The moon hung at its zenith. Midnight's breath thickened, and the countdown ticked toward its end.
Cheng Shi stared at the card in his hand and sighed.
His original purpose for praying this trial into existence had been to acquire Big Cat's ntal-power item before attending the diocre Person Society gathering.
But now, sorting through the explosive revelations born from a ss of Birth ethics had eaten an entire day.
It wasn't a total wash, though. At least the great one's gifted door key had illuminated a path forward.
The path: find a corpse, open the Gate of Despised Desire, and ask Aph Ros face-to-face.
But Cheng Shi didn't have a corpse on hand. Xie Yang next door had vanished sowhere — couldn't even be called out. The countdown was about to end, and he didn't yet know whether the so-called invitation would activate the instant midnight struck.
If it worked as he suspected, the remaining minutes weren't enough to pray for another trial to pursue Big Cat's Prosperity item, nor to locate a corpse.
In that scenario, even a risk-free trial wouldn't leave him ti to readjust before the gathering. So he chose to rest briefly, maintaining peak condition for the eting ahead.
It wasn't the most cautious approach, but the Vitality authority gave Cheng Shi a baseline of confidence.
So he revised his plan and called Big Cat, hoping to push back their "under-the-table deal." Unexpectedly, the call didn't go through.
'Big Cat is busy?'
Cheng Shi raised an eyebrow. It was a small matter — no need to force the call. His urge to dial had been more about venting complaints than actual communication.
'Tu Tou, get a grip already.'
He shook his head with a wry grin, tossed the phone aside, and picked up the golden card. Thumbing its surface, he murmured:
"Hopefully the diocre Person Society has a surprise for . Ideally including a corpse — that'd make everything easier."
The fine print on the card kept shifting. Cheng Shi gripped it solemnly, motionless, waiting for the invitation to an unknown space to take effect.
He was slightly more nervous now than before a special trial. Special trials, however special, followed a format he'd internalized completely.
But a real-world gathering was different. He'd never attended a player-organized assembly, and he had no idea what unknown risks lurked behind this elaborately crafted, mysterious card.
And so, amid that taut anticipation, the tir crawled to zero.
00:03!
00:02!
00:01!
Countdown complete!
Invitation... nothing. No invitation. Not even the imagined teleportation.
Nothing happened!
Cheng Shi was dumbfounded. He swiveled to scan the room, peered through the window at the rooftop. No void fluctuations up there — not a hint of a spatial rift.
Instead, a new line of small text appeared on the back of the golden card where the countdown had been:
Please affix this card to the back of any door, then push it open to enter the venue.
"..."
The instant he read this, Cheng Shi felt the diocre Person Society's allure dim sowhat.
'Manual teleportation in this day and age?'
'Is this diocre Person Society even legit? Are they actually just... diocre people?'
'I ca to collect intelligence. They'd better not turn
into the one sharing it...'
But sitting here was pointless. With a sigh, he stood, stuck the card to the back of his room's door, and gingerly pushed it open.
...
anwhile, elsewhere.
In a blood-washed apartnt, a sweating woman hurled her charred experintal tools away in fury. She slamd her fist into the ruined desk.
BANG — the already-strained table disintegrated to dust.
Gao Ya had failed. Despite the magnificent blueprint of faith fusion, her experint was a catastrophic wreck.
That Silence puppet had seed like a true mannequin — utterly pliable. Even during annihilation activation and physical disassembly, it gave no feedback. Yet the instant she tried to fuse the "force-ripened" Birth soul she'd birthed into it, the residual Silence force rejected it without hesitation.
The rejection was so violent that it blew apart half the living room.
She glared at the equally destroyed puppet, feeling like a clown.
"So Silence's rejection is this severe. He doesn't seem to want to fuse with other faiths at all...
Why?
Or is it that faiths from different Paths simply can't be bonded together with soul glue?
No — my previous experints showed otherwise. I refuse to believe it!"
Gritting her teeth, Gao Ya stood and pulled an exquisite map from her storage. She unfurled it, scanning for sothing. Before long, in the southwestern corner, she found a city drawn in simple strokes — Dolgod.
"I'd planned to change back to myself the second ti I returned. But now it seems I need to delay that plan.
This ti, I need to find a new God Reproduction host and get my hands on the Descent Technique hidden in the library. Only then will I have an unending supply of experintal material..."
Gao Ya took a deep breath, pressed her finger to Dolgod on the map, and prayed with eyes closed:
"All life is folly, all civilization is foolishness..."
