As Hoffa went up the stairs, he shuttled between the swaying gears and the pervading steam. Beside him was a gray pipe that spewed out smoke from time to time.
The night was in full swing, and his five senses were as sharp as a beast's. The nun's scent was even more obvious. He tiptoed without making a sound.
For some reason, after the female vampire saw the three-ring scar on his chest, she followed him closely. She clung to the ceiling like a big bat, holding onto the grayish-white pipe and crawling to avoid the soldiers who appeared from time to time from the corners, carrying guns and walking in a hurry.
Hoffa could not understand why she followed him, but he did not have the intention to ask. Perhaps the power he obtained from the God of Night made her feel close to him? Perhaps she wanted to find the real culprit behind the destruction of her family. But as long as she did not hinder him, he did not care.
As he rose higher and closer to his final goal, the smoke in the turret became thicker and thicker. On the walls of the grayish-white pipes, there were many scales that were faintly discernible. They were blurry and seemed real at the same time. A strange sound appeared in Huo Fa's ears.
It was the ticking of a clock.
Tick-tock … Tick-tock … Tick-tock … It did not stop.
There was also a strange whisper in it.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven …"
It was as if someone was counting with their fingers beside his ears.
But when he tried to distinguish the sound carefully, he realized that it was just some kind of auditory hallucination. It was like the glass marbles on the roof. They would occasionally appear, but when he listened carefully, they would disappear without a trace.
"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven …"
The sound repeated again and again. Hoffa turned the last corner that was close to Chloe's scent.
He saw a man standing in the thick fog with his back to him. He was very tall, wearing a black suit, and holding a strange big black umbrella. Under the big black umbrella, there was a head of white hair that draped over his shoulders.
Before he could think about why someone would hold an umbrella indoors, Hoffa's heart skipped a beat. Then, his eyes instantly turned blood red.
His former teacher, Grindelwald. He was actually standing in front of her with an umbrella!?
Adrenaline overwhelmed everything in an instant. The three rings on his chest turned bright red, and countless needle-like feathers even emerged from every corner of his body.
"Grindelwald!!"
He roared in his heart and rushed over like a bolt of lightning. His arm turned into a huge katana.
Whoosh.
With a single slash, he pierced right through Grindelwald's body. It felt thin to the touch, no different from cutting through the air.
Dong dong dong …
Grindelwald's heartbeat gradually slowed down. He turned around and took a closer look. Grindelwald's eyes were not on him at all. He was only focused on counting. Moreover, the Grindelwald in front of him was younger than when he had taught him.
All of this was a cloud of fog, some kind of illusion.
The changes in Hoffa's body gradually disappeared. He regained his composure and stood in place to watch.
In this illusion that appeared out of nowhere, Grindelwald held a black umbrella and stood in a completely unknown position. Seven or eight young people were kneeling in front of him. Some of them were wearing sorcerer clothes, while others were wearing Muggle military uniforms. However, from their expressions, they seemed to have suffered unimaginable torture. None of them had blood at the corner of their mouths.
"Nothing is eternal. Everything is the void of the void." Grindelwald said, "In the chaos, faces will eventually turn to bones, sharp blades will rust away, and empires can collapse in an instant. Nothing is eternal."
"Why did you do this?"
One of the men on the ground asked. He raised his head.
It was Manse Muller. He was wearing a low-level soldier's uniform and looked much younger than he was now. However, his youthful face was filled with despair. "What good does it do for you to let us know that this world is meaningless?"
"Knowing that it is meaningless, or succumbing to it, or struggling to find a meaning that belongs to me. I don't want to succumb yet."
He pulled out his wand from his pocket. The black Elder's Wand spewed out a bright green light. The light split into seven transparent arms in the air. Each arm pressed down on one of the men's heads. Transparent light spots flowed out of their orifices and flew into the Elder's Wand. "From now on, no one can kill you. Go, find the only thing that is eternal, and let me see your final answer."
