Evil God 27

Shibaliwu Gorge 3

The moment he plunged into the water, Chen Yu felt a bone-deep chill. This coldness was not unfamiliar; it even evoked a feeling of déjà vu. It was the same sensation he had felt more than half a year ago when he slipped from the boardwalk. The lake water rushing into his nose and mouth, he flailed in a desperate struggle for air, living up to his name.[fcnt content=’Chen Yu (Sinking Fish).’]

–And then, he saw those eyes. The colossal entity seemed startled by this insignificant disturbance and lazily lifted his eyelids. Chen Yu had shuddered and ceased his struggle. Gentle currents flowed past him like a tangible gaze caressing his body, and dragged him inch by inch into the abyss.

Chen Yu felt as though he had returned to that time over six months ago. He drifted toward the murky green depths until the invisible umbilical cord suddenly went taut. Immediately, something older than time itself and colder than the lake water resonated through that cord and into his mind. In an instant, Chen Yu lost all sense of self. Everything around him, along with his own consciousness, dissolved into a state of primordial chaos.

There was neither light nor sound here; beneath him lay the shattered remains of deities. The fragments churned the surroundings into an unquenchable torrent that raged like a hurricane. This was the Twilight Ruins.

Chaos had long since lost track of how much time it had spent here. Ever since it was deceived by Order and lured to this place, this ruin had become its prison. It would occasionally rouse from its slumber, yet the Twilight Ruins remained eternally the same: chaotic, disordered, and ever-shifting.

Creatures within the ruins would emerge in waves only to perish in waves, completing the entire cycle from birth to extinction in the blink of an eye. Occasionally, humans would wander in. They would fuse with Fragments of Authority found within the Twilight Ruins, only to be consumed by the residual wills of the gods. Their contamination values would rise irreversibly until they transformed into monsters, their bodies ultimately returning to the Twilight Ruins. A cycle that repeated endlessly.

Every time Chaos opened its eyes, it beheld the same scene; the days dragged on, long enough to drive even a god to madness.

Until one day, a gaze fell gently upon Chaos. Its colossal form lay slumbering within the Twilight Ruins; that gaze pricked at it like the bite of an ant. It was light, ticklish, and inconsequential. Such a touch was far too trivial to warrant a reaction, so, drifting between sleep and wakefulness, it simply ignored it.

But the gaze did not vanish. Instead, it grew brazen. It began to wander across its body, like a reckless insect crawling over a slumbering behemoth. The sensation of being watched became increasingly impossible to ignore. Finally, Read on it opened its eyes, only to discover a human who, from the reality far beyond the Twilight Ruins, was touching it with “Knowledge.”

The Knowledge Authority.

Chaos recalled that fellow who was always prying into everyone’s secrets, seemingly intent on grasping every secret in the palm of their hand. That prying had finally ceased after the fellow was shattered and scattered across the Twilight Ruins; yet, after all these years, it found itself once again subjected to that loathsome gaze.

Soon, more and more gazes turned toward it. Not literal gazes, but a form of awareness. An increasing number of humans became conscious of its existence.

They began to talk about it, study it, and imagine it. That talk and imagination wove a vast net, which attempted to ensnare it and drag it from its slumber. Yet, this force was pitifully weak, as feeble as a colony of ants trying to lift a house. Chaos still offered no response.

Yet, humanity is a species with an inexhaustible curiosity. They built boardwalks around the lake, established a scenic area, and packaged Xiannu Lake– along with the seventeen surrounding alpine lakes –into a tourist destination.

Each of those seventeen lakes was like an eye; occasionally, it would gaze out through the water’s surface, seeing the winding, worm-like hills, the layers of surrounding trees, and the fog that perpetually swirled.

Sometimes, when the fog lifted, it could see tiny figures in colorful clothing strolling along the boardwalks.

They would stop to take photos, gather to laugh and chat, or chatter away in complaint. It was a world vastly different from the Twilight Ruins. A world defined by boundaries, by up and down, by inside and out.

Everything was defined by rules and bound by order. A tree was simply a tree; a stone was simply a stone. They would not transform into something else in an instant, nor would they turn into grit the next second only to immediately reassemble.

It was a world it could never touch.

The change came with a landslide triggered by a mere breath; as earth and rubble cascaded down the slope, a young visitor was caught in the slide
and plunged into the lake.

The young man could not swim; he flailed his limbs helplessly like a drowning novice, yet his eyes remained fixed beneath the water. And then, he saw it.

