Dawn had yet to break. The Outer City was pitch-black, like an empty abyss, while across a single wall, the Inner City's scattered lights shone on.
The two standing atop the high wall gazed toward the Inner City, their upright figures standing firm in the cold night wind. Their fluttering hems swept across the multicolored lights, tearing through the stillness unique to the night.
Artillery fire burst from the Inner City once again. The living beings on the ground paid it no heed, the smiles on their faces more artificial than plastic masks, yet they remained immersed in their own worlds.
One of the people on the wall extended a hand. As his five fingers pushed forward, something black, twisted, and even viscous suddenly erupted within the Inner City.
Death had no color, yet here, it had truly become black.
It was not a single, pure black, but a layering of every color, like a clean cloth splashed with coat after coat of paint.
Every pigment wanted to cover the colors before it, yet the cloth held it fast. Unable to break free, it could only mix with the earlier paint that had yet to dry.
Patch after patch, until the accumulated pigments became a decaying black.
Lou Guanshan seemed to see the formation of coal: accumulated lives compressed and deformed over time, finally becoming fuel buried beneath the earth.
And he was holding a torch, one that could ignite that fuel.
Lou Guanshan leaped upward, a flash of his saber sweeping horizontally-not with its edge, but with its spine.
Searing gunsmoke whipped up his hems and tinged his earth-colored eyes with coldness.
Kou Ying stepped onto the foremost shell, pulled Lou Guanshan back with a shadow, and pushed the barrage onward, carrying the most violent fireworks toward the grandest