Infernal Artist

dark.

Darkness fills every place, like a boundless sea or an endless void.

Only a faint cold glow flickered and floated in the darkness.

——It was a man holding a black umbrella.

His upper body was bare, showing the black runes all over his body, and the black umbrella in his hand danced with the wind, carrying him slowly towards an unknown place.

at some point.

The umbrella holder stopped slightly and looked back at the way he came.

"ha--"

"Hahahahahaha!"

He suddenly laughed wildly and said in an ecstatic tone: "I'm finally free! That manor - no matter who its owner is, finally nothing can imprison my soul anymore."

The umbrella holder laughed for a while, then suddenly stopped, and the joy in his expression disappeared.

"Damn... It was obviously a perfect escape, but in the end I encountered that thing. I just hope it was deceived by my fake death technique."

The umbrella holder calmed down, made a seal with one hand, and shouted: "Look!"

One after another, black runes emanated from his body and disappeared into the dark void around him.

About ten breaths passed.

All the black runes flew back and submerged into his body again.

The corners of the umbrella holder's mouth curled up slightly.

No tracking, no surveillance, no tailgating.

It seemed that he had successfully escaped from that situation.

"Phew - it's a pity for my body and strength, but in this life, how can you get what you want without paying a price?"

The umbrella holder said something to comfort himself.

At this time, bursts of mist appeared in front of them, drifting in the wind and filling the air.

The umbrella holder took out a card and looked at it.

"Yes, this is it."

He flew into the fog, accelerating in one direction.

finally.

He arrived at that place.

——It was an extremely majestic giant pillar. It looked like it had been completely damaged, and the broken parts were soaked in black blood.

This black blood has been flowing downwards along the giant pillar, submerging into the depths of the mist.

I don’t know what happened here.

The man holding the umbrella flew over and landed on the broken surface of the giant pillar. He squatted down and touched the black blood stains on the ground.

"A completely destroyed divine pillar has no value, and no existence will be interested in it."

The umbrella holder sat happily on the ground and said with a grin: "Very good, this will be my new place to stay."

He hummed softly, unloaded various supplies from the void and placed them on the ground.

suddenly.

He seemed to hear something.

"who!"

He shouted, flew up from the giant pillar, and looked around.

In the void, mist filled the air quietly.

There was no movement.

The umbrella holder frowned and said, "Which weirdo is staying here? Why don't we come out and meet him."

Dead silence.

The umbrella holder waited for a few more breaths before slowly falling down.

"Strange... Could it be that there are still sporadic power fluctuations from the original destruction here?"

He shook his head and was about to continue unloading supplies when he suddenly stiffened.

All the supplies that had just been unloaded on the ground were gone.

"Damn! Who is it!"

The umbrella holder roared angrily and raised the black umbrella in his hand high.

The black umbrella suddenly emits a ray of light that reaches the sky, dispersing all the surrounding fog and illuminating the boundless darkness.

The being hidden behind the mist finally appeared.

Compared with the broken giant pillar, its figure is even larger——

The light emitted by the umbrella holder on the giant pillar made the entire pillar look like a thin match, and the being was a human holding the match and observing carefully.

It is like a human being, but there are no facial features on the head, only a deep hole emitting discrete light waves.

On its body surface, densely packed flesh buds emerged and stood up high, with eyes open at the top.

In the boundless darkness, it looked so huge, strange, and terrifying.

The umbrella holder froze in place, and his whole body began to tremble.

"Nightmare..."

he said in a husky voice.

All the eyes on that being's body stared at him, all showing amusement.

"I said, sentient beings are not delicious."

It made a rumbling sound that spread far into the darkness in all directions.

Dead silence enveloped the void.

The umbrella holder wiped the cold sweat on his face, squeezed out a smile and said:

"I'm sorry - I made a mistake. I shouldn't have taken any chances and wanted to use you to confuse my enemies."

Behind him, the broken giant pillar was suddenly covered with flesh sprouts.

These sprouts kept squirming and spread quickly. Soon they occupied a large area and began to spread towards the umbrella holder.

The umbrella holder was unaware of anything.

His body was shaking constantly, as if he had used all his strength to hold the black umbrella in his hand.

"Let me go, please! I can do a lot for you. I can take you to that prosperous divine pillar with countless sentient beings on it."

The umbrella holder said quickly.

The huge terrifying existence lowered its head and looked down at the giant pillar and the little man on the giant pillar——

It's like a person holding a match in his hand and looking at a speck of dust on the match.

