Chapter 566: The Lost Country of Gold

The sticky red blood dripped from the tips of the blackened monkey's paws, and Mu Sicheng looked up, his expression never so calm: "I don't know where you guys come from with all your strange assumptions about me."

"But I'm not stealing to please myself."

Mu Sicheng closed his monkey paws and rolled his knuckles inward, the butterfly cocoon jarred restlessly in his palm, then was crushed, shattered into a wind that dissipated from his fingertips, his eyes haloed with a vigorous emotion -

-- Killing intent.

"It's just a game, and people's actions can lose their meaning."

"I am stealing to atone for my sins."

"- it's like, you kill to protect."

Mu Sicheng clenched his fist into a claw and came straight at Armand's heart, Armand's pupils clenched, he drew his longbow and gritted his teeth on the string.

"Go to hell, Mu Sicheng!!!"

"Go to hell, Armand!!!"

The smoke clears, and amidst the bloodstained wooden longbow and the scattered cocoon of silk, two men have fallen, bereft of all life.

Mu Sicheng's monkey claws slit Armand's throat, Armand's bow and arrow pierced Mu Sicheng's heart, and they fell in a pool of blood, choking and coughing as they moved towards each other, reluctantly trying to attack again, but eventually falling to the ground, clutching their weapons in their hands in disbelief.

Never gave up protecting his tactician until the last moment.

--The most important person in your life.

[System Alert: Player Mu Sicheng has zero life, exit the game].

[System Alert: Player Armand has zero life and is out of the game.

Ornamental pool.

" Golden Dawn is down to Georgia." Phoebe mopped her face with one hand and tsked regretfully, "It's a foregone conclusion."

"What a loser, obviously a veteran tactician, but actually lost to a newbie team."

Hearts squints: "If you have time to connote me here, why don't you go watch another match, the killer sequence match has started, right?"

"Yes, to the invisibility cloak." Phoebe patted her knees and sat up, she glanced at Hearts, "I'm going to go over and check it out, do you want to come along and watch? You've watched every Slayer Sequence match before."

Hearts brought his gaze back to the big screen and was quiet: "...... I won't be going over there."

Ornamental pool number one.

Bai Yi and Bai Jiamu's eyes were hollow, sweating coldly, their souls rising to the heavens: "Shit, shit, shit! The God of Reverse and Liao Ke are not here! "

"It's almost time for us to play! What are we going to do? How can we play a team game without a tactician!"

"Oh." Spades suddenly looked up as he turned his head, looking to Bai Yi and Bai Jiamu, his tone indifferent, "I was approached by the Reverse God earlier, saying that I should play a single match first, and you guys should play a double match, playing a quick match to get double points, the Reverse God said that we were now capable enough to kill the match early when we played against the Invisible Cloak. "

"He said there was an 80 percent chance the other team would forfeit the corps game because they didn't want to play extended overtime, and we won."

"If unfortunately the other side didn't forfeit, then he should be back by that time too, so we don't have to worry."

Bai Yi and Bai Jiamu look slyly at Spades: " Spades."

Spades nodded, "It's me."

"You lizard dog!" Bai Yi was furious and punched Spades with his fist, "The gods have told you about tactics, why didn't you tell us? Wasn't it fun watching Bai Jiamu and I almost cry in fear while you dozed off by yourself! Ah!"

"You are so nasty! Who the hell did you learn to be bad with! And playing with your teammates' feelings now!"

In-game.

Tang Erda and Bai Liu only stopped taking control of Georgia when the system beep sounded for Armand to exit the game.

Tang Erda let out a long breath as a cold sweat broke out all over his body - Georgia had been rushing desperately out of the palace for the last ten minutes, and he and Bai Liu had barely managed to defend themselves against it.

If Bai Liu's weapon hadn't been a whip that excelled in multiple defences and had such strong mechanics to judge, Georgia might have actually been able to run away from them, which would have been a problem.

"Well, you're the only one left on the team now, Georgia's captain." Bai Liu smiled as he sat down on the bench and held out his hand to Georgia across the table, "Now that the game is won and lost and we are no longer in any kind of adversarial relationship, perhaps we can sit down and talk in a friendly manner?"

Tang Erda looks subtly at Bai Liu across from Georgia who is tied solidly to the bench with his whip: "......"

That's not exactly a friendly attitude, is it?

As expected, Georgia turned her head indifferently, "You can kill me to win the game, there's nothing to talk about between us."

"How can you say there's nothing to talk about if you haven't talked." Bai Liu uses three fingers to conjure up a small hourglass from his glove as if by magic - something Tang Erda has just retrieved from Georgia's body, a disastrous search as evidenced by Georgia's now dishevelled clothing.

Bai Liu smiled amiably, "What if I said that I did have a way of filling the hourglass of time?"

