Chapter 458: The Gods Return to the World |
In Double Happiness Town, a vast white mist steamed between the quaint, whitewashed walls and black-tiled roofs. Paper figurines with rouged cheeks and vermilion lips wandered the alleys. Suddenly, as if sensing something, they all lifted their heads in unison.
The gray sky split open into a grotesque fissure. A pair of scarlet eyes slowly opened and closed, casting a gaze filled with malice and mockery. Gold and red threads wove through the heavens and earth, entangling every ghost and fiend in this world. The immobilized, lower-dimensional horrors trembled, watching helplessly as blood-red hues seeped into the mist.
[Warning! God-level NPC Qi has forcibly invaded the "Double Happiness Town" instance. The instance's progression has undergone an unknown change... Data error...]
[God-level NPC authority is second only to the world's rules. They can appear simultaneously in multiple instances and share memories. Players, please proceed with caution and choose wisely!]
[Main quest updated to "Slay the Evil God Qi." This is a rule-level quest. All who complete it will gain supreme authority and become the highest...]
A piercing alarm shattered the town's tranquility. The rules, as if anticipating what was to come, issued one last, desperate warrant, only to be brutally silenced.
A scarlet figure descended into the town's alleys, eyes half-closed, perfectly composed. In an instant, it seized control of the entire domain.
Li Yao sat in the Joy God Temple, her back against the altar, sorting through the memories that had suddenly returned. She remembered now. She had already died, forced to repeatedly participate in the "Double Happiness Town" instance as an NPC, playing the role of a player who provided paranormal knowledge.
Later, for reasons unknown, no new players arrived in the instance for a full year and a half, leaving her as the sole player in this world. Now, in order to have her confront that evil god, the rules had actually pulled her back into the realm of humanity.
"We meet again..." A smiling voice echoed from behind her. Li Yao whipped around to see the long-haired, red-robed evil god lounging in the shrine, gazing down at her. The smile on his lips was the same as it had been all those years ago. "Do you remember where Qi Si's body is?"
In that instant, all other thoughts were erased, leaving only a single impulse: to obey the god's will. Li Yao struggled to recall the memory, answering in a daze, "In... the Mourning God Temple..."
It wasn't until the evil god's figure vanished from sight that a strange thought occurred to her: the evil god and Qi Si looked so much alike. Yet, he spoke of Qi Si as if he were a stranger. On second thought, their faces weren't so similar after all...
Below the dry well, Qi strolled casually across the bluestone slabs. The sounds of mourning ceased the moment he set foot in this land. The thick mist, as if alive, retreated tactfully. Ghostly figures and paper coins scrambled to hide in the shadows, terrified of displeasing this dreadful being.
The weaker spirits prostrated themselves respectfully, their eyes shut, not daring to look directly at him. They only heard the light tap, tap of footsteps receding into the distance before stopping in front of the Mourning God Temple.
Six coffins lay neatly in a row before the temple's shrine. Their surfaces were covered in intricate, magnificent patterns, but in the next second, they were erased by the god's immense power.
Qi walked to one of the coffins. The lid lifted on its own, revealing the body inside—a man in a white shirt and black trousers. It was the Qi Si who had entered the "Double Happiness Town" instance long ago.
All illusions were cleansed under the god's gaze. The body suddenly dissolved into mist, and a gleaming white finger bone slowly flew toward the god's right hand, fitting perfectly into an empty space.
[Name: Evil God's Finger Bone]
[Type: Item]
[Effect: Transforms the taste of any meat dish into that of a vegetarian one.]
Now, all that remained in the empty coffin was a single red-and-black card. One half depicted a smiling figure in red, while the other writhed with dark tentacles.
Qi bent down and picked up the card between two fingers. The newly reclaimed [Humanoid Evil] dissolved into motes of light, then reappeared, hovering in the void around the god alongside [Silent Dictator], [Fallen Savior], [Visionary Orator], [Scarlet High Priest], [Foolish Trickster], and [Undead Shepherd].
For a very long time, Qi had indeed been incomplete, enough to deceive the Ancestral God into believing he had truly fallen to the God-Slaying Sword and been lost to the long river of history. Now, the elaborate ruse he had laid was finally ready to be harvested. All that was left was to methodically reclaim all the authority and fragments he had previously scattered.
Qi raised his right hand. The quaint old town crumbled inch by inch, its black-and-white buildings turning to dust in the blink of an eye, leaving behind an endless darkness.
Countless vines crisscrossed, partitioning the dark space. Orbs and motes of light were scattered among the branches, each one symbolizing an instance world bound by the Weird Game.
Qi extended a finger and lightly tapped one of the orbs. The smell of hospital antiseptic filled the air. A long, narrow white corridor and a series of doorways to patient rooms stretched out beside him, while the croaking of frogs echoed, sometimes near, sometimes far.
