TBR CH254

“The first millennium after Ragnarok—”
“The corpses in the dead water shall awaken, the world has become a stage for spirits, all gods shall be resurrected from the underworld to reclaim their Eden. All but one god, for He is immortal. He shall create a new world through His favored one.”
“Welcome to the instance [Revival of the Gods]. This is a special instance. Clearing it will grant a large amount of points as a reward.”
“Main Quest 1: Survive for 7 days (You may exit after completion)”
“Main Quest 2: Help the god you represent □□ obtain the Golden Fleece, □□□□□□”
“Side Quest: Find the □□ beside you”

The moment he stepped into the ruins, You Lin had a strange premonition.
He subconsciously turned his head to look at Charon. This was the kind of instance that “scatters all players at the beginning,” so in the vast ruins, only the AI, who was an item, was still by his side.
At this moment, Charon was looking up at the sky.

When he raised his head, the sun was reflected in his glass-like pupils, like molten silver. You Lin also squinted at it for a while, then gave up. A black spot remained in his vision; a human’s pupils would be blinded by such dazzling light.
The sky was flawless, the shimmering heat distorting the distant horizon. The mountains formed by overlapping waste showed slight undulations. Further away was a forest, and even further was the experimental facility he had once escaped from. It felt like something that had happened a long, long time ago.

“The angle of the light’s refraction is a bit unnatural,” You Lin asked. “Is there something above our heads?”
“The entire control center,” Charon said. “Right above us. Being suddenly pulled into the instance caught the System off guard… It had Medusa activate environmental mimicry. The building is imperceptible to the naked eye.”

“Oh,” You Lin nodded, the corners of his mouth suddenly turning up high. “So, you’re saying if I fire a shot into the sky right now—”
A silver pistol had appeared between his fingertips at some point. Black gloves, a stark color contrast. The human seemed naturally suited for dangerous environments, like a shark that has smelled blood. Even though he was just joking, Charon had no doubt that if any suspicious danger appeared at this moment, he would be the first to react.

“Don’t do that.”
“Why?”
“It cannot be destroyed from the outside,” Charon pushed the gun down an inch. “The moment the bullet hits the outer wall of the control center, it will shatter, and the casing will injure you.”
“You don’t want to see me get hurt?”
“Of course.” The AI paused. “You can’t still pretend not to understand that.”
“I just wanted to hear you say it.”

The human smiled rather slyly. He clapped his hands, and the pistol suddenly disappeared. He then grabbed the AI’s long, cold fingers. “I don’t know why, but coming back here has made me remember a lot of things. It’s almost like my mood from back then has returned. Do you remember? You were sitting right here with your hair all over the place. I was going to just leave you, but then you looked up and begged me to take you away—I had never seen anyone so beautiful.”

Charon opened his mouth, then helplessly lowered his eyes and intertwined his fingers with the human’s.
“Your eyes were too beautiful, and you looked so fragile back then. It was a pitiful kind of vulnerability, completely irresistible. I thought at the time, you only have me. If I weren’t there, you would have died, and only I could keep you alive. Maybe one day I could kiss those eyes, maybe one day, you might…”

From You Lin’s perspective, the AI’s silver-white hair was like a pile of snow that would never melt. As it moved, it revealed his earlobe, which was gradually turning red. He quickly interrupted the human’s train of thought.
“I remember it all. But let’s not talk about it now. We have things to do.”

The instance they were in was extremely dangerous. By incorporating the control center into the instance’s scope, the direction Charon had originally predicted for the instance would undergo inscrutable changes due to this variable. The AI’s expression quickly turned serious.
“We need to find the others from Wanderer’s Home and meet up with them as soon as possible. We agreed to send up a signal flare if we found a safe place. Before that, You Lin, you should have received the instance’s mission requirements by now. Are they the same as before?”
“No.”

You Lin shook his head and gave a rough explanation. “Completely different. This time the mission is a bit strange, with some inexplicable garbled text. But—anyway, besides the instance itself, we have a lot to do, so this mission doesn’t really matter. The only thing I can be sure of is that we need to find something called the ‘Golden Fleece’.”

“The Golden Fleece…” Charon repeated softly.
“Did you think of something?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” the AI hesitated before saying. “According to the myth of ‘Ragnarok,’ after the chaotic battle among the gods, the world sank into the lightless depths of the water. However, the surviving gods and two humans eventually rebuilt the entire new world. But this has nothing to do with the Golden Fleece. That’s Norse mythology, while this is a branch of ancient Greek mythology. The Golden Fleece symbolizes wealth, happiness, freedom, and the unyielding pursuit in the eyes of humans. It’s possible Medusa mixed up the two stories.”

