Chapter 113
With Wen Zhi’s arrival, the distorted memories of Messiah and Shen Li slowly returned.
Xi Jiangyuan turned pale at Wen Zhi’s words, but offered no rebuttal.
“Wen Zhi, all these years and you’re still so sharp-tongued.” Xi Jiangyuan gazed greedily at him. Wen Zhi was his last remaining teammate—even if his words stung, Xi Jiangyuan still cherished them.
“You humans are strange. Fighting or not?” Number 18 grew impatient. He just wanted a proper fight and to devour the loser, but just when a fight seemed about to start, Wen Zhi stopped.
The reason was simple—he sensed that this Executor’s aura was far stronger than any he had faced before.
“What rank are you?” Wen Zhi cooled quickly despite his earlier fury.
“Number 18. Scared, huh?” Number 18 grinned smugly.
Wen Zhi quietly withdrew his hand.
He could risk fighting Number 58 or Number 68, but not Number 18.
“Yes, I’m afraid,” Wen Zhi admitted calmly. “Executor, did you come here to purge anomalies?”
“My senior already went. I’m just here to eat,” Number 18 plopped down, propping his chin with one hand. “If you don’t want to fight, then sit quietly. I don’t feel like chasing you around. Unlike my senior, I can’t control myself well—if I lose it, I might blow this place apart.”
With that, Number 18 closed his eyes to rest.
Instantly, the oppressive pressure lifted.
Messiah and Shen Li managed to stand, approaching Xi Jiangyuan.
“Where are the others?” Messiah asked. “Where did you send them?”
“They’re in my memory dungeon,” Xi Jiangyuan replied. “Once you discovered the pattern behind the Whistle dungeon, you gained access to my memory. Vivian and Lilus have already entered. But an Executor has gone there too, and Lu Chuan was thrown in by Number 18. I advise you not to go. That dungeon formed after my real body’s death. Even I couldn’t guarantee survival if I entered.”
“I’m going,” Shen Li said immediately.
“Me too,” Messiah followed.
“If Brother Lu and Brother Shen are going, of course I’ll go too,” Starry Shasha added.
Xi Jiangyuan looked at them with envy.
So good…
Once, he and his teammates shared that same bond. But now, all of them were dead.
He was dead too.
Only Wen Zhi remained alive.
But Wen Zhi cared for the real Xi Jiangyuan who had died, not this memory fragment standing here.
“If you want to go, just walk over there,” Xi Jiangyuan pointed. “But once inside, you’ll face great restrictions. And within that memory dungeon lie countless gods. My true legacy is hidden there as well.”
At this, Wen Zhi stirred.
“Legacy? You mean that thing?” His eyes flashed red. “Wasn’t it destroyed completely?”
For that, their team had sacrificed so many lives. Xi Jiangyuan himself had died. Yet this impostor claimed otherwise?
“A god’s artifact… how could it be destroyed so easily?” Xi Jiangyuan smiled. “Wen Zhi, if it were truly destroyed, this anomaly wouldn’t exist. You wouldn’t be here yourself, would you?”
Their sacrifices back then had been nothing but arrogance.
“Wen Zhi, you’re a master-rank player now. You’ve surely completed your tasks. Since you’ve already devoured a god, you should understand—true high gods’ things are almost one with the world itself. The Main God System nurtures us so diligently for one reason: to erase them completely.”
—
Meanwhile, Lu Chuan stood waiting, still hearing no prompt.
Annoyingly, Xi Jiangyuan kept pestering him with questions, making him feel uncharacteristically awkward.
But that awkwardness lasted less than three seconds.
Why should he feel embarrassed? Xi Jiangyuan was already dead. How could a living person feel self-conscious in front of a dead man?
With that thought, Lu Chuan felt fine again.
“Great one, are you alright?” Xi Jiangyuan asked again, convinced Lu Chuan was a top-tier player. Though he seemed odd, well—weren’t all the strong ones a little strange?
“Nothing,” Lu Chuan answered coolly. “As a rookie, you should just worry about yourself.”
“Y-yes.” Xi Jiangyuan nodded quickly, retreating a few steps.
Lu Chuan felt much better.
Back in the Whistle dungeon, Xi Jiangyuan had toyed with them endlessly. Finally, payback.
Number 9 had already finished, surveying the area as though in thought, then turned to them. “It’s done. Let’s go.”
Lu Chuan trotted after him, signaling with his eyes—
What’s going on? Wasn’t ending Xi Jiangyuan’s god-entanglement supposed to let us leave?
“He isn’t bound to this god,” Number 9 read his doubt. “Divine power is complicated. With my strength currently limited, I can’t discern the subtle differences.”
He didn’t speak more plainly, since Xi Jiangyuan was still following behind.
Lu Chuan understood, and looked at Xi Jiangyuan in surprise.
“Could it be that he has the same constitution as Messiah? Oh—Messiah is a friend of mine, he’s a [Resonance] ability user,” Lu Chuan explained.
Other than that, he really couldn’t imagine how, when most rookie players could barely even see a servant of the gods, Xi Jiangyuan kept running into different deities one after another. That kind of luck was as outrageous as winning the top prize in the lottery three times in one day!
“Perhaps,” Number 9 said tersely. “We have to find the god that’s truly connected to him.”
Otherwise, they’d never get out of this instance.
Lu Chuan immediately pulled a bitter face, but he also knew there was no helping it. Clearing an instance was never going to be that easy.
