The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 755: Elders’ Summon

The embers of the cigarette flickered in the dark as Lin Dajian smoked. He looked at the three empty beds in the dorm room. Mi Shi had disappeared without warning. Gao Yang had pulled out of school after what happened to his family. Qiu Qiu had gotten killed by a robber. The once boisterous dorm room was now his alone.

Sometimes, Lin Dajian would have a moment of weakness and feel like everyone was still there.

Lin Dajian had gotten distracted earlier because he used to curse out loud dramatically on purpose every time he encountered a boss, drawing his roommates to check out how terrifying the monster was. Then he would kill the boss with masterful skills to show off.

No matter how good of a gamer he was, though, he didn’t have a friend to share the moments with now.

Lin Dajian put out the cigarette and checked the social media with his phone, clicking into Sister Xia’s page. Checking her timeline was his only pick-me-up now.

Sister Xia’s most recent post was from a few days ago.

“The weather will be good tomorrow. I’d like to go to an escape room, but I have to work overtime.”

Lin Dajian put away his phone in disappointment and lit another cigarette, taking a deep drag. His lone figure blended with the dim room.

—Yeah, the weather will be good, but I’m all alone.

...

Two men stood on the rooftop of the teaching building across from the boys’ dorm. One stood before the railing on the edge of the rooftop, keeping an eye on Room 509, or more specifically Lin Dajian.

The man was dressed in an aged navy blue suit. His messy long brown hair was part in the middle, and his stubbled face was sunken. He looked unkempt and gloomy. It was Luqi.

The man behind Luqi was in a black cape and a large hood, wearing a white mask to cover up the ugly face that had been disfigured in a fire. It was Goldthread, overtaken completely by Dust.

“Clear Mirror,” Dust said with some urgency. “Should we change our target?”

Luqi didn’t say anything or turn around but continued to look at Lin Dajian’s room.

Clear Mirror and Dust were twin siblings. In human language, they were the overtaker primes born at the same time.

Clear Mirror had brought back Luqi by taking over the body.

However, using a dead person as a host came with a great price: he couldn’t transfer to another host, and he would lose his original ability.

From then on, Clear Mirror could only live as Luqi, becoming a real human.

There were positives, too. He inherited Luqi’s powerful Talent in full—since the Talent hadn’t been claimed by an awakener, luckily. The negatives were that he would adopt Luqi’s personality to some degree, gaining snippets of memory and the man’s soul. As a result, the once calm and aloof Clear Mirror had become brooding and introspective.

Dust often found her brother familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.

“Gao Yang has an uncle in the countryside. We can grab him and force Gao Yang out,” Dust suggested.

“Wrong.” Clear Mirror turned around and gave her an explanation in a deep voice. “Whether we grab Gao Yang’s uncle or Lin Dajian, Gao Yang won’t show up. Even if he does, he will come prepared. We may not stand a chance of winning.”

“I’m watching Lin Dajian for a different reason. I’m waiting for them to cross paths like Qiu Qiu and Gao Yang had. When that happens, we’ll make a sneak attack. That’s our only chance of killing him.”

“To my knowledge, Gao Yang saw his uncle less than two times a year. It’s less likely for them to cross paths soon than Gao Yang and Lin Dajian.”

Dust nodded bemusedly. “I understand now.”

Clear Mirror turned around and watched the dorm building against the night wind. “This isn’t ideal, though. After what happened with Qiu Qiu, Gao Yang is unlikely to give us the chance to do the same thing.”

“Why don’t I try to infiltrate the Qilin Guild?” Dust suggested. “The Guild has been looking for Gao Yang, too. That can be our way in.”

Dust did have a more personal reason for making the suggestion.

She had always hated Goldthread’s ugly body. She had picked him only because there was no better option then. And Goldthread had a nice Talent that would make her stronger.

Were she given the choice, she still wanted to turn back into a young and beautiful woman.

She didn’t even dare to face Clear Mirror without her mask. She felt inferior for some reason.

“No, it’s too dangerous,” Clear Mirror shot her down. “After your identity and ability were revealed, the three organizations have imposed measures specifically against you. You’d only be marching to your death.”

Dust fell silent.

Suddenly, Clear Mirror frowned. He rolled up his sleeve and saw that a red flower bud had grown out of his forearm. The roots burrowed through his skin, using his flesh and blood as soil.

The red flower bud shook slightly before blooming all of a sudden. It was beautiful and insidious under the moonlight.

Clear Mirror waved at Dust and grabbed the red flower, tearing it off his arm. The splattering blood stained his suit.

“The Elders’ summoning us.”

Dust paused before nodding. “We’re heading back?”

Clear Mirror narrowed his eyes slightly and thought for a few seconds. “We’re heading back.”

...

Saint Pilin Opera House, Snow Nation, three o’clock the next morning.

The opera house was located in the most developed neighborhood in the city, accompanied by a clear lake. It was brightly lit and grandiose even at midnight, painting a wondrous and beautiful picture paired with the reflection in the lake.

The opera house was a grand polyhedron architecture with rows of elegant classical arched windows and delicate, finely crafted reliefs. It was dignified with a rich history, yet also sacred in a religious sense.

Inside the opera house was a large circular space. In addition to the audience seats on the ground level, there were six tiers of mezzanine seats that filled a fan shape. It was like half of the Colosseum.

A large light blue dome topped the opera house, painted with twelve angels in the form of children. They wore white dresses with white wings, smiles pure and careless as they danced around the center of the dome, hands linked.

Hanging from the center of the dome was an extravagant chandelier that resembled a strangely-shaped sun. The light took the concrete form of crystal shards, spreading in all directions.

The crystallized light lit up the whole opera house. Staring at it gave one a curious heady feeling like they were bathed in divine grace.

There was no one in the opera house at the moment, or so it seemed. The deep red curtains at the front of the stunning and grand stage parted to the sides, revealing an unassuming brown roundtable and five high-back chairs at the center.

Three chairs were claimed.

The moderator of the roundtable was a frail old man.

He was dressed in a loose light gray linen robe, barefooted. Outside of the cane in his hand, there was no other decoration on him. He looked plain.

He was bald with a long, thick silver beard that reached his chest. His eyes were gray and muddled with strange patterns that looked like rust.

He was Nico, the gatekeeper of the opera house.

That was only his mundane identity, of course. He was an Elder of the Godbearer Cult and one of the core members who had joined the earliest.

And he had another identity. He was the wanderer prime, as the humans would call it.

That, however, didn’t mean that he had special ability or talent. What set him apart from regular wanderers was that he didn’t go berserk even when he heard a summoner’s song. And he didn’t black out or modify his logic when he witnessed things beyond the mundane understanding of the world.

He knew he was a wanderer, but sometimes, he was convinced that he was human, too. It was a sort of self-hypnotizing instinct imprinted in the soul, which often resulted in conflicted actions from him.

That, however, allowed Nico to think outside the limit of a monster and see the big picture from a greater perspective, thus making him something of a sage or a prophet.

Sitting on his left was a woman.