"You said... what?"
Hong Lin seed to have recovered sowhat. With only [Death] beside them now, she finally returned to being the outspoken Druid she truly was.
She turned to Cheng Shi in disbelief and asked him to confirm once more:
"You said [Prosperity] killed Herself?"
No matter how absurd, how bizarre, how unfathomable this scene was, Cheng Shi had no choice but to nod—because [Prosperity] had indeed fallen.
"Why?"
"It can't be that She couldn't bear captivity and chose death as a statent of principle?"
"That's impossible. They're... They're the omnipotent gods! What was She after?"
What was She after?
Cheng Shi couldn't make sense of it either, but one possibility occurred to him. He spoke with deep admiration:
"Perhaps... that's exactly it. A death to make a statent."
The mont he finished speaking, the colossal skull atop the Bone Throne slowly turned to look at Cheng Shi. The compassionate green flas in His eye sockets gradually dimd, and He spoke with even more emotion than Cheng Shi:
"No wonder... She... would invite... you, a human... to rge with Her."
"You truly... are well-suited... to Her will."
"Her... Final Oracle... was to divide... all of Her Authority... equally... and leave it... to the gods."
"The Pact... has already... carried out... this oracle."
As He spoke, the skull gently parted its jaws and from the hollow cavity of its mouth produced a perfect, unblemished tender bud.
Sensing the divine might surging from the bud, Cheng Shi's heart shook.
"This is..."
"[Prosperity]'s... 'Unsullied'... Authority."
"She... would spread... this power... throughout... the Divine Shade... and so... Her people... suffered no... disease."
"But..."
"I wield... [Death]'s Divine Na... I have no need... for this Authority."
Realization struck Cheng Shi like lightning. He blinked rapidly, then burst into laughter.
"My lord, forgive my presumption—but even if you don't need it, you surely... wouldn't return an Authority that was delivered to your doorstep?"
The colossal skull showed no anger at Cheng Shi's irreverence. He quietly nodded.
"Correct. This is... the Mother of [Prosperity]'s... final enactnt... of Her own will."
"She gave [Birth]... 'Breeding.' She gave ... 'Unsullied.' She gave [Corruption]... 'Assimilation.' She gave [Truth]... 'Abundance'..."
"In short... every god... received a gift... from Her fall."
"But—"
"But none of it matters!" Cheng Shi laughed maniacally, his jaw clacking against the white bone steps with each convulsion.
He felt this divine drama was absolutely spectacular—so magnificent it drew involuntary awe and wonder!
[Death] gave a soft hum and said nothing more, but Hong Lin's eyes were filled with confusion. She looked at Cheng Shi and asked, bewildered:
"Why would She do this? She sacrificed Herself through self-annihilation just to disgust the gods?"
"Disgust? No, no, no!" Cheng Shi laughed—louder than before. "I think She never cared about what the gods thought. What She cared about was always Herself."
"And above all else—Her will of universal prosperity!"
"Think about it. When every god has received Her gift, when every single one of Them has fused with [Prosperity]'s Authority, when every supre being in the cosmos carries prosperity within them—then the grand vision of universal prosperity..."
"Can it really be far away?"
"..."
The gods' understanding of Authority clearly exceeded Hong Lin's comprehension. That wasn't her fault—she was only human, after all, and she knew far too little about Them.
But Cheng Shi's grasp of divine Authority also surpassed her understanding. Her head was spinning, because she could vaguely sense a hidden aning behind Cheng Shi's words:
She was dead—but sohow not really dead.
Brow furrowed in deep confusion, Hong Lin asked another question:
"Then... why don't They just refuse?"
But the mont the question left her lips, she fell silent.
Refuse?
Who would refuse?
The gods' current reality was one of exploiting every loophole in the Pact to seize each other's Authority. When an ownerless Authority was delivered right to their mouths, never mind biting deeper in the direction it ca from—who would turn it away?
This was [Prosperity]. This was the [Prosperity] who went around preaching "rge with ."
She was willing to die rather than abandon Her will.
It was terrifying. Absolutely horrifying.
Could what drove a lofty god to sacrifice everything truly be just faith and conviction?
What were They—or rather, what was the Pact that bound Them—truly pursuing?
Cheng Shi would never dare ask that question. He knew he was far too insignificant. When he lacked the power to protect himself, so things were better left unknown. After all, divine favor didn't last forever—the more you knew, the faster you might die.
And so silence settled once more.
