Chapter 1721: The First Red King

Nightfall squad?

A flash of doubt crossed Chen Ling's mind.

He should have already crossed the world barrier and arrived outside the world... According to what Shen Qingzhu had said before, the world is a candlelight, and outside the candlelight... there were actually people?

And it sounded like there was more than one.

Although puzzled, Chen Ling still reached out and shook hands with An Qingyu.

"Chen Ling."

Under the boundless darkness, a hand draped in theatrical robes shook hands with the deep red cloak.

"My name is Jiang Er, 'Jiang' as in the Yangtze River, 'Er' as in Erhai Lake." A crisp voice came from the void, and a ghostly girl in a white dress waved at Chen Ling.

Chen Ling was stunned. He possessed the ability to control ghosts himself, so he naturally sensed that the girl before him was not a living person...

But strangely, she didn't seem like an ordinary ghost either. Ordinary ghosts couldn't last long in the mortal world before dissipating, but this Jiang Er had some kind of peculiar and extremely powerful force field maintaining her existence.

"Surprised?" An Qingyu seemed to see through Chen Ling's confusion and explained with a light smile, "Her ability is a bit special; it allows souls to exist in a stable form... And it doesn't just work on herself, you know."

Whether it was Chen Ling's imagination or not, An Qingyu seemed to deliberately raise his tone when he said the last sentence.

"You came out of 'that' world, right?" Jiang Er blinked. "Then have you seen the 'Drag King'?!"

As soon as the words "Drag King" appeared, Chen Ling suddenly realized something.

"You guys... are the teammates he mentioned?"

Chen Ling remembered that when he was chatting with Shen Qingzhu before, he had heard him mention the existence of others outside the candlelight world, as well as words like "Captain"... Now it seemed that the people he was referring to were An Qingyu and the others.

Even someone as powerful as Shen Qingzhu was just a member of this squad? Then what kind of existence was the "Captain" they spoke of?

"That's right." An Qingyu nodded. "It seems you have already met him."

"...I have."

"Is he doing okay?"

Chen Ling thought for a moment. "He seems fine, just looks a bit bored."

An Qingyu and Jiang Er looked at each other, both seeing the subtlety in the other's eyes, and tacitly skipped the topic.

"I heard him say that the Red Star's designation was compiled by someone called 'Deputy Captain An'..." Chen Ling's memory became clearer. He looked at An Qingyu before him and spoke tentatively.

"That's me." An Qingyu admitted generously. "But that's nothing impressive. I just categorized the stars in that meteor shower according to their different characteristics and sorted them by their distance from the candlelight world... In the end, it's just a 'naming convention'."

"Then you must know a lot about the Red Star?"

"Are you talking about [Y-012]?" An Qingyu's gaze was somewhat solemn. "To be honest, it is quite dangerous. Among all the meteors known so far, its existence is extremely special... And it possesses a very strong self-awareness. The more developed a civilization is, the more likely it is to be targeted by it..."

"As far as worlds targeted by it go, there hasn't been a single case of survival so far..."

"Your world is an exception."

An Qingyu raised his hand to point in a certain direction. Chen Ling followed his hand and could see a faint candlelight flickering at the end of the void.

"I don't know how you managed it specifically, but you actually managed to hold off [Y-012] six times on your own... Whether it's me, the Captain, or Mr. Ji, we are all very shocked."

Chen Ling asked back in surprise: "Shocked? You have all transcended the world; this shouldn't be a difficult task for you, right?"

Chen Ling had assumed that given the strength of this group, dealing with meteor showers wouldn't be a problem, and dealing with a Red Star should be a piece of cake. Why would they still find it a headache?

"I said, [Y-012] is special..." An Qingyu shook his head.

"To be honest, when this meteor hit your world, we all thought your destruction was inevitable. But we didn't expect you to turn around and trap it in your world instead..."

"The candlelight world possesses infinite possibilities and will also give birth to many incomprehensible existences. The Captain and Mr. Ji both walked out of their respective worlds. The fact that your world could trap [Y-012] without any dimension-ascending powerhouses shows that it possesses potential beyond imagination."

"We have been waiting for the second person to walk out of that world."

"Wait!"

Chen Ling keenly caught something. "You just said... the second?"

"That's right." An Qingyu nodded. "Like you, he left the world barrier by accident. Strictly speaking, it doesn't count as walking out by his own power... But at least, he got out."

An Qingyu paused for a moment and added:

"By the way..."

"He calls himself the First Red King."

Hearing the words "First Red King," it was as if thunder was ringing in Chen Ling's mind!

The First Red King... the legend who pioneered the "reversing the era, restarting the world," the first master of the Twilight Society who held the foundation of the Heavenly Dao's ancient treasury, the most mysterious existence among all the Red Kings... had actually left the world barrier by accident just like him?

"Then where is he now?" Chen Ling immediately asked.

"I don't know." An Qingyu sighed. "After he left the world barrier, he disappeared... Even I can't tell where he went."

Chen Ling frowned and fell into deep thought.

Chen Ling hadn't expected that his accidental departure from the world barrier would not only lead him to meet the Nightfall squad and escape a death trap, but also learn the whereabouts of the First Red King... The impression of this legend in Chen Ling's mind became even more mysterious and majestic.

"Then how do I go back?" Chen Ling asked immediately after.

"Do you want to go back?" An Qingyu raised an eyebrow.

"Your world is still under the threat of [Y-012]... Since you've already come out, why put yourself in danger again?"

"I can take you to see the Captain and Mr. Ji. With their help, even if you don't go back, you can break through the limits of your original world and become a dimension-ascending existence that transcends everything... That would be the safest and most stable way, wouldn't it?"

"Then can I wait until after I ascend to go back and solve the Red Star?" Chen Ling asked back.

"No... The time flow in your world is different from outside the world. By the time you complete your ascension, your world will probably have already been destroyed by the Red Star."

"Then I'm going back."

Chen Ling answered without hesitation.

He didn't care about ascension or anything else; he just wanted to fulfill his duty as the Sixth Red King, return to the restarted world, and completely solve the Red Star.

In that world... there were still many people waiting for him.