Le Chemin des Fantômes Lésés, Partie 1 Le Chemin des Fantômes Lésés

Chapitre 24

The children quickly stopped crying, and then he started playing games with them, like rock-paper-scissors, where the loser would flick the other's nose. He felt that the person who instructed him to do these things "seemed" and "shouldn't" be a bad person, otherwise they wouldn't have such patience to play with the most difficult creatures in the world—children.

But some of his actions worried him. For example, after playing games for a while, he would say he was tired and go to the monitor by the window to peek outside. Whenever he saw nothing unusual, he would come back and continue playing with them. But if he saw anything slightly unusual, he would get very nervous. Even though his heart rate didn't increase, he knew he was nervous.

The old-fashioned clock on the wall struck twelve and began to chime melodiously: dong—dong—dong—dong—…

He jumped to his feet. It was this moment! It was this moment! Something was about to happen! Absolutely! Just like before! It was these twelve chimes…

With a deafening roar, the old-fashioned door was blasted open from the outside, sending debris flying everywhere. Dongming Taotie shielded the children behind him, protecting them from any harm.

As soon as the door was blown up, the mechanisms triggered by the door immediately started to activate. The outer wall plaster was completely flipped over, revealing the mechanisms on the inner side of the wall. Countless steel needles, darts, and small projectiles scattered in all directions like a barrage of arrows. Inside the room, all that could be heard were the whooshing sounds of hidden weapons, explosions of varying sizes, and constant screams.

The Vajra Warriors stationed outside the wall suddenly took a step forward in unison. The ground behind them, where they had been standing, flipped open, and a rocket launcher rose up from behind each of them. They mechanically and precisely grabbed the launchers, hoisted them onto their shoulders, and fired immediately upon sensing a spiritual wave reaction within a certain range, hitting their target every time.

Even so, it was still possible to hear a considerable number of enemy "people" outside, indicating that this was truly a major offensive!

"You wait here! I'll go out and check, then I'll be right back!"

The children obediently hummed in agreement.

He quickly ran to the doorway, which had been blown beyond recognition, and hid through the gap to peek outside. What he saw shocked him.

He had thought the number of enemies outside was at most a dozen or so, and seventy or eighty would be considered high, but he never expected that the actual number was much higher than he had imagined! There were four or five hundred!

And they're all zombies! Their ranks are a mixed bag, with high-level, mid-level, and low-level zombies, but the high-level ones are the most numerous.

He was astonished to find that he felt no fear whatsoever. The fear that used to make him run away at the sight of a zombie and faint at the slightest touch was completely absent today. He glanced back at "Dongming Taotie" among the group of children behind him and suddenly wondered, could this be what happened back then? This was probably... the day that started making him afraid? So he wasn't afraid now because he hadn't yet encountered that terrifying event.

What exactly happened that day?

Oh right... back then... back then...

It seems Mom and Dad hid something. Grandpa and Grandma were captured by Drought Demon, the leader of a zombie horde. Mom and Dad had to exchange that thing for something, but something went wrong, and then their house was surrounded...

Even the most powerful hidden weapons and artillery can eventually run out of firepower. The firepower of the traps gradually weakened, and the zombies slowly approached the house.

He leaped out with a whoosh, brandishing a large knife!

A broadsword?! He only realized after jumping out that the weapon he had suddenly acquired was a broadsword!

Before he could think too much, he let out a loud shout and charged out, brandishing a weapon he had never touched before.

How could this be! He's never even used a knife in his life! Even during combat drills, he only used a copy of the I Ching! A broadsword!? He won't cut himself, will he...? But, right, he seems to remember someone using a broadsword before. Who was it? Someone he knew very well... Who was it...?

In the blink of an eye, his knife had already skillfully sliced through four or five zombies. The zombies screamed and were cleaved into seven or eight pieces, which were scattered on the ground.

The flashing blades transformed into a cold, solo dance around him, magnificent and dazzling. No zombie could get close to him, and no filth could touch him. He only needed to keep moving forward, forward, forward, forward! The endless screams echoed in his ears, and his feet stomped on newer zombie bodies.

At that moment, he knew that the little "Dongming Taotie" had quietly walked to the door of the house behind him, watching his swordsmanship with envy and fascination, watching the shimmering light around him caused by the killing. He vaguely remembered the scene from that time. Yes, he had indeed been watching. Someone was fighting in his field of vision, wielding dazzling light. That was his worship, the first time in his life he had felt something called "worship"!

Oh right, I just remembered. In a little while, the president of the Paranormal Association will receive the news and then personally lead dozens of senior members of the Paranormal Association and people with the ability to break through spatial connections to cross the vast distance and come here.

But what happened before that? What happened?

"Hey! You!" He plunged a knife into the abdomen of a zombie, whose last words as a zombie were, "Why are you helping humans!?"

