Chapter 103: “I Am Here”

In the Ruins of the Sunset, two lines of text refreshed on the public stone tablet:

【Hopeless Sea instance True End – “Fish and Bird” has been recorded】

【MVP Player: ** (This player has not set a display nickname)】

The players gathered nearby were buzzing with discussion.

“Is Chang Xu still alive? The MVP isn’t him; I remember his nickname is just his real name…”

“He hasn’t had time to set a nickname, looks like it’s his first time getting a record. This instance is so bizarre; the strong ones all died, and who knows who picked up the slack.”

“Is it possible they just didn’t want to set a nickname? For example, several people in the Sera Guild are asterisks…”

“You’ve got a point, you really do.”

“Just wait for the recording then. I’m curious who the MVP is.”

…【Hopeless Sea evaluation rank S, reward 5000 points】

【Hopeless Sea True End line cleared, reward 5000 points】

【Worldview decryption 100%, reward 5000 points】

【Medium difficulty side quest completed, reward 5000 points】

In the temple of the Game Space, Qi Si sat on a high-backed chair, looking at the system prompts for the completed side quest, not feeling surprised.

After the instance reached its middle stage, he realized there was no need to investigate the specific identities of each player.

He just needed to use a time trick to let the other players die. No matter what camp they were in, all living beings were equal before death.

The only use of identity was probably to prevent Qi Si from directly attacking certain people in the early stages.

And after obtaining the Sea-God Scepter, this function no longer existed.

rules no longer constituted a restriction; the holder of the Sea-God Scepter was the creator of the rules on the island and naturally possessed the privilege to violate eerie rules.

【Unlocked achievement “Demigod Executioner” (directly caused the death of a Demigod-level NPC), reward 1000 points】

The system prompt refreshed. Seeing the word “Demigod,” Qi Si raised his eyelids: “Someone of Yuna’s level is actually a Demigod? Doesn’t seem very prestigious.”

Of course, these words could only be said after the fact.

Qi Si knew well that Yuna’s own strength was definitely not weaker than the delinquent girl who could press him to the ground and beat him with one hand back then; if it really came to a fight, she might be able to press him to the ground and beat him with one finger.

Unfortunately, as an NPC of the Eerie Game, she ultimately had to obey the instance’s rules, and after Qi Si got the Sea-God Scepter, he briefly leaped to become the rule-maker.

Qi Si stroked his chin, lost in thought: “But what exactly is the Eerie Game’s definition of a Demigod? One who receives faith, or a servant of a god?

“Sticking some feathers on oneself and then sacrificing a few human lives to the Sea-God… no matter how you look at it, that’s a priest’s job… So the Eerie Game calls ‘priests’ ‘Demigods’?”

No one answered him. The prompt text on the system interface continued to refresh:

【Unlocked achievement “Folk Song Collector” (collected three eerie songs), reward 1000 points】

【Total reward 22000 points, deposited into points account】

The total points in the account became 【44500】, doubling all at once, which was indeed a good omen.

After becoming a formal player, the point rewards for each instance increased further. At this rate, one million points would only require clearing forty-eight more instances.

Of course, this was based on not spending points to buy items.

The prices of many items in the mall were often tens or hundreds of thousands, definitely the bulk of point consumption.

Most players were forcibly pulled into the Eerie Game, and their goal was merely to survive.

Leaving the game required ten million points, which was far off; all they could do was exchange points for items in hopes of increasing their survival probability.

【Congratulations on perfectly clearing the Hopeless Sea instance, reward item: Sea-God Scepter】

A white light flashed, and an exquisitely carved milky-white scepter appeared out of thin air before his eyes, its surface covered with a layer of lustrous glimmer.

Qi Si raised a question: “This was clearly something I got through my own ability. Shouldn’t it be stored directly in the inventory like the Recorder, and then give me another reward for the perfect clear?”

The question was invalid. The Sea-God Scepter floated quietly in the darkness, almost slapping the words “take it or leave it” on the player’s face.

Qi Si quit while he was ahead and grasped the scepter in his hand.

【Name: Sea-God Scepter】

【Type: Item】

【Effect: Makes you look more like a god (the more sin absorbed, the stronger the effect seems to be)】

Qi Si looked at the refreshed item effect and fell into deep thought.

As expected, the Eerie Game would not allow items that were too powerful to enter the market; those effects of controlling the sea and making rules in the instance were just false advertising.

Now this effect, “look like a god” and “seems,” was just full of charlatan-style deception.

