Chapter 1579: One Month

A flock of white birds was soaring in the sky when I found myself standing on top of a tuft of grass. I looked around in confusion. Where am I?

There was a perfectly paved limestone path leading behind the horizon, where a floating city basked in silver radiance was situated. On both sides of the path were floating rocks, atop which various girls were dancing. They were carrying herb baskets on their backs and holding wildflowers in their hands.

I stepped onto the paved path and slowly walked toward the city. Some time later, a group of cavalrymen galloped past me and dismounted from their horses before dropping to one knee along the path. Their royal insignia gleamed intimidatingly under the sunlight. For some reason, they were acting extremely respectful toward me.

I continued forward in a daze. This time, countless Corpse Eaters, Liches, Hunters and more undead appeared on both sides on the path. Unlike the cavalrymen from before, they chose to fully prostrate themselves in front of me. It was like they were revering a king.

……

Finally, I arrived at the end of the path where a royal banner flapped in the air. A beautiful woman carrying a sword at her hips was waiting for me there. She was none other than the master of Sky City, Karinshan. She smiled at me and said, "We are all proud of you… Now, please swear your loyalty once more to Sky Empire[1], my dearest warrior…"

I slowly dropped to one knee with the Xuanyuan Sword planted on the grass in front of me. As I looked at my sword, droplets of blood began dripping down on its edge. The droplets soon became a puddle that soaked my legs. I raised my hands to my face, just to see them completely drenched in blood. Suddenly, the sky itself turned as red as blood. Karinshan and Sky City around me vanished, as if it had never been.

……

"Ah!!"

I abruptly jolted awake and opened my eyes. The very first thing I saw was He Yi’s beautiful face, but her eyes looked swollen, and her face looked haggard with pain and sorrow. My heart ached at the mere sight of it. It looked like she had been crying for a very long time.

"Is that you, Eve?" I whispered.

He Yi’s pupils abruptly focused on me. Then, she burst into tears again when she realized I had woken up. While nodding repeatedly, she said, "It’s me, it’s me! You’ve finally awakened, Lu Chen. Uncle Du, Professor Liu, he’s woken up! Come quickly!"

Very soon, two people wearing white chemical protective clothing walked into the room. I recognized one of them. He was none other than Du Thirteen’s dad and the person-in-charge of a certain gene research organization in Nanjing.

"Do you recognize me, Lu Chen?"

"Of course. Long time no see, Uncle Du…"

"Heh. Keep quiet for the moment, will you? Someone, please come and inspect his heartbeat, temperature and other vitals…"

I looked around the room while waiting for the doctors to perform their duties. He Yi was the only person in the room. Li Chengfeng, Lin Yixin, Beiming Xue and more were all missing.

"How long have I been asleep, Eve?" I asked.

Hot tears slid down He Yi’s cheeks as she gripped my icy hands. "It’s been four days, Lu Chen… Thank goodness you woke up in the end. The doctors said that there was a chance you may never awaken…"

I nodded and glanced at the professionals beside me. "Uncle Du, please explain my exact situation to me. I want to know everything. I have a right to know my own condition, and I know I’m going to die very soon. There is literally no worse news you can tell me about my condition, so please don’t hide anything from me!"

Uncle Du frowned and took a moment to choose his words. "A year ago, Lin Yixin’s blood was able to inhibit the growth of the virus inside your body. However, we knew that it wasn’t a permanent solution because it was only a matter of time before the virus would become resistant to it. Viruses constantly mutate, and if even a single of millions of mutations happens to become immune, it will quickly outlive the rest of the mutations and become the dominant strain. We had expected this process to take at least 5 years, and to have that timeframe to research a better solution. However, a mutation immune to the blood serums seems to have appeared in your body in just a year!"

I sucked in a deep breath and felt an indescribable weakness inhibiting my body. "Do you have a solution yet?"

"Not yet…" Uncle Du grimaced visibly. "The virus’s composition is far, far beyond the reach of our technology right now. We haven’t even been able to fully analyze it. However, the CEO of Eternal Moon China branch, Xu Ning, came over this morning and delivered the data we’ve gathered from your blood sample to major countries such as the USA, Japan, Canada and more. We promise to do our best to research a new cure…"

"Help me up, Eve…" I said while struggling to sit up.

He Yi asked while assisting me, "What are you planning? You need to rest some more…"

I smiled. "This is no flu or fever. Rest won’t be doing me any good[2]."

I then looked at Du Thirteen’s dad again and asked, "Is it truly impossible to analyze the virus fully with our current technology, Uncle Du? Is it completely hopeless?"

"Well, no, not exactly. Given infinite amount of time, we could just keep experimenting with different aminoacids until we managed to find one that could suppress or even eliminate the virus outright. However, my rough estimate is that we would need hundreds of thousands of simulations if we were lucky, and hundreds of millions if we weren’t. And that’s just to create one portion of viable medicine. Moreover, we lack a suitable test subject that could help us test our samples and narrow the experiments down to certain patterns. It would speed up our research drastically."

"What do you mean by test subject?"

"It means someone who can bear your virus and grow immune to it."

I fell silent. I wouldn’t wish this fate for anyone.

I fell silent for a moment before asking another question, "How much time do I have left, Uncle Du?"

"A month…" he said with a pained look on his face, "perhaps less…"

It felt like knives were shredding my heart into pieces. I didn’t think I would have so little time left.

……

"Eve…" I looked at He Yi.

She also looked at me with her round, reddened eyes and asked, "What’s wrong?"

