Chapter 231

Chapter 231

"I... am rather stunned."

"What a despairing world... What a bleak future."

"I'm a bit lost here. Could someone help me sort this out later?"

"In simpler terms, do you recall the distinction between Perfect Humans and ordinary humans? Perfect Humans can be thought of as weakened versions of Old Gods, for they, due to the favor of both Old Gods and the Dream World, possess immense mental power and unwavering will. They can subtly alter their surroundings and, through the Rite of Divinity, become Post-Natural Old Gods. They can also strengthen existing Old Gods (Lords) via the Mythical Rite. The relationship between them and Old Gods is that of subjects and lords."

"However, after the arrival of the Evil Gods, the existential level of Perfect Humans still fell short compared to that of deities. Thus, they were corrupted by the Evil Gods. To preserve the flame, the Old Gods sent a batch of severed Perfect Humans to Earth to reproduce. In the Dream World, they used their power to create a barrier, allowing the remaining Perfect Humans to continue living. Unbeknownst to them, these Perfect Humans would eventually be corrupted by the red moon in the sky and contaminate the Old Gods through the Mythical Rite."

"Remember, Lane is the new Pasture God. The fall of the previous Pasture God might be related to this."

"The Priest is a member of the Crow of Death. Their objective is to hasten the death of Perfect Humans so as to no longer implicate the Old Gods."

"To be honest, it surprises me that they've managed to hold on up to this point," Best said. "Back when the rules didn't exist, the situation in the domain was even more dire than it is now. Corrupted Perfect Humans gradually went mad, and this madness spread from their minds into their physical bodies, causing mutations. Even uncorrupted Perfect Humans found it difficult to defeat them. That's why a cleanup department was established.

"As soon as signs of corruption were detected in a resident, they would be euthanized immediately. However, this still couldn't prevent the corrupted from killing their own kind. The number of Perfect Humans decreased by a third in a short period."

"Do you remember that human named Randolph? Before he completely left the Dream World, he did us a great favor. He somehow materialized the Polluters into a rule, although we still can't restrain them, at least the remaining Unmarred can exploit loopholes in the rules to escape."

"Rules aren't Death's scythe, but a tool to restrain the Polluters. Otherwise, the Unmarred wouldn't have lasted this long."

Bester smiled bitterly. "But it seems like we're reaching the limit now."

The Polluters and the normal Unmarred.

"7. All residents must possess resident cards. Visitors must have temporary resident cards. There are no residents within the city without either a resident card or a temporary one."

Lane recalled the seventh rule. As players delved deeper, they discovered that each town had its own unique rules, except for this one, which seemed to be universal for some reason.

This rule separated the Unmarred from the Polluters. No wonder 'Unmarred' was never used as the subject in any of the rules; instead, it was 'residents.' Those without resident or temporary cards were beyond the reach of the rules.

The rules were both executioners and shields. Under limited rules, the Unmarred could barely survive. However, when faced with death, despair and resentment would erupt, connecting them to the red moon above and transforming them into Polluters, creating new rules. The more rules there were, the more deaths occurred.

Worse still, among the Unmarred, there emerged creatures akin to the harbinger crows. They were remnants of the past era, witnesses to the splendor of the Old Gods, trapped in dreams of the bygone age.

As devotees of the gods, they couldn't bear the thought of their actions causing the fall of the Old Gods, nor could they accept that the world was worsening because of them. Thus, they gradually became wandering harbinger crows in the wilderness.

Wait a moment...

Lane still had the Druids' live stream open in front of him. He watched, wide-eyed, as the priest delivered his frenzied declaration. The image of the cleric admitting to a murder earlier resurfaced in his mind. Admitting to one killing was entirely different from confessing to wanting to kill an entire town. Why did he insist on staying in this small town? And as a harbinger of death, what was his purpose here? What could he truly accomplish?

Something's not right.

...

Matcha Milk Green suddenly had an ominous premonition. This feeling lingered in her mind ever since she saw the alchemical factory below and intensified when she witnessed the priest revealing the truth beneath the faceless statue. However, as a humanities student, she wasn't well-versed in chemistry and couldn't pinpoint the source of her unease. But someone in the chat had picked up on it.

"Wait, if he knows how to make firecrackers, what about other explosives?"

The abrupt comment in the chat sent chills down the spines of all the players present. At that very moment, Cornelia spoke with a grave expression, "Capture him! Expel him immediately!"

The residents and patrolling guards, who had been hovering outside, no longer hesitated. They pushed their way into the church, but the priest remained as calm as ever.

An unfamiliar scent of gunpowder filled the air.

"No! Don't come in!"

The black cat shouted frantically, their gaze darting to the priest. They noticed a lit fuse at the cleric's feet, and without hesitation, they turned and dashed towards the door, attempting to stop the people from entering the church.

But it was too late.

The crowd, unable to react in time, still wore looks of confusion on their faces. The priest lifted his head to stare at the faceless statue, muttering, "The first croak of the harbinger of death begins with me."

