Act17 Never Enough

[Part 1: The weather was not cooperating]

The governor's attitude softened somewhat, but the vice minister of the Ministry of War, seeing that it was more anxious than the emperor, was extremely anxious himself, finding the seductive and sensual music played on the lute so irritating.

To the rhythm of the music, this loyal law enforcement officer had no choice but to strain his hoarse voice and squeeze into the Quack band to sing at the top of his lungs.

"In the dead of night!"

The officers and soldiers joined in the jeering. "In the dead of night!~"

"Isn't it a bit wrong for a weirdo to sell candy and knowingly break the law?"

Quack replied, "Absolutely right!"

The Vice Minister of War blushed. "The night watchman is ringing the bell! Can't you hear it?!"

The brothers from the Inner Palace shouted in unison, "Ding-dong! Ding-dong!"

Ethan stepped forward. "The flood season is here, the sea must have gone mad!"

"Oh, alright!" The Vice Minister of War puffed out his cheeks, his voice growing louder as if he were getting into character, and sang out. "Procedural justice! Are we just going to abandon it like this?!"

"The Great Xia cannot tolerate even the slightest bit of human sentiment?!" Meteor took a half step forward at just the right moment.

"Actually, I'm not that unreasonable or domineering," the governor muttered to himself.

Flavia started the second section and walked to the front of the group.

"Your Excellency! Look at me, all alone and helpless!"

"I won't fight back when hit, and I won't talk back when insulted."

The neighbors who were originally kneeling and kowtowing also joined Flavia in begging for mercy.

"I just want a few candies from the goddess!"

The dogs in Old Li's house all lowered their bodies, as if about to whimper.

"Please, please don't send them away!" Flavia pleaded, her expression complex.

Zheng Dake wanted to say something else--

--Quack interrupted immediately.

Even if it breaks her heart?

The Vice Minister of War was about to whisper something in the Governor-General's ear.

Ethan immediately followed.

"No need for strenuous dieting?~"

The governor, his face full of worry, said, "I'm sorry, but I cannot comply."

"Not even one more?~" Quack stuffed another candy into the governor's mouth.

The governor was completely captivated, his eyes lighting up. "Yes, I am indeed fascinated by sweets."

Ethan pressed his advantage. "Even with a big belly? Who cares?"

"The lady cares," the governor said, embarrassed.

Quack casually took a box from Flavia's arms. "Sending another bit of happiness!~~"

"This is bribery! This is bribery!" The Vice Minister of War was about to shout.

The governor, with his thick, fleshy hand and prayer beads, pinched the mustachioed man's mouth and pressed the noisy deputy into the sedan chair.

The Quack sang softly, "When the fourth watch bell has rung."

Governor: "Every second is like early spring."

Ethan: "Diners rush by, all for a bite of chocolate!"

The governor finally nodded, then sang boldly and loudly.

"I've loved it since I was little!~~~~~"

The maracas and lutes played cheerful notes as the governor led the Inner Palace procession away, satisfied.

Meteor clenched his fists, raised his arms, and shouted, "Yay!"

The music and singing both possessed a kind of Magic Power, though not as domineering or tyrannical as Gloria Sebastian's dice Captain Quack displayed astonishing talent and thus persuaded the governor of East Horse Port.

Although they had agreed to close the shop at four in the morning, the customers dared not linger any longer and fled home like refugees.

A dark cloud gathered on the horizon, and in this scorching summer heat, a chilling sea breeze blew in from No. 2 Bay Pier!

Flavia heard the sound of the lute and was once again affected by the psionic tide.

Several mind-control effects were intertwined, making her inner evil thoughts stronger and stronger. Just like her past drug manufacturing business, which always required her to test drugs on herself, her mind was deeply immersed in various hallucinogenic chemicals, becoming more and more irritable and angry.

Quack was just about to say hello--

Flavia grabbed her lute and slammed it down once again on the rope and wooden stakes at the dock!

The neck broke in two again; the nylon thread and the gut thread snapped together!

"Stop playing! Stop playing!!!"

She covered her ears, feeling as if a thousand or ten thousand voices were echoing in her head.

Captain Quack and Ethan had no idea what had happened; they only knew that Flavia in great pain.

"Should I apologize?" This was Quack's second violin, and to be honest, he was a little angry. "Forget it! I still have one last violin!"

Ethan leaned close to Flavia, gently patting the passenger's vest.

"Perhaps she's seasick? Boss, Ms. Flavia needs to rest, so don't worry about your old violin."

Captain Quack roared, "What did you call it? A broken zither?!"

