Moonlight

Inside the city of Yujing, towering skyscrapers were shrouded in thick, blood-colored mist, their forms hazy and indistinct. At a certain moment, the images of the buildings seemed to twist; they no longer looked like architecture, but rather like tall towers constructed from piled flesh and bone.

At the summit of one such building, a man with sunken eye sockets—looking like a dried corpse—gripped the railing. He stood on the edge, looking down at the city below which had been completely swallowed by the fog.

The wild wind whipped his trench coat. His unbelievably gaunt body seemed weightless, as if he might be blown off the roof at any moment.

But the man didn’t care. Instead, he leaned further out, tilting his head as if admiring a masterpiece. A sickly, pale smile spread across his face.

After a long silence, he stood up straight and suddenly turned to look at the man with a scar nearby, who stood with arms crossed. He asked with a smile, “Huipeng, do you think our methods are a bit too extreme?”

“It has nothing to do with me.”

The man addressed as Huipeng shook his head expressionlessly, clearly uninterested in the topic.

The withered man didn’t mind the lack of reaction. His question was more for himself than for others. He turned back and continued to speak to the wind: “Actually, sometimes I feel our methods are a bit extreme too. It makes us look like real lunatics.”

The man paused for a moment.

Then, his tone shifted.

“But to gain something, something must always be lost. This sacrifice is a necessary step on the path to the Truth. Only by mastering the Truth… can we save this world on the brink of extinction!”

“So, what is the Truth?”

The man’s voice sounded more excited than usual. Huipeng finally looked up at him, but the withered man was looking elsewhere as he countered, “What do you think the Truth is?”

This question plunged the gaunt man into silence. He gazed at Yujing, which was being devoured by the blood mist, lost in thought. After a long time, he shook his head. “I don’t know. But I believe in the Chairman. He says we are on the right path, so one day, we will figure it out!”

“Oh…”

Huipeng gave a perfunctory response. Finding the topic too dull, he asked, “By the way, where is the Chairman? Why hasn’t he appeared for such an important event?”

“The Chairman went to Linhai not long ago. Apparently, there is something more important there—something about a ‘Kingdom of the Drowned’? I’m not entirely sure of the details.”

The corpse-like man’s attention was successfully diverted. He shook his head, about to say more, when he suddenly froze.

Huipeng reacted even faster, snapping his head up toward the sky.

Under their gaze, an anomaly appeared in the sky above Yujing, which had been completely covered by the blood mist. An ominous feeling crept in.

The sensation lasted less than a second.

Then, it was proven to be no illusion.

“The moon…”

Looking at the jade-plate-like moon that had abruptly appeared in mid-air, the gaunt man frowned deeply.

A full moon rose over Yujing. It was unbelievably round, seemingly flawless, and incredibly large—as if it were within arm’s reach!

With the full moon hanging high, jade-colored moonlight spilled across the entire city, naturally covering the blood mist that was about to swallow Yujing.

Under this moonlight, the thickening blood mist actually began to turn translucent, looking as if it could dissipate at any moment!

“A relic? Has the Administration made its move?”

Looking at the moon, the man became pensive.

One glance was enough to know the moon was unnatural. The spilling moonlight felt wrong in every way. The man quickly identified it as the power of some relic.

Considering the current circumstances, he immediately connected this to the Administration.

He wasn’t particularly surprised. They had created such massive trouble; the Administration wouldn’t just sit and wait for death. They were bound to counterattack.

That was normal.

The only thing that worried him was what this moon represented. Or rather, which relic’s power had the Administration invoked?

The man could guess they would act, but he couldn’t predict the method or the specific relic. There was no helping it—the things the Administration collected or sealed were far too numerous!

Compared to the Truth Society, the Administration—with its hoard of Gifted individuals and dangerous relics—was the most formidable entity in the world.

Even though the opposition had already made their move, neither the man nor Huipeng could fully decipher it yet.

Fortunately, the Administration was playing its cards openly this time.

As the moon appeared and the moonlight took hold, the blood mist was driven back, and the surrounding world suddenly began to blur!

In a trance, everything before their eyes changed.

White became black, red became green, and cyan became blue. Moving forward turned into moving backward; jumping turned into falling…

Colors shifted, directions became chaotic, and self-perception was completely distorted!

No one knew how long this eerie sensation lasted. It could have been days, or just a few seconds. By the time the two Truth Society members regained their senses, everything around them had returned to “normal.”

It looked no different from before, as if everything that had just happened was a hallucination.

But the gaunt man and Huipeng were not ordinary people, nor were they novices. They quickly realized that while the surroundings looked unchanged, they were fundamentally different from before!

This was…

“The Shadow Realm.”

Feeling the rapid spatial shift, the two immediately understood the Administration’s counter-strategy.

“I see. Using a relic to drag Yujing into the Shadow Realm first? It disrupts our ritual while simultaneously seizing the initiative. Impressive!”

Looking up at the moon still hanging in the sky, the man couldn’t help but admire the Administration’s tenacity. Despite all their preparation, the opposition had easily found a way to break the deadlock.

“So, what’s next?”

The normally expressionless Huipeng actually let out a smile, appearing quite pleased to see the Truth Society suffer a setback. The gaunt man thought for a moment, then also smiled. “It doesn’t matter. We simply continue according to the original plan.”

He admitted the Administration had played a brilliant move, but while the tactic was ingenious, it was not stable.

After all, very few relics could drag a massive city like Yujing into the Shadow Realm in such a short time. To achieve this level, the Administration must have used one of their few Inscrutable Class relics!

Using such a relic was a gamble in itself, especially when the city was already being influenced by the power of another ritual.

So, while the man admired the Administration’s boldness, he didn’t believe they had lost because of it.

The outcome was still undecided.

As for who would have the last laugh, that would depend on their respective skills.