Chapter 388: The One Who Fears Death |
What should she do? Julie was asking herself the same question.
Although she had deliberately focused on physical training since joining the Weird Investigation Bureau, her natural talents lay in puzzle-solving. She had relied too heavily on items to clear instances in the past. Now, with all weapon-type items disabled, she was at a complete disadvantage.
[Name: Blindfold]
[Type: Item]
[Effect: When draped over the head of a human NPC or player, it will cause them to lose their vision for 30 seconds.]
[Note: A single leaf can block the sight of a mountain.]
A swatch of black gauze flew toward Giles again, only to be sliced to shreds by silk threads mid-air. A flurry of black flakes, like dark snow, suddenly began to fall. Julie leaped from a tombstone to a high stone wall, yanking a rusty iron nail from a crucifix and gripping it in her hand.
Her own items were sealed, so she had to improvise. Years of experience had taught her what could be used as a weapon. She couldn't just wait to die. It had come to this—a fight to the death. To survive, she had to kill Giles.
She flung the nail at the man's neck. He dodged with a quick tilt of his head. The strands of silk in the wind split into countless translucent threads, stretching and weaving between heaven and earth to form a colossal web.
Giles knew with cold clarity that his first priority wasn't Julie, but the living corpses closing in on him. Without weapon-type items, however, these ghouls were just as difficult to handle.
If he truly wanted to escape, his only option was to control Julie and use her as a shield, forcing Fu Jue, who was hiding somewhere in the shadows, to hesitate.
The stench of rot from the living corpses grew stronger. Giles saw the cold, murderous glint in the woman's eyes as a dozen more iron nails suddenly materialized in her hand and shot toward him. A crimson ribbon flickered in and out of view amidst the shadows.
[Name: Blessing Ring]
[Type: Item]
[Effect: Increases the probability of all events affected by luck.]
[Note: If you toss a coin a hundred times, will it land heads fifty-one times?]
"Increase hit rate," Julie muttered to herself, simultaneously darting toward a gap in the circle of living corpses. As she ran, she tore down anything sharp she could find and hurled it at the man relentlessly pursuing her.
Why could she use weapons? Was there some mechanism he didn't know about? Or had she found a way to cheat? Or perhaps... was this some ability belonging to Fu Jue, or a god-level NPC?
Giles didn't know the answer. The threat of death surged within him like a tide. His item options were severely limited, and he felt as if he had been thrown back to his rookie days, before he had ever made it onto the leaderboards.
Back then, he had pushed himself to the brink time and again, covered in his own blood, gambling on achieving True Ends, gambling on luck, gambling with his life. He would clear instances with his last breath, watching his rank soar up the newcomer list. The fear that followed was thrilling, and he became addicted to that frantic, reckless dance with death.
A sharp pain shot through his palm. A rusty nail had pierced it. He activated a skill he hadn't used in a long time: [Bloody Feast]. Its effect allowed him to communicate with a god while in a state of continuous blood loss in exchange for a random ability.
Giles remembered the first time he'd been matched into an instance with Fu Jue, years ago. Young and naive, he had been full of admiration for the legendary Savior, constantly rushing to the front lines, trying to prove himself. He had activated his skill so many times his entire body was soaked in blood...
And then? What happened next? His head throbbed, a splitting pain that blocked the memory. He couldn't recall. All he knew was that he had to get the woman under control, fast, and use her to threaten Fu Jue.
He didn't know where this conviction came from, but he was certain it was the right thing to do. It was as fundamental as drinking when thirsty or eating when hungry. An absolute truth, an imperative...
Julie smelled the thick scent of blood as her vision exploded in crimson. She saw the man slam his own palm onto the sharp wooden corner of a tombstone. In that instant, every strand of silk between heaven and earth turned blood-red.
A spectral spider with eight jointed legs loomed over the sky, its black-and-white carapace seemingly embedded with countless eyes. The phantom, a woman with a rounded belly, lowered her silvery-white gaze. Her limbs cradled a golden fruit that symbolized this world, her expression peaceful and gentle.
Was this... the Ancestral God? Someone had activated their identity card's effect, drawing the attention of a god from the corresponding path...
