He and It Chapter 101: Dark Sky Sanctuary (36)

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Chapter 101: Dark Sky Sanctuary (36)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

 

Falchion pressed against his forehead, his pupils lax, while from his mouth, his long, wet tongue probed and still tried to wrap around Yu Mengzhou’s lips.

“Why are you…Why are you laughing?” The demon was mesmerized by his human, and mangled the words with a hoarse voice.

Satisfied with the quality of the kiss, Yu Mengzhou tried to dodge Falchion’s attempt at stolen kisses while he laughed under his breath. “I just thought of something funny…Don’t kiss me, I haven’t forgiven you yet!”

Undeterred by his refusal to return the kiss, Falchion rubbed his face against the human’s nape and caressed the other’s vibrant pulse with his warm, moist breath.

He felt drunk. His thoughts spun, his brain tingled and his body burned. However, he was never drunk. He was the original magic created and destroyed everything, and even demon blood wine, which was as thick as lava and ignited when it touched the ground, was no more than a light, shallow mist in his mouth.

Sometimes Falchion was grateful to the beings who invented the word “love.” Whether they had been humans, demons, or the gods who defined everything. Love was enough to encompass all the stuttering confessions, passionate words, and cumbersome vows. If he had to put his feelings into words, even if it took a million words, Falchion still wouldn’t be able to describe how much he wanted him. It would never be enough, it would never be enough.

He just wanted to hold Yu Mengzhou, his human, until the end of time when all the worlds would be desolate and all the music silent, while they would be the only two creatures left as they clung to each other, tightly intertwined.

“Get up.” Yu Mengzhou nudged his head. “It’s getting dark.”

“Um…” Falchion hummed fondly. He was unwilling to let go and remained lying where he was.

“Still not getting up?” Yu Mengzhou really felt like he was caught in a sticky toffee trap. “I’m going to knock you on your head, ah.”

After they pushed and shoved for a while, Falchion finally got up, hugged Yu Mengzhou and slowly walked back.

Yu Mengzhou thought, I can’t just kiss him next time.

After he walked for a while, Falchion suddenly said, “This is the first time.”

Yu Mengzhou didn’t understand. “Ah, first time?”

“We should kiss more often in the future. To get used to it.” The centaur looked at him sincerely. “That way I won’t be clingy.”

Yu Mengzhou was surprised. “You can read minds?”

“I can’t read minds,” Falchion replied. “But I can read expressions. I know what you’re thinking, love.”

…Okay. You’re good.

They went to dinner. Afterwards, Yu Mengzhou worked on making a list of what he needed to bring, since it soon would be time to leave for earth.

My beloved toolbox…Although it’s been in disrepair for a long time, I can’t let it die in a foreign land, so I’ll bring it with me.

Start-up capital. Buying a mountain cannot be done without money, ah. Plus a few years have passed, so I also don’t know how the currency has changed because of inflation regarding how much money I need to bring.

Plus the herd’s horseshoes, saddle blankets, and other harnesses. Even getting horseshoes nailed on is what they still agreed to after all this time, the metal of Earth won’t be able to withstand the hooves of a Demon Horse, so they must be made over here.

What else?

He was still thinking hard when Ether suddenly ran up to him and asked, “Human, have you forgiven the chief?”

“No,” Yu Mengzhou answered. “What’s wrong?”

Then he watched Ether stomp his hoof nervously, turn his head and run away.

Yu Mengzhou didn’t understand what he meant by that, so he just ignored it and continued working on his list.

After a while, Bloody Butcher ran over, lay down in front of him and asked, “We’re going to earth soon. Have you really not forgiven Falchion?”

“…I haven’t.” Yu Mengzhou put down his pen. “Why? What’s wrong with that?”

Bloody Butcher, who had the same expressions that he had when he was only a horse, just stonily stuck out his lower lip.

“Nothing.”  Then he hastily stood up and ran off.

What an odd thing to do.

Yu Mengzhou scratched his forehead with his pen. It wasn’t like he’d come to give him a piece of his mind about Falchion, or to fall on his sword for him.

He wanted to dig deeper, but sometimes a horse could be a bit of a nervous animal, so he simply assumed that this was anxiety.

