"...You're lying. Le Le'er has not perished. I can sense that she is still alive. You — need not try to deceive ."
'Huh?'
Dizel was nothing but a soul, yet it could still sense whether Le Le'er was alive or dead?
Why?
Simply because they were connected by the sa roots — both children of Prosperity?
Being called out to his face was an unpleasant feeling, but right now it hardly mattered whether the bluff held. Because Cheng Shi had already achieved the effect he wanted — the other side was panicking.
Even though Dizel knew Cheng Shi had lied, it was still rattled. That ant its situation was dire. It absolutely didn't want to — perhaps couldn't afford to — encounter an existence on its own level, especially one who was privy to the details of Prosperity's fall!
That put it in an extrely passive position!
The Gift of Sores it had beco couldn't operate as freely as a true Herald's soul. Now it could only pretend to be sothing mysterious in front of clueless players, using "deception" to advance its layout and sches piece by piece, hoping to find a host capable of helping it "resurrect."
But now it had run into a far more skilled con artist. The two of them clearly knew nothing about each other, yet Cheng Shi had managed to project an air of "I know everything about you while you know nothing about ."
Normally, this kind of bluff would be difficult to pull off in front of a Herald, since players simply knew too little about Them and lacked the information to back it up.
But Cheng Shi was different. Though his knowledge of the gods wasn't extensive, his understanding of Prosperity specifically was more than adequate. He'd heard far too many stories about Prosperity from Their own mouths and had even witnessed Prosperity's fall firsthand.
So the mont he faced Dizel, the scales of fate had already been loaded entirely in Cheng Shi's favor!
In this contest of "lies," he simply couldn't lose!
Cheng Shi smiled. He didn't refute Dizel's exposure. He just grinned — that infuriatingly smug grin.
And that smile only made Dizel panic more.
If the person before it was just an ordinary player, it would rely assu the human had gotten carried away in their excitent at finding it. But if the other party was a so-called Prosperity hunter who knew everything...
"..."
'I can't just sit here and wait for death!'
Dizel made its move. It couldn't flee, but it could use its residual divine power to attack Cheng Shi. If it could just eliminate this "hunter," then the current crisis might still be salvageable.
And the reason the Gift of Sores bore the na "Gift of Sores" was precisely because Dizel could still wield the power of Decay to corrode targets while siphoning their vitality to nourish itself.
However, as an imprisoned soul, every use of this power eroded its own sanity and mory. That was why it rarely deployed this ability, and why it had chosen a relatively non-aggressive priest as its first host!
During its ti traveling with Nangong, it had only accumulated, never expended. As a result, by now it possessed an enormous reserve of Decay power at its disposal.
And so — it decided to stake everything on a single strike!
Cheng Shi wasn't foolish. He'd anticipated an attack — he just hadn't expected the timing to be so... terrible.
Who attacks during a silent lull in conversation?
The best mont to catch an enemy off guard was while they were speaking. Thinking and communicating divert attention and make people harder to defend — that's when a strike is most likely to land.
But once the enemy has fallen quiet, what else can they do besides stay on guard?
That was exactly Cheng Shi's state. He'd been braced for a sneak attack from Dizel the entire ti — even while bluffing and intimidating, he'd kept his nerves taut. He'd expected to at least dodge the ambush, but...
He had underestimated the sheer power involved.
The Gift of Sores was ultimately a dagger forged from a Herald's very being. The Decay power contained within was vast beyond asure, especially after Dizel's policy of accepting everything and spending nothing. The destructive potential had reached a truly terrifying level.
Which ant that although Cheng Shi had been on guard — he'd completely failed to defend.
The dagger suddenly opened an eye. Then the entire blade transford into a vine that crept and grew outward from beneath Nangong. As these vines trembled skyward, great fruits of Decay ford at their tips.
They were called "fruits," but in truth, they looked more like eyes!
Unlike the Mother of Prosperity's, however, these eyes were anything but bright and alert. Instead, they hung at crooked angles like lting wax eyeballs. And when all those drooping wax-eyes eerily snapped open simultaneously, countless threads of grayish-white light burst forth and struck Cheng Shi's body. The gray light even coalesced into withered Decay vines that bound him in place!
No one would have guessed that this dagger wasn't simply a brute-force weapon but also a horrifying crowd-control artifact. Even after abandoning Prosperity, Dizel still bore Prosperity's form. Though what should have been lush green vines had turned into gray, rotted, withered tendrils, the shape was unmistakable — one lineage, passed down without error.
Cheng Shi had been hit. The torrential power of Decay instantly corroded his flesh, sapped his spirit, and the vitality-draining beams carved away at his life force like the blade of a slow execution — piece by agonizing piece. In the blink of an eye, Cheng Shi went still.
He turned pale with shock. Then... mildly alard. And finally... perfectly calm.
"..."
Because he suddenly realized that in the face of this terrifying slow execution of his vitality... he simply wasn't going to die.
The Vitality authority!
This power, inherited from Dizel's own mother, was now acting like a true mother — shielding Cheng Shi, protecting him from her own child's attack!
The absurdity of this scene nearly made Cheng Shi laugh out loud.
'The dead Prosperity has finally stopped chasing , but She's still "tornting" Her own child.'
'I wonder what Dizel will think when it sees this...'
What did it think?
It went insane!
Dizel went insane!
It absolutely could not believe it was seeing Prosperity's authority in another person!
The Gift of Sores was ultimately a creation of Decay — its very na spelled out that what it bestowed upon others was always Decay, never Death.
It could inflict boundless Decay upon an enemy, reducing them to a withered husk, then let its host deliver the killing blow. That was why every assassin coveted it — because it was simply too effective!
But when its host had been put to sleep by a smoke bomb, and when its target's body contained the cheat code of Prosperity's authority — what could Dizel possibly do?
Apart from rage impotently, what could it do?!
"Impossible! Lies! It's all lies! She could never share Her authority with soone else!
She is Prosperity! She is the Prosperity who coveted the entire universe and sought to assimilate all things!
Even in death, She would never share a shred of Her authority!!"
"..."
...
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