"When we get back to Eureka, I'll give you a brand new one!" Ethan was an honest and simple man in his early forties who didn't care about such material possessions. "Ms. Flavia needs to rest. Shall we push the candy cart back to the church?"

"Brothers?" Meteor noticed something and suddenly looked towards the southwest of the dock, towards the Pompeii Sea.

Quack and Ethan helped Flavia up.

"Brothers?" General of Tears's tone became urgent. "Can anyone tell me why there's such a huge dark cloud in the sky? It looks like..."

Before the words were even finished, a burst of ice flowers suddenly erupted from the quiet harbor dock.

Hailstones the size of watermelons smashed a deep crater into a wooden plank and sent water splashing more than two meters high.

"Damn it!" Meteor cursed, and hurriedly pushed his bike and ran wildly towards Que Mountain Street.

Quack and Ethan picked up the disoriented Flavia and followed.

--This blizzard came so quickly and so strangely!

It was like a persistent ghost, with dense hailstones raining down on everyone, catching Liuxing completely off guard. Just as he was about to run out of the market, the gatehouse and signboard were smashed to pieces by the ice! He couldn't go any further!

Then they saw that the paving stones in the street were all raised up, with deep pits pounded by the hail. Meteor immediately picked up the candy cart as an umbrella, shielded his companions under the cart, and struggled to escape to the west district.

Quack: "Even snow in June wouldn't be this unfair! What exactly happened?!"

Ethan pointed somewhere. "The hail seems to be following us!"

Following the direction pointed out by the first mate, Liuxing turned his head and saw the intact fishing boat and the Huacheng Bay patrol team.

A crackling sound came from above, and the road behind me had been pounded into a honeycomb shape by the hail!

"It looks like it's coming straight for us!" Meteor screamed in alarm. "It's a Soul Might attack!"

[Part ②· Axue]

At the end of Que Mountain Street, on the high point of the terrace of the Church of Dionysus.

The duchess has brought in a very capable helper. If your memory serves you right, let's go back to Li Fengtang's side in Goose Ermao County, Ax Peak Mountain. His parents died in the cold, snowy weather.

This "Snow Maiden" is Unified Holy Church of the most prominent figures in Shambhala among the many branches of the Guiyi Holy Sect.

She came to Gloria Sebastian's side as agreed, and visited the Church of Dionysus, also to participate in this bet.

"It's past midnight, so it's not against the rules to start now," Gloria said, personally pouring Snow Maiden a glass of golden ale.

The rich, aromatic scent of human flesh wafting from the wine glasses made the guests' mouths water.

--Just as the guest's name suggests, she had a head of silver hair as white as snow, and her bloodline was very obvious.

A pair of wolf ears stood erect on his head, and his skull was slightly deformed, a result of his past hunger and inability to eat delicious human flesh, leading to a bestial disease.

She had no human ears, her lips were black, her mouth and nose had the features of Qingjin Wolfdog, her facial proportions and eyes still maintained a basic human form, thick hair grew on her sideburns, her face was bluish-white, and her eyes were blood red.

The hair on the top of his head was cut short, and his pair of erect wolf ears twitched from time to time as he listened intently to the distant sound of hailstones falling like firecrackers.

Snow Maiden casually took the wine cup, showing no qualms about the human flesh, and drank the pure essence in one gulp.

"Lord Feather, what should I do next?"

Lady Goelia: "Send him to the west of the city! To the Violet Sunrise Hotel! Someone will take care of him!"

"[Virtual Insanity]! Now, let the hail fall!" With a wave of her hand, the Snow Maiden conjured a misty, cloud-spitting divine messenger from her wide sleeves—

--Its body was large and imposing, like a giant wolf standing upright, its entire body covered in a layer of gold and blue leather armor. Its fur was pale white without the slightest dirt or blemish.

Its mouth and nostrils spewed out a powerful tide of psionic energy, which shot up into the sky and connected closely with the dark clouds at the dock.

Gloria watched this scene with satisfaction, then crossed her legs and slumped into the soft cloth chair—soon, the hailstorm would take the General of Tears to the next duel location.

"I heard that General of Tears married a woman named Qingjin."

Snow Maiden did not respond.

Gloria then pressed on, "Axue, you're also made of lapis lazuli, right?"

Snow Maiden remained silent, focused on her work.

Gloria: "At least it used to be?"

"Lord Feather, forgive my rudeness." Snow Maiden unleashed her soul power, continuously releasing hailstones. She turned back and glared impatiently at the Immortals: "I don't want to talk about this past—if you insist on getting to the bottom of it, give me a standard answer."

"Then I can openly admit that I was once a Lapis Lazuli Guards."

"I work for Sky Station, I work for City of Tears, I work for Ming De."

