C34 – The Secret of Dark Beach

“Dong Yao, don’t give him a chance!”

 

Luo Musheng saw the aura of the Zombie Viper’s body start to change, the air around him distorted, and an invisible energy shook the dry corpses all over the ground, causing them to sway back and forth, the wind blowing over the empty heads emitting gusts of mournful howls, as if they were coming to life, wanting to claim their lives from the living.

 

The fifth floor had become a true hellscape.

 

Dong Yao quickly stepped forward and chopped at the neck of Zombie Viper with a sword; however, with a loud bang, the scythe, which had already broken off a stubble, looked like it had been chopped on an incredibly hard, solid iron block and instantly crumbled into countless pieces.

 

His B-class weapon, the double-edged flying scythe, was shattered just like that.

 

“You guys are really too noisy.” The stiff and cold body was covered in scales, and his anger made it almost impossible for him to maintain his human form. Half of his beautiful young face turned into a snake face with protruding fangs, and he finally maximized his abilities.

 

Dong Yao could only feel his body instantly drying up, his nails peeling off, his hair following in pieces, his muscles shriveling to a thin layer, hanging helplessly from his bones. He tried to pull away but only heard a crunching sound as his leg bones were fractured by his own weight.

 

Dong Yao collapsed to the ground, and just from having his back hit, it made him feel like his spine was about to break, and he started coughing uncontrollably.

 

Not only him, but all the humans in the room shriveled up into a twitching mass, and Liu Jingyun was now like an old woman who had lived for three hundred years, already shriveled up to the point of no return, no different from the dry corpses on the ground.

 

She couldn’t even move, afraid that if she moved even once, her weak heartbeat would stop.

Her body wasn’t the most terrible thing; the most terrible thing was that her mind also aged; she looked around with cloudy eyes, as if she had forgotten what she came here for, and even Zhuo Yu’s appearance had become blurred in her mind.

 

She was starting to have severe dementia.

 

“Yah, fun fun fun, know where all my collection on this fifth floor came from?” The zombie viper spread his wings and grinned as he sat down on the throne formed by countless dry arms pushing up, as if he were the uncrowned king of the Mount Ming Pagoda.

 

“Humans are really fragile creatures. Their cells constantly divide and regenerate, but eventually lose their vitality, and their heartbeat has a lifetime limit. As long as you tamper with your genes, or…”

 

Zombie Viper’s eyes were blo-od red, and he smiled wistfully, “Or break the gene chain; it’s also a very good way to die; you guys guess who put all the radium beads on the first layer.”

 

As soon as his words fell, Old Qin screamed out in pain.

 

He was most deeply affected by the radiation on the ground floor, and under the accelerated aging of the zombie viper, his body finally couldn’t suppress the aftermath of the radiation, and there was no way for his cells to regenerate.

 

Old Qin’s skin began to fall off in pieces, just like those Yearlings revealing slippery muscles and subcutaneous tissues, oozing out tissue fluids, wetting the dried corpse on the ground, his body already resembling a bloo-dy man.

 

Not to mention his hair and appearance; even his entire face looked like it had been splashed with a layer of strong acid, melting into a twisted image; his clothes had been soaked through with a pink liquid mix of bloo-d and tissue fluid, sticking dead to the surface of his na-ked body. The pain made him desperately want to die.

 

“Let me die, let me die!!!” Old Qin couldn’t take the torture and slammed his head towards the stone brick wall; however, Zombie Viper wouldn’t let him die so easily.

 

Zombie Viper stepped forward, spread his wings, and flew near him, and with a single flick of his tail, he cut open Old Qin’s entire chest while he resumed his original body and giggled his way into this body.

 

Old Qin’s eyes widened and his hands danced uncontrollably as his tattered body struck a gentleman’s salute before he landed on all fours and walked like a crab to Zhuo Yu.

 

“Dear bride, do you want to attack? If you attack me, your teammates will die too.” Zombie Viper’s snaketail ticked, “See what I’m capable of? I’m the one and only choice for you; it’s too late to turn back.”

 

Long Ran and Zhuo Yu were not all human genes in their bodies and were not affected much by the radiation and aging, but having lost all their teammates, there was already a stalemate at the moment.

 

While Zhuo Yu was trying to say something, Long Ran spoke.

 

“I’ve indulged you for too long, so you can’t recognize your position anymore?” Long Ran’s vertical pupils were full of killing intent as if he were staring at his prey: “I’m the incarnation that resides at the top; you’ll always be inferior to me. What qualifications do you have to extend an invitation to my mate? You’re challenging me.”