"I want to go home…"

I nearly burst into tears when I said this.

He Yi turned her face away for a moment to wipe her tears. Then, she looked back with a smile and said, "No problem. We’ll go home…"

Uncle Du stayed silent for a moment before saying, "Please give me a blood sample each day. I need first-hand data to be able to react to any changes that may befall you… Also, you need to be very careful from now on, Lu Chen. Your body will continuously weaken every day, and your senses may be largely affected or weakened as well. Someone must be around to take care of you at all times."

I nodded. "Got it…"

I slowly made my way off the bed and allowed He Yi to put my clothes on for me. My footsteps were still stable, but I felt much more weakened compared to how I used to be. I lacked the strength to even form a fist.

He Yi put my arm around her neck and supported me as we walked out of the room together. When we reached the hall of the research building, I saw Xinran, Beiming Xue, Lin Yixin, Li Chengfeng and Gui Guzi and many, many more familiar faces. Almost everyone was present.

……

"Big bro…"

Xinran and Beiming Xue shot up to their feet immediately. I shot them a smile and gave them a hug before saying, "I’m fine now. Let’s return to Suzhou, shall we?"

Lin Yixin walked up to me with reddened eyes. "Are you really okay?"

He Yi said, "Yiyi, don’t ask. Let’s just… return to Suzhou, okay?"

"Mn."

I gave my scarf a tug to make sure that it was covering the shade of purple on my neck. It was like a curse that might activate and kill me at any moment. Looking at the brothers, sisters and girlfriends all around me, I didn’t think I would have any regrets when I finally passed away.

……

We got on a bus to fetch us all back to Suzhou.

At a corner seat, I pulled my sleeve up and took a look at my arm. My veins had turned purple, and looked like they might burst open at any moment. It was the exact same as when I had developed livor mortis. This was what worried me the most.

An oppressive silence dominated the entire bus. Xinran was the only one who didn’t care about the awkward atmosphere. She gave my arm a tug and asked me with red eyes, "Big brother, why… why is everyone crying?"

I caressed her cheek while replying with a smile, "It’s because I was sick. But now that I was discharged from the hospital, everyone is crying from happiness that I’m fine…"

Beside me, Du Thirteen abruptly pressed his forehead against the seat back and cried out loud.

……

I let out a cough and patted Du Thirteen on the shoulder. "Come now, you have an image to maintain. Also, I’ve come to terms with this a long time go. Some things in life are inevitable, and all we can do is to make the best of it."

Du Thirteen looked away while retorting, "The fuck are you talking about? Only idiots would cry over something like this!"

I chuckled. "That’s right. There’s nothing to cry about. In fact, why don’t we talk about something happier?"

"Like what?" Du Thirteen asked.

I thought for a moment before answering, "For starters, what happened to the Nation War? I was asleep for 4 days, so I had no idea how it ended. How many cities did we conquer in the end?"

"I don’t know…" Chaos Moon muttered.

I glared at her and said, "How can you not know these things?! Give me a status report, now!"

Despite her bloodshot eyes, Chaos Moon started, "We were able to conquer Cyan Earth City, Seven Star City, Titan City and Burning City, and abandon Swallow Ear Canton in the end. The enemy managed to retake Hero City from us at the last moment[3], but the Northern Alliance is no more regardless. Also, after losing Titan City and Seven Star City to us, Vienna’s Sorrow and the entire Hero Alliance guild deleted their accounts in three days. That’s over 200,000 players in total…"

I couldn’t help but exclaim in surprise, "Holy shit. If nothing else, Vienna has proven himself to be a true man until the end. It takes some real balls to do such a thing… Oh right, what were the rewards of the Nation War, and was I the MVP still?"

This time, it was Li Chengfeng who answered my question. "Yes, you were. The Axe of Pangu should be in your bag."

"The Axe of Pangu, huh…" I grinned. "Sounds like one of the Twelve Divine Armaments. It was all worth it then…"

He Yi looked at me with pursed lips. "Are you logging back into the game after we get back home?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I will not allow Ancient Sword Dreaming Souls to be dragged down because of me. Even when I’m gone, you must all keep your promise and spread the sound of our hooves across the entire continent. You will tell everyone about the oath we had sworn back then!"

Gui Guzi clenched his fists tightly. "Don’t worry, Boss Broken Halberd!"

"Oh right…" Li Chengfeng started. "The registration for the second season of the WEL is right around the corner. Are you going to keep the same party? Hehe."

Li Chengfeng forced a smile when he said this. He truly was a wise person. Time waited for no one, so why would you want to wallow in misery when you could be enjoying life instead?

I nodded. "Sure. it’ll be the Frost Cloud classic—me, Eve, Beiming, Little Xin and sis."

Lin Yixin asked, "What is your plan for the Axe of Pangu, Lu Chen?"

"High Fighting Spirits can have it!" I said without hesitation.

He looked surprised. "You don’t think it’s a waste on me?"

"If you think it is, then grind hard and ascend to become a god, fool!"

"Mn!"

1. T/N: there has been moments where Sky City is referred to as Sky Empire instead. I normally just changed them to Sky City, but this part feels almost symbolic and, I’ve heard that the first game, Eternal Moon, is actually an alternate universe, so this dream may not just be a dream… ☜

2. T/N: while I would say that rest is ALWAYS good, his case is so unique—and by that I mean completely fictional—that it could be true ☜

3. T/N: Seriously? It’s probably because all the main players logged out of the game after Lu Chen collapsed ☜

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