He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

Chapter 66 "The Red Dragon"

Pale white.

What kind of color is this?

Ai gently unfurled her white wings, silently, and inspiration and intellect rose like flames in the stillness.

he thought.

"Perhaps it is a desolation that was burned to ashes before the fire even started, or perhaps it is a withered wasteland that has already fallen before it even began to fall. How can I tell others about this moment, this time frozen in ice? I only know that even the sun's brilliance can no longer hurt my eyes hidden behind the charcoal ash. From now on, every pair of eyelashes will be understanding and drooping downwards, just like the direction of death."

He looked up, and the "White Beak Ritual" was undergoing some kind of change. The white dot in the center of the eyeball spread out like ink until the originally pitch-black pupil turned into a pale white like the first snow.

I have wings and can fly; my understanding of flight is a joy with pale melodies.

My eyes are like white bones, my pupils like snowflakes.

Ai remained silent, only her cold aura continued to spread, and silence reigned supreme.

"Flying Birds————"

He looked at his hands and blinked.

"White dove—"

Shaking her head vigorously to break free from the almost frozen winter, Ai finally came to her senses.

His gaze swept over those utterly lowly winged beings.

Now, the battle for the qualification of the "Trial" and the legitimate choice of "Flying Bird" had already lost all suspense the moment wings grew on his back.

—Whether it was the later Silent Raven or the earlier White Dove, they all held the title of "King of the Winged," and apart from the "sky" itself, which nurtured all birds, it was already the highest "bird."

At this moment, behind those pale white pupils, it seemed as if another pair of eyes were observing the scene before her through Ai's perspective, silently memorizing it.

As a result, those who were being watched by these eyes all bowed their heads and trembled.

Trembling is the deepest and highest fear.

"Tsk."

Ai sighed softly.

"So, in the end, they still flipped the table—"

He flapped his ethereal white wings behind him in frustration. Although he had expected things to come to this, his previous caution seemed like he had fed a dog, and he couldn't help but feel a little angry.

"Damn it, Bishop! It's all your fault—a bunch of scum—making this place so disgusting! It's practically forcing me to use cheat codes!"

"Now everyone's satisfied."

He sneered.

Then I'll crush you like insects—I doubt you'd have any objections.

Facing the withered gazes of the bishops, Ai slowly walked up to the group of bone sculptures.

He admired the pairs of bony wings that clung tightly to their backs, trembling so badly they were almost falling apart, no longer resembling their former ferocious appearance, and sighed softly, "The birds you worship are standing right in front of you, so why do you have such expressions? You shouldn't be so afraid. You should continue your previous fervor, instead of kneeling here motionless, like insects about to be preyed upon."

Perhaps it was the tacit approval of that pale white hue that opened up the power of recording and engraving to him—in Ai Yi's eyes, those originally blurry faces emerged one by one, and the equally humble memories of the humble flowed into his vessel along with those white wings, and disappointment flowed into his eyes.

"How utterly pathetic!"

Thin, pale, almost unrememberable traces—all the eminent ones of Agdewe, their souls filled with empty faith, nothing else could grow on this barren soil—if life were a blank sheet of paper, the paper in Ai's eyes had no writing, no wrinkles whatsoever.

Those without a mark are merely tools in the hands of others—so much so that being granted wings on their backs is the only part of their memories, as faint as sand, worth writing about.

Ai quickly lost all interest.

"Like footprints in the desert, like decaying flowers poured into the soil, like melting ice in the sea, things that should fade away will leave no trace."

He casually remarked, "You don't deserve to be remembered."

At this moment, the agents who wielded the principles of remembrance announced their end with a soft "Click—"

There was a sound of something breaking.

"Click-clack—"

The sound grew increasingly faint, yet also increasingly distant.

until----

The body of a bone carving broke off at the waist and fell silently to the ground, like a rotten tree hollowed out by insects.

The hollow skeleton, stripped of its foundation by merciless words, could no longer support the human form. The shriveled flesh, like loose sand that had lost all its moisture, could not maintain its original structure and posture, like a collapsing sandcastle. Soon, every bone, along with the tendons and flesh covering it, began to curl, crumble, and fall off—ultimately, all of it was stripped away.

The sinners, stripped bare of all their flesh, had their souls forgotten by the birds, and were thus scattered by a mere gust of wind, leaving only pairs of light, decaying wing bones lying on the ground.

"How beautiful!"

Ai Yi sighed inexplicably. The scene before him, which was cruel and bloody in normal understanding, was at this moment wrapped in a completely different kind of beauty, like melting snow, like the death of withering flowers. It brought him an unprecedented tranquility, a shallow and traceless joy, and an elusive sadness.