The smoke disappeared. Hoffa could not help but clench his fists. If he was not mistaken, this should be Manse's memory. In that case, this Muggle's experience was somewhat similar to his. They had both experienced Grindelwald's destruction and torture. They also had their own beliefs, but they believed in different things.
The female vampire who had been following Hoffa also saw the scene in front of her. She jumped down from the grey pipe she had been clinging to and walked to Hoffa's side. "What is this?" she asked curiously.
"Why are you always following me?"
Hoffa asked.
"Are you going to avenge my people? If you're not the murderer, you must know the murderer's identity, right?"
Hoffa shook his head, then slowly nodded. "I do know."
"Then bring me along. I'll go with you," the female vampire said immediately.
Hoffa shook his head and did not answer. He just walked along the pipe. Every time he went up a level, he would see some miscellaneous illusions. These illusions were very strange. Some were Manse's, and some were Chloe's. He even saw the church and the priest from Chloe's nightmare in the Nightmare World. It was as if some strange fusion was happening in this turret.
He became more and more uneasy.
After passing through the last illusion, he came to the top floor of the Charnhorst warship. In the darkness, he finally saw the nun he had not seen for a long time.
This was a place similar to an operating room. There were strange surgical tools hanging around, and she was sitting on an iron chair in the middle of the room. Her feet were shackled, and her arms were spread out in a cross. Her head was lowered. Her arms were connected by many tubes. Blood flowed from her arms into the tubes, and from the tubes, it extended into the unknown darkness. That was the source of the smell of blood he smelled.
Hoffa walked quickly to Chloe, knelt down, and patted the nun's cheek.
"Hey, how are you?"
There was no reaction, and it was cold to the touch.
His heart skipped a beat.
"What I think will never happen," Hoffa told himself. Then, he touched the nun's neck with his palm. There was still a pulse. He wiped the cold sweat off his forehead and sighed in relief.
"Hey, wake up. Tell me what happened."
He pressed down on Chloe's shoulder and shook her.
This time, he used a little more force. Chloe slowly woke up. She raised her eyelids, but her pupils were very dilated. That was the blindness caused by excessive blood loss.
"Is it you … Hoffa?" She asked, leaning her ear towards him.
"It's me."
Hoffa's voice was trembling.
Endless murderous intent boiled in his chest.
"Ah, are we all dead?"
She asked in a daze.
"Damn it!"
Seeing her like this, Hoffa's eyes turned even redder. He squatted down, grabbed the tubes on her arm, and was about to pull them out.
"If I were you, I wouldn't do that."
Another familiar yet unfamiliar voice came from the darkness. Hoffa immediately put down the tubes and stood up.
Manse's figure slowly walked out of the darkness. He was wearing a blue and black military uniform. He was tall and strong, dressed exactly the same as when they first met. Even his chest was intact.
The only difference was that Manse's eyes had turned into the same silver-white color as Chloe's when magic went berserk. It flickered in the darkness, bright and dark.
"How did you survive?"
He looked at the ceiling, and his head flickered for a moment before it settled down again. He looked at Huo Fa. "Oh, so you jumped into Rusfan's blood pool, and that's how you survived."
"What did you do to her!?"
"I obtained the power I've always dreamed of. Her blood is in my body." Manse's voice had a strange female voice. It even sounded like Chloe's voice. He turned around and pointed at his neck. There were also a few tubes connected to his spine. The blood from Chloe's arm flowed into his body just like that.
"If you ask me, I'm now one with her. So, you don't have to kill me. "
Hoffa strode forward and raised his fist.
Boom!!
The blow, which contained extreme anger, was powerful and heavy. Maans' body, together with half of the turret, was smashed open, creating a huge explosive opening. Fresh blood fell like raindrops. He looked at his fist, panting. He had never been so angry in the past year. He did not want to hear any words coming out of that guy's mouth.
