I want to be a faded person for life

She stared into the monster's cloudy eyes.

"...Don't make eye contact or make threatening gestures, as that can be taken as a provocation."

Xiangzi forced a smile and imagined the other party to be the customer service representative with a bad attitude on the other end of the phone.

"Come here and try it...you disgusting bug!"

Although he didn't know whether the other party could understand what he said, the monster that had already squeezed out of the stone gate paused for a moment.

It slowly raised its upper body and crossed the two luxurious rapiers in a cross shape, and then golden flames burned on the blades of the two rapiers at the same time.

Looking at such a strange scene, Xiangzi broke out in a cold sweat. She seemed to have felt the pain of being burned by flames all over her body, but her legs stopped shaking at some point.

Without a pause, she turned around and ran wildly across the suspension bridge.

A violent vibration sound came from behind. The suspension bridge was like a ship bobbing on the sea, and the crackling sound of shattered wooden boards was approaching the back of the girl's head.

Xiangzi staggered towards the bridge head. She didn't even have the thought of looking back. There was no need to confirm that the monster must have caught up with the suspension bridge.

After the eagle's cry, the monster's fear of the chapel was indeed reduced a lot, and it dared to leave the courtyard and go to the chapel.

At this time, the bridge had tilted severely, and the crackling sound of the broken ropes became more and more rapid.

Xiangzi ran desperately and had no intention of fighting head-on from the beginning.

Rather, if you regard everything here as a death game, then using the suspension bridge is the only way to pass it.

The suspension bridge, which had some ropes cut in advance, became extremely unstable. It could only barely support the weight of a high school girl. When the monster rushed onto the suspension bridge, the latter had already begun to collapse irreversibly.

It is located above a cliff hundreds of meters high, and below the suspension bridge are rugged reefs and the sea.

This place has become a trap that is sure to kill you.

She was less than ten meters away from the other end of the bridge. All she had to do now was rush to the other side and completely cut the rope on the other stone pillar.

The environment limits the monster's movement speed. As long as you can catch up with it before it catches up...

Thinking of this, Xiangzi couldn't help but turn his head and glance back.

"Eh?!"

Instead of pursuing relentlessly as expected, the monster stopped in the middle of the bridge.

Did the other party realize that this was a trap?

Even if it is discovered, it doesn't matter, because it is too late to find it...

The thinking stops here.

The monster had a sinister smile on its face, and its misshapen hind limbs, with their joints twisted and distorted, bent downward, making a movement like an insect gathering strength before taking off.

In just a moment, its figure disappeared from the spot.

Xiangzi almost instinctively flew forward, and the next second the monster's huge body fell from the sky, and two rapiers pierced the wooden board where she was originally standing like cutting tofu.

The huge impact spread from the area where the monster fell to both sides of the suspension bridge. The bridge deck shattered in an instant, and the rope that had been cut in half by Xiangzi was first tightened and then broke with a bang.

The girl's body was thrown into the air by the impact. She hurriedly grabbed the rope beside her. The bridge had completely overturned, and only the last rope remained connecting to the stone pillar on the opposite bank.

Xiangzi was gasping for breath, and the broken wooden boards below her fell from a height and disappeared into the black sea.

"It should be...solved, right?"

She glanced down again. At this distance, even the splashes of water on the wooden board were too small to be seen clearly. Even a monster beyond common sense would have no chance of survival after falling from such a height.

Xiangzi's body was hanging in the air, holding the rope with one hand. He was only five or six meters away from the shore, a distance that he could reach with a little effort.

Taking a deep breath, Xiangzi decided to go back and rest before finding a way to get to the other side.

Suddenly, a hot sword blade pierced through her body and came out from her chest.

The monster's body was revealed under the overturned bridge. It used two slender arms to hang its body, hanging upside down under the suspension bridge like a silk-spinning spider.

It threw one of its rapiers, which easily pierced the girl's body.

The intense burning sensation seemed to overwhelm the entire world. The sky in his eyes was burned into a dull golden color by the flames. Xiangzi could feel that his consciousness was becoming blurred.

The monster moved its two limbs alternately and soon approached where she was.

How could we lose to it here?

Along with the pain comes an intense feeling of unwillingness.

Boiling blood gushed out of the girl's mouth, nostrils and eyes. Xiangzi somehow found some strength and swung the dagger to cut the rope.

The desolate cry of an eagle was heard beside my ears, followed by the familiar feeling of weightlessness.

-

I felt a warm and moist touch on my hand, as if an animal's wet nose was brushing against the back of my hand.

...

"Don't worry, Torret, there is still hope."

"There's something of the storm left in her."

A very familiar voice.

"Finally found it here."

The voice continued, as if talking to itself.

I have the impression that the familiar voice would not say so many words. At most, it would just respond silently like a puppet.

"As one of the Faded, she would certainly seek the Elden Circle...even if doing so would violate the Golden Rule."

Lifting his heavy eyelids, Xiangzi seemed to see a hooded figure squatting beside him.

Without thinking, she grabbed the hand that was reaching out to her.

It felt subtly rough to the touch, as if it had been burned by flames, yet somehow seemed unusually warm.

"?"

"Mu..."

My hand was held very tightly and it was difficult to break free for a while.

Melina was very confused; the situation seemed different from what she had expected.