He silently walked up to the last person.

Charon.

The power of forgetting could not affect him, so the old pastor became the only survivor in the area.

"Your experience is indeed remarkable, even epic in its own right —"

Ai observed him with her pale eyes, letting out a mocking laugh. She looked down at him, her gaze seeming to want to crush that repulsive shell from above—

"I'll ask you the same question again—when you see a bird like me, you should be as enthusiastic as before, not as fearful as you are now, like a pile of rotten flesh with its bones removed."

He grabbed Charon's hair and lifted his head, which was facing the ground. The already dry hair and scalp were torn off, and not even a few drops of blood could be drawn.

"The highest bird is right before you."

He raised the white wings on his back, and said mockingly—

"What are you afraid of?"

These words seemed to ignite some obsession in Charon, and his cloudy gaze began to flow once more.

"Yes—yes—why am I scared? I shouldn't be like this, it's not like this—"

His eyeballs moved stiffly, then gradually became fluid again.

"Birds, I am a descendant of birds, I am a member of the Lord's retinue—"

He muttered to himself, initially in almost meaningless babbling, but later his words eventually became logical whispers.

"That's right, that's right, I am the true Asuka, I am the guide who led Agdewey back to Paradise! You, you! You demons who usurped the Asuka's form, hahaha—I see, I understand, I understand everything!"

Hearing his loud laughter, Ai narrowed her eyes.

—This old man has successfully hypnotized himself.

"These were the lines you used to deceive those who were promoted—did you ever imagine that one day you'd use them on yourself?"

He forced himself not to laugh. "I really admire you now. Even when you emphasize your own stupidity, you're unwilling to admit your mistakes and sins."

"It's true that people's brains don't work as well as they get older."

Ai shook his head, having also lost patience—but before preparing to kill the old man, he himself was actually somewhat puzzled—why, when facing the "White Dove's" agent—these Agdewe people did not show worship and respect, but rather hysterical fear and madness.

The "white dove" is undoubtedly a bird, but in their eyes it is as dangerous as a "natural enemy," to the point that they give up resisting.

What exactly is that bird they worship?

He frowned, vaguely sensing that the question might be quite important, but the next second, a soft whisper in his ear interrupted his thoughts.

Lot.

Anda quietly approached him and gently shook his arm. "Next—can you leave it to me?"

"I want to talk to this person—"

She tilted her head, looked at Rhodes with a smile, and said, "About the birds, about Agdewey, about the trials, and about our future."

Ai silently stepped aside, and Anda walked silently to Charon and squatted down near him—now even the petite girl could look down completely at the defeated man lying limp like a pig on the ground.

"Father."

She spoke softly, "Don't you sometimes feel that all of this is too strange?"

"Tear"

Along with her whisper, an indescribable sound suddenly appeared, like a dry, torn cloth being ripped open with great force, revealing bones inside that, like a butterfly shedding its skin, growing rapidly from the side of this small body, breaking through the hard cocoon with all their might, splitting open the egg membrane, and stretching outwards with their heads held high.

A sharp, featherless wingtip extended a menacing, flawless corner from the girl's back.

Ai Yi's eyes widened suddenly, her pale white pupils shrinking to the size of a pinhead in that instant.

—What is this?

He squinted, and his pupils began to dilate.

It wasn't just the scene before my eyes, but a tremor that emanated from my very soul—the pair of white wings behind me soared as if they had seen a true natural enemy, and an inexplicable tremor filled my entire being.

—Those were a pair of blood-red wings, which looked deformed but were structurally complete.

Its slender skeleton gave it a sense of precariousness, and the upper part of its wings was so thin that it seemed as if it would break in the wind: it was a combination of long hooks and a slender skeleton unique to vertebrates. The soft tissues that were so thin that they were almost transparent were its skin and the "membrane" of the wings—this thin, almost invisible periosteum carried the girl's entire understanding of the principles of flight.

"Tear 99"

When it emerges from its cocoon, stained with the color of blood, and grows from its back, it is already a beautiful creation that simultaneously embodies blasphemy and holiness.

At this moment, doubt had transformed into certainty: "Dragon—"

Ai managed to squeeze the word out of his throat, feeling a wave of dizziness—not from fear or shock, but from something deeper.

He felt that he had suddenly figured out many things, things he should have understood long ago.

And right now, the dragon's hatching continues.

Beneath that fragile and unsettling periosteum lies a completely different structure—the lower half of those strange wings remains a fleshy, bird-like wing covered with dense feathers, each one a dazzling golden-red, unlike the ghastly blood-red color of the upper section, yet rendered in the same hue by the blazing sun.

