Chapter 506 - 503·BE15·

Chapter 506: Chapter 503·BE15·"Heart-to-Heart"Noel," Su Ming’an called out the name.

After one third of his blood was extracted, he was teleported next to Noel.

A red glow flashed, and as he landed solidly on his feet, Su Ming’an looked up to see Noel attaching a blade to the Blue Rose Scepter.

When Noel heard the sound of teleportation, he turned around and looked at him, surprise flashing in his eyes.

"...You’re not preparing to kill me, are you?" Su Ming’an asked jokingly.

Noel blinked and understood immediately.

"Of course not," Noel put away the scepter, "I think that once the tentacles have spread to a certain extent, you might undergo a special transformation."

"It’s alright, you run first, don’t worry about me," Su Ming’an said.

"...Is that so," Noel nodded, "It looks like you’ve made your decision, so I won’t interfere anymore."

He turned and ran toward the outer area, his figure becoming somewhat blurry.

Watching Noel leave, Su Ming’an suddenly heard a voice.

It was a system notification voice, sounding extremely cold.

"Ding-dong!"

Su Ming’an was slightly stunned.

He turned back and saw the tentacles he had previously restricted starting to spread wildly; they expanded endlessly, spreading outwards like a deluge.

They quickly exceeded a range of 10,000 yards, forcefully completing the Path of Purification task for him.

Seeing this, Su Ming’an wasn’t surprised.

...This was also why he didn’t run away.

Because he simply couldn’t escape.

"Thud thud."

"Thud thud."

He heard a sound again, like that of a beating heart. The tentacles around him seemed to come to life, breaking free from his control.

—It was as if the real master of the tentacles was about to awaken.

He fell into a state of transformation.

Having run some distance, Noel immediately turned back. A sharp dagger peeked out from the tip of his scepter, aiming for Su Ming’an’s heart, exactly like the last loop.

However, the next moment, a tentacle burst from the ground and pierced Noel’s heart first.

...Before Noel could help Su Ming’an roll back, the tentacular monster killed Noel first.

Noel’s pupils contracted, intense pain filling his body, those azure blue eyes, bit by bit, dimming. Dark red, bright red, slightly black blood scattered from his body.

His mouth slightly open, he seemed to want to say something, but ultimately, only fresh red blood flowed out.

Su Ming’an watched the scene unfold.

Noel died in front of his eyes.

Su Ming’an had thought that after the tentacles killed Noel, they would kill him too, but he was surprised when the tentacle merely brushed up against him, rubbing his face like a little cat.

Wet, greasy, the surface of the tentacle felt like tar, and it was uncomfortable to the touch.

It didn’t kill him, but instead wrapped around his limbs, clinging to him.

He felt again that gradual loss of control over his body.

The tentacles entwined around him almost tenderly, pulling at him and preventing him from escaping. His thoughts were stripped away, his body out of control, his SAN value plummeting rapidly...

...He was fully aware of the whole process of being transformed by the tentacular monster.

He saw the complicated hallucinations again, brilliant viscous matter filling his vision. He gradually lost all perception of the outside world—

Control over his body was lost.

All senses were lost.

Thinking capacity faded.

The sense of presence faded.

Yet strands of hair grazed his face.

Silver-white, like mercury.

He heard a burst of laughter.

Having lost the ability to think, Su Ming’an couldn’t remember what happened afterwards.

Amidst the bewildering chaos, he sensed someone very close to him.

White hair, slightly swaying, scraped past his unfeeling ears as she raised her hand and covered his eyes.

"Something terrifying is going to happen, you shouldn’t see anything," she seemed to say.

She led him by hand, wading through layers of muck. The thick scent of blood spread around them as monstrous tentacles, almost lifelike, devoured the sky.

He sat amidst the continuously undulating tentacles, like a sculpture. People scattered in all directions, the entire world trembling and wailing.

He didn’t remember the specifics, but something very sad, very sad had happened afterward.

The woman with silvery white hair, she removed her hand from his eyes and helped wipe away the warm blood flowing below them.

Even though he had lost the ability to think, he vaguely remembered these images.