“Great, at least this thing has a blade.” Qi Si complained while staring at the pointed tip of the scepter, but he didn’t feel disappointed.

The 【Evil God Finger Bone】, which he once thought was useless, helped him win a round against the legendary Puppeteer. Similarly, for items involving gods, no matter how useless they looked, they couldn’t be entirely without use.

As long as they were used well, maybe one day in the future, they would become the key to breaking a situation and seize even greater benefits for him.

His thoughts touched a dark place, and Qi Si clicked his tongue: “This feeling of being arranged so clearly is really unpleasant.”

Since entering the Eerie Game, he had always had the intuition of being a Puppet on a stage, with his strings pulled by someone behind the scenes; after becoming a formal player, this feeling grew stronger and stronger.

Was Liu Ajiu breaking into his studio really an accident?

Was it really just a joke of fate that he repeatedly encountered people from Sera in instances?

Was it really just because of the Identity Card’s effect that he often saw the old phantoms of Qi?

There was more than one god in the Eerie Game, and it couldn’t be ruled out that there were beings with higher authority who could manipulate instance content.

Even if many things weren’t done by Qi, they should be related to Him.

After all, Qi Si didn’t know any other gods; whatever those gods did to him, their target was nothing more than Qi, who had placed a bet on him.

However, while the existences at the level of gods exerted influence on Qi Si, Qi Si was also testing and observing them.

He saw that in the remarks column of the 【Sea-God Scepter】, it was written:

【After the Sea-God was eaten, the authority was reclaimed by the rules and scattered throughout the world. From then on, false gods ran rampant, and Ghosts ravaged the human world.】

Qi Si had already realized:

The gods in the Eerie Game were not as invincible as imagined; divine authority could be stripped, divine power could be seized, and divine bodies could die… Demigods could be attacked by groups of Ghosts, and true gods were nothing more than a piece of meat on the dining table of ignorant villagers. As long as the right timing was found and the right “momentum” was borrowed—

Even gods could be killed.

【Your skill “Soul Contract” has undergone the baptism of the instance, and the success rate has changed】

【Success Rate: 23% (The results of two ten-sided dice rolls are used as the tens and units digits respectively; a score greater than 77 is judged as success)】

A new prompt refreshed, but Qi Si didn’t show much surprise.

He had always been a greedy person. An increase of only 3% in success rate was not enough to satisfy his perfectionism, unless the success rate was directly maxed out, transforming the skill into something like “Words as Law.”

In the Hopeless Sea instance, he used Chang Xu, Angela, Yuna, and Liu Yuhan as experimental subjects and figured out the usage of the Soul Contract skill at its current stage:

First, using means to make the other party have to agree to certain terms, or reaching a consensus with someone on an equal footing based on interests, will be directly judged as a successful skill activation.

His Contracts with Angela and Chang Xu belonged to this type.

Second, if the other party cannot guarantee full performance of the Contract terms, success will be determined by a dice roll, and execution will be forced upon success.

His transaction with Yuna, requiring her to temporarily lend him the Ghosts to drive, applied to this rule.

The rules did not forbid Yuna from lending the authority to control Ghosts, but the specific operation was not easy.

Only after rolling 84 points and being judged as successful did Qi Si temporarily obtain the corresponding authority with the assistance of the World Rules.

Third, one player’s soul can be newly controlled in each instance, which is the 【Soul Contract】.

The terms of mortgaging the soul must be written on paper; that paper will be able to travel between reality and the eerie, and cannot be destroyed by any force.

At that time, he watched Liu Yuhan finish copying the terms of the Contract in his notebook and then sign her name. Only then did the 【Soul Contract Signed】 prompt appear on the system interface.

With the need to sign Contracts, paper and pen were essentials.

Qi Si entered the second section of the system mall.

For the next ten minutes, items appeared out of thin air on the desk in front of him: first a stack of manuscript paper, then a bag of pens, then a set of white shirts and black trousers for changing, two handkerchiefs, a towel, a tooth mug and a toothbrush, a hiking backpack… compared to special items, these supplies were much cheaper. After this round of stocking up, the points remaining were 【44013】.

The extra 【13】 points really affected the aesthetics, so Qi Si bought another jar of candy, leaving 【3】 points.

He casually clicked into a player’s live stream room and threw the remaining change in.

That player was in an ancient tomb full of skulls, hesitating at a fork where two paths split, and finally hesitatingly chose one path to walk forward.

After hearing the donation message, he turned and smiled to his companion: “Someone gave me a tip; looks like I chose the right way!”

