Artifact Report

Chapter 444 Chess: The Truth He Discovered and His Luck Was Still Not Good Enough
It's alright—he's fine.

As the curtain of the world was torn down and death revealed its dark face to him, someone fired a shot.

Even though his rational mind knew he was safe, the adrenaline was making his heart pound so hard it felt like it was going to burst, and his blood felt like it was going to rupture his blood vessels. All Chai could hear for a moment was the deafening roar in his ears.

He thought the inhabitants he had fought were already very powerful—they were indeed strong enough to give ordinary hunters a hard time—but compared to Damian, those inhabitants were like kindergarten children.

In that instant, it felt as if half the world had spun and twisted into a bull, its horns about to smash his frail body into pieces.

It's unbelievable that a resident of Damian's caliber could be stopped by bullets.

Who saved him?
"Chai Si... let's go!"

Uncle Kai's shout startled Chai Si, bringing him back to his senses from the lingering fear.

Damian was frozen in place, his neck at a 90-degree angle to his body, completely still.

Chai Si jumped to his feet and quickly glanced back at the direction from which the bullets had come.

The dark buildings behind me, shrouded in the half-dead silence of the night, with not a single light piercing the darkness, seemed to have almost no connection to the sleepless city of Blackmore.

In the dim light, Chai Si could vaguely see that there seemed to be a ring of small balconies on the building across the street, where people could hide.

Could it be that Sayuki and the others went around in circles and came back?
No, the weapon is wrong.

Sayuki and his companions only had pistols on them, and what they had just fired was at least a light automatic machine gun; they had only just left, and there wasn't enough time to go home and get a replacement weapon.

But now is not the time to find the shooter.

"Uncle Kai, if we're going to leave, we'll leave together."

While keeping a close eye on Damian, who was bent over at a ninety-degree angle, Chai Si shouted, "Go and take Aunt Hai away—"

He had only spoken half a sentence when a figure suddenly rushed out from beside him, stirring up a gust of wind—Hyper lunged at Damian, shouting hoarsely, "You've been shot? Damian, you're injured?"

Chai Si reached out and grabbed her, but failed. He watched helplessly as she lunged forward, grabbed Damian's arm, and even reached out shakily, as if trying to steady Damian's head as it fell over.

She knew, of course, that the residents wouldn't die.

But now, neither Chai Si nor Kaironan dared to call her, fearing that if she subconsciously responded, she would violate the rules and be punished.

Uncle Kai exchanged a glance with Chai Si, then clutched his chest and walked step by step behind Haiper.

I wonder if Uncle Kai is injured? Damian definitely didn't hit him hard when he swept him away, otherwise—otherwise the consequences would be unimaginable.

Kellonan gently placed a hand on Heper's shoulder.

"Don't respond to me, and don't forget the rules we just discussed," Uncle Kai said in a hoarse voice. "You go quickly, find a car, and leave this place. He's a resident; he'll be fine."

Haiper's face flushed red with anger, as if she was about to turn around and scold her husband, but then she seemed to remember something, and her anger suddenly subsided, leaving her in a state of desolation.

She glanced at Damian and finally let go.

Damian slowly straightened his neck, little by little, as if a mechanical joint was turning, as if he were drawing an arc in the air with his head—only then did Chess realize that after being hit by bullets several times, his neck seemed to have been stretched out.

Anyone who saw this scene would not mistake Damian for a human.

“Damian?” Heaper looked at him, taking a step back, but still trying to speak softly, “I’m glad you’re alright…”

Kaironan gave her a push and said heavily, "Let's go."

Faced with Damian, Chess didn't know what he could do—but he still stepped forward and shielded Heper and Keronan behind him.

Damian finally straightened his head.

He first glanced at the dimly lit buildings behind the open space.

Lost in thought, Damian withdrew his gaze and slowly scanned the three people in front of him.

His gaze lingered on Keronan for a moment, then swept over Heper as if she were insignificant, before finally fixing on Chais's face, where he remained motionless.

No, he wasn't completely still; his neck was slowly protruding forward.

The probe wasn't very long, still within the range of normal human activity, but it was extremely slow, as if there were many joints in his neck bone that could be stretched out inch by inch.

Those eyes...

Chai Si felt nauseous.

He had only felt nauseous a handful of times in his life. Even when he was occasionally drunk, he had never felt so cold, his muscles trembling and tense, just to keep himself from vomiting violently.

Damian's dark eyes seemed to be slowly bulging out of him—was it an illusion? —as if trying to lift up Chess's face and peek at what was hidden between his skin and bones.

If there's nothing but flesh, nerves, and fascia, then it'll be happy.
I'm so happy to squeeze in because there are so many that can cover my cheekbones.

Fill the eye socket bone

Pitch black and shiny, swollen with water, as if bound together by countless swollen lumps by invisible threads… These were Damian's eyes, capable of splitting into countless smaller ones at any moment.
Now his eyes have been lifted, Chess's face is exposed, and he's come in.