 

Zombie Viper’s face changed; this guy wouldn’t want to…

 

“And I accept your challenge.”

 

The corners of Long Ran’s mouth suddenly split open; countless sharp and long fangs were born, and with the deformation of his bones, he no longer looked human.

 

A strange-looking monster that was comparable to a nightmare appeared in front of Zhuo Yu’s eyes.

 

This was a creature shaped like a dragon; it had a unicorn horn on its forehead, its body was covered with pitch-black scales, and there were more than four dragon claws under its serpentine body. It was like a centipede, with sturdy and powerful claws on its entire abdomen, arranged in rows and tightly packed, and if the centipede only made people tingle, the more lethal boa could directly frighten people into fainting.

 

The hundreds of dragon claws weren’t even more terrifying; the tail of this strange snake that looked like a dragon but not a dragon had the barb of a scorpion, and right in the middle of its forehead, there was a huge third eye, which was like a huge bloo-d jade, mercilessly gazing at the stiffly frozen Zombie Viper.

It was so big that it stood up almost as high as the ceiling of a dozen meters.

 

Zombie Viper was right; Long Ran had refused to change into this appearance because he was afraid of scaring Zhuo Yu, and Zhuo Yu witnessed all this in front of him, and not only was he not scared by Long Ran’s appearance that he called hunting, but he found him somewhat oddly beautiful.

Long Ran was like a truly ancient extraterrestrial life, guarding the seabed with a terrifying body for tens of thousands of years; flipping his hands created clouds; and covering his hands made rain; creating civilization was a thought.

 

The false beauty of the stiff snake was too fragile, even more ridiculous than the illusion of the dream Viper.

 

“Do you really want to go against me? Obviously, you hate bonding fates the most!” Zombie Viper’s voice finally took on a tremble as he felt the suppression from his blo-odline.

 

Long Ran had already heard this sentence from so many people that his ears were getting calloused.

 

It was because he hadn’t met Zhuo Yu that he resisted his fate.

 

After meeting Zhuo Yu, he knew what fate was.

 

The huge “Long Ran” moved; the strange snake knew that his teammate was hopeless and didn’t mind sending him on his way; he waved his tail; the sharp barbs instantly pierced through Old Qin’s body, forcing out the feathered snake that looked extremely small in comparison.

 

[Actor Qin Haoming, dead. Died as an NPC.]

 

Countless dragon claws approached towards the feathered serpent in unison; even if he was as fast as he was, he couldn’t escape from this overwhelming attack, and as soon as he did, he was captured in the hands of Long Ran.

“Let go of me, you ugly bastard!”

The feather snake frantically bit up Long Ran’s claw, but the snake scales were hard, and the feather snake broke several of its own teeth.

 

Long Ran slowly tightened his claws, feeling the sensation of life gradually being rubbed and crushed in his hands.

 

Zombie Viper cried out in pain, his proud look completely shattered. Compared to the absolute strength of his ability, no matter how horrible, there was no way to cause damage to Long Ran; this was why Long Ran was able to ki-ll Old Fourth so easily in the first place.

“Still fighting? Still robbing?”

 

The ancient snake didn’t need to open his mouth; the giant eye conveyed all emotions for him.

 

“Bah! I’m not afraid of you, you ugly thing with only brute strength!” Zombie Viper used his tail to whip his opponent, but unfortunately the force was weak.

 

Long Ran sneered, then tightened his grip.

 

“Don’t ki-ll him!”

 

Surprisingly, the one who stopped Long Ran was Zhuo Yu.

 

Zhuo Yu wasn’t idle during the fight between the two; now he was the only one who could take the time to look for the passageway to the top floor. After he unfolded his dragon wings, he probed the entire fifth floor; surprisingly, it was tightly sealed; even the heat sensation couldn’t see any clues any more; there was only a story on the mural.

 

Symbolizing decline and aging, the fifth level depicted in detail how the civilization of Ming Kingdom was heading towards death.

 

Because they were used by the Bride, the people of Ming Kingdom killed their own god, leading to the outbreak of Yao Disease, and the Bride deceived them for a hundred years, leading to the fact that they had already lost the best time for research and could only put all their hopes on this Mount Ming Pagoda.

 

Zhuo Yu could tell that this mural was also built by people, and by the fifth floor, the accuracy wasn’t as good as it used to be, probably because the people were really almost dead.

