Night World Players

Chapter 257 From Now On, True Love Begins

Outside the cave, the seemingly endless curtain of rain had stopped at some point.

The gloomy rain clouds and the thick, gray-black smoke dissipated silently.

All that remains is a beautiful full moon and a starry sky.

As if gaining a great sense of security from the embrace, the girl closed her eyes in Rust's arms, a few strands of light golden hair falling down her forehead and brushing against Rust's arms, causing a faint tingling sensation.

Her quiet and obedient appearance made it difficult for Raste to tell whether Amys was already fast asleep or simply resting with her eyes closed.

But through his spiritual vision, Raste was able to clearly sense the temperature of the soul fire of the girl in his arms.

It was no longer a spark that might have been extinguished at any moment in the cold wind, but had transformed into a bright flame.

In the long, dark night of spiritual vision, only these two torches, symbolizing the souls of Raste and Amys, remain, tenderly supporting and relying on each other.

Clear and intense, unwavering.

"Speaking of which, we can't just stay in this cave forever, can we?"

"It's so damp and cold here, it's not a good place. Shall we leave the cave and find somewhere else?"

Last thought for a moment, then spoke softly.

Upon hearing this, the girl stirred slightly, moving even closer to Rust's embrace.

She gave a muffled "hmm" but didn't open her eyes.

"This is your own mental world, Xiao Ai. It is the embodiment of justice today. The angel of judgment has completely disappeared... You are the sole master of your own mental world."

Last looked at the girl in his arms with a hint of helplessness: "In other words, Xiao Ai, you are now the creator of this place, the god of creation."

"If you wish, you could actually shift the surrounding environment and instantly teleport us to any corner of this world."

To the creator of the spiritual world, transferring the spiritual avatars of the two from the cave to another place is merely a matter of a thought.

However, upon hearing Rust's words, Amys simply buried her head in Rust's arms.

She responded softly, then pressed her cheek against Rust's chest again.

"Okay, okay, I understand."

A helpless smile appeared on Last's lips.

He knelt down and picked up the girl in his arms.

Afterwards, Rust did not activate his supernatural abilities... but instead followed the guidance of the distant, cold moonlight, carrying Amys, and walked out of the cave, stepping over the jagged rocks and pools of water.

Just like many years ago when the flood receded, a young boy, half-grown, held a little girl who had fainted from hypothermia in his arms, warming her with his body heat, and stumbled out of the cave to seek help from the adults.

……

For a legend, the distance from the depths of the cave to its entrance is but a fleeting moment, but for Rast, it took a very, very long time.

The view suddenly opened up the moment we completely stepped out of the cave.

All that could be seen was a star-studded night sky and lush grass that reached above the ankles.

Beyond the cave entrance, at the end of the lawn, lies a slightly steep cliff.

Below the cliff, one can see an endless sea of ​​trees, and on the edge of the forest, the Canaanite town, engulfed in black smoke and flames, burning with a red flame that seems to never go out.

As she emerged from the cave, Amys regained consciousness.

She rose from Rust's embrace, then took the boy's hand and led him to the edge of the cliff deep in the grass.

The two sat down by the cliff, back to back in the grass, silently gazing up at the night sky.

The sky was so vast that it took your breath away.

Was it because we had been in the dimly lit cave for so long, or was it just a coincidence that the starry sky was exceptionally clear tonight...?

However, the starry sky on a winter night is so beautiful that it makes you forget everything and soothe your wounds.

"To be honest, Rust, you are dazzling in my eyes."

"It was just a naive and childish ideal that I learned from chivalric tales... but you, Rust, were able to carry that naive ideal through your entire life."

"At the tender age of six, he was willing to risk his life for this dream, crossing floods to rescue a passerby he had only met a few times before."

After an unknown amount of time, a girl's soft murmur came from behind Rust.

