Act.14 [Icon]
Foreword:
[Let bygones be bygones, a selfless heart makes the world vast and boundless.]
[--Tao Zhu]
[Part 1: How Bedbugs Survive]
Cliff Guderian, a despicable war criminal.
He was a fearsome stormtrooper in the last century, wielding an axe and known for bathing in soap made from human oil, shooting at the elderly, women, and children, and herding prisoners of war into gas chambers for human experiments.
This man-eating jackal did not die on the battlefield, nor did it succumb to old age. It escaped legal punishment and joined a scientific expedition to Shambhala to search for extraterrestrial secret weapons, attempting to reverse the decline of World War II and revive the glory of the Third Reich.
He didn't find any alien technology, but instead discovered a paradise in the underground world.
Its area is thirteen million square kilometers, with an elevation difference of 120,000 meters. Cliff had never seen such a huge underground cavity in all his years of life.
Here, there is the sun, and a large number of people live here. They have almost no contact with the people on the surface, no electronic devices, and no means of communication. It's as if everything has gone back a thousand years.
The sun revolves around the cavity, creating a false sunrise and sunset; it is the true earth with a round sky and a square earth.
This was the first Cinder King Cliff encountered; later came the second and the third.
He was a contemporary of William the Elder, Cliff always felt cheerful and had a strange sense of joy whenever he spoke with this honest and reliable giant.
--Mistakenly believing they were a perfect match.
Homo sapiens can live to be around seventy years old, which is considered quite old and full of wisdom.
Giants can live for hundreds of years without aging, but William, who is over a hundred years old, has the mind of a fourteen or fifteen-year-old. His brain is not fully developed and his logical thinking is not coherent.
Cliff always thought that with William's strength and his life experience, he could surely help the Lords of Cinder rise smoothly into the sky and become the sun.
However, this staff officer misunderstood two things.
Contrary to common sense in most stories, the reason Cliff was able to live so long despite his many evil deeds was not because he was exceptionally intelligent or had extraordinary methods.
It's simply because God has no eyes; God's eyes have long been blind.
Xue Ming once said that Heaven will not kill bad things. If Heaven could act in accordance with people's wishes, the first pests to be eradicated would be the four pests, with cockroaches at the forefront.
Cliff, that cockroach, was only able to survive for a thousand years because he was both brave and lucky. He made a deal with the Lord of Cinder to obtain runes and performed the ritual of adding fire for the Lord of Cinder.
That doesn't sound fair at all.
Aside from his handsome face, even the soldiers on the Heaven's Ladder couldn't find any redeeming qualities in the staff officer.
Elegant? Humble? Charming?
When discussing the human flesh trade, the staff officer would immediately break off relations and hurl insults at the person.
Learned? Talented? Resourceful?
When engaging the enemy, the staff officer is usually the one who gives the most urgent orders and runs the fastest.
His courage was mostly manifested in his will to survive; Cliff was completely unconcerned about the insults and ridicule from his companions, and about being called a "deserter."
When facing a formidable enemy, A Xing will not run away, because it is an exciting challenge. If A Xing were to bear the humiliation of being a deserter, he would lose all his courage and find it difficult to cheer up, which would become his inner demon.
Such inner demons were a joke to Cliff. He had no sense of honor, no love or friendship, no deep-seated hatred. His state was very similar to that of a scavenger, whose long years had turned him into a stone weathered by sand, having lost all his luster and edges.
When his shattered body was coupled and reassembled from the statue, returning to a complete human form.
He then saw a giant staggering toward him.
--Those were the elite of the Birch Tree Army, super soldiers he created using Peter Sergei's research findings.
These warriors are the best choice to deal with the Lapis Lazuli Guards who are hunting down the enemy; they are loyal and obedient, not very bright, and treat Cliff like their parents.
"Advisor! Advisor!" The giant's wailing, trembling, swayed and advanced through the fog.
