TBR CH193

Legends often fade from memory due to being too old.

The prophecy about the Hero and the Demon King was exactly like that.

Rumors swept across half a century ago, when various altars on the Mirar Continent literally crawled out with immortal Heroes, and every street and alley excitedly debated the appearance of miracles; then, all of it gradually died down over long periods.

Stories burning with blood and arrows were too distant from ordinary people.

The moment the server restarted, the Hero with azure eyes logged into the game once again under the name “Bai Mingchen.”

With a flash of white light, the Hero, holding a gleaming golden artifact, was still as handsome and dashing as he was back then. Time had left no trace on his features, and the trees by the altar remained as silent as ever.

Bai Shi quickly tapped the keyboard twice, then a cheats system’s favorability interface popped up.

He glanced at it, appearing a little annoyed. All those who he had once hoped to gather into his harem – loyal knights, elegant witches, pure elven princesses – their favorability had all dropped to a glaring single digit after that night in the Elf Forest.

Now, the only remaining target he had successfully “conquered” was Anna, the original novice village girl.

Anna’s appearance was only moderately pretty, and she always dressed simply. Bai Shi had always felt she was a bit unsophisticated. But thanks to her timidity, when things turned bad, the Hero took her hand and swore eternal loyalty to her. “My dear, you are different from them. They only have prominent status, but I love your soul.” And she easily believed him.

He double-clicked the communication tool, trying to send Anna a message. Returning to Mirar Continent to complete his mission, it felt empty and unpleasant to be alone.

A “ding” sounded in his ear, message sent successfully.

Fortunately, Bai Shi breathed a sigh of relief; he wouldn’t become a lone wolf.

Anna’s reply came quickly, so the Hero decided to wait by the altar. The clouds in the sky slowly sank westward, and sparse shadows lay among the trees. Therefore, when a figure appeared from the other side of the forest, it made one hesitate to approach and acknowledge her.

The in-game Hero still maintained a graceful appearance.

Until that figure walked closer and closer. This forest was rarely visited by people, and generally, no natives would approach it casually. But even so, at first, Bai Shi still thought it was just an ordinary passing villager.

He inexplicably glanced at her, then lost interest, until that stooped figure slowly walked up to him and stopped.

Bai Shi, in front of his screen, suddenly stiffened.

He stared disbelievingly at that face, vaguely outlining familiar features:

“You are… An, Anna?”

It was a face weathered by time, having lost the youthful beauty of her younger days. Daily labor had etched faint fatigue around her brows and eyes, her skin had become rough and developed dark spots, and fine wrinkles had appeared in the shadows beside her nostrils.

She walked with a limp, as if lame, but still eagerly approached him until she stood before the Hero.

“I knew you would come back,”

Anna’s voice was much hoarser. “Hero, you promised me. Aren’t you back by my side? It’s a pity I’ve grown so old. I wonder if you still hold your old thoughts. I’ve truly been looking forward to your arrival.”

“You are—”

“I was twenty when you left,”

Anna smiled, “And now twenty years have passed.”

When the two worlds intersected, time became dislocated.

For Bai Shi, it had only been a matter of days, but for ordinary humans on Mirar Continent, it had been a sea change. Of course, races like elves were unafraid of the passage of time, and most students in the Wizard Tower had prolonged lifespans preserved by magic, longer than ordinary humans. But it was Anna who was left behind.

It was the ordinary human Anna, with no special abilities, who was asked to wait.

Although she was now old and somewhat weary, and her body showed imperfections, for some reason, her smile appeared more confident than before. It was as if she felt no shame in appearing with such an appearance before her former lover.

She extended her hand to the Hero, a hand also calloused from labor:

“You told me to wait for you, and I finally waited for you. I don’t ask for more; if you don’t mind, please hold my hand one last time.”

The Hero stared at her.

Was that truly his gaze? Anna’s outstretched hand received no response for a long time, and she suddenly wavered. The Hero was always graceful, his azure eyes always unchanging in their affection. Even now, his gaze seemed faultless. But the person she had unilaterally loved in her youth stood before her, silently, for a long time.

