novelraw Chapter 208
Chapter 208
Chapter 208: Brave Hero VS Brave Hero（4.6K）
Braving the torrential rain, Xia Li rushed into the car.
Shaking the water off his clothes, he stepped on the brake and started the engine.
Warm air quickly flowed from the vents, dispelling some of the chill from his body.
Xia Li opened the map and started navigating, when a private message popped up in the background of his phone.
The familiar black avatar made his heart clench.
This time, the reply was a few words longer, but each word pierced him like a thorn.
【I saved everyone, but I can’t save myself. 】
Xia Li closed the message, shifted gears, and released the brake.
He didn’t know where the sender was. But judging from the online reports of the most severe natural disasters, even areas with power outages…
The transmigrator’s location should be a small town in Cangshou District.
It was close to the river, surrounded by mountains on three sides. If a geological disaster were to occur, it would be the most severely affected area.
Outside the car, heavy raindrops pounded on the windows, the rain forming an invisible wall, completely obscuring his vision.
Even with the wipers on full speed, visibility was no more than fifty meters.
Xia Li was a novice driver, and driving on the highway in this situation was inevitably dangerous.
“Driving at night is difficult, you’d better activate your ability to predict the future.”
Fastening his seatbelt, Xia Li said to Wuqi in the back seat.
Wuqi shuddered.
“Meow!”
『No way, bro, safety first! My ability to predict the future is completely random. You want me to rely on it to avoid traffic accidents… We have four lives in this car!』
Wuqi swiftly rejected Xia Li’s plan.
Xia Li paused, his thoughts diverted.
“Where’s the other life?”
“Meow.”
『I can’t say. 』
“…”
Wuqi seemed to have misunderstood something, but Xia Li was in no mood to explain.
The last private message from the black avatar kept replaying in his mind.
Xia Li thought of a phrase he often saw online.
‘How to create a hero?’
‘Give him a miserable life and a little bit of love.’
‘Then how to create a villain?’
‘Take away that little bit of love.’
Although he didn’t know what had happened to the brother with the black avatar in real life,
it wasn’t hard to tell from his replies over the past six months that his life was very unhappy.
“Don’t worry, I’m here.”
Xia Li and Wuqi hadn’t come up with a solution when Lucia, sitting in the passenger seat, spoke up, clutching her seatbelt.
She glanced at Xia Li, a faint cyan halo appearing around her golden-brown pupils.
“Pupil magic?” Xia Li asked.
“Yes.”
Lucia nodded slightly, her soft voice coming from her nose.
“How long can it last?”
“If it’s just locking onto a range of five hundred meters straight ahead… the consumption isn’t high, it can last a long time.” Lucia replied.
“Good.”
Xia Li nodded and turned to remind the cow cat in the back seat.
“Wuqi, you don’t have a seatbelt, hold on tight.”
Just as Wuqi was about to look up, a sudden surge of acceleration sent him tumbling.
“Meow!”
『Next time, can you give a cat a few seconds to brace himself?!』
◈◈◈
Chongqing, Cangshou District.
At ten o’clock in the evening, the first raindrop fell here.
Then, dense raindrops poured down like a showerhead in a bathroom.
The clear night sky was instantly shattered, the sudden change in weather eliciting curses from pedestrians on the street.
Qin Chuan squatted at the bridgehead, the bright streetlight shining on his head, casting a long shadow at his feet.
His black hair was quickly soaked by the rain. The spring night was still a bit chilly, and the cold raindrops gradually stripped away the warmth from his body.
Qin Chuan didn’t seek shelter from the rain, but let the strong wind and icy rain lash at his body like blades.
He stared blankly at his phone, the magic stone on his chest flickering, its pulsing light like a heartbeat.
The magic was still active.
Following the ‘suggestions’ of those netizens, he was searching through countless possibilities, looking for the fate that would bring disaster.
A few days ago.
Qin Chuan went back to his aunt’s house.
In his shattered life, his aunt’s kindness was his only emotional support in the world.
However, it wasn’t his aunt who opened the door that day.
His aunt had gone out to work, and his uncle was home alone. As expected, he was drunk again.
This scum was lazy and good-for-nothing. He spent his days drinking and gambling. When he ran out of money, he would ask his aunt for it. If she didn’t have any, he would beat her.
Qin Chuan always thought he was a beast, a beast even more vile than the low-level demons on Zela Continent.
Facing Qin Chuan’s arrival, his uncle showed no mercy, venting all his drunken rage on him.
Qin Chuan chose not to endure it any longer. Just like he had punished the customer at the restaurant, he used the power of the Heart of Stone again.
His uncle tripped over scattered wine bottles and bled profusely.
Amidst the groans, Qin Chuan fled.
He ran as fast as he could, the sounds of laughter and chatter from the street reaching his ears. Cars honked, children on the square jumped into their mothers’ arms.
The starry sky shimmered in Qin Chuan’s eyes, but he couldn’t grasp even a shred of hope.
It was terrible.
