Chapter 55: The Disappearing Bullet

Klein sat on the edge of the bed, feeling the Beyonder powers he now commanded. The stat bonus provided by the Light Cone had actually been brought over, though regrettably, the blessings did not cross over with it.

He then looked down at his clothes. His attire had reverted to his original black trench coat. Reaching out with his empty left hand, he made a grabbing motion in the air, and a monocle materialized in his grasp.

Approaching the full-length mirror in the room, he mobilized his spirituality, visualizing the donning of the relic set. The next second, fabric accompanied by purple phlogiston flames spread out of thin air from his shoulders, knees, elbows, and other joints, enveloping his body to form the "Scholar Lost in the Sea of Consciousness" set. Once the relic was fully formed, the flames gathered at his left breast, resembling a blooming, vibrant purple flower.

Klein placed the monocle over his left eye, his mind stirring slightly as a cluster of purple phlogiston flames ignited, enveloping his entire head except for the area covered by the monocle, concealing his facial features from any outside observer.

Klein touched his face; his hand passed effortlessly through the flames. The flames burning on his face had neither temperature nor tactile sensation, and they did not obstruct his vision in the slightest.

Had he not been looking in the mirror, Klein might have even forgotten about the flames dancing around his head.

For some reason, he felt as though something was missing.

After a moment of thought, he dismissed the flames around his head, opened the wooden wardrobe, took something from the shelf, and clapped it onto his head. Adjusting his collar, he turned back to face the mirror.

He looked at his reflection: dressed in a white shirt, purple vest, mallow-purple coat, black trousers, and purple suede boots, wearing a right-hand exoskeleton, a monocle over his left eye, and a dome-shaped, semi-high silk top hat. Klein smiled with satisfaction.

Ah, that hit the spot.

He spun around, thinking to himself that it would be even better if the coat tails were longer, turning it into a tailcoat. Right now, he looked somewhat like an extravagantly dressed waiter from a high-end restaurant.

With a thought, the hem slowly lengthened, transforming the coat into a tailcoat. Klein raised an eyebrow and drew a conclusion.

As expected, it was a matter of temperament, having little to do with the clothes themselves.

Still, he felt this version looked a bit better, so he decided to retain the current state of the outfit.

Next, he allowed the phlogiston flames to envelop his head once more. Looking in the mirror, he felt he resembled Ghost Rider, a character from a movie he had watched previously. It was a pity his head wasn't a skull; otherwise, the resemblance would have been even stronger.

Klein reached out to check his pockets, but the items previously stored in his trench coat's pockets were all gone. Pulling his collar back slightly, he found that his original garments had completely vanished rather than merely being covered up.

Trying to reach forward with a grabbing motion, an underarm holster containing a revolver materialized in his hand. However, when Klein tried to make it disappear again, he found he could no longer do so.

What a pity, Klein had thought he had acquired one of those spatial treasures commonly found in novels.

He visualized putting the relic away while simultaneously mobilizing his spirituality.

The phlogiston flames on his chest instantly spread across his entire body. Including the monocle and the exoskeleton, every piece of clothing from head to toe—save for the top hat on his head—was consumed by the flames like burning paper, reduced to ash bit by bit. Yet, instead of revealing Klein's bare skin, the transformation unveiled his original clothing.

The ashes drifted away with the breeze, dissolving into the air without leaving a single trace.

***

Wow, both the transformation and the detransformation were remarkably cool. As the saying goes, a man remains a boy until the day he dies; Klein tried it back and forth several times, admiring his gorgeous transformation in front of the mirror over and over again.

Finally, Klein deactivated the transformation and dropped heavily onto the edge of the bed, excited like a child.

Pulling back the curtains to let the sunlight flood in, he smiled and took out the items from his trench coat pockets, intending to organize them properly.

Revolver, bullets, charms, Eye of Thunder...

Klein's hand suddenly paused.

Where was that blue bullet?

Klein searched up and down through every pocket on his person and rummaged across the bed.

Where was that blue bullet?

Klein walked over to the desk, sat down, and took out paper and pen to write.

"The whereabouts of my blue bullet." He did not know the name of the blue bullet, but that did not matter as long as there was a precise target for divination.

He closed his eyes, using meditation to enter a dream state for dream divination.

His consciousness sank as imagery emerged before his eyes.

In a vast, open arena, he held his revolver and aimed forward at a helpless Voidranger bound by ice and golden chains.

He fired the bullet.

Klein snapped out of the dream divination, finding the result of his own divination rather incredible.

Refusing to believe it, he walked against the current for four steps to arrive above the grey fog and attempted the divination once more.

The conclusion drawn was identical to the previous one.

He was the one who had fired it.

Where that bullet had gone after the shot, however, he could not divine. Perhaps the information was insufficient, or perhaps the bullet involved a high-sequence entity, rendering divination impossible.

Klein leaned toward the latter possibility. He felt that had he not witnessed the bullet being fired from the gun with his own eyes, he wouldn't even have been able to divine this fragment of a memory.

Withdrawing from the grey fog back to reality, Klein remained silent for a moment.

***

He opened the drawer to reveal the smartphone Cellreis had given him. Currently, it contained only four applications: a browser that couldn't connect to the internet, a game titled Honkai: Star Rail, a chat application resembling WeChat, and a phone dialer.

Klein tapped on the dialer application and clicked on the sole contact listed within.

...

In the tavern, inside Cellreis's room.

Cellreis picked up the ringing phone, looking at the display name: "Black Cat-Caterpillar in a Top Hat."

He tapped to answer and spoke directly before the other party could say a word: "Are the bullets missing?"

There was a moment of silence from the other end of the line: "So, why did firing it in a dream cause the one in reality to vanish as well?"

"Because that is the [Hunt]," Cellreis explained. "A bullet named 'Chronological Strike'—no matter when or where it is fired, it will ultimately transcend time and space, cross the boundary between falsehood and reality, and nail its prey to the cross of destiny."

Klein asked with some uncertainty: "So, when will it finally appear?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Right, I don't know. That depends on when you harbor sufficient hatred. If one day you come to loathe yourself to the very bone, it might just bullseye the center of your own forehead, you know," Cellreis added with a smile.

"Hiss," Klein drew a sharp breath. "Don't jinx it like that! Uh, you probably don't know what a jinx is..."

"No, I am well aware. I just want to see if this jinx comes true."

After a prolonged silence from the other end, Cellreis chuckled and said, "Is there anything else? If not, I'm hanging up."

"Goodbye... Just hang up already," came Klein's voice from the other end, tinged with a faint sense of speechlessness and a hint of dark humor.

"Bye-bye." Cellreis hung up the phone.

*(Author's Note: The scene of Klein's transformation is extremely vivid in my mind, but I just can't seem to write it out properly. I originally conceived it to be very cool, but when I look at it myself, it completely lacks that feeling...)*
*(Votes, I need votes!)*