Chapter 45: The Collapse of the Enigmatic Realm

Wearing the red veil, he suddenly transformed into the eerie bride’s figure.

Xia Tianqiong’s heart jolted. Hastily, he tore off the veil and looked into the bronze mirror again; the reflection had returned to his own image.

Could it have been an illusion?

He put the red veil back on, and the mirror still reflected the eerie bride.

He moved his arm and shook his head; the bride in the mirror mimicked every motion perfectly.

Aside from that, nothing else was unusual.

“Could this be a bride skin?”

Suddenly recalling the various skins in games that change one’s appearance or outfit, this situation felt very similar.

But what use did it have?

Wasn’t the function of the red veil to isolate from heaven and earth?

How could it cause someone to transform into the eerie bride?

A bad premonition stirred in Xia Tianqiong’s mind.

Some eerie artifacts subtly influence a person, even altering their personality or appearance.

If the red veil was worn too long, perhaps one might truly become the eerie bride!

With that thought, he yanked it off, unwilling to wear it again.

Next time he went to the Infernal Tavern, he must ask the eerie bride about this clearly.

Suddenly, a faint sound of slicing through the air came from behind.

Xia Tianqiong knew the cat demon was pursuing him.

At the same time, three invisible claw marks shot toward him. Just as he was about to teleport away, the red veil in his hand moved.

It suddenly broke free and hovered in midair, blocking the claw marks.

The claws, which could easily pierce through houses, were scattered like a breeze before the veil.

Then, the red veil flew straight toward the cat demon.

With about twenty or thirty meters between them, the cat demon hesitated briefly, then panicked and fled.

Like a mouse encountering a cat, it ran desperately without daring to stop.

This scene left Xia Tianqiong puzzled, standing frozen.

The red veil had launched an attack on its own, indicating it possessed consciousness.

An eerie artifact with its own consciousness was extremely rare. How could the eerie bride part with it?

Doubts filled Xia Tianqiong’s mind, and suddenly another possibility occurred to him.

Perhaps the red veil itself had no consciousness; the eerie bride might be concealed inside it, controlling the veil.

The cat demon was as fast as lightning, but the red veil was even faster.

A few seconds later, the veil caught up and covered the cat demon’s head.

The demon tried to pull off the veil, but it clung as if grown onto its head; no matter how hard it struggled, it couldn’t remove it.

The veil tightened, squeezing inward.

From a distance, Xia Tianqiong faintly heard cracking sounds—bones breaking.

“Ah!”

The cat demon screamed miserably, like a mad bull, crashing wildly and toppling house after house, raising clouds of dust.

“Die! Die together!”

It suddenly roared fiercely, and the world’s colors shifted.

The eerie domain rapidly contracted, ancient buildings crumbled into dust and vanished without trace.

The red sky canopy tore apart, revealing countless cracks and glimpses of the real sky beyond.

The enormous cat eyes shattered, dissolving into a dense, ghostly power that flowed into the cat demon’s body.

“Is it trying to self-destruct the eerie domain for a last desperate fight?”

Xia Tianqiong was shocked; he hadn’t expected the red veil to corner the cat demon so severely.

But if the eerie domain exploded, everything inside would be annihilated, and he would die as well.

“Stop it! Don’t let it blow up the eerie domain!”

Xia Tianqiong shouted at the red veil, unsure if it could understand.

After a moment, there was no response, no change.

The red canopy accelerated its contraction toward the center, erasing everything in its path—buildings and even cat men torn apart into nothingness.

At this moment, tens of thousands of cat men still roamed the eerie domain, screaming and fleeing in terror.

But there was no escape; they were all doomed.

Xia Tianqiong didn’t know what to do. Even if he hid in the mirror world, the bronze mirror lay outside and would vanish with the domain’s collapse, causing the mirror world to collapse too.

His predicament was worse still.

The dozen or so cat demon clones he had contracted were protesting collectively.

“Stop! You can’t kill the original. If it dies, we will perish too.”

“Don’t kill the original! We promised to persuade it to contract with you, isn’t that enough?”

For such a special eerie entity, if the original died, the clones would also vanish.

They thought Xia Tianqiong was controlling the red veil and begged him.

But Xia Tianqiong had no choice. “I’m not trying to kill it. If the eerie domain collapses, I’ll die too.”

The red veil ignored all commands, seemingly determined to kill the cat demon.

Moments later, the cat demon ceased struggling.

Simultaneously, all the cat demon clones contracted by Xia Tianqiong disintegrated, turning into streams of thick ghostly power.

The domain’s collapse accelerated wildly.

The space seemed to be torn apart, shattered into countless fragments.

Standing on the street, Xia Tianqiong felt utterly desolate, gripped by a force enveloping his body, threatening to tear him apart any second.

After killing the cat demon, the red veil flew back and settled automatically on Xia Tianqiong’s head.

