Chapter 465: Evil God Festival · Houseboat |
The mirror-like water-patterned walls on both sides reflected Tawil and Spades.
Countless threads on Tawil and Spades flew upward, pulled taut and extending into the depths of the universe. These threads diffused without limit, flowing through a distant door.
Behind the door sat fourteen-year-old Little Bai Liu in a chair, with Bai Six embracing him. The threads passed through the door directly beneath Bai Liu’s chair, tied to his wrists and ankles.
Heavy threads wrapped Bai Liu densely. Bai Six stroked these heavy threads resting on Bai Liu’s shoulders and said with a light laugh:
“The pain of the sacrifice and the attendant will ultimately be sacrificed to the God. The more the sacrifice and the attendant struggle, the more pain the God obtains.”
“Only the God is the most painful creation.”
“Don’t you agree?” Bai Six’s hand passed through the threads, brushing away a thread hanging over Bai Liu’s face, holding the side of his face tenderly while saying, “This appearance is truly pitiful, yet so perfect.”
“There is no heir more suitable than you.”
Bai Six lowered his eyes to look at Bai Liu’s pitch-black eyes, which held not a single glint of light, and curled his lips: “If you were the God, whom would you choose to be your beloved sacrifice?”
>[System Warning: Player Bai Liu’s mental value has dropped to zero; Berserk Panel initiated!]
*(T/N: I knew he was waiting for the berserk mode to activate! This all still hurt like hell though.)*
Bai Liu’s right hand gripped the threads and pulled them toward himself. Bai Six, also entangled by the threads, was jerked a step toward Bai Liu. Both of them stepped into the void simultaneously.
“As expected, I can’t deceive you.” Bai Six smiled at Bai Liu during the fall. “You are extremely sensitive to the love and pain you receive.”
“You are the most perfect mirror I have ever seen.”
Bai Six’s hand passed through the overflowing threads to touch Bai Liu’s pitch-black eyes, whispering as if in a trance: “I can clearly see the things I possess within your eyes.”
“The things I possess…”
As Bai Liu fell, his hair scattered upward. Strands of hair and transparent threads flew past the corners of his eyes. His eyes calmly reflected all things in the universe as he looked directly at Bai Six, yet they did not reflect Bai Six’s shadow. They only reflected a door shimmering with a silver-blue halo.
“It is merely a door without a key.”
Bai Six laughed. He snapped his fingers, and the [Door] appeared directly beneath them, opening for them. He and Bai Liu, entangled in threads, fell into the door.
“Bai Liu, where do you say the key to the door is?”
>[System Hint: Player Bai Liu has triggered a plot point; entering 《Evil God Festival · Act III》]
Fire rose everywhere, and screams continuously drifted out from the shrine shrouded in flames.
Inside the shrine.
In an instant, Bai Liu returned to the timeline of five years ago. He looked at the Bai Six opposite him, his eyes glowing with an eerie silver-blue light, and then he decisively swung a whip toward Bai Six’s face.
The whip struck, smashing directly into the pond beneath the shrine. It cracked the bottom of the pond, and the pond water flowed downward through the cracks, revealing a desolate pond bed.
In the center of the pond bed lay Tawil, his eyes covered by threads. His clothes were soaked through, and he was curled up on the bottom, coughing weakly, his right hand tightly clutching the coin Bai Liu had given him.
Bai Liu jumped into the pond bed without hesitation, about to run toward Tawil.
A black bone whip slammed down in front of Bai Liu, its bone spurs rotating outward. Bai Liu skipped backward nimbly to dodge and swung his own whip to block.
The whips became entangled. Bai Liu and Bai Six, with almost identical movements, gripped the handles and pulled the whips toward their respective directions.
Bai Liu looked up at Bai Six. Bai Six looked back at him with a half-smile: “Although I am indeed using a weak shell right now and you have forced yourself into a limit-break explosion, winning against me now won’t be that simple.”
Just as Bai Six finished speaking, Bai Liu decisively let go of the tugging whip. His right hand transformed into a monkey claw, his gaze calm as he lunged forward.
