Forgotten Photo Studio

Chapter 85 The Mysterious Superhuman

Electric arcs flickered around him, contracting like breaths.

The warmth of the jade cicada pressed against Xu Yan's chest, and for a moment, it overlapped with a certain afternoon in his memory.

That was during his childhood, when his mother handed him clothes that had been sun-dried. The smell of sunshine mingled with the fresh scent of laundry detergent, a pure warmth completely unrelated to the cold and eerie atmosphere of the present moment.

"So, the seal he personally cast for you was his last act of desperation."

Xu Yan's breathing became completely disordered.

The camera trembled slightly in my hand, and light pulsed deep within the lens, like a heart trying to recall.

At that moment, Xu Yan suddenly understood a loneliness deeper than death.

His birth, his growth, and all the skills he acquired may not have been for the purpose of becoming "himself," but rather to refine this body and soul into a more suitable "container."

His life over the past twenty years has seemed like a long and meticulous preparatory process.

"Then what did I inherit?"

His voice was almost drowned out by the rain, low as a soliloquy, "His power? Or his destroyed experiment?"

The man looked up.

A flash of lightning streaked across his profile, leaving lines as deep as inscriptions on a monument.

Xu Yan looked at the suppressed lightning in the other person's eyes. It was not just power, but more like an inextinguishable pain that had been burning for decades.

Between them lies the shadow of their father and the secrets of an era, but at this moment, this unspoken pain becomes a bridge stronger than any language.

"What you inherited is not an estate, but an unsolvable problem."

He paused, a hint of sorrowful respect in his voice:

“Your father did not lose to ‘Abyss’. He was simply… defeated by the world that demanded he hand over ‘Abyss’.”

The man's gaze fell on the old camera, where lightning flashed across the lens, reflecting a momentary distorted pattern of lightning.

“Every time you use your ‘eyes,’ you’re wearing down that door.” His voice was deep, like distant rolling thunder.

"Do not light up the abyss."

His voice was like the low pressure before a thunderstorm.

"Every time you press the shutter, the light etches another crack on the abyss's prison wall. One day, it will follow that light and look back at you."

Xu Yan looked up, her voice calm to the point of being almost ruthless: "If that's the case, why did you leave the camera with me?"

The man stared at him for a long time before slowly speaking.

"Because only you can see the 'door'. What they want is not your grades, but your frequency—every rampage, every seal, every psychic energy disturbance is adjusting the frequency of that 'door'. The moment it resonates completely with the abyss... the lock will no longer exist."

The air suddenly became heavy.

Xu Yan's fingers tightened: "Then why didn't you stop me? Or—untie it for me?"

A flash of lightning, and the man smiled, a smile tinged with a desolate self-mockery.

"well said."

He slightly raised his hand, and the lightning in his sleeve suddenly surged.

The surrounding air felt as if it were being torn apart.

Hundreds of tiny electric arcs coiled around him, weaving into complex rune patterns, and the air pressure in the entire space dropped instantly.

"What I can do is not to untie it, but to delay it."

He raised his hand and pressed it against Xu Yan's chest.

In an instant, the "Abyss" within Xu Yan's body, like a startled beast, began to retaliate wildly. Dark spiritual pressure erupted from his body, colliding with the air.

The man frowned and clenched his fists.

"town."

The low shout was like a thunderclap.

The lightning in his palm transformed into dense runes, which crawled into Xu Yan's body like silver snakes.

A scorching atmosphere filled the air—the lightning and the dark currents of the abyss intertwined, bursting out dazzling fragments of light.

The entire substation was shaking.

The metallic coating on the walls emitted a sharp buzzing sound from the lightning strike, and the water beneath their feet boiled into a layer of white mist. Xu Yan's body jolted violently, and his knees almost touched the ground.

He saw a brief afterimage of a rune array flash in the air behind the man.

The man's sleeves were lifted by the wind, revealing old scars branded on his arms, each one a scorch mark from being struck by lightning.

His gaze was focused and calm, as if he were wrestling with an unseen storm.

The excruciating pain spread throughout my body like ripples.

He felt that he was no longer a body of flesh and blood, but a small world.

A man's "thunder" is the law that cuts through the night sky, while his "abyss" is the unfathomable, restless dark sea.

Every clash between the two caused his world to tremble and stars to teeter on the brink of collapse.

Finally, the lightning subsided.

A faint wisp of electricity converged along Xu Yan's spine, reforming into a blockade line that disappeared beneath his skin.

Xu Yan knelt on one knee, breathing heavily, his throat filled with the fishy smell of rust mixed with ozone.

Sweat mingled with rainwater, dripping from his chin and creating tiny ripples on the oily puddles.

He could feel the two forces within him still tearing at the microscopic level, bringing a nauseating lingering tremor.

A wisp of night breeze finally squeezed into the dull control room, carrying the crisp scent of rain, briefly dispelling the ozone smell in the air.

Above, a tattered sheet of metal roof rattled rhythmically and hypnotically in the wind, as if the ruins themselves were sighing indifferently at the miracle and suffering that had just occurred.

The man slowly withdrew his hand, but his gaze lingered on the man's right hand.

There, a blue mark appeared in the light of lightning.

Lei Zhengxuan's eyes narrowed, and he said in a low voice, "So... he left you this trick."

For the first time, a genuine glimmer of hope appeared in his voice.

He looked up at the lingering lightning in the sky.

"Perhaps there is a second way to guard the door—not by sealing it, but by inheritance."

After saying that, he slowly released his hand.

The palms still bore the scorch marks left by the lightning, as if the curse had not yet dissipated.

Lightning crackled gently between his palms.

He didn't speak immediately, but slowly took out a dark silver "nail" from his pocket.

The nail was not metal, but some strange substance that seemed to have been melted and solidified by lightning. Its surface was engraved with a complex array of lightning patterns, and cold blue electric arcs flowed in the dim light.

“This is not a weapon,” the man said softly, his voice seeming to come from a great distance. “This is a ‘heart nail’ left by your father—he forged it with his own soul fire and thunder spirit, just to seal that power that should not exist.”

The "heart nail" lay quietly in his palm; it didn't resemble an industrial product, but rather some kind of naturally formed crystal.

The lightning patterns on the surface are not carved, but rather seem to be patterns that naturally solidify in the earth's veins when lightning strikes the ground.

It inexplicably reminded Xu Yan of the records about "lightning-struck wood" in ancient books—only the thing in front of him was the purer and more violent lightning itself.

As he spoke, he lightly tapped the nail with his fingers, and a faint electrical sound instantly slid through the air, causing the surrounding metal walls to emit a low-frequency hum.

“Back then, your father used it to nail down that ‘door’.”

His gaze toward Xu Yan was deep and sorrowful.
"Now, that door is loose."

Xu Yan stretched out his hand. The instant the nail touched his palm, a drop of blood was drawn from his fingertip, and an electric arc, like a living organism, crawled into his skin along the bloodline.

After the excruciating pain subsided, he felt that the thing had "recognized" him—

Perhaps they recognized his blood.

After a brief silence, the man turned around. The rain and mist began to fall again, and a flash of lightning streaked across his back like a crack across the sky.

“Take it with you,” he said. “When the Abyss awakens, this nail will guide you to see whether what he left behind was a seal or a redemption.”

Thunder rolls.

A gust of wind brushed past Xu Yan's shoulder; in the damp, cold air, he saw a faint glow appear on the nail in his palm—

The rhythm of the light was exactly the same as the frequency of his heartbeat.

(End of this chapter)