Eyes of the Audience
At this moment, Chen Ling finally knew why Eight of Clubs said that Role wouldn't move.
It was a corpse.
From the attire, it looked like a soldier wearing Armor. He held a Broken Sword in his hand, and his massive body was like a towering mountain peak... This corpse died kneeling in the darkness. Even though both its facial features and attire were extremely abstract, it still made people feel an immense sense of oppression.
And on the edge of the Broken Sword and the corpse, there was a blooming Small Flower. It just quietly floated there, swaying without wind.
"That's it."
Even from a considerable distance away, Eight of Clubs seemed to have already been affected by the soldier. Blue veins bulged one by one from his forehead, and his expression gradually became malevolent.
Chen Ling didn't feel much. Carrying Eight of Clubs, he stepped into the range of the soldier's corpse and went deeper step by step... He looked back, only to see that the chasing Roles stagnated slightly, seemingly wary of the soldier's existence. But their speed only slowed down a little, and they didn't stop pursuing.
"Is this still not enough..." Chen Ling's eyes narrowed slightly.
He looked back, only to see that Eight of Clubs' eyes were already bloodshot. His hands deathly gripped Chen Ling's shoulders, constantly applying force like iron pincers.
Chen Ling knew Eight of Clubs wasn't doing it on purpose. He was just affected by the soldier's emotions. Fortunately, Eight of Clubs was only from the Path of the Arts, and his own strength wasn't strong. With Chen Ling's physique, this bit of force was nothing.
"Sorry..." Eight of Clubs exchanged a glance with Chen Ling and said hoarsely.
"It's fine."
He replied lightly.
As Chen Ling advanced, he could also already feel the emotions transmitting from the soldier. That was an extreme anger and unwillingness, as if wanting to crush the sword hilt in his hand and hammer the earth until it shattered... Its eyes stared deadly at somewhere in the void, and an incomparably powerful intent spread in the air.
Chen Ling's footsteps didn't slow down the slightest bit because of this, because he heard bursts of roars coming from behind him, getting closer and closer to himself.
One step,
Two steps,
Five steps... Ten steps.
"Damn it... They all deserve to die!!" A furious roar came from behind Chen Ling. "Why did they?! What right do they have?!"
"We Ordinary Persons didn't do anything wrong!! Why did they start a war?! The ambitions of those politicians! Why use the lives of Ordinary Persons like us to fill them?!"
"Mother died, my sister died, and the neighbors died too... All dead! All dead!! Why couldn't I do anything?!"
"I'm sorry... I'm really sorry... Mom, I'm a piece of trash... I should have protected you all..."
"I will kill them... I will definitely kill them!!"
"..."
The hands gripping Chen Ling's shoulders exerted more and more force. Eight of Clubs' whole person seemed to have gone mad, roaring angrily at the void in front of him!
Perhaps it was the torture over the past half a year that had already riddled Eight of Clubs' mind with holes, or perhaps the emotions contained in the soldier's corpse were simply too strong. Eight of Clubs had completely lost his rationality, assimilated by the emotions, completely projecting himself into the Role of the soldier.
Seeing this, Chen Ling could only forcibly suppress the influence of the soldier's emotions and delivered a backhand chop to the back of Eight of Clubs' neck.
Dong——!
With a muffled sound, Eight of Clubs' eyes rolled back, and he completely fainted on Chen Ling's shoulder.
Eight of Clubs' mind had long approached its limit. If this went on, it wouldn't just be as simple as being temporarily affected... If Chen Ling didn't directly "force a shutdown", this number one genius of the Path of the Arts probably wouldn't even wait until leaving "Guernica" to turn into a vegetative state or an idiot.
After Eight of Clubs fainted, the void fell into dead silence again, leaving only the continuous roars of the Roles behind.
With Chen Ling going this deep, most of the pursuing Roles had already been forced to stop behind him, not daring to advance further. Only that woman burning all over, and the woman holding the child, were still constantly chasing, not yet reaching their limit.
"Then let's see... who can endure longer."
Chen Ling carried Eight of Clubs, gritting his teeth to continue forward.
Just as Eight of Clubs said, the intensity of the soldier's emotions was several times that of the other Roles. Even before Chen Ling had fully closed in on him, he had already felt an emotional influence surpassing that of other Roles when they were right up to his face.
It was an involuntary pain. Bloodshot threads climbed onto his eyeballs one by one, just like Eight of Clubs just now. He could feel his mind going frantic, every muscle in his body trembling in anger, wishing he could directly chop off Eight of Clubs' head with a knife to sacrifice to the heavens for killing enemies... Of course, Chen Ling tried hard to hold back.
But he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold back.
"Calm down... calm down... it's all fake." Chen Ling forced himself to take deep breaths and keep his rationality.
"I'm just an 'Audience'... Everything I see and hear has nothing to do with me..."
Chen Ling closed his bloodshot eyes, and the appearance of The Audience in The Theater emerged in his mind. He constantly gave himself psychological suggestions, trying to suppress his "empathy" to the lowest... This was his only way to survive right now.
But even so, illusory scenes constantly emerged in Chen Ling's tightly closed eyes.
Bombs falling from the sky,
Burning towns,
Women bathed in fire falling desperately from rooftops, mothers holding breathless infants, terrified black bulls crashing blindly, passersby whose legs were blown off crawling desperately...
And in this hellish scene, he could only watch helplessly with his eyes as bombers flew over his head and destroyed the city... Because in his hand, there was only a ridiculous Broken Sword. No matter how angrily he roared, he couldn't harm the bombers in the slightest.
Unprecedented anger, unwillingness, and guilt surged into Chen Ling's heart. His fists clenched unconsciously, and his chest heaved rapidly like a bellows!
"I am an 'Audience'..."
"I am just an 'Audience'!!"
"None of this has anything to do with me... I am not among it."
Chen Ling's murmurs echoed in the void. At this moment, his consciousness was already blurry, and he was just walking forward mechanically... As his psychological suggestions repeated continuously, pairs of scarlet pupils belonging to The Audience opened up in the void behind him!
Moreover, as the frequency of Chen Ling's murmurs gradually increased, the pupils of The Audience in the void were also rapidly increasing. Within just a dozen seconds, it was like a sky full of red stars hanging in the firmament!
[Audience Expectation Value +3]
The Fourth Wall gradually outlined itself around Chen Ling's body, tearing a malevolent gap in the intense emotions exuded by the soldier's corpse. At this moment, the many Roles surrounding them all seemed to have perceived something, and horror surfaced on their faces!
"I am... I am..."
"I am, an 'Audience'."
Strands of redness spread out from the depths of Chen Ling's pupils. As his eyes opened unconsciously, the scarlet color seemed to drift out from within his eyeballs, dragging out embers at the corners of his eyes like flames, concealing the apricot-red makeup of "Painting the Vermillion Face" under his skin.
At this moment, a pair of exaggerated crescent moon red eyes, almost exactly identical to The Audience's, was exposed in the void!