Asura in Arknights

Seeing through Jingzhe's thoughts, Li Ang's lips twitched involuntarily.

As for not being able to sleep last night and running out to lie on the roof to look at the moon, there's no need to explain that to her.

Jingzhe was speechless when she heard this; she had made such a simple matter so complicated.

After a pause, Jingzhe said, "Do you have any spare clothes? Go and change quickly. If not, I'll have someone get you a set."

"Once everyone arrives, we'll be heading to Tianyue City. Don't get sick at such a crucial time."

"No, don't worry," Li Ang replied casually.

Since coming into this world, Li Ang has never been sick. With his physical condition, he is not immune to all diseases, but he is not someone who can be easily injured by a mere cold.

At this moment, Adele finally came out of the room, but Xi was nowhere to be seen.

A quick scan with his senses revealed that Xi was still lying in bed, seemingly not yet awake. However, considering what had happened the previous night, Li Ang wasn't surprised that she hadn't woken up yet.

Judging from her reaction when Zhang Daoling persuaded Xi, it's easy to see how afraid she was of the original form of 'Sui'. Therefore, Li Ang decided to change his clothes first and then go find her later.

That's a good opportunity to bring that painting along and see if Xi has a way to restore it.

Leon didn't have any spare clothes, but he just needed to wash the mud off his clothes and have Adele use magic to dry them.

"You mean, Miss Xi is the artist of that painting?"

While controlling the Originium Arts to dry the moisture in the clothes, Adele said in surprise.

"Yes, I didn't expect such a coincidence either."

Li Ang dried his hair with a towel and said, "Something unexpected happened last night. I may have accidentally entered Xi's 'dream' and saw the phantom of the Sui Beast there."

"But that's not important. What's important is that I saw many paintings in Xi's dream that were just like that painting. Even if Xi wasn't the author, she must know the fact that the author was."

This was practically a done deal, but Li Ang didn't make any absolute statements.

"So, Li Ang, you really are..."

Adele suddenly stopped mid-sentence.

Adele had never really grasped Li Ang's true identity and wasn't sure if it was appropriate to reveal it now.

“Probably,” Li Ang said nonchalantly, “but it doesn’t really matter, does it? You probably heard it before, that in that natural disaster, the original ‘me’ should have died, and the current me doesn’t really have much of a connection with the previous one.”

That's a pretty good excuse.

Well, Li Ang has made up his mind. Regardless of whether he has regained his memories of his predecessor, Li Ang has decided to tell the public this.

After all, the transformation of the Year Beast involves a lot of trouble, and getting involved rashly is not necessarily good news.

"What about Miss Naxi..." Adele hesitated.

Upon hearing this, Li Ang fell silent.

Anyone could see Xi's dependence on him, her 'brother'. Li Ang's decision might not be good news for her, since not everyone can accept that their familiar family member has suddenly become a stranger.

Moreover, Li Ang has no memory at all, so he can't fake it even if he wants to.

"Sigh... let's just take it one step at a time."

After a long silence, Li Ang sighed and said, "I'm in a difficult position too..."

Adele didn't know what to say, but it was best not to offer opinions on such matters.

Moreover, another beast will appear here in a few days, making Li Ang's situation even more difficult.

After a period of silence, Adele finally finished her work.

"Okay, the clothes are dry now, here you go."

After taking the clothes from Adele and putting them on, Li Ang said,

"Alright, now let's take that painting and go ask Xi about it."

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Scroll

When Li Ang finished tidying up and took the painting to find Xi, she had already woken up from her dream and was standing by the window, looking at the misty rain outside, looking preoccupied.

The events of last night seemed to have caused her considerable distress. The possibility that the Sui Beast might revive, as Zhang Daoling had mentioned, was revealed to her in this way, making it hard not to suspect that Zhang Daoling had done something behind the scenes.

Hearing the sounds coming from this direction, Xi also spotted Li Ang and the others.

"Ah... Brother, sister-in-law, you've come."

At first, Xi was quite hostile to Adele, this unknown person who appeared next to her brother. However, after Li Ang introduced Adele to her, Xi only hesitated for a moment before accepting her presence.

Now that Xi is calling Adele "sister-in-law" so openly, Adele feels a little embarrassed, as if she has inexplicably become a generation older.

