The world goes barren for a long time, and you and I are believers in entropy.
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Sylver opened his eyes.
He craned his head to look out the window; it was still a hollow, pure white outside, and if it weren't for the rumbling sound of the train driving over the tracks, he wouldn't even be able to tell if the train was still moving - the concept of motion seemed to be blurred in this space with no frame of reference whatsoever.
Sylver merely glances at it, then averts his gaze in boredom.
He glanced at his pocket watch out of habit; the hands stopped at one thirty-eight and hadn't moved since he'd entered the place.
It was impossible to count how long the train had been traveling through the pure white world.
The compartment was empty except for him, and the white cat was curled up on the seat next to him, sleeping soundly, its fur losing its luster from age, its round body rising and falling with each breath.
Sylver stirred, moving his somewhat stiffened muscles slightly and closing his eyes again.
Three days ago, he had said goodbye to his parents and sister, and with his cat, whose days were numbered, he had smuggled himself out of a baby's dream and returned to the pure white world that he had been away from for eleven years and boarded the train that had been waiting for him for a long time.
Does Hera know he's back?
Sylver sleeps in a daze as the vague dreams that have haunted him for eleven years finally become clear once more.
The faces of those who had died in the past, or who had been imprisoned forever, flashed before his eyes over and over again, including his own.
No one knew when the train had stopped.
The first to realize it was the white cat, its body was so old that even sleeping had become a burden, but this time was different, it suddenly felt much lighter in its sleep.
After waking up it stared out the window at the red house of the circus not far away for a few seconds and reached out its paw to pat Sylver on the shoulder, "Meow-"
Sylver was woken up by its pat and rubbed his eyes, eleven years ago he was hit by Hera's curse the moment he managed to escape, time was frozen forever at seventeen, and he's been in teenage form ever since.
The white cat flicked its tail and said, "We're at the station."
Sylver froze and couldn't believe his ears, "Uncle, you ..."
"The power of the curse is gradually being removed, and the power of time in you is starting to affect me." The white cat stood on the small table in front of Sylver, pacing gracefully, it twitched its ears, its fur miraculously becoming smooth and oily at some point, and its low male voice carried a thick Russian accent, "We're back."
Sylver immediately picked him up and gave the white cat a kiss on his little pink nose, unable to contain his excitement, "That's great."
The white cat laughed and pushed his face with a paw, tilting his head back, "Well, get off the train, there's no telling how long it'll be stopped."
"I bet it leaves as soon as we get off." Sylver stood up with the cat in his arms, scratching the back of its neck in passing, causing the white cat to squint in enjoyment and raise its head.
Looking down the open door between the cars, he was able to see that there was no one else on the train, and Sylver stepped off, just as he stood, the door behind him slowly closing, and the train started up again just as silently as it had appeared.
As he watched the train shrink into a small dot, finally disappearing at the end of the tracks, Sylver turned toward the red house not far in front of him. The sudden appearance of such a bright splash of color in the pure white space was blinding.
An equally brightly colored banner hung over the red and white circus shed, which read in screaming letters:
[Hell Circus, Take You to Hell!
The depressingly infinite pure white, abrupt circus shed and this banner with its frightening content could indeed make the faint of heart shriek in shrill horror, but for Sylver, it could only evoke a hidden nostalgia.
As soon as Sylver approached, the heavy curtain of the shed was lifted from the inside, and the clown with white paint on his face came out, and the two of them just met each other's eyes.
The clown was close to two meters tall, with an exaggerated muscular body that was about to break the black suit, a face full of horizontal meat, smiling lips made of red paint that grinned up to the root of his ears, eyes painted with red four asterisks, a red nose, and an exaggerated makeup that could scare a group of small children on the street.
Seeing Sylver's arrival, the clown grinned, bowed like a gentleman, drew the invitation from his breast pocket, and handed it to Sylver with both hands.
Holding the cat in one hand, Sylver took it and just looked down at it when he heard the clown shrill in a hoarse voice, "Welcome to the Pure White World! This is the world's nightmare, a gambler's paradise, and as long as you have enough chips, this place can fulfill any wish you have! If you leave before the end of the game, we will charge a certain amount as a damage fee, such as - your life!"
"Now then, please show us your chips."
"Later." Sylver passed right by him, bowed, lifted the curtain stepped into the shed, looked around without moving, and asked, "Got any water?"
"Sorry, it's a must for work reasons to start things off." Joker followed him in and went behind the bar and poured two glasses of water, "Victor want something to eat?"