Cliff shouted, "Fight! Keep fighting!"
Where is the enemy?
Have no idea.
What are we going to fight?
I don't know.
But Cliff still performs these kinds of ceremonies.
--It's as if by shouting this, the soldiers can regain their morale and naturally find the enemy.
"I can't see! I can't see!" The baby giant burst out of the thick fog and cried out to Cliff, "I can't see anything. I'm so hungry! So hungry! Advisor! Can I eat? Maybe eating a few people will make me better."
Cliff looked up and saw the Birch Tree soldiers waving their hands wildly, driven by instinct, trying to grasp something in the darkness, but their eyes were like rusted locks, unable to move.
The most terrifying thing is--
--A steel ruler was stuck in the giant's skull, as if the enemy had done it deliberately, damaging his optic nerve area but not killing him, so that he would wander around in the smoke and dust, screaming and calling on his friends to spread fear.
"Officer... I'm hungry... I'm so hungry!"
After saying this, the giant's knees buckled, and he finally knelt before Cliff, collapsing headfirst beside the stone platform of the monument. His skull struck the edge of the stone structure, and he died instantly.
Cliff finally snapped out of his shock, a chill running down his spine that made him break out in a cold sweat—what a cruel and ruthless opponent this was.
Even the soldiers of the Heaven's Ladder couldn't conceive of such ruthless methods when dealing with the enemy.
Looking at the road the giants had come from, many soldiers who had come to provide support lay dead along the way, all killed with a single blow.
They assumed this elite soldier needed help and tried to assemble their ranks and fight together by hiding near the giant's reliable body, but little did they know that this assassin was actually hiding right next to the giant.
The dust storm following the explosion at the bathhouse, and the smog caused by machine gun fire, couldn't possibly have lasted this long—the dioxins in the air had rendered Cliff's nose useless, and such a persistent smoke screen must have been caused by the enemy throwing smoke grenades into the area.
They are surrounded.
--To be precise, it was more than 120 soldiers and six giant warriors who were surrounded by a small number of people.
The communications soldiers on the Heaven's Ladder have thermal imagers, but they can't report enemy activity via radio. As soon as they shout, the sound of gunfire in the fog is like Death God calling roll.
"Get closer to me! Get closer to me! Assemble at the blast wall!"
The shouts of the frogman sentry squad leader rang out from not far away. Cliff remembered him as an experienced and determined veteran who wanted to boost morale and rally the men together.
No gunshots were heard, which is the best thing.
It seems the enemy also knows that firing at the blast wall is pointless; as long as there's a defensive stronghold, the lads in the fog will surely find these wretched bugs.
Cliff thought this, and his heart, which had been hanging in suspense, finally settled down. He prepared to head towards the fortifications.
He hadn't taken two steps when he heard a sharp, piercing whistle overhead.
The sound was both familiar and strange.
--That's the sound of a mortar's inertial fuse burning in the air, the friction between the fins and the air.
When Cliff saw this thing clearly, his eyes almost popped out of their sockets.
It fell in a parabolic arc into the barracks, and the shockwave from the explosion swept away the smoke, creating a vacuum zone. After a full three seconds, a stack of fresh intestines fell from the sky and hung on Cliff's face.
He brushed the filth off his face; his uniform was stained with urine, and his legs went weak with fear.
When these demons heard the frogman's voice, they did not fire; they waited until the team had assembled before dropping the bombs.
Without a doubt, this was a massacre.
Having outwitted and outmaneuvered the Lapis Lazuli Guards Guardian for over a decade, Cliff had never seen such a ruthless and cunning killer.
His soldiers, like tender lambs, have already been sent to the slaughterhouse.
The gun in his hand was like a toy, with scattered and intact slides and charging handles scattered everywhere. It was as if he had been disarmed and silenced the moment he engaged in combat, his neck bone cut open and his central nervous system collapsed to the ground.