"As you know well, there is no point in lying to you at a time like this when you have already taken the victory, so I do have a solution."

Georgia's expression moved slightly, but she kept her lips tightly pursed and did not speak.

Bai Liu turned his head to look at Tang Erda who nodded, "I used a prop to turn on the sound shield, so for ten minutes the audience couldn't hear your conversation."

"So that we can talk safely." Bai Liu smiled, "First of all, Captain Georgia, what I want to say to you is that you know that your nationals-"

"-are all still alive?"

Tang Erda was stunned, and Georgia paused, "I know they are not dead, they are just golden statues waiting for the moment of reawakening."

"No, no, no." Bai Liu shook his head, "They're still alive."

"Alive ......?" Georgia's mind was slow to realize something, but he quickly self-denied the answer, "...... No way, the Heresy Processing Bureau called in special equipment to scan them and they really are just golden statues with no human physical activity."

"Yes, physically, all their organs have been completely hardened and are indeed gold." Bai Liu looked up, "But on a psychological level, they are still human."

"Because they have a soul, they can feel."

Georgia's expression froze completely.

Outside the game, on the surface of the Gulo Sea, the three sub-islands of the Bureau of Heresy Handling.

Lu Yizhan and Liao Ke had their hands and necks put on surveillance rings and then followed the newly-assigned Third Bureau crew on board the boat, making their way towards the floating island in a calm and dangerous sea.

" Mr. Lu ." Liao Ke and Lu Yizhan piled into the stern of the boat, he spoke with concern, "You said heretic 0073 is not a heretic, what is going on?"

"The people inside are just turned into gold, but they're all still alive." Lu Yizhan took a deep breath, then said, "If I let [Mu Sicheng] open the shield I set up ten years ago, and the waters flooded into the Gloren, all those Gloren who were still alive would have drowned."

"Still alive?!" Liao Ke was amazed, "You couldn't have taken this kingdom in without checking at all, they're still alive, why didn't you notice?"

"Because these sculptures are really completely gold in terms of examination, in terms of weight, density, and electromagnetic wave detection." Lu Yizhan closed his eyes as he clutched the guardrail, "...... And I was also baited by Bai six under Georgia's narrative."

"You remember when I said that Georgia and Bai six played a game that said if he won, he could suspend the deal and if he lost, he would have to pay for the pain of all the nationals."

" Georgia, understood by normal logic, took it for granted that he would pay for all the pain, and Bai six played a play on words with him, and the original words he said were - [Whether it was the pain of that nod to a thousand years ago, or the pain of this nod to now, at that time, the price of all the pain is paid by you together.]"

Lu Yizhan's tone is sullen: " Bai six was talking about the result and Georgia thought it was the process, he was fooled by Bai six."

" Georgia thought the deal stood, then it meant that the nationals would not deliver pain, the nationals' time was fixed, they would not suffer or have a hard time, they would just wait for the moment Georgia completed the deal to wake up and then they could go on with their lives as normal."

"But if, according to Bai six's consequentialism, the present Georgia did not pay for a thousand years of suffering, then the bargain naturally does not hold, and he can rightly charge those nationals for their suffering. "

"...... It was an oversight on my part to not anticipate that Bai six could actually keep someone alive in the form of a golden statue to collect pain."

"You shouldn't be too hard on yourself." Seeing Lu Yizhan's shoulders tense up, Liao Ke let out a long sigh, wanting to say a few words of advice, but in the end he didn't say anything.

At that time, Lu Yizhan had to deal with Bai Liu's affairs and Bai six, and it was not enough to break him into eighteen pieces.

The more everyone tries to save, the more likely it is that no one will be saved, Team Lu.

" Bai six lied to you." Bai Liu's tone was placid, "Your nationals may have turned to gold, but they are all still alive."

So when it turns gold, neither the life nor the spirit value drops - because that is just another gesture of survival, not some heresy.

"Don't you think it's strange, Georgia ?"

"Ten years have passed since this place sank to the bottom of the sea, and ten years have passed since that explosion, it should be dead and silent, but here gold dust still falls from the sky in a steady stream, as if something is still alive and sprinkling gold dust from the sky to the ground in a steady stream."

"Have you ever wondered where all this gold dust comes from?"

Georgia looked up, his eyes hollow as he murmured softly and asked rhetorically, "Where ...... did all this gold dust ...... come from?"

Bai Liu flicks two fingers and clips out a piece of paper - a message Muke sent him before he left - and he repeats the words softly, "Palace, gold dust, tears."

"This is what my team member left me before he left, what he thought was the key decoded information."

"My guess would be that he started going gold in the middle of your interrogation of him, and he left tears behind during your interrogation, which he then found turned into gold dust, and I saw this in your player Chrissy - she turned into a gold heretic when I shot her in order to send her out of the game."

