Reality. So temple in an unknown province.
The moon was bright, the stars sparse. Frogs croaked and insects chirped.
When the alarm clock on the offering table sounded its hourly chi, Jiang Chi — seated on a prayer cushion — snapped his eyes open.
He doubled over, gasping for air. The horror in his eyes had congealed and wouldn't dissipate. He was drenched in cold sweat as if he'd been pulled from water, and his skull felt like it was being pierced by a thousand silver needles — a splitting headache.
"So... painful..."
He clutched his head and rolled onto the ground. His consciousness and mories had beco fragnted and hazy. The scene of Cheng Shi curling his lips into a smile played on repeat in his mind — but as it replayed, the image suddenly shifted.
Cheng Shi wasn't smiling anymore. Instead, his expression was deathly serious.
Jiang Chi vaguely rembered the other man had indeed gripped his hand, but the backdrop didn't seem to be snow-blanketed Kannar City. Where was this?
He froze for a mont.
Before long, the skull-splitting pain gradually receded. Soaked in sweat, Jiang Chi slowly sat up from the floor, rubbing his face to clear his head. 'Could that lightning strike have also had the effect of tearing consciousness and scrambling mories?'
'Terrifying!'
He looked down at his right hand — the one the thunder had struck first. The devastating destructive power still made him shudder.
"Cheng Shi... Cheng Shi... What a Cheng Shi. What a Fate Weaver!
How did he retain his mories inside the Ti Battlefield?
Fate's power?
But if Fate was responsible, why had none of His believers ever exposed this trick before?"
Jiang Chi was completely stumped. This puzzle was unsolvable for him, because even if he racked his brain to the point of explosion, he could never imagine that what had pierced through Ti's illusion wasn't the opposing force of Fate — but his very own Benefactor, Ti Himself.
His Benefactor had backstabbed him.
Of course, the most tragic part was that Ti probably didn't even care.
Yet despite this, Jiang Chi still had to offer his devotion to Him, because this was his only source of power.
"No! NO!!!"
Jiang Chi pounded the floor in frustration. If Cheng Shi ever revealed this, his secret to climbing the rankings would be completely exposed. No one would believe he was rely a Pointer Knight anymore — they'd know he was a Ti Walker who rewound ti to turn the tables!
And once people were on guard against him...
The entire combat system he'd spent months building would be utterly ruined!
No one feared a Ti Walker who lacked a mage's talent, because once your opponents knew you were a Ti Walker, they'd never give you the chance to open your ti battlefield at an undisputed hour mark!
This was worse than death. At least the dead couldn't feel despair.
"I have to find a solution. My only resurrection backup has been used up too. Before this gets exposed, I must find a way to fix this!"
...
Reality. Unknown space.
Fear continued to accumulate.
For a remnant soul capable of reviving through fear, the concentration of terror in this space had clearly reached the threshold — in fact, it had grown dense enough for ten resurrections over.
But no revival occurred.
Because within this space, there seed to be an invisible layer of rules preventing any life from self-reviving. It felt like a worshipper of fear had stumbled upon the Mother Tree of Fear, which consud all terror across the universe. Even though fear flowed like an ocean beneath one's feet, outsiders could only watch — unable to claim a drop. All fear flowed to Her.
This was a trap!
That Fate believer had used a ring perfectly attuned to fear to construct a trap!
Once soone stepped inside, getting back out beca a luxury.
The remnant soul fell into despair. And so...
Fear continued to accumulate.
...
Reality. So basent in an unknown province.
Nangong slowly opened her eyes. A flicker of confusion passed through them first, then a creeping trace of fear.
She was afraid!
Afraid that everything she'd just experienced was nothing but a beautiful dream. Afraid that Decay still clung to her, and that the Gift of Sores was still sitting in her storage space, waiting to be fed.
She sat on the ground, not daring to move. Her neck creaked stiffly as she turned it — and when she felt no scraping pain of scars against her collar, a brilliant light exploded in her eyes.
Nangong moved. She sprang to her feet and yanked up her sleeves. When she saw her arms were as flawless as they'd been in the trial, tears imdiately streaked down her chin.
Tears of overwhelming joy, and more tears still.
An excited buzzing filled her head. Her heartbeat quickened. She tore off her long shirt, shed her trousers, and kept spinning in circles to examine every inch of her body — poking, pinching — until her limbs were red all over, and only then did she finally confirm it wasn't a dream.
She'd truly escaped that eternal nightmare!
"A mirror! A mirror!"
Nangong cried out excitedly, desperate to see what she looked like now. But when she rushed to the adjacent room, she rembered — every reflective surface in this basent had already been... thrown away by her.
The smile froze on Nangong's face, but she didn't feel dejected. Instead, a spark of hope ignited in her heart.
She'd never before wanted to enter a trial this eagerly. And the reason for this trial was, honestly, rather funny — it was for a mirror.
When that thought crossed her mind, she laughed again. She plopped onto the floor and kept slapping her own cheeks, muttering:
"You've lost it, Nangong. You've only escaped the current suffering, but the road ahead... is still going to be hard.
You're an ordinary person without a faith now. And you're wishing for a mirror...
Suffering... faith... Decay... Prosperity..."
As she murmured, Nangong drew her legs up and gently hugged herself.
"I need to pray for a faith first. Cheng Shi said He would accept ...
Will He... really accept ?
Wait — Cheng Shi!"
Nangong's whole body trembled as sothing clicked. She hastily pulled out a notebook from her personal space — one filled with neatly recorded nas — and deftly flipped to the page bearing "Cheng Shi." After deliberating solemnly for a long while, she carefully inscribed "Cheng Shi" in the blank space between several other nas...
Twice.
There were now three Cheng Shi entries in the ledger.
Saving her life once. Breaking the Gift of Sores' contract once. Redeeming her from suffering and freeing her from Decay once...
Each debt was heavier than the last. But the na-filled notebook had no room left for bigger characters, so she could only trace over these three entries until they stood out deep and bold.
"Cheng Shi... thank you. Thank you. Thank you."
...
Reality. So rooftop in an unknown province.
The mont Cheng Shi returned to the rooftop of the rest area, cold sweat poured down his face in an unstoppable stream.
This wasn't because the world-ending Oblivion power he'd "fled" from had frightened him. It was because...
His boss — the familiar face who shouldn't have been there — was standing before him once again.
"Cheng Shi."
"..."
Seeing this expressionless boss call out his na, Cheng Shi's heart sank like a stone.
'This is bad!'
He'd co to collect a "debt!"
The words He'd once spoken — "I hope you won't refuse
a third ti" — still haunted Cheng Shi like a recurring nightmare. He'd thought, since He hadn't shown up for two weeks, that maybe he'd been forgotten...
But now it seed he'd been overthinking.
mory... would probably never forget.
...
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