"Being able to firmly believe that what you have done and the path you have walked is the right one... Even if you have lost most of your memories in Deep Blue Harbor, even if you have been questioned and oppressed by others time and time again, you have never wavered in your original dream."

Even if you were trapped in hell, even if you were facing death, you never regretted your choice.

"Unlike me, I always feel regret and want to take a pill to undo what has happened and start over..."

Her voice paused slightly.

"I'm always like this, wavering and feeling lost time and time again, and dark, negative thoughts often arise in my mind."

"Even on that day in the cave, when I first saw you crossing the flood to save me, my first thought wasn't gratitude... but rather a sense of disgust and rejection: 'Ah, I've now become a homeless orphan just like him.'"

Last listened without saying a word.

He knew this was a confession spoken with great courage by the girl, and what he should do now was listen silently.

"To be honest, when I first met Sister Grey and listened to you, Rust, recount your encounter with Hiltina at Deep Blue Harbor and your bond with that female knight... I actually felt a great deal of hostility and fear."

"Because I know that compared to Gray, who gave you the ideal of 'Coast Guardian,' and to Miss Hiltina, who shines just as brightly as you, the human girl named Amys Justia is so insignificant, so dim and lackluster."

"Compared to me, those who share the same dazzling ideals as you... are the ones who are qualified to walk alongside you, supporting and relying on each other."

Amys seemed to smile slightly, and in the cold winter night air, white mist could be seen rising from the girl's words.

"So I started to try to disguise myself, to make myself appear stronger, more powerful, more beautiful... and more worthy of you, Rust, during the short time we spent together."

"But lies will eventually be exposed."

She lowered her head slightly:
"No matter how much disguise he tries to put on, he still possesses the cloak of a judgmental angel..."

"But in reality, I am just an ordinary village girl living in Canaan."

"Yes."

Luster nodded.

"As a traveler in the night, I have walked through different segments of the river of history."

"Throughout the long history of humankind from the Age of Gods to the present day, countless brilliant heroes have been born, who, in their human form, have left an indelible mark on the pages of history that rivals that of the gods."

"During that battle on the Broken Shore, when I witnessed the final supernova explosion of the leader of Cicel, I had the same thought as you, Xiao Ai—"

"The glory of that day was both dazzling and distant; I may never reach it in my entire life." "But—"

He paused slightly: "So what?"

Raste looked down at the Canaanite town below the cliffs, which was engulfed in flames.

"Perhaps I can never recreate the brilliance of that supernova explosion, but I can still fire that Great Sin Armor-Piercing Bullet at the Gravekeeper. I am myself... a unique self."

“I am still a guardian of the shore, a partner of justice… I cannot become the predecessor who paved the way for the next generation of guardians and sacrificed myself heroically, but I do not need to be.”

"Since the legacy has already been shattered—"

"Then, I will become the last guardian of the shore, reach the end of the night world, and sever the destiny of the guardians that has lasted for countless epochs."

"So, isn't that enough?"

He turned around and reached out to stroke the girl's pale face.

"Aylward doesn't need to be Hiltina, nor does she need to be Grey."

"You just need to be yourself."

"She doesn't need to be as dazzling as a hero. Even if she's just an ordinary country girl who loves to cry, is timid, and afraid of the dark and loneliness, she's beautiful enough in my eyes."

Upon hearing this, Amys slightly widened her beautiful sky-blue eyes.

"What... to say something so offensive when someone has finally made up their mind to open up."

She muttered to herself, but quickly calmed down.

"However, it does sound like something Rust would say to comfort a girl."

Amys smiled slightly: "After all, you said something like 'Let me be your father' when I had just lost my parents."

"Let's not bring up those embarrassing stories from when we were kids and didn't know any better."

Last was somewhat helpless.

However, he then saw the blonde girl in front of him looking at him and smiling quietly—just like back in the cave when Amys chuckled at his troubled expression.

"In addition, there is something else I must confess to you, Rust."

