Reality. A luxury penthouse in so unknown province.
The trial was over. Ai Si lay in her bathtub and slowly opened her eyes. This was her way of unwinding, but this ti she felt anything but relaxed.
Her mind kept replaying the ssage from Lord Yu Xi that Cheng Shi had delivered. If she truly was accepted by Death, then as a Gravekeeper she might finally have hope of preserving her own life.
As for the price of keeping graves... Heh. Killing a few people, nothing more. For a follower of War, that was hardly difficult.
She was finally going to escape the bitter sea of War. At this thought, Ai Si rose from the tub, draped a towel around herself, and stood before the floor-to-ceiling window gazing out at the silent city, her heart brimming with emotion.
Truth be told, on the day the Faith Ga descended, her first choice hadn't been Civilization's War. She'd been more inclined toward Truth, which shared the sa path. But as always, Ai Si was a shrewd woman. She understood that only by combining offense and defense could one go far in tis of upheaval. So for the sake of compatibility with the Priest class—which could keep her alive—she'd reluctantly made what she believed was the optimal choice at the ti: beco a Priest of War. A player who could fight and heal.
Beautiful in theory, harsh in reality. Although War did offer a variety of explosive offensive talents, for a Priest those talents were fundantally limited by the class's base stats. No matter how strong the output, it could only go so far.
And so, frustrated, Ai Si had spent her ti climbing the ranks while constantly searching for a way to overco this handicap—until she found a contract on a battlefield. A contract that sold one's life to War.
The contract granted her combat power rivaling an ordinary Warrior's. Combined with War's talents, she truly achieved the balance of offense and defense she'd been seeking. But...
Every gift ca with a price. And the contract's price was... her life.
While other players were enduring the grind, waiting for a future, Ai Si was burning through hers. She was borrowing against her own lifespan in exchange for present-day strength. In an era of increasingly brutal trials, this choice wasn't necessarily wrong—it just made her future ever more uncertain.
But Ai Si had no alternative. She could only shoulder the consequences of her choice and carve her way out, kill by kill, to stay alive.
Whether her lifespan would last until the Faith Ga was cleared—that was a colossal question mark hanging over her head.
That was why she hoarded every life-saving item she could find. The hollow ache of having no future drove her nearly mad. For a long ti, Ai Si had all but given up on the concept of "tomorrow."
After all, in this ga, the majority of people had no future at all.
But the world wasn't always hopeless. One day, she'd stumbled upon the concept of a second faith—learned that the ga allowed one to fuse an additional faith. Her sights imdiately locked onto Death, the one faith that could prolong her life, and she began sprinting headlong toward faith fusion.
Indeed—Ai Si's original reason for going to San Dales had been to find a chance to fuse with Death. And now, she had that chance.
Even if her Road to Ascension score was zero. Even if her Ladder of Ascent had actually been docked points. None of it mattered—a god had already shown her a clear path!
All she had to do was recite Death's prayer, and perhaps the War Supervisor's future would begin today!
Without an instant's hesitation, Ai Si knelt on the floor and prayed with absolute devotion:
"Souls find rest, life—"
Before she could finish, a terrifying ripple from the Void tore her entire being from reality.
A snow-white bathrobe fluttered to the ground where she'd been. And then a bewildered little skull was swept into the endless Void.
...
The Void. Fishbone Hall—again.
This was Ai Si's first audience with a god. Though she'd imagined Their appearance countless tis, the first sight of that colossal skull genuinely shook her to the core.
She didn't dare move a muscle, yet her entire body trembled where she stood.
The pitiful little skull rattled like it had a motor inside it, clattering relentlessly against the bone-white floor of the Fishbone Hall.
Of course, the fear didn't co from the visible enormity of the being before her—it ca from the crushing divine pressure. The mont she registered that she stood before the true god who wielded dominion over every death in the universe, Ai Si's mind went blank, her consciousness buzzing, unable to form words.
While the small skull shivered, the colossal skull was studying her.
This was undeniably an utterly ordinary player. So ordinary that even though she harbored a devotion toward Death faith tinged with desire, she would never have drawn that Lord's attention in a crowd.
But the colossal skull had done a great deal of thinking after Zhang Jizu's departure. He'd sensed Deceit's intentions in a vague way, yet remained uncertain whether the other god had planted so hidden trick in this player. So He sat upon the Bone Throne, projecting absolute majesty, and asked His question:
"What, is, Death?"