Bai Shi, looking at the extended hand through the screen, was frantically preparing himself mentally.

In his imagination, he should be surrounded by beautiful women, and he had never considered how he should face them after their beauty had faded. Rather, he simply didn’t want to have any connection with the weathered woman in front of him.

Although the other party’s attitude was forthright, what if she regretted it and started to pester him bitterly?

What if others found out he had been involved with such an old woman? How could he then continue to pursue other young and beautiful targets?

Thinking of this, he couldn’t help but feel wary, looking at the calloused hand on the screen and feeling his stomach churn.

He controlled his character to take a step back, avoiding Anna’s gaze, his movements showing relentless rejection:

“I think you might have misunderstood something.”

“Misunderstood?”

Anna murmured, then suddenly looked down with understanding, withdrawing her hand.

Without even opening the favorability interface, Bai Shi knew that her favorability for him must have dropped significantly. But this was the first time he so strongly wished for the other party’s favorability to drop to the very bottom of the progress bar. He retreated another step, showing a false smile:

“I just wanted to see an old friend. Now that I have, it’s best for everyone to leave it at that. Let’s not contact each other again. I don’t want to disturb your life.”

“You said we were friends,” Anna’s voice rustled like wind through branches, a low murmur. “I never thought I’d hear such words. I don’t expect you to truly love my soul, but do you have to be so cruel…?”

“I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

Bai Shi said decisively.

A girl like Anna was just a fleeting fancy to him. It was his first time getting a conquest system, so of course he would just pick someone to try it out on. And she was a prominent-looking girl in the novice village, just right as a test subject. Bai Shi had always believed that Anna was by no means qualified to be among the legendary Hero’s harem.

This was originally an honor he bestowed upon her; she should have had the self-awareness.

“She always said I was too foolish,”

Anna muttered to herself, “It seems she was right now. But I truly loved you, and still do. I once saw you as my savior. I thought you wouldn’t be as she said, at least we could have a decent ending.”

Bai Shi didn’t want to see that no-longer-youthful face on his screen again.

He believed his current mood was also very bad; it was regret for the girl’s former beauty, and the middle-aged woman in front of him not only couldn’t understand him but was also constantly eroding that feeling.

“Enough,”

The Hero looked at Anna in front of him with a sorrowful and condemning gaze. “Do you want to leave such an impression in my heart in the end? You weren’t like this before.”

He shifted his view, deciding to forget this unpleasant scene from his mind.

Finding a new Anna wouldn’t be very difficult.

But just as he shifted his gaze to the forest behind him, preparing to leave this sorrowful place, a crimson warning suddenly filled the entire screen in an instant, laying a dangerous background color across it. As tense, urgent music sounded in his headphones, Bai Shi felt his blood rush backward for a moment.

No way.

He fumbled to adjust his weapon, thinking, could it be that abominable Demon King Kriesmeier again?

But he fruitlessly spun around, his gaze sweeping over Anna’s face, yet he never found where the danger came from. Bai Shi almost thought he was overly nervous, but the next second, the screen in front of him suddenly went black, as if something had heavily struck his head. His character’s health bar wasn’t empty, but a sleeping status was applied.

Wh-what.

In the last second before the screen went dark, he saw Anna slowly drawing out the wooden stick in her hand—no, it was actually a magic staff. She looked down at him with pity, as if mourning her lost love.

But soon that expression disappeared.

“Are you crazy?”

The Hero asked in horror.

Anna still spoke softly.

“If you had held my hand, you would have discovered the truth hidden in the falsehood. But you didn’t. In my memory, you weren’t like this before either.”

“—But perhaps you always were.”

Bai Shi wanted to say more. He completely didn’t understand what this crazy woman was rambling about, nor did he grasp the change in the situation. But he didn’t have time to do anything before he saw the woman in front of him press down the tip of her staff.

The screen in front of him flickered one last time, then plunged into darkness.