After another moment, Catastrophe hurried over as well. Yu Mengzhou’s eyes narrowed as he put down his paper and pen, then grabbed the other man’s arm when Catastrophe lay down to talk to him.

“What’s going on?” Yu Mengzhou asked suspiciously as he struck first. “Why are you all running to ask me about Falchion?”

Catastrophe was startled and stammered even more in fear.

“I…We just wanted to ask why, after all this time…time, you still haven’t forgiven the chief…”

“Long time?” Yu Mengzhou asked incredulously. “I only talked frankly with him a day ago. Only twenty-four hours have passed. Last night, didn’t Striker tell me not to easily forgive Falchion?”

Catastrophe hated that guy’s guts. He said, articulately and very fluently, “That’s just him being stupid!”

Yu Mengzhou, “…”

“In a nutshell,” Catastrophe repeated. “We just want to know if you’re not…not going to talk to the chief…”

“Not going to talk to him about what?” He replied slowly. Yu Mengzhou couldn’t help but guess, “Falling in love with him? Being with him?”

“…About going to make a contract with him.” Catastrophe finally finished a whole sentence fluently.

Yu Mengzhou, “?”

Yu Mengzhou asked, “Contract,? What contract?”

Catastrophe was confused. “The chief didn’t…didn’t tell you?”

The corner of Yu Mengzhou’s mouth twitched. He forced himself to show a kind smile. “Why? What did he need to tell me?”

Falchion, if you keep being a riddler, I will really have to put one to you…

“The way a demon expresses love…love, is by making a contract on the soul. It is a necessary step…step to becoming a mate.”

“Oh.” Perhaps he’d been appeased by that lovely word, “mate”, but Yu Mengzhou wasn’t as angry as he’d been before he heard that explanation. “He didn’t tell me that.”

Catastrophe was oblivious to the fact that his chief had just escaped another disaster. “So, we were worried that you…are you not with the Chief?”

Yu Mengzhou found it funny, and he rubbed Catastrophe’s head. “But why are you guys worried about that?”

Catastrophe smiled in embarrassment. In the golden light, his eyebrows had a kind of ink dark tenderness.

In fact, the herd’s attitude towards Yu Mengzhou was consistent in many ways. As long as he asked, they would tell him everything. However, Catastrophe didn’t answer that question.

Falchion was the chief of the herd and a Demon Horse of the same lineage. He was both a blood brother and indivisible clansmen. If Yu Mengzhou made a contract with the Emperor, it was tantamount to binding with the entire herd. It meant that he would never leave all the centaurs behind, like he had done hundreds of years ago, and never return.

Catastrophe couldn’t tell him that.

Taking advantage of the fact that Yu Mengzhou let go of his hand, he stood up, smiled, and ran away without saying a word.

Yu Mengzhou couldn’t catch him, so he couldn’t help but sigh.

What a bunch of big weird horses.

.

Six days later, the day of the return trip was close at hand, and all things, big and small, were basically arranged.

Noel created a channel to the deepest part of the earth’s core magma, guided by Falchion’s original magic. Then he extended it all the way to where Yu Mengzhou fell in the first place, as he plowed out the earth spreading out for hundreds of kilometers into huge, complicated formation patterns.

“We can’t rely on the Heart of the Demon Realm,” Falchion said coldly. “I don’t trust it.”

Yu Mengzhou asked, “Then all we have to do is stand in the center of the room and we’ll be fine?”

“Yes.” Falchion picked him up. “The core of the door is the map of our journey to Earth.”

The twelve centaurs galloped noisily into the room as they clustered around them. It was a tight fit even though they weren’t carrying any large packs – after all, folding space was Ether’s handy ability.

The Rulers of Hell were finally on their ready, intent on leaving the world that had given birth to them once and for all.

“How did you convince the Demon Realm?” Yu Mengzhou asked quietly. “Was it actually willing to let you leave?”

Falchion laughed coldly. “It had to let us go. No one benefits if we both are destroyed. It would be better for us to leave the position open for it to create a few more honest, and obedient, puppets to rule this world.”

When all the centaurs had taken their spots, Noel activated the spell formation, Falchion unleashed his magic power of Origin, and Crusade’s lips chanted indecipherable words of Truth. However, the only thing Yu Mengzhou could see was the growing light.

