Chapter 600: No—A Carnival of Void and Existence |
The Void. Again, the Void!
Cheng Shi was numb. He didn't feel like he'd dived into a dream so much as he'd embarked on a divine-audience marathon.
He'd been thinking just a moment ago that it had been ages since he'd seen his other Benefactor. And right on cue, there it was.
Only... the attitude was somewhat concerning.
His heart clenched. Standing ramrod straight beneath his Benefactor's gaze, he waited. When the entity made no move to speak, he opened with:
"Praise be to—"
He didn't even finish before those cold, star-like eyes cut him off.
"Why did a walker of the Void step into Chaos?"
A short question. It sent Cheng Shi's soul hurtling out of his body.
'Great—my cold sweats are getting more frequent.'
'Am I depleted or what?'
'Hmm? Void is technically a kind of "depletion," isn't it? Makes sense, actually.'
'!!!'
'Cheng Shi, now is NOT the time for random tangents! You need to figure out how to bluff—no, manage—no, RESPOND to your Benefactor!'
'It's watching you right now. Brain, SPIN!'
Cheng Shi's CPU went into overdrive. In that single frantic moment, he racked his brain for excuses. To find a good one, he replayed everything related to his Chaos fusion at breakneck speed.
The memories surfaced so rapidly he actually had a brief out-of-body moment, his train of thought veering momentarily toward a stray question: did he have the qualifications to become a Memory darling too?
But the nonsensical tangent dissolved immediately as another line surged into his mind.
He suddenly remembered Kataro's ambiguous final words before leaving the Chaos Temple:
"My lord, the advice I can offer you is: I don't know."
Cheng Shi had never figured out what that meant—until this very moment. Enlightenment struck like lightning. 'So that's what "I don't know" meant!'
His expression transformed instantly. The frightened "blasphemer" became a helpless victim—aggrieved and desolate:
"Benefactor... I... I don't know!"
He delivered the line with full conviction. But the uncertainty and panic at the corners of his eyes betrayed the hollowness of that conviction.
He wondered whether his Benefactor could see through him. But Fate—as the Void sovereign who perceived the universe's very essence—how could it not read Cheng Shi's thoughts?
It saw everything clearly.
Though all of this had been engineered as a trap by its sibling god, there was no question that Cheng Shi's greed had driven him willingly into it.
Therefore, his will had genuinely strayed from the Void for one brief moment. In the futures visible to Fate, its follower was not supposed to set foot in Chaos.
And now, change had once again overridden destiny. The ripples from Prosperity's self-destruction continued to spread. Fate's brows furrowed ever so slightly.
Yet it did not punish its follower. It simply returned to its default coldness—joy and sorrow absent—and spoke:
"Chaos seeks to prevent the essence from awakening. They themselves don't know what they're doing.
Walking the path of Chaos will only carry you further... and further from Fate."
"!!!"
At those words, Cheng Shi's knees buckled. He nearly collapsed into the Void.
This wasn't even a veiled warning. This was practically an open threat!
It didn't want him near Chaos.
'But! But the three Chaos talents are too good to give up...'
'If I'd never had them, fine—easy to let go. But they're already in my pocket. Asking me to dig them out and throw them away now... Sorry, that's not happening!'
Cheng Shi swallowed hard. He resolved to stand firm for the sake of the hard-earned gains in his pocket.
He threw every mental resource into constructing a clever argument. Before long, he drew a deep breath, fixed his gaze with determination, and spoke:
"Benefactor... I...
was wrong."
The Void's wind stopped dead—but the biting chill lingered.
Those star-like eyes ceased their twinkling. The spirals stilled. Fate watched Cheng Shi in silence—watching this follower who'd been over-influenced by its sibling—saying nothing.
It wasn't moved by Cheng Shi's earnest demeanor. It simply wanted to hear what else its follower would say.