"Damn it," Cliff as he walked, feeling like he was in hell. When he crouched down to examine the parts, the steel pistol slide was spotless, and there wasn't even a scratch in sight during the entire dismantling and disassembly process.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it." He saw several soldiers with tenacious willpower lying paralyzed on the ground, with a wound on their neck and throat, as neat as the wound from slaughtering a chicken.
They did not die immediately. After their bodies were disconnected from their brains, their limbs began to malfunction, and they began to defecate and urinate uncontrollably. Their eyes began to go black due to excessive blood loss, their pupils dilated, and they gasped for breath, but air could not be delivered into their ruptured tracheas.
Seemingly sensing someone's approach, the dying soldiers became agitated, trying to move a few times. Their neck muscles tensed, and immediately gushing blood spurted from their throats, as if in a final burst of energy before death.
That sound was like the wind; it was very pleasant to hear.
"Fuck him! Fuck him!" Cliff was terrified. He ran wildly through the fog, trying to escape this hellish place.
"Ming De! What kind of scourge have you sent to this godforsaken place?!"
He couldn't understand --
--RSH was originally a dead land that no one cared about.
Aside from the Lords of Cinder, scholars occasionally interested in Immortal Lune would hire bodyguards to explore this place; the Abyssal Railway should have abandoned it long ago.
Three years ago, the station's elite team and passengers suffered a crushing defeat here.
Three years later, there were hardly any locals left in RSH.
Why would Ming De be willing to send such a valuable VIP to a plot of land with extremely high risks and no exploration value?
Etc--
Did the enemy really use Soul Power?
Cliff ran faster and faster. At first, he thought about whether to take a few unlucky wounded soldiers with him, but when he saw their miserable state of barely breathing, he completely gave up on those thoughts.
"That VIP has been wielding her spiritual power; she's a woman! Aside from her spiritual pressure, I can't sense any other spirits! Could it be that there's only one enemy? Is she the only one?"
Cliff paused for a moment, his fighting spirit barely awakened before he went back to sleep.
"Even if there's only one person, I don't want to try fighting her!"
He is very honest and a man of principle.
He ran away quickly, leaving behind his eight squads of brothers. He only briefly recalled the soldiers' appearances and backgrounds, and then, without any shame, regret, or sorrow, he left through the streets and alleys on the south side of the central square.
"The streets are so quiet."
When Cliff emerged from the thick fog, two fingers were still hanging from his body, somehow found inside the collar of his shirt.
With a look of disgust, he tossed aside his comrade's body. Hearing the occasional gunshots and wails from the white, desolate hell behind him, he felt fortunate—it seemed Death God had never written him onto its list.
It was this incredible luck!
"That's what got me to where I am today!" Cliff exclaimed excitedly, clenching his fist and raising his arm. "Over a hundred people, even if you stood still and slowly killed them one by one, it would have taken you a long time, wouldn't it?"
He headed towards the main street on the southwest side, hoping to find a way to contact the King of Cinder.
"What should we do? How can we get around these Death God and back to the Baozi Shop military station?"
As he walked, he thought to himself. Whenever the gunfire stopped, he would hide in a deep alley like a frightened bird. When the gunfire started again, he would hurry to escape.
"If the Lord of Cinder hears the gunfire, he will come to oversee the battle—it would be wonderful if he could participate in this fight. If I could return to the battlefield in time to lend a helping hand, it would be a great achievement."
Cliff thought about it again, and sweat started beading on his forehead again.
"But can the Lord of Cinder really defeat these passengers?"
He extinguished one last glimmer of hope in his heart.
"Cliff! Don't have any expectations of others! Do you remember William the Elder? These beasts will only hurt your heart—the Lord of Cinder is dead, but they can find another, if you die."
He kept talking to himself, trying to reinforce the impression and etch these thoughts into his mind.
"You are dead, and you have nothing left—your immortal body, the glory of adding fuel to the Lord of Cinder, all gone!"