 

They got a promise from the bride that they would have a chance to awaken their god every five hundred years, but while the bride’s side was resolved, the groom made a mess, and Zombie Viper was so haunted by the bride’s betrayal, and he didn’t consider the bride’s descendants to be the equivalent of the person himself, that he ki-lled the bride again and again.

 

This may be another one of his games, and he may have just wanted to see the hated civilization of Ming Kingdom go extinct.

 

He didn’t leave the bride a single chance.

 

Five hundred, one thousand, five thousand years passed.

 

The Yao Disease had exploded to the point where the civilization of Ming Kingdom was unable to withstand it, and because of the depopulation, they were gradually being eaten up by the nearby countries and tribes, and because the country’s cities had been broken up and intermarried with the other tribes, so it had caused the Yao Disease to spread to the other far-flung tribes as well.

 

The tribal myths that Zhuo Yu had once heard here, which also contained the Yao Disease, came from this.

 

But the heavens had no boundaries, and another picture was actually depicted here. Whether it was said that the people of Ming Kingdom were self-hypnotized or that they all went mad, at a later stage, the people of Ming Kingdom actually took the initiative to seek death, as this would allow them to enter the same spiritual world as the dead god.

 

They possessed the genes of their god, after all.

 

There was a dark beach there, the underworld of the gods, and after He died and was destroyed, his spirit lived on.

 

“Underworld Beach…”

Zhuo Yu fiercely recalled the shoal they had seen halfway up the mountain when they were washed into Mount Ming Pagoda by the current.

 

Using the water as a mirror, the lower half of the inverted pyramid that had never been visited before, the Dark Beach…

 

Zhuo Yu’s eyes widened; he knew!

 

He quickly walked towards Liu Jingyun, picked up the straight knife on the ground, and without blinking, he sharply wiped his neck.

 

Before dying, he only heard the mournful wail of Long Ran.

Sorry, Zhuo Yu thought to himself; it’s because I didn’t want to involve you.

 

Zhuo Yu rose from a wet and cool spot that was dimly lit before his eyes, but he had never felt more relaxed in his body.

 

“Ah, this is embarrassing.”

 

He was blown away by the cool breeze and realized that he was nude, as if he were a newborn. He didn’t have the quirk of dangling in front of the camera with a mosaic on top; as it happened, there were quite a few corpses piled up at the mouth of this cave; all of them were people who were drowned in the first place and didn’t survive, and he even saw Xiao Mei, one of his students in this copy.

 

 

“Poor child.”

 

Zhuo Yu patted Xiao Mei’s cold cheek, then he moved her out of the way, revealing the corpses below.

 

The body shape was about the same?

 

After Zhuo Yu made a visual inspection, he peeled off the archaeological suit from the corpse and put it on himself, and he finally felt much more comfortable.

 

Wait, this scene looked familiar.

 

Zhuo Yu recalled, Wasn’t this the scene of the dream he had? This cave was exactly like the one in his dream.

 

He felt a few moments of interest, so he followed the front all the way.

 

Many of the viewers who cut the main screen to Zhuo Yu also saw what he did.

 

[So scary, I’m not saying Old Qin’s death is scary; I think Zhuo Yu is too scary.]

 

[To commit su-icide just by saying so; it’s not something an ordinary person can do; isn’t he afraid that he’ll make a mistake in his estimation and really die on the film set?]

 

[If he dies on set, he’ll be sent to the Allspark. He’s ignorant, right?]

 

[No, he’s a wise old man].

 

[I also think he’s a bit scary, sisters. It seems that I chose a fake CP. He ki-lled himself in front of Long Ran. Will Long Ran go crazy? Is he really not afraid of Long Ran’s sadness?]

 

 

[It’s not a matter of sadness anymore, right?]

 

[Speaking of which, Zhuo Yu still had genuine feelings for Asha, but for Long Ran, it seems that it’s at most a case of love for his build].

[Why? Isn’t Long Ran good enough for him?]

 

[Maybe Zhuo Yu doesn’t like this type.]

 

[Forget about the CP’s; Zhuo Yu has been using everyone around him; he seems to have a goal in mind; he’s not been right since he entered the film set.]

 

[Zhuo Yu fan +1, I always feel that this time he has a kind of light feeling. It is really hard for me to describe, as if there is a lack of something that can tie him down.]

 

[It’s hard to describe, but I feel that way too. Zhuo Yu is quite a per-vert, but he didn’t do anything out of the ordinary in this film; instead, he made me uncomfortable; I always feel as if he has some kind of backdoor plan to dazzle me.]

