Infinite Journey: Dark Souls

He bought a can of coffee from the vending machine, took a big gulp, and the bitter, warm liquid slightly eased his confusion, finally bringing him back to his senses and making him notice the lively crowd gathered in the cafeteria.

The murderous aura he felt yesterday was too much of a shock to him. Moreover, under that murderous aura, his blank memories seemed to begin to loosen, revealing some fragmented pieces.

Broken trams, suffering patients, tedious part-time jobs, a mountain of medical knowledge, the threat of death; scattered and disorganized, like a mirror smashed directly on his head, the fragmented surfaces reflecting the edges and corners of his memories, scattered densely on the ground, completely impossible to piece together.

But he always felt that something very important was missing from these broken pieces of glass—it should have been a… innocent smiling face?

I can't remember, I can't remember at all.

When faced with murderous intent, he seemed to have some ideology he could express to refute this resolute approach that left no way out for others or himself, but he just couldn't remember it; he fundamentally felt that cutting off someone else's life was extremely sad, so sad that he wanted to cry, but even if he cried, he couldn't clearly describe where the sadness came from.

What kind of life do I actually have?

After death, how should we, and everyone else, face our past lives?

A crowd gathered in front of him, and a row of posters were pasted on the cafeteria's bulletin board. They were about GDM, the "Death March," the school's popular band.

To coordinate with their operation tonight, the feint attack team plans to occupy the gymnasium and hold a concert to attract the angel's attention. As the student council president, she wouldn't stand idly by while such an illegal activity takes place in the middle of the night, thus buying precious time for those who want to break into her room.

A girl with pink hair, twin tails, ahoge, and a little devil headdress and tail is diligently pasting posters in the middle of the crowd.

Judging from her uniform, she should also be a member of the SSS group. However, her work attitude is less about fulfilling her job responsibilities and more about working so hard to put up posters for the band she admires.

She excitedly discussed GDM's works and concert information with those around her. Her enthusiastic performance and cute appearance brought knowing smiles to the faces of the ordinary students watching, unintentionally boosting the band's popularity.

A popular band? I always felt that this kind of idol group was very far removed from my past self, but now, everyone is making different preparations for the same battle.

Let's go take a look; I'm quite curious about their lives.

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"Hey Xiaoyan, did you empty out the entire armory?"

The rooftop of the second teaching building was now filled with rows of weapons: pistols, submachine guns, automatic rifles, assault rifles, sniper rifles, anti-tank rocket launchers, grenades, grenade launchers, landmines, light and heavy machine guns; in short, all the weapons that an individual soldier or squad could carry could be found here.

"They emptied most of the weapons depots, as well as all the ammunition depots."

Xiao Yan was currently sorting the weapons into light and heavy categories, then putting them back into the shield so that she could quickly find the type of weapon she needed when she needed them in the future.

"I have a feeling that your level of danger has increased dramatically."

"Please categorize these as the combat power of the Ashes—actually, the biggest gain is the advanced technology here. Based on my current military knowledge, in this world, as long as there are clods of earth, I can even try to manufacture missiles. However, whether they can be used in the World of Fire is another question, including the weapons we have collected so far."

"If it were usable, you would truly become a humanoid weapon of war."

"But that's only the level we reached before we caught up with that demon."

Zhi leaned against the rooftop railing, watching Xiaoyan's long hair being blown about in the wind, and for a moment she was at a loss for words.

"Yes, Xiaoyan, you still have a goal you have to catch up with."

"But there's no need to rush. The gods should be able to wait a long time."

It seems that it doesn't rain in the afterlife. The warm sun always hangs in the azure sky. At this moment, the white clouds slightly block the sunlight, making the blowing wind less hot and more cool.

"Hey, Ori, how is the god that Yuri and the others have been rebelling against different from the gods we know?"

"Who knows? Maybe it's the difference between the god of fate and the god of magic."

The weapons were slowly put away, and the sunlight was finally able to shine freely on the rooftop, making the white floor tiles dazzlingly bright.

"I want to see what this so-called God really is—only by understanding God's information can I save God."

"Okay, I understand. If any dark spirits appear tonight, just leave them to me."

"Yes, I will go and see for myself what level the 'Angel's Realm' has reached."

Smiling slightly, laughing heartily, ashes against ashes, fists bumping fists.

