Chapter 393: Accidents Always Come Uninvited |
The child inside Turadin's belly was still draining vitality. Like a bottomless pit, it greedily sucked down the "milk" of survival, seemingly insatiable no matter how much it consumed.
The delivery was taking far too long — far longer than Cheng Shi had anticipated.
He'd originally thought he should actively manage the timing, ideally arranging for the monstrosity inside Turadin's belly to be born just seconds before the trial ended.
That way, when time ran out, they could settle their scores risk-free.
But now, it was clear he'd been over-optimistic.
He was terrified that the trial would end before this little monster was even born. So he turned stiffly toward Zhang Jizu, hoping Squinty Eyes had a solution.
Zhang Jizu was stunned too — first by how long the child's vitality drain was taking, and second by the sheer volume of vitality Cheng Shi was producing.
This total amount of vitality had clearly exceeded any player's comprehension.
He saw the plea in Cheng Shi's eyes and responded through narrowed lids:
He drew a scalpel and traced a gentle line across the skin. Yet once again — nothing.
The belly felt soft and elastic to the touch, but it was utterly impervious to blades. No matter what Zhang Jizu tried — even burning it with a gasoline-soaked cotton swab — the skin showed zero change.
Cheng Shi frowned and pressed a hand over his ring.
Was it possible that conventional methods simply couldn't breach this belly's defenses? That only brute divine force could deliver the child?
But there was still time before the trial ended. He feared that blasting the baby out prematurely might trigger another catastrophe. So he could only wait — for a more opportune moment.
Yet in their exhaustion and razor-wire tension, the two of them overlooked something critical: history's script didn't revolve around them alone.
While they were meticulously counting down seconds to the ideal birth window, Berios — who had spent the entire day scouring the Church basement and finding no one — grew thunderously dark.
In the chamber where the false-god followers had been quartered, he found only a single corpse. Gou Feng, who should have been there liaising with the Church, had also vanished. The moment Dolgod's supreme ruler realized he'd likely been played, he rushed to the underground lake to confirm Go Lis's condition.
He'd assumed that without today's treatment, Go Lis would simply be less energetic than usual. What he hadn't expected was that upon descending, the normally listless Go Lis had gone...
completely berserk!
She thrashed her massive tentacles in a frenzy, churning the lake, shaking the ground itself. Something had clearly agitated her to the point where her entire body trembled and convulsed, as if only this violent struggle could banish her "pain."
The Head of Church saw his beloved reduced to this state and instantly understood: he'd been deceived. Worse — before departing, these fear-harvesting false-god followers had even tampered with Go Lis!
'Bold!'
'How dare you toy with the Church on Dolgod's own soil? How dare you desecrate Dolgod's guardian "deity"!'
The sight of Go Lis in agony pierced the Head of Church's heart and ignited his fury. He slammed his staff into the ground, glacial light blazing in his eyes.
But misfortune never comes alone. At that precise moment, an even more livid Lis Field stormed in like a gale, and the instant he saw Go Lis in this state, his eyes nearly split with rage:
"Those mongrels' goal was never some damned 'fear'!
My men tell me huge disturbances have been coming from the Brotherhood's safehouse! They were searching for that so-called false-god Holy Infant all along!
They played us, Berios! You'd better tell me Go Lis hasn't been harmed, or else—"
"Or else what? Fool!"
The Head of Church's voice was frigid. Perhaps "fool" wasn't aimed at Big Beard alone — possibly at himself as well. After all, the decision to deal had been mutual, and he bitterly regretted how easily he'd trusted false-god followers.
But regret served no purpose. These followers were clearly nothing like previous small-time intruders. They were audacious beyond measure, daring to toy with Dolgod's supreme leader right under the Theocracy of Growth's nose.
Berios was a man of composure, but that didn't mean his tolerance was limitless.
And so, consumed by rage, he left Big Beard behind, gripped his staff, and climbed once more to the top of the Church tower.
Lis Field guessed his intent and grew even more furious:
"You'd use Go Lis again?! You'd plunge her back into confusion for the sake of your own anger!
Berios, is this what you call loving her?!
Stop! I'll go! Let me kill them. I'll bring their heads back to the lake — they'll pay for this blasphemy!"
