Chapter 509

Chapter 509: Chapter 506: "I will bless my people with a hundred years of peace and order."Ding-dong!"

This time,

Su Ming’an finally heard the complete content of this system’s prompt.

It said that the master of the tentacled monster was——

Su Ming’an raised his head.

In the surging darkness before him, he saw a silver-white figure.

She emerged from between the tentacles, as if grown from the darkness, her lower body connected to boundless tentacles that scattered in all directions.

Her fusion with the tentacled monster was complete.

As the sole believer of Jiu Shen, she could control such a power as long as she offered up her life force.

——She was the true controller of the tentacled monster.

——She was the entity that had metamorphosed him throughout numerous cycles.

She seemed to be gazing at him too, unceasingly, as boundless darkness spread from her arms, and a vivid red gleamed in her eyes.

"Xiber," Su Ming’an said, "you still don’t trust me."

This extremely mistrustful individual... she still hadn’t placed her trust in him.

She didn’t believe that he could stay with her till the end, which was why she chose to metamorphose him in multiple cycles.

"Shua shua."

A light rustling sound.

Before his increasingly chaotic eyes, a strand of white hair, slightly quivering, brushed past his numb ears.

She drew near him, raised her hand, and covered his eyes:

"What’s coming next will be very frightening."

"You should see nothing."

"Snap!"

Su Ming’an abruptly extended his right hand, moving her hand away.

His left arm gushed out a great deal of blood, which appeared quite alarming.

He severed his own arm to gain a moment of clarity.

Shock flashed in Xiber’s eyes, not expecting him to go to such lengths. She took a step back as the tentacles swayed with her movements.

"Why... do you want... to merge... with these tentacles..." Su Ming’an asked with some difficulty.

Hadn’t he said he would save her?

Hadn’t he said he would let her see the flowers bloom?

Why did she give up before that, why did she abandon her human identity and completely merge with this form of energy?

——If even she didn’t believe in a future, how could he help her?

Xiber laughed, and a blood-colored pattern trailed down from her forehead, outlining the corners of her scarlet eyes.

Amidst this eerie blood-shade, her laugh was profoundly sad.

She spoke as if conversing with him, yet also as if speaking to the air, to herself.

Her tone was laden with irrepressible sorrow:

"Because, while awakening the monster, I suddenly remembered a lot of things."

"What...?" he asked.

Wind blew Xiber’s white hair, Su Ming’an’s vision of her gradually blurred.

Just like he couldn’t discern the already yellowed epics in the attic, the butterflies withering on the roses, her white hair strangely blended with the surrounding darkness, the disordered strands were nonetheless smooth, as if coated with light.

She still stood amid the tentacles, draped in a red robe like the pelt of a trapped beast, exuding a whiff of despair.

After recalling certain things, she seemed to have lost all her spiritual energy, leaving only the despair in her eyes.

"People believe in deities, essentially communicating with the void," she said.

"The more they communicate, the void will feedback energy, this energy can form real deities that can descend."

Su Ming’an’s eyes widened slightly.

To absorb this rare piece of information, he stabbed himself once more, to maintain his lucidity.

"But this communication with the void, it metamorphoses people’s minds and bodies, and diminishes their life force," she said.

"...So, that is the origin of the ’curse’."

Listening to Xiber’s words, Su Ming’an was momentarily reminded of her bitterly spoken words last week as she neared death.

The birth of the curse made people crave deities even more, and the stronger the craving, the stronger the curse born from that craving became.

But if one does not believe, it’s akin to losing all strength. The innate abilities of the people of Qiongdi, the celestial shield created by Bai Shen... would all vanish in an instant.

...It was an unsolvable predicament.

Xiber’s words were smooth and gentle, yet so sad they were unforgettable.

Her ancestors, upon discovering the emergence of the curse, promptly erected the Black Wall, isolating the curse and preventing it from spreading to the outside world. But this also led to everyone living within Qiongdi becoming an error.

From their birth, they lived in fabricated beliefs, under the tombstones they carried, with their lives counting down from the moment they opened their eyes.

And now, they were to be stripped even of the last shred of their existence.

"...So," he said with effort, "what are you, going to do?"

He could no longer maintain his balance and collapsed onto the tentacles, which gently cradled him like a blanket covering his body.

His left arm was still bleeding out, the bright blood mingling with the darkness, beginning to congeal. The tentacles plugged his wounds, forcibly repairing him.

Xiber turned her head back.

The rich scent of blood spread wildly around, and the monstrous tentacles seemed alive as they devoured the surroundings.

Her entire body twisted with sinister blood-colored patterns, her hair floating like white snakes behind her, her lower body even more deeply immersed in the tentacles, like seedlings sown into the soil.

At this moment, she,

was no different from a monster.

Endless tentacles twined around her slender figure, with her bright red robe billowing open from the hot wind, revealing her arms covered in burns and scratches.

Years ago,

it was this arm that had passed through boundless flames, embracing a mother who had died from a natural disaster and the curse.

The flames left incurable wounds on this arm, along with her soul.

She raised her left hand and slowly clenched it.

This hand had once clung tightly to a father’s love, the security and warmth he provided had sustained her through countless long nights.

...She was also once loved.

But this love was quickly and ruthlessly severed by the world, and thereafter, she remained alone, walking alongside a burdening truth.