"What's the point? Anger, violence, death, and even emotions. It's all meaningless. In the face of time, even meaning itself has lost its meaning. "Manse's elegant voice sounded again with a hint of disgust.
Huo Fa was in a trance for a moment. Then, he felt that his belly was being yanked by an invisible hook and spiraled forward.
Drip …
In an instant, he realized that Manse had disappeared. He was still kneeling in front of Chloe, holding her arm. Chloe slowly raised her head.
"Is it … you, Hoffa?"
"It's me."
Hoffa answered instinctively.
"Are we dead?"
She asked in a daze. It was exactly the same as a few seconds ago.
Hoffa suddenly stood up and stared at the darkness in the distance.
Sure enough, a few seconds later. Manse walked out of the darkness again. He admired his palm with emotion. "Do you see that? This is the power of time. It's unpredictable. In front of it, all power loses its meaning."
He had actually returned to a few seconds ago.
He looked at Manse in disbelief. He did not know what method this guy had used to transplant Chloe's power into his body.
"Motherf * cker …!?"
Huo Fa cursed in Chinese. His right arm turned into a blade and disappeared on the spot. When he reappeared, Manse's head flew high into the air. It took a long time for the head to fall to the ground with a plop.
But just as he did all this, the world spun again.
He returned to the beginning. He knelt in front of Chloe and stared at her lifeless eyes. Chloe asked, "Is that you, Hoffa?"
This time, Hoffa could not answer. He looked at his hands and suddenly stood up. He took a few steps back and bumped into the female vampire, Kylia. The female vampire supported him.
"What's wrong with you?"
Hoffa touched his head and turned to look at the darkness.
Manse's figure walked out of the darkness for the third time. He smiled and said, "You're really fast. Ruthven collected the blood pool for most of his life, but it was absorbed by you. If I were him, I might die of anger."
Crack!!
Just as he finished speaking, there was a loud sound.
Maans was struck by a dazzling red lightning bolt and turned into charcoal. This landmine almost blasted the entire room black. The air was filled with the aura of ionization. The female vampire gasped, and the hair on her head stood on end.
Hoffa's face was pale, and his fingers were smoking. The 100,000 volts of electricity had almost used up half of his magic power.
Before he could put down his fingers, time and space twisted again.
The fragments fell off and retreated like the power of the law. It was impossible to resist. He returned to the nun and knelt on the ground. Chloe slowly raised his head. "Is … is that you? Hoffa. "
Huo Xuefu became obedient. He shook Crowley's shoulder without a care and shouted, "Hey, wake up. Hurry and tell me how to jump out!!?"
The female vampire who had just come in was stunned. From her perspective, Huo Fa, who had been silent just a moment ago, had turned into a lunatic in the blink of an eye. He was grabbing people and shaking them like a lunatic, shouting incomprehensible words from his mouth.
The nun opened her mouth in a daze, drooling from being shaken.
In the darkness, Manse, who had been electrocuted into charcoal, appeared where he was ten seconds ago. He patted his chest and said with a smile, "If it wasn't for me, even a hundred wizards would have died."
Hoffa stood up. Time had returned to the past, but his magic power had not returned to the past. This was his strongest and most secretive attack. He didn't believe that anyone could survive this Finger of Death. But Manse did it. This made him feel even more hopeless. However, he did not show it on his face. He stared at the man and gritted his teeth. "Come on, let's continue. Let's play like this for the whole day."
"Are we really going to play for the whole day?"
Mance raised his head and shook it a few times as if he was having a spasm. "Time is fair. We've stayed in the past for so long. It's time to return to the future."
As soon as he finished speaking, the colors around him changed rapidly. At first, it was black, then gray, and then white. Finally, the smoke dispersed, and a ray of sunlight shone in through the window at the top of the turret. Hoffa barely held onto Chloe's chair to prevent himself from falling to the ground. He looked at his chest. The three-ring scar was fading at a speed visible to the naked eye.
"Your time is up, Bach."
Manse said softly, "It's daytime."
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