Why did he, who had saved hundreds of millions of lives, even an entire world, have to suffer such consequences?
Their laughter was so annoying.
At this moment, Qin Chuan felt a deep regret.
He shouldn’t have left Earth, nor should he have returned. Every step of both decisions was a mistake.
If he hadn’t left, his parents wouldn’t have died. He could have smoothly joined a private company, earned a good salary, and lived a happy life with his parents who had toiled their whole lives.
Or, if he hadn’t chosen to return to Earth.
He wouldn’t have known about his parents’ deaths. He would have stayed on Zela Continent forever, as a hero, as a brave warrior, enjoying endless glory, marrying the saint who had secretly loved him for over a decade.
He could have had countless happy and beautiful outcomes.
But instead, he walked towards the one that brought him the most despair.
What a bullshit ‘Fate’ ability…
Qin Chuan grabbed his hair, choked sobs forming a lump in his throat.
“Shut up!!”
He yelled at the little girl behind him.
The little girl was frightened to tears, dropped her bubble solution, and turned to bury her face in her mother’s arms.
“Shut up, shut up…”
Qin Chuan was going crazy. He even had the insane thought of killing everyone around him.
—And in fact, that’s exactly what he did.
Under his chest, the fully charged Heart of Stone activated once again.
Fragments of meteorites wandering in the atmosphere collided by chance, then were captured by gravity and hurtled towards the earth.
“Mom, look, a meteor shower!”
“Make a wish, make a wish!”
“I wish my child grows up healthy~ What did you wish for?”
“I wish for Mom to stay young forever!”
“You rascal, you’re so smooth at such a young age, haha~”
The laughter that echoed in his ears pricked Qin Chuan like needles.
Qin Chuan looked at his trembling hands, his vision blurred.
It shouldn’t be like this…
The meteorites, which should have brought a devastating blow, eventually burned up in the atmosphere.
People didn’t stop their revelry, but were instead awestruck by the sudden meteor shower. Couples kissed under the night sky, families of three held hands and made wishes under the shooting stars.
Only Qin Chuan stood in a corner where the streetlights couldn’t reach, his face wet.
He was sure now.
Fate was playing tricks on him.
And the only thing he had to do now was to take revenge on this ‘Fate’.
He wanted everyone to feel his pain!
…
“My phone… it’s almost out of battery.”
Cold raindrops fell on the phone screen and slowly rolled down.
The online world, like alcohol, was magical. It could temporarily numb him, allowing him to escape the pain of reality for a while.
Looking at the remaining 10% battery life felt like a countdown.
Qin Chuan moved his fingers, trying to use the power of the Heart of Stone to charge his phone.
“Electricity…”
◈◈◈
He said in a weak voice.
“—Boom!”
A deafening thunderclap sounded.
Lightning struck from the sky, hitting the high-voltage power grid not far away, sparks flying.
In an instant, the power outage plunged the surrounding lights into darkness, and the town was enveloped in chaos.
Qin Chuan’s fingers twitched.
The ‘electricity’ he wanted wasn’t this kind of electricity.
The once-omnipotent magic, when manifested on Earth, couldn’t even accomplish the most basic tasks.
Just as ironic as his existence.
“Haha…”
Laughing senselessly, Qin Chuan opened yesterday’s post, and several new replies popped up.
【Why don’t you just kill yourself?】
【If you die, maybe you can transmigrate!】
“You’re right.”
Qin Chuan smiled, for the first time finding the netizens’ suggestions quite reasonable.
Shattering the Heart of Stone at its peak…
Qin Chuan couldn’t predict the consequences. Maybe it would explode, or go berserk, or even cause a spatial collapse.
But one thing was certain, he would die.
And the people around him would die too.
He was going to die anyway. When he posted that thread, when he decided to expose his abilities to the public, Qin Chuan was already mentally prepared for this.
What if this way of dying could really make him transmigrate…
Even if it couldn’t, at least he could take tens of thousands of people down with him.
“That’s a good deal.”
Qin Chuan said with a smile.
【Warning, low battery!】
【Phone will shut down in 30 seconds. 】
【30, 29, 28…】
It was indeed a second-hand phone that someone else had discarded. Even the hope brought by this 10% battery life was so meager.
If there was one thing Qin Chuan felt regretful about…
It was probably that he hadn’t finished reading ‘Record of Experiences from Azure Continent’.
Judging from the increasingly slow update speed of this damn author, it would take ages for it to be completed.
What a pity.
After all, Qin Chuan really liked it.
If it weren’t for his current situation, he could probably be good friends with this author…
Qin Chuan smiled bitterly, using the last few tens of seconds to send a message to the author with the chibi silver dragon avatar.
【I saved everyone, but I can’t save myself. 】
The moment he clicked send, the screen went black.
Qin Chuan wasn’t sure if this last ‘farewell’ had been sent successfully, but it didn’t matter to him anymore.