Cheng Shi silently pondered whether all of this had been orchestrated by Cheng Dashi, scripted by [Fate], or rely a string of accidents from start to finish.
Perhaps all he'd done was toss a pebble into a calm lake at Cheng Dashi's suggestion—never expecting it to beco the final straw that broke the cal's back, shattering the fragile lakebed altogether.
Hong Lin, on the other hand, was far more conflicted. While she didn't worship [Prosperity], learning that her only Benefactor had fallen left her mind churning with one question: what would happen to all of [Prosperity]'s players now?
[Death] saw the alarm and doubt in her eyes and spoke quietly:
"Authority... has only transferred... not vanished."
"You will... lose nothing... except the ability... to be summoned by Her. Otherwise... nothing changes."
"Trials and blessings... will be handled... by the Pact as proxy... however..."
"Her power... to reward followers... during trials... is yet to be... assigned."
The mont the colossal skull finished speaking, a pair of eyes painted with spirals and starpoints opened high above Fishbone Hall.
Those suprely cold eyes swept over everything in the hall, then pushed a contract radiating the luminance of [Order] before Hong Lin.
The instant Cheng Shi saw his Benefactor's arrival, he leaped two steps forward and cried out in praise:
"Praise the greatest [Fate] in all the universe!"
Those icy eyes offered no response. They rely blinked with neither joy nor sorrow—and then tossed the sycophantic follower into another stretch of void.
After Cheng Shi vanished, the eyes regarded the stunned Hong Lin, and a cold voice spoke:
"I have sensed your devotion to destiny, and I have seen your confusion about the road ahead. That is why I have co to guide you."
"Hong Lin, will you step into [Void], walk simultaneously upon the Path of [Fate], and beco my Favored One?"
Hong Lin froze for only a single second before nodding with conviction:
"I'm willing. But... forgive my boldness—I have so questions."
The icy spirals in those eyes reversed. They gazed at the player about to beco His Favored One, the tone still cold as ever.
"Speak."
"Since my Benefac—since [Prosperity] has fallen, will I change from a Druid into a Hero of Today?"
"Though [Prosperity] has fallen, the path of [Prosperity] endures. Only the Divine Throne at its end now sits empty. You may still continue walking Her road, seeking the destination of faith."
"I will bestow upon you your own Die of Fate. When you take it up, you shall walk both the path of [Prosperity] and the Fixed Destiny of [Fate]."
"Justice has recognized your identity. As the eldest daughter of the Mother of [Prosperity]—Frazor—you possess the right to inherit [Prosperity]."
"But [Prosperity] no longer holds any Authority, so you cannot ascend to Her Divine Throne."
"However, for the sake of fairness, Justice has preserved the necessary rights acknowledged by the Pact for Her offspring."
"These rights are split in two. [Truth] took the voting rights at the Assembly of Gods Convention. What remains for you is only..."
"The power to reward [Prosperity]'s followers during trials."
"Sign this contract, and the rights of [Prosperity]'s offspring will be recognized by the Pact. And you shall truly beco a Servant God of [Life]—Her Envoy, Her eldest daughter, Frazor."
"An heir of [Prosperity] with neither Authority nor voting rights under the Pact."
"..." Hong Lin's brain exploded all over again. She desperately wanted to gesture and process her thoughts, only to discover she had no hands or feet. She looked imploringly at the colossal skull beside her, hoping this great lord would explain things just as He had before—but the skull said nothing.
With no alternative, she raised her head and looked at those eyes, asking dryly: "Then... will I still be ?"
"Sign the contract, and you will learn in ti."
'Oh. Got it. I don't have a choice.'
So Hong Lin gritted her teeth, bounced over to the contract, and was about to ask how a skull with no hands or feet was supposed to sign a divine contract—when she found that her will had already appeared on the contract in a script she couldn't begin to understand.
The mont the contract was sealed, [Order]'s luminance gradually faded. The contract dissolved into countless starpoints that scattered across the universe.
At the sa ti, a twenty-four-sided Die of Fate quietly appeared beside her.
"The contract is sealed, your identity confird. Leave."
With that, the eyes blinked once and sent Hong Lin out of the void.
The colossal skull raised its gaze to those cold eyes, and spoke with complex emotion:
"[Fate]... truly is... always changing."
With that, the entirety of Fishbone Hall collapsed and dispersed, leaving only those swirling eyes staring at the devastation in the void, their gaze growing ever more unfathomable. Perhaps no one would ever know what He was thinking.
...
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