In the end, red overshadowed gold.

These are Anda's wings, crude yet elegant, filthy yet sacred.

An extraordinary aura that is hard to replicate.

"Red Dragon"

"Monster—Rebel!"

Charon was trembling all over. The colors in his eyes had completely turned into a pool of filth, so that no outline could be reflected. He was shaking like a leaf, as if he was laughing wildly, or as if he was howling.

"In revelation, it is a monster that God has banished from the sky and that is despised by the birds."

His words were resistance, but his expression slowly transformed into worship—a completely different attitude from when he faced Aiina and the white wings. Tears, thick as clotted blood, streamed from his eyes, and his body gradually prostrated itself, not out of fear, but out of wholehearted, utter fervor and submission, like a subject meeting his king.

"That's not how it should be—it shouldn't be like this!"

He muttered to himself, adoration and madness twisted into a chaotic mess in his eyes. He was still struggling, but then—

He was pierced through the chest by a bone spur that fell from above.

The dragon raised its wings high, hoisting this body, lighter than rotten wood, onto its wingtips.

"Cough cough————" Charon began to gag. He had lost the ability to breathe. In his chest, which had been ripped open, there was only withered flesh and blood like a dead vine.

Anda looked at him, her gaze as cold as congealed blood. "Father, you look so ugly now."

She whispered to herself, "Although I am the same."

Charon suddenly stopped struggling.

Hearing this, he swallowed hard twice, spitting out a pool of thick, sticky fluid mixed with minced meat, but he couldn't spit out anything else no matter how hard he tried.

Why do I feel such fanaticism and worship when faced with such a monster?

"No, it's not like that," he said, as if wailing, "We are the offspring of birds, birds—birds, not monsters, we—"

However, in his eyes, all that remained were the remnants left after the worship had been extinguished.

"But you have to tell me, you have to tell me—if that's the case, what's the point of the Agdewe people's existence for all these centuries?" He seemed to be pleading, trying to find an answer from his adopted daughter to fill that bottomless void.

“Father,” Anda replied, emphasizing each word, “the birds have never favored us, but the glory of humankind has never abandoned us.”

She said softly, "But now, we can't go back."

"—" Charon opened his mouth, but could only let out a hoarse, mournful cry from his throbbing Adam's apple, "No—"

"Now, look at your wings," Anda said with a smile. "When they were on Lily, they were soft and beautiful—though cold, they always brought warmth."

"But why is it that once it gets on you, it becomes—so ugly?"

The next moment, the flexible finger bones belonging to the dragon pierced Charon's wings. Amid the old priest's heart-wrenching screams, Anda was still laughing, "Look—it has parasitized and replaced all your nerves. The pain I felt when I tore your chest apart just now was not even one percent of what I feel now."

She spoke softly amidst her piercing sobs, with no further emotion.

"So this is how you—took it off Lily?"

"Rip—" She ripped the wing bone out of Charon's spine, and the sinner had lost the ability to speak. His limbs, pierced by the wing, writhed erratically—until the last drop of blood was drained.

Until he became completely quiet, his breath drifting away.

His faith was shattered, and his spirit was exhausted.

He had nothing left to be proud of.

"Father."

Seeing this, Anda still smiled, "We may have been wrong from the beginning, but the sinner who led us to this point—you have brought shame upon both birds and humans."

"Someone like you."

She said, "They should be burned in hell."

The next moment, the dragon's wings suddenly unfolded.

Intersecting bone spurs, ferocious claws, and unmistakable cracks.

Charon was torn to shreds.

Muddy, murky flesh and blood flowed slowly down the wing membrane, staining the wings a resolute, unchanging crimson.

Lot.

In the utter silence, a gentle voice broke the silence that seemed to last forever.

Anda turned around, her own light solidified on Ai's body, still as soft as cashmere, but at this moment, her warm white hair was also stained with bright red blood, beautiful yet fragile and hideous.

"Lord, you've always known this place—it's called Agdewey."

Her voice was soft, yet it carried a sense of resolve: "Agdeu, in our eyes, is 'a place near the sky,' it has always been—we are proud of this place, for we are the offspring of birds, the kin of the sky."

"However, in the language of birds, the truth may not be so."

Anda looked at Ai, put her hands behind her back, and said softly, "We were all wrong, about Agdeweh—"

The next moment, she sang out the true note that the birds had been carrying.

"7TNTy"

"yTNT7"

-I see.

Ai took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

The translation given by ornithology is: "Chasing away from the cage of the sky".

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