Through layers of darkness and sticky substances, his sluggish thoughts allowed him to vaguely see through the blood mist in his vision, witnessing the profound sadness in her eyes.

he heard someone shouting.

he heard someone passing judgment with righteous words.

he heard someone’s voice filled with regret.

he heard an extremely sorrowful sigh.

The sounds became more and more chaotic.

He gradually couldn’t hear clearly.

All sorts of voices scratched his ears, like unseen winds.

In these voices, there were men, women, old and young, some shouting, some speaking harshly, some silently shedding tears.

They merged into a torrent meandering before his eyes.

In the end,

it seemed someone let out a choked, off-key wailing.

"Ah ah—!"

"Ah—"

The voice was like a cracked gong, shrilly painful as if crying blood.

"Ah ah—"

"Ah..."

It was like watching a silent film without understanding its meaning, as one event after another occurred, but he had stopped thinking due to metamorphosis.

Yet, these images, through his numb eyes, poured into his paused mind, thus etching themselves into his memory.

Like a controlled puppet, his thoughts were hazy for a long while, almost forgetting who he was.

He only vaguely remembered that, during this period, there seemed to be a figure with a mantis on its shoulder charging towards him, then swallowed by a blood light.

And he just watched.

He, who had already been transformed, merely stared with eyes of despair, numbness, and immobility.

Someone beside him whispered softly,

"...it’s over."

And he could only maintain his silence.

Outside the livestream, the audience watched this scene in despair, thinking that the Number One Player would never again revert to the form he had once been.

The Number One Player had become a puppet of an NPC.

He had permanently lost his rationality in the instance, having been transformed. He was halted at the peak of competition in the Eighth World; this was a sorrowful end.

And Noel, the only one who knew how to break the game, had been killed early by the tentacles and could no longer help him roll back and change everything.

An hour after Su Ming’an lost consciousness, a white, shattered fragment at his chest suddenly began to twist.

It closed up, pieced together, and within seconds, as if time had reversed, gradually turned into a pure white cubic solid.

"Adventurer, you see, our world is very sad, isn’t it?"

In front of him, the white-haired woman controlling the world-devouring tentacles was speaking to him.

She did not receive a response, but she did not mind.

She touched the bright red Cursed Fire Flower on her head, tucking the slightly loose bloom into her hair, and then turned around slowly.

She thought she would see the same transformed him as before.

Instead, she saw a white cubic solid, pushed up by the fabric of his chest, bulging out.

It broke through the fabric, protruding from his chest, gradually beginning to redden and heat up.

She smelled a hint of gunpowder, her expression changed dramatically, and she immediately leaped forward.

"Boom—!"

The explosion happened suddenly.

Su Ming’an’s body was torn apart by the blast, the suddenly formed explosive tearing his heart apart from his chest.

The bomb, frozen and rewound by Migael, finally exploded on schedule, an hour after he lost consciousness.

The white-haired woman watched this scene in shock, flung herself forward, and cried out loud while gazing at his shattered corpse.

In that moment, as he hovered at death’s door, a moment of clarity flashed through Su Ming’an’s sluggish mind.

Scenes of his transformation replayed in his brain.

He remembered most of what would happen next.

Death’s return.

Transformation ceased.

After the darkness passed, he reopened his eyes.

In the sky, there were several Players coming to explore, and the world mission to eradicate the Evil God had just been released.

"Evil God! Today is the day of your doom—"

In the sky, Mizushima Kawa Sora, holding a blazing white sword, shouted loudly, his voice thunderous.

The wind on the Stone Castle Rooftop was somewhat strong, blowing through his sweat-moistened hair.

Next to him, the tentacles lay quietly, the eerie beating of a heart yet to emerge.

...He was back.

He stretched out his hand, as if he could still see the transformative fluid that had covered his entire body. For a moment, he seemed to become a lifeless corpse, a statue deprived of the ability to think. The pain of transformation that had lasted for a whole hour now seemed especially clear.

Having full vision, smell, pain, and perception, but unable to utter a complete sentence, as soon as he opened his eyes, he felt as if he could see that pair of pale eyes staring at him.