"Let bygones be bygones, a selfless heart makes the world vast!"
This cannibal no longer lingered in the past. As long as he recruited his troops quickly enough, his fallen comrades were simply consumables. Meeting these passengers was less of an "unfortunate" event and more of a "lucky" one.
"I'm so lucky! I'm so lucky!" Cliff grinned maliciously, his steps becoming lighter. "If a traitor like William had stayed in the ranks for several years, he would have become a parasite siphoning off pay! A corrupt rebel leader! I'm so lucky!"
The journey of only 1,200 meters took just a few minutes, and he could already see the access road for the railway ballast.
"I'm so lucky! This weak and powerless crawler couldn't defeat the VIPs of the Abyssal Railway. If I encounter a more powerful enemy in the future, they definitely won't be able to protect me. I'm so fortunate to have made it out of here unscathed!"
The layers upon layers of snow-white mountains, illuminated by the moss, resemble guiding lights.
Head back, leave this place, return to the trading post to recruit more people, and you can fill the vacancies in just three weeks.
"Cliff Guderian has once again passed the test of fate."
He had barely stepped onto the ballast road when a sudden surge of spiritual pressure nearly crushed him.
Everything has changed.
[Part ② Hell]
The once quiet and peaceful Red Star Hill began to stir, as if something had awakened. In the desolate, dark hollow, besides the muffled, loud sounds of the giant on the beach moving his legs, there were many human voices.
That was a wailing sound, the ghostly vengeful spirits that emerged after a vibrant life had perished.
Cliff could no longer move an inch, because his legs felt like they were being held down by something!
A dark, black thread was tightly gripping his ankle.
He suddenly looked down at the mudflats beside the ballast road, where the black line stretched out from the direction of the central square.
"Lord of Cinder, won't you let me go?"
He felt dizzy and disoriented, unable to maintain his five senses under the strange attack of the soul power, which was a sign that his spirit was about to leave his body.
The black line quickly transformed into a chaotic and terrifying spirit.
Cliff recognized him! It was the cook at his outpost!
The chef looked like he was dead, but not quite. He was clinging to Cliff's leg, looking up with his eyes glazed over and numb. He was missing two fingers on his right hand.
"Cliff, Cliff! Where are you going?"
"We're waiting for you. The King of Cinder is waiting for you too, don't you think?"
Suddenly, the chef's expression changed, as if the range of the soul's power had reached its limit, and it could no longer maintain the complete appearance of the spirit.
The flesh on his face peeled away, turning into rotting bones.
"You don't actually believe you can escape from here, do you?! Cliff! You were so cruel and heartless to throw my fingers away! They were used to knead dough for you, sprinkled with cumin, and you raved about my cooking! You said that even if I died, these two fingers would be a rare delicacy! You would personally taste them and never let my essence decay—I can become the sun! I want to become the sun! Eat me! Cliff! You must add fuel to the fire for the Lord of Cinder; eat me, and I'll be part of the firewood too."
Even before the skeleton chef's throat completely rotted away, it still posed a sinister threat, the loose bones rubbing against each other and making a chilling rustling sound.
"I will not let go until you turn back."
Cliff's right leg was being held by the persistent ghost, and he knew very well that this was the Lord of Cinder's warning to him.
This is a special ability of [Icon].
The superpower to send a living person's spirit out of their body and steal their senses.
To give the spirits of the dead a physical body and bestow upon them superpowers of the senses.
"You think I'm afraid of you?" Cliff displayed astonishing willpower at this moment. "While you're alive, I treated you like an insect; after you're dead, you're nothing but a dead insect!"
Even the fiercest ghost will be afraid of evil people.
Cliff struggled forward a few steps, but his right leg grew heavier and heavier. He pulled out a pistol from his uniform, intending to disperse the Lord of Cinder's soul power. The bullet struck the clay-like skeleton, but the effect was unsatisfactory.