“Excuse me,”

Roland asked politely.

He pointed at the surveillance footage, asking if it could be rewound a bit. The shop owner looked at him with suspicion, probably taking him for some kind of suspicious character. But the young man’s gentle demeanor somewhat pleased the elder. So, the surveillance from a few days ago rewound a few more seconds.

It was clearly visible that a figure in black walked in from the shop entrance.

But the surveillance pixels were very blurry; only when paused could it be seen clearly that this person in black was elderly, clearly not the person he was looking for. This was the fifth internet cafe Roland had visited this afternoon, but so far, he had found nothing.

He didn’t seem too disheartened and still thanked the owner with full courtesy.

“By the way,” Roland mentioned casually, “Is that road outside always under construction? When I came in just now, the ride-sharing car had trouble driving and seemed to have taken a long detour.”

“Then you were tricked.”

The shop owner slapped his thigh in regret, “It’s only a few steps if you go around from Garden Road on the right. This place has only been under road construction for a few days, otherwise, how much would it affect business? It’s just that… yes, the night you were checking surveillance, wasn’t there a very strong wind? The repairs started from then; it seems two trees were blown down and damaged the sidewalk.”

Roland’s amber eyes suddenly lit up.

“Excuse me,” he said, “I’m really sorry, I think I need to go to the next place to look.”

“No problem.”

Seeing him like this, the shop owner felt a little embarrassed instead.

“At first, when you called, I really didn’t dare to speak carelessly. But then Old Shan specifically instructed me, haha, young comrade, it’s not easy to find someone. Autumn is here, and it’s quite cold outside. You look unwell; you should wear more clothes and don’t neglect your health.”

Roland reached out and touched the internet cafe’s cold glass door.

At the current temperature, the warmth of his fingers left a small patch of white mist on the glass.

The young man turned back, smiled, and nodded in acknowledgment.

“Don’t take it lightly. You’re looking for your runaway brother, right? Very sensible. Your family must be worried about you too. Oh, have you started dating anyone—”

“I have,” Roland pulled open the door and walked out. The cold air outside assailed him, and the Grand Master pulled his trench coat tighter. Even though he felt he had done everything perfectly, the empty feeling in his ribs still faintly ached. It seemed he would need more time to recover.

“We love each other very much. I understand; I’ll try not to make him worry.”

The street outside was the same as any other day. Roland turned his head and saw that the right fork in the road still had roadblocks, and the left fork had a small sign with “Garden Road” written in official script. The reason he searched this area first was that on the mobile app, the internet cafes here were the closest, and it was the most likely place for that mysterious visitor to have arrived.

But one of the roads leading into this area that night was cut off, and the left side was the only path.

Recalling it, there were also one or two medium-sized internet cafes there when he took the detour earlier.

Before each new destination, Roland required himself to find the most likely location. So far, he had failed many times, but in his expectation, it didn’t matter even if he found nothing all day. Finding traces from a few days ago was never that simple.

It might have been better if he had gone to look for it the next day.

But he didn’t regret it. The dark Demon King tore himself apart just to appear before him. Their time was inherently short; every second Kriesmeier was reflected in his eyes was a countdown in the Grand Master’s heart.

Roland stopped in front of a simple internet cafe.

The plastic shop sign flickered with cheap fluorescent colors. The air inside the shop was murky, but unexpectedly, there were many customers. Roland pushed open the door and heard the sound effects of “Abyss Continent.” He paused, his gaze avoiding the eager customers exploring the new version, but the reflection on the screens inevitably fell into his eyes.

“Kriesmeier left the demon palace?”

He heard someone say incredulously, “Why would the Demon King go to a place like the Kingdom’s memorial square for no reason?”

The Grand Master felt his heart almost stop for an instant.

He almost desperately wanted to turn around. At that moment, it was as if some emotion in his heart suddenly broke its dam. He suddenly desperately wanted to see Kriesmeier’s face; just hearing that name made him sting as if burned. He turned around almost hastily; the entire row of computers in front of him flickered incessantly, and for a moment, he couldn’t see any of them clearly.