The umbrella holder hurriedly knelt on the ground and said loudly:

"I know many weird secrets, and I also know the distribution of many worlds on that complete divine pillar. As long as you let me go!"

Those wriggling flesh sprouts swept over, covering every part of the broken pillar, and began to crawl towards his body.

He seemed unaware, just staring longingly at the huge existence in the void.

"Although I have lost a lot of my strange power, I still have the ability to keep things under control. You will definitely be able to use me."

He was talking nonchalantly, unaware that the wriggling flesh sprouts were gradually covering his whole body, and then getting into his mouth, nostrils, ears, and eyes.

He transformed into a humanoid monster.

The next moment.

All the granules disappeared, as if they had never appeared.

The umbrella holder returned to normal.

He put down the black umbrella, raised his hands and shook them, but accidentally used too much force, so that his hands completely fell into countless fleshy buds.

"I...time...adapt...needs."

He looked down at his hands and said in a jerky tone.

The huge existence floating in the void slowly retreated.

The fog is rising.

It disappeared into the endless mist.

Looking from the broken giant pillar, one can only vaguely see its incomparable silhouette slowly sinking towards the bottom of the giant pillar.

In the darkness, its rumble sounded again:

"I'm about to wake up from my dream and need energy."

The umbrella holder standing on the short pillar said: "Don't worry, I'll go right now -"

He showed a look of reminiscence, thought for a few breaths, and spoke again:

"Go to the complete divine pillar."

The words fell.

He jumped lightly and jumped into the void again, drifting towards the way he came.

…

the other side.

Liu Ping sat on the bar counter of the bar and clinked glasses with the man and woman next to him.

The surroundings were noisy and lively.

But no one ever looked at them, and no one came to disturb them.

"I haven't asked you your surnames yet."

Liu Ping smiled.

"You can't say your real name. If you say it, it will affect everything. You can call me Time." The man said.

"Just call me Mysterious." The woman raised her glass gracefully.

"Stay and help me - we have fought side by side so many times, why not keep doing this?" Liu Ping said.

The man drank the wine in the glass and sighed: "Do you remember what I told you? The only chance of survival is that we win both battles. You are responsible for this side, and we are responsible for the other. Side."

He raised his hand and showed it in front of Liu Ping.

His hands became illusory and transparent, and then his whole person became illusory and transparent, as if he was not a real person, but just a phantom.

Liu Ping looked towards the woman.

I saw that the woman named "Mystery" also became illusory.

The woman said: "We are just two phantoms, so our strength is limited. We can only appear at certain key points in time. We must lie dormant at other times."

"Where is your body?" Liu Ping asked.

"We are fighting in another place. When the time comes, you will know everything, but you can't say it now." The man said.

"Next, you will face a very complicated situation. It is probably that the creatures in countless worlds on the sacred pillar have begun to sense the departure of Nian Gui. They will come to check the situation and evaluate whether to conquer this place or make an alliance with it." The woman said .

"And soon—"

"That era is about to begin."

"What era?" Liu Ping asked.

"It belongs to the era of nightmares." The man thought of something and shook his shoulders uncomfortably.

The woman stretched out her hand, and a card flew out from Liu Ping's body and landed in her hand.

It is the "Void Becomes a Boundary Arena".

"It will be too risky to use this card in the next battle, so I will send it back to my main body." The woman said.

"But you can keep the 'Day and Night Parade', it will help you at certain critical moments." The man said.

Liu Ping nodded.

If they wanted to harm themselves, they would have done it long ago.

The decision they make now must be beneficial to them.

The two of them put down their wine glasses and stood up.

Liu Ping also stood up quickly.

"Leaving now?" he asked.

The woman said: "We must rush to our own bodies and tell them what happened here."

The man glanced at the clock on the wall and said, "A quarter of an hour ago, messengers from other worlds came here to see you. You have to be prepared."

Liu Ping said: "Then take care of yourself."

The two smiled at him, nodded, and walked out of the bar together.

The bar door closes.

In an instant, everything in the bar came to a standstill.

Liu Ping looked at the clock on the wall.

I saw the clock starting to go backwards rapidly, back to a quarter of an hour ago——

Tick ​​tock, tick tock,

The second hand starts moving again.

The bar was once again noisy and lively.

Liu Ping poured himself a glass of wine and sighed: "A messenger from another world... I don't know what kind of world it is."

The words fell.

The bar door was pushed open again.