily wounded by only one piece of the iron!
And now, he was in a wheelchair with nowhere to escape. The humming in the air had given him chills. That was the sound of the hot iron ready to explode.
Under such pressure, he started playing his flute, his scalp still numb.
In an instant, the sound of the flute was crushed by the sharp noise of the wind and the sand blowing. Iron pieces flew out from the rain and the fog. The red hot iron was suddenly released, and the terror of the kinetic energy and heat destroyed their body in a moment. It had turned to iron sand–more dangerous than ever.
The iron sand burned through the fog, firing forward, and pulling the bloody fog along with it.
After what seemed like only a few seconds, hundreds of hot spikes flew out of the bloody fog into the slate and the walls, instantly turning them into pieces.
The remaining heat was spreading, setting off a pale water vapor.
In the water vapor, you could hear the scream of the silver wolves.
“I really am a genius! Hahahaha!!”
With six silver wolves pulling the wheelchair with all their strength, it broke out of the fog like a sleigh on the snow.
Wolf Flute, with blood covering half of his body, cackled. He sat firmly in the wheelchair that was about to completely break down. No one ever thought this psycho would be able to turn his wheelchair into a sleigh at the very last minute, allowing him to escape from the six fan-shaped iron fires.
In the speedy wheelchair, Wolf Flute sighed. He removed a pendant-shaped bottle hung around his neck. He removed the cork with his fingers and swallowed the whole bottle of liquid.
As soon as the ice blue liquid went inside him, he trembled. His skin turned pale. Blue and purple blood vessels expanded under his skin, intertwined with each other.
The blood was pulsing with a rhythm. As if it were a beast was digesting the blood then releasing the burning flame. Wolf Flute’s eyed flashed vaguely for a moment–there seemed to be electricity firing through his eyes, too bright to look straight into.
“Damn, this was a huge loss,” Wolf Flute whispered. He took a deep breath as husky as the sound of the iron piece and started playing the flute.
This time, there was a kind of power in the music, like an illusion entering reality, eroding through this fake world. It was an extremely cold night but now, it felt maddeningly hot.
Wind from the desert fell from the sky, destroying the cold rain.
The humidity and poison in the air had been swept away by the wind. The sound of the flute spread like a sandstorm, giving the illusion of being under the burning sunlight.
The sound of the stone’s friction overpowered the cry from the ‘Demon of Rain.’
A huge alpha wolf suddenly appeared beneath the moonlight. It was blurrier than his followers, but was also more strongly built. Like a reflection in water, it would soon disappear.
It really disappeared.
The Rain Artist paled and quickly retreated, but the alpha appeared again, right behind him.
The Rain Artist’s body trembled slightly. He looked down and saw a huge gap on his waist. It was a wound made by the alpha in what seemed like an instant.
Under the moonlight, the alpha spat out the blood and organs and slowly looked back at him. Its translucent body seemed misty in the fog.
“The Underworld messenger?” the Rain Artist murmured dazedly, the mournful scream cutting off.
The alpha returned and disappeared. When he re-appeared, its claws held a new piece of flesh and half a rib. It looked down arrogantly as if looking at its prey. The Rain Artist was defenseless!
With the next reemergence of the alpha wolf, the flesh tore again.
The Rain Artist grasped his exposed organs and knelt on the ground.
The war was over now.
