Artifact Report

Chapter 276: Chai Si: The Most Gifted Hunter in Human History

He thought he would die the moment he opened the door.

He thought that the moment he saw Damian, he would roar, go crazy, and punch him hard... Chase thought that he would be burned to ashes by the intense burning white hatred, and turn into a pile of whimpering ruins on the spot.

Of course, nothing happened.

When he stepped into the corridor, Damian was standing a few steps away. He was wearing dark blue pajamas and gave Chase a shaky smile. He said, "That's great, Chase. I'm glad you're still awake."

Even if he could never call him his brother, Damian was still his brother.

Chai Si almost wanted to turn around and run away.

But in the end, he just squeezed out a sentence from his throat: "What happened?"

In the dim corridor with no lights on, there were only a few wooden lattice carved windows, which let in the dim moonlight from outside.

Damian's room was the last room at the end of the corridor; the light coming through the half-open door made Damian a dim silhouette.

The golden hair moistened by the dim moonlight, Damian's white teeth when he smiled, and the faint sweat on his forehead... Chase never knew whether that scene was his imagination.

"Come on," Damian called him, "Let's talk in my room."

...Maybe he was still sleeping in bed, or maybe this was a new nightmare he had.

Perhaps this nightmare can lead him into the lair.

Chase walked forward with Damian in a sleepwalking pace. After a few steps, he realized something was wrong.

"Why are you walking backwards?" Chai Si asked.

Damian still faced him, walking backwards step by step, chuckling softly, "You'll know when you see it."

...Hey, isn't this right?
Only now did Chai Si's mind seem to wake up and start working.

After Damian opened the passage, the person should have fallen into the nest... Could it be that he came out immediately after entering?
In other words, Damian not only has a channel; but his channel, no, his talent, is so superior?
Go when you want to go and come back when you want to come back?

...unharmed?
Chai Si had never before realized how hideous he was, as he did at that moment. If he had been cut open at that time, all that would have flowed out of his body would have been poison.

Tomorrow morning, when Uncle Kai learns that his son has opened such a safe and simple passage, what kind of look will he have when he turns around and looks at Chai Si?
Chai Si couldn't bear to imagine Uncle Kai's face. He forced himself to divert his attention and asked, "You've returned from the lair? What's your path?"

Damian's answer surprised him.

"No, I haven't gone in yet."

What? How can it be?

"Then how do you know you've opened the passage?"

Damian was already backing up to the half-open door.

All the lights in Kai's house were adjustable in brightness; the lights in Damian's room were only half as bright as usual. So, it wasn't until he pushed his back into the light that Chase finally made out the faint, dark blue and black shadows behind Damian.

"Wait, what's that behind you?"

Damian pushed the door open with his elbow, backed into the room, and stopped on the carpet.

"look,"

He was excited and nervous, his smile wide and bright; he threw his hands back. "My passage!"

For a long time, Chai Si couldn't understand what he saw.

He had seen the Kai family hunters enter their lair; each person would suddenly disappear after performing a certain action or completing certain conditions - it was said that all hunters and all passages were like this.

If passage is a hunter's talent, then Damian is undoubtedly the most gifted hunter in history.

none of them.

Throughout history, all hunters in the world are not on the same level as him.

Chai Si stared at the piece of dark blue pajamas fabric, his throat was dry and he couldn't utter a word.

"what is this?"

Damian's room was large, with a miniature wooden medieval fortress in the center, big enough for children to run around in and play fortress attack and defense. Damian loved it and always asked Chase to play with him; in the past, Chase, as the attacker, had been hit by his sponge bullets many times.

A splinter had sprouted from the wooden fortress wall at some point.

It just happened to hook onto a piece of torn pajamas fabric - Damian's pajamas on the back were probably caught on the wooden splinter when he was entering and leaving the fortress. He didn't notice it, and when he walked forward, he struggled hard, and the clothes were torn, and the piece of fabric was still hanging on the wooden splinter.

However, the fabric did not hang down.

It floats in the air like a flag fluttering in the wind.

The dark blue fabric seemed to be slowly spreading in the air, revealing a large mass of thick black that was impenetrable to the eyes, as if someone had cut off a piece of reality, revealing a black hole - just like - just like the human-shaped black hole left by Han Liuyue.

But unlike the human-shaped black hole, that large mass of dark matter seemed to be floating, slowly seeping into the surroundings... No, that's not right.

It's not seeping around.

It was directed towards Damian's back, leaving behind a dark shadow that seemed to be disconnected yet connected.

At first glance, a hazy corridor formed between Damian and the torn cloth.

"See? My path is truly a 'road'. It's a road!"

