Cheng Shi froze, then laughed despite himself.
'No, no, no — please spare
that particular complint. Bad luck.'
Nangong seed to realize she'd said the wrong thing. Her face reddened and she hurriedly changed the subject: "But back then, I had no idea it was so Herald nad Dizel. I only knew it as the spirit dwelling within the Gift of Sores."
"So you signed a life-and-death contract with a weapon spirit?"
"It said I had to sign..." Nangong shrank into herself.
"..." Cheng Shi smiled politely and rolled his eyes. "And now? Why are you back here?"
"I never planned to return here. I didn't even know I'd end up here today. The weapon spirit... Dizel said the rules of the ga had changed, that the gods were accelerating things. It needed to advance further and couldn't keep tagging along with soone as unambitious as .
I'd been suffering from the offerings Decay demands. I wanted to be free of it but couldn't shake it loose. When it said all that, I followed its guidance and prayed for a...
'Transfer of ownership' trial."
"A transfer of ownership trial?"
"Mm. It said it needed an ambitious person — preferably one consud by desire. I didn't care who it wanted to switch to. I just wanted it to dissolve our contract so I'd stop enduring the extra suffering...
I've always believed it wasn't a blessing of Decay, but Decay's curse. Whoever obtains it will beco unfortunate.
Dizel... truly helped
many tis. But my offerings to it far outweighed what it gave in return. I... don't owe it anymore.
But now I owe you again, Cheng Shi. Thank you. Truly, thank you."
Cheng Shi didn't bother with pleasantries — he accepted her gratitude without pretense. But her words made sothing click. He suddenly understood that earlier, when Nangong had recognized him and tried to hide the Gift of Sores from his sight, she hadn't been afraid of him exposing her secret — she'd been afraid the Gift of Sores would target him!
She'd been afraid it would harm him.
Even in that desperate mont, this kind-hearted girl's instinct had been to repay her debt. She didn't want Cheng Shi to suffer the sa curse of Decay she'd endured — even though the entire reason she'd co here was to rid herself of that very curse!
Looking at Nangong's sincere face, Cheng Shi smiled radiantly once more.
His gaze burning with intensity, he suddenly asked:
"But even if you've freed yourself from it, Decay still demands your offerings. The core of being a Blood Exchange Priest is the blood exchange — as long as you continue to follow Him, you'll keep suffering.
Can you still bear it, Nangong?"
Nangong's expression froze, then she gave a resolute nod: "As long as there's no extra suffering, I can endure the price of faith."
"You can endure it... I see. In that case — Nangong, have you ever considered changing your faith?"
"???"
At those words, Nangong's head filled with question marks. She covered her mouth in shock and stared at Cheng Shi, her baffled eyes clearly asking: 'You can do that? Just... switch?'
Honestly, Cheng Shi wasn't entirely sure either. But he wanted to try.
And the reason he could even suggest switching soone else's faith was that he had, well... a tiny bit of confidence to back it up.
That confidence stemd not only from Void's protection but also from his understanding of — and guesses about — Decay.
Just as he'd done today — stripping the faith from an entire city of Rosna citizens and returning their freedom — Cheng Shi had been probing Decay's true will from the very beginning.
He'd treated that probing like a key — a hastily crafted key ant to unlock the door to clearing this trial!
Indeed, the scene where Cheng Shi had Qu Yan play the black-robed figure wasn't rely bait for the original black-robed person and his patron deities. He'd had a third target: Decay itself!
He was using what amounted to the ultimate blasphemous oathbreaking feast to test Decay's true intentions.
Because he'd never forgotten what that withered giant had said when he'd sought an audience with Decay:
"I summoned you here... rely to see if this Deceit believer who made
realize... that the past was useless... is like ... also a pitiful soul..."
That sentence actually contained an enormous amount of information. At the ti, Cheng Shi had been too deep in shock and confusion to catch the deeper aning. But after learning more about Decay through his subsequent conversations with Aph Ros, he'd ford a tentative hypothesis about Decay's true will.
Aph Ros had ntioned that Decay was originally a god without compassion — yet as the ages progressed, He gradually developed it.
So what had caused this change?
That question, too, had an answer. Because Aph Ros's warning had stated that His change was connected to that unnaable Him!
With this knowledge, revisiting Decay's words and reflecting on what He'd ant by calling himself a "pitiful soul"...
Pitiable — a word aning worthy of compassion. The only target a person could beg compassion from was an existence that, on so level, stood above them.
Beggars don't beg from other beggars. The poor don't ask the poor for money!
But!
Decay was already a god — one of those who sat upon the sixteen lofty Divine Thrones, looking down upon virtually all of existence. What compassion could He possibly still be seeking?!
If He truly was "begging," the target could only be Him — the Origin, that omniscient and omnipotent god!
The logic seed to hold. But what was He begging for? Why, exactly, was He pitiable?
Normally this would have been impossible to figure out — after all, Cheng Shi was just a mortal. Even draped in enough terrifying titles to give anyone a heart attack, he had to admit he wasn't one of Them. He didn't know Their past.
But fortunately, he'd witnessed quite a bit related to Them, and his thinking was unconventional enough. He drew a connection to the scene of Prosperity self-sacrificing for universal flourishing. If even Prosperity could fulfill Her will through death, then could Decay's championing of decay... itself be the fulfillnt of His will?
Not the version of Decay's will that players understood — but the one Cheng Shi had just deduced. The will of "begging."
Was it possible that He wanted to use universal decay as a way to beg for Him's attention?
Just as His believers used the sa thod to beg for His attention?
And it was this rot of body, mind, and soul that had turned Him into a "pitiful soul." Could He be using this near-"self-mutilation" to bid for Him's concern?
It wasn't impossible. Though it was a bold and unreliable guess, observations of other gods showed they clearly "wanted" sothing from Him.
For example — the Convention!
...
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