"I don't understand what you're talking about." He drew his knife, and the zombie fell to the ground.

“No! You understand!” another female zombie screamed, “You’re just like us! You are—”

He sliced off half of her head with a single stroke: "I'm not."

Yes, I am Dongming Taotie from the corpse-driving family, I am a student at the Supernatural Academy, I am… Wait a minute! Who am I? I am not “Dongming Taotie” now! Then who am I? Why am I here? What happened? Why is everything from the past repeating itself in this way? He had clearly forgotten those terrifying things from back then; something extremely horrifying was buried deep in his heart…

A scream came from behind. Dongming Taotie turned around and was shocked to find that a low-level zombie had somehow sneaked into the room and grabbed the little Dongming Taotie standing at the door, ready to devour him. The scream was from the little Dongming Taotie.

"Damn it! Let him go!" This wasn't his voice. Although it did come from his mouth, it was definitely someone else's. But he was very familiar with the voice. He knew who it was. The name was on the tip of his tongue, but he just couldn't say it.

He turned to rush back, but the zombies, blinded by rage, wouldn't let him have his way. He slashed one, and a pair pounced; he slashed two, and two more pounced! His knife was left with nothing but the scraping sensation of cutting through corpses. Even with all his efforts, he couldn't get close to the house. He could only watch helplessly as the child was pinned to the ground through the gaps between the zombies. The zombie gleefully bit into his leg, and with a shrill scream, a large chunk of flesh bounced a few times in the zombie's mouth before being swallowed, spraying blood and staining the ground crimson.

"ah--!!"

That heart-wrenching scream wasn't his; it belonged to the person wielding the beautiful swordsmanship to protect them. The sword shadows were almost invisible, only a perfectly round silver dance could be seen, and some low-level zombies were sliced into pieces by the whistling wind before they even touched the blade.

Another scream, followed by cries and calls for help. A profound sense of powerlessness filled his heart. He possessed such power, yet why couldn't he even protect a small child? The child was right there, calling for help, right there, within his sight, but he couldn't reach him. All he could do was watch anxiously from afar as the child was slowly devoured by the zombies.

He moved closer to the child with flashing blades, but he also saw more clearly that the child's two legs had been eaten.

The zombie wiped its mouth with satisfaction, preparing to tear at the child's arm again. He could no longer care about anything else. With a loud shout, the knife in his hand flew out, whistling sharply as it pierced through the zombie's neck, carrying it more than ten meters away and pinning it to the wall.

Without his weapon, he was no different from a tiger with its teeth pulled in the eyes of the zombies. They all rushed at him. He charged left and right, but due to the overwhelming number of zombies, he was unable to escape and was buried in the pile of zombies. Countless teeth and claws began to tear at his body.

His heart was ice-cold, not for himself, but for the little Dongming Taotie that had been torn apart and severely wounded. He was blind and unable to escape this situation. Could it be that back then...?

"Dongnong! We're here!"

"Quickly, save them!"

Ah! That child!

He heard shouts and recognized the first voice as belonging to the president of the Paranormal Association. Knowing that reinforcements had arrived, he immediately perked up. It seemed that someone had drawn away some of the zombies surrounding him. He felt lighter and began to spin rapidly on the spot. The zombies still biting him drew a semicircle in the air and were left far behind.

He had no time to catch up with the others; he ran straight to the bleeding child. A frantic witch knelt beside him, offering prayers and spells to ease his pain and bleeding. But even those efforts couldn't lessen the child's emotional trauma. His legs were gone, his arms were broken, and a hole had been opened in his stomach, his internal organs spilling out. The child's eyes were filled with terrible fear, panic, helplessness, bewilderment, and the despair of having no one to save him—a horrific memory that would forever remain in his heart!

How is he?

The witch replied anxiously, "No! I can stop the bleeding and relieve the pain, but he can't withstand such a severe injury! He won't last another two minutes!"

"You didn't bring the witch this time!?"

The witch was covered in sweat and clearly on the verge of collapse: "All the high-ranking witches are on leave! We haven't had time to contact them! A few Catholic healers have come, but they're not the highest-ranking ones, and they can't do anything about such a serious injury!"

He stared at the child's pale face, listening to his increasingly weak breathing, his heart aching as if being torn apart. He never wanted to experience that profound sense of powerlessness again; it was too terrifying, too painful.

He looked up at the six other children huddled together in the room, their eyes filled with the same terror as the child on the floor, which solidified his resolve. He cradled the child by the neck with one hand and lifted his body with the other, revealing a row of gleaming fangs…

"What are you doing!" the witch cried out. "You'll ruin him!"

He was furious and yelled at her, "Will continuing like this hurt him, or will getting bitten by me hurt him?! I'm saving his life! Don't you understand?!"

"No!" The witch shook her head frantically. "You are—you are...a drought demon! You are a drought demon! Dong Chong! Do you want him to turn into something like those zombies too?!"