"Chai Si!" Kaironan shouted, startling Chai Si awake. "Step back and let him deal with me."

Chais blinked hard and found that Damian's neck and eyes were still in the same place, and he had not come close to him.

Damian just stared at him without moving, scrutinizing him closely, as if every hair on his face was the most disgusting and uncomfortable thing Damian had ever seen in his life.

"...Are you grateful?" Damian asked in a hoarse voice. Chais's step back was purely instinctive.

He had just realized that he couldn't let Uncle Kai face Damian; upon hearing this, he paused, then looked up at Damian.

"I saw it all."

Damian said almost calmly, “How disgusting, how stupid, how utterly shameless, like a lab fly trapped in a box, bowing and worshipping at the feeding port. Seeing the expression on your face, I can barely keep up this human skin.”

what expression?
If Chess were someone who wore his emotions on his sleeve, many hunters in Blackmore City wouldn't be so afraid of him—meaning Damian could see right through the subtle details on his face and into his emotions.

Chai Sicai was taken aback, but Damian hadn't finished speaking yet.

"It's disgusting, it's ugly, it's ridiculous. You look so stupid, how can I not smash your face, smash your stupidity?"

Damian suddenly changed his tone, speaking in a high-pitched, soft voice: "'Ah, we can't let Uncle Kai face him alone,' 'Even if I die, we must let them go,' 'He doesn't want me to be hurt,' 'Uncle Kai's kindness to me grows deeper every day, and I can never repay it'... Rather than letting you continue to indulge in this self-delusion and continue to be self-righteous, it would have been better to let me die a quick death seventeen years ago."

He stopped talking and kept staring intently at Chai Si.

Slowly, as if he had made up his mind, Damian turned his eyes and glanced at Kaironan.

In that instant, for some reason, Chess had a very absurd and impossible feeling—Damian was almost crying like a child.

"If I don't destroy your self-righteous soul... if I don't make you writhe on the ground in agony, these seventeen years of my life... these seventeen years of my life..."

"Chai Si".

At some point, Kaironan walked up to Chais and called his name.

He turned around and found that Highper was already far away—perhaps on Caronan's orders. This time she didn't stop.

Kaironan was pale, and one hand was still unconsciously covering his chest.

His slightly cloudy eyes were fixed on Damian; a lock of hair fell down and rested on his eyebrows.

The once composed and unflappable head of the family sect was forced to reveal a hint of embarrassment, unease, and anxiety tonight.

"Uncle Kai,"

Chai Si looked at him, his chest swelling with something he couldn't quite put his finger on. Was it guilt, gratitude, or some other emotion that Damian had noticed but that he himself couldn't discern?

He clearly wanted to give everything he could get in this world to Uncle Kai and the Kai family.

His goal has not yet been achieved, yet he is about to disappear tonight.

Regretful, but not remorseful.

“Uncle Kai, you were injured too, so it's not safe for you to stay here any longer. You should go with Aunt Hai. I have my own ways of dealing with this—”

He didn't finish his sentence.

At that moment, Kaironan patted Chess's shoulder gently, as if he were very grateful.

Looking back, this seemed to be the first time Kaironan had touched him since he woke up from the effects of the healing bullet.

Chai Si is incredibly lucky.

"I'm fine. Did you arrange for someone to come upstairs?" Kaironan gestured to the building behind the open space. It looked like a department store.

Chai Si stood in a blank space.

It was as if someone had pressed a button, turning the world into a frozen, lifeless, snow-white vacuum.

Perhaps a bullet actually hit him just now.

No, he really wished a bullet had hit him. That would have been wonderful.

He wished his life had ended just minutes earlier.

As if suffocated by a thick fog, his mind struggled, he gasped for breath, trying to grasp at the faint traces of color, the faint traces of truth, that swayed amidst the swirling mist.

Who...who can save him? Who can tell him that it's all a lie?
In his dazed state, Chai Si still realized that he was tilting his head and looking at Uncle Kai, so Damian couldn't see the expression on his face.

Since his expression was not visible, Chai Si's true emotions at that moment were also unseen.

He shouldn't be able to see it, otherwise Damian wouldn't have been unresponsive.

“Chais?” Caronan raised an eyebrow, scrutinizing him. “What’s wrong?”

"No...it's nothing."

His vocal cords, like cracked branches in the dead of winter, produced Shibasaki's hoarse voice. "Yes...yes. I arranged for people. I ordered Sayuki...to lead men to ambush nearby. So, I'll deal with him. You should leave now."

Finally, he was almost begging.

...His luck wasn't good enough.

If Chai Si had truly been lucky, he should have climbed into his mother's arms on a night when he was five years old and closed his eyes with her.

I never have to wake up again.

(End of this chapter)