But Beichen had said that rituals were probably only possessed by the source, which was the source of the bizarre.
As for why it was "probably," it was because no one could be sure about bizarre things.
A long period of time would distort all existence, and there were no eternally unchanging rules.
Speaking of the source of the bizarre...
Li Mo carefully recalled Beichen's account.
The source of the bizarre would continuously pollute its surroundings until all living things, dead things, and conceptual bodies in the vicinity became ghosts. Ghosts, in turn, could create derivatives based on their own rules.
If this continued to spread, the city would sooner or later become a dead city.
Li Mo held the file and walked past two stations along the way. He did not find anything strange, and his phone could not find any corresponding news, except for disappearances.
"So many people have died, the pollution can't have not spread. But in reality, there are no ghosts connected to the ghost bus. Then it's very likely that after triggering the rule to enter the ghost bus, you will be forcibly dragged into a world created by ghosts."
"You can't get off the bus before satisfying some conditions, or the probability of death after getting off is even greater."
Li Mo quickly analyzed and drew some obvious conclusions.
"I'll tell Rin first. Otherwise, if I disappear without a word like Sakura, she will be very worried."
Li Mo stopped moving forward. The file stated: in a state of being alone, walk three consecutive stations in Nagazora City, Far East, and finally stop at a certain station for more than seven minutes.
The ghost bus would appear. Getting on should be mandatory, and the consequences of not getting on would only be more serious.
There must have been people who had encountered the ghost bus and stayed behind, but they had not survived, which meant that staying at the station was also a dead end.
Li Mo stopped at the second station, hailed a taxi, and went straight back to school.
At this time, Rin should still be in class, and then prepare to eat lunch in two hours.
But when Li Mo arrived at school, he did not see Rin's figure. Only after asking did he find out that Rin had not come to class today.
"Strange, is Rin slacking off at home? It's also possible. After all, the school's courses are not necessary for her."
Li Mo thought to himself and quickly returned home. However, to his disappointment, he did not find Rin at home.
But her schoolbag was on the sofa, which meant that Rin had been home.
"Her schoolbag is at home, but she's not at school. Where could she have gone?"
Li Mo was very confused. He could only go back to the hospital and ask if anyone had visited him that day. The answer was yes.
After pulling out the surveillance footage, Li Mo clearly saw that after school in the afternoon, Rin had stayed in front of his window for a long time before leaving the hospital with her schoolbag.
To find out Rin's whereabouts, Li Mo used Beichen's authority to pull out the surveillance footage from the roadside.
The surveillance footage showed that at night, Rin had first returned home, then went out to eat.
Late at night, she had been wandering aimlessly at a bus station, walking forward while in a daze, and finally stopping in a daze in front of a certain station. Judging from the time, she should have been waiting for the last bus.
Wait a minute...
How many stations did she walk?
"One... two... three... four... five..." Li Mo went back and counted. The number finally stopped at five, far greater than three.
The surveillance footage suddenly distorted, as if it had been hit by something. The last thing it recorded was the broken ground and the explosion of a bomb, but the surveillance in reality was clearly fine.
When it returned to normal a few minutes later, Rin's figure was already gone. The last bus was late, and after seeing that there was no one at the station, it quickly drove away.
"She stayed there for more than seven minutes... the environment changed."
"Rin got on the ghost bus last night!?"
Li Mo's heart skipped a beat. He subconsciously bit his lip and stared at the surveillance footage.
The worst-case scenario had occurred. What would be the consequences of Rin getting on the ghost bus without knowing any of the rules...
She might not even... have survived the night.
Without hesitation, Li Mo immediately took a taxi to a relatively desolate suburban station, left the city center. The noon sun at the suburban station was scorching, and most people were resting, satisfying the condition of being alone.
"One... two... three..."
For half an hour, Li Mo made sure to walk past three stations while alone. He finally stopped at the third one, sat on a brand-new public chair, took out his phone, and silently counted down seven minutes, waiting for the ghost bus to appear.
If he had still been hesitant before, now, no matter for what reason, Li Mo had to get on the bus.
He had sworn to find Sakura, but he had failed.
If Rin died again... even if he found Sakura, Li Mo wouldn't know what expression to use, or what face he had to face her questions.
"Time's up."
Li Mo looked up, moved his gaze from the zeroed timer on his phone, and looked at the road ahead.
