Foolish Game of the Chapter 389: The Life That Should Not Have Been Born!

Pupils constricted to pinpoints, spine rigid as a pillar of stone — that was Cheng Shi's state right now.

He stared at Turadin's corpse and needed an eternity to gather his shattered consciousness back together, slowly reassembling it into sothing resembling composure and clarity.

Not that anyone could bla him for such a reaction, because he had never imagined a person's death could look this horrifying, this grotesque.

Turadin had been drained dry. Just like Zhang Jizu, wrinkled skin had been pulled taut over bare bones. But she was different from Squinty Eyes — because she'd been pregnant. A child on the verge of being born had been growing in her belly. And today was the very day she was supposed to go into labor.

That ant Turadin's belly would reach peak distension today.

And from what Cheng Shi could see, that was exactly the case.

But this was precisely what made it so uncanny. So unknown force should have drained every drop of flesh and vitality from her body, and by all rights her belly should have been no exception.

Yet atop that withered, skeletal corpse, the balloon-taut belly still brimd with living flesh — not a trace of vitality collapse in sight.

And that wasn't all. Right now, this enormous pregnant belly wasn't even spherical. Pressing outward against the mbrane-thin skin were one grotesque face after another, along with handprints.

The outlines of eyes, noses, mouths, ears, and hands — like impressions pushed from inside through a thin sheet of clay — were stamped all across Turadin's belly, warping its shape into sothing nightmarish, frozen into a ghastly, horrifying sculpture of flesh.

An ordinary person would take one look and think sothing was trying to claw its way out of this "cage of flesh" — that it had struggled halfway free before losing its strength, freezing in place along with its prison forever.

Cheng Shi stared at the scene, jaw clenched, unable to move.

He was rattled.

Probably no one in the world wouldn't be.

This was bone-chillingly terrifying and sanity-eroding. Looking back, he hadn't been this scared even while delivering Hu Xuan's baby.

The stark contrast between the withered corpse and the plump, living belly created a crushing sense of unreality — a feeling of "reason peeling away from existence, the grotesque materializing from the Void."

After a long, long ti, Cheng Shi exhaled heavily. He'd finally recovered. And it seed he'd already deduced why Turadin and Zhang Jizu had died.

The child.

Without question, their deaths were connected to whatever was inside Turadin's belly.

This child had drained every last drop of their vitality!

Of course, given how things had escalated, it was clearly no ordinary child anymore...

Whether it was Turadin's extremity of devotion catalyzing sothing, or whether Corruption — enthroned upon one of the sixteen divine seats — had genuinely turned its gaze upon this place, the result was the sa: the child in Turadin's belly had undergone a mutation on the very day it was ant to be born. It was no longer the "Holy Infant" the players had jokingly planned to manufacture — it had truly beco...

a life that Birth deed "should not have been born."

Cheng Shi didn't know what relationship it had with Corruption, nor whether it had genuinely beco the so-called Holy Infant. All he knew was that the Holy Infant's descent had failed — because Turadin's mortal body apparently couldn't supply the energy it needed to be born.

No — not just Turadin. Even a Chosen One of Death had been drained dry!

Without even knowing it, Squinty Eyes had contributed his vitality to the Holy Infant's arrival, and even that hadn't been enough!

A black hole that could drain a Chosen One who'd openly claid he couldn't die — what kind of thing was this?!

So Cheng Shi panicked. He wasn't sure he could deliver this child whose birth had apparently failed.

He wanted to win. But the premise of winning was being alive to collect the prize. And as things stood, even if he sohow saved this child's life, nobody could predict what would happen the mont it was actually born.

But if he gave up now, all the suffering of this entire trial would have been for nothing. Worse, he'd have lost Old Zhang on top of it all.

Whether Zhang Jizu was truly dead remained debatable, admittedly. But even if he wasn't, a fetus capable of draining a Chosen One wasn't going to be easy to handle.

Its birth might drain Squinty Eyes a second ti — and not just Squinty Eyes. Himself, too...

'I do not want to end up as a human husk...'

Cheng Shi frowned and was about to plan his next move carefully when sothing suddenly occurred to him.

Wait!

The authority of "Vitality"!

Could Prosperity's "Vitality" authority withstand this fetus's drain?

If it could...

Cheng Shi's eyes lit up. The gambler in him was stirring again.

'Already lost an Old Zhang. Can't just eat losses without earning anything back, right?'

'If I don't make this bet, won't this trial be a total loss?'

Cheng Shi wrestled with himself for a long while, weighing gains and losses dozens of tis over, until he finally twisted the words "gains and losses" into "gains and gains."

"You can't just keep losing without winning. When it's ti to gamble, you gamble. But first — I need a backup plan."

With that, Cheng Shi stood, stepped back, and used his scalpel to disassemble the cell door. He cleared an open space, then scattered dice across the entire floor.

Next, he pulled out the Puppet Grip he'd picked up from Gao Ya and slipped it onto his left hand. This way, even if danger struck, at least the A-grade glove could slow down whatever ca at him.

Finally, he retrieved a magic lamp from his storage space and hung it high from the ceiling, ensuring every corner was bathed in light — so he'd have instant access to his shadow at all tis.

After finishing these preparations, Cheng Shi took a deep breath. Right hand clenched around the Fun Ring, he crept step by step to Turadin's side.

His hand brushed lightly against the uneven, nightmare-sculpted belly, feeling for any movent inside. But after only two touches, his brow knotted tight.

He couldn't detect a single pulse of life in there.

Had the vitality dissipated?

That shouldn't be. The skin felt so smooth and warm to the touch. He could faintly see red blood flowing through the stretched-thin veins. The flesh was so plump and healthy it was in better condition than an ordinary person's belly. How could he not sense its presence?

Had the birth failed? Was it dead?

Or was it... not a living thing at all?

Cheng Shi's heart clenched. Staring at the misshapen belly before him, he summoned his courage once more, extended a single finger, and pressed it lightly into one corner of the skin. Then he slowly increased pressure, pushing the skin inward.

He was going to use this crude thod to determine what had gone wrong with the child inside.

But the mont he'd pressed barely an inch deep, he suddenly felt a powerful finger from inside Turadin's belly pressing back against his fingertip through the paper-thin skin!

That single point of contact sent a bone-piercing chill erupting from his fingertip, racing along the nerves of his arm straight to the crown of his skull. His face contorted. He yanked his hand back and vanished on the spot, reappearing at —

Gou Feng's side.

"HOLY SHIT!!!"

The Chieftain stared blankly at his "good brother," whose face had gone a ghastly shade of blue-white, and froze in utter bewildernt.

'He... didn't co back specifically to curse at , did he?'

...