Chapter 5: A Stunning View Ahead

Tick, tick.

Cold water drops fell on the girl's face.

Shoko Toyokawa opened her eyes and fell into a brief daze.

In a trance, she saw the girl named Wakaba Mu again, but that seemed to be just a little cowardice left in Toyokawa Shoko's heart.

The finger, the urn, and the blue stone were all still safely packed in the carpet-wrapped package, and the dagger was not far away.

The wound on the chest has disappeared, but there is still a hole in the shirt, revealing the fair and tender skin.

The situation seemed to be different from the previous resurrections. Xiangzi remembered that the first few times he was resurrected in the chapel, his damaged and dirty clothes would return to their original state along with him.

"This place... doesn't seem to be the chapel from before."

Xiangzi checked the surrounding environment. It seemed to be a cave with dim light and damp ground.

Several meters above the head is a fairly spacious cave entrance, through which one can see the somewhat gloomy sky.

There were a lot of broken boards of the suspension bridge scattered on the ground around, and the monster's body had been smashed into mud nearby.

They all seemed to have fallen in through the hole with me.

Because no matter where he died before, he would be resurrected in the chapel, a somewhat absurd idea emerged in Xiangzi's mind.

Could it be that she is not dead this time?

No, no, no, this was a fall from a cliff hundreds of meters high, not to mention that he had just been hit by a sword.

In the end, Xiangzi simply defined this phenomenon as a new save point, which seemed to be a sign of self-abandonment.

Giving up thinking, Xiangzi suppressed his nausea and looked in the direction of the monster.

The other party seemed to be dead very completely, with dozens of pairs of hands and feet of different skin colors and lengths scattered everywhere like scattered puzzle pieces.

The opponent's misshapen limbs seemed to be made up of multiple hands and feet of normal length spliced ​​together and sewn together, while the body looked more like a giant, bloated and huge.

"So disgusting... What kind of monster is this?"

The corpse did not have a rotten smell, but instead gave off a strong and pungent aroma. This contrast made Xiangzi feel even more nauseous.

The monster's shield was missing, one of its two rapiers was broken, and the other was lying in the stream in the cave.

Xiangzi forced himself not to look at the dead body anymore and picked up the rapier with some surprise.

"It's so heavy... I can't even swing it with one hand."

Although it is used as a rapier in the hands of the monster, this length can be considered a broadsword in the hands of a high school girl.

Although the first impression is quite gorgeous, a closer look reveals that the word "gorgeous" alone is not enough to describe this weapon.

Its grip is inlaid with gold and various gems, and the relief of a giant tree on the guard extends all the way to one-third of the sword body. It is more like a ceremonial work of art than a weapon for killing.

In such a haunted place, having more weapons to protect yourself is naturally a good thing that cannot be refused.

"It can't be wasted."

Now that he knew how valuable money was, Xiangzi simply wrapped it up with cloth. As for the crown on the monster's head and the robe embroidered with precious metal threads, Xiangzi did not touch them because they were too disgusting.

There were smooth stone walls all around and no place to step. After several attempts, Xiangzi realized that it would be impossible to climb up to the cave entrance.

Right now, we can only look for other exits.

Xiangzi first washed his face with stream water, and then walked along the stream into the depths of the cave.

The azure stone emitted a faint light in the cave. Although it could only illuminate a small area, it was much better than advancing in the dark.

After walking for a while, Xiangzi discovered other light sources not far away.

She ran over with some surprise, but found that it was not the exit she had imagined.

In the small open space in front, a translucent little tree was emitting golden light.

Not far from the small tree, a golden flame was swaying on the ground.

The flames just floated in the air less than ten centimeters above the ground, with no visible fuel underneath.

Xiangzi remembered where she had felt similar warmth. It seemed that it was this beam of warm golden fire that dragged her out of the darkness during those times when she experienced rebirth after death.

The girl took a few steps closer, and the tear in her shirt was completely healed in an instant as it was bathed in light.

There was another new wax mark on the ground near the beam of fire.

Xiangzi hurriedly squatted down and supported himself on the ground with his hands.

【Why are you so warm? 】

“This…is this for the lamp!?”

Having flipped through Deng's notebook countless times, Xiangzi was very familiar with Deng's handwriting, not to mention that the handwriting written on the ground with wax was in neon language!

Xiangzi immediately raised his head and shouted the other person's name several times into the depths of the cave.

Her voice echoed in the empty air, but received no other response.

Xiangzi lowered his head, but the feeling of loss was fleeting.

This at least proves that Deng has been here, and the probability that the other party fell into the cave from the suspension bridge like himself is negligible, which means that there may be other paths leading to here on the previous cliff.

Xiangzi climbed up excitedly.

This place doesn't look like a completely natural cave. The further you go in, the more traces of human construction you can see around it.

Finally, when we walked through a corridor and stepped into the circular room, the surroundings began to shake.

Xiangzi raised her head and screamed, she seemed to have stepped on some mechanism, and the ground under her feet began to rise along the shaft.

“There’s actually an elevator!”

Xiangzi took a half step back on the stage, finding it unbelievable.

After a while, the circular stone platform stopped in a room with a semicircular dome and multiple stone pillars. There was no other branch, and the elevator led straight to a rusty iron door.

Xiangzi first tried to push the iron gate, but it didn't move.