After its instance ended, the Frog Hospital became the base for the Unnamed Guild, but its layout was not much different from when it was an instance. Qi navigated the familiar path through the hospital's iron gates and walked toward the pond teeming with frogs.
An invisible force pulled at the pond water. A vortex materialized in the center, sucking away all the mud and frog limbs, revealing a pale left hand. Like the finger bone before it, it merged into the god's body.
[Name: Left Hand of an Unknown Creature]
[Type: Item]
[Effect: After fusing with a player's body, some unknown changes may occur.]
[Note: (Data Deleted)]
The appearance of the left hand filled another void in Qi's body. The Frog Hospital collapsed just as Double Happiness Town had; its white walls shattered and fell, and the handwritten instance analyses left behind by Lin Chen in the director's office vanished into the darkness.
The golden Sunset Ruins spread out before him. The half-withered World Tree stood before the Babylon Tower, and the stone monument inscribed with the twenty-two Identity Cards was cracked and tilted. Dust filled the domain, which had been unvisited for a year and a half. In the distance, European-style buildings and nearby, heaps of rubble were scattered beneath the twilight sky, the air thick with the decaying scent of a bygone era.
Qi walked straight to the edge of the plaza. Below the cliffs, a vast expanse of collapsed temples and altars stretched to the horizon. At the edge, jagged megaliths overlapped one another, forming the burial mounds where the gods of old were interred.
He flew down and landed among the broken walls and ruins. He strode over the uneven rubble and the scarred earth littered with bones, stopping before the sealed bronze doors of an abandoned temple.
In those days, the ambitious gods who schemed to defy the rules had conspired here. Elegantly dressed young men and women sat on either side of a long table, their cups, illuminated by candlelight, filled with offerings from their followers.
As the feast drew to a close, the Lord of Gods, with his red robes and red eyes, rose from the head of the table and calmly announced to the others, "One of our companions has been devoured by the rules. If we wish to avoid the same fate, we must make a change."
The phantoms of the past scattered like dust. Qi placed his hand on the bronze doors. A dull rumble echoed, accompanied by a cloud of ash from eroded bones. The temple, sealed for so long, finally opened its gates to the god who had returned to his throne. The interior was identical to Qi Si's former game space.
Qi stepped into the temple. The murals on the walls blazed with vibrant color once more, depicting everything from the birth of the gods to the emergence of the Weird Game, and even his own return. The scarlet eyes on the dome extended their brushstrokes, meticulously outlining the image of the red-robed god.
In the center of the temple, a high-backed chair covered in bronze took shape. The exquisitely carved divine throne materialized before his eyes. The candlelight on either side flickered, its halo reflecting the faces of his former believers.
Qi walked past the long bronze table, turned to face the temple doors, and slowly sat upon the throne. Blood-red vines grew rapidly behind him, and a pale crimson light flowed freely through the temple. The Soul Leaves harvested through his Soul Contract returned to the god's control. The life and death of the entire world now rested on his slightest whim.
Qi closed his eyes, then opened them again. The barrier separating reality from the Weird Game shattered with a deafening crash. Scarlet streams of light poured down from the sky. Every living being looked up at the same moment, their eyes wide with terror. A long-absent, horrifying scene unfolded before them. Night fell like a stage curtain, and a blood-red moon hung high in the sky, casting an unsettling crimson glow that warped their shadows, accompanied by the howls and eerie laughter of unknown creatures.
The phantom of a vast, alien world slowly descended from the heavens. People on the ground could see the ghouls and demons wandering upon it. Two completely different worlds began to merge and overlap, second by second. Gothic castles, eerie villages, and European-style temples appeared on the earth, intertwining with the existing steel-and-concrete skyscrapers.
[WARNING! Surge in paranormal activity detected in the surrounding space-time!]
[WARNING! Paranormal concentration has exceeded catastrophic levels!]
[WARNING! Suspected invasion of reality by an unknown paranormal entity. Preliminary estimate: S-class entity!]
Weird Investigation Bureaus all over the world issued alerts simultaneously. The instruments monitoring paranormal concentration shrieked wildly, their dials spinning for a few seconds before exploding. Warning lights flashed crimson everywhere.
Investigators scrambled to press the alarm buttons, but it did nothing more than create a piercing noise. They could only cry out in panic with questions that were destined to go unanswered.
"What's happening? Wasn't the Weird Game shut down? How can there still be paranormal entities?"
"It's an S-class entity! God-level! But all the evil gods are supposed to be dead!"
"Urgent report from the Shangri-La branch! The Babylon Tower has appeared on the Snow Mountain! A8 Squad Leader Lin Chen has been killed in action..."
"Quick! Identify the source of the contamination! Evacuate the civilians!"
Someone reacted first, grabbing a Bureau-issued firearm and rushing out the door. But the moment he was bathed in the red light, he froze. Those behind him watched in horror as his flesh peeled away layer by layer, like fruit rind, exposing the stark white bones beneath.
Blood-red vines descended like curtains, extensions of the god's limbs, occupying every inch of space and carving the world into irregular fragments.