Damian couldn't hide his pride and excitement, and a little light flickered on his forehead.

"When I walk forward, it stretches, and when I walk backward, it shrinks. That's why I don't dare turn around. If I turn around and walk towards it, I'll enter the nest. And I can't go around it, so I'll leave it outside."

"How...how do you know?" Chase finally found his voice. "Have you been inside the lair? Is this really the entrance?" He thought Damian would say he hadn't been inside yet, so this was his guess.

“Yeah,” Damian said lightly. “I was in there.”

Chase stood there, imprisoned in his own body, unable to respond.

"But I didn't go all the way in." Damian, not realizing his strangeness, said, "I only went halfway in, took a look, and then came out."

...It is not only simple and convenient, but also can always maintain the "channel" shape, allowing people to enter and exit freely.

Damian had spotted the nest.

"Nest...what does a nest look like?" Chai Si murmured.

At that time he was not sure that he would never see the nest in his lifetime; but he had a vague idea.

Damian shrugged.

"It looks just like Blackmore City! At first glance, it's no different from here, nothing special. The streets were empty, and there weren't any residents in sight, so I ducked back. But it's nighttime over there, so it's hard to see clearly. I'll go in and take a look tomorrow morning."

"Are you going to keep the passage open until morning?" asked Chai Si.

"I don't know if I can sleep like this," Damian said, more like he'd discovered a new toy. "I can't lie flat on my back, right? I have to keep my back against the scraps of fabric to keep it up."

Chai Si had no idea about this problem.

"How do I turn it off? Take the fabric off? Push it back onto your pajamas?" he asked. "How about I take the fabric off first, and then you change clothes and try again tomorrow morning?"

Chase finished speaking, only to realize that Damian hadn't been paying attention to what he was saying.

His younger brother was tilting his head, lost in thought; only when Chase called him did Damian turn around.

He looked at Chai Si, his eyes gleaming faintly.

It was the kind of light that was condensed when a child focused sunlight with a magnifying glass, and it was enough to burn an ant.

"...Brother Chai Si, why don't you try going in?"

Chai Si stood in front of him, not understanding for a moment. "What?"

"It's a 'road', right? Maybe someone else besides me can walk on it."

At that time, Damian and Chase didn't know how his words would be verified.

"Haven't you always wanted a path to the lair? I think there might not be one. If you're so desperate to get into the lair, I'll lend you this path. It's much more likely than trying to find the path yourself."

Damian spoke without restraint, but he said so because... because he was only thinking about himself, right?
Chase swallowed down a heavy, hard, and complex lump of emotion and said in a trembling voice, "Do you think... this is okay? The Hunter's Passage... is usually only used by me."

"That's a hunter of average talent." Damian couldn't help but feel proud and said with a smile, "Is there any other hunter in the world with the same access as me?"

Such a sweet and hopeful nightmare.

Chai Si walked dazedly between Damian and the cloth, and tentatively took a step into the "Corridor of Shadows".

There is no unusual feeling in the body.

He walked in and walked along the "corridor", step by step towards the floating mass of darkness.

Thirteen-year-old Chai Si and thirty-year-old Chai Si, separated by seventeen years, stood together in front of the thick darkness; they slowly leaned over together, and plunged their heads, gazes, shoulders, bodies... into the endless and incomprehensible abyss.

Damian chuckled softly, "You really dare to go in there."

No matter how hard Chai Si looked, all he could see was darkness.

"Did you see the nest?" Damian asked.

He felt an inexplicable panic and quickly retreated, taking a few steps away. He gasped, "No, no—did you go in? How far did you go in? I only saw darkness. Nothing else."

“You went deeper than I did,” Damian said. “When I looked in, I could see the nest. But you only saw darkness?”

Chai Si nodded stiffly.

"It seems that this is not your channel, so you can't use it."

Damian immediately dropped the subject, sweeping it away like dust. "Hey, what do you think? If I open the passage in a different location, won't it lead to a different part of the lair? Then I don't even have to go in. I can just find the right spot, reach in, and take out the artifact, right?"

He chuckled and said, "It's so easy to get the artifact. What's the word... Oh, taking something out of the bag!"

Chai Si felt himself nodding, but his mind seemed to have drifted far away. He was just looking at himself from afar and discussing his path with Damian.

He thought that there was a God in the world.

That God took great pains to design a hell and named it the World.

If that weren't the case, Chase couldn't explain what happened next.

He stared at the mass of floating darkness and gently tugged on Damian's arm.

"do not move."

Chase said hoarsely, "...I'm here, don't be afraid. No matter what problems arise, I will help you solve them."

Damian was startled. "What's wrong?"

"There seems to be someone in that darkness."

(End of this chapter)