After smiling, the girl moved a little closer to Rust.

"In the past, the feelings I had for you... were not really liking or admiration, but rather dependence."

"After all, I was only six years old at the time, a little girl whose body hadn't even started to develop yet—even if I said I liked someone, I didn't really know what true 'love' was."

Amys lowered her gaze slightly and spoke softly.

"On that rainy night when both my parents passed away, a huge emptiness arose in my heart, and I even had suicidal thoughts because of it—"

"Just like a drowning person would instinctively grab onto a lifeline, I was so lost and confused at that time that I instinctively regarded the black-haired boy who broke into the cave to save me as my lifeline."

"Just as a disabled person longs for wholeness, in order to fill the void in my heart... I have made you my lifeline, regarded your dream as my own dream, and regarded you as the meaning of my life."

"Later, with the fall of Canaan, the emptiness in my heart grew ever larger, and in order to fill that void, my dependence on you grew ever stronger... and that feeling changed more and more with time—"

"In the end, it has evolved into a special kind of possessive impulse that is a mixture of dependence and possessiveness."

Upon hearing this, Last nodded slightly.

"Actually, I'm the same way."

As Amys uttered these words, Rust was also examining his own heart.

Trapped in the past of Deep Blue Harbor, isn't his affection for Xiao Ai also a kind of morbid dependence?

Because of the loss of past memories, he lost himself in the purgatory of time loops and subconsciously regarded Canaan as a lifeline, and the ever-smiling girl as his spiritual support and pillar.

During this period, he never actually considered what place the individual named Amys held in his heart.

"Yes, in the past, we were more like flawed things attracting each other."

"Each of us is incomplete... Only when two people are together can they become a complete human being."

"That's not love, but just a kind of morbid possessiveness."

The girl's voice drifted in the evening breeze, causing Last's thoughts to wander slightly.

But the next moment, Last's eyes widened slightly.

The warm and moist sensation slowly spread across his lips.

It was no longer the kiss that was meant to rekindle the flame of Amys's soul, a kiss exchanged only for bodily fluids, devoid of any other thoughts.

The girl's lips were soft and trembled slightly.

"So let's put aside all the impurities from before and... start from scratch."

"From this day forward..."

That is true love.

As the girl whispered, Last felt the sound of a seed breaking through its shell and sprouting in his own mental world.

On the desolate, crimson wasteland, a phantom tower is rising from the ground.

That was the shattered "Library of Fools," now rebuilt, magnificent and dazzling... not as the "Nightblade" bestowed upon it by the Night World, but as a new life as a power unique to Rast.

Inside the library, the dimly lit staircase emitted a dazzling light.

That was the long staircase of the trial sequence, with ten radiant steps lit up one by one, unlocked one by one, leading straight to the boundless beyond.

In Rast's Library of Fools, the Judgment sequence doesn't need to be nurtured slowly like other sequences... because his bond level with Amys was capped at the maximum from the very beginning.

In a daze, Last saw the fire in the distance recede... The ruins of the town that had been burned to the ground became prosperous again, and the intact buildings reappeared in the firelight, magnificent and splendid.

The desolate ruins were transformed once again into the vibrant Canaan town.

Beside me, illusory figures, some young and some old, appeared on the cliff, their outlines shrouded in a hazy glow, like old photographs bathed in the night.

They were all residents of the small town: Uncle Mad, carrying his old hunting rifle; the neighbor aunt who taught Amy cooking skills; the pastry shop owner, wearing an apron covered in flour and holding a freshly baked raspberry pie; and the old blacksmith, who, despite his advanced age, always loved to tell ghost stories to scare children…

At this moment, the phantoms of these people who had once lived in Canaan surrounded Rast and Amys, clapping softly.

The applause sounded like a celebration, or perhaps a heartfelt blessing.

Bless these two last Canaanite orphans, and bless this unfortunate couple who have finally come together and reunited.

(End of this chapter)