This time, Cheng Shi chose not to resort to his silver-tongued sophistry. He felt the old "if destiny is destiny, then it should tolerate change" angle was getting stale. And reusing the same justification over and over would only irritate whoever was being conned. Even if, to the god, it technically counted as a devotional offering, surely offerings of sincerity needed to be refreshed now and then?
So this time, instead of playing the insincere devotee, he chose to be an honest confessor.
He was going for the heart-to-heart approach with Fate.
"Your devout follower—me—must admit that I am, at times, perhaps the tiniest bit greedy. But I didn't seek Chaos's attention. I was trying to profit from Chaos and Order's conflict.
Besides, the faith fusion had only just started. I assumed that since I'd already fused with Void, I couldn't fuse with other faiths—which is why I felt safe giving it a few responses with ulterior motives.
But I had no idea that wasn't a confrontation between it and Order at all—that it was actually playing the role of—"
And that was where he was silenced. Physically silenced.
Another gust of Void wind materialized from nowhere, blowing past his lips and ramming every word he was about to say right back down his throat.
Simultaneously, a pair of mischievous eyes snapped open directly above Cheng Shi's head. The instant they appeared, the entire Void was suffused with a sardonic, mocking aura.
"Let me seeee—who's the petty one threatening my follower?"
Hearing this, Cheng Shi wished he could bury his head in the deepest stratum of the Void. He stood trembling in place, not daring to make a sound.
The cold eyes flicked toward the mischievous ones. The gaze grew even icier: "It seems you really do want a fight."
"What's-your-name, stop being all bark and no bite. Do you actually have the time right now?"
The moment those words landed—
BOOM!!!
Cheng Shi went flying.
The shockwave from the Void civil war was nothing short of apocalyptic. The entire expanse of Void collapsed in an instant. Infinite Void energy erupted from the deepest reaches like a reawakened volcano, painting the already-black canvas even more thoroughly void.
Yet even as the horrifying power expanded at speeds beyond mortal comprehension—annihilating everything that existed within the Void—it didn't harm this poor mortal so much as a hair.
Cheng Shi simply felt a titanic force slam into him head-on, and then he was blasted away like a golf ball driven off a tee.
His body flew forward while his soul trailed behind, trying to catch up.
He didn't know how long he flew. When his awareness finally struggled back into his body, he found himself in a new region of Void—stable and silent—and was rocketing headfirst into the "ground."
BOOM—
The Clown had crash-landed.
When he sat up disheveled, he discovered that in this stretch of Void, another pair of eyes was staring at him with burning intensity.
Cheng Shi startled—then broke into a grin.
"Hey, Dragon King. We meet again. Did you get punched in here too?"
Indeed—those eyes belonged not to some god but to Li Jingming, standing atop the Void, devoutly awaiting his "Benefactor's" audience.
But Deceit had simply dropped him here and left. Then, a Cheng Shi fell out of the sky.
Cheng Shi was perceptive. He read the confusion in the Dragon King's eyes and, noting the man's reverent posture, instantly deduced that the audience hadn't begun yet.
His eyes swiveled. He cleared his throat:
"Ahem—by the way, the Benefactor asked me to relay a message."
Li Jingming had frowned the instant he saw Cheng Shi. Hearing this, his confusion deepened: "Fate?"
"Oh—your Benefactor. Deceit." Cheng Shi corrected himself without missing a beat. These little tricks were second nature to him. "Sometimes I talk too fast and trip over my words. Besides, the Void is one family—all love and harmony. Why differentiate?"
"?"
Li Jingming's eye twitched. He found the claim roughly 100% unbelievable. But there was nothing else to do here, so he nodded, gesturing for Cheng Shi to continue, curious to see what this Fate follower was up to now.
Cheng Shi rubbed his hands together, his expression turning mischievous:
"Come to think of it, I'm a little shocked too—I've never encountered this particular format before.
Dragon King, you might not believe this, but your Benefactor says the message is cash-on-delivery. So before you hear it...
Shouldn't you pay the shipping first?"
"..."
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