The light was so variegated that it was far beyond the colors a human eye could discern. The sky was a flowing vortex and the ground was a chaotic aurora. At that moment, the world was frozen under the turbulence of the storm, as if ten thousand dragons were both ascending and descending to the ground. Yu Mengzhou had to close his eyes tightly and hold Falchion’s body firmly in order to stabilize his mind.

The sound of Crusade’s chanting became more and more magnificent, like a hundred thousand bronze ancient bells ringing out in the wilderness. A grain of dust fell to the ground, then grew at a speed millions of times faster than normal. The dust solidified to rock, the rock formed a mountain, then the lofty mountain collapsed into a tiny speck of dust in the uncontrolled flow of time.

Layers and layers of formations made by the Princes and Emperor had already covered Yu Mengzhou in dozens of shields that even a nuclear bomb couldn’t penetrate. Nevertheless, he could still hear a deafening sound that didn’t stop rising until it reached its most violent, and surging, peak.

In the next second, Crusade’s voice came to an abrupt halt.

For a moment, Yu Mengzhou heard complete silence.

Am I deaf? He asked himself suspiciously in his mind. The change from penetrating noise to terrifying silence made the sound of his heart beating become unbearably loud.

Yu Mengzhou didn’t dare open his eyes. He used some strength and squeezed Falchion’s waist, as he tried to make some noise to test whether he was deaf or not.

However, there was still not a single sound. Falchion just wordlessly hugged him tight and signaled for him to continue to stay still.

Yu Mengzhou buried his face in the centaur’s arms. In such overwhelming silence, he had no way to measure the time that passed in the outside world, he could only use his own senses as a standard. As he silently counted the one thousand eight hundredth second, he suddenly felt like the space behind him opened up. A piercingly cold current came from behind him but was immediately held back by the abruptly thick shields.

“Here it is,” Falchion whispered in his ear. “Your hometown.”

“Wow! So green…! Uh, so blue,” Striker exclaimed. ” Is all that water? Can I go down and bathe?”

“No,” Blasphe said languidly. “I can smell the saltiness from here. Do you want to get knots in your fur?”

Yu Mengzhou didn’t have time to be ecstatic before a big question mark popped up in his mind.

What’s so blue? What’s so green? Was it some kind of painted landscape?

He turned his head and glanced around in confusion–

Above his head was a dark-as-night vacuum. His eyesight was so good now that he could even see orbiting satellites floating slowly in the distance, while below…Below was his beloved Earth; thirty percent land, seventy percent ocean, with a crystalline atmosphere that seemed like a thin, brittle glass cover.

Yu Mengzhou, “…”

Yu Mengzhou was completely lost for words.

“Why,” he said eventually. “Are we in space?”

“Individuals from a world of Empyrean Magic ¹ can easily travel to a world of High Magic such as the Demon Realm, where the Demon Realm can accept you as easily as you breathe air.” Falchion explained. “But to go from a High Magic world, especially for individuals like us, to a world with Low Magic, or empty of magic, is tougher than an egg trying to squeeze through hollow straw.”

“So choosing a landing spot outside the domain is the easiest option,” Noel added. “Otherwise, the time we would need to migrate would need to be lengthened dozens of times.”

Yu Mengzhou sighed. Well, anyway having traveled through other worlds, to have an astronaut’s perspective was nothing new to him.

“When you go to Earth, you mustn’t clash with the people…ah, animals, there.” He explained once more, emphatically. “They’re really fragile, more fragile than me. Much more fragile than me! If you guys snort even a little, you’ll set them on fire…”

“Don’t worry,” Bloody Butcher assured him. “Your home is our home, and we know the limits.”

….No, you guys don’t know the limits when it comes to your own home!

“I’ll keep an eye on them. It’ll be fine,” Falchion reassured him.

Behind him, however, Deathstar and Crusade were muttering to each other uneasily.

“You can’t take everything lightly, in case something goes wrong like last time…”

“Then you modify the gravity of this world, and I’ll rush a meteorite down. We can use that as  heavy insurance first.”

“Okay, that’s the plan.”

The two troublemakers agreed immediately, but when Yu Mengzhou looked over, suspicious, the two horses rushed to part, and pretended to be innocent; as if they knew nothing.

“Come on,” Falchion said. “Where’s your home? Point the way, and we’ll go there first.”