Right now Xi Jiangyuan was still just a newbie. His stamina couldn’t possibly keep up with Lu Chuan, who had already been strengthened several times, let alone with Number 9.
But Xi Jiangyuan gritted his teeth and followed anyway, even though his legs already felt like they didn’t belong to him.
He knew very well that since the team leader had used him, there was no way back. And these two powerful players, who had so easily saved him, would surely be able to clear the instance as well.
Feeling a little embarrassed, Xi Jiangyuan glanced at Number 9’s back, his face flushing red.
When Lu Chuan and Number 9 returned to the little town, they moved into the room next to the one Xi Jiangyuan’s team was staying in, to Xi Jiangyuan’s amazement.
Now he understood: these two top players had been keeping an eye on every move his team made.
Xi Jiangyuan stood dumbly at the doorway, not knowing what to do.
“Xi Jiangyuan, you actually came back alive?”
The team leader who had used him opened the door, saw Xi Jiangyuan still standing blankly in the hall, and couldn’t help exclaiming.
“What, did you forget where our quarters are? Come in! You sneaked off all night—we were worried sick.”
Before Xi Jiangyuan could say anything, the leader pulled him inside. Xi Jiangyuan looked a little anxious, but too shy to knock on Lu Chuan’s door, he followed the leader in.
When questioned, Xi Jiangyuan only said he’d gotten lost, wandered into a remote forest, and happened to meet a hunter who led him back—nothing else had happened.
Seeing Xi Jiangyuan had no signs of fighting on him, not even his calming talisman had been used, the captain silently cursed him as useless, then feigned concern and told him to get some rest.
Xi Jiangyuan himself was secretly shocked.
So lying was actually this easy—and the captain couldn’t even tell.
In that instant, the tall, heroic image of the captain in his heart completely collapsed.
Meanwhile, Lu Chuan and Number 9 were reviewing the whole affair.
“We thought Xi Jiangyuan’s contact with a god started with that ghoul gathering’s descent ritual,” Lu Chuan analyzed.
“But in fact, we stopped the ritual and the instance still didn’t clear. That means even if we hadn’t intervened and Xi Jiangyuan had been taken by those ghouls, he’d probably have been fine. The ritual may have failed, or the god that appeared just wasn’t interested in him.
So as a rookie player, how could Xi Jiangyuan be entangled with other deities? He once said he was possessed by a god who wanted to seize the Authority of Desire.”
But what that god’s name was, Xi Jiangyuan had never mentioned.
Perhaps Xi Jiangyuan didn’t know himself.
“So now that we’ve changed his fate, will he still meet gods?” Lu Chuan frowned.
“If he never encounters any again, aren’t we doomed to be trapped in this instance?”
Damn Main God system, never giving any hints.
[No, Host.]
“He will definitely encounter gods,”
#888 and Number 9 said at the same time.
Hearing Number 9 say the same, #888 hurried to spill everything:
[Host, don’t worry. Humans who are noticed and successfully possessed by deities are extremely rare. Even if that god doesn’t choose Xi Jiangyuan, other deities will. Humans with his constitution are scarce. Messiah’s case stems from ability, but Xi Jiangyuan seems fated to be entangled with the divine.]
“Xi Jiangyuan is destined to become a master-rank player who’ll stand against the gods,” Number 9 looked at Lu Chuan. “And you’ll soon become one too.”
Lu Chuan ignored #888 and focused on Number 9’s words.
“You mean it’s not that you need to fight gods because you’re a master-rank player, but rather that you become a master-rank player because you have to fight gods?” he asked after a pause.
“Yes,” Number 9 affirmed. “The Main God system gathers and trains us for one purpose only—to oppose the deities.”
It wasn’t a contest between humans and the game—that was a comforting illusion.
It was always a struggle between the game system and the gods.
Those born able to connect with the divine would quickly become master-ranked and receive the system’s special attention.
But people like that were very rare.
That’s why the Evil World had to scour the masses to find those fit to oppose gods, draw out their wisdom, grant them powers, give them the capital to fight. When the time came, they would rise to the top.
Once on the leaderboard, a player had to defeat their assigned god, seize its Authority, and refine their own power.
Only then could they secure their standing.
A player’s “Ability” was, in a way, a diluted version of divine power.
To level up, to become stronger, they had to hunt gods, take their power, and perfect themselves.
Every master-ranked player corresponded to a god they had to hunt.
If a player failed, the next alternate would take their place, until that god was destroyed.
And conversely, gods did the same.
They sought to draw strength and flesh from those players, to make up their own lack, break the Main God system’s chains, and walk the world free.
All this was only revealed after becoming a master-rank player.
If leaked by other players, the penalty was an enormous deduction of game points—enough that the listener could be erased outright for deficit.
But this was spoken by an Executor; that made it different.
Player restrictions didn’t bind an Executor.
“After Xi Jiangyuan became a master-rank player, the god he had to hunt was the God of Beautiful Dreams. That deity is a lower god under the God of Dreams, and still needs the godheads of the God of Nightmares and the God of the Void Dream to hope to ascend. Xi Jiangyuan’s high ranking means he already obtained the Sweet Dream God’s power.” Number 9 gestured at their surroundings. “This is the pleasant dream he left behind after death, using divine power.”
Xi Jiangyuan’s true “sweet dream” was the time before he ever met the gods.
