Chapter 643: The Audience's Eyes

At this moment, Chen Ling finally knew why the Jack of Plum Blossoms said that character wouldn't move.

It was a corpse.

From its attire, it looked like a soldier wearing armor. He held a broken sword in his hand, and his massive body was like a towering mountain... This corpse knelt dead in the darkness. Even though its features and attire were extremely abstract, one could still feel a huge sense of oppression.

And on the edge of the broken sword and the corpse, was a small flower in full bloom, floating there quietly, swaying without wind.

"That's it."

Even though they were still a long distance away, the Jack of Plum Blossoms seemed to have already been affected by the soldier, veins bulging from his temples, his expression gradually becoming ferocious.

Chen Ling didn't feel much, so he carried the Jack of Plum Blossoms into the range of the soldier's corpse and stepped deeper step by step... He looked back and saw that the characters chasing them paused slightly, seemingly wary of the soldier's existence, but they only slowed down their speed and did not stop the pursuit.

"Is this not enough..." Chen Ling's eyes narrowed slightly.

Chen Ling continued to go deeper, and after taking several steps in a row, a painful muffled groan sounded from behind him.

He looked back and saw that the Jack of Plum Blossoms' eyes were already bloodshot, his hands gripping Chen Ling's shoulders tightly, constantly exerting force like iron pincers.

Chen Ling knew the Jack of Plum Blossoms wasn't doing it on purpose; he was just affected by the soldier's emotions. Fortunately, the Jack of Plum Blossoms was only Green Divine Path, and his own strength wasn't strong. With Chen Ling's physique, this bit of force didn't count for much.

"Sorry..." The Jack of Plum Blossoms met Chen Ling's eyes and said hoarsely.

"It's okay."

He replied coldly.

As Chen Ling advanced, he could also feel the emotions transmitted from the soldier. It was a kind of extreme anger and unwillingness, as if he wanted to crush the hilt of the sword in his hand and hammer the earth until it cracked... Its eyes stared fixedly at a certain place in the void, and an incredibly powerful will spread in the air.

Chen Ling's pace did not slow down at all because he heard roars coming from behind him, and they were getting closer and closer.

One step,

Two steps,

Five steps... ten steps.

"Damn it... they all deserve to die!!" A roar came from behind Chen Ling. "Why them?! What right do they have?!"

"We didn't do anything wrong!! Why did they start a war?! The ambition of those politicians! Why use the lives of us ordinary people to fill it?!"

"Mother is dead, sister is dead, neighbors are all dead... all dead! All dead!! Why can't I do anything?!"

"I'm sorry... really sorry... Mom, I'm a piece of trash... I should have protected you all..."

"I'm going to kill them... I must kill them!!"

“……”

The hands gripping Chen Ling's shoulders exerted more and more force. The Jack of Plum Blossoms was like a madman, roaring angrily at the void in front of him!

Perhaps it was the torture of the past half year that had already left the Jack of Plum Blossoms' spirit riddled with holes, or perhaps the emotions contained in the soldier's corpse were simply too strong. The Jack of Plum Blossoms had completely lost his sanity, was assimilated by the emotions, and had completely substituted himself into the role of the soldier.

Seeing this, Chen Ling could only endure the influence of the soldier's emotions and backhanded a palm onto the Jack of Plum Blossoms' neck.

Thud——!

With a muffled sound, the Jack of Plum Blossoms rolled his eyes and fainted completely on Chen Ling's shoulder.

The Jack of Plum Blossoms' spirit was already at its limit. If this continued, it wouldn't be as simple as being briefly affected... If Chen Ling didn't "force a shutdown" directly, I'm afraid this number one genius of the Green Divine Path would become a vegetable or an idiot before he could leave "Guernica."

After the Jack of Plum Blossoms fainted, the void fell into silence again, leaving only the continuous roars of characters behind him.

Chen Ling went deep here, and most of the characters chasing him were forced to stop behind him, not daring to move forward. Only the woman burning all over and the woman holding a child were still chasing constantly, not yet at their limit.

"Then let's see... who can hold out longer."

Chen Ling carried the Jack of Plum Blossoms and gritted his teeth to continue moving forward.

Just as the Jack of Plum Blossoms said, the intensity of the soldier's emotions was several times that of other characters. Even though Chen Ling hadn't fully approached him, he had already felt an emotional influence that surpassed other characters being right in his face.

It was a kind of helpless pain. Bloodshot lines climbed up his eyeballs, just like the Jack of Plum Blossoms a moment ago. He could feel his spirit going manic, every muscle in his body trembling with anger, wishing he could cut off the Jack of Plum Blossoms' head with one knife and kill the enemy to sacrifice to heaven... Of course, Chen Ling tried his best to endure it.

But he wasn't sure how much longer he could endure.

"Calm down... calm down... it's all fake." Chen Ling forced himself to take deep breaths and maintain his sanity.

"I'm just an 'audience'... everything I see and hear has nothing to do with me..."

Chen Ling closed his bloodshot eyes, and the image of the "audience" in the theater appeared in his mind. He kept giving himself hints, trying to suppress his "empathy" to the lowest level... This was the only way he could survive now.

But even so, illusory images kept appearing in Chen Ling's tightly closed eyes.

Bombs falling from the sky,

Burning towns,

Women falling in despair from the roof in the fire, mothers holding infants with no breath, black cows running around in fright, passersby crawling in despair with their legs blown off...

And in this hellish scene, he could only watch with his eyes as the bombers swept over his head, destroying the city... because in his hand, there was only a ridiculous broken sword. No matter how angrily he roared, he couldn't hurt the bombers at all.

Unprecedented anger, helplessness, and guilt surged into Chen Ling's heart. His fists clenched involuntarily, and his chest heaved rapidly like a bellows!

"I am an 'audience'..."

"I am just an 'audience'!!"

"All of this has nothing to do with me... I am not in it."

Chen Ling's murmurs echoed in the void. At this time, his consciousness was already blurred, and he was just walking forward mechanically... As his psychological suggestions repeated, pairs of scarlet pupils belonging to the "audience" opened in the void behind him!

And as the frequency of Chen Ling's murmurs gradually accelerated, the "audience" pupils in the void were increasing rapidly. In just over ten seconds, it was as if the sky was covered with red stars!

【Audience Expectation Value +3】

The "Fourth Wall" gradually outlined around Chen Ling, tearing a ferocious gap in the intense emotions emitted by the soldier's corpse. At this moment, many characters surrounding him seemed to notice something, and terror appeared on their faces!

"I am... I am..."

"I am, an 'audience'."

Strands of red color dyed from the depths of Chen Ling's pupils. As his eyes opened involuntarily, the scarlet color seemed to drift out from his eyeballs, dragging embers at the corners of his eyes like flames, covering the apricot-red eye makeup of "Painted Red Face" under his skin.

At this moment, a pair of exaggerated crescent red eyes, almost identical to the "audience," were exposed in the void!