The range of the Lord of Cinder's soul power is over 1,500 meters. This undead soul is merely a thread in a giant spider web. Without attacking its main body, it would be difficult to shatter and disperse this inconceivable spirit.
Cliff turned his gun around and fired several shots into the thigh.
The bullet, as hot as a scalding blade, ripped his right leg to shreds.
He was in so much pain he almost vomited, crawling on the ground, leaving his right leg to the chef's ghost.
"What the hell is this bad luck?"
In just a few seconds, the leg will return to his body in response to the call of the Immortal Lune.
He waited quietly, then crawled awkwardly for dozens of meters, breathing heavily.
Then they heard a lifelike image of the cook grabbing a leg and flying up, shouting happily.
"You want to abandon me?! No way! Cliff! I'm back again!"
The skeletons were reassembled and became whole again, and the red-skinned demon encountered a vengeful spirit even more troublesome than himself.
Cliff yelled, "What do you want from me to let me go?!"
The cook tilted his head back and stroked Staff Officer Cliff's strong, powerful thighs with both hands.
"Wonderful, wonderful! Advisor—the smell of your body! The smell of a living person is truly wonderful!"
Cliff's expression became quite something; his distorted features resembled a giant chrysanthemum.
The cook continued, "Do you want me to let you go? If you pick up my finger and eat it, maybe I can agree."
Immediately afterwards, the wronged spirit pointed to the road they had come from at the crossroads, and then to the distant tower window.
"Those two fingers. My body only has two fingers left— Cliff, let's eat them?"
"Is that all you ask?" Cliff stood up, preparing to return to the dangerous and deadly Red Star Hill.
Seeing that the strategist was about to leave, the cook immediately burst into happy laughter.
"Yes, not even my fingernails can be left! I died very close to the public bathhouse! These two fingers are my last remaining essence."
Cliff's expression changed. "It's very close to the public baths?"
"You have to eat it all up, not even the dirt under your fingernails." The cook released the advisor's leg, leaned on his shoulder and whispered, "How about it? Can't you do it? Is it difficult, Advisor?"
"Shut up." Cliff's eyes blazed with fury. He didn't know if the vengeful spirit on his shoulder was the cook's or the Lord of Cinder's malice. Was this some kind of punishment? He had deserted, and the Lord of Cinder was punishing him in this way?
These tricks couldn't stop Cliff Guderian.
He returned to the shop window, retrieved the two fingers that had been marinated in the fumes of the bathhouse explosion, and without hesitation, stuffed them into his mouth and swallowed them whole.
"She swallowed it!" the cook exclaimed in surprise. "Advisor! Thank you! Thank you so much!"
Immediately afterwards, the wronged spirit seemed to be released from its suffering and vanished without a trace.
Cliff breathed a sigh of relief; now it would be a smooth road ahead, right?
Next.
His body was stiff, and even the scalding hot blood from the firewood inside him could not withstand the sudden chill.
He turned his head and saw the stiff, ghostly corpse of Puff Girl.
"Cliff, are you going to desert? Take me with you!"
The giant hybrid warrior's spirit, missing an eye, remained in the state it was in before death.
Cliff then began to understand—
Just how terrifying are [Icon] statues?
"My darling girl," Cliff said, having exhausted all his sweet talk, "What exactly do you want me to do for you?"
Puff hunched over, her charred and twisted spirit body connected by several thick black lines, all originating from the soul power of the Lord of Cinder.
"Actually."
At this point, Puff suddenly became shy.
"I've always thought you were very handsome. Before, I was too young to understand why I felt this inexplicable trust and affection, sir."
Even when half-crouching, this nine-and-a-half-foot giant was still half a head taller Cliff.
The young lady, Puff, was playing with her fingers when a clump of black mud emerged from her rotten eyeball and landed on Cliff's face.
"I have only one wish after I die: can you kiss me, sir?"