Gloria is utterly irreverent; it seems to her find pleasure in tearing open other people's wounds—she treats Flavia and Duran with the same despicable attitude, eager to dig up all their dark secrets.

"Why did you suddenly decide to join the Unified Holy Church?"

"This didn't happen suddenly." Axue had already abandoned her former name, including Hui Shi and the stick. "It's not just a casual remark you make."

"Because of the Virginity Campaign?" Gloria pressed. "Or is it because the benefits here are better?"

At this point, Axue fell silent.

She remained motionless beside Lord Feather, continuing to maintain her divine power and spiritual strength.

The Feather Master's account refers to the true identity of Gloria Sebastian.

This gambling addict was one of Judas's three feathers.

[Flame·ForeverThe eternal fire of hell]--

--She's like a devil; once she picks up the dice and makes a deal with the dealer, she can never escape the torment of hell, never to be reborn.

Judas used the power of "Sing For Me" to predict good and bad fortune. He worked tirelessly all year round, even to the point of exhaustion, preaching the gospel, and never encountered any life-threatening dangers. All he relied on was this little die.

When arriving in a new region, Judas would always pray to Dionysus before founding his church and recruiting members. The dice would indicate the auspicious or inauspicious trends of the future, which was an extremely important talisman for the leaders of the council. Just like the innkeeper that Meteor and his group met when they first arrived in East Horse Port —when the innkeeper rolled the dice, he could tell whether business would be good or bad that day.

"It's a ghost!"

Meanwhile, Meteor, carrying the twisted and deformed carriage frame, fled into the stables of the Violet Sunrise Hotel.

The General of Tears, cursing and swearing, seemed to feel a sense of relief at escaping death as he threw down the cart.

--If he got hit by these hailstones, his brains would be splattered all over the ground.

Looking at Flavia's carefully prepared candy cart, it's now crooked and dented, the shop window shattered. Fortunately, the candy sold out early, so there was no loss of goods.

The four of them hid in the stable and were just about to sit down and rest Captain Quack immediately spoke up.

"This place is strange!"

Meteor asked, "What's wrong?"

"General of Tears, you said this hail was a soul-power attack, so why didn't it come in with us?" Captain Quack pointed to the street outside the stable. The large hailstones were still fierce, and ice pellets occasionally splashed onto the threshold of the shed, but not a single piece of ice fell onto the roof.

"Hey!" Meteor was also dumbfounded--

His already limited wisdom seemed to be stretched thin, and he felt his brain wasn't working properly, so he made a bold conjecture.

"We entered the building, and the guy who launched the Soul Might attack couldn't see us anymore! So he didn't follow us in."

Quack: "That makes sense!"

Ethan nodded in agreement. "It seems... that's true."

The fact that the enemy could manipulate the weather for long-range attacks was something Meteor hadn't expected; it was beyond his comprehension. In his six or seven years of expeditions, he had never seen any Blood-giving Monster possess such powerful special spiritual energy. Such a wide-area killing skill should theoretically consume a lot of mental energy—yet the hailstorm continued for more than ten minutes without stopping.

Gradually, he also began to doubt himself.

Is this really a Soul Might attack?

Just then, a young man came from the hotel courtyard toward the stables.

"A few guests!"

Judging from their attire, they were grooms who took care of the carriages and horses of guests. In modern society, this job would be called a doorman or valet.

"Come to the hotel lobby! This weather is awful! Don't stay in the stables and catch a chill!"

As the young groom spoke, Meteor glanced at Flavia —the grumpy little aunt was still unconscious and needed a quiet, warm environment to rest.

Looking again at her arms, even in her deep sleep she was tightly clutching her money pouch; the silver in her pocket should be enough to pay the room fee.

"Want to stay overnight at the hotel?" the General of Tears asked.

Quack shrugged dismissively. "What other options are there?"

Ethan agreed, "Let's go!"

Upon arriving at the lobby, there were few customers due to the curfew; only the night shift staff were waiting at the counter.

The young groom hurried away, while the lobby manager greeted him respectfully and introduced the hotel.

"---Welcome to the Tequila Sunrise Hotel."

"This sudden blizzard brought us together; it's a kind of fate."

"But there's no need to worry! The owner of this property is a follower of the Church of Dionysus, and the divine power of Dionysus will protect us, keeping this sacred place safe from the evil spirits of wind and snow!"

At this moment, the meteor finally realized what had happened.

"Oh."

He glanced at his phone; it was not yet 12:25. Just like those absurd parents in the reader group who started saying "I'm going to die if there are no updates!" just after midnight—it's never enough.

A new day has dawned, and with it, a new bet.

"Is this the start of my workday and clocking in?"