He was too lazy to argue with her anymore. He lowered his head and bit down on the child's neck. The people from the Paranormal Association had completely taken control of the situation. The president shook his hands, which were covered in sticky corpse fluid, and walked over.

When the witch saw her approach, she stammered, "Guild...Guild! He bit the child! He bit the child!"

“It’s alright,” the chairman’s voice was as gentle as a spring breeze, “This is indeed the only and best way for him to save this child.”

"But……"

“He’s not a drought demon.” The guild leader was a very young man, his tall body slightly tilted, a posture that made him look very handsome. “He’s not just a drought demon, his bloodline also contains half vampire elements.”

The witch fell silent. Half vampire, meaning his parents were likely a combination of a drought demon and a vampire, giving him both the immense power of a drought demon and the immortality of a vampire. In other words, he was the only one here who could save this child.

He released the child and whispered to the chairman behind him, "Thank you, Yukikaze."

"You're welcome. We're friends, right, Dong Chong?"

wrong……

I……

no……

Dongchong...

I am……

Suddenly, I heard two women screaming and chattering incessantly, seemingly arguing.

Ah! Yukikaze!

"How could it be Yukikaze!"

"Could it be that he was once the president of the association... Ah! You didn't know that?!"

"So what if I don't know! I'm just following Paulina!"

"You don't care about anything else?"

"He is handsome, yes, but he's not my type."

I am... Dongming Taotie!

The witch, the child, and the building before him all turned into wisps of smoke and slowly dissipated. As the smoke cleared, his mind gradually cleared. He stood up abruptly, looking around in bewilderment, unable to understand why he was there.

I think I just had a dream. He became Dong Chong and went back in time to save me... What a ridiculous dream...

……No!

That's not a dream!

That's not a dream! That's not a dream!

That really happened! That day, he was watching over the house with his siblings when a stranger came, saying he was sent by their parents. They played with him, and then a lot of terrifying zombies came in. The man fought them to protect them. But he was caught by the zombies and torn apart piece by piece. The man screamed desperately, trying to run back to save them, but there was no way…

That's when he started to fear zombies. Although his lost leg grew back the next day, and his wounds healed, making him feel completely healthy again, he knew something was different. He started to dislike sunlight; not exactly afraid, but just disliked it. He was afraid of corpses, afraid of anything related to blood, and sometimes even afraid of himself, feeling as if he had become something else entirely.

Now he knew that he had died back then, and that those bitten by vampires or zombies only faced certain death, followed by resurrection as one of their kind. He had become one of their kind.

The person who saved him that day was Dong Chong.

"Hey! What are you standing there for? Turn around! Turn around! The two beautiful women behind you are your benefactors! Turn around and thank them!" The clear voice behind him stimulated his eardrums, pulling him out of his thoughts, and he looked at them blankly.

"You two... are you?"

The innocent-looking beauty was beaming with joy, while the alluring beauty beside her looked exhausted. She yawned and said, "Alright, alright, you guys can have your fun if you want. I'm out of energy, I'm going back to sleep. Ahhhhh, what bad luck!"

She vanished beneath the ground, and the pure-looking beauty couldn't catch her even if she tried. In a fit of anger, she ignored her and grabbed his sleeve, beaming with pride, "See?! This time it's all thanks to me! I made you relive the past! How about that? You won't be afraid of zombies anymore, right? They say that if you let someone who's afraid of something go back in time and reenact the experience, they'll never be afraid again! A great idea, right? Only I could come up with such a brilliant plan! You don't need to give me a thank-you gift, just… Hey! I haven't finished yet! Don't go! You ungrateful bastard…" After muttering this dissatisfiedly, she suddenly realized with a start that the sky was turning white. She screamed, "Ah—it's dawn! It's dawn! My energy is almost gone! Li Fan—I need to go back—wake up!"

The white figure rushed swiftly into the dormitory building.

Dong Chong was sitting on the edge of the bed reading a book when Dong Ming Taotie tiptoed into the dormitory and was surprised to find that he was already awake.

"You're awake?"

"You're back?"

The two people who asked the same question were surprised by their unspoken understanding, then laughed. Dongming Taotie walked to the bedside and sat down, resting his elbows on his knees. He didn't say anything, just smiled at Dongchong opposite him.

Dong Chong felt uncomfortable under his gaze: "What are you looking at?"

"I'm just laughing. The great hero I once admired was actually you." Dongming Taotie laughed heartily.

"...What do you mean by that?" It sounds like a veiled criticism.

"I've always wanted to see that great hero again, to have him teach me his amazing swordsmanship so I wouldn't be afraid of those terrifying zombies anymore. But it's just too horrifying; I've forgotten it all in all this time."

Dong Chong closed the book: "Actually, I've wanted to tell you this for a long time. You don't need to be afraid of those things. You are much stronger than them. You only lose in terms of mentality."