Chapter 2779: Darkened Heart
"What does it feel like to have so many people begging you to spare their lives?" Xu Huo asked back.
The little girl didn't call him cold-blooded or heartless this time. Wiping the tears from her face, she said, "So no matter what, you won't let me go?"
Xu Huo didn't speak, but the little girl continued to question him. "If you kill me, will they come back to life?"
"Or does killing me satisfy some need for justice within you?"
"Are the people you've killed any fewer than me? Why don't you kill yourself to atone?"
Xu Huo looked at her in silence. He neither refuted her words nor was shaken by them. He simply watched her make her final struggle.
"Why aren't you saying anything?" the little girl's voice rose slightly.
Xu Huo extended his hand. "Give me the item, and then I'll answer your question."
The little girl was furious, but she understood that she could no longer stall for time. She looked down at her left arm.
Her left arm had been held by Xu Huo the entire time. Now, a few drops of black liquid oozed out from the intact skin. After a moment, they gathered together and consciously flowed toward Xu Huo's hand.
But the black droplets climbed onto his hand and hesitated to seep into his skin. The little girl seemed to realize something and suddenly laughed. "Someone who dares to kill even the daughter of a district's Grand Archon is actually this cowardly!"
Xu Huo looked down at her, a chill in his eyes.
The little girl pouted and tapped the air with her other hand. A prompt then appeared before Xu Huo:
"Rachele Lian has gifted you a game item. Do you wish to accept?"
Xu Huo clicked accept.
[Congratulations, Player Passerby A, for obtaining the hidden reward of the Dimensional Crack, "Darkened Heart." This item is non-physical and cannot be stored in the item slot or luggage compartment. It cannot be inherited in any form except through transfer by the holder.]
[The darkness of the human heart cannot be probed; wherever the human heart covers, darkness covers as well.]
The description of "Darkened Heart" was very simple, but with the little girl's example, Xu Huo quickly grasped its usage.
First was that black power. It was indeed a form of power that could envelop others and transport them to a place the holder desired. Moreover, the larger the area covered by this black power and the longer the duration, the greater the deviation in perception and basic judgment. To a certain extent, it could even devour temporal and spatial power.
But this didn't mean temporal and spatial power was completely ineffective. Any power in a confrontation had to consider quantity. For example, an ordinary space barrier couldn't interfere with time power, but dimensional space power could. The same applied to this black power.
Second was its coverage range. It was basically centered on the building space where the holder was located. However, being enveloped and shuttled by the black power was no longer like Spatial Evolution's travel through special space channels. Instead, it entered another space, or rather, a spatial angle. When the item activated, the holder would be brought into another black space. This could be understood as the black space being adjacent to the current space. Once hidden inside, it was equivalent to temporarily leaving the original space, but not completely, because the time spent in the black space couldn't be too long. If it was too long, the black space would automatically expel the holder.
Xu Huo guessed this was a restriction made to coordinate with instances. Entering the black space didn't mean truly leaving the current space, so it was still impossible to escape the instance by directly crossing partitions or wormhole points like before.
Of course, its function wasn't just to envelop others. More importantly, it had a very unique defensive ability. Since it could devour time power, this meant that most traits might be ineffective when encountering it. Even if they were effective, they could be easily interrupted.
Xu Huo tested the duration of its maximum coverage range. Once darkness was generated, as long as it wasn't used to devour others, it could persist indefinitely. But if he followed into the black space, the darkness outside would recede, and he himself could only stay in the black space for a maximum of five seconds.
This was for the holder. For other people...
He looked at the little girl, Rachele Lian.
Rachele Lian had already crouched down. After following Xu Huo through several rounds in the black space, she looked even more exhausted. But when she met his dangerous gaze, she couldn't help but say, "You're not thinking of throwing me into a black hole, are you?"
"What would happen if I threw you in?" Xu Huo asked.
"Eternal disappearance," Rachele Lian said. "I advise you not to do that."
"I've thrown quite a few people in before," she said. "The people thrown in never reappeared, even if I went in immediately after, I couldn't find them. And the more people you throw in, the larger the darkness becomes. The larger the darkness's coverage, the more effort it takes for you."
"When I first got this item, I wasn't this weak."
"Have you studied this item?" Xu Huo asked, referring to the district government and the Grand Archon.
"This is my secret. Why would I tell others?" Rachele Lian said matter-of-factly. "The district library has a lot of information. You can find anything you want there."
"So you think the black space is very similar to a black hole?" Xu Huo pressed. "Why?"
"They can both swallow everything that enters them. Aren't they alike?" Rachele Lian countered. "People go in and disappear directly. Of course, they're torn apart into things invisible to the naked eye."
"Are you scared?" Xu Huo saw through her forced calm.
"You can't throw me in," Rachele Lian emphasized. "I've already given you the item. You've achieved your goal. And you can still contact my father to ransom me. You're not losing out at all."
Xu Huo smiled. "Now I'll answer your earlier question."
"Killing you won't bring the dead back to life. And I didn't come looking for you to uphold justice. I just happened to run into you."
"Just like how you chose your targets, we just met by chance and coincidence."
As soon as he finished speaking, a powerful impact struck from outside. The defensive barrier and space entity covering the outer layer were shattered in an instant. Xu Huo's spiritual realm was also impacted, and the manor he had fabricated disappeared in a flash.
The pitch-black mountain forest was now brightly illuminated by aircraft. The Non-Game Area Simulator had already sealed off the area. The pursuing players had also surrounded the entire mountain. A short-haired woman leaped down from the air, maintaining a distance of over five hundred meters as she spoke to Xu Huo.
"Release Miss Rachele," she said, her gaze sweeping over the utterly incredulous Rachele Lian, her expression shifting slightly. "You've already taken what Miss Rachele had. Let her go, and I promise you safe passage."
The game panel was blocked, but Xu Huo tested it. "Darkened Heart" could still be used. In a sense, this was yet another form of evolved power, borrowed from the game. It also indicated that the so-called severing of connection with the game wasn't truly a disconnection.