 

[Stop talking and watch; the film is about to end.]

 

“Is this the sixth floor?” Zhuo Yu used his winged claws to move forward; this place was so ancient that you couldn’t even see the stone brick walls; it was the most humble layer; it was because the people of the Ming Kingdom died out.

There was a poof, then a familiar touch.

 

A snake moult.

 

Exactly the same as in the dream.

 

Zhuo Yu accelerated his speed towards the bright light of the passage, and at the end, he heard the unheard voice of a man.

 

“You’re finally here.”

 

In the large space, everything was silver, except for what looked like an altar in the middle, and on top of that altar was a huge coffin.

 

Zhuo Yu adjusted to the harsh light before he could see the man’s figure. The man with long silver hair had a snake’s tail on the lower half of his body and a white cloth on his face, covering his eyes and making him look like he was blind.

 

The man twisted his snaketail, and when he saw that Zhuo Yu had reached the top, he lifted the ancient coffin, and what was inside surprised Zhuo Yu.

 

It wasn’t any corpse; what was placed in the coffin was a delicately structured diamond-shaped crystal; it echoed the starry sky as if reflecting the starry sea, emitting a fascinating color and light. Zhuo Yu saw that it reflected the Serpentine constellation once again.

 

This was the energy source of the Mount Ming Pagoda and the core of the slaying of the Snake god.

“You know my name.” The Past Life Viper sighed, “I have guarded the core for Long Ran for so long, and he has finally returned and brought you with him.”

 

As the guardian of the first layer of the Mount Ming Tower, he really waited until he had almost forgotten even his own existence; the incarnations of the other layers still had a chance to see the Bride, but in the hands of the Zombie Viper of the fifth layer, none of them had ever survived there, and the Past Life Viper had even the slightest thought of him wiped away over the course of 130,000 years.

 

“You look as if you have no will to engage in a fight.” Zhuo Yu spoke in the affirmative.

 

“If you were the one who waited for so long, even the strongest of wishes would have been worn down; all I want now is to die.” The expressionless face of the Past Life Viper didn’t even show a trace of emotion; he knew that he should be happy that Zhuo Yu had come, but…

 

He had forgotten how to express emotions.

 

“Dying can be such a happy thing, can’t it? All the world’s miseries will dissipate, and I can end my boring life in eternal peace.”

 

Zhuo Yu looked at this blind beauty who had no will to live and felt that the other party really wasn’t pretending; the Past Life Viper had already lost the desire to live.

 

Watching over the crystal core for 130,000 years resulted in blindness, and being unchanged for such a long life, time seemed to have turned into a form of torture.

 

But if that was the case, why was the Past Life Viper added to the groom’s list?

Zhuo Yu understood that according to the normal process of the film, without his actions, Long Ran would probably not have remembered his past memories, let alone turned into a giant snake. Ordinary people who came to this tower either died early, couldn’t resist combining with Long Ran, or were taken away by Dream Viper, or were ki-lled by the Zombie Viper. There was no chance of meeting him.

 

If the operation had been better, Long Ran, who couldn’t recall his memories, could only die with Zombie Viper.

 

The only option left at that point would the Past Life Viper.

 

The bride could only be combined with him.

 

It was assumed that the Past Life Viper would agree, because all he wanted was death, and a newborn Snake god would be able to let him die.

 

“Although I don’t want to fight, now that you’re the only one who can come to the sixth floor, do you want to consider bonding with me?”

 

The blind, long-haired beauty extended his hand, “I’m the one who waited for you the longest; you should choose me.”

 

Zhuo Yu didn’t reply; he called out the system and checked the progress of the mainline quest.

 

[Main quest: Bride of the Snake god, please choose your mate and head to the topmost floor together.]

 

[Tip: You can change your choice at any time. The current groom is “Long Ran.” Do you want to change?]

 

[Side quest: Location unlocking progress 90%]

 

Zhuo Yu sighed softly.

Although Long Ran wasn’t bad, he was more interested in clearing the main thread so that he could reach his goal in this film.

 

— “Number One.”.

 

Zhuo Yu knew that the dream he had was a hint left to him by Number One, and he also knew that Long Ran’s scales were the same as Number One’s in the Mount Ming Pagoda, but only he had inherited the appearance of the Snake god.

 

Then the greatest possibility had appeared.

 

The snake god that only existed in the story was “Number One.”.

 

And Long Ran was just another Asha.

