Hong Lin knew none of this. All she knew was that sothing seed to have gone wrong with Cheng Shi's brain.
Setting aside all the chaos, he was screaming about so "tribute." But where on earth was this tribute? Even the night sky was painted by [Decay]. Where in this forest was there the faintest hint of [Prosperity] to offer Him?
It wasn't just Hong Lin who was baffled. The scholars watching the Sighing Forest through their chanical constructs were equally perplexed.
This faith experint had been running for years, and nothing like this had ever happened.
The suitcase holding the "faith contract," left rotting in Eposka's garden bed for centuries, had never been picked up—until now.
For the scholars, whether or not soone found the box was irrelevant. The Sighing Forest was riddled with [Truth]'s eyes. They could detect the contract's location effortlessly and dispatch chanical serpents to retrieve it.
But this ti was different. The box was still there—the contract was gone.
Fortunately, the scholars had contingency plans. The instant the contract vanished, they began analyzing shifts in [Prosperity] throughout the forest, hoping to track down the petty thief.
But as it turned out, the one who'd stolen the contract wasn't a thief—it was a... lunatic!
An absolute lunatic!
This madman, still carrying the contract's aura, was letting serpents devour his body while smiling. Not only that, he seed to enjoy this state of physical deterioration. The scholars grew so wary that they slowed the chanical serpents' attack frequency, terrified the lunatic was cooking up so great conspiracy.
Cheng Shi was indeed cooking sothing up—but it wasn't a conspiracy. It was an Open Sche.
He was deliberately driving his own body toward [Decay]. Hong Lin watched in bewildernt.
She couldn't understand why Cheng Shi would choose to be critically wounded at a ti like this—much less grasp what "tribute" he kept babbling about.
'What tribute? Offered with what?'
'Surely he couldn't be offering [Decay] to [Prosperity].'
'That would be absurd...'
'Wait—no!'
'He wouldn't—?!'
Just as the thought ford, Cheng Shi turned to face her. This self-proclaid darling of [Fate] looked at her with sheer madness in his eyes, blood spraying from his mouth as he laughed:
"Do you see it? You see it now.
This is the tribute I've prepared for Him. This is the final round of our gamble.
Baldy—think about it. Yes, there's not a shred of [Prosperity] tonight. But!
When everything the eye can see is [Decay]—doesn't that, in its own way, constitute a form of [Prosperity]!"
The words landed, and Hong Lin's mind erupted in white noise!
[Decay] everywhere... is a form of [Prosperity]?
'How blasphemous do you have to be to say sothing like that?'
'Isn't that just sophistry?'
Sure, the logic technically held. But if sophistry actually worked, the scholars of the Land of Hope who'd specialized in rhetoric would have unified the continent long ago. No—they might've even used it to topple the Gods themselves.
Because faith was faith. Authority was Authority. These were the foundations of the Gods, the very bottom line of Their existence—absolutely immovable by the glib tongue of re wordplay!
If the Gods' foundations were that fragile, [Deceit] would have beco the biggest winner long ago.
After all, He excelled at this sort of thing.
But!
But the [Decay]-dulled Hong Lin had overlooked one critical detail: tonight was unlike any other night.
Because... tonight, all the faith had been stolen!
The countless [Decay] creatures of the Sighing Forest were simultaneously worshipping a false [Decay] envoy this very night—and behind that false facade was a child of [Prosperity].
The Mushroom-Footed People—[Prosperity]'s followers who'd been deceived for generations—had embraced [Decay]. But even after becoming [Decay], they still believed in [Prosperity]. Because the Divine Envoy had told them: embracing [Decay] was rely a trial. [Prosperity] would co to shelter them in the end.
And so, the most wondrous Change in faith was born.
Every [Decay] had been subverted. Every belief had shifted!
[Decay] was worshipping [Prosperity]. [Decay] was defending [Prosperity]. [Decay] was following [Prosperity]!
Every essence pointed toward [Prosperity].
Under these conditions, Cheng Shi's words were no longer sophistry—they were fact!
Because the [Decay] before their very eyes genuinely pointed toward [Prosperity]!
With the embers still burning and the wildfire lit, it took only the blink of an eye for the prairie fire to erupt.
Monts after Cheng Shi's words faded, in the Sighing Forest draped in dark moonlight, suddenly—
Dawn broke.
A warm, Vitality-brimming beam of light pierced through the dim night sky, pouring down from the forest canopy. It fell directly upon the Mushroom-Footed People's heads—and then countless verdant branches surged down along that column of light, instantly constructing a bridge of [Prosperity] between heaven and earth, swaying with lush new growth.
Then, in the sky illuminated by that erald radiance, cracks began to spread. In the blink of an eye, the dark moon's sky shattered entirely like a spider web.
The spatial rifts widened. Countless vines and branches cascaded from beyond the sky, flooding in like inverted tides, extending in every direction.