Berios cast an icy glance at Lis Field.
"Those who blaspheme a 'god' must be punished by 'divine' judgment.
They didn't deceive me. They deceived Go Lis. They desecrated her hope and her future.
I will not allow Go Lis to be humiliated or harmed. So they must die beneath a God Descent.
I told you — you don't understand Go Lis. Brute force... is useless."
With that, Berios ignored the red-eyed Big Beard. He raised his staff high and pressed it against the god statue atop the tower. The belly-touching idol blazed with radiance once more as a blinding sun descended upon the Church tower at dusk.
As the light grew ever fiercer, the flagging Go Lis in the underground lake suddenly seemed activated by some hidden art. A single tentacle shot upright, surging through the tower's internal conduits, blasting through the tower's crown, and reappearing in the citizens of Dolgod's line of sight.
When Berios aimed his staff at the Brotherhood's safehouse, the colossal tentacle continued stretching skyward without limit. Then, with a thunderous crash, it hammered down and obliterated the entire district surrounding the safehouse into dust!
Cheng Shi never would have imagined that Zhang Jizu's contingency plan wouldn't be needed against the newborn child — but against Berios's wrath.
Scorpio, hiding near the safehouse, was the first to sense the apocalyptic aura. He flinched in alarm and immediately tried to warn Cheng Shi's group — but he was a step too late. He could only watch helplessly as the titanic tentacle screamed past his body, splitting wind and cracking thunder as it pulverized everything beneath his feet.
The two men, still channeling vitality into the child, had barely registered the incoming danger before disaster was upon them.
Cheng Shi, thanks to his Vitality authority, didn't die instantly. Instead, he was buried under tons of sand and debris, driven deep into the ruins — his entire being pummeled into a daze.
Zhang Jizu was flattened into a human pancake. But the totem array on the ground instantly resurrected him at the surface. He was caught in the blast-wave's storm, tumbling twice through midair before landing steadily on his feet. Without wasting a single second, he pulled a robe from his storage to cover his bare body.
As for the third person in that underground cell...
Gao Ya... yes, the third person was Gao Ya.
Zhang Jizu had been parasitizing Gao Ya's body, suppressing her consciousness. But when both of them died simultaneously, the array resurrected Gao Ya as well!
She materialized somewhere outside the ruins, just like Squinty Eyes. The instant she revived, her face was deathly pale and full of dread.
She didn't flee first. She didn't scan for external threats. Instead, she immediately looked down at herself — checking her body's condition.
Only upon confirming she was still female did the deep furrow in her brow ease slightly. She exhaled heavily, then wrapped her shapely figure in a piece of torn fabric.
Finding no teammates nearby, she frowned in thought for a moment. From her storage space she produced a rust-covered thumbtack and quietly pressed it into the ground at her feet.
After completing this, she turned and ran.
The trial was nearly over. Whether Cheng Shi won or not, her priority was to distance herself from the epicenter, preserve herself, and make it back alive.
She had more important things to do!
Cheng Shi buried underground, Zhang Jizu steadily observing, Gao Ya withdrawing — Berios's fury had rained down upon the players' heads, yet hadn't killed a single one.
But the ruins contained more than just three people.
There was also... an unborn child!
Turadin's child!
In truth, just moments ago, Cheng Shi had sensed the trial's end approaching. He was ready to attempt a "cesarean" using Thundering Judgment.
But Berios's God Descent had beaten him to it, seizing the surgeon's scalpel.
The method differed, but the result was the same — different routes, same destination.
Under the colossal external force, the child — now gorged on vitality — was finally born!
But its birth came not from its mother's body. Its mother's corpse had been blasted to powder, and the instant the belly separated from the host, the child finally escaped the flesh prison that had trapped it and burst free.
Yet the moment it entered this world — before it could even open its eyes to take in reality — the devastating force of God Descent seized it and slammed it underground.
This world seemed to greet its arrival with a horrifying act of annihilation.
More ironic still: even in death, the one who ground Turadin's corpse to dust was none other than her "lofty" "father" and her "mother" who had become a mass of slime and flesh.
The only "person" their fury managed to kill was Turadin's already-dead corpse.
...