Mister Zero, Her Story: Chapter 69 – Sister
“Are the Yan City higher-ups insane?” Rhine murmured.
He glanced down at the Yan City soldiers desperately defending the second line.
Their gazes were resolute, their conviction even stronger than Dawn’s. Even as an enemy, Rhine couldn’t help but admire their determination.
Were the Yan City leaders willing to sacrifice these soldiers, just to stop Dawn’s advance?
But based on their previous tactics, the commander should be calm and rational, not prone to such reckless decisions…
However, Rhine couldn’t gamble.
He couldn’t gamble on them not using the Eldest Mister’s remains.
Not only would it be a disgrace to the Eldest Mister, but such a reckless decision would also doom everyone.
Rhine took a deep breath and walked out of the camp.
The fighting at the front lines had subsided, Dawn regrouping after their relentless assault, and the Yan City defenders preparing for the next wave.
The heavy rain seemed to wash away the brutality of the battlefield.
But now… he had no choice.
Rhine slowly raised his hand and clenched his fist.
As he did, the torrential rain gradually weakened.
Within thirty seconds, the clouds parted, and starlight shone upon the earth once more.
The days-long downpour had finally stopped.
“Brother!” Grifres’s eyes widened. “Are you planning to…?”
“Yes, this distance… is still a bit risky, but it’s enough,” Rhine nodded, then issued a command to all Dawn members. “Everyone, assemble at the second line, concentrated breakthrough.”
“Brother, you might die,” Grifres said gravely. “This distance is close enough for Yan City to prepare a powerful ‘Ember’ eruption. Even you might not be able to withstand it.”
The “Ember’s” eruption wasn’t a conventional attack, but a saturation of energy, causing an explosion at the energy level.
The smaller the target, the greater the power.
Although Yan City’s “Ember” wasn’t particularly large, if its power was focused on a single point, even a “Destruction” level ability user would be injured.
Rhine, although close to “Destruction” level, wasn’t quite there yet.
The “Ember’s” eruption could very well kill him…
More importantly, the “Ember’s” eruption was unavoidable, its targeting based on spiritual energy signatures.
Unless Rhine didn’t use his ability, or concealed his presence…
“I might die, I know that,” Rhine slowly unclenched his fist, looking up at the starry sky. “But no matter what, I can’t give Yan City even the slightest chance to use the Eldest Mister’s remains…
“Even the possibility is unacceptable.”
The Dawn teams, composed entirely of “Ruin” level or higher ability users, moved quickly.
Within minutes of the command being issued, teams began arriving at the western front line.
And Rhine, after a brief rest, his spiritual energy surged once more.
But this time, there was no rain.
It was wind.
A gentle breeze caressed their faces, dislodging a few pebbles.
But the gentle breeze quickly turned into a violent gale, sending debris flying, wreaking havoc.
“After the rain comes the wind…”
Rhine’s ability wasn’t to control the weather, but to manipulate it.
He couldn’t create weather out of nothing; he needed pre-existing conditions.
The torrential rain had been possible because of the cumulonimbus clouds over Yan City, and this sandstorm, because the airflow around the city was unstable after the rain.
Essentially, Rhine’s ability was to harness the power of existing weather patterns.
But even so… it was terrifying.
It was a power that could engulf an entire mega-city…
“Attack, target: destroy the ‘Ember Furnace’.”
Rhine took a deep breath and unleashed the sandstorm.
Wherever the gale passed, the fortified defenses were as fragile as paper, offering no resistance.
…
“Escape… I have to… escape…”
After unleashing her sword beams, Qin Wen fled from the blood-red figure.
Terror, which she hadn’t even realized she was feeling, was evident on her usually calm face as she desperately tried to escape this nightmare.
This was the first time Qin Wen had encountered an enemy she couldn’t defeat. Although her sword beams could slow the figure down, they couldn’t injure it.
Her survival instincts, combined with the triggered “Fear” mark, made her lose all reason.
After escaping the Anomaly Management Bureau, she continued running, driven by pure instinct.
She didn’t see the blood-red mist engulfing the Bureau building.
Countless grotesque, crimson tentacles writhed within, and numerous blood-red monsters, twisted and distorted, rose like the walking dead, yet restrained by some force, unable to spread beyond the mist.
The fact that Qin Wen had survived for so long within the blood mist and managed to escape was a miracle.
However, the miracle came at a heavy price.
When Qin Wen finally regained her senses, she found herself in an unfamiliar place.
The darkness was absolute, her breathing technique only sensing a faint aura emanating from the depths.
“Where… is this…?”
Qin Wen swallowed hard, the aftereffects of the “miracle” fading as she gradually calmed down.
She touched the cold, hard wall beside her and followed the faint aura deeper inside.
The darkness was disorienting; she could only follow this single clue.
Her mind was still in turmoil, the terror of the nightmare lingering.
Just then, Qin Wen’s fingers touched something rough and uneven.
At first, she thought it was just damage to the wall, but after finding several more such spots, she realized something was amiss.
There seemed to be a pattern…
Qin Wen focused, tracing the uneven surfaces, their positions gradually forming a picture in her mind.
Finally, they formed four characters.