"Xi, about last night..."

Li Ang wanted to first confirm what exactly happened last night. Was it that he had unintentionally entered Xi's dream, or was it just an illusion he saw alone?

"Yesterday... Brother, are you referring to that year sign?"

“Yes, that’s it.” Li Ang nodded. “I want to know what exactly happened.”

It seems that it wasn't just Li Ang's hallucination, which greatly increases the credibility of the Sui Beast's impending resurrection.

But why? Why would that organization have been plotting for decades to resurrect a god who had already died?

It should be known that the Year Beast is extremely arrogant, regarding all Terrans as inferior beings, with virtually no possibility of negotiation. Coupled with the humiliation that Yan Kingdom has brought it over the years, it will surely hate everyone even more.

"Actually, it's nothing. Sui hasn't really died. Sometimes a wisp of its consciousness will emerge from our shadows and come to cause trouble for us in our dreams, just like last night. As long as we deal with it, everything will be fine."

"This kind of thing isn't uncommon; it happens about once every ten or twenty years. Yesterday was just a coincidence," Xi explained calmly.

What Xi didn't say was that the Sui Beast phantoms she had encountered before were all soulless, rigid machines, but the Sui Beast phantom she saw yesterday was so vivid, as if it truly possessed consciousness. This was the first time such a situation had occurred.

However, everyone already knew that the Year Beast was about to be resurrected, so Xi didn't need to emphasize it anymore. Otherwise, wouldn't it seem like she was afraid of a mere illusion?

"I see..."

"Brother, is this why you came to see me?"

"It's not just this; there's something else I need to trouble you with."

As he spoke, Li Ang took the long tube containing the Sagazaki City scroll from behind his back. "Xi, could you please take a look and see if there's any possibility of restoring this painting?"

As soon as Xi took the long tube from Li Ang, she felt a familiar power inside it.

"This is...my painting?"

Xi was slightly taken aback. "Brother, where did you get this painting from?"

“The origin of this painting is quite complicated, and it involves a deity who is not from the Great Yan Dynasty. If you are interested, I can tell you about it slowly,” Li Ang said. “However, this painting has been severely damaged. At least tens of thousands of people live in it. I don’t know how much longer it can last.”

"So many people!?" Xi was startled.

She had drawn a town in a painting, and then drawn the residents of the town. She used the painting as a simulation of a town to play with. She had done this before when she was bored. However, it was already amazing that a small town had a few hundred people. She had never thought that she could fit so many people into a painting.

Hundreds of thousands of people... It might be a little embarrassing to say, but Xi has probably never met that many people in her entire life.

“Since it was my brother who asked me to do this, I will try my best to restore the painting.”

As she spoke, Xi pulled the scroll depicting Sagazaki City out of the long tube.

As soon as the scroll was unfurled, Xi couldn't help but frown.

One of the things artists find most intolerable is having their work altered at will. But this painting is not just altered; it has been completely changed beyond recognition.

If Xi's power weren't the foundation of this painting, making it impossible to completely erase, she might not even recognize it as her own work.

"call……"

She slowly exhaled, calming her increasingly agitated heart, and began to examine the painting one by one.

The first thing she saw in the painting was the monster roaring to the sky in the middle.

"This is... Hai Si??" Xi said in surprise, "It has already evolved to this level?"

"You know about Haisi too?"

Upon hearing this, Li Ang's heart stirred, and he quickly asked.

“I’ve seen it a few times before,” Xi nodded and said. “There is a territory in the southernmost part of the Great Yan bordering the sea, not too far from Gouwu City. It is often attacked by the sea monsters, and my elder brother used to be stationed there.”

Long, long ago, Xi also went there and saw what the sea was.

However, she later left because she really disliked fighting and was not good at it.

"No matter what, we absolutely cannot let this Sea Sprite escape," Xi said decisively, as she had some understanding of the characteristics of Sea Sprites.

Then Xi asked with some doubt, "But brother, where did you get this painting? Given the extent of the Great Yan's blockade of that sea area, no sea creatures should have entered the inland..."

