113: Chapter 113 You Ring the Bell, I'll Smash Your Eardrums

Chen Fan's back molars ground together with a clack.

The moment the first wail of the Soul-Splitting Flute pierced the air, he sensed something was wrong—it wasn't ordinary sound waves, but more like an iron wire with barbs, drilling straight into his brain through his ear canals.

Black Crow grunted and fell backward. The bone earpiece shattered with a 'crack,' and black blood streamed down from his blind eyes, staining his pale face with two bloody streaks: "Pseudo-Edict Sound... He's using the system's native sound waves to reverse-cleanse my decoding zone!"

Chen Fan lunged forward and supported Black Crow's lower back, his palm touching the cold sweat soaking through the other man's back.

Inside his Sea of Consciousness, the critical hit system suddenly reacted like a cat whose tail had been set on fire, blood-red prompts flashing wildly: "Warning! Detecting instruction override—current system announcement 'Friendly unit approaching, please put down your weapons' is a disguise. The real instruction is: Eliminate the executor, purge all witnesses."

He looked up sharply toward the outside of the bell tower.

In the twilight, Sound Without Return's Soul-Splitting Flute glowed with a faint, eerie green light. The incantations on the flute twisted and writhed as it was played; every sound ripple drilled into the bell tower like a living thing.

Meanwhile, the system's sickly sweet female voice continued to loop: "Please remain calm, the safe zone is about to open—"

"Nonsense!" Chen Fan cursed under his breath, pressing his right hand onto the bronze patterns at the base of the great bell.

The kindling, the blue flame that Su Shuang had stuffed into his hand, suddenly grew hot in his palm. Gritting his teeth, he forced that warm ball of light into the bell body: "Silent Bell Maiden! Strike the chain three times!"

The nun in the gray cloth dress had been standing at the edge of the bell tower with her eyes blindfolded. Now, she suddenly raised her head, and Chen Fan's flushed face was reflected in her empty pupils.

Her knuckles gripping the clapper turned white. The first heavy strike hit the waist of the bell; the second missed by three inches and struck the lip of the bell; the third directly hit the crack—the resulting chime was chaotic, like a Broken Gong, yet three spiral-shaped ripples spread through the air.

The foundation of the entire church trembled.

Sound Without Return staggered a step on the moon platform. The sound wave from the Soul-Splitting Flute shifted half an inch, grazing the outer wall of the bell tower before blasting into the abandoned shop next door, sending gravel mixed with dust crashing down.

"Good chance!" Black Crow trembled as he pulled out a palm-sized bone disc from his robe. The surface was covered in fine incantations, and the edges were stained with dark brown blood: "This is... a fragment of the original sound from when the first generation system was activated. It can only be played once..."

"You dare?" Sound Without Return's roar sprayed out mixed with blood foam.

He suddenly ripped away the cloth wrapped around his ears; both ears had long rotted into bloody, mangled holes, and a foul odor drifted into the bell tower with the wind.

The tone of the Soul-Splitting Flute changed abruptly, like someone scraping their nails across glass. Chen Fan felt his temples were about to explode—from the shadows in the corner, more than a dozen pale-gray 'Echo Corpses' crawled out unsteadily. Their rotting lips opened and closed, echoing in chorus: "You are wanted... Surrender immediately..."

The sound waves cut across his eardrums like knives.

Chen Fan felt a warm liquid trickle down from his nostrils, dripping onto his work uniform.

The critical hit system exploded in his Sea of Consciousness: "Pre-translation activated! Detecting 'Cognitive Override' program. Target: Force the player to accept the 'Fleeing equals Death' setting."

He stared at those mechanically repeating Echo Corpses and suddenly grinned—blood oozed from the corner of his mouth, making the smile look somewhat ferocious.

"Not a chance!" Chen Fan clenched his left fist, pouring all his critical hit energy into it.

He could see the veins beneath his skin bulging out in purplish-blue, and his knuckles made 'crackling' sounds.

The next second, he blasted the bell body with all his might—"Critical Hit: Resonance Strike!"

The moment the bell sound exploded, the entire bell tower shook.

Chen Fan's fist sank three inches into the bronze bell body. The blue flame spread wildly along the fist imprint, forming a circular shockwave.

Sound Without Return's rotten ears burst with two clouds of bloody mist. The Soul-Splitting Flute shattered inch by inch in his hands, the fragments stabbing into his palms. He staggered back three steps, knocking over an old wooden crate by the moon platform, his roar completely distorted: "Are you insane? This original sound resonance will destroy the hearing of every player!"

"You used sound brainwashing first!" Chen Fan wiped the blood from his face and walked toward the edge of the bell tower over the scattered broken glass.

He stared down at Sound Without Return, who was rolling on the moon platform while clutching his bleeding ears: "You tricked us into the safe zone to harvest souls, and now you complain that others are crazy?"

Black Crow stood up, leaning on the terminal machine, the bone disc glowing faintly in his palm.

He fumbled to aim the bone disc at the mechanism in the center of the bell, lightly pressing his fingertip onto the disc surface: "Are you ready? I'm going to let the entire city... hear the truth."

The instant the original sound fragment played, Chen Fan felt a hot current pour into his spine from the top of his head.

It was a mechanical electronic sound, accompanied by a harsh electrical static: "Welcome to the New World... Soul Harvesting Protocol initiated. Player ID 000001, extraction commencing."

All the clocks in the entire city stopped simultaneously.

In the convenience store across the street, a player searching for supplies suddenly screamed while clutching his head; the stray dog at the alley entrance tucked its tail and scurried down a sewer drain; even the system announcement's sweet female voice stuttered, turning into a piercing electrical noise.

Chen Fan supported the swaying Black Crow and saw the bloody streaks in the other man's blind eyes slowly fading—perhaps the original sound had covered the system's contamination?

The critical hit system in his Sea of Consciousness suddenly warmed, and blood-red text slowly appeared: "Critical Pre-translation Module Activated. Can decipher system lies 3 times daily."

"Did it work?" Chen Fan asked breathlessly.

Black Crow touched his ears and pulled his lips into a pale smile: "Their lies... have a crack in them."

But before the two could breathe a sigh of relief, the red light atop the distant Starlight Tower suddenly flashed three times.

The light was dim, yet it felt like a poisoned needle stabbing the back of Chen Fan's neck, sending a chill down to his spine—he remembered Su Shuang saying the Starlight Tower was the system's central hub in this city, and three flashes of red light meant a 'Highest Level Alert.'

The wind outside the bell tower suddenly shifted direction.

Chen Fan smelled the pervasive scent of scorched material in the air and heard chaotic footsteps approaching from beyond the ruins.

There was the crisp sound of metal clashing, the low whimper of hounds, and a hoarse male voice cutting through the wind: "The residual waves of the original sound resonance are in the bell tower. Incineration Squad, surround this damned church!"

Black Crow's face instantly turned ashen: "Iron Tongue Monk... How did he get here so fast?"

Chen Fan clenched his fists.

He looked at the shadows gradually gathering outside the bell tower, watching the figures holding muskets and wrapped in scarlet cassocks, and suddenly felt a tightness in his throat—they had torn open the system's lies in this battle, but the new hunt had only just begun.