Transforming Succubus: Almost Doomsday

It was the strongest guardian of the staircase. It was another rule of the staircase!

Zhou Baiyu did not deny that he really, really liked this place.

If there was a heaven in this world, he hoped heaven would be just like this.

His steps did not halt due to sorrow, but because of these illusory wonders, he temporarily gave up moving forward.

Soon, Boluke was astonished to find...

The rules did not repair this illusory utopia.

Zhou Baiyu marched toward the crack, and the cracks in the entire world multiplied.

He slowly raised those converging sorrows, what immense bells and hammers they were!

Suddenly, everything in the utopia, under that massive burst of light, began to dissolve and melt away, like molten soil!

"Boluke, the world you've created may indeed be wonderful, but what does it have to do with me?"

"If I truly stay here, then what do all these burdens I've shouldered amount to?"

"What about the resolve to bear humiliation and sacrifice oneself so others might live?"

His tone grew increasingly intense, his eyes flashing with anger:

The world was no longer in its original form; the surroundings reverted to the endless bridge, with Boluke's massive body blocking the other side of the bridge.

On the other side, Zhou Baiyu appeared incredibly small, but the massive orbs of light he carried on his back were anything but.

"Do you hear the laughter rising and falling from beneath the staircase?"

"They laugh, not because they have accepted the bitterness of fate and are smiling in the face of life, nor is it the optimism that naturally formed in this bullshit Land of Joy. It's not because they never had joy and laughter."

At some point, a hammer handle appeared at the bottom of the immense orb of light.

Boluke could not believe that Zhou Baiyu used the heavy memories of countless people as the hammerhead and anger as the handle to forge a weapon that would shatter desire and perversion!

With the hammer that could break everything, accompanied by Zhou Baiyu's roar, it smashed directly towards Boluke's constructed massive body!

"It is their torn off scabs, the last dignity taken from them, barely clinging to life——"

"Tragic, alas!"

Boluke's enormous phantom shattered at that moment! It couldn't believe that with such immense force of desire, it had created such a beautiful utopia, only to be shattered by this man... with a single strike.

In that instant, it realized something.

Why was Harvey able to contend with the Divine Artifact of the God of Joy and Laughter?

From where does Jiang Xianwu's power to shatter it now come?

It had become a rule of the staircase, yet it found itself so unfamiliar with another rule of the staircase...

Boluke only knew that those who ascend the staircase would bear countless people's sorrows.

Those of weak will would be crushed by this immense sorrow. Just like that person who took a few steps and then fell from the staircase years ago.

But what Boluke did not know was that the process of humanity's advancement has always been like this. When they can carry something, it also means they can use that thing.

The heavier the burden Zhou Baiyu carried, the stronger the strike he wielded.

In the real world, Boluke suddenly spat out a mouthful of blood, and its flawlessly beautiful face showed weakness and fatigue.

The grand utopia of desire, under Zhou Baiyu's single hammer blow, collapsed with a thunderous crash.

And above the Land of Joy's Area A, the soap bubbles began to distort as if under immense pressure, warping.

...

The illusion shattered.

Zhou Baiyu finally saw the end of the bridge, just as his own figure had finally arrived at the top of the staircase.

Harvey's figure that had always been leading Zhou Baiyu spoke:

"Ring the bell. Shatter this realm. You have now reached the place I once reached."

Harvey's figure slowly became ethereal.

As Zhou Baiyu drew closer, the two figures gradually overlapped.

In the eyes of the old man gazing up at Zhou Baiyu, Jiang Xianwu was just like Harvey Nierbas years ago, once more...

Another man stood at the peak, capable of determining the fate of a nation!

"Ring the bell! I beg of you! Ring the bell!"

Innumerable bouts of laughter erupted, with their longing for the bell's ring, everyone wished they could expend all their strength to make that man ring the ancient bell.

But history, as if overlapping with the past once more.

Zhou Baiyu, who had reached the pinnacle, suddenly found himself unable, no matter what, to bring down his hand.

Memories of Harvey flooded over him.

Unlike the old man before who had felt Harvey's memories at the beginning of his ascent, Zhou Baiyu had carried the pain of countless people all along, but had always only seen Harvey's guiding figure from behind.

Not until this moment, when he looked back, did he realize he was not in the hellish Area B, but in the heavenly Area A.

He looked down the staircase, no laughter, no pleading, only cursing, accusations.

He couldn't see those faces clearly because they were too far away, but when he looked up — just like Harvey back then, he became at a loss for what to do.

The soap bubbles in the sky reflected twisted, angry faces.

They looked at Zhou Baiyu with expressions that seethed with venom, as if cursing the most despicable person.

"Don't ring the bell; who are you to do so?"

"Why do you have to destroy all this?"

"We finally had a sanctuary, at last had a place to live; why do you want to destroy it?"