It was said that at the moment of death, one's mind would play like a carousel of memories.

In that instant, a series of images flashed through the priest's mind. He saw himself and Jim tinkering with peculiar powders in a dimly lit basement, though mostly Jim was the one talking while he listened.

"See, when you mix this substance with this one, it creates something entirely different. Isn't that remarkable?"

"Does it have any use? In the past, we could materialize anything we desired with our mental power."

"Haha, you say 'in the past.' Now, no one can do that anymore. So I thought, perhaps we could forge a new path through this. Maybe the answer lies within this flask."

In that fleeting moment, the priest truly saw a spark in Jim's eyes.

But alas, this was a beacon of light that ought not to exist in this world of despair, for there was no room for hope in this hell.

Boom!

The explosives concealed beneath the church floor were triggered. At the eleventh hour, the Black Cat team managed only to grasp Cornelia before their peripheral vision darkened, plunging them into the state of death stasis.

"Black... Cat..."

"D... R... U... I..."

"What a shock... The Crow of Death truly leaves me speechless."

"Doggone planner! Why is the dream world's narrative even more despair-inducing? Is this what a high-difficulty map looks like? This is a nightmare!"

"The more deaths, the more rules emerge; the more people die, the worse it gets. It's a vicious cycle, and the priest is the one who set this hellish despair in motion. Sigh, I truly..."

"Can't bear to watch."

As all three characters perished, their death stasis allowed them only to witness the church transform into a hellish abyss, with the priest likewise reduced to fragments amidst the explosion, thus ending the live broadcast.

...

Lane closed the Black Cat's live stream with a grim expression. "Isn't there any other way to break this deadlock? Like sending the Perfects back to reality?"

Bestia fell silent and shook her head. "By the time we discovered the issues with the remaining Perfects, it was already too late. Your predecessor, the previous Pantheon, died due to the corruption that spread from the distortion of their believers. In battle, they met an unfortunate end. With the malevolent deities lurking, no god would dare to risk revealing weakness, for it would shatter the fragile balance we're barely maintaining." As she spoke, Bestia let out a deep sigh, her eyes reflecting helplessness and sorrow.

"To sever the Perfects' talents, their unanimous consent is paramount. But after our prolonged absence, will they still trust us?"

"..."

"Moreover, Judea is now eagerly eyeing the real world... The Old Gods have even less reason to employ such methods again."

In essence, the Old Gods were caught between a rock and a hard place. They couldn't defeat the malevolent deities and could only maintain the stalemate. There was a traitor among them, and the Perfects were facing issues.

Even Lane, who was unrelated to the Perfects in the Dream World, felt overwhelmed. It was an unsolvable predicament.

"So when you say winning over the other Old Gods, you mean...?"

"Well, if you can solve this dilemma, I believe the other Old Gods wouldn't object to assisting you," Bestia said, stroking the kitten in her arms. "In fact, if you manage to gain leverage over the Perfects, they'll have no choice but to help you."

"I've been wanting to ask this for a while," said Lane, his eyes brimming with curiosity. "What exactly is a Perfect Being to you? Are they truly that significant to you?"

Bestia replied that severing a Perfect Being's gift would regress them into mere humans, but only with their consent.

What kind of sentiment had once made the Perfect Beings place such trust in the Old Gods?

And what reason could there be for the Old Gods not to abandon the Perfect Beings even now, to the point where Bestia suggested that if Lane could rescue the current situation and sway them, he would gain the support of the Old Gods?

It wasn't that gods should inherently be indifferent to mortals, but most people subconsciously thought that way, much like how humans cared little for ants. The Old Gods' concern for the Perfect Beings was unexpected for Lane.

Upon hearing this question, Bestia looked at Lane in surprise. Though she didn't speak, her gaze seemed to ask, 'Aren't you the same? Did you not just witness humanity yourself?'

Lane responded, "I feel... that my case might not be quite the same as yours."

"Same as always," Bestia chuckled softly. "Let me think about how to answer you. You're familiar with mythic rituals, right?"

"Certainly," Lane answered.

"A child's play between lords and subjects, though I have no idea who started the trend," Bestia's eyes, curved with nostalgia and loneliness, revealed. "But for the Old Gods, it was a dreamlike era."

Blessed by the richness of the Dreamworld, the Old Gods were inherently at the apex of existence, and in their heyday, each could be considered an 'omniscient and omnipotent' entity within that realm.

Yet, their boundless power took away surprises, mysteries, curiosity, and even pride, for they knew all and could do all, rendering such emotions trivial. At that time, the Old Gods likely resembled the human conception of deities: distant and magnificent.

Mythology, however, infused the Old Gods with human traits. Through the weaving of perfect mortals, They experienced the full spectrum of human emotions.

Upon initially hearing about the Lord's playacting game with the subjects, one would instinctively assume the Lord to be the dominant party, entertaining the subjects.

Ironically, the opposite was true. It was the vulnerable subjects who held the reins in this game, accompanying the emotionally detached Old Gods on a journey to learn what it meant to be human.