“No way,” Yu Mengzhou thought for a moment and vetoed that suggestion. “The house is too small. It can’t fit such a large body like yours…If you don’t mind, we can find a mountain forest to make do with for the night.”

“Might as well.” Falchion turned to Noel, and signaled for him to put a few confusing perception spells on the herd, then they descended through the atmosphere and flew in the direction Yu Mengzhou remembered.

“Huh, a flying iron bird!” Along the way, they encountered several airplanes taking different routes. Ether immediately increased his speed in curiosity and circled around one of their fuselages a few times to observe it. “What small windows…Are they prisoners?”

Yu Mengzhou shouted, “Don’t touch them! Those aren’t prisoners in there either! That’s how they are designed! Come back!”

Radiant Angel looked around the sky and was amazed. “There are no living beings in the clouds of this world, and the clouds are as thin as a veil. No wonder we can’t reproduce a kingdom in the sky…”

“Having living creatures residing in the clouds is not in line with Earth’s basic laws…” Yu Mengzhou was in a mixed mood. “You should also come back. Don’t think about building a kingdom here…”

“Death,” Deathstar said darkly. “Death every moment, new life every moment. It’s so average. So average that it’s boring. I dislike it…”

Falchion kicked him in the hoof.

“…I mean I appreciate that the regular fluctuations are so steady. It’s just so rare!”

“It really is a world empty of magic.” Noel sniffed about, curiously. “And the energy in the Earth’s veins is very raw. Well, I hope our arrival won’t bring bad influences here…”

“And there are so many lights!” Gao’er smacks his lips. “As for the dark shadows, they flow in the hearts of men.”

“The earth is so, so fragile.” Catastrophe, too, was looking around in newfound wonder. “If you just pull on that moon over there, so much water could flood the land along…along the coasts…”

Falchion also kicked him in the hoof.

“…But I wouldn’t do that, I swear I wouldn’t!”

Yu Mengzhou no longer had the energy to correct the strange thinking of the horses in question one by one. 

When they landed on the ground they let out a unanimous gasp.

“Such soft ground,” Iron Scepter lifted his hoof carefully. “I’m not going to crush it…?”

Blasphe stuck out his tongue. “And the air is so humid too. Well, what a soft, juicy planet.”

“Please don’t use words that describe Juicy Fudge to describe my home!” Yu Mengzhou freaked out. “Even the Sahara Desert would be humid for you guys!”

“Ha! And the trees here don’t bite!” Striker bounced around happily, as he chewed on a leaf from a tree. “Tastes okay?”

Smelling another sweet scent emanating from the lush golden laurel not far away, he curiously ran over to take a nibble as well.

“This one! This flower smells sweet, but tastes bitter, ugh!”

“Really?”

“I’ll taste it.”

“I’ll take a bite too.”

In the blink of an eye, twelve centaurs gathered around a laurel tree chewing intently, unable to stop contemplating and nodding their heads.

“Hmm…Magical.”

“It smells sweet, so why does it taste bitter? Crusade, talk to it and make it sweet.”

“What do you think I am, a candy wishing machine? Fuck off!”

Yu Mengzhou, “…”

Falchion stood right beside him with a gentle smile on his face.

“It’s a nice hometown,” he said softly. “Like you.”

Yu Mengzhou couldn’t help but smile while being distressed.

He asked, “Really?”

“Really,” Falchion nodded earnestly. “Beautiful and vivid. Such a soft land, yet tough enough to hold up to the iron hooves of a Demon Horse…It’s exactly like you.”

Yu Mengzhou’s face reddened a bit. He smiled and took Falchion’s slender fingers then turned to the twelve laurel tasting experts.

“Hey!” he shouted. “Come on! We need to find a place to camp!”

The place Falchion chose for them to land was in the middle of a mountain forest not too far from the city, and a quick look around the perimeter revealed signs of where camping enthusiasts had once been stationed. He jumped onto Falchion’s horse’s back. The mosquitoes in the forest were dead for the season, and the only thing that lingered under the night sky was the fragrance of golden laurel carried on the evening breeze.

It suddenly occurred to him that the last time he had left that place, when he was swallowed by the Demon Realm, it had been the height of summer on Earth. Now, it was late fall and several years later.