The wind howled in his ears, the sky roared like a tsunami. The rain mercilessly beat down the young spring buds, and the raging flood under the bridge surged like waves, washing over Qin Chuan’s feet.
Qin Chuan bent down and picked up a stone that had rolled down from the hillside.
Then, without hesitation, he gripped the stone and smashed it against his chest—
◈◈◈
“Meow…”
『I have a bad feeling about this. 』
Looking at the lightning and thunder outside the window, the storm was like a madman, snapping trees along the way, and rolling rocks kept falling from both sides.
Wuqi’s heart skipped a beat.
For a small feline like him, the more dangerous the situation, the more alert he became.
This was completely different from the carefree silver dragon in the passenger seat.
After a four-and-a-half-hour drive, Lucia finally couldn’t hold on anymore and fell asleep in the fourth hour.
Brother Xia had said that Dragon Sis had a very punctual biological clock due to her work recently. She would start feeling sleepy at ten o’clock and would definitely be asleep by twelve.
It was almost three in the morning now, and it was already remarkable that Dragon Sis could last this long.
Moreover, Dragon Sis also got carsick, and with the heavy rain outside, they couldn’t open the windows.
Dragons were a race with strong self-regulation abilities. When their bodies felt discomfort, they would adjust themselves.
Therefore, the phrase ‘sleep through difficulties’ wasn’t a joke, but a real racial characteristic.
However, Wuqi felt that Brother Xia deliberately let her sleep.
After all, the heater was on full blast…
If Wuqi wasn’t so timid, he would definitely have fallen asleep in this warm temperature.
“Shh, be quiet.”
Xia Li lowered his voice and glanced at Wuqi through the rearview mirror.
Wuqi wagged his tail and didn’t make a sound.
『No, really, don’t you want to wake Dragon Sis up…』
『The road ahead is very dangerous, and the power is even out. It feels like a landslide could happen at any time. We have four lives in this car. It would be good if you let Dragon Sis use farsight or something. 』
『Dragon Sis came all this way with you. If you let her sleep through it, she’ll definitely be angry when she wakes up. 』
Wuqi’s voice forcefully entered Xia Li’s mind. Xia Li didn’t speak, but focused on the road ahead, holding the steering wheel.
Wuqi muttered a few more words, but seeing that Xia Li wasn’t paying attention to him, he wisely shut up.
Forget it…
They were already here. Whether they lived or died, they could only leave it to fate.
Speaking of which, the ‘Brave Hero’ identity was usually the protagonist in stories.
Following the protagonist, they shouldn’t die so easily.
But thinking about it this way…
Wait a minute.
That transmigrator on the other side seemed to be a Brave Hero too!
Thinking of this, Wuqi trembled all over.
If Xia Li didn’t wake Dragon Sis up… was he about to witness a Brave Hero VS Brave Hero showdown?!
“We’re here.”
Xia Li’s brief words broke the silence.
Wuqi, lost in his thoughts, was startled and his fur stood on end.
Jumping onto Xia Li’s lap in two steps, Wuqi craned his neck and looked out through the windshield.
He was puzzled. They were supposed to be searching for the rampaging transmigrator in this vast town. Why did Xia Li declare they had arrived before they even started searching?
Looking over, Wuqi’s black tail puffed out like a pinecone.
“Meow!!”
His claws dug in, then he remembered Xia Li telling him to be quiet, so he quickly covered his mouth.
In the pitch black darkness, at the furthest point illuminated by the car’s headlights…
On the low bridge repeatedly battered by waves.
There was a mass of darkness that couldn’t be penetrated by light.
That mass of dark matter was utterly chaotic, like a shapeless fog, or a black hole seen on TV.
Wuqi had never seen anything like it, but one thing was certain, it was definitely a supernatural power.
Xia Li looked down at Wuqi, then took off his jacket and gently draped it over Lucia.
Lucia was sleeping soundly on her side. Perhaps feeling insecure, she clutched the shoulder strap of her seatbelt, her small lips softly breathing.
Xia Li leaned over and kissed her soft, inviting lips.
『Eww! Ugh!』
The sudden display of affection made Wuqi close his eyes in pain.
Then, Xia Li opened the car door. The wind howled in his ears, like a wail from hell.
Wuqi steeled himself and jumped out of the car with Xia Li.
“Meow!”
『Holy crap, meow!』
『Such strong wind!』
As soon as he landed, Wuqi felt like he was about to be blown away by the storm.
It was a good thing he hadn’t trimmed his claws recently, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to grip the ground at all.
Wuqi spread his paws like blooming plum blossoms, using all his strength to barely stay upright.
Looking up, Xia Li was already walking forward step by step.
He stood against the light, his figure outlined by the car’s headlights behind him.
“Clang…”
The sound of metal scraping against metal rang out incongruously amidst the howling wind.
A sky-blue light pierced the darkness, radiating a azure brilliance that symbolized bravery and hope.
“Meow!!”
Xia Li disappeared into the black mist, leaving Wuqi alone, meowing helplessly.
『Wait for me, meow!!』