The shadowy figure stared at him for a moment, then suddenly opened the door for Ye Tianxuan to return to school. "I don't believe it."
Ye Tianxuan completely ignored him and went straight back to school.
The moment he entered the shadowy space, he vaguely sensed something.
Or perhaps, even earlier, from the moment he decided to enter the instance, he had a vague premonition in his heart.
The prophecy is about to be fulfilled.
Even so, he still came.
The person known as the "Sage of Dungeons" has illuminated the lives of countless people, but regrettably, he has never illuminated the darkest person in the dungeon.
The opportunity has arrived, but the cost is high.
A fierce wind was blowing from the sky, its howling sound mingling with the students' cries of anguish.
Ye Tianxuan walked through the raging wind, his figure swaying precariously, like a candle flame about to be extinguished.
He went up to the teaching building, up to the rooftop, and stood on the high edge looking down at the players below who were gradually becoming distorted. His bright blue eyes, under the gloomy sky, seemed like a clear, sunny sky.
"You're still hesitating, aren't you!" A dark figure appeared from behind, speaking with an air of certainty as Ye Tianxuan stopped there.
A fierce wind swept across the rooftop, billowing Ye Tianxuan's clothes and making him appear incredibly resolute and powerful in an instant.
Ye Tianxuan ignored its words, instead staring down at the dark and distorted scene below, then twisted the ring on his hand and took it off.
It was an ordinary silver ring with a purple arc in the center, simple and plain, gleaming faintly in the gale, but the contract within it was extremely deadly.
"Looks like I'm going to lose the bet. Fortune telling is really scary." He lowered his eyes, put the ring back on, and then took out his cigarette case.
Ye Tianxuan stared at the gradually distorted figures and the school swaying in the storm. He knew very well that no one here but him could save these people.
Those sparks he had painstakingly cultivated over time and year must not be allowed to be extinguished here.
Fate seemed to have shut out all possibilities, leaving him here and blocking all hope from the outside world.
Ye Tianxuan, however, remained largely unmoved and calmly accepted the situation.
He stared at them calmly, muttering softly, "Like a swamp."
The shadowy figure asked in confusion, "What swamp?"
Ye Tianxuan chuckled, lowered his head and lit a cigarette in his hand. The sparks burned in the wind, but did not go out.
He tilted his head back, and wisps of smoke slowly drifted out of his mouth, accompanied by tiny purple glints of light, before being carried away by the wind. "I'm talking about the dungeon. This place is like a dark, sunless swamp. If you stay in it for too long, you always unconsciously lose something."
"Most of them lost hope; they could no longer see the light of departure and slowly sank into the swamp."
The cigarette burned extremely fast in the wind, swirling with smoke, and Ye Tianxuan quickly lit a second one.
The purple smoke did not dissipate; instead, it swirled throughout the school in the gale, the small cigarette butts burning rapidly, gradually consuming the light.
The shadowy figure replied, "I don't understand."
"You're a monster, of course you wouldn't understand."
Ye Tianxuan took a deep drag, exhaled the smoke, coughed a few times, and shook out a third cigarette from the pack.
The shadowy figure stared at his retreating back, its eyes filled with incomprehension of humanity. "Most of the humans I've seen wouldn't sacrifice their own lives to save others. They value their own lives, but yours seems so cheap."
"Yes, people in the dungeon fight so hard to survive, how could they not value their lives? Those who take life lightly are long dead." Ye Tianxuan lowered his eyes indifferently, lit his fourth cigarette, and held the cigarette between his pale lips to suppress the sound of coughing.
"But my life is cheap? What do you know? My life is very precious, as it can be exchanged for the survival of countless others."
The shadowy figure whispered, "The last time I saw someone so reckless was Yin Xiu."
Ye Tianxuan laughed twice and coughed twice, using his laughter to cover up the discomfort surging in his body. He said calmly, "He used to be a person who had lost hope. I am not like him. I have a lot of hope. I can share my hope with many people."
As he muttered to himself, Ye Tianxuan suddenly felt dizzy and almost lost his footing on the edge of the rooftop. He heard the tolling of a clock signaling the passing of life.
I felt my consciousness rapidly leaving my body, like the smoke from the cigarette.
The distorted figures in the school were gradually returning to normal. He looked at those people without stopping his smoking.
The tiny flame, swirling with tobacco leaves, trembled in the air, about to go out, just like the light in Ye Tianxuan's eyes.
As the smoke dissipated, his health deteriorated. He began to bend over coughing and his nose started bleeding, the bright red color staining his pale cheeks.
In the cold wind, the smoke he exhaled quickly dissipated, and his pupils were also dilating, but he remained calm and composed.
"You're about to die," the dark figure behind him coldly revealed.
Ye Tianxuan ignored him, his pupils gradually dilating as he stared at the players below, his gaze lingering on those incredibly familiar faces.
He saw himself standing alone in the small town, wailing in despair. He saw the first people who were willing to believe in him. He saw the rule sheets flying everywhere in the town. He saw crowds of people following behind him, calling out to him.
He walked a long and lonely road alone, watching countless people fall into depravity, unable to find a glimmer of light. So he resolved to ignite himself and become that light.
He looked back at the fleeting past and finally saw himself lying in the hospital bed, slowly consuming his life, aimlessly heading towards the end of his life.
Countless springs, summers, autumns, and winters have passed outside the hospital window, leaves have withered and fallen. He felt that he was just living, living without any purpose, and that he might as well be dead.
Countless people have asked Ye Tianxuan the same question: "What are you thinking, courting death like this?"
He answered them one by one.
"Compared to lying in a hospital bed... wasting a lifetime dying... cough, cough cough..."
"I want to... share hope with them..."
His hoarse voice drifted in the wind, becoming ethereal amidst the players' wails, "I want to save them... with my insignificant... life... to save... more... more people..."
His blue pupils, like a bright sky, were gradually turning gray, and his slender figure swayed precariously in the biting wind. "Even if I die in this dungeon, my soul... will not fall here..."
"I can..."
"To become a flower that grows from the swamp...to keep growing..."
"Growth..."
"Until..."
"Become their sun..."
The intermittent, muffled voice finally seemed to reach its end, like the sound of a cello slowly tearing apart a broken string. The moment the sound stopped, his body, which was standing on the edge of the rooftop, suddenly plummeted off the rooftop as if a string had been broken.
The last embers of the cigarette went out in the cold wind, and almost simultaneously, a notification from the instance echoed throughout the town.
[Player Ye Tianxuan, located at No. 103, Alley A, in Dimensional 35, has died.]
The moment the sound echoed through the night, countless monsters in the town were astonished, and even the Night Goddess stopped in her tracks.
The light that guides countless people ultimately burns itself out.