“A mythological mashup?” You Lin commented. “I’m curious to see which pantheon’s gods will appear next.”

No matter which deity it was, none of them seemed to have anything to do with this ravaged world. Metal glinted untamed under the scorching sun, almost seeming to melt. The air was filled with a long-forgotten smell of dereliction. The last time this precarious world was used, it was just a simple instance requiring an escape from a laboratory teeming with mutated monsters.

Soon, a burst of light in the distant sky caught their attention.
Against the azure background, a signal flare slowly descended from the southwest.
“Time to find them.”
You Lin grabbed Charon’s hand and was the first to leap onto the mountains of piled-up waste. “Follow me.”

The AI was subconsciously pulled up, stepping on a discarded television set, which emitted a dull creak. A little further on was a stack of optical discs, their covers faded. The place was littered with all sorts of things, all covered in a layer of dust. When disturbed by their footsteps, the dust floated in the air.
“Wait,” Charon said.

You Lin stopped and turned around. He, too, saw the object that had caught the AI’s attention.
Not far from where they had just been standing, a card lay quietly.
The card looked as if it was cut from black cardstock, with a creatively gilded border that shimmered under the overly bright sunlight. It was almost free of dust, completely out of place with its surroundings.

“Do you remember the rules said you have to help a god?” Charon asked.
“No way,” You Lin touched his forehead with his fingers. “The exact same trick… Can’t that System you mentioned come up with anything new? Forget it, sounds like it lacks the ability for independent thought.”
He muttered as he bent down.

“You don’t have to pick up this card,” Charon thought for a moment. “We almost left directly just now. This probably isn’t a necessary condition.”
“It’s fine,” the human said with what could be called certainty. “My luck is the same wherever I go. This one will do.”

He reached out and picked up the card, but didn’t immediately turn it over. Instead, he handed the card to the AI, giving him a slow blink. And so Charon became the one to see the result for him.
“As long as it’s not a human.”
It seemed You Lin was still scarred by the identity card from the monster company.

“In Norse mythology, the ones who survived to the end were precisely two humans,” Charon stared at his own pale fingers and flipped the card over. “No, it’s not a human. It’s Ares.”
“Ares, the God of War?”
“And also one of the Twelve Olympians.”

The front of the card depicted a god wearing armor. He was looking down slightly, the shadow of his helmet obscuring his eyes. He held a long spear, its tip gleaming with a sharp, unstoppable cold light. In the bottom right corner of the card was a line of small text: The holder of this card is a follower of Ares, the God of War. When using cold weapons, their combat power is doubled.

You Lin let out a soft snort.
“It’s completely turned into the Greek gods’ shtick.”
A person can’t be unlucky forever, so the result of this card seemed to satisfy him. The human put it away and decided to use a dagger as much as possible if he encountered danger from now on.
“Let’s go.”
The newly appointed agent of war turned his head, the corners of his mouth curving up again.
His silver-haired lover was thinking about something, something flickering in his pupils. But upon hearing his voice, Charon quickly stopped staring at his own fingers and reached out to him as well. This time, they could really set off.
“Mm.”

“Little AI, what are you thinking about?”
“Nothing. So far, everything has been going smoothly. The System hasn’t found out it was us, and even if it finds out now, it’s too late… I just think the phrasing ‘The holder of this card’ is a bit strange.”

He soon found out where the problem lay.
As they approached the location where Wanderer’s Home had sent the signal flare, You Lin could already feel the fluctuations in the air. The human drew his dagger, his footsteps even lighter than Charon’s, who was a virtual entity. They had reached the edge of the ruins. Ahead was a large expanse of dark green forest.

Just moments ago, a battle had broken out under the shade of the trees.
Hugo was panting as he dodged attacks, his speed almost double his usual pace. Attacking him were dazzling blades of light that continuously condensed from the air. Given the exceptionally bright sunlight, even hiding in the forest was no escape. The dappled tree shadows turned into sharp flying knives, trying to embed themselves in his head.
No matter how fast he was, he couldn’t block the light blades coming from all directions.
Just as he was about to be splattered on the spot, pale blue barriers appeared simultaneously in many locations, blocking all the attacks as if perfectly calculated.
Irina stood a little further away, sweat trickling down her neck.
Not far off, the burly man from Wanderer’s Home was also locked in combat with an enemy. Their strength was unusually great; as they pushed and shoved, even the trees were nearly toppled.