No change.
It was just that... the lights of the high-rise buildings in the distance had gone out, and there were no more chirping of insects or other sounds in his ears.
It was as if he were the only person in this world.
"As expected, I should have arrived in another world. I need to sort out what to do next."
"First thing: wait for the ghost bus to arrive alive. This should be very simple, but I can't let my guard down."
Li Mo stood up and scanned his surroundings. He didn't see anything.
If he couldn't get on the bus, then the origin of the ghosts on the ghost bus could not be explained. They were probably people who had gotten on the bus and then died.
It was not certain, but his intuition told Li Mo so.
If he couldn't get on the bus, then the ghost bus shouldn't have appeared. The first to be polluted would have been the station, not the vehicle.
After a long while, the surroundings were still dead silent, and there was not a single sound. Li Mo's tense heart slowly relaxed. It seemed that the real danger was after getting on the bus.
"Second thing: after getting on the bus, try to find a way to get off as much as possible. I have a feeling that before getting on the bus, the outside is safe. Once I get on, the outside is no longer safe. Staying at the station or other places is a dead end."
Li Mo's thoughts spun rapidly. It was also very simple to come to this conclusion.
That was that none of them had survived before, and he couldn't see anyone.
Many people had disappeared on this street, but he hadn't seen a single one just now.
And when the ghost bus showed its fangs, someone must have jumped off, but the result proved that that was wrong.
In a supernatural event, one must act according to the ghost's rules. Forcibly breaking the script would most likely make one the ghost's first target.
"I really should have asked Sister Beichen to tell me more..." Li Mo was very puzzled. He shook his head and pulled himself together, "Forget it. Who knows that I would voluntarily enter a supernatural event now? When I heard about these things back then, I was determined to stay away. But Sister Beichen might know something. She thought I couldn't hide, so she told me about the Bizarre in advance."
"Otherwise, I wouldn't even know how I died..."
"Don't be nervous. Sister Beichen said, keep a calm mind, don't trigger the ghost's killing rules, and carefully observe the methods to escape without triggering the killing rules. Sometimes you can even trust your intuition, not your senses."
"An ordinary person's cognition is easily interfered with. What you see and hear is all false. Every once in a while, you have to analyze whether the logic of the scene is problematic."
"There won't be male students in a girls' school. A person only has one pair of eyes and one pair of ears..."
Li Mo kept recalling Beichen's reminders and carefully recited them all.
Even so, his clasped hands still trembled uncontrollably. A bright light shone from the roadside, and the roar of a car was low and oppressive.
Li Mo frequently shook his legs and kept muttering to relieve his inner fear.
"Beep—"
The ghost bus had already arrived in front of Li Mo. It was tattered, just like what he had seen in the photo.
Li Mo swallowed his saliva and stood there as if frozen.
The reason was none other than that the ghosts on the ghost bus in the photo... when he had woken up and checked again, had all strangely stared at him outside the photo...
When he got on the bus later, wouldn't it replicate the scene in the photo...
Thinking of this, Li Mo couldn't help but swallow again. If he saw all the people on the bus turning their heads towards him in unison, no matter how much he deceived himself, he still couldn't hold back the fear in his heart.
"Let's do it."
Li Mo gritted his teeth, took two steps, and got on the bus.
...
...
"..."
After getting on the bus, Li Mo did not see the expected bizarre scene.
There were many people in the car, and there were few empty seats, but there were still some.
The driver was very normal, just an ordinary middle-aged man.
On the bus, there was a gloomy boy wearing headphones and listening to music, looking out the window. There were couples sitting side by side, their hands folded together, their faces full of happiness. There was a contemplative old man holding a book, his eyes deep, immersed in the ocean of knowledge.
The most eye-catching was a mother and son sitting in the front seat of the bus, smiling and talking.
The child snuggled in his mother's arms, playing with his mother's hair, his eyes flashing with curiosity and innocence towards the world, while the mother looked at the child gently, her face beaming with the light of motherly love.
The car seemed to be full of life, with the atmosphere of the mortal world everywhere.
Did I get on the wrong bus?
No... how could I make such a low-level mistake...
Li Mo guaranteed that he had gotten on the bus only after confirming that the vehicle in front of him was the tattered ghost bus in the photo. There was absolutely no mistake.
