Chapter 132: Singularity of Absurdity |
As the entire Federation fell into deathly silence, the omnipresent, indescribable figures that had filled people's vision vanished one by one.
In the end, only one remained suspended in the air above the Federation's city of Antinomia, overlooking the entire urban expanse from midair.
This was his true body.
Soon, he gradually withdrew from that state of being unobservable, incomprehensible, and unrememberable that he had been in moments earlier, slowly transforming into a man in a double-breasted suit.
He had brown hair and black eyes, with a face that wasn't exactly young but appeared to be around thirty years old.
However, because he was clean-shaven, had few wrinkles on his face, and his hair—though messy—was of good quality, he didn't come across as a middle-aged man.
The battlefield of carnage, the boiling harbor, the chaotic streets—now there was only the crackling sound of flames licking at the wreckage and the unconscious, intermittent moans of the wounded.
The man stood high in the air without uttering a word.
War...
At that moment, streams of information that the human brain couldn't comprehend appeared behind him.
They were massive flows of data that human senses couldn't directly receive—vast, complex, and numerous.
This information quickly coalesced, forming a middle-aged man in a white lab coat.
It was Mr. Greed.
After appearing, Mr. Greed also floated in midair. But instead of looking down at the city below, he gazed at his colleague before him, one hand tucked into his lab coat pocket while the other rubbed his head, which had been losing a bit of hair lately.
"You're here, Wrath," he greeted.
Mr. Wrath. That was his companion, one of the colleagues who hadn't attended Mr. Pride's coronation a few days ago.
"Your reaction was too fast. You could have waited a bit longer..." he said in a somewhat lazy tone.
But before he could finish, Mr. Wrath cut him off.
Mr. Wrath didn't turn around, only asking in a voice utterly devoid of inflection:
"You gave my blood to them?"
"Who? Oh, you mean them," Mr. Greed glanced down. "Well, sort of."
Actually, it wasn't quite the same, but if he were to go into the details, it would take forever, so he simply simplified things.
After all, the end result was more or less the same.
However, the very next second after he gave his confirmation, his head suddenly exploded.
The explosion was substantial, also destroying a large portion of his body along with it.
Then came the flames, mingling with the rising and falling fire.
The flames were just like those burning the people in the city below.
Except this time, Mr. Wrath apparently had no intention of holding back. In an extremely short time, these flames incinerated Mr. Greed into ashes.
But soon, a massive amount of information appeared once more.
A second Mr. Greed emerged behind Wrath.
"You're still so passionate," Mr. Greed straightened his lab coat. "No need to be so angry. It was just a small experiment—it won't escalate into a real war."
Clearly, he understood why his colleague was enraged.
But unfortunately, Wrath, who was obviously not in a good mood, had no interest in hearing his explanations.
He wanted to "vent" right now.
Wrath slowly raised his head, fixing his gaze on Mr. Greed behind him, looking at this middle-aged man in a white lab coat.
Yet his gaze seemed to pass through Greed, searching for something else.
Greed sensed something, finally pulling his other hand out of his pocket, raising both hands in a gesture of surrender.
"Alright, alright, I'll stop."
He tried to make peace with Pride.
Tsk, can peace be made?
1. No.
2. Refuse.
3. Right now? Are you joking?
Peacemaking failed.
A few seconds later, Mr. Greed's body, composed of various information streams, began to flicker frequently like a TV screen with a poor connection, constantly showing blocks of different colors.
As the flickering continued, faint sounds of experimental equipment exploding one after another could be heard coming from within this body of dense information.
Mr. Greed's expression still showed little change. He raised his hands slightly, his tone lazy.
"Those equipment weren't bought by me, and I already transferred all the experimental data away." The seemingly signal-troubled Greed kindly reminded him. "It won't be me who's upset, but I'm worried that 'Sloth' will come looking for a fight with you later."
He paused, then added.
"However... if this can make you feel a bit better, I don't mind."
"A few days ago, 'Pride' was crowned. You didn't come. I just thought I'd share the good news and catch up," Greed said.
Wrath didn't want to be distracted.
"You used my power to start a war?"
He stared straight at Greed.
Greed looked down at the city below.
"In the end, I just gave them power. What they do with it doesn't really concern me."
"This war already had its seeds. I just sped things up a little, gave them a push."
"Even without me, this war would have broken out sooner or later."
"A month from now? Half a year? A year? It was inevitable," Greed explained, stating the undeniable truth.
Soon, the explosion sounds ceased. Wrath, unable to find Greed's true body, withdrew his gaze and continued to look down at the Federation beneath him.
"Forget the catching up. Just say what you need to say—no beating around the bush," Wrath said with his head lowered.
He couldn't be bothered to trade verbal jabs with a researcher.
He couldn't outtalk Greed, and he didn't really want to kill him, so this debate could only end in a stalemate.
"Looks like you've calmed down," Greed lowered his hands that had been raised in surrender and put them back into his pockets.
"I just came to tell you that while you've been away, 'Conquest' has been getting more and more restless." Greed slowly drifted to Wrath's side, joining him in overlooking the city below.
It wasn't too bad—the war had lasted less than a minute before Mr. Wrath annihilated everyone, so the city hadn't suffered too much damage. It could be initially repaired in a few days, and within half a year, it would return to its pre-war state.
Wrath glanced sidelong at him, as if he found his words utterly idiotic.
If "Conquest" could behave himself, then he wouldn't be "Conquest."
Greed didn't mind Wrath's somewhat offensive look and continued:
"He found a Singularity of Absurdity and even made a move for it. Unfortunately, the injuries you gave him last time haven't healed yet, and he's not in good shape, so he couldn't snatch that Singularity."
Hearing the word "Singularity," Wrath finally shifted his attention from the city below to focus on Greed.
"Didn't his knight make a move?" Wrath asked.
"He did," Greed replied, "but he was stopped by 'Continuity.'"
For the first time, the expression on Wrath's face changed slightly.
"Stopped by 'Continuity'? Did he advance to Throne?"
"Seems like it." Greed nodded, waving his hand through the air.
A translucent light screen appeared between the two, showing the leader of the Sacred Law Knights, battle-worn but not looking disheveled.
"For someone to beat this knight into that state, it does seem like he advanced."
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