Ke-style law enforcement officers

Chapter 596 Tell a story
Milo had no idea how long Emma had endured in the abyss in that state.

Emma herself probably doesn't remember clearly.

Many of her wounds had already healed, while many others were clearly new.

It's hard to imagine how that sickly, frail girl endured all of this.

All the bitterness and pain could only be expressed through cathartic howling.

...

I don’t know how long it took.

By the time Emma's sobs had subsided a little, most of Milo's shoulder was soaked with a mixture of tears, snot, and saliva.

He didn't say a word the whole time, only gently patting Emma's back with his hand.

After holding it in for a long time, he finally said it:

"Feel sorry."

Before he could even utter the clichéd second half of the sentence, "I'm late,"

Emma, ​​who was buried in his neck, interrupted him before he could finish speaking.

"Shut up."

"it is good."

...

After a long while, Emma suddenly remembered the shot she had fired that had accurately hit Milo in the back of the heart.

She anxiously asked Milo to turn around so she could examine him.

For a moment, Milo even saw genuine fear in her eyes.

It took Milo a lot of effort to explain why the bullets didn't leave bullet holes in his body or shatter his spine.

...

After crying her fill, Emma seemed to have fully recovered, except for slight redness and swelling in her eyes.

Her way of expressing emotions remained so limited, but only Milo knew just how terrifying and helpless Emma must have felt to cry like that.

Of course, returning to normal doesn't mean completely turning back into the same serious, unsmiling person he used to be.

In the abyss, from the moment she saw Milo, she never let go of Milo's hand.

Before that, the thing she held in her hand, something she never let go of even when sleeping or resting, was a gun.

……

"Can we go back?"

The clever Emma had long known that this was not the world she knew.

She can decipher the Noscia equation, which means that many truths and mysteries of the universe are already stored in her mind and have become a part of her. She can even have a rudimentary understanding of what kind of world she is in and touch upon some of the chaotic concepts here.

That's why she once fell into such utter despair.

That's why Milo's appearance seemed so abrupt.

...

"Of course."

Faced with Emma's worried question, Milo's answer was quite relaxed and concise.

But perhaps it was Milo's overly assertive tone that made Emma realize something.

She looked into Milo's eyes with a hint of doubt:
"Actually, you can't be sure either, right?"

"What a joke, if I can get in, I can get out too." Milo patted Emma's head, then turned his gaze to the end of the corridor.

The "boy's" figure had long since disappeared by then.

Along with the green crystals in the main hall, the corpses of Eta began to collapse and shatter, and the smell of rotting corpses filled the air.

Further out, the zombies that had been lured away returned.

And this time, it wasn't just the living dead that became active in Nanwei City; some long-hidden malice from afar also began to stir.

Milo did not take Emma away from the law enforcement headquarters. Instead, he led Emma up the stairs to the top floor of the headquarters.

"It's just a little troublesome."

"Ok?"

"nothing."

...

Milo kicked open the door to the rooftop.

The rain had stopped outside, and a complete crescent moon was surprisingly visible in the gray sky. It was brighter than the moon in Nanwei City in Milo's memory, so much so that the visual effect was somewhat unreal.

"Why do we need to come up onto the roof...?"

Emma stopped mid-sentence, because she was now on the top floor of the law enforcement headquarters building and had already sensed something unusual about the city.

Being chased by a horde of zombies from all over the city is certainly terrifying, but if, as it is now, all the zombies in the streets, houses, and buildings stand still, staring straight at you with their rotting or half-rotting eyes, that would be another kind of chilling experience.

Then there was the green light that enveloped half the city.

It was the same will that had previously transformed into a little boy deep within the law enforcement hall.

...

"The green dead."

Emma blurted it out.

That's what the people in the shelter call that thing.

"There are two terrifying creatures in this city, one is Glagi, and the other should be this."

Emma looked serious.

At the Confession Dock, she had fallen into the dream of Geraki, and as she delved deeper into the Noscia equation, she came to know how terrifying and indifferent these beings that spanned millennia could be.

If there were two such things in Nanwei City right now, she and Milo would be facing a nightmare-level predicament.

However, unlike before, Emma did not feel any fear or cold at the moment.

And this has nothing to do with Milo's fear-devouring instinct.

"Um--"

Unlike Emma, ​​Milo didn't pay attention to the green streaks of light on the horizon.

He took off his coat and spread it on the steps, gesturing for Emma to sit down. Then he carefully and meticulously helped her remove the tattered, soaked bandages from her palms.

"Tell me if you feel pain."

"Mmm," the latter replied softly.

“I think there’s something we need to talk about,” Milo said to Emma.

“Okay, I’m listening,” Emma nodded.

"This matter might be a little complicated to explain."

Milo placed the bandages he had removed from Emma's hands and wrists on the ground, rolled them into a circle, and pointed to them, saying:
This is where we are right now.

"Mmm." Emma nodded again.

Then Milo pointed to the water on the balcony of the next floor and said, "That's our homeland. I'm not talking about Nanwei City, but the whole world. There's almost no connection between the two places, I mean almost..."

“As for why this is happening, simply put, someone is forcing me to make a choice.” “Someone?” Emma looked intently into Milo’s eyes.

“There are quite a few people, though not all of them are people.” Milo grinned as he gently took Emma’s hands, which were white and wrinkled from being soaked in the rain.

"What was your choice?" Emma pressed.