Then where was the problem?
It couldn't be that my posture for getting on the bus was wrong, right?
At this point, there was no turning back.
Li Mo walked past the front half of the bus and came to the back half.
The only empty seats were in the second to last row and the last row.
In order to better observe the actions of everyone in the car, Li Mo resolutely sat in the last row.
The moment he sat down, he felt a chill.
Li Mo subconsciously got up and glanced at the seat. There was no ice or anything. Was it an illusion of his senses?
It didn't feel like it... forget it. There was no better position than this.
Li Mo remained quiet throughout the process, patiently observing the words and actions of everyone in the car.
The ghost bus soon arrived at the next stop. The person getting off would press the button next to them when the ghost bus was about to arrive, and a sharp and loud bell would ring in the car.
After that, the driver would stop the ghost bus and open the back door.
Li Mo squinted his eyes and focused on the person getting off.
His previous conclusion was that getting off was a certain death, and now was an excellent opportunity for verification.
Time passed minute by minute. The person getting off first stretched out his left foot. His habit was different from that of a normal person. Li Mo noted this down. Most normal people would stretch out their right foot first when getting off.
But this situation was accidental. He would note it down first and only use it as a reference.
But the next scene made Li Mo unable to help but complain in his heart.
The person getting off was a young man.
The steps for getting on and off both had two levels. This hot-blooded young man actually waited until both feet were steadily on the same step before proceeding to the next step.
It looked particularly awkward.
At school, a boy who went up and down the stairs in this way would be laughed at by his brothers for several classes.
Usually, only people with one leg inconvenient would walk like this.
Li Mo continued to take notes.
That person was preparing to land on the ground. Li Mo concentrated, stuck his head out the window, and observed the changes in the other party's landing.
Disappointingly, there was no change.
The expected death did not occur, and there was no counterattack from the rules.
Could it be that getting off was allowed?
Li Mo looked up at the environment outside the car. The ghost bus had already driven to the junction of the suburbs and the city, and there were more people.
There were many passengers waiting at the station. Li Mo could even see street vendors.
But shouldn't he be isolated from reality after getting on the bus? Did his reasoning have a problem again?
Li Mo was perplexed.
"Forget it. It's at least a good thing to be able to see living people," Li Mo said softly. After two seconds, he added, "Probably..."
The ghost bus drove a few more stations and arrived at the city. The noise of people began to rise, and the outside of the car was a bustling scene.
The ghost bus was no different from a normal bus. They were both fulfilling the duty of transporting passengers to their designated destinations.
It was just that everyone didn't seem to look over. Apart from a few people who had triggered the rules and could see the ghost bus, others completely ignored the ghost bus.
On the road, even if the ghost bus was driving fast, people would not stop because of it.
Apart from these seemingly meaningless signs.
So far, Li Mo had not found any clues related to the "ritual" or Rin.
"...Cold. Is the air conditioner set so low?"
Li Mo shrank his body, looked up at the equipment blowing cold air, and reached out to turn it off.
But the expected cold did not recede. Instead, his limbs began to become stiff, as if he were exposed to the ice and snow without any clothes.
Li Mo was still in a daze. His right hand uncontrollably grabbed something, was dragged by the thing held in his hand, and swung it in front of him.
"What... happened?"
Li Mo looked at the suddenly appearing cursed blade, Crimson-Dyed Sakura, and the rotten flesh that had been cut in two in front of him, each half twisting and deforming on the ground.
He was stunned on the spot, his brain not reacting for a moment.
Shouldn't this thing be at home? Why did it appear in his hand?
The cursed blade, Crimson-Dyed Sakura, Beichen's weapon. Since Beichen fell ill, it had never been used again. This weapon was sealed in the storage cabinet at home.
Specialized in dealing with ghosts.
Holding it required a price, so Li Mo had been very sensible and stayed away, never picking it up out of curiosity.
Now, the sudden appearance of the cursed blade made Li Mo's hazy cognition gradually clear.
Li Mo slowly looked up and found that the people in the car no longer had their vivid appearance. The bizarre photo in the file had come true. The ghost bus had revealed its true face. There were no living people in the car, only ghosts, floating on the roof, their heads turned to look down at him.
"Ugh..."
Almost instantly, Li Mo almost couldn't hold back the reflux of stomach acid. His throat became abnormal, and vomit crowded his mouth.
