Meteor Fall Master in the 'Starry Abyss'
Chapter 302 - 117. White Knight Legend

Chapter 302: 117. White Knight Legend

"...Yes, it has been a long time since I have recalled this emotion."

"The universe."

Du Zexin’s tone was somewhat excited,

"Such things truly exist, they sound beautiful."

"They are not all beautiful—there are many strange species in the universe, most of whom are willing to communicate, but there are also some who are very conservative. In fact, individual strength does not mean much in the universe. Because there is a very evil monster in the universe called ’society’."

"Society?"

Du Zexin asked curiously,

"What kind of society? Patriarchal or matriarchal?"

"Long ago, games turned into jobs about fighting and making money, and I have forgotten the initial satisfaction of playing games joyfully and enjoying the plot and setting."

"Society is evil; it feeds on civilizations. It’s a group, such as ’Long Fang Society—Garyil.’ Long Fang is its honorific title, Society is its species, and Garyil is its name. The existence of society turns those who fought to death to ascend to powerful individuals, who thought they were invincible in the world, into ludicrous outsiders—except for narrative-level civilizations, individuals cannot fight against such a disaster as society."

"It’s strange, proud individual warriors apparently have no status in the universe. Why do they still seek to ascend themselves?" Du Zexin did not understand, "If an individual is very strong, then it should be easy for the universe to see groups form around such an individual, everyone wholeheartedly serving the strong, protected by these mighty individuals..."

"The universe is too large, apart from narrative-level civilizations, no one can guarantee that their power can last forever."

"Then why do they still want to become stronger? They should just orbit around narrative-level civilizations."

Li Aozi explained,

"Fear of death, and fear of being assimilated by society."

"Assimilation?"

Li Aozi turned his head, looking forward, and suddenly the traffic ahead became very congested.

"I don’t know if it’s an illusion, but society especially likes two types of people. One is the highly intelligent, the higher the intelligence, the more likely they are to acknowledge the existence of society. They believe that such a ’living civilization’ is the true path of civilization, hence the more intelligent a person, the more likely they are to be assimilated into citizenship by society."

"Mechanics, biochemists, magicians, architects, and some researchers who delve too deep, you have to understand something—intelligence is an attribute of ability that arises from education. Acknowledging education means you have accepted the transformation by civilization; the more intelligent the person, the more his wisdom surpasses the age, the more he will acknowledge the existence of society, becoming extremely radical."

Du Zexin slowly decelerated, maneuvering around the cars on the highway, stepping toward the front.

"And the other type?"

Du Zexin asked, his expression peculiarly sweeping over the surrounding vehicles.

’Why are all the people in these cars slumped over? Has a checkpoint up ahead broken down?’

"The other type is what I mentioned as the outsiders. They are not very welcomed by mainstream society, most are mentally and physically unhealthy, with very weak psychological defenses, easy to break through—those self-assumed individual strong warriors eventually all become society’s senators and speakers, losing their self-identity."

Li Aozi also noticed something was amiss, he stood up, an "Eye of Truth" sweeping across the front.

In a gray-black world, he saw a distinctly different color.

A man was standing before the checkpoint, and all the cars had stopped in front of him, one after another, resulting in a severe chain-reaction crash.

The man, cloaked in a cape, was hunched over as if he had no spine.

He just stood here, his fingertips split open, dripping silver-white blood onto the ground, as if he had been waiting specifically for them.

Li Aozi furrowed his brows.

The [Eye of Truth]focused on this guy, revealing only one line of text:

[Target is secret, unseeable]

"Secret?"

Li Aozi felt a dread he couldn’t explain; the moment he heard the word, a nameless anger flared within him, and he instantly drew his weapon from his waist and slashed a radiant strike at the opponent.

Without a second thought, Du Zexin, seeing Li Aozi’s attack, also raised his Magnum beam rifle and aimed it at the mysterious man on the ground, pulling the trigger.

However, the next moment, Li Aozi heard a sound that was extremely unsettling, thrilling, and terrifying, like countless blade tips colliding and metal ripping apart, unconsciously reminding him of a creature—a great white shark.

"[Shark Hunting Submersion]."

The man’s voice was heart-wrenchingly painful.

Bang bang—

The ground suddenly split apart along the back of a blade, and a shark that was submerging underground leapt out of the ground, nimbly blocking Li Aozi’s radiant slash, its body looking like overlapping blades glistening coldly under the artificial sun.

The blade shark swung its tail, immediately deflecting the beam of the Magnum, slicing off a nearby hill in an instant.

After doing all this, the blade shark immediately circled around the man, nearing the city gate checkpoint as the Outer World winds swept through his cloak, lifting his hood to reveal an overly youthful face.

Golden hair, golden eyes, with pupils showing cross-shaped cracks, otherwise, a normal-looking boy.

...No.

Li Aozi’s gaze moved downward—the man’s left hand held a strange spine cane, wrapped in human skin and a girl’s head.

Only, the appearance of that head, Li Aozi didn’t know where he had seen it before, but it looked eerily familiar.

"Who are you!"

With a low voice, Du Zexin said:

"Did you kill all the civilians in these cars? Who in the world are you?"

The boy with the cross-shaped pupils didn’t acknowledge him, instead, he looked at Li Aozi:

"Long time no see, do you remember me?"