A breeze brushed her face, her vivid red robe fluttering high behind her like the elegantly scattered wings of an angel.

...She had already, shouldered far too much.

Belief was the source of the curse this desperate truth nearly brought her to collapse.

"The contamination in Qiongdi is getting worse. If left unchecked, the curse will eventually erupt completely, and everything I cherish—will be destroyed," she said.

"Therefore, I must ’purify’ this land. Let the tentacles cover the entire Qiongdi—let them fall into an eternal sleep."

And as long as they slept,

they would no longer have any faith.

And without faith,

the curse would not be exacerbated, everyone could live forever in their dreams. Just like Yamada Machiichi and Migael, asleep and in a coma.

She would—avoid an ending where the curse ultimately erupts and the whole world is destroyed.

Even if such an ending was born within an eternal slumber.

But isn’t a happy illusion better than a painful reality?

Her gaze was open and clear, as if she could still see the boundless wilderness in it.

But before that, she had used such a gaze to say a sentence ——

A sentence full of hope and expectation, utterly different from this moment.

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She couldn’t overthrow that Black Wall.

Nor could anyone successfully live under the sun.

In the end, she was forced to choose this way to obliterate the curse.

... All people, all things, struggled with all their might for survival and beauty. Yet, they inevitably slid towards a tragic ending.

As if a path had been diverted in a completely opposite direction, she might not have been meant for such an ending, but it occurred nonetheless.

And she chose to accept it.

There was no salvation, no happiness, no joyful endings for all; she accepted this illusionary ending where everyone slept peacefully in their dreams. At this moment, everything in heaven and earth had come to a standstill, she thought, she had done her utmost. This was already the happiest among the countless imaginable sad endings.

The Prophet, accepted the "happiest" ending of all.

The blurring kaleidoscope of light and shadow alternated in Su Ming’an’s field of vision, he tried to lift his hand, to make another cut to awaken himself, but he no longer had the strength.

"—— Evil God, meet your demise!"

High above, Mizushima Kawa Sora leaped down, wielding white flames, the fire around her body burning fiercely and wildly.

"Snap."

A crisp sound.

An exceptionally thick tentacle suddenly pierced through Mizushima Kawa Sora’s body. Her life-saving prop was utterly useless. Black lines rapidly spread from her limbs, muck spilled from her mouth, her eyes filled with confusion.

"Damn! What the hell is this?" the Players saw this and immediately scattered to flee.

However, unlike the Players, the NPCs were not afraid; they were armed with weapons, a formidable force, led by the elders.

"—— It’s a pity you still walked down this path."

"Cici, Jiu Shen is an Evil God, no one can escape His deceit; we had hoped that your remaining days would be easier."

They cried out as if delivering judgment.

But Xiber paid no attention to them,

The tentacles moved at a speed invisible to their eyes, grasping their bodies.

Their expressions changed from anger to confusion; the tentacles rapidly drained the curse and will from their bodies, they fell into unconsciousness, blending into the darkness.

They never could have imagined, this once frail, timid heretic, tantamount to trash and insects, could wield power near to that of a deity.

The one they could have crushed underfoot,

Now crushed them underfoot.

Under the horrified gaze of everyone, the terrible white-haired "Evil God" hummed a tune.

Her very aura at this moment was entirely different from the usual.

The vibrant vigor that Su Ming’an first saw when she stood under the night sky, which left a stark impression, had now dimmed.

The red robe she wore was no longer bright as fire, but soaked with various shades of blood.

It was as if it had spoiled.

In this moment, her expression shone brilliantly, she spread her arms wide, as if embracing the entire world.

She sang aloud. Among the panicked people fleeing for their lives, she sang what seemed like a sarcastic symphony of the end times.

Su Ming’an recalled once again the system task prompt that had been issued before.

Suddenly, he remembered.

System tasks do not lie.

End it.

End it.

Sleep.

Sleep.

—The song of farewell to my love, Aria (Jiu Shen).

The girl in the red robe sang loudly, prostrating herself within the tentacles as she sang, her eyes filled with a peculiar yearning.

There was a dream, which she actually remembered.

She dreamt of a forest, like a vast sea of deep green. Verdant lines stretched along her view, spreading out and smoothly merging at the distant horizon.

The Cursed Fire Flower buried in the soil took root in the filthy earth, struggling within the stench of black mud.

Flying birds passed over it, blessing it, saying, "You will surely wait to see the flowers bloom."

But the flying bird had its boundless world and firmament. It wouldn’t possibly wait in the muck for the flower to bloom.

It pierced towards the flower.

So everything went contrary to desires.

The flower died in the soil and never woke up again.

...They are all sacrifices to this barren world,

aren’t they?

The tentacles spread outwards with incredible swiftness.

They crossed over mountains, rivers, forests, and deserts... about to envelop the entire Qiongdi.

People scattered and fled; the whole world trembled and wailed as though it was the end of the world.

They did not know that being covered by these tentacles would welcome an eternal bliss; they feared pollution, curses, and death, and even as they were dragged into the tentacles, they still cursed the Evil God with full-hearted hatred.

—And atop the high tentacles stood a girl, overseeing everything.

"Look."

She released the hand covering the young man’s eyes and wiped away the warm blood flowing down the corner of his eyes.

"Our world is quite tragic, isn’t it?"

She said.