"—Su Ming’an, why are you standing amidst the tentacles... So it is, you are the Evil God this time? Are all these anomalies your doing?" The newly arrived Mizushima Kawa Sora, having noticed the commotion, locked eyes immediately with him standing on the Stone Castle Rooftop.

Su Ming’an ignored her words, merely lowering his head to look at his hands, restored as if new, as if they were precious treasures.

In the previous loop, as he was being transformed, he watched bit by bit, inch by inch, as they turned into black viscous liquid. His melting fingers and the chaotic substances on his body melded together. At that time, he could not control his fingers, his palms, speak, or move... as if he was sealed alive within the shell of his body, with everything appearing bizarre and distorted in his eyes.

The endless fear even now made his body tremble, his eyeballs stiffly shifting, and in a moment, a desire to tear open his own chest surged within him.

...Just to suppress this enduring fear.

In the past, he could use his body and emotions to do anything that would help advance completion. As time progressed, he no longer saw himself as a complete person, but rather as a separable prop created to achieve goals. He could separate his expressive ability, his ability to affect emotions, his feelings towards things and people, his thoughts, faith, philosophy, tolerance for pain, emotional feedback, and his basic logical reasoning and empathy.

...Thus constructing a qualified "Number One Player."

Because he knew he was inherently insufficient and his abilities lacking, he needed to carry out these "separations."

Because he was weak and undeserving of his status, he had to use everything available. And the most suitable, among the few powers he controlled, was his own death.

...If his death could extend the path beyond, then let him die.

If his death could reveal the truth behind the perfect completion, then let him die.

Thus, he could let his previous self from last week undergo metamorphosis for an hour to seek an opportunity to break the game.

He had thought it was no big deal, this kind of life born from death, he had done it many times before. Be it dying from piercing the sun temple in the Oblivion Cave, draining his blood to fuel the Array, being torn apart by an explosion, being ground into meat paste, or being pushed from a thousand-meter height to a fatal plummet ... he had experienced such pain many times.

His Mentality Points were also high enough, he was confident in adjusting his state after the metamorphosis ended, just as he had done in White Sand Paradise.

He was not a wisdom-filled being, nor could he punch the Organizers or kick the boss rabbit; he couldn’t slash through challenges like a hero ensuring an easy victory.

Therefore, he could only pave the way by stepping on his own corpse.

In a human’s life, one progresses on the path from birth to death, and he was just making a few more trips between the start and the end. If he couldn’t even realize this, let alone think about reclaiming his homeland under the despairing game.

He just couldn’t peacefully enjoy this so-called gift of death from destiny, indulging in high positions and idleness.

No matter how painful, how torturous.

But now,

having experienced death and suffering through this unspeakably painful metamorphosis several times over,

the string he had been keeping tense, had snapped some.

Physical pain in humans,

can easily lead to a collapse in spirit.

"—Su Ming’an, does your silence mean you consent?"

Mizushima Kawa Sora looked at the silent Su Ming’an, her eyebrows inverted, "Your identity is that of an Evil God, and the compatibility between Players and their Guides matches. So it seems, you indeed are—"

She raised the flame sword in her hand, her emotions becoming agitated.

"Right, I almost forgot to ask you—my missing Haru—you’ve seen her, right? She has been missing since the Sixth World, and she mentioned she was going to find you.

And yet, to this day, there has been no word from her, and she would definitely come to me if she returned...

—Only you, only you could forcibly strip her of her Player status, you have a grudge against her, and you are the only Ruler who can switch between NPC and Player status—

—You killed her!"

Above the sky, a black-haired woman, like a Deity, loudly pronounced the sins of the evil-doer.

In her hand, she wielded a sword that had burned the bodies of countless Exiles.

This blazing white flame symbolized purification, it sought to burn away all the ominous things in the world, and its name is "Judgment."

The tribespeople looked up.

They knelt on the ground, singing loudly, praying to her brave silhouette that faced the Evil God with a straight spine.

Under the brilliant, blazing sunlight, the Judicator’s long hair lifted in the wind—

In that wind, filled with praise and freedom.