As the rolling green light in the distance gradually intensified, Milo paused for a moment before replying:

“Mego, the Mego you’re rescuing, of course, may not necessarily be that child, but Mego is somewhere in this world. I have to tell you a not-so-interesting story, a story about a fallen civilization…”

"This arrogant civilization used some unknown means to make the women of their race pregnant with the offspring of a certain god, and believed that the child was a man-made god, but in fact it was not, because on the day the offspring was born, his biological father would be attracted by his cries."

"Regarding the child's biological father, that god, He has many titles, including 'Judgment Star,' 'Destroyer'... 'Blood Moon,' but His real name is 'Gheros.'"

...

As Milo casually uttered the name "Gheros," a cacophony of wails suddenly erupted throughout Nanwei City. Behind the cries of anguish, it seemed as if countless infants were wailing, their voices sharp, piercing, and heart-wrenching.

Even Emma was startled by the sudden, city-wide cry.

She looked at Milo and asked earnestly, "What would happen if Gherus descended?"

Milo shrugged. "Nobody knows. Everyone has their own version. The most widespread version is that the end of the world is coming, but in some special races and civilizations, it's called 'the rebirth of glory.' It's almost certain that it will bring misfortune and destruction..."

"So much so that the higher-ups chose an even more ruthless approach: to bury the entire civilization before Mego was even born. This may only be part of the reason, but it was definitely the most crucial one."

……

Emma looked thoughtfully at the balcony on the next floor.

Then she asked Milo, "For the world on the next floor, Mega is dead, but for the rooftop, that's not the case, and Mega here can somehow appear over there. Right?"

"He's simply a genius."

Milo felt that his description was obscure and abstract enough, but even so, Emma was able to understand it thoroughly, which could be said to be superior to most humans in terms of intelligence and sanity.

"Then what do you mean by 'choice'?" Emma completely ignored Milo's exclamation and continued to press for an answer.

“Here.” Milo pointed to the roof: “This chaotic world is called the Abyss, and as far as I know, there is only one way to get rid of the Abyss, or rather, to stop the Abyss from affecting the real world: to destroy everything here and let the end of the world descend upon this place.”

"What happened after the Abyss was destroyed?" Emma continued to ask.

“After destruction, souls that do not belong to the abyss can return to the real, conscious world,” Milo replied.

Emma suddenly fell silent.

After a long silence, he spoke again:

"But I didn't come into this world as a soul, did I?"

"Ah."

Milo nodded.

"Have I become part of the Abyss?"

Emma's voice trembled slightly; she was trying her best to control it, but Milo could still clearly feel it.

"I understand what you mean by choice now. Actually, you didn't have to tell me all this."

She stopped looking into Milo's eyes and pulled her hand away from his.

...

Milo paused for a second.

Then a look of realization quickly appeared on his face, which then turned into an irrepressible, amused smile.

"Eh, no, pfft... What did I do in the past to make you have this strange perception of me, this idea that I take the well-being of all people as my responsibility?"

"...?" His words surprised Emma for a moment.

—Did I misunderstand? But wasn't the only way to stop Mego's appearance to destroy the Abyss World? And I've already become a part of the Abyss World; that's the choice before me…

...

……

It really is a multiple-choice question.

This is precisely the true meaning of what Klaue said before sending Milo into the abyss—"It's all about choices."

The conditions that led to this whole situation were far too complex.

Not only do they need to deal with the original destroyers in the abyss, but they also need to precisely guide Emma into the world where Meg is.

What's most incomprehensible is Klaue's final step—he personally sent Milo into the Abyss.

Perhaps this can also be explained by the phrase "it's all about choices," but similarly, he gave Milo the choice to destroy this abyssal world.

All signs indicate that behind Klaue, above the established order, there may be an even more terrifying hand manipulating and orchestrating all of this.

...

Of course, "choice" is just Crow's way of putting it.

Milo's goal was clear from the beginning: to bring Emma back.

Even after learning the truth about the Blood Moon, "Gheros," through the "Snail City Text," he remained unmoved.

According to him, that is—

"Why should knowing the truth mean I have to make sacrifices? What does it matter to me whether that big red ball comes or not? Honestly..."

"I'm telling you all this so that you can use your smart brain to help me figure out a way to get us out of here safely and smoothly, not to tell you to go and die, understand?"

……

...

Emma raised her head again and stared blankly at Milo for a long while.

She couldn't help but feel a little dazed.

—Yeah, that seems more like Milo's style... Even he himself hasn't wavered at all, so why am I the one starting to have doubts?

"So I can still go back... right?"

After Emma said those words, she probably realized how stupid the question was, because Milo's attitude had been made clear enough.

So she quickly added, "You don't need to answer this question."

This earned him a chuckle from Milo.

Milo remained silent, but something rather dim-witted in the skies above Nanwei City couldn't keep quiet.

Above the cacophony of groans from the undead and the cries of infants, a deep, indistinguishable voice boomed like thunder, causing half the city to tremble:
"The only way you can go is through annihilation; don't struggle in vain."

...

Those green streaks of light began to combine and condense on their own in the high sky, forming some flowing substances that also had a crystalline structure.

Some clearly visible runes and totems also emerged one after another.

It was these runes that allowed Milo to recognize the true form of the so-called "Green Dead".

...

"Hey, I was wondering why its guardian deity didn't appear even after half of Selephis was destroyed... turns out it fell into the abyss."

Milo patted Emma on the shoulder, signaling her to stay where she was.

Then, with a sinister grin, he grabbed a crowbar and swung it violently towards the green shadow high in the sky.

(End of this chapter)