Her subsequent thoughts dissolved into a fog. In just a few seconds, an overwhelming drowsiness washed over her, as if she had returned to being an embryo, curled in the warm amniotic fluid of her mother's womb. A strand of silk wrapped around her wrist. Her consciousness faded rapidly as kaleidoscopic patterns bloomed before her eyes...
Wake up! Don't fall asleep... She forced herself to think of her daughter and husband at home, the thoughts jolting her back to a sliver of lucidity. She immediately began to thrash her arm, smashing her wrist against a crescent-shaped slab of marble beside her.
The edge of the marble was honed thinner than a blade. Combined with the immense force of the impact, half of her forearm was severed, taking the ensnaring silk with it. Blood gushed like a waterfall.
Giles watched the living corpses surge toward him in a wave, now so close he could see the maggots squirming between their bones. Why hadn't they stopped? Was Fu Jue so determined to hunt him down that he would disregard the life of his own subordinate?
There was a hollow space in his memory. He wracked his brain, chasing the scenes that rose and fell behind the mist. The woman in front of him suddenly stopped, her face twisted in pain, her eyes filled with hatred. "Giles, you... you're in league with the Puppet Master..."
The Puppet Master? Was this the crime Fu Jue was trying to frame him with? Giles sneered inwardly, but in the next instant, he watched the swarm of living corpses bypass him completely and descend upon the woman, who stood frozen in place.
A powerful unease stirred in his heart, like some colossal beast from the bottom of a lake breaking the surface. A mere glimpse of its form was enough to hint at the reality-shattering horror that lurked beneath the water.
In the blink of an eye, the filter over the world was stripped away, revealing the reality it had concealed. For the first time, Giles truly looked at the silk threads drifting through the air. He saw the woman's corpse entangled in the silvery web as the living corpses tore away her flesh, piece by piece, until her body was reduced to a skeleton identical to their own.
In that moment, he finally remembered what he had forgotten.
At the very end of that instance, years ago, he had been gravely wounded and on the verge of death. The bravado he thought he possessed had crumbled, replaced by a sudden, primal fear of dying. As his consciousness faded, he had begged everyone he saw, "I don't want to die, save me..."
Fu Jue had knelt beside him. "I can reset your probability of survival," he had said, "but the price is your free will. At your current rate of blood loss, you have thirty seconds to decide."
The [Fallen Savior] card could resurrect the dead, but in an extremely twisted way. His hesitation didn't last thirty seconds. On the third second, he accepted the black ring Fu Jue offered him.
...
In the North District, Asakura Yuko employed some rather uncivilized and impolite methods to extract the full story of the donations from a believer. The man stammered, "This morning, the priest told us that the night is growing longer and monsters will eventually overrun the Holy City... To avert this doom, we must pray for the salvation of the Holy Lord."
"If we all donate enough of our flesh and blood, the Holy Lord can reform his physical body and drive away the monsters in the darkness for us..."
Asakura Yuko casually killed the believer, his purpose served. She analyzed the situation calmly, "Based on the information from the players who explored last night, the danger in the Holy City after dark is real. But it might not come from so-called monsters. On the contrary, it likely comes from the very god who is accepting these offerings of flesh."
Vader raised his arms and made air quotes. "And if I had to guess," he added, "that 'evil god' is connected to Qi Si. And the 'evil god' is far more dangerous than any so-called monsters."
"Not necessarily." Asakura Yuko glanced at Vader, refuting his assumption. "It's only the first day. We can't be sure if the monsters are real or not. It's possible the night in the Holy City is split—half belonging to the evil god, half to the monsters, and the two can't appear at the same time. If we want a definitive conclusion, we'll need to go out and explore tonight."
"But one thing is certain: the flesh and blood of these North District believers is of no direct benefit to the 'evil god.' Otherwise, they wouldn't have waited until today to demand donations. We need to figure out why the priest has suddenly included the North District in the donation range..."
Asakura Yuko turned her head toward the gathering crowd. Aided by her [Taboo Scholar] identity card, her vision pierced through the people and buildings, revealing two priests carrying glass jars full of flesh and blood, which they then poured into a stinking sewer in a corner.
Vader shrugged. "So, maybe it's just like you said yesterday?" he ventured. "The so-called 'donations' are just a pretext? The priests are using violence as a deterrent to maintain the Holy Lord's authority and preserve the existing power structure, while making the believers pay a sunk cost through donations and trials to increase their cohesion?"
