Bullshit!
I'm a follower of Deceit — since when do I need to respect mory?
When has any mory in this world ever leaped out on its own just from waiting around? They've always been dug up by soone.
If even the Vice President of the History School had that kind of passive mindset, how were they ever going to make progress?
Cheng Shi furrowed his brow. He clearly didn't want to stop here, but the question was how to continue this unfinished dream. Would praying to Him even work?
Cheng Shi began mumbling under his breath, but after several attempts with no response, he could only settle down and think of more practical thods. Soon he rembered he still had a mory artifact in his possession — the mory Sea Insight, which bore an uncanny resemblance to the Tribunal's trial gavel.
He wasn't sure whether this artifact could grant him further enlightennt within a dream of mories, but using a mory artifact that looked like an Order artifact in this place — wasn't that a kind of guidance from Fate?
He had to at least try.
So Cheng Shi pulled out the small hamr and struck it against the refined iron arrowhead in his hand.
And just as Sun Miao turned to look at Cheng Shi, puzzled by his inexplicable behavior — Cheng Shi vanished!
More precisely, his consciousness vanished. Just like the two rulers of the Grand Tribunal before him, his head dropped lifelessly, his body slumping sideways in this dream realm of Order.
...
"This is... the Sinking Land?"
A startled cry rang out, and Cheng Shi gradually regained consciousness. He opened his eyes to find himself standing right beside Lid Yara, while on the Grand Investigator's other side stood none other than Supre Inquisitor Keinlaur.
However, Cheng Shi remained an observer within the dream — the other two hadn't noticed his presence.
Keinlaur nodded and took the lead, walking forward.
"That's right. This is the Sinking Land, and sowhere infinitely far ahead of us lies the legendary Sea of Desire. As long as the desires of living beings persist, the waters here will never run dry.
"Co. Let
show you why this universe can never truly follow Order."
Lid Yara kept her brow tightly knit, clearly repulsed by everything around her, yet she cautiously followed behind Keinlaur.
Cheng Shi never imagined he'd actually succeed — and even less did he expect that what he was witnessing wasn't a re exchange of consciousness, but a journey of consciousness.
These two had clearly arrived at the edge of the Sea of Desire. Gazing at the endless, desolate mudflats stretching before him, Cheng Shi... hesitated.
How much sanity had perished here. How many desires had converged in this place.
His two Benefactors had told him countless tis to stay away from Corruption. Fate had warned that once you strayed into the Sea of Desire, not even Void could guarantee pulling you back out.
So Cheng Shi had always maintained absolute vigilance toward Corruption — he hadn't dared let his guard down even when facing Aph Ros. Now, standing before the Sea of Desire itself, he was even less inclined to make any rash moves.
Even though he was still a drear, and everything he saw was rely mory's enlightennt regarding this stretch of history — who could guarantee that Corruption wasn't lurking within the Sea of Desire?
They were not bound by the shackles of past or future, dream or reality!
If Corruption's gaze fell upon him, there was no telling what desire would do to a Void practitioner whose moral bottom line was... flexible.
So Cheng Shi found himself paralyzed with indecision, unsure whether he should press forward.
If he didn't — the opportunity would be wasted, and the artifact spent for nothing.
If he did and seized the chance — the artifact would have been worth the "ticket price," but he might very well lose himself in the bargain.
This impossible dilemma left Cheng Shi agonizing, and he could only watch as the two figures ahead of him grew smaller and smaller, gradually vanishing into the fog-shrouded mudflats.
'Cheng Shi, what are you afraid of? If the Fun God sent you here, how could He possibly ignore your predicant?
'The Fear Faction's terror is directed at that omniscient, omnipotent "Him" — not at Corruption.
'A re True God, and it's got you paralyzed!?
'Where's your curiosity? Where's your greed? Your entire being is practically an offering to Corruption — so why fear Them now?
'Look on the bright side. Whether the Greed Lord identity becos real isn't up to the Fun God anyway. You'll need to et the real "Benefactor" eventually, won't you?'
Whether it was the fog he'd inhaled emboldening him, or Corruption already resonating with little Cheng's greed, the longer he stood here, the more fiercely the urge to probe burned within him.
His eyes blazing, he stared at the two silhouettes still faintly visible in the mist. After thinking it over again and again, he silently retrieved the Door Key — the one that could resist a asure of Corruption's control — and placed it in his mouth. Then his gaze hardened, and he took his first step toward the unknown.
All the while, a single question looped endlessly in his mind: 'Brother Mouth, am I doing the right thing?' x10.
The Fool's Lips let out a derisive snort: "I don't know, and don't you dare try to pin this on ."
"..."
'Good news — Brother Mouth answered . Bad news — he saw right through .'
'Looks like the scolding I'll get when I return is one I'll just have to eat...'
Cheng Shi pursed his lips but didn't forget the caution in his heart. Along the way, he scattered his dice, terrified that Corruption might warp his perception of ti.
The mudflat clung to his every step, each one a struggle as if he were trapped in quicksand. Cheng Shi gritted his teeth and quickened his pace, gradually catching up to the other two — though he didn't get too close. He stopped at just the right distance where he could hear their conversation and make out their silhouettes, and went no faster.
A long while later, the three of them — exhausted to the bone — finally spotted the first thing on the boundless mudflat besides fog. But even its hazy outline was enough to freeze Cheng Shi in place with shock.
The Mother Tree of Fear!
The colossal tree standing before them — one that looked as if it pierced the heavens and the earth — radiated a thick, suffocating aura of terror. A single glance was enough to conjure thoughts of the legendary Mother Tree of Fear!
And as the three drew closer, the massive tree — already withering — swayed its branches, from which dangled countless spawns of terror, and every one of them turned to look this way in unison.
Keinlaur and Lid Yara might not have been able to perceive the gaze from another plane of existence, but Cheng Shi felt it instantly — the most absolute terror in all the universe. Because the one staring at him was the Envoy of Corruption, the Servant God of Descent who fed on the world's fear to please her masters, the Daughter of Prosperity — Le Le'er!
In that mont, Cheng Shi's mind went utterly blank.
When terror reached its apex, there was no reaction at all — the brain's self-defense chanism simply severed consciousness from its violent turmoil, temporarily disconnecting the living being from awareness.
That was exactly Cheng Shi's state now. He didn't even know he was afraid. He simply stood there, frozen, like a puppet assimilated by Silence.
No one could have imagined why Le Le'er's gaze would bypass the protagonists of this mory and fix directly on Cheng Shi — just as no one could have imagined that at this very mont, Le Le'er's mind was equally blank.
Because She sensed the extraordinarily chaotic mixture of auras on Cheng Shi's body. She "saw" that the fall of her mother was connected to this human. She "saw" that the death of her brother was also linked to him. She even "saw" that her sister had sohow transcended death and ford a connection with this human. And above all, she "saw" fragnts of fear divinity — divinity that should have existed only within herself...
But the problem was, the faint wisp of divine aura in his mouth was unlike any fear divinity in the entire Sea of Desire!
It was precisely this unfamiliar fragnt of divinity that made Le Le'er — who had been withering ever since Prosperity's fall — tremble once more with a fresh kind of fear. She felt fulfilled, satisfied, so much so that the Mother Tree of Fear experienced...
A last radiance.
And when She unconsciously revealed her covetous desire toward the bearer of that divinity, Cheng Shi...
Nearly pissed himself.
...
Reviews
All reviews (0)