If witnessing [War]'s swarms being erased had been the most terrifying sight Hong Lin had ever experienced, what lay before her now was testing the absolute limits of this Druid's capacity for fear.
Observing from afar and standing in the thick of it were entirely different sensations. Watching countless gods inexplicably disintegrate around her — that apocalyptic dread nearly crushed Hong Lin's nerves entirely.
She went numb. She even thought she was hallucinating.
Cheng Shi felt the sa.
The mont he realized what he was standing in, his instinctive reaction was to snap his fingers and get out — now!
But this ti, his body reacted to the terror faster than his brain. His spasming hands wouldn't stop trembling. He couldn't even muster the strength to snap.
Qin Xin, bolstered by [War]'s Authority, was the only one still standing straight — but just barely.
Among the three, he was the only one who hadn't witnessed [War]'s fall in the Real Universe. The scene before him thoroughly filled that "gap."
Not that he'd ever wanted it filled.
The sensation was shattering. Like obtaining superhuman power that didn't belong to mortals, ready to make your mark — only to discover that beings who once possessed that very power had long since perished in unnad corners.
And not just one. A horde of them.
In this lightless expanse of sky — more like a corpse pit than a starscape:
Tentacles everywhere, withered like dead vines. Boundless green canopies, severed from all life. Enormous skulls, stacked into thrones. [Life] — continuing no more.
Flowing Light Scales, corroded and dim. The Starlight Canon, its pages torn and scattered. Red flas gone silent, leaving only blood rain. [Civilization] — unable to carry on.
And further still: bodies of rotting wood all shattered, collapsing pupils frozen stiff, white miasma eyes rolling like gravel, silent puppets falling en masse, broken upon landing... [Descent], [Chaos] — none spared either.
mories fractured and scattered. Ti knotted and warped. Faint stars drained of all color. Spirals ceased their spin...
Those once-lofty gods had now beco the cheapest things in this space. Their divine power dissolved, their corpses strewn everywhere. They hadn't even uttered a cry before death — just silently received their ending.
Falling Authority-light passed through the three figures. Cheng Shi fought back his terror, extending a trembling hand to feel the ownerless Authority drift through his palm and continue its descent. For a mont, he was dazed.
This was Authority. The most sacred thing in the universe. The Creator's seal of legitimacy for the true gods. And now it was just... ethereal, gossar rain, falling with no one to care.
As initial horror faded with ti, as the soul-shattering shock dulled through adaptation, the three finally regained their senses. They exchanged glances — couldn't even make out each other's faces clearly — seeing only the helpless shock and contorted fear in one another's eyes.
"This is..."
Hong Lin was the first to speak — only to clap her hand over her mouth in even greater terror the next second.
If the gods themselves died in silence, what mortal dared raise their voice here?!
Thankfully, the sky remained quiet. No one — no, no god had noticed their presence. Nor would any god notice.
They were all dead.
Cheng Shi's vision slowly sharpened. He pulled out the [Corruption] Container again, draining the fear from all three. Seeing that no imdiate danger lurked, he began examining their surroundings in earnest.
In truth, once fear was stripped away, everything here beca startlingly straightforward.
The gods raining down weren't dying in this particular sky. They had already been dead before arriving.
This place was more like a graveyard for burying gods — no, a mass grave. And the buried were gods from every world.
Watching the endless rain of disintegrating remains, Cheng Shi even wondered: did all gods who perished in the Creator's experint end up here?
How else to explain the staggering, incalculable numbers?
Brow furrowed, Cheng Shi gazed at the chaotic white-miasma eyes plumting in the distance. Without even realizing it, he murmured:
"So this is the answer to your foolish act, [Folly]?"
"..."
The other two shot Cheng Shi a strange look. Even with the Container absorbing their emotions, they both felt a peculiar sothing stir inside.
But they paid him no further mind. The opportunity was rare. Nobody knew how this "spaceti leap" accident had occurred. But since they had found this place, of course they had to investigate.
