Gazing into the Abyss

At long last, they got the horses to stop and herded them beneath a big tree by the roadside.

It offered some shelter from the snowstorm.

Li Liang knocked on the carriage door and called, "Master, this won't do. The snow's too heavy. Let's take shelter here for a while! Let me in."

The carriage wasn't very big, but four people could just about fit inside.

"Master?"

He knocked several times, but there was no response from inside.

Puzzled, Li Liang leaned closer to peer through the grimy window.

There were indeed three people inside. Had they fallen asleep?

Surely not?

Fear began to pile up inside Li Liang, little by little, like snowflakes gathering on the ground.

He swallowed, took out his pistol, and placed his other hand on the handle outside the carriage door. Then he yanked it open.

There was none of the resistance he'd expected.

The door swung open easily, and Li Liang saw three people sitting inside.

But they weren't Tang Luo and the others.

They were three complete strangers!

No, they weren't complete strangers.

They were the three people he'd seen patrolling when they passed the manor earlier.

When had they been replaced?

Li Liang was horrified. Acting on instinct, he pulled the trigger.

Bullets tore into the cramped carriage.

Li Liang saw blood burst from the three people, but the strangers remained in their original sitting positions, motionless.

The six bullets were spent in no time.

Click. Click.

The sound reminded Li Liang, who had been pulling the trigger without realizing it, that he was out of bullets.

He tossed the revolver into the carriage and turned to run.

He'd barely taken a few steps when a hand reached out from behind him.

It pressed down on his shoulder.

An immense force struck him. Li Liang's body pitched backward, and he slammed into the ground, gray snow scattering around him.

His back burned with pain.

Lying on his back, Li Liang saw three faces above him.

They were the faces of three people who'd been shot and should have been dead.

They stood there, bent slightly at the waist, staring down at Li Liang.

Their eyes were lifeless, as though they were dead—or puppets.

Each of them held a rusted dagger.

Li Liang could see that the stains on the daggers weren't just rust. There was blood, too.

He could even smell the blood on the blades.

The daggers couldn't be real. They had to be some kind of illusion, right?

Could Jack the Ripper possess three people at once?

Could Jack the Ripper also possess and control corpses?

If he could possess and control corpses, why did he run away that night after Uncle Zhou "killed" him?

When did the Master and the others disappear?

In an instant, Li Liang's mind filled with one question after another.

They flashed through his mind like scenes at the end of his life.

He would never get the answers.

The daggers came down.

Light flared around Li Liang, forming a curtain that blocked one of the blades.

But he didn't even have time to release or transform his emotions.

The second dagger fell as well. The curtain wavered and dimmed.

At the same time, the third dagger "shattered" the curtain.

Li Liang's body began to convulse, thrashing wildly like a fish out of water and beating against the ground.

Then he stopped struggling.

Blood stained the gray snow red, then turned black.

"The snow's really coming down."

Chu Chongtian looked out the carriage window. The gray snowfall had grown so heavy that he couldn't even see the scenery on either side of the road.

"Knock, knock!"

Zhou Zhenguo rapped twice on the carriage wall and shouted, "Li, stop the carriage! Come in and take shelter. The snow's too heavy!"

The horses' neighs were his only reply.

The carriage jolted, and the horses pulling it suddenly broke into a gallop.

Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian weren't sitting securely. They lurched, their foreheads smacking together so hard they saw stars.

The carriage rocked violently.

It felt like they were riding on the back of a raging bull.

"Jump!"

Tang Luo opened his eyes and slapped the carriage door open.

Zhou Zhenguo shook his head and jumped out first, landing on the ground blanketed in gray snow. It was hard to tell whether he was hurt.

Chu Chongtian gritted his teeth and followed.

His landing was clearly much less graceful than Zhou Zhenguo's.

He let out a muffled groan and nearly hit the wheel.

Tang Luo didn't rush to jump. Half his body hung outside the carriage as he looked ahead.

Li Liang, who'd been driving, had vanished without a trace at some point.

After waiting a moment, Tang Luo stepped out and landed on the ground.

It was as though he'd stepped off a stationary carriage. The movement had no effect on him at all.

By the time he turned to look at the carriage,

the two galloping horses had already disappeared into the snowstorm, carriage and all.

After looking for a moment, Tang Luo turned and headed back the way they'd come.

About ten minutes later, Tang Luo spotted Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian, who'd met up again.

They both looked rather bedraggled.

They had a few scrapes, but fortunately, nothing serious. The pain might hinder them for a little while, at most.

They'd be fine after a rest.

"Li..." Seeing Tang Luo return alone, Zhou Zhenguo trailed off.

"He's missing," Tang Luo said. "If you can walk, let's go look for him."

"Okay."

The two men nodded.

What had happened was too sudden and too bizarre.

Though they didn't want to admit it, they both knew the heavy snowfall of the past few days couldn't possibly be a normal weather event.

How long had it been since they left Small City?

They'd gone from clear skies to a raging snowstorm.