The blades of light grew sharper, more malicious, and Hugo jumped faster and faster, like an ant on a hot pan. That was until the boy caught a glimpse of a human figure appearing in the distance out of the corner of his eye. The moment he confirmed it was You Lin and Charon, he leaped higher than he had the entire time and ran towards them without hesitation.
Clearly, what reached Charon’s ears was a continuous stream of “save me, save me.”
Hugo made a mistake. He exposed his back to the enemy.
The moment he leaped into the sunlight, a sharp blade of light pressed towards his back. A drop of sweat trickled down Irina’s temple from the intense concentration. She erected a barrier with all her strength, but after hitting the barrier, the light blade unexpectedly transformed into a ball of fire rolling with black smoke, burning and roaring as it shot straight for Hugo’s body.
The boy, caught off guard by the heatwave that felt capable of melting anything, opened his eyes in terror.
He heard a sound like a sharp weapon clashing.
Bang—

No, the watch’s countdown isn’t finished yet… he thought, cautiously opening his eyes and looking at his own body in suspicion. Everything was still intact for now. A pair of well-defined hands were pressing on his shoulders. Looking up, he met a pair of cold, ice-blue eyes.
Charon pushed him into the shade of the trees and gestured for him to turn off the watch.
And You Lin, without a change in expression, had blocked the flame with his dagger. The dagger’s silver-white blade was instantly burned red-hot.
But the power he had borrowed from the symbol of Ares was just what he needed now. Like a spear from mythology, the dagger cut through the flame, reflecting the human’s dark pupils. He let out a soft laugh, the small mole under his eye looking vividly red, a laugh aimed at the old man standing in the sunlight directly opposite him.

“I didn’t expect to run into someone from Eden here. You should take some time to manage your subordinates, seeing as they can’t beat me at all, but they stick to us like leeches, always overestimating themselves and trying to touch my people. Mr. Osborn.”
He had a smile on his face.
But Charon, standing behind him, could feel the human’s sudden gloomy aura and unconcealed killing intent. The blade spun between his fingers. If it were any other time, he might have already rushed forward recklessly and had a fifty percent chance of successfully slitting the other’s throat.
Now he had changed.
Because he wasn’t alone behind him. If he rushed forward to fight the other to the death, he might put his teammates in danger.
At the same time, was a fifty percent chance high enough? It was.
But for a human who had his life dragged back from the brink, it wasn’t enough. Someone wanted him to live well.

Mr. Osborn was a small man. He looked old, but in the infinite world, few were troubled by the aging of their physical bodies. On the contrary, his appearance could sometimes be deceiving, making people think that the current leader of Eden was indeed a kind and amiable old man.
…The irony was, no matter how he managed his image, he couldn’t avoid the regularly scheduled instances.
But he could still use many methods to increase his chances of winning. For example, in the battle just now, he had already displayed two abilities: blades of light and flames. Compared to the strength enhancement You Lin had received, these two heterogeneous powers were clearly stronger, and the boost they gave to their patron was greater.

“Mr. You Lin,” the other party also seemed a bit surprised. Although he had heard that the organization called “Wanderer’s Home” had recently gotten involved with the “Ghost” they had declared dead, seeing it with his own eyes was a completely different experience. He spoke thoughtfully, “Of course, this is just a misunderstanding. I have no intention of making an enemy of you and your people here.”
Anyone could tell that was a complete lie.
But in an instance where everything was not yet clear, both sides holding back seemed to be the best choice.

“However, I didn’t expect that you would really choose a path so similar to the one you took back then,” Mr. Osborn said.
“Eden hasn’t changed much either,” the human’s eyes curved again. “I have a question. Who gave you their card? And were they ‘willing’?”

The old man seemed to have heard something amusing. “Cards cannot be transferred.”
You Lin nodded in understanding. “So it’s inherited after the other person dies.”

“To think that after so many years, you’re still so idealistic.” He shook his head, as if looking at a stubborn child. “Forget it. You know I didn’t get too involved in what happened back then. It was mainly Jiang Wenbin and that good friend of yours who were plotting. Now he’s dead too. Actually, I think we did go too far back then. We shouldn’t have pushed you to this point—”
The human’s fingertips, through his gloves, pressed into his own palm, as if to pierce the glove and scrape a bloody scab on his palm.
Yes, he did have a wound on his palm. Red-hot metal, and blood, a sizzling, burnt smell.
Until Charon reached out from behind and gently stroked his back.

The people from Eden shouldn’t be here, or rather, it shouldn’t be the leader of Eden. It was an incredible coincidence, the same cycle, so many small worlds. Although he had anticipated other random members entering the instance, an opponent with such a sensitive identity would still cause You Lin’s mental state to become unstable.
The other members of Wanderer’s Home had already stopped fighting with Eden.
They each returned to their own camps, just staring intently into each other’s eyes.