"She broke down in tears, and her tears turned to gold dust."

" Georgia." Bai Liu said calmly, "This golden dust is the final solution to the hourglass of time you have been searching for."

"These are the tears shed by these citizens who have been trapped here for ten years and have been looking forward to your return day and night."

Behind Georgia, a drop of gold slowly falls from the eyes of the golden statue of the king, leaning on a tabletop and sitting on a bench, diffusing into the air as a golden powder, turning into a trajectory that slowly disperses through the long-silent kingdom.

"They are waiting for me to return ......" Georgia rhetorically asked in a daze, "I have trapped them here for ten years, immovable and untouchable, and it is my single-mindedness that has tortured them to this point."

"How could they wait for such a treasonous grand prince?"

"People shed tears because they have feelings." Bai Liu raised his eyes, "They stay under this sea like statues for ten years, waiting until the ground is full of gold dust, their hearts are like yellow stones, and there is no more golden sand swirling in the air, but the moment you step into this place, the gold dust that fills the sky begins to flutter again and fall on you in droves."

"They have feelings for you, Georgia."

"You're the only person in the world who would make himself as hard and indestructible as a statue to protect them, stubbornly guarding them for ten years on the beach, who else could they wait for but you?"

Georgia slowly drops her gaze to the hourglass in Bai Liu's palm, lost in memory.

Gloren In the spring the innocent children and townspeople would grind the gold mined from the first mine cart into gold dust and sprinkle it into the sky on those they wished to bless.

In those days, a young Georgia would walk down there and his hair and shoulders would be covered in a thick layer of gold dust, sometimes more than his father, who would mutter and complain that Georgia was just too popular with the nation.

The men laughed and joked and shouted in jest, letting the gold dust fall over the hem of his coat and long hair: the

" Georgia!"

" Georgia!"

Georgia looked back at them and thought to herself - if only this scene, under his protection, could last forever.

Ten years later, his body was once again covered in gold dust, and Georgia turned her head to look out of the window platform, where the nationals who had waved gold dust at him from the stage had long since ceased to be, and the banners they held outside the mines to drive him away had been transformed into gold statues, while the king, whom he would have laughed and complained was too popular, was now standing beside his chair, sorrowfully contemplating how he could conceal the pointing stone from him and bury it in the ground.

He had, after all, failed to protect it all.

Georgia closes her eyes.

A tear falls into the hourglass in Bai Liu's hand, and the golden sand in the hourglass begins to flow, the thick gold dust floating throughout the kingdom turns into a visible golden track that drags the hourglass wrapped in Bai Liu's hand and pours into it.

In the midst of the golden sands flowing, Georgia opened his eyes wordlessly, his golden sculpturing having pervaded his heart, so that even his voice became soft and harmonious: "...... Is it here, at this moment, that my bargain with the gods has finally begun to be fulfilled?"

"I suppose so." Bai Liu looked at the hourglass that was about to start rewinding in his hand and smiled, "Better to make a deal with God than to make a deal with me."

"Heir to the Gods?" Georgia raised her eyes and asked back in a soft voice, her eyes all but lightly resistant, "...... As the Grand Prince of Gloren, I am grateful that you told me all this and aborted the deal, but I will not make any more deals with you at the cost of the nation's suffering. "

"No." Bai Liu laughed softly, "I don't want you nationals or your pain."

Georgia asks, "What do you want?"

Bai Liu looked at him: "Your soul."

The moment Bai Liu's words fall, the hourglass suspended in Bai Liu's palm fills up and reverses.

[System Alert: Player Bai Liu has collected all the Tears of the Hourglass of Time, the hourglass is full, time will start to rewind back to ten years ago, please be ready to travel back in time!

The golden sand in the hourglass, wrapped in the gold dust turned into tears, began to flow in reverse and everything around it began to reverse as gold dust everywhere flew into the sky and the gold leaf on the statue of the king sitting at the long table began to fall off, revealing the man inside.

Tang Erda reached out to grab Bai Liu, whose eyes had suddenly dissipated, but the moment she did, she only caught a handful of golden sand.

Georgia also turned into golden sand and disappeared into the copy.

[System Alert: The Lost Land of Gold game is cleared, player Tang Erda exits the game, player Bai Liu, Georgia triggers the plot and enters the DLC - The Land of Gold Ten Years Ago]

Tang Erda opened her eyes again and was already in the viewing pool, which Muke instantly surrounded.

"What's going on?" Muke asked, forcing himself to be calm, "The big screen has gone black, which means there's a game over and I saw you guys pass, why are you the only one logged out?"

" Where's Bai Liu?"