Li Aozi didn’t answer, his gaze cold, pupils dilated, his complexion turning pale momentarily before returning to normal.

He had just taken a breath when the system alerted him that he had inhaled ’Ether Blood’, causing his health points to instantly drop to zero.

If it weren’t for Nomi’s [Blood of Eternity], he would have died on the spot from that ’Ether Blood’.

"Du Zexin, something is off with this guy."

"Look who’s talking," the boy chuckled, his cross-shaped pupils fixating on Li Aozi, a mischievous smile appearing on his handsome, cute face: "You are my great benefactor after all—Mr. Li Aozi."

"Benefactor?"

"Look at this, do you remember it?"

The youth raised the walking stick in his hand.

The next moment, a shadow burst out instantly, knocking Li Aozi to the ground, the fierce shadow growled angrily at Li Aozi, the roar mixed with indescribable sadness.

"Shadow Assault!" Li Aozi struggled to break free, slashing the shadow down to the ground, his pupils then contracted sharply.

He thought of something and looked toward the other:

"Hey, you are—"

"In the past, I was called Zhu Baiya, a leader of a bandit gang in the Outer World that served the Infant Eater."

The youth planted the walking stick on the ground, his gaze smiling:

"Before I died, I heard you say, ’Next time, better summon more troops. There were too few, not even enough for my promotion.’

"You killed me, but you probably didn’t know, that night, the thing the Infant Eater sent, the Ersha Armament, what effect it has— the third generation Ersha Armament, which lets the user replace their body directly! Surprised? Never seen it before, huh? Unfortunately, it was only usable once, and I took advantage of its ability to switch from my dead body to this perfect, qualified one."

The wind dispersed the hair on the skull atop the walking stick, revealing the blissful face of a young girl.

"...Zonia."

Li Aozi recalled the name of that scar-covered Ersha Armament girl, and he said in a deep voice.

"You saved everyone, truly remarkable, Li Aozi—but why didn’t you save her?"

The youth reached out and pinched Zonia’s face, the girl made into a weapon, and who seemed still to have consciousness, grinned happily as if lost in a dream.

"Zonia, my dear sister." The youth murmured, laughing weirdly, "Do you know how touching and adorable it was when I switched into the body of your brother Youhe Lai, and how he sacrificed himself to save me?"

"You beast." Du Zexin said disgustedly, "You actually didn’t spare a child, and even used her love for her brother... turning her into a tool."

"What’s wrong with that?" The youth shrugged.

"Doing such things, do you still even qualify as human?"

Du Zexin shouted angrily:

"I’m going to kill you! You this beast—"

"Who told you I was human?"

With that, the youth reached out his hand the next moment, slowly grasping toward the spine:

"You should feel lucky, because the one annihilating you is a member of the Jury."

His golden cross pupils instantly turned scarlet, and from the spine at his back, he slowly pulled out a blade dripping with blood.

"Great Mother Gaia, she gave me a new name."

He raised the sword single-handedly, drawing a circle above his head, his veins almost unable to contain the Ether Blood surging within him.

"Now, I am Youhe Lai·Knight—the [White Knight]Youhe Lai!"

With shark-like sharp teeth, Youhe Lai roared out with a hellish bellow:

"Descending Armor!"

The next moment, the massive head of the White Shark turned toward his body, the numerous densely packed scale blades converged into a pale armor, methodically dressing him in his diminutive youthful form.

"I’ll kill you—"

The shark’s fins morphed into blade armaments, and the elongated tail fin split in the middle to form two blade-like skirts, fluttering in the wind, shining with a painfully cold light.

The shark opened its mouth to roar, merging with Youhe Lai’s head, turning into a silver-white knight’s helmet, the back fins making up the blade-stacked mane, flung behind his head, the two cross-shaped visors emanating a dangerous red light.

Click—

The next moment, the youth spread his arms, the visor of the helmet splitting open from the middle to reveal sharp shark teeth, emitting a heart-wrenching roar:

’Howl aaaaaaaahhh!!!’

Faced with this wild roar, Li Aozi’s face drastically changed, his body instantly collapsed to the ground, unable to move.

[What is this... why is this happening, I can’t move, I can’t move at all!]

Li Aozi’s gaze shifted rapidly, his blood felt as though it was being squeezed by mercury, utterly unable to lift his head.

[System... quickly let me see what’s going on?!]

Li Aozi exerted tremendous efforts just to access the system, only to see a cold prompt:

[Ether Erosion ongoing, your Implant Gear has been secreted, Implant Gear physiological functions stopped, countdown: 4:59]

"Secreted?"

That fucking secret again, what exactly is this secret?

If this wasn’t an Implant Gear body, I’d probably be dead by now.

Ether, secret, White Knight.

What exactly is all this?

In the games of my past life, there weren’t any of these!

[White Knight] raised the back of his gauntlet, where there was an obvious honing stone structure, he held up the sword, and smoothly wiped it across the honing stone.

[Sharpen Teeth and Claws]

Sparks flew, and the originally unadorned blade immediately burst forth with fervent heat, the air making immediate contact with the blade’s edge being sliced open, thus continuously causing friction and heating of the air around the blade.

[Explosive Magnum Charge]

Before Du Zexin could pull the trigger, the blade was already there.

Zoom!

Du Zexin’s pupils dilated, and blood seeped into the bottom of his eyes.

The huge white figure slowly split in two, collapsing to the ground.