Upon the dark sea, as black as ink, 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Yi Chen, his temples flecked with gray, once more arrived here. Unlike before, his body was almost shattered, iron nails pierced through his arms, and a conspicuous slash marked his neck.

This time, Yi Chen had no boat to carry him, merely floating on the vast sea.

Without a boat, being here was extremely deadly. The floating did not last long before his already battered upper body began to disintegrate, dissolving into the black sea,

His already injured arms completely fell apart,

The iron nails embedded in the surface of his arms scattered, sinking into the deep sea, followed by the gradual erosion of his battered torso by the wash of the black sea until it was all but gone.

Soon, only his head remained,

Once the head disintegrated, Yi Chen would be completely dead here,

However, the sole remaining head appeared to be different,

A closer Observation revealed a layer of ’white bone’ on the broken neck, a ’thank you gift’ left by the former leader of the Death Plague Knights after beheading Yi Chen.

The white skeletal membrane shielded against the invasion of the black sea water, preserving the head, allowing Yi Chen’s head to drift freely in this black ocean, without the need for a boat.

Time passed indeterminably,

Yi Chen’s consciousness slowly returned. Realizing his current state, he immediately felt the ’pull’ from the white bone layer at his neck.

This ’White Death’ bestowed by the former leader of the Death Plague Knights could, in this black sea, point out a particular direction, seemingly where Yi Chen would find the answers he sought.

Breathing...

With only a head left, Yi Chen could only perform basic breathing, using the ’breath’ he expelled to propel the head through the sea,

One day,

Three days,

Ten days,

One month,

Three months,

Yi Chen maintained absolute Concentration, ensuring his head traveled in the correct direction, his eyes completely closed to reduce unnecessary energy expenditure.

Months went by,

As the sound of waves breaking reached his ears,

Yi Chen’s head also washed ashore with the tide,

On opening his eyes, all that could be seen were piles of skeletons, and, looking up, he unexpectedly found himself before an island of bones constructed from skeletal remains.

Vast and unknown,

"To think the White Death would manifest in this fashion, within the black sea that granted me my demise. Is it the result of a resonance between the two, or the outcome of two types of death mingling within me?"

Yi Chen did not continue pondering,

He was well aware that he was on the brink of death, presented with a prime opportunity to grasp the essence of death, to delve deeper into its realm, with any delay potentially causing him to miss the optimal moment.

Using the white bone structure at his neck to join with a suitable skeleton ashore.

Click, clack, click~

Moving this temporary skeletal body, he headed towards the center of the Isle of Bones.

Here, the plants were like dead fingers, and the trees a multitude of assembled limbs, all constructed from skeletons. When Yi Chen arrived at the very heart of the island, he was faced with a white Bone Abyss spanning kilometers.

It seemed the deepest part held the answers Yi Chen sought,

"The Abyss... Imprisoned in the lowest depths of the Monastery, never seeing the light of day, constantly shrouded in darkness—a resident of the Old World has undergone an Abyssal Transformation? Or was his unorthodox death already linked to an abyss?

Fundamentally different from the sensation of the Tenth Abyss,

All there was here was pure death and white skeletons."

Without much hesitation, he crawled down the bone-laden walls,

Each descent into the abyss corresponded with a deepening into death, and the skeletal body that Yi Chen temporarily connected with soon couldn’t withstand the journey, starting to fracture.

However,

Every time his body was about to break, black liquid would ooze from his face gluing the bones together, and if they crushed completely he would extract a white bone from the Abyss’s wall as a replacement, maintaining integrity at all times.

...

The flow of time in the outside world progressed at an equal rate,

the "False Moon. Yin Head" created by Lorrian and William had been fully accepted by the Old World, but they had never initiated a major performance, and compared to the initial popularity of moon-viewing, it had now entirely declined.

The theater’s "Fear" revenue, once on par with the circus, had once more fallen to the bottom of the list.

Nonetheless,

William was not worried at all, and because of the significant reduction in moon-viewing attendees, he even began to spend long periods away from the theater, leaving its management to ’Thirteen.’

If it really came down to it, they could simply switch performance methods and lead the audience into Lorrian’s "Illusion Dream Realm"—both a source of chaos samples for Lorrian and a means to satisfy the performance requirements.