Unlike those who attempted to comprehend it through the Knowledge Authority, Chaos knew– with just a single glance –that the young man had seen the entirety of its being: Its colossal, immeasurable body within the Twilight Ruins; the consciousness scattered into countless fragments amidst the hurricanes; and the primordial essence of Chaos, carried since the moment of its inception.

In that instant, it forged a connection with a human from the real world. It was a strange sensation. This human was so insignificant, yet so close to it. His spirit bordered the realm of the divine, yet his consciousness remained in a state of absolute purity, untainted by any knowledge derived from the Twilight Ruins. That was his anchor in the real world.

As this scene unfolded, the notification for the Divine Realm’s wager suddenly updated. It was a wager that had persisted for eons upon eons. From the very moment the Twilight Ruins formed, Chaos had sought to escape this prison. It wanted to shatter the world of rules built upon the foundation of the Ruins and reduce it to a state of disorder and chaos, effectively turning it into something just like the Twilight Ruins themselves.

Thus, it had initiated this wager from the start, staking everything it possessed: success meant it would be born into the real world and destroy the realm governed by Order; failure meant remaining forever within the Twilight Ruins, eternally guarding the shattered remains of fallen gods.

The wager had dragged on for so long that the participating deities had nearly forgotten it was still ongoing. Had nothing changed, the game would have continued indefinitely, until the Twilight Ruins were destroyed or the chaotic storm finally died out. But now, the wager had finally progressed.

The instant the young man named Chen Yu fell in the lake and met Chaos’s gaze, an ancient connection was activated. The gambling table, silent for eons, finally received a new notification.

[System: The first wager™ concerning the Chaos Evil God –”Can the Evil God successfully establish a connection with a human?”–has concluded. Congratulations: the human host has successfully established a connection with you. The result is “Yes.” However, as you were the subject of the wager, you were exempt from placing a bet this round; therefore, your draw count is: 0.]

The evil god’s memories rushed into Chen Yu’s mind like a tsunami. Images and sensations from the primordial past mingled with his own human consciousness, leaving him momentarily uunauthorized copynable to distinguish whether he was Chen Yu or Chaos.

As the icy lake water bubbled up into his nose, Chen Yu awoke from that dreamlike trance. He opened his eyes, and clouds of air bubbles poured from his mouth. He remembered everything. He recalled the events following his fall into Xiannu Lake six months ago, and how he had become the host for an ancient entity, one that had been imprisoned within the Twilight Ruins for eons beyond counting.

Yet, all these visions beneath the lake had flashed by in a mere instant; the moment a pair of warm hands hauled him up, he completely forgot what he had seen and felt underwater, left only with a foolish grin for the man who had saved him.

Chen Yu couldn’t help but frown. It was precisely as these memories resurfaced that a familiar system prompt rang out overhead.

[System: A new round of the Divine Realm wager has begun. Enter the Divine Realm to view it?]

[Yes/No]

Chen Yu immediately chose “Yes.” The next second, the sensation of drowning vanished.

He found himself sitting once more in that fairytale-like room. The soaring dome above was a dreamlike blue. Countless eyes studded the surface, resembling a sea of constellations suspended upside down in the sky. As Chen Yu appeared, their gazes converged upon his skin.

A long stone table stretched out before him; upon its surface, a miniature world churned with turbulent winds. The entire world was compressed onto this tabletop, while the figures seated on chairs carved from stone tablets gazed down at it. At the same same time, they were all looking at him.

As a blue plush fish, Chen Yu discovered that the zipper on his belly had been undone; a plump, white little wonton doll– connected to his fish-belly by a tether –was dangling at his waist.

Chen Yu stared blankly at this little white wonton doll. It was plump and round with a smooth surface, featuring a few pleats pinched at the top; it looked just like a wonton. This was the Chaos Evil God?

Chen Yu found himself momentarily unable to tear his mind away from the overwhelming flood of memories he had just experienced. The image of that ancient entity imprisoned within the Twilight Ruins for eons beyond counting surfaced in his mind. Could it really be that this– the small white wonton hanging from the fish’s belly –was one and the same?

Chen Yu couldn’t help but frown; he was loath to accept such a reality. Just then, a line of text appeared above the miniature world hovering over the long table. Chen Yu looked up.

[A new round of the Divine Realm wager has begun. Betting is now open for the third round concerning the Chaos Evil God: Will the leader of Black Fish successfully retrieve the Chaos Evil God that has descended into the world?]

[Yes/No (Please place your bet within thirty minutes)]