Clearly, some unknown force was stopping them from leaving Small City.

Jack the Ripper?

They didn't know. To be honest, they didn't want to dwell on it, or think too deeply about the force hiding behind all this.

Ignorance was sometimes a blessing.

With grim faces, Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian slowly walked in the direction the carriage had disappeared.

There was only one road here.

They walked for nearly an hour.

Both men felt as though their toes were about to freeze solid.

They pulled their hats down as low as they could and raised their collars, leaving only their eyes exposed.

Even so, they couldn't keep out the bitter cold, which seemed to seep right into their bones.

"There it is!"

Through the snowstorm ahead, the outline of the carriage appeared, motionless in the middle of the road.

"There's no one here."

When they reached the carriage, they found it empty, both inside and in the driver's seat.

And that wasn't all.

The entire carriage was covered in a thick layer of ice, completely frozen solid.

The two horses were frozen too, standing in the snow as though they'd been dead for countless years.

"What the hell?"

Chu Chongtian's voice was full of dejection.

It seemed that ever since Night of the Manor, events had completely outstripped anything they could have imagined.

Like wild horses that had slipped their reins, everything was racing toward an unknowable future.

Standing beside the horses, which looked like ice sculptures, Chu Chongtian couldn't help taking a few steps forward.

Suddenly, the ground vanished beneath his foot.

The crunch of his foot on the snow never came. Instead, the snow beneath him began to give way.

Beyond the horses' heads, the ground had somehow vanished without a trace.

In its place was a pitch-black abyss with no visible bottom.

Gray snowflakes fell into the black abyss ahead of Chu Chongtian.

Chu Chongtian's off-balance body fell after them.

Then the collar of his coat tightened. A tremendous force flung him through the air and landed him behind the carriage.

He landed hard on his butt. The pain made him forget to be surprised.

"What's going on?"

Zhou Zhenguo walked over to Tang Luo and asked.

He wasn't really asking Tang Luo. He just wanted to say something.

After catching Chu Chongtian and throwing him back, Tang Luo said, "It's obvious. We can't leave Small City anymore."

The sudden chasm stretched so far that he couldn't see the bottom or either end.

Tang Luo didn't believe that if they walked a few hundred meters to the left or right, the black abyss would just disappear.

It was easy to imagine: Small City had become an isolated island.

Jack the Ripper's hunting ground!

No one could escape.

"Let's go,"

Zhou Zhenguo said. Since there was no way to escape, they could only face what lay ahead.

He and Chu Chongtian turned to leave, only to notice that Tang Luo hadn't moved. He was still standing beside the black abyss.

He stared at it, lost in thought.

Was this the legendary "when you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes back at you"?

"Master?"

Chu Chongtian called out.

"This humble monk was wondering what might be down there. I'm a little tempted to take a look," Tang Luo said.

"Huh?"

The two men shuddered. Was Master Xuanzang about to jump in?

"Master, please calm down," Chu Chongtian hurriedly shouted. "Don't jump!"

"Heh."

Tang Luo chuckled. "Don't worry. This humble monk isn't reckless. I was only thinking about it."

"..."

"Good to hear," Zhou Zhenguo said with an awkward laugh.

Of course, they had no idea that if Tang Luo weren't injured,

he might not have been only thinking about it.

I, Tang Xuanzang, fear nothing—wait, not now. Once I've found my disciples, then I can charge ahead to my heart's content.

Without the carriage, they had no choice but to trudge through the snow, each step sinking deep.

On the way back, they didn't find any trace of Li Liang.

They didn't even see the footprints that should have been there.

As they drew closer to Small City, the snowstorm gradually eased.

By the time they reached the manor, the sky was clear and bright.

Only the melting snow on their hats, shoulders, and clothes reminded the three of them what had happened.

Chu Chongtian stubbornly retraced his steps. Snow began falling from the sky again, and the temperature dropped sharply.

It was a clear statement that their range of movement was limited to this small area.

"Were our movements ever restricted during previous missions?" Tang Luo asked.

Zhou Zhenguo thought for a moment, then shook his head. "I'm not sure. Usually, the area we God and Demon Walkers can move around in radiates outward from the mission's center. Even those who don't intend to complete the mission don't stray too far. I've never encountered such an explicit, practically forced restriction."

"...Is this one of Jack the Ripper's abilities?" Chu Chongtian asked.

"I don't think so. He's so powerful—why would he need to hide what he's doing? Maybe this really is a restriction imposed by the God and Demon," Zhou Zhenguo sighed.

To turn Small City into a dead end and create a black abyss as an impassable divide.

Had Jack the Ripper done this?

Zhou Zhenguo truly didn't want to consider the possibility.

"Three people are missing."

Tang Luo's words made Zhou Zhenguo and Chu Chongtian look at him.

"The manor's guards. Three are missing. The one left behind..."

They walked up to the manor's tightly shut gates. Tang Luo reached out and knocked.

The Scotland Yard inspector, leaning against the gate with his back to them, shuddered and fell straight to the ground.

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