"Thud, thud, thud!"
Heavy footsteps sounded behind him. Just as Li Ran tried to dodge aside, a tremendous force slammed into his back, sending him hurtling forward into the wall.
"Bang!"
The intense pain left Li Ran unable to breathe. He rolled onto the floor and only managed to catch his breath after a second or two.
The candlestick was no longer in his hand. Enduring the pain, Li Ran struggled to prop himself up. Looking up, he saw Sirius standing where he had been moments ago. Sure enough, that old bastard had been the one who sent him flying.
Li Ran had never expected that after taking so many blows, the old man could still get back up. And that frail, aged body actually contained such incredible strength!
I should've stabbed him a few times!
Li Ran regretted it inwardly.
"Get up, Luther! He's coming for you!"
Cecilia shouted anxiously.
Sirius Arepi walked toward Li Ran. In the dim candlelight, his figure looked dark and bizarre. Blood dripped from his forehead, but he said nothing as he reached both hands straight toward Li Ran.
The instinct to survive made Li Ran leap to his feet. Seeing those hands lunging for his throat, he raised an arm to block them almost reflexively.
In that instant, their skin made direct contact.
"Crackle!"
A searing pain erupted where their skin touched, like a surging current stabbing straight into Li Ran's brain!
"Ah!"
Caught off guard, Li Ran screamed in agony and clutched his head.
It hurt!
It felt as if someone were splitting his skull open with an axe!
The pain was so unbearable that he dropped to his knees with a thud, unable to straighten up.
Yet Sirius Arepi did not take the chance to attack. Instead, he froze. He shook his head, wearing a strange expression, as though he were about to burst into tears and yet overcome with incomparable joy.
"Lord... is that You? I can feel Your presence..."
Large tears welled from his fierce eyes. Muttering incomprehensible words, he staggered and trembled as he walked toward Li Ran.
As for Li Ran, he could no longer hear the outside world. His mind was now filled with terrifying whispers.
It was a language beyond human comprehension, as if tens of millions of people were speaking at once. They shouted, laughed madly, wailed, and murmured. Countless voices layered over one another, blending into pure, ultimate madness, making one unable to resist Listening. It seemed that if he listened just a little more closely, he could discern the true meaning of those whispers.
The agonizing pain followed him like a shadow. Every whisper that entered his ear was like a red-hot steel needle repeatedly piercing the nerves in Li Ran's brain.
It was that auditory hallucination!
The sound the body's original owner heard whenever his illness acted up!
Memories of the past collided with the pain of the present in his mind. Li Ran clutched his head as waves of darkness swept across his vision.
At that very moment, Sirius reached out again.
"Boom!"
Li Ran felt an explosive roar in his mind. The real world vanished completely, and horrifying hallucinations surrounded him...
What did he see?
A cross.
A gigantic cross.
Upon an inverted cross so immense it seemed capable of holding up the sky, a towering giant hung upside down, pierced through by iron nails. Blood streaked across his body. His face bore an expression of pain and confusion, as though he were on the verge of death, yet also sunk in a deep dream.
Sacred, strange, bizarre, horrifying!
The mad whispers echoed through Li Ran's mind. They grew louder and clearer, until they finally exploded like thunder.
At last, Li Ran understood what the whispers meant.
"...The Lord's will shall ultimately be carried out upon the world.
He shall be with mankind. He shall bear our sins.
His divine light illuminates the darkness, and thus all living beings shall be saved..."
Countless ancient people were singing an archaic hymn in an unfamiliar language. It was a nameless epic from an age of ignorance lit by torches. Their song was filled with fervor and reverence. They trembled, rejoiced, and went mad!
Who knew how much time had passed? It felt like an instant, yet also like eternity.
Just as Li Ran thought he would be trapped in this hallucination forever, he seemed to hear the sound of waves.
An utterly illusory sound of waves.
Accompanied by that sound, the hallucinations and whispers rapidly receded, and clarity gradually returned to his vision.
But the moment he regained consciousness, he felt the agony of suffocation.
"Cough, cough..."
The pressure around his neck made breathing difficult. Looking down, he saw Sirius's hands tightly choking his throat. The wound on Sirius's forehead was still dripping blood, but the blood had turned from bright red to deep black.
But the color of the blood was no longer important! More terrifyingly, Sirius's entire face had twisted and deformed, turning him into something like a Monster. Bulging tumors covered his face and hands. The corners of his mouth split all the way to his ears, revealing teeth that were stark white and razor-sharp!
"Lord... indeed, You are here..."
He spoke indistinctly through his split mouth, his gray-blue eyes filled with fanatical joy!
"Let go! Let go!"
An anxious cry came from nearby. It was Cecilia. She was futilely pounding Sirius's arm, trying to save him.
"The... knife..."
Li Ran's vision darkened. His lungs burned and shriveled. With every ounce of strength he had, he forced out two words.
Prompted by him, Cecilia reacted at once. She turned, picked up the dagger from the floor, gritted her teeth, and without hesitation plunged it into Sirius's waist!
"Argh!"
Sirius let out a pained roar and flung his arm, throwing Li Ran away!
"Bang!"
Li Ran was sent flying again. This time, he crashed into the desk on the other side of the room. He lay sprawled on the ground, baring his teeth as pain shot through his back.
"Ah—"
Just as the pain became unbearable, Cecilia screamed from across the room. Sirius had pounced on her.
Hearing her scream, Li Ran instinctively panicked. Memories from Luther urged him to save his sister. He grabbed the desk to pull himself up quickly, but in his haste, he accidentally yanked out a drawer, sending its contents clattering all over the floor.
With a thud, something heavy struck the back of his hand.
Li Ran lowered his head and saw a revolver lying on the floor, reflecting a metallic gleam in the candlelight. He picked it up, its hefty weight and delicate mechanical construction immediately catching his eye.
...Was it real?
Cecilia screamed again. Sirius had already driven her into a corner, leaving her nowhere to run!
To hell with it!
Li Ran steeled himself, rose onto one knee, and checked the cylinder by copying the steps from videos he had watched. It was fully loaded with six bullets.
"Hey! Idiot!"
He took up a shooting stance, aimed the gun at Sirius, then raised his voice and shouted, "Your Lord is here! Come over here!"
Sirius paused, as if instinctively drawn by Luther's words. He turned and lunged toward him.
"Heh, heh!"
He looked less and less human. His mouth gaped open, saliva stretching in strings between his sharp teeth.
Fuck you!
Li Ran gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger with all his strength.
"Bang!"
The deafening gunshot echoed through the room. The powerful recoil slammed violently into the web of his hand, traveling up his arm to his shoulder like the blow of a hammer.
Sirius's body stiffened. He seemed to have been hit, but he quickly charged at Li Ran again.
Li Ran did not dare hesitate. He fired all five remaining bullets at Sirius.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!..."
He had never practiced shooting. He was firing wildly on pure luck. Fortunately, the target was close enough, and his luck was good enough. One bullet actually struck Sirius in the head. With a wet crack, his brains splattered everywhere. He pitched forward uncontrollably, collapsed onto the floor, twitched a few times, and then stopped moving.
"Pant... pant..."
Li Ran gulped down air tainted with the smell of gunpowder. His gaze passed over the corpse and landed on Cecilia across the room.
The girl was unharmed, but still shaken to the core.
Li Ran's mind was blank. His stiff face barely managed to force out a bitter smile meant to reassure her.
On his first day after transmigrating, he had killed someone with his own hands. What an... utterly terrible start.
Before you continue