The script was unfamiliar, ancient, yet Qin Wen somehow recognized it, as if another voice was whispering in her mind.
“Dawn… City…?”
A sudden chill, similar to what she had felt before, washed over her.
“This… isn’t Yan City…?”
Qin Wen took a few deep breaths. Her breathing technique sensed a faint aura deeper within the passage.
With no other clues, she could only follow it.
After an unknown amount of time, seemingly both an instant and an eternity, Qin Wen finally reached the source of the aura.
Surprisingly, it was a small room.
In such a bizarre place, this ordinary-looking room seemed even stranger.
And even stranger, despite the complete darkness, Qin Wen could see everything clearly within the room.
“…It seems… I have no choice but to enter.”
Qin Wen cautiously stepped inside, scanning her surroundings.
Besides an ordinary dressing table and wardrobe, something unusual caught her attention.
A crystal bed.
No… perhaps not a bed.
Qin Wen slowly approached, her heart pounding faster and faster.
In the silent darkness, only the sound of her heartbeat echoed.
Finally, she reached the crystal bed and looked down.
Qin Wen almost gasped, her gaze fixed on the bed.
No, it wasn’t a bed…
It was… a coffin.
And inside the coffin lay someone Qin Wen knew very well.
—Miss Luo Yan.
The silver-haired girl lay peacefully within the icy coffin, her hands clasped over her chest.
She seemed content, a faint smile on her lips.
“Miss Luo Yan… what are you doing here…?”
Qin Wen’s breath hitched, her gaze fixed on the small, silver-haired figure.
But she didn’t notice that her own eyes had turned a deep crimson, malevolent black pupils radiating an evil aura.
A crimson shadow stood behind her, as if mockingly.
…
Inside the Ember Furnace.
Countless intricate machines lined the tower-like interior, their rumbling drowning out all other sounds.
A pale blue crystal, shaped like an eye, hovered above one of the devices, emanating a faint spiritual energy fluctuation.
Calling it a crystal wasn’t quite accurate; it seemed more like something otherworldly, perhaps even a spatial rift, visible but intangible.
This was the “Ember,” the source of near-limitless energy.
The surrounding machinery extracted and converted the energy flowing from the “Ember,” feeding it into the “Ember Furnace.”
And the Furnace distributed and utilized this energy, powering the massive “mega-city.”
Countless lives depended on this “burning” Ember.
An elderly figure stood beside the Ember, but his gaze wasn’t on it, but on something else.
At the entrance of the Ember Furnace, a small figure was stumbling towards the Ember.
“How…?”
Mister stared in shock at the frail, icy-blue figure, dangerous spiritual energy fluctuations radiating from its body like a scream.
An ancient power, restrained yet struggling to break free, threatening to annihilate everything around it.
But it couldn’t escape its confines.
This small body contained a terrifying, raging power, suppressed to its limit, maintaining a fragile balance.
Luo Yan opened her eyes with great difficulty, looking up at the source of the voice, trying to see clearly.
But she couldn’t.
A sea of flames seemed to surround her, engulfing everything, leaving only sorrow and grief in her heart.
Unfamiliar figures flashed before her eyes, some laughing, some crying, all looking at her.
And among them, a silent figure and a dark figure, both familiar yet not, watched her silently, their gazes filled with unspoken emotions.
Finally, at the end of this sequence, Luo Yan saw a small boy reaching out to her, his mouth opening and closing.
He was clearly calling out—
“Sister…”
Mister’s lips trembled. He had never expected to meet his sister like this.
He was nearing his end, his remaining life force, after giving a portion to Luo Yan, barely enough to sustain him.
The shadow of death loomed over him, the accumulated weariness of centuries reaching its peak, permeating the Ember Furnace.
Such a dense, malevolent aura would instantly kill any ordinary being, but the icy-blue figure seemed unaffected.
As Mister’s weak voice called out, the small, bandaged figure slowly raised its head, its one visible eye filled with confusion.
But as its gaze focused, the bandages around its throat twitched slightly, and a voice, a voice Mister hadn’t forgotten in centuries, echoed.
“Nine…”
At that moment, all of Mister’s suppressed emotions, the grief he had held back for centuries, only briefly expressed during his secret visit to the Wall of Resentment, finally overflowed.
He wept.
Mister was crying.
He had once been a crybaby, teased by his siblings, but in the centuries since their deaths, he had lived through countless lonely years, devoid of emotion.
It had been a long time since anyone had seen him cry.
But now, tears streamed down his face.
“All these years… you’ve suffered…”
A small, frail hand reached out, and the icy-blue figure stood on tiptoe, gently patting Mister’s messy white hair, just like she used to.
Luo Yan—or rather, One—a faint, stiff, yet gentle smile appeared on her withered face.
Mister smiled back, tears streaming down his face.
Just then, the girl’s pale blue eye slowly turned a faint red.
Luo Yan’s consciousness returned, the fragmented memories and images fading, along with the gentle presence.
Seeing this, Mister seemed to understand.
“Thank you… thank you,” he murmured, lowering his head slightly. “After all these years… I finally heard Sister’s voice again…”
“—Miss Luo Yan.”
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