What Zhuo Yu was really interested in was the man inside the case, not the blindfold he used to cover himself; even if these NPCs were made exquisitely, they were just fabricated by that man.

 

“Your request, I…”

 

Without waiting for Zhuo Yu to finish, a teenager’s angry roar came from the entrance.

 

“I won’t allow it! You’re mine!”

 

“Zombie Viper?” Zhuo Yu was a bit surprised. Did Long Ran lose his mind and really ki-ll him?

 

The white-haired boy held his legs and panted with a hoarse laugh, “What are you thinking? Those who are ki-lled by others will not enter the sixth floor; the only way to leave my realm is to end your life with the thought of wanting to come here.”

 

Zombie Viper pointed to his heart, “It was really painful to ki-ll myself by hitting the barbs of Long Ran’s tail; how are you going to compensate me?”

 

The Past Life Viper took a few steps back, “The result will be the same for whoever comes to bond; we’ll all be dead when the god comes back to life.”

 

Why are you so unambitious?

 

Zhuo Yu glanced at the Past Life Viper; forget it, he was right; it was the same for whoever came; he just wanted to meet the Snake god and properly catch number one to ask for clarification.

 

But ……

 

Long Ran’s face flashed through his mind.

 

“I told you, your final choice will definitely be me.” The white-haired boy covered his heart. “This poison of his, it’s really too painful; I can still feel it even after I die; I’m afraid I’ll still die even after a while; I don’t have much time left.”

 

Zombie Viper walked step by step to Zhuo Yu’s side. “Come on, walk into the future with me.”

 

The Past Life Viper finally waited for this day; his index finger trembled slightly, pointing to the crystal core. “Together, you can break it, and you will be able to reverse life and death, and head to the bottom of the Mount Ming Pagoda, where the Undertowers are waiting for you.”

 

Zombie Viper was shocked by the radiant and fascinating core, and he admired the weapon that had ki-lled his former self for a moment in silence. Then,  without a second thought, he tugged on Zhuo Yu’s hand and led him into the coffin with him, pressing and shattering the core.

 

Instantly, the storm erupted from the core, and everyone heard the familiar rumble of the outer layers of the pyramid.

 

When they camped at the foot of the mountain, Zhuo Yu had heard such a thunder-like rumble.

 

The water rubbing over the walls and the thud of impact also sounded again, and the Past Life Viper said excitedly, “It’s here; the chance to turn the world of life and death upside down has finally come!”

 

That core suddenly explored, like the universe had coalesced into a singularity, and then a white hole appeared at the altar, and the bloo-dlines of the two gods’ descendants had successfully inspired the Gate of Two Worlds.

“Let’s go!”

 

Just as Zombie Viper tugged Zhuo Yu to fall towards the cave entrance, another voice rang out.

 

“Do you want to take a good look at who exactly it is you’re taking away?”

 

Zhuo Yu’s voice was cold to the bone, causing Zombie Viper to instantly look at the owner of his hand.

 

Pale, grotesque, and not at all the same person despite looking the same as Zhuo Yu.

 

“Replicant ……”

 

Zombie Viper’s eyes widened in disbelief. “Impossible; he didn’t appear just now, and the Sacred Tree is on the fourth floor!”

 

Zhuo Yu naturally wouldn’t be kind enough to give him an explanation.

 

 

After he solved the Replicant Crisis’s, he always felt that it was very useful and could definitely come in handy, so he tried to put the Sea god Tree into the lattice space, but the Sea god Tree was a living organism and couldn’t be taken away.

 

Zhuo Yu then secretly dripped his own bloo-d onto the tray, and the moment that piece of flesh was born, it was just a piece of matter; it didn’t yet have a soul.

 

Zhuo Yu took away a piece of flesh just to wait for the time to bond.

Zombie Viper wanted to say something else, but all he could do was fall into that white light, dropping below along with the false replica. Violent white light erupted, and on this journey to the Dark Beach, Zombie Viper’s body gradually disintegrated, entangled with the replica in one place.

 

“Don’t-don’t!!!”

 

Zombie Viper crumbled and tried to push the replica away, but the bonding had already begun and the process was irreversible.

 

[Main Quest: Bride of the Snake god, choose your mate and travel to the very top together.] Achieved.]

 

The system’s voice suddenly sounded, and Zhuo Yu looked at the entrance of the cave from which he had come and spotted a blurry figure.

 

That figure, against the backlight, finally stepped into the realm of the top floor.

Long Ran had come.

 

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