The body of the Feather King, a shadow as immense as the night, turned to ashes and smoke, vanishing like a dewdrop evaporated by the scorching sun. The once chaotic and eerie city of the Feather People fell silent, as if the tide had receded, leaving behind an unsettling stillness, much like a beach after the waves have retreated. Li Tuosen and Chu Yao stood like two solitary lighthouses, exhausted and standing amidst the shattered remnants of a ruined world. Around them lay the scattered feathers, broken dreams, and faint flickering memories, bearing witness to the brutal battle that had unfolded.
However— the cursed transformation, like a festering rot, did not cease with the death of the Feather King.
From Li Tuosen's already battered back, black feathers, like flowers of death, continued to grow slowly and steadily, as though driven by an invisible force. The oppressive feeling they caused was suffocating.
"Why... why does this damned transformation still not stop, even after we defeated that nightmare-like Feather King?" Chu Yao's face, clouded with worry, was furrowed with tension, her obsidian-like eyes filled with barely concealed anxiety and frustration.
Li Tuosen, feeling like a drowning man grasping at a lifeline, tightly clenched his fist. He suddenly felt the black feather he'd carefully kept hidden within his clothes, the first one he had found, gently tremble— like a sleeping memory finally starting to awaken.
It was a feather, seemingly frozen in time, with an ancient and twisted script written on it— a name:
"Lin Jingwen"
The researcher who was mentioned in the professor’s notes on the night of his disappearance but had never appeared in any real records— the author of the Feather People thesis. The true owner of the lost file.
"The Feather King... perhaps... was just a puppet pushed into the spotlight... a manipulated marionette..." Li Tuosen muttered, like a detective who had finally touched the edge of the truth, his voice low and hoarse, filled with an incredulous guess.
—
When the ink-black night descended once more, enveloping the silent city, the towering Feather Tower at the city's center, like a slumbering giant, emitted a faint, eerie light. On its body, as if written by an invisible hand, dozens of blurred and distorted names slowly appeared. One name, in particular, shone with an ominous, unnatural glow, as if under the spotlight.
Chu Yao's already pale face turned as white as paper, her bright eyes filled with disbelief and terror. "These names... these names... they are those who have already undergone the transformation, those pitiful people who have become Feather People!"
And at that moment, Li Tuosen's own name appeared at the very bottom of the list, as if cursed by fate. But beside his name, a name appeared that was as unfamiliar to him as it was to anyone else:
"Third Monitor: Jingwen"
In an instant, the already oppressive air around them seemed to freeze, becoming thick with a suffocating pressure.
On the ground, from cracks like torn wounds, tiny, cold black feathers erupted like countless writhing tendrils. They spread out swiftly and eerily, surrounding the entire silent city. In the distant sky, as if torn apart, a pair of massive eyes, red as blood, slowly opened. Those eyes were cold and merciless, like a deity high above, watching everything below with a detached gaze.
"Finally... found you..."
The voice, coming from the depths of hell itself, was not like a ghost's whisper nor a human's warmth, but rather a terrifyingly twisted blend of thousands of trapped Feather People's vengeful souls, merging, distorting, and tearing themselves apart to form an eerie, unnatural tone.
Chu Yao, like a child seeing the most horrifying vision, let out a heart-rending scream. "He... he is not the Feather King... he is... the true... Lord of the Black Feathers!"
—
In the next moment, as if the sky were falling and the earth splitting, the ground beneath their feet crumbled, unable to bear the weight, collapsing with a thunderous roar!
The entire city, swallowed by an invisible force, was suddenly dragged into a terrifying alternate dimension. It was a colossal "library" made of countless twisted black feathers, each book resembling a sealed soul, recording the hidden "lies" buried deep within a person's heart.
Chu Yao, like a lost traveler in a nightmare, trembled as she picked up a book beside her. The spine, covered in black feathers, bore a line of cursed text:
"Night's Lament: I am not the Feather King's daughter."
Her face drained of color, turning as pale as paper.
"This... this book... it records all the lies we once told... all the unbearable lies!"
Li Tuosen, similarly guided by some unseen force, opened a book beside him:
"Li Tuosen: I never looked in the professor's research lab."
In the next moment, it felt as though countless cold steel needles stabbed into his brain. A deafening roar erupted in his mind, like a tsunami of sound, violently ripping apart his memories from the false illusions!
The judgment of the Lord of the Black Feathers had officially begun, like a merciless death sentence.
"Those who lie... shall eventually... become... Feather People..."
Countless black feathered spines, like a torrential downpour of daggers from hell, fell relentlessly toward them, piercing their shoulders, backs, and spinal cords. One by one, as if they were the most cruel executioners, they brutally tore open the fragile boundary between their reality and the fabrications.
Li Tuosen, like a sinner nailed to a cross, gritted his teeth, enduring the soul-shredding pain. But through his blood-tinged vision, he saw— in the deepest part of the library made of endless lies, a blurry and eerie figure, sitting upon a throne made of countless black feathers, like a ruler high above, calmly flipping through a black feathered notebook, as if in deep thought.
This figure was not ethereal like a ghost, nor divine like a god. No, it was a living human, his lips curled into a sinister smile, as if the conspiracy had been successfully executed.
"Finally... the next... perfect 'Feather King'... is about to... be born..."
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