The Gentleman at the End-Chapter 746 - 744 Backstage

Tap~ Tap~ Tap♪

The sounds of a ditty echoed through the Aquarium associated with the ’Deep Memory Zone’, as William, adorned in a splendid tailcoat with diagonal stripes, a golden belt, and a pocket watch chain, approached with light and confident steps,

along the winding and narrow path squeezed between glass tanks.

When reaching the deepest parts, one even needed to sidle through.

This was the darkest and deepest part of the Aquarium, hiding the most extreme memories, where a large number of corpses resembling Yi Chen were piled up.

With every activation of Dead Man Makeup, with every killing,

an additional ’corpse’ would appear here to represent the number of deaths,

and the specific circumstances of each death were meticulously recorded in black text on the skin of the corpses, even allowing for possession of these bodies to relive the moments of death.

William crouched down, his fingers gently tapping on the surface of the glass.

"Hey! Time to get up, Mr. Yi!"

With the taps of his fingers,

all the stacked corpses inside opened their eyes simultaneously,

fixing their bleach-whitened eyeballs deadly onto William outside,

until Yi Chen slowly crawled out from the lowest-lying coffin, pressing his head against the glass surface.

"There’s only one hour left before the Performance starts. The drawing of roles will take place soon, do you want me to fix it in advance for you?"

Yi Chen didn’t directly respond, or rather, he couldn’t speak from within the water.

Through the glass of the tank,

Yi Chen cut off his own head, and then with a headless body, he forcefully tossed his head out from the upper edge of the glass, dropping it onto the corridor.

The solitary head began to speak, "No... let’s play it as it should be played. It’s rare that I’m in the mood, cheating would be no fun."

"Alright then, hurry up and get out! Nash has already recovered to his prime condition, waiting to Combine with you for a tune-up."

"Haven’t you Combined with Little Grape yet?"

William responded indifferently, "We’ve settled that just now. During the Performance, Little Grape will temporarily replace my right eye through ’Adaptive External Connection’, more like an indirect Binding, to be precise.

To fully Combine and fill the void of the concept, that will take time.

As for you, Yi Chen... although this body of yours can slow degeneration through Breathing Skill, if you get seriously injured during the Performance, it could be dangerous, and you might even die permanently."

Yi Chen glanced askance and said, "Oh? Are you discussing death with me?"

William hastily played it cool and waved his hands, "Not at all, not at all~ I’m just worried if something happens to you~ Let’s hurry up and leave! I believe the game will be quite interesting with you taking part, Yi Chen."

Reality,

William was sitting in his exclusive [Changing Room],

as his secondary body began to stir, inhaling and exhaling a faint purple mist, with two consciousnesses taking hold in his head.

Hiss~ Blood vessels and tendons started peeling away from his back,

and as the second body fully detached, just when it looked like it would fall to the ground,

from the corner, a translucent, soft tissue shot forward instantly forming leg and foot structures upon contact, perfectly mimicking even some internal organs.

Another part maintained the form of a giant Parasite, entwined around Yi Chen’s waist and back, draping his head over his shoulder.

"Second boss! This Combination feels different! The joint training really does work, and I’m genuinely looking forward to the upcoming Performance."

William, at his side, made a gesture of invitation and pushed the door open for them.

Outside was William’s Chief Office,

as Lorrian, Reagan, and Dentist Jessica were all in the next room working on transforming the new Audience,

in the office there was only Thirteen, the butler, and Little Grape, who was reading a book.

"Willi..."

Little Grape glanced over, about to say something, but realized the figure resembling William felt somewhat unfamiliar.

As the Ashen Eye on his face took it all in, only Endless Death and Purple Lungs hanging in the darkness were visible, extremely perilous!

Little Grape also immediately understood that this was the mysterious source of death within William.

"Are you Mr. Yi?"

Yi Chen kept silent, only walking his own path towards the office door, a path which just so happened to pass by Little Grape.

Just as they brushed past each other, a child’s head, formed purely from concentrated Killing Intent, appeared on Yi Chen’s shoulder, its mouth moving but silent.