" Bai Liu was left in the game." Tang Erda took a deep breath, "He triggered the spur."

Across the viewing pool, Armand stares deathly at the extinguished screen as he rises to his feet, clenching his fists in resignation - What about Georgia?

Why didn't his older brother log out?

" Armand!" The team member next to him looked at Armand's bruised hands and shoulders and panicked, trying to pull Armand back, but Armand was so bruised that he had nowhere to go but to shout, "You're not even strapped in! Where are you going!"

"The game's over, the captain will be fine! You're so badly hurt, don't go anywhere!"

The thought of Georgia spending time with that Bai Liu guy was too much for Armand to keep his cool, and he braced himself to stand up and walk towards the big screen, despite his half-tied, exposed shoulders.

"Hello." Armand barely maintained his politeness to talk to the employee by the big screen, "The game is over but our team's tactician is still in there, can you keep the little TV on so we can see what's going on inside?"

"I'll pay for that part of it."

"Or be able to open the portal again to allow us to access ......"

No sooner had Armand's words left his lips than an arrogant, threatening voice came from beside him.

"Hey! Our president is still in there! Open up and let me in and bring him out!"

Armand pauses with a sense of urgency, and Mu Sicheng seems to hear a sound coming from this side of the room and stops, both turning their heads at the same time and looking at each other across the big screen.

Mu Sicheng, blood still dripping from the large hole in his right shoulder, grabbed his employee by the collar with his left hand in a vicious and threatening manner, and saw Armand snort and tsk in a moment of displeasure.

Half of Armand's face is a bloody mess, and he gives Mu Sicheng a cold glance, as if he didn't exist, and turns his head to continue his conversation with the staff.

The voices of the two men overlapped again.

"Is there any way I can get in?"

Mu Sicheng exploded and rolled up his sleeves to fight Armand: "What are you doing in there! You want to fight Bai Liu?"

"Come on, let's fight again right here! You Little Bai face are my loser!" -

"You are no match for me." Armand looked calm, with an expression that looked like he was speaking calmly, but with his backhand he summoned his longbow, "I advise you not to go in there again, if I can kill you a second time, I can kill you a third."

"Ha?!" Mu Sicheng seethed, "I'll show you who really killed who!"

The players from both sides arrived and were very helpless.

" Armand, you calm down, we are not allowed to log back into the game ...... nor are we allowed to fight in the viewing pool."

Wang Shun pulled Mu Sicheng, who was about to run at him, with his head in his hands, and he was in tears: "God Mu, don't make a scene, our team will get a yellow card!"

"But Bai Liu isn't out yet ......" Mu Sicheng clenched his fists as he lowered his voice a bit, "...... If I clear main attack a little faster, then ......"

"I'm still too slow."

" Georgia's still in there." Armand's lips tightened, tears shifting in the pupils of his eyes, "I can't leave him in there alone."

"He never leaves me alone."

There was a moment of silence from the players on both sides.

" Armand ." The team handed Armand the bandage, sighing, " You've done a great job, it's us who haven't, trust the captain, he's a strong and awesome guy."

" Georgia will definitely finish this game in the Land of Gold properly and come out to meet you."

"He won't leave you alone."

Wang Shun helplessly and amusingly picks up Mu Sicheng, who is already unsteady on his feet: "If you're slow and slow, then what am I?"

"You've done well enough, you should have looked around before, before when you logged out of the game with Armand, the whole viewing pool was filled with spectators cheering for your great performance."

"You proved Bai Liu's choice was the right one."

"President he will be able to wrap it up properly." Wang Shun picked up Mu Sicheng, who had his head bowed and his jaw dropping blood, or whatever it was, to the floor, and patted him on the head with a smile in his voice, "then came out to meet you and compliment you on a job well done."

The desire to protect something and someone is probably common to people who have something they want to protect.

Why do people shed tears?

Is it because of the pain?

Armand covered his face with a bandage and clenched his fists very hard, but his shoulders still shook from his vocal sobs.

Is it because you resent your own incompetence?

Mu Sicheng's face was so screwed up that his features were contorted, but he could not control the water that fell from his eyes, and he gritted his teeth and wiped it away with his monkey paw, not wanting to face himself like this.

Is it because of weakness or loss?

Sitting in the audience, Hearts lifted his eyes, surrounded by a fading crowd, all of whom had gone to catch the next round, while Hearts sat quietly in place, like a movie audience waiting for a non-existent egg.

"Can you give me an answer?" Standing at the gates of Gloren, Bai six smiles and holds out his hand, an hourglass filled with tears that can reverse time, while he smiles and asks Bai Liu, who suddenly appears in front of him, "Why do people shed tears?"

"The reason people shed tears." Bai Liu raised his eyes as he looked across at Bai six, "It's because of feelings."