The next second, a giant bone snake made of countless skeletons lunged from the darkness and bit him in half at the waist.

Qi Si listened to the painful screams and methodically packed the miscellaneous things into his hiking backpack.

He zipped up the hiking backpack, and when he looked up again, he only saw the player’s upper body still struggling and twitching forward.

Blood flowed in a puddle, the live stream screen flickered twice, and went black.

Two lines of white characters drifted by gloomily:

【Thanks to this player for providing us with jokes and fun with his short life. He has stopped broadcasting forever, why not check out other streamers’ rooms~】

A standard dark joke, but it resonated quite well with Qi Si.

He curled his lips to show he was amused and casually closed the live stream interface.

There was still half an hour left in the single stay duration of the Game Space. He looked at a golden leaf-shaped icon in the inventory.

That icon appeared after Liu Yuhan signed the Contract, symbolizing her soul sold to him.

Qi Si’s gaze lingered on the icon for two seconds, and another system interface appeared before his eyes—belonging to Liu Yuhan.

【Hopeless Sea evaluation rank A, reward 3000 points】

【Hopeless Sea True End line cleared, reward 5000 points】

【Worldview decryption 100%, reward 5000 points】

【Total reward 13000 points】

After signing the Soul Contract, Qi Si’s authority over Liu Yuhan was second only to the rules, and even on par with the Eerie Game system.

That is to say, from now on, every time Liu Yuhan cleared an instance, the points would first pass through Qi Si’s hands, and then Qi Si would decide how much to allocate to her.

Qi Si took three thousand points and put them into his own account, returning all the rest.

He well understood the principle of sustainable overfishing and didn’t plan to drain Liu Yuhan too early and let her die in the game because she didn’t have money to buy items.

He believed that under the big pie of freedom and the positive incentive of points, this girl would diligently clear more instances and send him more points.

His thoughts drifted, and Qi Si suddenly had an intuition: he wanted to take Liu Yuhan’s Soul Leaf out of the inventory to have a look.

The thought transformed into action in a second. He saw the leaf fluttering out, flying towards the vast thick fog on the right side of the high-backed chair, disappearing into the dim dust and smoke.

As if a switch had been flipped, spider-web-like cracks slowly grew on the wall at the bottom of the temple, with golden light paths flowing between the ravines.

A golden vine grew at a visible speed on the right hand side, gradually spreading branches behind the high-backed chair.

The bare vines shimmered with a clear golden light, with only two leaves hanging at the top. One was more solid, clearly the one representing Liu Yuhan; the other was just a vague phantom with a rough outline, flickering as if it would disappear at any moment.

“What’s this? Plant a leaf and get a leaf, buy one get one free?” Qi Si joked, knowing in his heart that this was the “Soul Leaf” Qi had mentioned before.

He reached out to touch the phantom of the golden leaf. At the moment his fingertip touched it, a string of knowledge bypassed the cognitive process and surged into his mind, like numbers, yet also like words, but those words were symbols that people had never seen before and could not be read one by one… Qi Si found that he naturally knew what to do, or rather, this information was telling him what to do.

He reached out and grasped the Sea-God Scepter beside him. In an instant, the majestic symbols were transcribed into images and presented before his eyes.

A gloomy sky shrouded scorched earth where ashes drifted. The cracked earth was covered with patterns like withered tree roots. Wisps of black smoke drifted and clustered, and white skeletons with rotting meat crawled towards a towering black altar.

The surface of the altar was outlined with incomprehensible runes in dark red. Coagulated blood and pus from rotting corpses mixed into paint, leading to four corners where a brain, heart, lungs, and large intestine were displayed.

White candles were arranged in a circle, burning brightly at the midpoint of the altar. The melted wax dripped to the ground, flowing into a circular outline.

In the very center of the circle, a white figure was particularly conspicuous, clean and holy, out of place with the surrounding filth.

It was a woman with long hair in a white trench coat, kneeling on the ground, murmuring a solemn recitation:

“Lord of All Gods exiled outside the World Rules.”

“Master of Soul in charge of the authority of Contracts and transactions.”

“Great existence more ancient than history itself.”

“I pray for your gaze, I pray for you to respond to the prayer of your faithful believer.”

The image seemed to be set on a loop; the four sentences were repeated over and over, never-ending.

Qi Si’s mood was calmer than ever before, as if this scene had been foretold long ago, and he had been waiting in endless time and space for a long time.

At the bottom of his mind, a voice urged him to respond. He pondered for a moment, looked down and smiled, saying:

“I am here.”