Cliff's mouth hung open, as if he was too surprised and the psychological trauma he had suffered was too severe; he couldn't close it for a very long time.
He had previously thought this place was like hell.
Now he needs to be bolder and stop using metaphors.
This is hell.
[Real Name: Maddes Bruno]
[Soul Might (Cinder King Transformation): Icon]
[Destructive power:???]
[Speed:???]
[Range:???]
[Endurance:???]
[Precision:???]
[Growth Potential:???]
[Special Ability:???]
[Background: A shameless young man – that's what the BOSS calls Maddes Bruno. He comes from a wealthy family and has been involved with a widow since childhood. This middle-aged widow, named Rossi, felt that young men shouldn't be so obsessed with beauty, so she taught Maddes to read and wanted Maddes to contribute to society.]
The widow's husband died in World War I. Maddes applied to military school to prove himself, not wanting to lose to the widow's ex-husband, and to become a hero who defended the skies—he later graduated successfully and participated in World War II.
In 1937, this guy fell into the Huge Mountain Station during the battle, causing a loss of about 21.14 million Hui Stone Currency. Two dogs were killed by planes, and shrapnel injured sixteen people. He was rescued by waiter number [DATA EXPUNGED].
He had many conflicts with the waiter at work, Maddes had someone else in his heart. Every year he would return to Naples to visit the widow of this highly respected soldier, but he could not get close to her— Maddes Bruno had died in a glorious battle, and no one would believe that a kid could survive falling into an Icelandic volcano from a smoking fighter plane at an altitude of more than 5,000 meters.
He became a hero in the newspapers, and if he were to be resurrected unharmed at this moment, it would probably be a huge scandal and a joke for the army and the newspapers.
People seem to believe that only dead heroes are heroes, and only dead idols are idols.
Bruno's family believes that it was the widow's foolish and naive upbringing that turned their son into cannon fodder on the battlefield.
Every few months, when Maddes returned to his hometown to visit his former lover, he would see that his wife had more and more gray hair and smiled less and less.
He secretly returned to the manor to confront his parents, but was called an unclean ghost and was told to use exorcism holy water and the five kitchen treasures to perform an exorcism ritual. No matter how much he acted like a human, he still had two younger brothers at home. They relied on the honors their older brother had stolen. In three years, the Bruno family would have two more warrant officers.
He could never come back to life, but his physical body did not die either.
This drove Maddes almost insane.
--Despite the waiter's repeated attempts to persuade the passenger, it was to no avail.
Working at the train station to pay off his debts seemed to be Maddes' only thought. He wanted to earn enough money to leave his hometown with his old love and find a quiet place to live.
After learning of Maddes's thoughts, Rossi left him without saying goodbye. According to the records of the psychological investigation agency at the train station, Mrs. Rossi's mental state was very unstable. She didn't believe the promises made by this impetuous young man were reliable. Rather than the happiness Maddes spoke of months or years later, Mrs. Rossi decided to seize her own future. Our Lapis Lazuli Guards had searched for her, trying to cure Maddes's depression, and later learned that she had gone to Portugal, married a boatman, and made a living selling flowers. She died of colon cancer in 1958.
To prove himself, Maddes worked almost day and night at the station. He was arrogant and looked down on everyone, resorting to any means to achieve his goals. He soon came into contact with the members of the Madness Butterfly Sect and, through blood donation, became a carnivore.
In order to investigate the various anomalies surrounding his employer, his waiter volunteered to answer the emergency Summoning Bell and ultimately died on the Second Platform of the insect cave trading hub.
The waiter's death shattered Maddes's mental world. His personal mission log ended in 1947, the Lapis Lazuli Guards's pursuit of him ended in 1990, and the latest passenger investigation log ended with VIP David Victor's summary document of his exploration of the Royal Court of the Dead Puppet Agency in 2024.
[Note: <icon> -- from Eliana's single of the same name]