The sudden question startled Ai Si witless. Only then did she realize she'd forgotten all decorum—she hadn't even greeted Death Himself, one of the sixteen true gods. Forcing down her terror, she managed in a trembling voice:
"Praise be—"
"What, is, Death?" The colossal skull's eyes didn't even kindle their green flas. He simply watched the mortal before Him with those hollow, bottomless sockets, repeating His question.
Ai Si panicked further. Being pressed by a god was not a good state to be in. Her mind was a churning ss—all her usual shrewdness and composure had vanished, and she had absolutely no idea what to say. But she wasn't stupid, so in a flash of inspiration she disassembled the Lord's own prayer and offered it back to Him.
"Great God, Death is the resting place of souls, the final chapter of life."
The colossal skull fell silent for a mont, offering no comnt. Then He asked again:
"What, is, War?"
War?
As the situation stabilized, Ai Si's thoughts gradually cleared. Seeing that the Lord had raised no objection to her first answer, she played it safe and deconstructed War's prayer as well.
In the War Supervisor's mind right now, so long as she made no mistakes and committed no breach of etiquette, everything else could wait.
"Great God, War is the hymn woven of blood and fla—the sole path by which Civilization endures."
After her answer, the small skull raised its head anxiously toward the Lord upon the Bone Throne. But He...
"..."
'Too ordinary...'
A gleaming question mark seed to hover in the colossal skull's empty eye sockets. This player was so ordinary it was almost impossible to believe she'd been planted with any hidden gambit.
So Deceit had sent her here just to prod Him into testing War?
What was He scheming now?
Was He still fixated on that battle when Order had led War into the Sea of Desire?
Did He think Order was the problem, or War?
Regardless of who had the problem, Death now understood one thing: it definitely had nothing to do with the ordinary player standing before Him. She was rely a verbal ssage delivered by Deceit—ordinary and inconsequential.
And so the colossal skull nodded and rumbled:
"Withdraw."
In the next instant, the entire Hall of White Bones surged into two separate torrents. One swept the dumbfounded Ai Si into the Void. The other, carrying an endless aura of Death, rolled toward the unknown depths of the Void.
He was going to inspect War personally. Even if it was just for show—a cursory greeting—it would serve as a response to Deceit.
But what He hadn't anticipated was that this path to War seed to genuinely lead toward war.
Soon, in the fathomless silence of the deep Void, two voices rang out in succession.
"You're, looking, for, death?!"
"Seeking Death is itself a kind of looking for death but what a pity today the one who dies may be you are you prepared to welco your own annihilation O great Lord of Death?"
...
anwhile, elsewhere.
Cheng Shi opened his eyes and found that he hadn't returned to the rest area. Instead, he'd appeared in a dimly lit space.
From the look of things, he was... still in San Dales?
And still inside the Joy Theater—on the stage itself, right behind the blood-red curtain!
Cheng Shi was stunned. He furrowed his brow and cautiously surveyed his surroundings. When he heard the clamor of a crowd beyond the curtain, his heart dropped. 'Where did this "audience" co from in a theater that fell into ruin ages ago?'
He stood still and listened for a while. Apart from the demands and shouts of anticipation from beyond the curtain, there was no other sound. After weighing his options at length, the Clown decided to investigate. He crept toward the curtain.
Only when he was at its very edge—ear pressed against the blood-red fabric, confirming once more that all the noise ca from below the stage and there was nothing else up here—did a strange thought burst into his mind:
'These "audience mbers" are waiting for the clown to take the stage?'
"..."
Yes, he was indeed a clown—but who wrote this script, and why hadn't he gotten the mo?
Facing an unknown "audience," how was he supposed to just waltz out there?
So the ever-steady Cheng played it safe one more ti. Instead of pulling back the curtain, he nervously pried open a tiny gap between the two halves and peeked through—
—and t countless pairs of expectant eyes!
The audience packed the Joy Theater to bursting. Even the aisles were jamd. Everyone was waiting for the show to begin. And the instant they noticed the curtain stir, the entire theater fell silent.
The audience held their breath, gazing at the stage—at the single, slightly embarrassed eye peeking out from between the curtains. They waited, anticipating what spectacular entrance was about to unfold. And in the next second, the clown behind the curtain yanked the drapes open, revealed himself in full, and stood there doubled over with laughter:
"Hee~
"You don't actually think there's a real show, do you?"
...
April 1st. Overcast sky, sunny heart.
Today was really, truly fun.
— Excerpt from "Who Knew Zhen Yi Keeps a Diary"
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