The Joker was so heavy that the wooden floor creaked unbearably with every step he took, Sylver took a seat in the high chair in front of the bar.
It was a small room that resembled a front desk, with many large color-blocked impressionist paintings on the walls, and other than the bar and two couches, there were only many doors left, eight closed, and from the only open door you could look into the corner of the circus stage, where the auditorium was empty.
The white cat called Victor jumped from Sylver's arms onto the bar, "Is it canned?"
"Meat for the lions, want some?"
Victor lowered his head and sipped, "Never mind, I don't like raw meat."
"I expected you to come back at this time, been waiting for you for a long time." The clown stretched out his radish-like thick fingers and carefully touched Victor's ear. The white cat pressed his body's instincts and rubbed against his palm.
"Has Victor always looked like this?"
Sylver: "Well, Uncle's been like this ever since we left here, his cat body is gradually aging in the real world and doesn't have much time left, that's why I made up my mind to come back."
Joker sighed, "You've come back at a bad time, Hera has taken complete control of the Pure White World, and no one dares to defy her - no, I should say that since that pilgrimage was over, everyone who tried to defy her is dead or trapped in a monster box forever, and only the five of you are still alive."
Sylver didn't let that move him, "If I was able to defy her the first time, I can come back a second time, and a third time as well. But this time, I want her dead."
"I'll do what I can to help you." Joker pointed to the invitation in Sylver's hand, "That's a Prisoner card specially prepared for you to stay out of Hera's sight for a while, you've just come back, your powers haven't been restored yet, and you're carrying the curse of the Prisoner of Time, so you need to buy a little recuperation time."
"Thanks." Sylver ripped the surface of the invitation in two or three tries and poured out a black and gold card from it, which was empty.
Joker: "You put a drop of blood on the card if someone uses it, they will be summoned over and sign a contract, nowadays, players who hold the black and gold card in their hands are not idle, and will likely be an aid to your actions."
Sylver didn't hesitate, his thumbnail gently scratched on his index finger's fingertip, and a bead of blood rolled out from the wound, he gently lifted his hand, and the drop of blood automatically landed on the surface of the card, and silently integrated into it.
The card instantly erupted with dazzling light, the huge energy fluctuation blew Sylver's broken hair in front of his forehead, and all the bottles on the liquor cabinet shook unsteadily. The white cat alertly stretched its ears, and under the watchful eyes of three pairs of eyes, the marvelous blood-colored patterns were automatically drawn little by little.
Midway through the drawing, the Joker said, "Make a prisoner name for yourself."
Sylver had figured out what name to use long ago on the train, "Renato."
The moment his words fell, the energy fluctuation peaked and a brilliant golden light enveloped Sylver's entire being. Five seconds later, everything snapped to a calm, and the deck barred onto the bar, a clock-like design painted on the back.
"The Wheel of Fortune, signifying a fresh start." The Joker picked up the card and flipped it to the front, the face of the card was a plain weed with the word "Renato" written on it.
Sylver breathed a sigh of relief and put his cut finger in his mouth to suck the blood away, saying vaguely, "I've never had too bad luck, but what about Uncle?"
The Joker tickled Victor's chin, "Once you've identified the owner of the Prisoner's card, Victor can sign a contract as a summoned animal; this body isn't his, so he can't be a Prisoner like you."
"Could be." Sylver pulled the card from the Joker's hand and put it in his pants pocket, "I'm going to trade it for 500 points."
"With what?"
"The usual, my feelings, it should be worth that."
Victor sniffed and immediately wrenched himself out of the clown's hands, discouraging, "Don't do that, you'll regret it."
"It's okay uncle." Sylver said softly, "There's no point in having feelings if you'll even lose your life, and it's also likely to interfere with my ability to make judgments at critical times."
Seeing that his mind was made up, the Joker turned around and took down an empty bottle from the liquor cabinet and pulled the cork, "Emotions are something that can be cheap or expensive, this isn't the first time I've told you the same thing, in that case I'm going to take away your feelings for 500 points, and when you ever regret it, you can come to me and redeem it back. "
"Not for a short time." Sylver closed his eyes as the Joker snapped the top of the bottle over his head and a bit of seven-colored light floated out of the teen's forehead and was sucked in.
Joker couldn't help but ask one more question, "Don't you even need to leave your friendship behind?"
"No need." Sylver opened his eyes, "As long as there is enough benefit, people will naturally maintain their relationships."
