Arknights: It Was Game Over for Me a Bit Too Early

[Master, since our last parting, two hundred and ten years have passed.

In these years, I have traveled the mountains and rivers of Yan according to the guidance of your map, and I have also made friends with many worthy martial artists.

During these hundred-odd years, I have experienced much and written many letters. I wonder if you have received them all?

During my travels, I never received a single challenge card, and that one time was the first I learned that combat held such a sense of ceremony for humans.

Although I have long forgotten the outcome of that battle, perhaps I became curious. I began to yearn for the life of humans. I want to see what kind of creatures humans are, to be able to live with such vibrancy on this land of post-calamity suffering.

Like wild grass, even when trampled by the yellow sand, they can always find a place to take root.

The people of the capital are different from the people of the frontier, so please forgive my presumptuous decision to stay in Yumen.

Furthermore, I have given your suggestion much thought. A hundred years ago, I decided to abandon my identity as "Shuò" and choose to live among mortals, sealing my consciousness as "Sui" into my sword. My current name was given to me by a good friend, and it is "Chongyue."

A hundred years ago, I came to this frontier of Yan and became a general here. But in the blink of an eye, a hundred years have passed. Although I have taught martial arts and protected the nation at this northwestern border outpost, earning the title of a pillar of the state and becoming a world-renowned grandmaster...

Yet in the cold spring of these past three months, as the fierce winds blow, my friends have passed away one after another, and there is no one to whom I can confide.

I once climbed the city tower and looked at the distant scenery, and in that instant, I seemed to see your figure teaching martial arts. I am writing this letter to you again, and I wonder if you have been well lately?]

After finishing the letter, Chongyue gently placed the brush back on its stand.

The yellow sand of the border continued to dance with the fierce wind, the atmosphere solemn.

"Alas, no one understands the will to ascend. How can one endure the floating border city? What more is there in the vast, desolate lands? The thousand miles of yellow sand remain today, but the figures of old friends are nowhere to be seen." Chongyue couldn't help but recite a poem Hong Yu had once read.

He used to not understand why Hong Yu would recite poems from time to time, but now he understood a little.

Unlike ordinary people who entrust their feelings to poems, the Master was trying to feel emotion.

In these three hundred-odd years, the Master rarely sent letters—ah no, he had never sent a letter.

Because if the Master wanted to come, it was only a matter of an instant. However, it had been over two hundred years since the Master had last come to see him.

Time is fair, at least for ordinary people. But does this also apply to the Master? Chongyue didn't know. Even his own personality as a giant beast was vastly different from the brash youth he once was.

But the Master... in his impression, he seemed to have never changed.

Time, it really passes so quickly.

"General! The followers of the beast Yai are attacking again!"

While Chongyue was lost in melancholy, a soldier came to his tent to report.

"Yai, is it..." Chongyue stood up, his presence commanding without any anger.

"Order the entire army to defend Yumen. Do not engage the beast rashly. I will deal with Yai."

Yai. It values weapons over people, and scoffs at sentiment.

Those who follow you are, for the most part, an absurdity hidden in violence and cowardice.

Perhaps some are truly your apostles, but many are just madmen who covet money and harm their own kind, pathetically weak.

Their martial arts are even more unsightly than that of ordinary people, yet they turn their bloodied blades on the innocent, unwilling to exchange their own effort and sweat for their own down-to-earth happiness, but instead commit vile acts under the banner of being a beast's follower.

They were born human yet they insist on seeking the traces of giant beasts, attempting to become the beasts' fangs and claws, using the beasts' name and power to wreak havoc among the people... In the end, it is only life and death and destruction.

They are almost less than ants, and yet ants have never been defeated. But a disorderly mob will eventually destroy itself.

Shaking his head, Chongyue stopped thinking so much and just slowly walked out of Yumen, into the vast yellow sand.

...

"Shuò, you really are... so aloof..." As if sensing Chongyue's appearance, Yai spoke with annoyance.

To Yai, Chongyue's actions were like a negation and a provocation.

As a giant beast, Yai was disdainful of everything in the human world, contemptuous and arrogant, still immersed in the arrogant style of the ancient times.

It mocked Chongyue for joining the ranks of humans, for enduring long-term suspicion and doubt, or perhaps it disdained him for abandoning his identity as "Sui" just to seek the answer to the so-called "who am I."