Searching for [Silence]'s corpse had been for information. Here, there was clearly far more to find. And so the only three living beings in this starscape began scouring the Corpse Field of Gods.
The search yielded sothing extraordinary.
In this ocean of corpses, remains of every god could be found — with exactly two exceptions.
One was [Corruption]. The other was [Fate]!
Even [Deceit]'s shattered, sealed eyes of starlight could be found beneath this sky.
Honestly, when Cheng Shi first saw the Fun God's "corpse," the terror and shock surging through him exceeded even the Container's absorption capacity.
[Deceit]'s remains weren't as tangible as the other gods'. Like the chaotic mory-fields spawned by [mory]'s death, or the warped ti left by [Ti]'s demise, [Deceit] in death appeared as an eternally fading painting of stars hung at the edge of the sky.
Every star in it had dimd. Only in the fractured outlines could one still see they had once spiraled together.
They plumted in freeze-fra, like an entire sky collapsing in sheets. It was more beautiful than any other god's fall — yet it was difficult to appreciate with a smile.
Even though He had once embodied joy and laughter.
But with his emotions drained, Cheng Shi didn't dwell too deeply in dread. He kept searching through the corpse field, yet never found the remains of [Corruption] or [Fate].
He shared the discovery with the other two. Big Cat was stunned. Qin Xin was puzzled.
Qin Xin frowned: "Since [Deceit] is identical to [Fate] in appearance, how can you be certain those cascading stars are [Deceit] and not [Fate]?"
"Authority." Cheng Shi's face was dead serious. "I can feel the Authority falling from them. Although it's useless to , every ti that Authority passes by, I can resonate with the 'laughter' within it.
He was already dead, and yet He was still laughing...
I don't think [Fate] would do that. So I believe the fading stars are [Deceit]."
Qin Xin nodded, accepting the reasoning.
"[Fate] at least leaves so traces. If it's not here, it's simply not here.
But [Corruption]... what's the story there?
I haven't sensed even the faintest imagery of the Sea of Desire. Nor has anything here stirred a tidal wave of desire. Cheng Shi — could whatever you're holding be interfering with our perception of desire?
To be thorough, let's remove it and try again?"
The suggestion snapped Cheng Shi awake. He quickly stowed the [Corruption] Container, letting the tumultuous emotions flood back. Enduring the fear, he searched one more ti.
Still nothing.
[Corruption] had left absolutely no trace here.
Facing this fact, a bold conjecture suddenly flared in Hong Lin's mind.
"If [Corruption]'s corpse isn't in the mass grave, does that an He never died?"
The words had barely left her mouth before she dismissed them herself.
"No, that doesn't hold either. Surely not every world's [Corruption] survived?"
"!!!"
Hearing this, Cheng Shi's eyes went wide.
He had to admit — what Hong Lin said was entirely possible.
But the sa logic applied to [Fate]. No corpse here — did that an every world's [Fate]... had survived?
Wouldn't that prove [Fate]'s choice was the universe's ultimate answer? That fixed destiny was the only path to survival?!
'No, no, no!'
'Wrong!'
After [War] charged upward, countless worlds had clearly been destroyed by the Creator's hand. Among them there had to be gods of [Fate]. So why wasn't a single [Fate] corpse here?
Cheng Shi focused his thoughts, sensing they had gotten one thing wrong.
This place was perhaps not the Corpse Field of the Creator's entire experint. More likely, only gods who died in the Real Universe were "dumped" here.
Which ant that many gods had co to the Real Universe for various reasons — but [Corruption] and [Fate] were never among them!
[Corruption] was easy to understand. He had never shown His face. Desire spread itself.
But [Fate]!
If all the above was correct, then even knowing the Real Universe existed, [Fate] had never once shifted His gaze. He sat in His own world, singlemindedly guarding fixed destiny until the world crumbled — and never once let go!
He was like a terrifying obsessive — seeing nothing beyond fixed destiny. Nothing but fixed destiny!
A [Fate] this fanatical — could what He clung to truly be the universe's answer?
A chill crept up Cheng Shi's spine. Unexplainable dread seized his heart.
...
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