The Joker silently put the cork back in, the little bit of seven-colored light panicked as it flowed through the bottle, struggling to get back to Sylver.
Sylver looked at it, frowning as he forced himself to hold back the pain of his missing soul, the tears he had forced to hold back in his eyes as he said goodbye to his family, and the cries of pain from his parents and sister, the sadness and insanity of the curse he and Zoey and Jeffrey had borne to keep each other alive, and the agony of watching Viktor age day by day ... all faded away as the feelings were All of them faded away with the deprivation of feelings, leaving only an empty heart and a monstrous hatred for Hera.
The pupils of the teenager's once blazing eyes calmed down, and Sylver gently pressed down on his chest, letting out a long breath.
There, now he was indestructible.
Victor looked at him worriedly, and Sylver shook his head to indicate that he was fine, and was about to speak when the card in his pocket suddenly erupted in a dazzling blood-colored light.
A gust of wind swept up with the card at its center, blowing the goblet Sylver had been drinking from unsteadily askew and off the table.
"How! How can someone choose to summon when they've only just completed the Prisoner Ritual!"
Joker cried out in panic as he and Victor reached for it simultaneously, but it was too late in the end; the teenager's figure was completely engulfed in the light, and all they caught was a handful of tiny, stray dots of light.
Victor meowed angrily, leaving a long trail of scratches on the bar.
Before anyone could react, Sylver was summoned into the Monster Box, via the Prisoner Card.
Snap-!
The blown-off goblet fell to the floor and shattered.
Victor raised a claw to his forehead in sorrow.
"Geez ... there's so much I haven't gotten around to telling him," Joker muttered.
Meanwhile.
Sylver was caught off guard by the summoning and had just opened his eyes from the blinding light to see the unconscious man who was leaning against a tree trunk in front of him and the blood that covered his body and the ground.
The taller teenager was kneeling beside him, holding one of his hands tightly, and the black and gold Prisoner's Card in the man's hand was blazing, but the flames had no heat.
The blood on his hand became the raw material for the burning, and the teenager looked at Sylver, still trapped in the glow, and gritted his teeth, drawing a rune in the air as he held the man's hand.
Sylver's eyes snapped open.
It was a blood contract!
He cried out, immediately pouncing on the man and violently knocking the card out of his hand-
But just then, the teenager landed the last stroke, and blood-colored lines emerged from the man's fingers tracing through mid-air, bursting out with two rays of light that shot into Sylver's and the man's chests respectively.
--The blood contract is complete.
Sylver stifled a grunt, and the marvelous sense of connection between him and the unconscious man immediately appeared in his heart, accompanied by unbearable pain, several deep and heavy wounds appeared on the side of his right waist, his shoulder, and his left leg, in contrast, the injuries on the man's body miraculously eased, and the sword wound on his shoulder, which was almost about to split his back open, finally ceased to flow like a stream of blood.
Sylver finally couldn't help himself and growled and cursed out over the wound that appeared out of nowhere, "Holy shit!"
He was so angry that he almost lost all his senses at once and rushed up to punch the teenager in the face!
Sylver's speed was too fast, the teenager didn't react at all, and received a solid punch, immediately screaming miserably as his nose blood spurted wildly, covering his nose and collapsing on the ground in a state of disarray, still attempting to fight back.
Sylver does not even care about him and immediately grabs the man's hand, the card is like sticking to his hand in general, how tear can not be torn down. Sylver picked up the foot side of the teenager fell out of the knife, and will be forcibly separated from the card.
"No!" The teenager saw this and immediately held Sylver's leg.
"Get out of my way!" Sylver kicked him away as the teenager hugged him again, desperately trying to stop him, yelling, "He'll die!"
Sylver growled in a voice louder than his, "I don't care if he dies, did you ask my opinion on making a blood bond!"
While the two were fighting, the originally unconscious man's blood-stained eyelashes fluttered gently for a few moments and slowly opened his eyes.
A bit of golden light on the card flickered and disappeared into his dark pupils.
As if dominated by some inaudible command, Sylver and the teenager stopped their fists in unison and looked toward him.
The moment he met those eyes, Sylver was stunned, then uncontrollably loosened the hand holding the teenager's collar, the impact from the blood contract was more profound than he had imagined, the thoughts from the man incomparably clear into Sylver's mind.
--Don't hurt him!
Sylver was on the verge of crunching his mouthful of teeth, standing frozen for a long time, he finally failed to resist the constraints of the rules of the blood contract and let go of his hand.