"Yai, you will never understand humans," Chongyue said, arriving before Yai alone, his tone faint.

"Ridiculous! A mere hundred years! How dare you say you understand the baseness and shamelessness of humans?" Yai's tone was dismissive. In its eyes, a hundred years was not even enough to lick its wounds. How dare Chongyue say he understood humans.

But a hundred years might be short for Yai, but in Chongyue's eyes, it was more than thirty thousand days and nights of patrolling, guarding the pass, and sending out scouts.

Year after year, month after month, for humans, it is an inch hidden in the sleeve, from one season to the next, and then to the one after.

In Chongyue's view, Yai, who was born standing on high, seemed arrogant and weak in the face of human tenacity.

It mocked the weakness of humans and despised the creatures on this land who called themselves human, yet it was unaware of how it had been hunted by a group of "ants" a hundred years ago and had barely escaped by falling into a deep sleep.

And now that it had woken up... it was still so arrogant and unrepentant?

Chongyue let out a breath and assumed a martial arts stance.

"So I say, you will never understand humans."

"After all that talk, you still can't avoid a fight with me, can you?! Shuò!" Yai's eyes widened with excitement, and then the authority of the giant beast unfolded, sealing off this part of the world.

Arrogance...

Seeing this, Chongyue sighed with emotion.

Fortunately, I had the Master at that time. Otherwise, I'm afraid... at least I wouldn't have reached enlightenment so quickly.

"I am nothingness." With a silent thought, Chongyue's clenched fist instantly shot out. In a flash, the heavens and the earth changed color.

...

(Damn it, I didn't even notice the sensitive word (beastiality) when I was writing this... you've really got me, Prickly Cat)

...

Sui Regulator.

"Did Big Brother write to the Master again?" Wang, who had gradually become second only to Hong Yu in the Sui Regulator, received a letter from Chongyue.

During these hundred years, Hong Yu had claimed to the public that he was old and was gradually handing over power to Wang, a move that everyone had witnessed. At first, many people were opposed.

The Sui Regulator was originally an institution established to supervise the fragments of "Sui." Although during these hundred years, the Sui Regulator had also gradually become an indispensable department in Yan, often handling matters for the Ministry of War and the Ministry of Justice, its essential task was still monitoring.

However, when the old emperor passed away and the new emperor took the throne and conducted a major cleanup of the palace, these voices mysteriously disappeared.

"Jie, where is the Master?" Wang asked Jie, who occasionally came to help him with his paperwork.

"Sister Ling got drunk and rode an Originium slug off to who-knows-where. The Master went to find her," Jie said, speechless.

"How have I gotten used to this..." Wang said with a look of helplessness. "Forget it, let's talk about it when the Master gets back."

————————————————

"Hey! Do you guys think the poems Grandmaster recites are his own or did he learn them from somewhere? I've never seen the line 'I wish to buy osmanthus flowers and share a boat of wine, but it is no longer like my youth' that I heard him recite in any ancient texts."

"It must be something the Grandmaster wrote himself, right? Or his teacher, the first Prefect?"

"Hah, it must be something the Grandmaster wrote himself! I bet five Lungmen Dollars!"

"Tch! So cheap. I bet ten Lungmen Dollars! It was written by the first Prefect!"

"What if neither of them wrote it?" someone interjected.

"How is that possible?! Such a poetic and picturesque line, if it wasn't written by the Grandmaster or the Prefect, how could I have never seen it in any books?!"

-----------------

MyPatreon : patreon.com/TrueAngel?

Check Collections

Now : (ZAW)System Acting Zhongli in arknights World? (Now Chapter 58)

Now : (INSL) I Never thought simulating life could screw me up this badly!! (Now Chapter 66)

Now : (POA) Prince of Angels in Arknights (Now Chapter 46)

Now : (RBT) Reincarnated as a Blood Demon on Terra? I've Hit the Jackpot! (Now Chapter 74)

Now : (VIA) Viego in Arknights (ฺNow Chapter 74)

Now : (ADE) Arknights Die Early (Now Chapter 30)

--------

Coming soon : (ZAW)Texas Character Relationship Content (4 Chapter) (Now Chapter 1)

Coming soon : (ZAW)Exusia Character Relationship Content (4 Chapter)

Coming soon : (ZAW)Lapland Character Relationship Content (4 Chapter) (Now Chapter 1)