Hell's Handbook

Chapter 186: The Long River Of Time

Once Su Jin got back to the carriage where the rest of his team was, he explained what the Mad Hatter wanted to do to them. Everyone had shocked looks on their faces. If the Mad Hatter weren’t sitting right in front of them to confirm this, they would have thought that Su Jin had gone completely insane.

“Well, that’s the situation now. I don’t have a choice, but I wanted to hear from you guys. If you don’t agree, I don’t mind fighting this fellow.” Su Jin was still annoyed by how he had been forced into a corner and was determined to teach the Mad Hatter a lesson.

The Mad Hatter didn’t get angry and just smiled at the rest of the team.

“Jin, regardless of what you choose, I will support you,” said Kano Mai first.

“If we help him, we might die. If we don’t help him, we’d die immediately. I can’t find a reason not to help him,” said Situ Jin calmly.

“So, we don’t get a choice at all, right? Seriously though, I don’t care if you want to find an accomplice, but you don’t have to force someone into it!” Wu Chen was beginning to wonder if he had made a mistake in choosing to join Team Boning Knife. This team seemed to be excellent at dying in a particularly fancy manner.

The Mad Hatter pointed at Su Jin and smiled. “Don’t worry. I just need him to do the work. The rest of you are safe.”

Su Jin sighed and said, “Actually, aren’t you a god? What could you possibly be incapable of doing yourself?”

“I might be a god, but I’m only an elder god and I am still constrained by the Handbook. For example, for as long as I’m on this train, I have to follow most of its rules and I can’t even move around freely. I had to make use of the owner’s free time that’s part of the Challenge’s design to talk to you,” said the Mad Hatter.

“Fine. What do you want me to do?” asked Su Jin as he sighed again.

The Mad Hatter took a round wooden ball out from his hat.

“This is a Spirit Power bomb made by Pinocchio. I need you to go outside the train and break the link between the front of the train and the rest of the carriages with the bomb.” The Mad Hatter held the bomb in front of Su Jin.

“This was made by Pinocchio?” Everyone had a look of surprise as they stared at the bomb.

“Pinocchio is the best scientist in the World of Fairytales, and he might even be the best in the Handbook’s universe.” The Mad Hatter sounded very proud of his companion.

“Good heavens. A scientist in the World of Fairytales? That doesn’t sound particularly scientific to me,” grumbled Wu Chen.

“Why not? The World of Fairytales has plenty of scientific equipment.” The Mad Hatter then turned to Su Jin and said, “You need two types of Spirit Power to detonate this bomb, so you’re definitely the best candidate for this.”

“Wow, thanks for the honor,” said Su Jin sarcastically.

“Haha! Also, just a reminder, run as fast as you can once you’ve detonated it. This thing is pretty powerful and even ordinary deities have trouble holding up.” The Mad Hatter patted Su Jin’s shoulders.

Su Jin took a deep breath. This was definitely a suicide mission now.

“Do you have more of these bombs? Give me another two,” said Su Jin.

The Mad Hatter asked puzzledly, “Why do you want so many of them?”

“Have you bombed this train before?” asked Su Jin.

The Mad Hatter shook his head. Su Jin said, “Then how do you know one bomb is enough to separate the front from the carriages? If it isn’t enough to do that, I’ll have to come back here and get another one from you and do it again. To save us the trouble, you could just give me however many you have.”

The Mad Hatter snickered as he looked at Su Jin with an expression that seemed to say, “I know what you’re thinking about.” Su Jin glared back with an expression that seemed to say, “And so what if you know? That’s exactly what I mean to do.”

The Mad Hatter proceeded to take out three more bombs from his hat.

Su Jin took the three bombs and kept them inside his Handbook without hesitation, then said with an emboldened look on his face, “We’re on! How are you going to send me out?”

The Mad Hatter got up, walked to a window and pulled the window open.

“Bon voyage!” The Mad Hatter bowed politely.

Su Jin was now very sure that he had walked straight into another of the Mad Hatter’s traps. This fellow was clearly making use of him but there was nothing he could do about it at all.

“I’ll leave Mai’s case to you!” said Su Jin as he glared at the Mad Hatter. He could only hope that this fellow could at least keep to that promise and resolve Kano Mai’s soul power issue.

The Mad Hatter waved Su Jin toward the window impatiently, so Su Jin had no choice but to hop out of the train through the window. Immediately after he hopped out, the Mad Hatter let go and the train carriage’s window came rolling down again.

“Why did you shut the window? If Jin runs into trouble, he won’t be able to come back!” Kano Mai became anxious and tried to push the window back open again, but no matter how hard she tried, the window wouldn’t even budge by even one millimeter.