The branches didn't just grow longer—they grew thicker, larger. By the ti the two gamblers stared slack-jawed at a sky that had transford entirely into a dense canopy, thousands of trailing tendrils poured down like a torrential green rain upon the mist-shrouded Sighing Forest.
At the sa ti, a second beam of light struck Hong Lin.
When this limitlessly vital green light healed the [Prosperity] Chosen One, it transford—like the Sighing Sorrow Tide before it—into a tidal wave of [Prosperity], sweeping outward in all directions!
The mont this surging tide of Vitality washed over the collapsed Cheng Shi, it carried away every wound and trace of decay. Cheng Shi leapt to his feet in astonished delight, just about to open his mouth and praise [Prosperity]—but in the next heartbeat, his joy froze on his face.
Because he realized this healing light wasn't rely a gracious [Prosperity] blessing for the two of them—it was...
A retribution beyond imagination!
[Prosperity]'s tide surged in every direction like man-eating waves. Before Cheng Shi and Hong Lin's eyes, countless Twisted Night Pythons writhed and wailed in agony as the deluge swept over them.
But all their struggling was futile. How could insignificant creatures withstand His fury? The serpents that had been defending [Prosperity] re monts ago were instantly consud by this wild call of [Prosperity]. They shed their cold, rotting serpent husks, rooting themselves in place as they sprouted and budded, transforming into slim saplings within seconds, then squat trees, then—in another blink—towering, Vitality-rich giants.
Cheng Shi and Hong Lin watched the spectacle unfold, their pupils violently contracting!
This seed like more than just a gaze...
In this mont, He had actually descended!
[Prosperity]'s Will smashed through the barriers of reality, descending directly into [Decay]'s Sighing Forest, transforming the entire fog-laden, decayed, treeless wasteland into a dense, lush, vibrantly green Underworld rainforest!
The Prosperity Divine Shade followed, and the canopy's shadow blanketed the entire land.
Watching every shade of grey and white recede as layers of erald surged forth, Hong Lin—body restored to boundless Vitality—nearly dropped her jaw.
This gambler of [Fate] had actually offered [Decay] as tribute to [Prosperity]!
And the most astonishing part—He had actually accepted it!
Personally accepted it!
"You..."
Cheng Shi was stunned too. But the smile at the corners of his mouth hadn't stopped—not once, from start to finish.
"See? I told you. My gambling luck is excellent.
Looks like we've won.
Though... Baldy, could you hold off on the questions for now? I'm still... cough...
Let's deal with these tal lumps first.
The Priest has played his part. Now it's the Warrior's turn."
'His part?'
'What a death-defying performance this was!'
Hong Lin was still reeling from the utter shock, but hearing Cheng Shi's words brought her partway back to her senses.
She gave a heavy snort—'I'll settle the score with you later'—then fixed a razor-sharp gaze on the chanical serpents that had nearly killed her.
These serpents were still staring at the sky. The scholars behind them remained trapped in the shock of [Prosperity]'s descent.
Just then, a furious roar erupted from the Sighing Forest—no, from the lush rainforest—and when the chanical serpents lowered their heads, they found a bear standing before them.
A bear with fire blazing in both eyes!
'What...?'
'What is...?'
The scholars no longer had any idea what they were looking at. Every last one of their visual feeds went dark at the sa mont—all their chanical constructs crushed into scrap simultaneously.
In that instant, the scholars who'd been secretly observing for countless ages suddenly lost all control over their faith experint.
No—perhaps they'd lost control long ago. The mont a certain gambler discovered that contract of faith theft, the Tower of Logic's experint had likely already begun its march toward failure.
anwhile.
In the Tribe that had surrendered to [Decay], when that thread of light representing Vitality and [Prosperity] descended from the sky, every last Mushroom-Footed Person wept uncontrollably.
They cried out, "Praise our Benefactor! Praise His forgiveness! Praise Master Baldy!" as they raised both hands high to the heavens, wholly embracing their own, true [Prosperity] at last.
...
At the edge of the Sighing Forest. An Underground Observation Station.
A handful of young scholars stared at a wall of static-filled monitors, frantic as ants on a hot pan.
They imdiately contacted the Grand Scholars in Gasmira, but the Grand Scholars had no ready counterasure for a crisis this deep underground. Their only option was to reach out to the Erudition Presidium—the all-seeing eye of the world.
When the Presidium mbers appeared via projection in the Underground Observation Station, one white-haired elder paused briefly before presenting his Ritual of Truth.
The mont this model of the universe—orbited by countless rising and falling stars—materialized, the air filled with the complex, arcane, impenetrable hymn of [Truth].
A mont later, a voice sounded—hollow, as though revealing the very laws of the cosmos. Its first decree was:
"Find the Barren Walker. It must not die."
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