Even if it were just a single dinosaur that crossed the blockade and entered the inland, as long as it could obtain sufficient food, it would be a disaster for ordinary people. The Great Yan Dynasty would never make such a basic mistake.

“I obtained this scroll from a shrine in the Eastern Kingdom,” Li Ang replied.

“Eastern Kingdom…” Xi carefully recalled her memories, then shook her head, “I’ve never heard of the Eastern Kingdom bordering any sea area… Where did this sea creature come from?”

Then Xi said very solemnly, "Brother, no matter what, you'd better tell Jingzhe about this. Hai Si's appearance inland is no small matter."

Xi simply doesn't want to get involved in those troublesome things; it doesn't mean she'll turn a blind eye to trouble.

When the nest is overturned, no egg remains intact. The reason why Xi stayed in Dayan and refused to leave was simply because Dayan was the most stable country in the world. Not only were there few natural disasters, but there was also basically no war. Xi did not want to move to another place after living there for decades.

If the calamity of the sea were to erupt, it would be an unbearable burden for any country on the continent.

“I’ll tell Jingzhe later,” Li Ang replied. “So, what about the painting? Can it be restored?”

"To be honest, it's very difficult."

Xi said with a frown.

Chapter Thirty: Methods

Xi did not find any inscription left by her third sister on the painting, nor did she find her own mark.

This suggests that the painting was created a long time ago, perhaps even shortly after she regained consciousness, when she was not yet fully proficient in controlling her powers. She found many traces on the painting that appeared to indicate she had used excessive force.

Most of those good paintings were lost by Xi, and I never expected to see one again now.

"But aren't you the artist of this painting? You can't fix it either?"

Li Ang thought to himself, "This is bad; this is probably the worst possible answer."

If even Xi is powerless, then wouldn't all of Li Ang's previous efforts have been in vain? Whether it's the hundreds of thousands of residents in the scroll world, or the answer Liu Yi didn't have time to tell them, all of this will become empty talk.

"What I mean is that it will be very difficult, but it's not entirely impossible."

Xi patiently explained to Li Ang, "This painting no longer contains only my power. It has been modified by the god you mentioned, brother. I can only repair my part at most by myself. The only way to completely repair this painting is to find that god or His agent."

The proxy? Li Ang was stunned. Wasn't that the same person as Liu Yi?

But the problem is... Liu Yi is currently in a coma due to the severe injury suffered by the Great God, and there is no sign of her waking up yet.

Li Ang had not expected things to turn out this way. He now seemed to be trapped in a vicious cycle with no way out. If he wanted to repair the painting, he had to find the Great God's agent, but the agent was currently in a coma because the Great God had been severely injured and would not wake up until the painting was repaired.

Xi also noticed Li Ang's somewhat comical expression and couldn't help but ask him what had happened.

Li Ang also told Xi about the predicament he was currently facing.

"...I don't know what the situation is with the person you're talking about, brother," Xi said after thinking for a while, "but you probably want to save the person in this painting, right?"

Li Ang nodded.

"Then it's very simple."

"If I were alone, although I couldn't restore the painting to its best condition, I could still stop it from deteriorating further."

"However... once this is done, no one can enter the painting before it is completely restored, and no one inside can come out. Otherwise, the painting will be completely ruined, and no one will be able to repair it."

Xi offered Li Ang another solution: since there were no conditions to solve the problem for the time being, they should just put it off for now.

"Is this even possible?" Li Ang's eyes lit up.

The most fundamental problem is that even if Li Ang continuously provides enough Originium Energy to the painting, he still cannot prevent the painting from collapsing.

In at most another month, the painting will reach the end of its lifespan, and even Liu Yi, who successfully escaped, will be in danger of losing her life. After all, she is the agent chosen by the Great God and has some deeper connection with the Great God.

“Of course, it’s very simple, brother, just wait a moment,” Xi assured Li Ang.

-------------------------------------

Xi found a brush and ink and worked with Adele to repair the painting, while Li Ang needed to find Jingzhe and tell her about Hai Si, who could disguise himself as a human.

After wandering around the courtyard, Li Ang found Jingzhe sitting in the hall eating a steamed bun.

Upon seeing Li Ang push open the door and enter, Jingzhe immediately stopped what she was eating and swallowed the rest of the steamed bun in one gulp.