>[System Hint: Player Bai Liu is using player Mu Shicheng’s explosive skill (Thief’s Stealth) — Ultra-full speed stamina bar completely exhausted state]
In almost a blink of an eye, Bai Liu appeared in front of Bai Six. He swung his long arm, the sharp fingertips of the monkey claw striking fiercely at Bai Six’s throat. Bai Six quickly dodged to the side, but Bai Liu’s monkey claw grew an extra section out of thin air, hooking onto the Inverted-Cross pendant hanging around Bai Six’s neck and ripping it outward!
Bai Six’s eyebrows twitched. He quickly crouched to let the pendant fall back to his chest while simultaneously swinging his whip to entangle Bai Liu. The bone spurs flared out and pierced into Bai Liu’s wrist, attempting to throw him off.
Bai Liu flipped his wrist and followed through, the monkey claw going straight for Bai Six’s throat.
“Truly an excellent reaction.” Bai Six leaned back to retreat. He smilingly pointed to the Inverted-Cross pendant on his chest. “When did you guess that this body uses this pendant instead of a so-called wish to summon my descent?”
Bai Liu’s gaze was cold and sharp. He didn’t respond to Bai Six at all, raising his hand to attack Bai Six’s left side, his target clearly the Inverted-Cross pendant.
“Hmm, it seems you won’t say.” Bai Six laughed, asking reflectively with a thoughtful air, “Then I’ll just have to guess myself.”
“Is it because you discovered that the level of wishing here cannot reach the God level, and you, having once been a believer, successfully used the Inverted-Cross pendant as a token to summon Tawil in reality?”
“But unfortunately.” Bai Six’s gaze was idle as he struck out, grabbing Bai Liu’s monkey claw that was aimed at him. He laughed, “This pendant disappeared later because Spades completely destroyed Tawil.”
Bai Liu’s chest rose and fell slightly. His wrist, gripped by Bai Six, was covered in bloody holes from the bone spurs, and blood was now dripping down drop by drop.
Bai Six laughed: “With your current strength, if you want to snatch this Inverted-Cross from my hand, you’re still lacking a bit of luck.”
“But what a pity, your luck also seems to be…”
“Go to hell, Bai Six!!” A shrill, angry roar came from behind Bai Six. Simultaneously, a short blade pierced through Bai Six’s chest from behind.
The force of the blade’s thrust pushed Bai Six’s body slightly toward Bai Liu, and that slight movement was just enough for Bai Liu’s outstretched monkey claw to hook onto the Inverted-Cross pendant dangling from Bai Six’s heart.
Bai Liu seized the Inverted-Cross pendant and ripped it away. In the next second, the smile on Bai Six’s face deepened. He swung his whip backward to strike Kitahara Aoi, who had used all her strength to drive the short blade into him, and the long whip in his hand transformed into playing cards.
The cold edges of the cards slashed toward Bai Liu’s right wrist, which was clutching the Inverted-Cross pendant!
Bai Liu’s right hand fell off in response to the sound, blood gushing out.
Aoi was sent flying by the whip, crashing into a pillar before falling. She knelt on the ground, spitting out a mouthful of dark blood.
>[System Hint: Player Bai Liu has switched to player Liu Jiayi’s system panel; using personal skill (Antidote) on himself]
Bai Liu directly threw an Antidote to interrupt Bai Six, who was reaching out to grab the falling Inverted-Cross pendant. The antidote bottle flipped and spilled in the air, falling onto Bai Liu’s severed right hand. Bai Liu’s right hand grew back instantly, and immediately after, he swung his whip to strike the antidote bottle, shattering it.
The hand with which Bai Six was about to grab the Inverted-Cross pendant was knocked aside by the vibration of Bai Liu’s whip.
After the brief disconnection from the Inverted-Cross, Bai Six’s movements became noticeably sluggish, but he still reacted extremely quickly. With a speed almost invisible to the naked eye, he used his finger to hook back the Inverted-Cross pendant that had been vibrated away by Bai Liu.