Like a row of blinking eyes.

He quickly realized his unseemly behavior. The customer was only reading a forum title; there was no trace of the Demon King on the screen. Kriesmeier was, after all, the final boss of “Abyss,” and only a very small number of high-level players were qualified to face him.

The customer turned his head and glanced, muttering, “Weirdo.”

That was because Roland had been staring motionless for too long.

Roland clearly realized he was a little ridiculous. He wasn’t looking at the other person’s screen, but rather, across several rows of equipment, he once again looked at the poster on the wall. Clearly, most internet cafes favored the promotional effect of “Abyss Continent”; plastered on this wall was still the Demon King’s cold and arrogant CG image.

—Kriesmeier before he met him.

—The current Kriesmeier.

The Grand Master restrained himself, withdrew his gaze, and then walked towards the counter.

The counter owner looked up, rustling through the ID registration book. The screen in front of him flickered, projecting the real-time surveillance of the entire shop. This place was a bit secluded, and the shop itself wasn’t very spacious. Its rating on online platforms wasn’t high either.

But it happened to be on this street.

Roland had called this shop, but the other party’s attitude wasn’t very good, and they were wary of a stranger’s sudden requests. However, judging from the owner’s tone, he wasn’t un-swayable.

Roland vaguely had a premonition, as if he had truly reached a crucial step.

Although premonitions are often deceptive…

“Hello,”

He slowly blinked, “Excuse me, I have a request.”

Kriesmeier’s toes touched the obsidian floor of the demon palace.

His dim wings slowly folded, buffering his silent descent into the center of the demon palace.

Kriesmeier paused. His gaze just now would probably make the lords fully exert themselves for a while. It was said that there was once a period when mischievous and greedy lords would even allow heroes into the Demon King’s City, to come before him, for a price.

But the Demon King’s City at that time was undoubtedly noisy, just like today.

—He seemed to have received a very important, very important gift.

Fragmented memories pricked Kriesmeier for an instant, but quickly vanished like rapidly melting icicles.

The Demon King did not ascend his throne. In the vast, mirror-like demon palace, separated by flickering candles, Kriesmeier passed through treasures piled up like a labyrinth. Jewels as large as pigeon eggs glittered, almost illuminating this small space, while other various rarities were scattered like scrap metal.

The Abyss Demon Race had lost their perception of beauty. Kriesmeier didn’t know how to appreciate them.

But he knew he had definitely lost something.

Kriesmeier, like a nesting crow, carried the treasures of the entire continent back to his territory. All the treasures were laid out before him, but not one was truly able to linger in his eyes. Every single thing ultimately disappointed him. The black obsidian floor echoed the Demon King’s boots.

His fingertips picked up a piece of amber.

The amber was translucent and deep, as if an indistinct river flowed within the stone.

The Demon King stared at it, then suddenly found it utterly uninteresting, far too different—compared to his expectations of treasure. He crushed the amber; white powder fell from his fingertips, and the hard stone instantly turned to nothing.

He turned around, his dark cloak exuding a cold and dignified aura.

“My Lord,”

The horned demon in front of him respectfully bowed. His horns were painted a decaying bright purple, which spoke volumes about his character. This was the Lord of Lust, his heart pounding because the Demon King had called him by name.

“You once,”

Kriesmeier said slowly, “gave me a gift. What was it?”

The air suddenly grew silent, as if in prelude to a secret.

Kriesmeier lowered his dark golden eyes.

He waited, but this silence was also dangerous, as if containing a blade.

He saw the demon lord’s spine in front of him tremble uncontrollably, seemingly in fear of something. He grew increasingly confused by the other party’s silence. The Demon King’s patience was limited and nearing its end.

“It wasn’t me.”

The Lord of Lust said cautiously,

“My Lord, you’re referring to the previous lord, or perhaps the one before that. In any case, I only devoured them recently, please… I beg your forgiveness for being unable to answer your question.”