He shook his head and sighed lightly. A bit of homesickness had risen up in his heart, but over there was the immediate problem of a few yelling dilettantes who had harried a small boar out of the forest and he didn’t know whether it was too scared to move or had already fainted.

“Look! I found this…! Ah, what kind of creature is this?” Bloody Butcher asked curiously. “It fell to the ground just as I passed it. Haha! Even being an unintelligent thing, it knows how to sacrifice its flesh to the Son of War, I think…”

Yu Mengzhou rushed over and gave him a big slap on his horse’s ass.

“That is a state protected animal! Put it down!” He snatched away the unconscious little boar. “So small…it looks like it’s still waiting to be taken care of by its mother. It’s not enough to stuff your teeth! No more scratching!”

Bloody Butcher was so abashed that he wagged his tail pitifully and gave a small “oh.”

When he saw his brother’s miserable state, Striker didn’t say a word, just quietly threw the big snake in his hand behind a tree.

Yu Mengzhou was both angry and amused. However, he also finally found a flat clearing near the edge of a stream.

Ether expanded the area of the place a few more times, then pulled out the wide King’s Tent, used when the army was marching, from his folded space. Noel also used a spell to set up a boundary of mortal exemption around the area.

“So this is what a World of Innocence looks like.” Sevenfold Eyes stood by the stream and dipped his finger into a bit of its water and tasted it. “Everywhere is very…It’s clean and light.”

Yu Mengzhou was surprised. “Where’s the cleanliness? In the past, when you were in the countryside, you could still see many stars in the sky at night, like a river. Not anymore.”

“It’s not that kind of clean,” Sevenfold Eyes laughed. “But the aspect you’re talking about is also a lot cleaner than it was in the Demon Realm. By clean, I mean sinless.”

“Falchion is the Emperor of Hell, the direct embodiment of the Primordial Force, you see. What kind of appearance does he have?” Sevenfold Eyes shook his head. “When he fades his magical glow, you can see that his hide is the deepest, bottomless, pitch black, that devours any light and annihilates any color.”

“But here…” He smiled. “There is sin here as well, but compared to the Demon Realm, the sins of this world are gray at best, and not even close to pitch black.”

“So…Will you guys get used to it?” Yu Mengzhou asked hesitantly.

Sevenfold Eyes asked rhetorically, “How could you not get used to it? Those who were born in an ink-filled tank can naturally get used to clear water. I’m only worried that the blackness in our bodies will dye the clear water into another ink-filled tank.”

Yu Mengzhou paused for a moment and asked, “Will you guys?”

Sevenfold Eyes raised his eyes to look at him. Then he slightly pulled down the ribbon that covered his eyes. The pupils of his eyes floated with a multilayered light, just like a complicated flame.

“Not as long as you’re around, we won’t,” he said. “I promise.”

Yu Mengzhou’s relieved smile hadn’t yet fully blossomed when an eerie crack suddenly sounded beside him.

He slowly turned his head to see Deathstar intently chewing on a fish that had been fished out of the stream. When he saw Yu Mengzhou staring at him incredulously, he froze for a moment, pulled the body of the fish out of his mouth, minus its head, and handed it to Yu Mengzhou.

“Eat?” he asked.

Yu Mengzhou couldn’t describe the feeling!

They were like a group of heavyweight predators. In their original ecosystem, at least there were still some downstream food chains that could keep up with them, and although the herd was lazy, at least they still maintained a dignified stance. Now that the ecosystem had further downgraded and there was no threat to them at all, their IQ immediately fell to a whole new low…

Yu Mengzhou was silent for a long time then softly said, “I won’t eat it. You can eat it.”

I’m going to find Falchion, he thought. Who cares if he’s forgiven or not. There’s only one high IQ around, and I’m going to treasure him.

Author’s Note:

Yu Mengzhou: *dazzlingly pulls back the curtain* Ta-da! This is my home, Earth!

Demon Warhorse: *Immediately discusses a hundred ways to destroy and rebuild in case the Angola incident is repeated on this world.* It looks well in control. I meant…Well! It looks good.

Yu Mengzhou: *Excited, introduces things one by one.* This is a tree, this is grass, this is a flower, this is a fish…

Devil’s Warhorse: *listening intently, eating intently*

 

Yu Mengzhou: *Looks back and immediately realizes that his trees, grass, flowers and fish have all disappeared.*