A strong stench filled the small car. The originally bright car was now dim and damp.
Weeds grew wildly, and the car's skin was tattered, revealing the rusty mechanical parts inside.
Should I jump out?
Li Mo glanced at the broken car window. Jumping out was an option, but it would break the existing state.
"No... this state can't get any worse."
Without a moment's hesitation, Li Mo jumped out of the car window. The moment he landed, he was completely dumbfounded.
This was Nagazora City, but it was no longer the Nagazora City that Li Mo was familiar with.
The outline of the city was faintly visible in the dim twilight, lying quietly in the endless dust.
The death knell sounded. The tallest civilization clock tower let out a doomsday wail, echoing above the city.
A dead silent cold wind howled through the empty streets, stirring up gusts of sand and dust. In the distance, in the ruins of the buildings, a few hoarse sounds could be heard from time to time, disappearing into the vast black mist.
Houses collapsed, roads were damaged, and countless plants drilled out from the ground, spreading to the deserted streets and alleys.
Li Mo only glanced at it, then turned around to focus on the ghost bus behind him.
"I didn't get off... why? I clearly triggered the killing rule of the ghosts on the bus."
Just as Li Mo asked the question, the next second, his heart beat abnormally.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
His heart first beat rapidly, three times a second, far exceeding the normal person's heart rate.
But after a few seconds, the frequency of the beating became two times a second.
Thump! Thump!
Thump!
When Li Mo came to his senses, his heart rate had already reached once a second, and it was getting slower.
"What's going on?"
Li Mo was puzzled. He didn't understand the situation and could only tightly grasp the suddenly appearing cursed blade in his hand.
In his dream, this blade was always with Sakura, never leaving her side. Even when the two of them were together at night, the cursed blade was on the side of the bed, acting as a night light, emitting a faint pink cherry blossom light.
For everything you get, you must pay.
But since it was Sakura's and Beichen's weapon, then he... should be able to take some advantage, right?
Li Mo took a deep breath. He was prepared to pay the price, but he hoped that the price would not be too expensive.
At least until he found Rin...
Th...ump...
His heartbeat became slower and slower. Li Mo placed his left hand on his chest. There was no fluctuation for a few seconds.
His head was dizzy.
"Ugh!..."
Li Mo half-knelt on the ground, almost losing consciousness and dropping the cursed blade in his hand.
His blood flowed slowly, his brain became very slow, and his body gradually became cold.
"I... understand," Li Mo struggled to get up, recognizing his current situation.
Although the ghost bus would kill people who triggered its rules, it also had the function of isolation.
On the bus, you wouldn't trigger the rules of the ghosts outside.
Off the bus, there would only be more ghosts outside. Any action might trigger a rule, leading to being targeted by a ghost. Even the ghosts on the bus were no exception. The rules outside attacked indiscriminately, regardless of whether the other party was a person or a ghost.
Of course, these were just inferences. It was also possible that the ghosts on the bus could not leave the ghost bus. Everything needed evidence, but he had no time to find evidence.
The top priority was to find a way to break the situation.
Li Mo tried hard to recall what he had done just now. He had jumped out the window, gotten off the bus, and then stood there and looked back at the ghost bus. He had done nothing else.
But he had still triggered some kind of killing rule. Based on the abnormality of his heart rate, Li Mo could only think of... the rule would be triggered when that ghost heard his heartbeat.
The heart rate would gradually slow down, and with each passing period of time, it would decrease by a certain frequency until the heart stopped.
Th...ump......
His heart swelled, and the contraction was slow to come. His brain lacked blood supply, and he was close to fainting.
Fortunately, adrenaline was keeping him going. Li Mo struggled to squint his eyes, his vision blurry as he searched his surroundings for any clues.
There were currently only two ways to avoid death—
one was to find a way to live even if his heart stopped, but for him as a living person, it was simply a fantasy.
Stopping his heart in this deserted place was no different from death.
Then there was only one option left: find that ghost and kill it using the rules of the cursed blade...
"Where... are... you..."
After saying this, Li Mo's vision went completely dark.
With a "thud," he fell to the ground. His heart was still beating, but it had not yet fallen to the second contraction.
He was still alive, but he was about to die.
If he couldn't find that ghost, death was only a matter of time.
"..."