Nash, entwined around Yi Chen, failed to notice this, but Little Grape, with her unique Vision, instantly read the lips.

≮Beware of William≯

Such a message puzzled the little grape, who even thought she had misunderstood, rereading it multiple times, but still arriving at the same conclusion.

Just when the little grape wanted to ask more, click! The office door had already closed, and Yi Chen had already left.

At the same moment, a hand touched her shoulder, "Little grape, what are you looking at? What did Mr. Yi just talk to you about?"

"Nothing... It felt a bit strange."

"Strange is right, Yi Chen is an unscrupulous psychopathic killer, any creature would feel strange looking at him.

It’s about time, let’s begin our temporary combination now."

William took off the monocle Lorrian had given him, revealing the right side of his face, devoid of any eye structure, and then pulled out a handgun, aiming it at where his eye should have been.

Bang!

A loud gunshot, and a perfectly round hole was blasted through William’s right cheek, revealing the madness brain between the cranial cavities.

"This space should be sufficient for you to come in, little grape, right?"

...

Amidst the theater corridors,

Yi Chen appeared to walk normally, but Nash was deducing his step frequency and stride length from the subtle muscular movements in his waist and abdomen.

Concept deprivation is terrifying, Yi Chen couldn’t even conceive the thought of ’walking’.

He quickly arrived at the exit leading to the backstage area, separated by wooden doors.

Yi Chen didn’t need to move himself; those whom he had killed before took physical form under the influence of the killing intent and jointly pushed open the double doors.

The previously chatty, bantering, or amicably sparring makeup area backstage suddenly fell silent,

all eyes drawn to the familiar yet unfamiliar figure.

Even Catherine paused momentarily, hurrying to retrieve her glasses from the Hundred Treasure Box to get a clearer view, eventually concluding that the person was William and at the same time, not William.

Lia Roman from the Deep Sea Ancestor Primordial Body tensed up, vigilantly watching this young man.

The clown Art immediately took on his comical step, intent on getting a closer look at this mysterious figure who resembled William.

But as soon as he did, Yi Chen immediately twisted to the side, throwing a direct killing intent towards Art, a sort of absolute abhorrence for evil,

that even felt like a Consciousness Slash landed directly on Art, as if to execute him right there and then.

The latter’s Eyes bulged out as well, unleashing almost endless swelling malice.

A clash erupted between the two in the backstage area,

and when their auras collided, they were evenly matched, even slowly condensing into physical realms visible to the average person.

A proliferating mass of flesh-red tumors collided head-on with a black ocean,

the ocean swallowing the tumors, while the tumors continuously proliferated and spread on the surface of the ocean,

when it seemed the situation would spiral out of control,

"Ah~ Isn’t this Big Boss Art? Do you still remember me, not... Nash from Division J, when we both went to slaughter in the Purple Mist Miasma Forest, Big Boss Art even performed for me."

Nash’s sudden interjection broke up the showdown,

Art cracked his yellow teeth grin, waving hand adorned in white gloves with animated fingers to greet Nash.

"Quite the peculiar complementarity in form, looking forward to the performance... I’ve been wanting to kill you for a long time, little friend Nash~ it’s because of the likes of you as an executioner that a lot of the bosses won’t let me do the jobs, reducing the killings, so boring.

I’ll be keeping an eye on you during the performance later, hehe."

Art lost interest in causing trouble and went to the makeup table in the corner to touch up his makeup.

Yi Chen, meanwhile, adjusted his condition using a Breathing Skill,

cough! With a cough, he expelled proliferated tumors that had somehow been planted inside him, crushing them underfoot.

"Impressive..."

"The second boss, shall we avoid clashing with Art for now? He..."

"Are you scared? Nash, he explicitly stated he wants to kill you."

Nash shook his head frantically, "No... What I mean is we should assassinate him as quietly as possible! This way, there might be some chance.

Clashing head-on with that psychopath is really dangerous, we can’t just sit and wait, right?"

"Give me more information, Nash."

"Circus information is not to be disclosed to outsiders, wait! Second boss, you’re not exactly an outsider! All right, let me think about this clown’s abilities, not sure if he’s gotten stronger recently."