The moment he gripped the Inverted-Cross pendant, Bai Six paused for a moment. He chuckled and tilted his head up, leveling his right hand and relaxing his grip.
—A coin-shaped pendant fell from his hand, swaying a few times like a pendulum.
Tawil, covered in wounds, coughed and opened his hand—inside was no longer a coin, but the Inverted-Cross pendant that had been on Bai Six.
>[System Warning: Player Bai Six’s token item for summoning the Evil God (Inverted-Cross Pendant) has disappeared; the Evil God is about to leave the game instance.]
“Truly interesting.” Bai Six’s body gradually became deathly white, just like a real corpse, but he continued to smile. He looked at Bai Liu with an interested gaze, as if watching a creature never seen before. “Extremely interesting.”
“In that moment just now, you seized the opportunity to cooperate with two other people to swap the Inverted-Cross in my hand.”
“You actually placed the key to victory on a completely uncertain stake, and you did it by helping the opponent so that the opponent would help you.”
Bai Six looked at Aoi, who was slumped in the corner: “—Just like in the last match.”
He curled his lips and shifted his gaze to the blood-covered Bai Liu: “I didn’t know you had this kind of ‘good deeds are rewarded with good’ simple-minded thought?”
“Are you planning to defeat me with things like ‘the good guy will surely defeat the bad guy’ and ‘justice will eventually triumph over evil’?”
“A friendly tip.” Bai Six smiled. “The last person who held such thoughts never won against me.”
“Right now, I indeed cannot defeat you.” Bai Liu, who had been slammed against a pillar, slowly raised his head. His voice was intermittent and hoarse, but still logically clear. “I don’t believe in things like ‘good deeds are rewarded with good’ either.”
“According to my perception, most of the time in this world, bad people live better than good people.”
“You make me even more curious. What is the reason you chose to do this?” Bai Six laughed. “Since your perception aligns with mine, you couldn’t possibly stake the chips for defeating me on an NPC girl.”
“Because I won against you once.” Bai Liu looked calmly and directly at Bai Six. “I’m not doing a ‘good deed’.”
“I simply replicated the process of how I won against you last time when I couldn’t think of any other way.”
Bai Six fell silent. He then struck his palm with his fist as if realizing something: “Because helping Yuan Guang last time allowed you to win against me by chance, this time you chose to verify whether such a method is feasible again.”
“Truly interesting.”
Bai Six laughed softly while looking at Bai Liu: “Despite always receiving the negative feedback of ‘good deeds are rewarded with evil’ that I designed for you—where helping others results in a bad retribution.”
“Yet you only helped someone once, and the result of receiving positive feedback from others made you start to change.”
“Bai Liu, you’ve even made me start to suspect—am ‘I’ fundamentally a good child?”
“I’m really looking forward to seeing what you will become the next time I see you.”
>[System Hint: The Evil God has left player Bai Six’s body]
Bai Six was smiling as the skin on his face began to corrode and peel off piece by piece. At the moment Bai Six’s corpse closed its eyes and collapsed, Bai Liu also knelt down simultaneously.
His face was completely devoid of color as he braced himself against the floor, taking several deep breaths before managing to stand up.
While treating himself with an Antidote, Bai Liu walked staggeringly toward Tawil in the pond.
He paused for a moment beside Tawil, then leaned over and picked Tawil up in a horizontal carry (princess carry).
Tawil, whose eyes were covered by threads, seemed a bit lost and flustered when he was picked up by Bai Liu. He lightly hugged Bai Liu’s shoulders and softly called his name: “…Bai Liu?”
“Hold onto my shoulders firmly.” Bai Liu took a deep breath, shifting to hold Tawil tightly with one arm, then he hoisted the unconscious Aoi onto his back. He said with a cold face, “The things that b*tch Bai Six left for us aren’t over yet.”
“Those people from the Mifune family are waiting outside right now.”
“I’ll get you both out of here first.”
–
*(T/N: Lol our strong twink Bai Liu carrying his husband. What happened to Spades who is apparently also in the instance but five years later?)*