"..."
"Help me, Sakura."
Li Mo used his last bit of strength to call out Sakura's name. In an instant, the eyes on the Crimson-Dyed Sakura blade suddenly opened, and the blood-red eyes spun like gears.
Unlike gears, the eyeballs were like constantly squeezed mud, twisting in an extremely bizarre shape.
Finally, the eyeballs' line of sight converged on the sunny doll above Li Mo's head, which was not connected to any external object.
The next second, a blood light flashed.
The sunny doll was left with only a head, shedding tears of blood. Its neck was empty, its body had been brutally cut off.
Thump... thump...
His heartbeat gradually returned to normal, and Li Mo once again felt the feedback of his five senses.
He supported himself with both hands and barely got up.
Beside him was a sunny doll with black blood flowing from it. The black-red blood soaked the pure white cloth. He gently sniffed it and smelled a strong pungent smell.
He looked back. The ghosts on the ghost bus were still staring at him.
Fortunately, his guess should be correct. The ghosts could not get off the bus, or they were afraid of something outside the bus.
Li Mo's gaze returned to Crimson-Dyed Sakura. Its strange shape made people feel incomparably at ease and warm.
"Thank you," Li Mo called out softly, holding the hilt of the blade and moving forward along the shattered road.
Cursed Blade: Crimson-Dyed Sakura—
Sakura leaned against the wall of the village and pointed the blade at the countless sunny dolls in the sky.
She knew very well that in this twisted world.
Either she killed them, or she was killed. There was no possibility of coexistence.
Just like when she had first come to this world and encountered those man-eating livestock.
This world did not allow more living creatures to exist.
"..."
"..."
————
————
Li Mo carried the cursed blade and moved forward cautiously. The city had collapsed badly. There were broken walls everywhere, blocking the way forward.
Li Mo clumsily climbed over one obstacle after another. At some point, the sky suddenly became dim.
It quickly turned from broad daylight to dusk.
"It's here again... Sakura, I'll have to trouble you."
Li Mo knew very well that with his swordsmanship and reaction, he probably wouldn't be able to deal with a sudden danger. He could only let the cursed blade move his body.
All he had to do was to hold the hilt tightly.
As his voice fell, Crimson-Dyed Sakura suddenly rushed towards the sky, then turned back, dragging Li Mo to turn his back and plunge into the shrinking shadow behind him.
"A shadow?" Li Mo was still confused, but the next second, the wound on the shadow began to bleed black blood.
"What's going on? Can a shadow also be a ghost?"
Li Mo frowned, pulled out Crimson-Dyed Sakura, and stabbed it a few more times.
Several wounds all bled black blood. It was not a coincidence.
But, if the shadow under his feet was a ghost, then where was his shadow?
Li Mo tentatively retreated, but the shadow did not move, as if it were nailed in place by Crimson-Dyed Sakura.
As Li Mo continued to move, a brand new shadow gradually separated from the bleeding shadow.
This was his original shadow.
Before long, the bleeding shadow collapsed into a small black dot and was finally swallowed by the scarlet blood overflowing from Crimson-Dyed Sakura.
Cursed Blade: Crimson-Dyed Sakura—
Sakura, who had been tempered for a long time, held her blade and shuttled freely among the countless sunny dolls. With a single stroke of her hand, one after another, the dolls' heads fell to the ground.
This level was nothing to her. She had not systematically studied swordsmanship or movement techniques. But the long period of killing had created an instinctive monster.
Almost instantly, Sakura, who was on the eaves and preparing to destroy the last few sunny dolls, sensed the abnormality under her feet.
Boom!!
Sakura was forcefully dragged to the ground, passing through the roof tiles from the high eaves, and fell straight to the ground.
The blood-red blade light flickered for a moment, and the shadow's hand was cut off. And in this gap, the number of sunny dolls began to increase again, like a plague, continuously emerging and filling the entire sky.
Sakura's eyes showed no emotional change.
The oppressive scene in front of her was no different from the past.
One day in reality was equal to one year in this world. Therefore, Sakura had enough time to deal with the ghosts that were swallowed.
She placed the body of Crimson-Dyed Sakura on her palm. With a "hiss," it cut through her flesh and blood. Fresh blood splattered, and a reddish-red pattern appeared on her arm.
"I won't let you harm him in the slightest...!"
