Foolish Game of the Chapter 797: Folly!

To be fair, Wei Mu only knew that his Benefactor had lost Her authority. He had no idea how it happened.

Now it seed that sitting at this table really could broaden one's horizons — at the very least, this Envoy of Deceit appeared to know precisely how his Benefactor had squandered Her authority.

But Wei Mu didn't dare ask. He'd already grasped the "rules" of this table: he could listen to what others said, but he had no standing to ask about what he didn't understand.

So the puppet kept its head bowed in silence, waiting for the dual Envoy across from him to serve as his mouthpiece and inquire how his Benefactor had managed to waste all of Her authority.

Sure enough, Aph Ros was utterly beside Herself with curiosity. She lunged forward, practically flattening Herself against the table, Her eyes boring into Cheng Shi with a craving so intense it was nearly dripping.

Never mind what kind of craving — the point is, it was craving.

Cheng Shi's eyelid twitched. He straightened up and pressed his back flat against his chair, putting as much distance between them as possible, then flashed a cryptic smile.

"Don't ask . If you ask, I don't know. Even if I knew, I wouldn't dare say."

The line was pure fabrication. Cheng Shi had his suspicions, but without confirmation, he refused to breathe a word about Folly — especially with a Folly follower present. So he tossed the answer into the void of the unknown.

But the speaker's offhand remark landed heavily on the listener's ears. Hearing this response, Aph Ros instantly reined in Her expression and sat ramrod straight. A flash of reverence passed through Her eyes, and She smiled with faint rigidity.

"It's related to... Him?"

Cheng Shi hadn't expected Aph Ros to pick up even that thread. He nodded with a helpless, bemused expression. "Yes."

"Very good. My brother, it seems you're recovering your mories far faster than I anticipated. Your understanding of Him is accelerating as well."

"I couldn't have done it without your help, Aph Ros. I will forever treasure this friendship."

The mont the words left his lips, the brilliant moon soared into the sky.

The sudden transformation left the puppet at the far end of the table montarily stunned. Its jaw worked open and shut a few tis before it chose silence.

Nothing particularly remarkable, really. Didn't the aristocrats of the Land of Hope always love putting on a show at dinner? As an Envoy born from the Land of Hope, Aph Ros's behavior wasn't exactly worthy of criticism.

But what was this "Him" they kept referring to?

Wei Mu's curiosity deepened. Just then, Cheng Shi cleared his throat, averted his gaze, and turned back to the puppet.

"I had assud you were a one-in-ten-thousand genius, yet it turns out all that assembled divinity of yours simply dripped from a Container.

Granted, being able to control the type of faith that crystallizes into the specific divinity you need — that kind of manipulation is genius in its own right. But compared to doing it all yourself from scratch, it's slightly less impressive.

Still, what truly puzzles

is this: you're a Player. Where does your faith co from?

I refuse to believe your white-eyed Benefactor handed over all of Her own faith. That's the very foundation of the gods."

He'd asked the question on Hu Xuan's behalf. Cheng Shi was using the information gleaned from Hu Xuan's lips to extract Wei Mu's "findings." Wei Mu didn't suspect a thing — after all, it was perfectly natural for an Envoy to understand how Containers worked. So, eager to keep the exchange flowing smoothly, the puppet explained in its characteristically asured cadence.

"A humble opinion, offered as a brick to attract jade.

I don't know what faith looks like from your perspective. All I know is that from observation in reality, faith is nothing more than life's pursuit of a particular thought or will.

All living beings pray for equality, and so Order descends. All living beings thirst for true knowledge, and so Truth manifests. All living beings express themselves, and thus War rages.

This holds for Civilization. It holds equally for Chaos.

So I often wondered: if I, too, beca sothing that all living beings pursued, would their acknowledgnt of

also qualify as a form of faith?

And so I began acting toward that goal. I reached the number one spot on the Road to Ascension. When I broadcast my fa as a Folly follower, people started... flattering .

Flattery isn't kindness. But what I didn't expect was that even flattery is a form of acknowledgnt — and that acknowledgnt is precisely the 'faith' I sought!

