Dialing

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"Drip."

Blood dripped down.

Gu Shen gripped the ruler and wiped his cheek with his other hand. The sea of fire surged, and the only door leading to the rooftop had already been smashed apart. As for the person who had broken down that door... he was now scattered across all four directions of the rooftop.

Time slowed.

One second felt as long as an hour to Gu Shen.

He could see the angle at which every bedsheet on the rooftop fluttered, every fleeting shape of the flames, everything within his sight, and even sense the living things around him.

After grasping the Truth Ruler, his thoughts became clear, but they also became numb.

Rather than a gift bestowed by a god, this power was more like a deal with the devil... when you held power and stared into the abyss, the abyss stared back at you.

The Orange Cat fell silent. Perched on Gu Shen's shoulder as delicately as a sparrow, it said nothing. Fluorescent light flickered endlessly in its eyes as it observed Gu Shen.

"This person is dead."

Gu Shen looked at the shattered door panels and chunks of blood strewn before him, and a thought surfaced in his mind.

"I did this..."

Then came a long stretch of confusion.

"How?"

Over that prolonged span of time, countless thoughts were carved apart. He asked himself again and again, but the answer was always the same.

"He killed himself."

Gu Shen let out a long sigh, feeling as though every bit of strength had been drained from his body... It felt as if a century had passed, but in the Real World, only twenty seconds had gone by.

Twenty seconds later.

Gu Shen wiped the blood from his cheek and silently looked at the second "pursuer" appearing at the edge of his vision, stunned by the bloody scene.

There were two people who wanted to kill him.

The guy he had just killed possessed some sort of power that enhanced his physical body... that much was obvious from the way he had smashed through the locked door.

He was a brute.

The person Gu Shen saw now was the complete opposite: thin and short.

This should have been the person who had tried to break into his home earlier.

At the time, Gu Shen had heard the sound of the door corroding... This man must have possessed a similar power. That meant he was also the one responsible for starting this fire.

Gu Shen slowly looked over.

At the end of the corridor, the thin man who had watched his companion turn into a mangled heap of flesh had gone pale, his voice trembling.

"What kind of... joke is this?"

He doubted what his eyes were showing him.

Was all of this real?

On the rooftop, the young man holding a ruler, with countless blades suspended behind him, stared at him coldly. That gaze alone brought down an invisible pressure...

How could he possibly be an ordinary person?!

"He's afraid."

Gu Shen understood the meaning in the other man's eyes.

He was actually afraid?

Afraid of him... or of this ruler?

He slowly looked at the Silver Ruler. In its clear, watery silver surface, he saw himself. His once-familiar face had become utterly strange, because his eyes were filled with overwhelming killing intent.

"You killed so many people..."

"You... deserve to die..."

Gu Shen heard his own voice forcing itself out of his chest, word by word.

This time, the image he imagined was what he had seen when he leaned over the rooftop earlier... Because of that explosion, innocent people had been trapped within the sea of fire and burned into charcoal.

His voice fell.

Whoosh!!!

The silver light of the Truth Ruler suddenly erupted, its blazing radiance hurtling into the darkness at the end of the corridor in an instant.

Night turned into day!

Under the Truth Ruler's power, that extraordinary being with unimaginable abilities seemed to become no more than an ant.

The terrified man suddenly caught fire. He shrieked and frantically slapped at himself, even rolling across the ground. He tried to extinguish the flames, but the fire erupted in an instant and swallowed him like a tidal wave.

It was a fierce yet gentle Blazing Fire that devoured people, burning only on his body—even when the man crashed into the planks piled in the corner, only a few dim sparks scattered out before vanishing in an instant.

The flames did not spread.

They burned him alone.

A few breaths later, the arsonist's shrieks and frantic cries ceased as the flames he had ignited burned him into ashes.

Only then did this fire, which utterly defied all laws and understanding... slowly die out.

A miracle.

In a sense, this was a miracle.

Gu Shen stared at the scene. He watched the flames rage through the dark corridor, slowly extinguish, and finally turn to ash... With every passing second, his own thoughts burned as well.

It was something intangible, yet undeniably real.

That man was burning.

His own "thoughts" were burning too.

What sustained the miracle was himself, the one holding the ruler... Somewhere beyond perception, his mind was being used as fuel.

When the burning ended, only exhaustion remained.

Gu Shen let out a long breath.

The fingers gripping the ruler began to tremble violently. Needle-like pain surged over him like a tide. He gasped for breath, trying to draw in fresh air, but perhaps because of the blazing sea of fire, his chest felt so tight that he could barely breathe.

"A little side effect." The Orange Cat emphasized the words "a little" and calmly said, "To command wind and rain like a god, you have to pay a price, don't you?"

"...Yes."

Gu Shen gave a hoarse laugh. "Thanks for reminding me."

His exhausted mind reminded Gu Shen at every moment that it was time to let go.

But he did not release the ruler. Instead, he tightened his grip and slowly raised his head to look at the sky.

His scattered mental strength gathered once more.

The Orange Cat raised its head along with Gu Shen.

Above the rooftop, the dome of sky shrouded in smoke from the blazing tide suddenly filled with patches of dark clouds. Within only a few breaths, those clouds gathered and thickened until they blanketed the Old Building. Soon, fine threads of rain began to fall, then merged into an unbroken curtain of rain.

Though absurd, this was within the Truth Ruler's range of use.

"You're really a... madman." Chu Ling murmured softly.

Gu Shen smiled. "Can I take that as a compliment?"

He was like a withered green plant finally meeting Sweet Rain after a long drought—or rather, a torrential downpour.

Raindrops pelted down in a crackling barrage.

Gu Shen felt a headache coming on, a real headache. Everything hurt, inside and out.

The final rainfall drained every last bit of his mental strength. By now, Gu Shen could no longer precisely control the intensity of the rain as he had when he first created the Sword Domain... But judging by the roaring force of this downpour, extinguishing the sea of fire would not be a problem.

After doing all this, Gu Shen had reached the point where even closing his eyes left his head in agonizing pain.

It really was a deal with the devil.

Once the deal ended, not only would he be reduced to his original state, he would fall straight into hell.

"Meow..."

The Orange Cat called out.

Gu Shen looked puzzled. He could barely hold the ruler anymore, and Chu Ling's voice in his ears had turned back into meowing... Rain poured down as he sat slumped against the wall, his consciousness gradually drifting away.

The Orange Cat sighed, burrowed its little head into his chest, and pulled out a phone with its teeth.

Gu Shen's lips were dry. He no longer had the strength to be surprised. Helplessly, he watched the Orange Cat dial that number for him.

"Beep—"

"Beep."

The call was picked up on the second ring.

"Hello..." Gu Shen squeezed out the last of his strength and asked with difficulty, "It's me..."

Laughter erupted from the other end of the line.

"I ran into some trouble... Can you take care of it?"

"Of course!" The person on the other end laughed happily. "No matter how big the trouble is, we can handle it!"

"Really..." Gu Shen smiled too. "Two terrifying guys wanted to kill me, but I killed them instead. That counts as self-defense, right... Can you handle that?"

The laughter on the other end stopped.