Asakura Yuko's gaze fell on a mangled corpse nearby. She shook her head slightly. "No, their actions have become too extreme. I don't think this is a good way to maintain stability. The believers in the North District don't have regenerative abilities; for them, donating means injury and death. When faced with the threat of death, humans become frantic and uncontrollable. They're more likely to fight desperately for their lives."
"That's true," Vader nodded in agreement. "You die if you donate, and you die if monsters overrun the Holy City. Since the outcome is more or less the same, why suffer through the donations? If it were me, I would've rebelled against these priests long ago..."
Asakura Yuko caught the keyword, her brow furrowing slightly. He was right. Human beings could be as docile as lambs, but they could also be as ferocious as tigers. When pushed to a certain point, when the last thread of tolerance snapped, they would inevitably turn to rebellion to survive.
The Holy City had been stable for many years. Under its original system of class division and oppression of the East District, it could have remained a stagnant pool of water. What had prompted the priests to change course, to foolishly test the limits of these believers? It was as if... they were trying to push events toward a specific outcome.
Asakura Yuko glanced at the description for Ending One on the system interface. With her years of historical research, she didn't need to spend Embers to unlock the ending to guess what the rest of the text would say.
It would be nothing more than the believers, unable to bear the church's oppression, rising up to overthrow the priests' rule. The mob's emotions would spiral into irrationality amidst the chaos, and the people would begin to smash everything in the Holy City related to the gods until the entire city was destroyed...
Could it be possible to achieve that ending directly, through means other than unlocking it with Embers? For instance, by infiltrating the believers and inciting them with words...
Two believers who had just completed their donation walked past, leaving a trail of blood droplets behind them. Their breathing was faint, but they still exchanged words of hope for the future:
"Just a little longer. When the great Holy Lord opens his eyes again, he will surely save us and resurrect all who have died."
"Our flesh and blood come from the Lord, and in the end, we must rely on the Lord for salvation. He loves us and will dispel all our suffering."
The rhetoric was strikingly familiar. The propaganda on the real-world game forums was much the same: "As long as someone from Kyushu clears the Final Instance, all who have died can be resurrected. Until then, any sacrifice is necessary."
White Crow often told her followers the same thing: once she finally became a god, she would undoubtedly shape the world into their ideal vision.
But... was it really true?
Vader let out a light, cold sneer. "Fools. How could a god who consolidates their position by devouring flesh and blood ever truly love the world's people? They're just seen as a reserve food supply."
Asakura Yuko heard his words but said nothing, lost in thought.
...
In the West District, Fujiwara Shinno and a Jewish man named Sigmund moved quickly along the edges of the buildings before stopping at a street corner.
Fujiwara Shinno bent down and picked up a white ring from the ground. He held it up to the faint light from above, examining it for a moment before coming to a conclusion. "This is Giles's ring. Something's happened to him."
On the other side of the district, Thompson and Fran had also made a discovery. Fran held up a ring with a slightly smaller radius. "We found Julie's ring in the North District," he said. "She's in trouble, too."
The delegates had realized Giles and Julie were missing an hour ago. It started when Fran discovered a broken stone monument deep in the cemetery, engraved with three divine titles:
[The Lord of Gods, Exiled Beyond the Rules of the World]
[The Soul Master, Wielder of the Authority of Contracts and Transactions]
[The Great Existence, Older Than History Itself]
He had immediately tried to contact Thompson through his Teaming Ring but received no response. He retraced his steps, but there was no sign of his companion.
He decisively contacted every other delegate and finally confirmed that it wasn't just Giles; Julie had also lost contact with them.
To disappear at a time and place like this... it wasn't as if they had both lost their Teaming Rings and decided to find a quiet spot for a date.
Fujiwara Shinno took a deep breath. The answer he had been unwilling to believe, the one he had deliberately avoided, had finally become an undeniable fact. He spoke each word with clipped, iron certainty. "Fu Jue is still alive."
He waited for a moment, but no one responded. Silence. Only silence...
In the silence, he looked around at the three of them in confusion. He saw that apart from Sigmund, the other two had struck the exact same pose, adopted the exact same expression. They tilted their heads, staring at him blankly, their eyes glinting with a silver-gray light in the dim, flickering shadows...