As always, they did not lose their way, but strode confidently on their own paths in life.

The noisy feast during the National Day holiday

The stadium, shrouded in night, was bustling with an energy far exceeding that of the daytime.

The concert of GDM's popular campus band was held here as scheduled.

Ordinary students, holding flyers, spontaneously gathered here. For their idols, for their revelry, rock music would once again resound throughout the campus, disrupting the peaceful night sky with its noise.

Masami Iwasawa, the band's lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist, is also a girl who expresses her longing through her songs.

She composed all the songs played by GDM, and then conquered the entire school with her singing voice; she made every concert a visual and auditory feast; she provided the noisy background music for every battle of the SSS group; she was just an ordinary high school student, but the soul she entrusted to music could resonate with everyone's heart.

This is the kind of girl who entered the afterlife with regrets.

Every time she stands in the spotlight, she feels a moment of disorientation, because all she sees are the regrets of her life.

Today was no exception. At the very center of the stage, she faced the students who had gathered from all over the school, gazing at their eyes, which were filled with either fervor, admiration, or anticipation. Her body trembled slightly. Her singing could always convey her longing, yet her singing could never convey all of her longing.

"Let's not wait any longer, let's start now!"

The guitar pick glides across the strings, and the opening notes transform into electronic music, bursting forth from the speakers.

The electronic chords ignited the audience's enthusiasm, but their plan was to gather more people before officially starting the show.

Lead guitarist Hisako, bassist Shiori, and drummer Miyuki were all taken aback. But since the lead singer had set the mood, they couldn't let the concert fall flat. Whether they were singing for the sake of battle or just for the sake of singing, only the lead singer could decide.

Hisako discerned the guitar chords and discovered that the warm-up short piece shifted its range, rising into a long key, and immediately began playing GDM's signature song, "Alchemy."

After exchanging a glance with Iwasawa, Hisako, who was in charge of the lead vocals, immediately strummed the main key on the guitar.

The bass line came up, the drums started, and this most famous song immediately brought the concert, which had just begun, to its noisy peak.

Rejoice, everyone! Immerse yourselves, everyone! This is the longing I wanted to convey, and it is also the longing I could not fully convey.

Once upon a time, a girl named Masami Iwasawa was just a little girl struggling in a violent family. Her father was an alcoholic, and her mother was depressed. She had no room of her own and nowhere to escape from her home. She could only listen to her drunken father and her suffering mother arguing and fighting. She would shrink into a corner of the room, cover her head, close her eyes, and hope that everything would get better.

What saved her from that state was the rock music she heard by chance. The noisy metal electronic music rekindled the sparks in her increasingly numb senses. Her soul was shaken, and she wanted to continue shaking her own soul. A discarded, broken wooden guitar came into her life, and she began her music career.

She worked hard and sang hard. The figure that used to stay in the corner of the house was gone, but a girl singing appeared on the street.

The girl gradually grew into a young woman, and the young woman went further and further on her musical path; she wrote her own songs and composed her own melodies, and passers-by on the street recorded the growth of this young woman in their fleeting glances.

Her dream became clearer and clearer, so clear that she felt she could reach out and firmly grasp it in her hands.

Until he returned to that home again, the drunken father smashed the bottle he held in his hands during the argument, shattering the dream he had been holding.

This is who she truly is, this is the life of Masami Iwasawa. She is not the lead singer of a popular band, nor is she the focus of the spotlight. What she is singing now is the song she wrote, what she wants to sing is her own life—My Song.

"The feint attack has begun; the angels are confirmed to be approaching."

"Received. Angelic Realm, commence the invasion!"

Yusa, the operator of the Afterlife Battlefront, is responsible for communication between the feint attack site and the invasion site. At this moment, she is standing on the roof of the stadium, monitoring the entire concert.

Beneath her was a young girl singing her own song, and through the skylight, calmly taking in everything, she heard a different flavor in the song she had heard countless times.

She remembered that the girl seemed to have written a new song, a narrative song, a song about her life that she had never sung at a concert.

She seems to really want to sing that song now, but, well, the plans on both sides have already begun.

Their gaze fell on the cordon around the stadium. Tonight, the execution team was at the intrusion site, so the cordon was made up of ordinary members of the SSS group. They were far less professional than the execution team members. At this moment, they all closed their eyes, swaying their bodies to the rhythm of rock music, letting their souls sink into the noise.

