What Concern Is It of Mine?
The Fourth Wall was the dividing line between the "Stage" and The Audience. The performance On Stage wouldn't affect the Audience, and the Audience couldn't intervene in the performance either... As long as The Fourth Wall existed, a story was ultimately just a story.
And this painting displayed before Chen Ling's eyes was also just a "story".
Bombers hummed overhead, innocent residents wailed in the sea of fire. Chen Ling watched with his own eyes as fresh corpses fell before him, yet there was not the slightest emotional fluctuation in those scarlet pupils...
That red-clothed figure stood there quietly, like an "Audience" who had mistakenly entered this place.
At this moment, all the painting Roles that had followed stiffly stopped in place. The roars, angry bellows, and crying abruptly ceased.
They looked at that red-clothed figure in horror. In their daze, the existence of the red-clothed figure became ethereal... As if existing in the same dimension as them, yet sometimes like he didn't exist at all. He was situated between "real" and "fake", making him elusive.
They stopped their footsteps, but Chen Ling didn't;
Chen Ling was still approaching the soldier's corpse.
But now, this face of his didn't have any expression, and even his facial features were gradually blurring, starting to gradually lose the characteristics of "Chen Ling"...
He was transforming into an "Audience".
The soldier's corpse floated in the void like a mountain peak. It didn't make any sound, but the emotional radiation it transmitted contained angry roars that hadn't stopped for thousands of years!
"They all deserve to die!!!"
"I will kill these invaders! I will make them be buried with everyone in this city!!"
"Come! Come!!"
"My sword will shatter everything! Even if I already have nothing left!!"
"No... No!"
"Why... Why can't I do anything?!! Why!!"
"Damn it... Damn it!! I am too weak... I am so unwilling... I am unwilling!!!"
"..."
Deafening angry roars mixed in the invisible emotions echoed within "Guernica";
That red-clothed figure calmly walked beneath him, grabbed the Broken Sword beside the soldier without expression, and then raised it with one hand...
Gently swung it down.
Buzz——!!
The soldier's unwilling roars came to an abrupt halt.
That body, hundreds of times more massive than Chen Ling, slowly split open from the center, as if an invisible sword descended from heaven, cleaving it in half... Its body dissipated in the void. The thousand-year anger and unwillingness contained within were fragile as paper under this sword.
Scarlet embers scattered from the corners of Chen Ling's eyes. Holding the Broken Sword in one hand, he watched this scene expressionlessly, like an indifferent "Audience".
"Your anger, What Concern Is It of Mine?"
[Audience Expectation Value +5]
This sword shattered the soldier's body, and also shattered all its emotions... From the fragmented body, endless unwillingness and resentment turned into near-substantial black mist, pouncing madly towards Chen Ling, already regarding Chen Ling as the target to vent on.
But the existence of The Fourth Wall blocked all these resentful emotions outside. The billowing black mist swept over, yet couldn't touch the red-clothed figure within in the slightest!
Chen Ling didn't care about this, but instead looked behind him, at the other Roles stiffened in place.
Although these Roles didn't dare provoke Chen Ling, their very existence contained extremely dense emotions. Although these emotions were silent, they spread in a form similar to radiation, incomparably noisy in Chen Ling's ears.
"So hot!! My body is so hot!!"
"Someone save my child... he's dying, someone save him!"
"I don't want to die, I don't want to die!! I just lost a leg, I can still crawl... don't leave me behind!!"
"My home is destroyed, my wife and children are all dead! These damn beasts..."
The existence of any one of them meant extreme despair and pain. No one could not be moved by the emotions they radiated. And the emotions radiated by these people, superimposed together, could drive anyone in the world mad... except Chen Ling.
Carrying the sword, Chen Ling stepped on the void, approaching them step by step.
Sword raised, sword fell.
The closest to him, the woman holding the child, was instantly cut in half, followed closely by the woman burning all over beside her. Chen Ling expressionlessly chopped them all to pieces in front of him, and the painful pleadings also abruptly ceased...
Chen Ling didn't feel they were pitiful, only felt they were noisy;
Their uncontrollable resentment frantically pounced onto Chen Ling's body, but could only be obstructed outside The Fourth Wall. As Chen Ling killed more and more Roles, a mass of black clouds seemed to surge around him, gloomy and terrifying!
"Sigh..."
Right at this moment, a sigh sounded from the void.
In the current "Guernica", all Roles had been slaughtered completely by Chen Ling, and Eight of Clubs was deep in a coma. This sudden sigh was like a flash of lightning traversing the dark night, incomparably clear.
Chen Ling, surrounded by the black clouds, unconsciously furrowed his brows.
"...Who?"
Chen Ling's gaze swept around, not seeing any figures. And the "Audience" pupils in the void behind him seemed to have perceived something, locking onto a certain direction simultaneously.
In the pitch-black void, a theatrical curtain was slowly pulled open.
"'I saw the sky crying'..."
A figure draped in a Theatrical Robe stood behind the void curtain. He didn't step out, but rather like a Thespian standing On Stage, one hand behind his back, a melodious ballad echoing in the void.
The moment this line of the ballad sounded, Chen Ling's body jolted violently!
"'I heard the sound of your voice';"
"'I smelled longing blooming in the thorns',"
"'I came from the direction of the sunset'..."
As soon as the four lines of the ballad came out, the billowing black clouds surrounding Chen Ling suddenly stagnated. Those resentments and unwillingness that had been gloomy for thousands of years melted and dissipated at a visible speed, like ice and snow directly exposed to the blazing sun.
Theatre Dao Secret Method —— [Requiem Ballad].
Within the melodious ballad, there seemed to contain some gentle yet powerful force, cleansing the resentment around Chen Ling. This singing voice hit The Fourth Wall, was reflected and bounced away, but a portion still quietly flowed into Chen Ling's ears.
Chen Ling was stunned.
The "Audience" red light burning in his pupils was gradually suppressed by this gentle ballad. The facial features that were originally blurring also stopped changing at this moment.
He stared blankly at that familiar Theatrical Robe above the void curtain and murmured:
"Mas... Master?"