...
Trial — Dolgod, Theocracy of Growth Rest Hall.
Back to familiar ground.
When Gao Ya opened her eyes, the other teammates were already sizing one another up. She swept her gaze across them, and her scrutinizing stare stopped abruptly on a hulking figure.
He wore a pure-black mask. Every inch of him was concealed. Yet despite this, Gao Ya sensed a familiar aura from him.
Folly's intuition told her she definitely knew this person. Cross-referencing his behavior from the last trial, her brow darkened. She'd guessed his identity.
'Gou Feng!'
She hadn't expected the scheming Chieftain to return here — and land in the sa group as her again.
'Interesting. What does he want this ti?'
'Surely not... to steal what I'm after?'
Gao Ya didn't expose the Chieftain's identity. She rely frowned, stepped back, and put enough distance between them for reaction ti.
This was clearly another high-score match. Teammates introduced themselves one by one. Beside Gou Feng stood a bespectacled woman who kept covering her mouth with a light laugh, seemingly fascinated by everything here.
"The scent of Infant Bell Flowers — as expected from His trial. Good evening, everyone. You may call
Shui Gui.
Gui as in 'sundial,' not gui as in 'ghost.'
Perhaps my na gives away my faith. I'm not good at disguises, so I'll just co clean.
2471, Ti Walker."
'Ti?!'
'Another Ti teammate?'
Gao Ya's brow furrowed. Sothing felt off.
Being matched with a teammate from the previous trial was bad enough. Now there was a Ti player — just like last ti.
Coincidence?
Maybe. There were only sixteen faiths — you'd run into repeats eventually. But Folly's intuition told her sothing was wrong.
So Gao Ya decided to leave. Go solo. Folly was never a team player anyway, so her departure would raise no eyebrows.
She silently glanced over the assembled teammates, then — amid expressions of annoyance, curiosity, and astonishnt from the others — smashed through the window behind her and left without a word.
She didn't need to waste ti on anyone. She knew where the Descent Technique was hidden.
But on her calm, collected walk toward the church's rear library — she bumped into soone.
The man in church robes caught her around the waist the instant their shoulders touched, affecting a gentlemanly air:
"I didn't hurt you, did I, beautiful lady?"
'That tone — is this a pickup attempt?'
Gao Ya sneered internally. For blissfully ignorant NPCs like this, she had only one approach: drain every ounce of utility, then kill. She had plenty of control tools at her disposal.
But this ti, she used none of them. Instead, she struggled with violent desperation to break free from his embrace.
Because she'd recognized who he was. But a re identity alone wouldn't inspire this much terror.
What terrified Gao Ya was realizing her emotions were being pulled. Her desires were being amplified. She felt that if she didn't struggle free now, she'd be lost in these ballooning desires — irrevocably... falling in love with the man before her.
Turadin!
This man whose pickup lines were deplorably hackneyed was Turadin.
But he couldn't be the Turadin she'd known. Because those purple eyes — she'd never seen them before.
Gao Ya panicked. She'd never imagined NPCs within a trial's backdrop could change!
'Why are these beings — who should have been annihilated by history — moving as if they're alive, possessing their own consciousness?'
That smirk curling his lips made one thing clear: he'd recognized her!
'Impossible — an NPC, no matter how special, having mories?!'
'This can't be!'
Turadin saw Gao Ya's fear and confusion. He drank in those emotions with greed, his blazing gaze locked on her eyes as he smiled:
"What — don't recognize ?
I'm so happy to see you again, miss. But could you tell ... why didn't my brother co?"
"You... YOU!!??" Gao Ya's pupils contracted. Her face drained of color. She tried to reach into her storage for an escape tool, but before her hand could rise, a tentacle materialized from thin air and locked every joint in her body.
She couldn't move.
Turadin tilted his head toward the rest hall, shook his head, and sighed.
"There's another familiar aura over there too. But it's not my brother either.
Pity. I thought he'd co find
again. Seems I was wrong.
I'm a little disappointed. But old friends returning isn't so bad.
So please allow
— the lonely prisoner, Aph Ros — to welco the beautiful lady's arrival."
With that, he spread his arms wide in a devout embrace toward the heavens. Then his blazing eyes settled on Gao Ya, his lips curling into an eerie smile.
"Welco to...
Ti's prison.
Beautiful lady, are you ready to receive the most exquisite pleasure this world has to offer?"
...
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