The teenager immediately covered his throat and coughed violently, staggering a few steps and leaning against the tree, staring at Sylver with eyes full of terror and alertness.
The man who had just been injured to the brink of death slowly stood up holding the wound on his waist and stomach, seeing the bruised and unfamiliar teenager in front of him, he frowned and raised his left hand.
On the back of his hand, there was a piece of the Prisoner's Crest, which represented a blood contract.
He understood the whole thing in a flash and glanced at Marvin who had finished signing the blood contract for him, his breath still a bit weak, and said to Sylver, "I'm sorry, circumstances forced me to sign the blood contract with you, Marvin was just trying to save me."
Sylver looks at him coldly and doesn't say anything.
The blood contract was the most deeply connected of the prisoner contracts, under the restrictions of the blood contract, the injuries suffered by the master would be transferred to a certain extent to the prisoner; with the payment of a certain amount of limbs as a sacrifice, he would have absolute command over the prisoner with three commands; and the prisoner would not be able to harm the master subjectively.
He will be forever bound to this man until the end of his life.
Sylver was understandably upset that he was forced to take on the man's injuries just after he was summoned. But there was no way to undo what had happened.
He could only hope that this one who had made a blood pact with him was a more reliable fellow.
"I'm seriously injured, if I don't do this I'll die, I just want to live." The man covered his mouth and coughed a few times, blood froth leaking out from between his fingers as he pointed to the teenager who hadn't gotten up yet and said, "My name is Gregorio, and this is my brother Marvin."
Sylver remained silent as he clasped his hands to his chest and grimaced.
The boy he summoned in front of him seemed to be no more than sixteen or seventeen years old, Gregorio looked down at the cards in his hand and slowly pronounced Sylver's prisoner name, "Renato?"
Marvin didn't understand what he was saying, "Huh?"
"Latin name." Gregorio explains to him in a low voice as he raises his eyes to Sylver, takes a deep breath, and says, "Now that that's done, come with us and I'll treat you right."
Sylver suddenly smiled.
He was good-looking, and being sixteen years old, his smile was innocent and extremely mesmerizing. Before anyone could react, he stepped forward and punched Marvin in the stomach!
Marvin vomits up a mouthful of acid with a "wow" sound.
"I can't hurt you, but I can punch your brother to piss him off, if it wasn't for him, how could I be here right now?" Sylver smirked at Gregorio, "Don't talk to me in that commanding tone if you don't want your brother beaten to death by me."
Once again the air fell into a terrible silence, and Gregorio could see the raging brewing madness and desperate cruelty of the thunderstorm in the teenager's eyes.
He suddenly realized that Sylver hadn't just said that.
The unknown birds in the forest let out a twittering hiss, there was no wind, the heat was so stifling that it seemed as if a rainstorm was coming, and even insects chirping could not be heard.
Gregorio tugged at Marvin who was about to pounce on Sylver and punch him in the face. After a long stare-down with Sylver, he was the first to give in, "Fine, I won't speak to you in that tone again, thanks for taking on my injuries, and now that the situation is critical, it's better if we get out of here first."
Sylver took a deep breath and tried to calm his anger. The blood pact wasn't the scariest thing, as long as the man wasn't a douchebag if it went well, he might even become his right-hand man.
He finally started to take a good look around, and with just a cursory glance, he was able to determine the general type of monster box, there were many boxes in this type of forest copy, and the types were nothing more than puzzle-solving and escape.
The forest looked like it was in the subtropics, the trees were extremely leafy, completely blocking out the already dim moonlight. The forest was pitch black, only the horse lamps hanging from the tree trunks emitted a faint glow, illuminating this small area.
The carcass of a raven at his feet was already rotting and maggot-ridden, and the bloody scent of the trio had attracted several bloodsucking insects. Gregorio briefly bandaged the wound with Marvin's help, and held up the bandage to ask Sylver, "Do you need any help?"
An injury that could kill a man was less than a serious injury spread evenly between the two. Not being able to do himself any favors, Sylver took the bandage and treated it briefly, but it still irked him to help a stranger with a wound for no reason.
Gregorio removed his horse's lamp and looked down at the map he had acquired earlier, "Get out of here as soon as you can, something has been chasing us, it's very sensitive to light and sound, and it won't take long for it to be detected."
"No." Sylver looked to his left where there was a rustling sound of blades of grass being ruffled. Seconds later, a pair of eyes lit up with a scarlet glow at the end of the darkness.
"It's already coming after us."