Sakura's eyes became sharp, and her expression became fierce.
A reddish-red blood fire surrounded her body, dyeing Sakura red. This was Crimson-Dyed Sakura.
In reality, Li Mo carried his blade and ran desperately.
The battle was like this. Crimson-Dyed Sakura only needed to constantly search for enemies, slash, and swallow. And Li Mo had much more to consider.
As Li Mo moved further and further forward, the number of ghosts Sakura faced in the village became more and more exaggerated. She had no chance to breathe, no mercy, and killed the incoming ghosts with the highest efficiency, turning them into her own nutrients.
Because, once she killed too slowly, she would face the siege of multiple fierce ghosts, and it was very easy to have the same situation as the first time, where she was dealing with the sunny dolls in the air and was suddenly dragged to the ground by a ghost shadow, causing internal bleeding.
Fortunately, every time Crimson-Dyed Sakura swallowed a ghost, it would feed back to Sakura... a part of the pollution. She had obtained a bizarre recovery power, and internal bleeding was nothing.
Pain was even less of a problem.
In reality, Li Mo's spine was like a stalk of rice bent by a heavy weight. Every inch of his muscles was telling him of fatigue and heaviness.
His left hand was tightly pressed against the rough wall, his fingers trembling slightly, almost unable to grasp the dents in the wall.
His panting echoed in the seemingly empty... actually empty streets, one after another, like a roar squeezed from the depths of his lungs.
"Hah... hah..."
Sweat was like a broken string of pearls, sliding from his forehead, across his cheeks, and finally dripping onto the ground, forming small water stains.
His clothes were soaked and stuck to his body.
"No one told me... it would be so tiring..." Li Mo complained.
The number of ghosts outside... was ridiculously large. Every few seconds, the cursed blade would automatically search for enemies and drag his body around to slash.
Running for half an hour was already very tiring, not to mention running left and right every few seconds, doubling the amount of exercise.
"Huff..."
He took a deep breath.
Li Mo used all his strength to straighten his back. His muscles were even more sore, but he had to grit his teeth and persevere.
Every second he stayed here, the probability of finding a living Rin decreased.
He couldn't stay any longer.
After satisfying his basic rest, Li Mo took a heavy step and moved forward step by step. Every step felt like stepping on cotton, without any sense of solidity.
"Brother?"
A light voice came from behind. Li Mo showed a surprised smile.
This was Rin's voice. She had seen his figure, so she had come out of the ruins?
Li Mo turned around without any hesitation. And the moment he turned around and saw the other party, his perspective became very low, very low...
"Huh?"
Li Mo was stunned. He suddenly felt a chill in his body. Something had rolled out of his stomach...
Thud... A dull thud sounded. Li Mo fell straight down, the back of his head hitting the ground.
His perspective was forcibly moved to the sky.
His consciousness became more and more blurry, even more so than the last time when his heart had stopped.
"It's really a good opportunity. It's rare that you're alone in front of me."
A familiar and unfamiliar girl's voice sounded beside him.
Li Mo stiffly turned his head, wanting to see the other party's appearance clearly. It was a white-haired girl.
Her long silver-white hair cascaded down like a waterfall, as if it had been carefully carved by the moonlight, flashing with a faint cold light, gently floating in Li Mo's line of sight.
Kallen half-squatted beside Li Mo, with one hand supporting her soft cheek, and the other hand slowly stroking up from the half of Li Mo's broken body. Her fair fingers were stained with bright red blood.
"Why... why..."
Li Mo used his remaining strength to question. As fellow humans, why did she attack him? Shouldn't everyone work together and get out of this deadly place?
"You are very naive now, but that's right. After all, when you are experiencing 'this time', all your previous memories are shelved in the depths of your consciousness, and you can't remember them."
Kallen drew two bloodstains on Li Mo's face with her blood-stained fingers, the corners of her mouth slightly lifted, and she looked at Li Mo's bewildered and angry eyes with great interest.
At the same time, the cursed blade in her hand buzzed, but its eyeballs chose to close and did not automatically search for enemies.
In its view, there were no ghosts worth swallowing here, only two complete people.
"Tell me, if I kill you now, will the future still be like that? Or, will there be a new change? The dramatic scene in the future disappears, and the shackles of fate are disintegrated. Everything is reshuffled."