The white pill dissolved the black ocean. Banban's body sank into the sea, yet he felt his consciousness rising steadily.
The nightmares surrounding him burst like bubbles, layer after layer. As his body lay on the seabed, Banban opened his eyes.
It was as though he had awakened from an unimaginably long and terrifying nightmare. Memories belonging to Shen Luo and Banban flooded his mind. He saw a Blood City almost completely razed to the ground, the scattered black fog, and the Deep World forever shrouded in night.
"This is—Xinhu."
When the name Xinhu surfaced in his mind, the torn city within Banban's consciousness completed its final fusion. He woke fully from the nightmare of delirium, but there was not a trace of a smile on his face. He knew exactly what waking meant.
Pain struck, and only then did Banban realize that he had lost the sight in one eye. Half his body was covered in curses.
He strained to look into the distance. Chains binding the destinies of all living beings hung down from the starry sky, and strange things lay sprawled across every broken tile in Xinhu Blood City.
Every absurd, malformed, and incomprehensible thought in the world had been gathered into delirium, building a cage of madness. Yet all Banban saw now were corpses—every kind of corpse, every manner of death.
It was horrific, utterly horrific. Mutated, writhing flesh filled his vision. Countless obsessions refused to fade, and every torn mouth was wailing. Pools of blood tainted by the madness infection mirrored the night overhead. For a moment, it was impossible to tell whether the night sky had turned blood-red or night itself had shattered across the earth.
Amid countless corpses, Banban spotted a figure. Just as he was about to approach, the distorted River of