Having witnessed it use this move to kill the cat demon, Xia Tianqiong panicked, wondering if it planned to kill him too.

But it didn’t matter; if not killed by the veil, he would perish in the domain’s collapse.

The ancient town, painted like an ink wash, turned to ash before his eyes, and the cat men vanished one by one into the void.

Xia Tianqiong watched silently, suddenly noticing the tearing force around his body had vanished.

It seemed to be blocked by the red veil.

“Could this be the veil’s power to isolate heaven and earth?”

Overjoyed, Xia Tianqiong thought that if this was true, he might survive.

Suddenly recalling his encounter with the eerie bride at the Infernal Tavern, who could disregard the power of rules, he suspected it was due to this veil’s shielding.

“Can you understand me?” he tentatively asked again, but still no reply came.

The eerie domain’s collapse was like a chain reaction, growing ever faster, like an explosion.

Dust storms whipped through heaven and earth, raging everywhere.

Xia Tianqiong stood like a nail driven into the ground, unaffected by anything around him.

Tens of thousands of cat men had mostly perished; those still alive ran about wildly, seeking safety.

Among them was Huang Yu.

She had originally thought that helping that young man kill would earn his protection and survive the game’s end.

But after a series of calamities, all she could do now was wait for death.

She didn’t even know if that person was still alive.

The space behind her gradually shattered; Huang Yu ran desperately, crying as she fled.

In the prime of youth, she hadn’t yet enjoyed life and was unwilling to die here.

As she ran, she suddenly spotted amidst the ruins a bride in red, looking extremely strange.

The bride noticed her, paused briefly, then beckoned.

Huang Yu felt fear, sensing danger.

As she hesitated, the moment passed, and the surrounding space began to collapse.

Suddenly, the bride took out a bronze mirror and shone it toward her.

Huang Yu’s eyes widened—she had seen that bronze mirror before.

“It's him!” the thought flashed through her mind just as the tearing force from the collapsing space engulfed her, while the mirror’s suction pulled her in.

“Ah!”

A scream pierced the air as Huang Yu’s body split in two; a small part turned to dust, while the larger portion was drawn into the mirror.

Xia Tianqiong frowned at the scene.

This woman had helped him, was obedient, and he had promised to protect her, which was why he saved her.

He hadn’t expected this outcome.

Her body torn apart, there was no chance of survival.

“Fate as it is, can’t blame me,” Xia Tianqiong muttered, not dwelling on it.

The eerie domain was filled with thick ghostly power, almost viscous.

He quickly took out several paper ingots and tossed them around, absorbing the ghostly energy.

The paper ingots rapidly expanded like balloons, soon reaching the size of watermelons, and kept growing.

As the domain collapsed and dust swirled, Xia Tianqiong gradually lost sight of everything.

About three to five minutes later, a thunderous roar echoed through heaven and earth.

It was the last sound marking the eerie domain’s complete disappearance.

Simultaneously, Xia Tianqiong’s vision instantly restored as if teleported, returning to Starry Night Plaza, at the spot where he had entered the domain.

The eerie domain was a special, parallel space; its collapse had no effect on the real world.

The only consequence was that those sucked into the domain, aside from Xia Tianqiong, never emerged.

He had entered the domain at dusk; now it was bright morning—the next day.

Xia Tianqiong removed the red veil and glanced at the rising sun before lowering his head to search for his gold ingots.

Several stood around him, each over half his height, crushing the plaza’s bricks beneath them, shining brilliantly in the morning light.

“So big? Must weigh dozens of tons!”

Xia Tianqiong was ecstatic, unable to close his mouth in surprise—he never expected to acquire so much gold.

For a long time to come, he wouldn’t lack money.

Just as he happily prepared to store the gold in the mirror world, the sky suddenly darkened.

The once clear sky, without a single cloud, now had a heavy, thick black cloud appearing overhead.

Strangely, the cloud hovered only above Xia Tianqiong’s head; elsewhere, the sky remained clear.

The black cloud slowly descended, enveloping the surroundings.

“Another eerie domain!”

Xia Tianqiong immediately recognized it as some kind of eerie domain.

Having just escaped one disaster, was another about to befall him?

Unwilling to take risks, he immediately tried to use Shadow Teleport to flee.

But Shadow Teleport failed!

This eerie domain had not even fully manifested, yet already displayed formidable power.

Xia Tianqiong cursed his misfortune.

The black cloud lowered further, finally settling on the ground and enclosing him.

To his surprise, inside the cloud was not pitch darkness but an unusual brightness, with a grand, imposing black building standing within.

A plaque hung above its entrance, inscribed with four seal script characters: “Eerie Mansion Bank.”

Xia Tianqiong’s tension eased immediately, replaced by a smile.

He had heard of this place but never seen it before.

The bank’s doors opened, and a middle-aged man in a green robe stepped out, smiling broadly, his gaze toward Xia Tianqiong warm and eager.