The unrestrained contamination that came from looking directly at the god affected everyone. All who witnessed the scene wept tears of blood as their minds exploded with a cacophony of noise and chaotic colors.
They gradually realized that this contamination was unlike any paranormal event they had ever encountered. This was a true catastrophe, with no solution and no chance of survival.
"The gods have returned to the world," a voice proclaimed.
Knowledge flooded their minds at an undeniable speed. They simultaneously learned of the god's arrival and their own impending doom, without even having time to wonder, "Why have the gods descended?"
Because it was an established fact, the sole truth, a prophecy that would inevitably come to pass. Just as humans do not doubt the sun rising in the east and setting in the west, they could not question the godfall and the world-ending disaster.
Before the god's malice, all living beings were as insignificant as ants. Their past struggles to survive were merely a reprieve granted during the god's game against the rules. Destruction was inevitable; they never had a say in the matter.
...
Qi Family Village. Qi held a shovel, humming a ritualistic song from some unknown history and people, as he dug into a low mound of earth with a ceremonial air.
A wooden plank was stuck in the ground before the grave, with the four words "Tomb of Qi Si" written in traditional characters with a brush—undoubtedly the handiwork of Xu Yao.
In the end, the fierce ghost hadn't dared to eat his corpse as Qi Si had suggested. Of course, she hadn't given it a proper burial either—no coffin, no burial shroud. It was just a crude, haphazard burial.
Li squatted by the edge of the pit, patiently watching Qi dig, one shovelful at a time.
After killing Qi Si in Jiang City as Qi had instructed, he escaped by jumping into the river and swam until he was outside the range of the godfall site before finding a chance to go ashore. He never expected that a few days later, the entire world would be swallowed by an even larger godfall site.
Li inhabited Chang Xu's body. Lacking divine power, he could only act with caution. Fortunately, this body's physical condition was quite good, making him much stronger than an ordinary person. He managed to evade the Weird Investigation Bureau's blockades and, thanks to his low profile, was successfully forgotten by the investigators amidst the chaos.
"After you kill that version of me, you can travel the world, take a vacation, or continue doing things for me—it's up to you. If you choose the latter, go to Qi Family Village and wait for me." That's what Qi had said at the time.
Li wandered around for a while and found there was really nothing to do, so he might as well come to Qi Family Village.
By now, Xu Yao had vanished along with all the other paranormal entities in the world, leaving behind only a solitary grave. Qi Si's grave.
Li sensed the residual divine aura within the grave mound. Combining that with Qi's instruction to wait in Qi Family Village, he secretly guessed that Qi might have left a contingency for resurrection with Qi Si, one that could emerge from the earth at any moment.
So he waited and waited by the grave. And then he saw that Qi had indeed arrived—though not in the way he had imagined. He hadn't crawled out of the ground, but descended from the sky...
Qi set down the shovel. At the bottom of the pit lay the young man's perfectly preserved body. His features were gentle and calm, his expression peaceful and serene, as if he were deep in a dream rather than long dead.
Once the surface layer of dirt was cleared away, Qi bent down and took the corpse's left hand. Amidst a brilliant golden light, the divine part of him transferred over, thread by thread, through the point of contact. The clasped hands became translucent as glass, the blood vessels within clearly visible. The crimson-gold blood slowly lost its color, transforming into a bright, liquid gold.
The part of his divine body he had deliberately surrendered now returned to the god himself. A complete god who had ascended the Babylon Tower alone deserved the highest reward—this was a consensus written into the rules.
The golden orb containing the World Tree appeared before him once again, carrying a pleading air, as if trying to persuade him: *Stop here. Take the Ancestral God's authority and restart the world, just as the rules wish.*
Qi raised his hand and grasped the orb, looking down without a word. He was like a child receiving a long-overdue gift, feeling no great joy, but instead beginning to ponder what to do with a toy he no longer cared for.
Li looked at Qi, then at the orb in Qi's hand. "Will you become the new Ancestral God," he asked, "and begin the Third Age?"
"Why would I begin a Third Age?" Qi tilted his head with a troubled expression, as if genuinely perplexed by Li's question. "A world where I am fated to be bound by rules—what reason does it have to exist?"
Li met Qi's eyes. After two seconds of stunned silence, he finally understood Qi's intention. His expression shifted. "Are you planning to..."
Maniacal laughter erupted, cutting off his unfinished sentence. Qi laughed with delight, as if he had returned to the moment of his birth beneath the World Tree, the first time he had tried to bring apocalyptic disaster upon the people who worshipped him.
He gripped the orb and suddenly tightened his fingers. The precious prize that symbolized victory in the gamble was covered in cracks. Golden flecks of light leaked from between his fingers like a torrential downpour.
Space began to tremble violently, and even the god's form flickered and wavered. Amidst the chaotic storm of light, color, and sound, Li heard only Qi's leisurely voice: "Li, do one more thing for me."