Chapter 100: Police

Ji'an was clearly not so optimistic. He fell silent for a long while, then heaved a deep sigh and said, "Let's hope so."

"Heh heh, don't worry. Who can stand in the way of this Joker's work?" The Joker's lips curled into a sinister arc. "I'll make that person taste every terror under heaven, and then die at my hands, toyed with and tormented!"

"Very well, as long as you're confident. It's just that I've failed too many times; my confidence has been worn down rather badly." Ji'an gave a bitter, helpless smile. After a pause, his expression turned serious. "But why do you set such store by that Hanyaluo? You even had me grant him that thing. Can that ant really be of any use to your plan?"

The Joker was taken aback. Casting a sidelong glance with his black-purple pupils, he swept his gaze around, then lowered his voice to barely a whisper and answered in Ji'an's ear, "He is—"

"Who?!" The Joker's voice cut off abruptly. Like a man facing a great enemy, he fixed his stare on an empty spot several yards away, his heavily painted face turning utterly ferocious.

"It's been a long while. Is this how you welcome an old friend?" Ripples spread through the air, and a figure materialized out of nowhere. The man wore a black suit and was quite powerfully built. His hair was cropped short and shot through with gray. On his weathered face, wrinkles cut like knife blades, and his dark-brown eyes held an extremely languid expression.

"Old friend? Yes, I suppose we can be called old friends." Though the Joker grinned easily, his eyes grew ever more wary—clearly afraid that this fellow had just glimpsed what was said.

"A hell-fiend? It's been a long time since I've seen such a strong and vigorous one." The policeman, however, remained perfectly at ease, save that his attention shifted to Ji'an. He narrowed his eyes and stared at Ji'an, and all his languor was gone in an instant. His gaze was a blade; his presence pressed down like a mountain.

"Oh?" Ji'an raised his head, yet deliberately did not meet the policeman's eyes. "If I'm not mistaken, what stands before me now is only your projection. Your true body isn't here—is it in the Upper Three Heavens? And you mean to fight me with nothing more than a projection?"

"So what if I do?" The policeman did not yield an inch. He looked down at Ji'an from on high, radiating limitless arrogance. "It's true that this is only a projection, but do you really think this projection of mine can't touch you? What a foolish fiend you are."

"Is that so?" Ji'an leveled his sword at the policeman. "Care to bet that I can destroy this projection of yours right now?"

"That depends on whether you have the skill!"

In the space of a breath, the two were at daggers drawn. The mysterious policeman and Ji'an stood on the very precipice of battle.

"Heh heh heh—Policeman, are you pretending I don't exist?" Just as the two seemed about to erupt into an all-out clash, a sharp, lewd laugh cut in, scattering the momentum that had been building between them. The Joker swaggered over to stand between them and pressed down the sword in Ji'an's hand. "Policeman, you'd better think this through. It wasn't easy for you to send this projection down here."

"What? You dare threaten me?" The policeman raised an eyebrow and laughed in fury. "The two of you?"

"One of me is enough!" Ji'an stepped forward, glaring furiously.

"Heh heh heh, don't be so hasty!" The Joker produced four playing cards from who knows where. With a light flick of his wrist, the four cards were already in front of the policeman. "A pair you don't fear—but what about a bomb?"

"A paltry trick." The policeman sneered with contempt. Flicking his hand, he caught the four cards the Joker had thrown and pinched them between his fingers. What met his eyes were four aces of spades. The dense, intricate black patterns looked like a web of demonic runes, eerie and mysterious.

To Ji'an's surprise, after receiving the four cards, the policeman fell into a strange silence, as if those four cards represented some mysterious and tremendous power.

"You can actually produce four aces of spades today?" The policeman stared at the Joker, seemingly unable to believe that the Joker held so many chips in his hand.

"What? You don't believe I've got four aces of spades?"

"Words alone prove nothing."

"Hahaha! Come, come! Come and meet your new friends, all of you!" The Joker snapped his fingers. His lewd demeanor vanished without a trace, and he now resembled a dark sovereign who commanded everything—gazing down upon all creation, suppressing all things beneath him.

Around the giant sinkhole, the skies abruptly shifted. Flames filled the heavens, and magma rolled in waves.

Molten rock burst through the earth, and towering flames shot into the sky. Even the light of the heavens was muted beneath the conflagration, as if at this moment the flames alone were the entire world. Then a colossal demonic silhouette broke through a rift in the ground. Fire from the depths of the earth surged out to welcome its arrival, igniting the mane along its back and dragging out a long trailing ribbon of flame. Black smoke writhed in the air, evoking a dreadful sense of impending apocalypse. If Luo Hanya were here, he would surely have cried out in shock—this demonic figure was almost identical to the fire fiend he had encountered before, save that it bore no madness and held no weapon in its hands.

"Little Spark? So it's you. No, wait—now I should call you Flame Demon Ancestor, shouldn't I? Tsk tsk, the Little Spark of bygone days has grown into an Ancestor." The policeman was utterly unafraid, mocking the Flame Demon Ancestor with a torrent of derision.

"Policeman, you're still as arrogant as ever." An icy, sinister voice came from behind the policeman's head, like a ghost crouching at his ear.

In that instant, the sky shifted again. Bone-piercing cold rain lashed down. A shadow hid within the rain—soundless, formless, thoughtless. It had seemed to lurk behind the policeman, yet it felt more like it was everywhere at once. Like the most terrifying of assassins, wherever it appeared, none dared make a move.

The policeman narrowed his eyes once more. Though he tried his utmost to conceal it, his expression had changed. Still, he remained composed, like a crafty old fox. He answered in a cold voice, "Today I concede that you've bested me by one measure. But in the future, you'd best not leave a single opening for me to seize, or you're dead!"

"Then I'll be waiting for you to send me to my death. Speaking of which—having lived this long, I'm rather tired of it all!" The Joker split his greasy, blood-red painted lips in a soundless laugh. He laughed hysterically, laughed with a perverse, maddened glee, yet not a single sound escaped. The silence was terrifying—silence louder than any sound.

"If you want to die, go kill yourself! I'd relish the peace and quiet." The policeman sneered coldly.

"Without an old friend like you to keep me company, dying alone would be so dull." The Joker clapped his white-gloved hands, and a tarot card materialized out of thin air. "How about we die like this?"

On the tarot card was painted a great cross, radiating sacred light. Bound to the cross were two figures drenched in blood—one a demon, the other an angel.

"How about this instead?" The policeman took the tarot card and ran his fingers over it with interest.

The tarot card's style transformed utterly. The cross, once full of holy radiance, turned dim, with spots of bloodstain clinging to it. Beneath the cross were two skeletons in different poses: one stood tall, gleaming with holy light, like a proud victor; the other lay prostrate on the ground, its bones riddled with cracks, like a penitent loser.

"Interesting." The Joker chuckled. He did not take the card back, simply letting it float in midair.

"I hope you live long enough to see the day of judgment." The policeman shot the Joker a look laden with meaning, then vanished without a sound.

"And you'd best survive the apocalypse as well." The Joker stood where he was, gazing into the distance in the direction the policeman had gone, murmuring to himself.