“I’ll do this!” Wu Chen ran over and swallowed a blue pill. His muscles suddenly swelled up and he quickly grabbed hold of the window handle and tried to push the window open. His face fell almost immediately. Just like Kano Mai, the window absolutely refused to budge no matter how hard he tried.

A minute later, the size of his muscles went back to normal. He panted heavily and said, “What…what sort of window is this? My physical strength went up by ten times just now and I still couldn’t move it at all!”

The Mad Hatter shook his head expressionlessly and showed them his hands. Everyone’s eyes widened because they saw that his hands looked like they had been severely burned, as though he had been holding on to a red hot iron rod and not a window.

“Where do you think you are right now? We’re in the Train of the Supernatural, so these windows don’t actually really exist in a way. I was only able to open up a passageway because I have godly powers. But even so, that took a lot of effort and I can’t hold it up for long either,” said the Mad Hatter honestly. He didn’t care if the rest of them got angry with his response.

The three of them were angry, but the Mad Hatter was a god and they couldn’t fight him. The Mad Hatter said, “The free time you have is about to come to an end. Since I promised Su Jin that I’d guarantee your safety, I’ll keep my end of the bargain. Come with me.” He turned and started walking.

They exchanged doubtful glances. Based on what they saw of the Mad Hatter so far, they didn’t think this god was trustworthy. But Su Jin told them that the Mad Hatter would guarantee their safety. In the end, they had no choice but to follow the Mad Hatter.

Meanwhile, outside the Train of the Supernatural, Su Jin was sitting in shock on the roof of the train carriage. His eyes were wide as he stared at the scenery outside the train. Instead of the train tracks and scenery he expected, he realized he was in a colorful and brightly lit tunnel instead.

The colorful lights moved backwards as the train moved forwards and looked like shooting stars flying past. The beauty and brilliance of the lights mesmerized him.

He quickly snapped out of his daze. The scenery was beautiful, but he had a mission to complete. He observed his surroundings for a while, then started moving slowly along the train.

Immediately after he took his first step out, countless shooting stars flashed by him. The shooting stars contained many faces, including men, women, the elderly, children, and some other odd looking creatures.

Each one had their own story to tell. Some of their stories were sad, some were legendary, some were filled with kindness, and some were filled with wickedness. All of it surged into Su Jin’s mind the moment he took a step, as though he had gone through their lives personally.

“AH!” Su Jin clutched his head in pain. Reading one book was an experience in itself, but reading someone’s entire life could be difficult. And now, he was reading thousands of lives with every step.

Someone once said that time passed differently for immortals compared to humans. One day in heaven was one year on earth. But on the roof of the Train of the Supernatural, each step he took was a century or even a millennia. Time passed scarily fast.

“Why am I seeing all this?” Su Jin wailed as he clutched his head tightly. After a while, he finally felt a little better, thanks to the fact that his Spirit Power was psychokinesis. After honing it for some time, his mental resilience had become a lot stronger, so he did not immediately go through a mental breakdown.

He took another step out and similar scenes appeared in his head again, but they were different faces now. Their life stories surged into his mind again.

“AHH!” He let out another cry of pain. His eyes trembled, and his pupils were beginning to constrict. He finally realized that this train was no ordinary train. He was walking through the long river of time and watching everything go by from the sidelines. If he remained inside the train, he could be protected from all this. But once he went out of the train, he had to walk through this river alone.

“Is this why he wanted me to do this? I think only owners with psychokinesis can endure this.” Su Jin now understood why the Mad Hatter insisted on him. Only an owner with Psychokinetic Spirit Power could possibly withstand the terrifying weight of this river. Any other person would have gone mad and suffered a mental breakdown after taking the first step and being forced to go through the lives of thousands of people at once.

Even so, it was still tough for Su Jin. He needed a long time to recover with each step he took, otherwise his mind would be on the verge of collapse. At one point, Su Jin thought of Xu Ran. Would his psychokinesis be powerful enough for him to walk normally in this place?

Then again, Xu Ran was just too powerful. He was so powerful that Su Jin felt that he might be able to fight even a deity like the Mad Hatter. That was why the Mad Hatter wouldn’t be able to use the same methods to force Xu Ran into doing his bidding.

“Being weak is really a sin!” sighed Su Jin. If he were strong enough, Chu Yi wouldn’t have died and he wouldn’t have been forced by the Mad Hatter to embark on this mission that might very well kill him.

A long time had passed, but Su Jin felt that probably very little time had passed inside the train. Time passed differently for him and his team mates inside, just like how time passed differently inside and outside the Handbook.

Su Jin only felt that he had gotten a lot weaker. The beard on his chin was unbelievably long and his eyes were cloudy and no longer as clear as before. But his footsteps had picked up speed. Those life stories were still flowing through his head, but they merely made him frown and nothing more.