After the public performance ended, "Three Months" passed.

On this day,

Candle Puppet Thirteen, acting as the manager, was directing newly recruited actors to tidy up the theater when William returned through the main entrance after an absence of six whole days.

Thirteen, unable to restrain her temper for a moment, had her candle entwined to the greatest extent as she approached William with not particularly ladylike steps, saying unhappily,

"Teacher, you are the chief director of the theater, and you left for six days without a word. In the meantime, many audience members came. We really couldn’t ensure the quality of the performance.

If the quality declines and the audience spreads the word, it will severely affect our theater’s reputation, and it could even drag down the circus with it."

William, however, maintained an unnatural smile, or rather, he seemed to have been laughing for the last few days, which caused his facial muscles to automatically retain a smiling state, and his lips even seemed slightly thicker.

His gentle palm slid onto Thirteen’s shoulder reassuringly.

"I trust your abilities, Thirteen. Besides, isn’t Lorrian there to cover for me? Recently, I’ve been considering the large-scale performances. Since Mr. Yi and Nash won’t be returning anytime soon, I need to find an alternative."

"Without Mr. Yi, my personal combat power would be greatly reduced, especially in terms of death.

Therefore, I spent quite a long time in seclusion in the Original Tomb. You really had a tough time during this period."

William even deliberately pulled a cigarette, produced from the Original Tomb and laden with the Death Plague’s black vapor, from the pocket of his gentleman’s clothes and exhaled.

"Oh..."

Since William had explained himself, Thirteen didn’t say much else.

She looked up at William, who was wearing a pure silver monocle, and for a moment, she seemed to see something squirming within it.

William rested a finger against his cheek and continued, "Besides, if the performance is poorly received and there’s a risk of damaging the theater’s reputation, then we won’t let the audience go back. If they can’t speak to anyone, the issue of a damaged reputation won’t exist, right?"

Thirteen saw nothing wrong with this logic. "Teacher, are we preparing for a large-scale performance?"

"Yes, exactly. The gears of the World Infection are accelerating to an end... We need to settle the score with the blood citizens before the two worlds connect. The moment that happens, they will be the first to throw the Blood Plague over to the other side.

By then, those vermin will use the ’financial strength’ of the Source Epidemic Area inherited from ancient times to proliferate exponentially, and it will become too difficult to exterminate them.

Even if Mr. Yi can’t make it back in time, we’ll still begin the official performance."

"Ah? Teacher, your eye still hasn’t healed... And are we really strong enough to confront the blood citizens, not to mention the Mysterious Skin Factory they’re backed by?"

"Don’t worry, I didn’t spend all my time in retreat at the Original Tomb; I also took plenty of time to build connections.

As for my eye, though it can’t combine perfectly with the little grape... a temporary Combine should last until the end of the performance."

"Roughly when will that be?"

"In ten days, so starting from now, False Moon will no longer accept any visitors. However, let’s not announce anything about the large-scale performance for the time being."

"Understood."

"I’ll go see Lorrian. You proceed with your work."

William walked along the False Moon’s corridor, humming a cheerful tune and even tapping a jaunty step with his leather shoes, his smile never leaving his lips.

He didn’t go to find Lorrian, who was undergoing Chaos Transformation, but instead headed to another newly developed laboratory. Inside, a man and a woman were engaged in an electric coupling.

"Reagan, how is the research on the Death Plague going? It’s been three months."

Reagan quickly wiped away the metallic liquid at the corner of his mouth. The connected Faye also straightened her dress, shyly greeting William at the doorway with a flushed face.

"Not bad, it’s not completely stable yet, but it’s mostly harmless for those who can naturally accommodate the Death Plague."

"You’ve really surpassed yourself this time! Without Mr. Yi, I must maintain my Death Ability; otherwise, my power will be greatly reduced, and it will be hard to get the better of those blood citizens."

William settled into a mechanical chair with dignity.

Reagan, retrieving a metal syringe filled with highly concentrated Dead Plague Fog State Bacteria (modified) from the safe, inserted it directly into William’s spine. As the liquid was injected,

a distinctly different "Dead Man Makeup" began to emerge on William’s face, or more precisely, a brand-new mask—a manifestation of a novel illness fused within the Complete Shaper system—started to take shape.