“I can promise that within this instance, I will not let my people attack you proactively again. Of course, outside the instance, you are a great threat to Eden. But this is not a mandatory confrontational instance, and I don’t want someone like you to become my direct enemy.” The old man raised his hand, and the person beside him immediately leaned down to listen to his instructions.
“I believe you have the same idea. If you prepare to go to war with me, it will be very difficult to protect the people behind you.”

“You—” You Lin said in a low voice, the sound as if squeezed from between his teeth. But he quickly raised his eyes, his face exceptionally pale, yet the corners of his lips were still slightly curved. “Fine, deal.”
“A pleasure working with you.”
Mr. Osborn let out a long sigh, clearly not as calm as he appeared.
He had secured his position by preying on the lives of others, so of course he didn’t want to be killed in such a simple instance. In the main world, he had sent wave after wave of people to kill You Lin, but had never shown his face himself, out of a similar fear.
Fortunately, in this instance, he still had ample power, and people to support him.

He turned around. Besides the man beside him, a man and a woman appeared from nowhere and stood protectively behind him. Just then, an arrow shot out from the dense bushes, streaking through the air with a flash of white light, aimed straight for his back. The arrow was extremely sharp, almost piercing his clothes.
Almost—because the moment before it penetrated, the arrow was completely burned away by flames.
It was the light of Apollo and the flames of Hephaestus.
“I’ll let it go this time,” Mr. Osborn said hoarsely. “This won’t happen again.”

Their figures quickly disappeared from sight, clearly having no intention of having any more direct confrontations with Wanderer’s Home and You Lin. The human stood motionless, the dagger as if welded to his palm. Charon could feel the slight trembling in his back, not from collapse, but from anger.
A flame seemed to be ceaselessly beating in the upper left part of his chest.

At the same time, a mass of brown hair descended from the canopy of the trees above. It seemed the hair’s owner had been hiding in the forest all along, waiting for a chance to strike. The bohemian from Wanderer’s Home jumped down, holding a bow and arrow, looking a little remorseful.
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No, not at all,” You Lin finally spoke. “The card you got is Artemis?”
“That’s right, the goddess of the hunt in the forest,” the other nodded, then said resentfully, “I really can’t stand the way he looks. Who does he think forced us to this point? We can’t even go back to our own homes.”

Irina also walked forward.
“I got Athena. I think I’ve become a lot smarter because of it. At least I can figure out how to calculate the trajectories of weapons from different directions at the same time. As for him—”
The big man spoke slowly, “I am Dionysus.”
“That’s right,” Irina said. “We ran into each other after walking for a while. Then Hugo lit the flashbang, and we all headed here together.”

Clearly, the flashbang was a very effective communication tool. But it also exposed their position, attracting the wolves that were trying to devour them. Although the other party realized they were a tough nut to crack and retreated.
“So, Hugo found this place first?”
The brown-eyed boy looked around nervously. “That’s right, I was here from the beginning. It just so happened there was a patch of green shade here. I thought it was pretty suitable for resting, since it’s so hot right now.”

“Hugo must be Hermes, right?” Irina pointed at him. “After all, you’re much faster than before.”
“Uh,” Hugo said, “yes, I think so.”
It wasn’t a very strong protection, but it was a good means of escape. That was also why he became the first target of the other party. Mr. Osborn must have wanted to get Hermes’ protection, so that no matter what other dangers were hidden in this instance, he would have a better chance of getting out in one piece.

“Sorry,” he lowered his eyes dejectedly. “I couldn’t be of much help.”
“It’s fine,” You Lin said. “We don’t know what’s in this instance, so we shouldn’t act rashly. Some of the things that have happened have already gone beyond our previous plans, so that’s even more true. But for now, the implementation of the plan hasn’t encountered any more obstacles. We must proceed as we discussed.”
He paused. “Eden probably won’t interfere with us for the time being.”

The shadows of the trees rustled overhead. It was now afternoon, the hottest time of the day. The people of Wanderer’s Home temporarily set up camp in the forest. Having just experienced an unexpected battle, people were tired and needed a place to rest.

A stream that had not yet run dry flowed through the camp, providing refreshment for the weary.
Hugo was walking along the stream, a little away from the crowd.
The stream was icy cold. He clenched the watch in his hand, then slowly released it. He turned his head silently. No one had noticed him yet. If he wanted, he had always been good at diminishing his own presence. The boy tugged at the collar of his cartoon-printed T-shirt and straightened his hair. These small actions were meaningless.

He finally pulled the card out of his pocket.
In the stream, he saw himself staring back at himself in frustration.
And that card—the side reflected in the stream was black with a gilded border, while the side facing him was reflected in the boy’s brown pupils. He stared at his own face, took a sharp breath, and then moved his gaze to the card.

It wasn’t him at all.
No matter how he looked at it, it wasn’t the god known for his swift flight.