"Calling Liangyi, calling Liangyi, Dark Spirit detected, target location, north of the stadium, outer perimeter cordon."

When a song is sung from the soul, the resulting resonance is unstoppable, even fatal.

"To reiterate, Dark Spirit detected. Target location: North of the stadium, outside the perimeter cordon."

The fatal thing was not the singing, but the red spirit that appeared in the darkness under the cover of the noisy music.

The song makes the soul sink, the sword reaps life.

This ordinary band member will spend the whole night, or perhaps a whole cycle, lost in the world of rock and roll while lying in his own blood.

Golden flames tore through the night, but the ashes, like police officers who are always late, arrived only to find themselves staring blankly at the crime scene.

"Operator! What's going on? There's only one corpse here, where's Dark Spirit?"

"It has been confirmed that he disappeared into the darkness after committing the crime."

"Disappeared?"

“That’s right—wait, there’s a new development: the vanished dark spirits have reappeared in the East District; to repeat, the vanished dark spirits have reappeared in the East District.”

"Damn it! What's wrong with that guy?"

The singer sang her song, while the assassin killed his prey.

Metal rock, death rock—if she knew her singing was masking death, I wonder what her expression would be.

"Announcement: The cordon at the stadium is being lifted. Announcement: The cordon at the stadium is being lifted. All personnel outside the stadium, retreat inside. Repeat: All personnel outside the stadium, retreat inside."

The flames of ashes could not cut through all the darkness. The unprecedented method of invasion gave Zhikong great martial arts skills, but she had no place to use them. Every time she arrived at the hunting grounds, she found them deserted.

Presumably, the middle finger's chest is already brimming with the tongues of its prey. In the darkness, to the rhythm of rock and roll, is the piercing straight sword it swings trembling with excitement?

"Tch, you're so arrogant. You were so confident that there would be no problem, and then you got slapped in the face."

Unable to figure out the method of intrusion, there was no way to drive away this intruder. Suppressing her frustration at being toyed with, she patiently continued her search at yet another hunting site.

A red symbol was etched in a corner of darkness, slowly dissipating in the eyes of the ashes. Suddenly, the fire in his heart burst forth with sparks, like a guitar string being plucked.

"So that's how it is. The Dark Spirit was summoned! Then how was the mark inscribed, and who summoned the Dark Spirit?"

The operator had already relayed the commander's orders: the perimeter was narrowed, and the scope of the crime was reduced. This time, Ash, who arrived, witnessed Dark Spirit's departure for the first time: still wearing a helmet covered in needles, armor covered in needles, a shield covered in needles, and a straight sword covered in needles. He was kneeling on one knee beside the pool of blood and corpses, silently watching Ash rush forward, fading away as the blade struck.

"The Dark Spirit again—he ran up to the angel! He's fighting the angel, I repeat, he's fighting the angel."

Even amidst the hustle and bustle of the concert, the operator's voice remained perfectly calm until an unexpected situation arose that exceeded everyone's expectations, at which point she could no longer maintain that composed tone.

Who summoned him?

Fragmented questions churned in the frenzied atmosphere, and no one could, and no one would, pay attention to these whispered words.

The angel was guiding the teachers to the gymnasium, and it seemed the teachers were about to step onto the stage to stop the illegal gathering. However, the silver-haired girl outside the door witnessed a hunt masked by the singing.

How could she tolerate such vile behavior? Even though the malevolent aura, tinged with a thick crimson hue, was far less impressive than the pure, razor-sharp killing intent she had faced before.

What's intolerable is the Dark Spirit, the Dark Spirit who's gone too far. Since he won't die anyway, and since he's already toyed with the Ashes according to plan, it's perfectly reasonable for him to take advantage of this musical feast to hunt down a few more tongues. He doesn't care if he's exposed, he doesn't care what enemies he faces; he's just a Dark Spirit, a madly invading Dark Spirit.

The needle-pierced shield struck the silver-haired girl heavily, the twisted barrier blocking the needle's advance. The girl murmured the name of the skill, and the hand blade, given the name of sonic speed, tore through the noisy air.

【Guard skill】【Hand sonic】

Sparks flew as hand blades and straight swords pierced each other's vitals. The distorted barrier flickered repeatedly, and the late-arriving fans stood at the gate, staring blankly at the intense battle unfolding before them.