The only problem was that this 'faith' was full of impurities — the divinity it produced was virtually unusable.

But once you have raw material, no matter how contaminated, there's nothing that can't be refined through experintation. And so, bit by bit, I mastered the thod of distilling divinity. I spent a very long ti studying it.

It was only recently, through the opportunity presented by 0221's experint, that I revealed this assembled divinity to others.

This way, 0221 beca the genius who discovered the thod of assembling divinity, while I was rely soone who reverse-engineered his technique and replicated his work. Far from becoming a public target, I can quietly remain behind the curtain — distributing divinity outward while steadily earning more 'flattery.'

This is how I obtained my faith. Lord Yu Xi — do you find any of this... illuminating?"

"..."

'Yes. Profoundly illuminating. Not only illuminating, but it makes

feel sothing dangerously close to self-loathing.'

That, of course, was not the Clown's thought — it was Hu Xuan's.

The Clown was thinking the sa thing, but he forced himself not to dwell on it. Instead, he cheerfully turned his gaze toward Hu Xuan.

The Birth follower, for once, averted her eyes from Cheng Shi. Her expression montarily froze as she silently committed everything to mory.

Seeing this, Cheng Shi's amusent only grew. But there was still one thing nagging at him. According to Wei Mu's account, the man had only explained his research into faith — he still hadn't addressed why he'd received the Container so early.

So this was yet another Player who, like the Blind One, had "had an audience with a god" at a remarkably early stage?

'How is it that all of you have these incredible encounters?'

Perhaps sensing the group's lingering questions — or perhaps proactively sharing his story to earn the right to remain at this table — Wei Mu preempted Cheng Shi's next question and filled in the missing pieces himself.

"I was indeed summoned by my Benefactor very early on. As early as the mont I first realized that conquering this ga required studying faith — that's when She summoned .

At the ti, I was obsessed with cracking the Faith Ga. So naturally, when I t my Benefactor, I asked the question that mattered most to .

And when She demanded to know whether I thought my Oracle Act had an answer, I countered with my own question:

'If You are so wise, why have You allowed the other fifteen gods to stand as Your equals?'"

"..."

"..."

"..."

'Magnificent!'

'You Chosen Ones — each more ferocious than the last.'

'I thought the Blind One was reckless enough, since she didn't know whether prophesying about her own Benefactor would get her killed. But you, Wei Mu — you genuinely have no fear of death.'

"Interesting." Cheng Shi shook his head with a grin. "It seems that even back then, you'd already figured out your Benefactor's temperant. You knew She wouldn't punish you for it."

"Yes. Once I began studying the aning of faith, I discovered that the more closely you align with Their will, the greater the chance of drawing close to Them. That's why I dared ask that question."

"And what did your Benefactor say?"

"She said: 'Becoming a god is itself a foolish act.'

I said: 'If that's the case, then why did You personally enact a foolish act?'

She said: 'If I had not been foolish first, how would I know that this was a foolish act? Even if it was always a foolish act, I am still the universe's first fool — and the first to know that this was folly.'"

"!!!"

Cheng Shi felt the words hit him like a shockwave. His face flooded with emotion.

So this was Folly!

Even in the practice of foolish acts, She had to be first.

But that wasn't what shook Cheng Shi the most. What truly unnerved him was that these words seed to suggest Folly had already known sothing!

Could She have already known about the Slice Universe? Was that why She went around asking everyone, "Do you think your foolish act will have an answer?"

Cheng Shi's brow locked tight, a sharp light flashing through his eyes.

It was possible. Don't forget — Her authority was gone. So could it be that Folly had lost Her authority in the process of uncovering this truth?

No — perhaps not "lost." Perhaps it was the very Convention that the Fun God had pushed the gods to sign that gave Folly the confidence to go all in. That's why She dared pay such a price to investigate.

After all, She had told Brother Mouth that She'd once paid a heavy cost.

And the news today might an that the loss of Her authority had already bought the answer.

That answer being:

The gods and the current universe were nothing more than a microcosm of another, far grander Slice Experint.

...