Chapter 644: What Does It Have to Do With Me?

The Fourth Wall is the boundary between the "stage" and the "audience." The performance on the stage will not affect the audience, and the audience cannot intervene in the performance... As long as the "Fourth Wall" exists, the story is ultimately just a story.

And the painting presented before Chen Ling's eyes was also just a "story."

Bombers hummed overhead, innocent residents wailed in the sea of fire, and Chen Ling watched with his own eyes as fresh corpses fell before him, yet there was no emotional fluctuation in those scarlet pupils...

That red-clad figure stood there quietly, like an "audience" who had wandered into this place by mistake.

At this moment, all the painting characters that had followed him stopped stiffly in place, and the roars, shouts, and cries came to an abrupt end.

They looked at the red-clad figure in fear. In a trance, the existence of the red-clad figure became ethereal... as if he were in the same dimension as them, and at other times as if he did not exist at all. He was between "reality" and "falsehood," making him difficult to grasp.

They stopped their steps, but Chen Ling did not;

Chen Ling was still approaching the soldier's corpse.

Scarlet embers danced in Chen Ling's eye sockets, and like the thousands of "audience eyes" in the void behind him, there was a kind of aloof cold-bloodedness and mockery. And the only difference between him and those "audience" was that he wore a bright-colored garment and had a face with three-dimensional features.

But now, this face of his had no expression, and even his features were gradually blurring, beginning to lose the characteristics of "Chen Ling"...

He was transforming into an "audience."

The soldier's corpse was like a mountain, floating in the void. It didn't make any sound, but in the emotional radiation it transmitted, there was an angry roar that hadn't stopped for thousands of years!

"They all deserve to die!!!"

"I want to kill these invaders! I want them to be buried with everyone in this city!!"

"Come on! Come on!!"

"My sword will shatter everything! Even if I have nothing left!!"

"No... no!"

"Why... why can't I do anything?!! Why!!"

"Damn it... damn it!! I'm too weak... I'm so unwilling... I'm so unwilling!!!"

“……”

Deafening roars, mixed with invisible emotions, echoed within "Guernica";

That red-clad figure calmly walked under him, expressionlessly grasped the broken sword beside the soldier, and then lifted it with one hand...

And swung it down gently.

Hum——!!

The soldier's unwilling roar came to an abrupt end.

That body, hundreds of times larger than Chen Ling's, slowly split from the center, as if an invisible sword had fallen from the sky, splitting it in two... Its body collapsed in the void, and the thousand years of anger and unwillingness contained within it were as fragile as paper under this sword.

Scarlet embers drifted at the corners of Chen Ling's eyes. He held the broken sword in one hand and watched this scene expressionlessly, like an indifferent "audience."

"Your anger, what does it have to do with me?"

【Audience Expectation Value +5】

This sword shattered the soldier's body and also shattered all its emotions... In the fragmented body, endless unwillingness and resentment turned into near-substantial black mist, frantically pouncing toward Chen Ling, having already regarded Chen Ling as the object of venting.

But the existence of the "Fourth Wall" blocked all these resentful emotions. The rolling black mist swept over, but couldn't touch the red-clad figure inside at all!

Chen Ling didn't care about these, but looked behind him at the other characters who were stiff in place.

Although these characters didn't dare to provoke Chen Ling, their existence itself contained extremely rich emotions. These emotions, although silent, spread in the form of radiation, which was incredibly noisy in Chen Ling's ears.

"So hot!! I'm so hot!!"

"Someone save my child... he's dying, someone save him!"

"I don't want to die, I don't want to die!! I only lost one leg, I can still crawl... don't leave me behind!!"

"My home is destroyed, my wife and children are all dead! These damn beasts..."

The existence of any one of them meant extreme despair and pain. No one could remain unmoved by the emotions radiated by them. And the emotions radiated by these people, when added together, could drive anyone in the world crazy... except Chen Ling.

Chen Ling carried the sword, stepped on the void, and approached them step by step.

Sword up, sword down.

The woman holding the child closest to him was instantly cut in half, followed by the woman burning all over beside her. Chen Ling expressionlessly slashed them all to pieces in front of him, and the painful pleas also came to an abrupt end...

Chen Ling didn't feel they were pitiful, only that they were noisy;

Their irrepressible resentment frantically pounced on Chen Ling, but could only be blocked outside the "Fourth Wall." As Chen Ling killed more and more characters, his body seemed to be surging with a black cloud, gloomy and terrifying!

"Sigh..."

Just then, a sigh sounded from the void.

In the current "Guernica," all characters had been slaughtered by Chen Ling, and the Jack of Plum Blossoms was deep in a coma. This sudden sigh was like a flash of lightning in the dark night, incredibly clear.

Chen Ling, surrounded by the black cloud, frowned involuntarily.

"...Who?"

Chen Ling's gaze swept across the surroundings, seeing no figure, while the "audience eyes" in the void behind him seemed to notice something and locked onto a certain direction at the same time.

In the pitch-black void, a theater curtain was slowly pulled open.

"I see the sky crying..."

A figure wearing an opera robe stood behind the void curtain. He didn't step out, but instead, like an actor standing on a stage, with one hand behind his back, a melodious ballad echoed in the void.

The moment this ballad sounded, Chen Ling's body shook violently!

"I hear your voice;"

"I smell longing blooming in the thorns,"

"I come from the direction of the sunset..."

As soon as the four lines of the ballad were out, the rolling black cloud surrounding Chen Ling suddenly paused. The resentment and unwillingness that had been gloomy for thousands of years melted and dissipated at a speed visible to the naked eye, as if they were ice and snow directly hit by the scorching sun.

Secret Technique of the Opera Path — [Requiem Ballad].

The melodious ballad seemed to contain a gentle and powerful force, cleansing the resentment around Chen Ling. This singing hit the "Fourth Wall" and was reflected away, but a part of it still quietly flowed into Chen Ling's ears.

Chen Ling was stunned.

The "audience" red light burning in his pupils was gradually suppressed by this gentle ballad, and the features that were originally blurring also stopped changing at this moment.

He stared blankly at the void curtain and that familiar opera robe, and muttered:

"Mas... Master?"