Chapter 321: Transaction

Ruins of the Sunset, Player Square.

Players watching the live stream of the “Colosseum” instance saw the large screen flicker twice and go black. At the same time, new text refreshed on the recording stone tablet, accompanied by a broadcast to the entire venue:

【”Colosseum” instance True End – “Gods Gamble” has been recorded】

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

【”Colosseum” instance has been permanently closed due to force majeure】

【Last player to clear the instance: ** (This player has not set a display nickname)】

The “Colosseum” instance had already gathered the attention of thousands of players under the dual momentum of debates on the Forum and the booking of the entire venue within the game.

Now that the game’s outcome was finally settled, the onlookers were buzzing with discussion.

“What’s the situation? Who knows what happened later? I only saw Lin Crow enter the temple, and then after a few minutes, the temple collapsed.”

“At least you saw the end of the instance. I was following Lin Ye’s stream, and unfortunately, he was killed by Fan Zhanwei halfway through. I looked around and found out someone had booked the venue in the Ruins of the Sunset, but it was over just as I arrived.”

“Who is that MVP player? Lin Crow? Why is there only one player who cleared it at the end? Was it a total wipeout?”

“A total wipeout is impossible. I didn’t see any sign of a wipeout. They couldn’t all have been crushed to death by the temple, right?”

“I understand. Although they were in the same instance, the timing of the players’ clearance was different. One group came out first and achieved the NE ending; only one person stayed until the end for the te clearance.”

At this time, several players who had just come out of the “Colosseum” instance also arrived at the Ruins of the Sunset, including the teammate who had entered the temple with Lin Chen.

He talked incessantly: “It was too thrilling. Lin Crow and I entered the temple and encountered an evil god. That evil god told him to kill me, saying that was the only way to become a god and find that person named ‘Qi Si’.”

“Before I could react, my throat was slashed by him. Oh, the pain… Fortunately, he somehow thought about it later and resurrected me again.”

“Resurrection?” a player wearing glasses asked suspiciously, “How did he do it? Since when did resurrection become so cheap?”

“I don’t know either. If I knew, wouldn’t I have become a big shot like him?”

“Then do you know what the situation is with the ‘Gods Gamble’ in the TE ending? Did Lin Crow bet anything with the evil god?”

“Huh? What gamble? Has someone actually achieved the TE ending?”

…Except for Qi Si, basically all the players in the “Colosseum” were in a state of confusion, having cleared the game inexplicably and been thrown out of the instance.

——Including Lin Chen.

Lin Chen opened his eyes at the guild base and saw various materials piled messily on the desk, unable to come to his senses for a long time.

He had thought he would stay in the “Colosseum” instance forever, waiting to be fed to the rule as food at some point, and never imagined he could return here.

His last impression was of Qi Si holding the Sea-God Scepter and saying something to the huge golden eye transformed from Li.

Immediately afterward, the temple above the Colosseum crashed down, pinning all players under the shadow… The system interface, which had already disappeared, reloaded like a computer program recovering from a crash, and his field of vision captured light again in the sudden darkness.

Lin Chen only felt as if he had had a bizarre and absurd nightmare, and now he had just woken up from a hallucination as heavy as the deep sea.

He could feel the crimson leaf floating at the bottom of his mind and murmured, “Brother Qi, are you still there?”

“I’m here,” Qi Si’s voice sounded calmly, “You go back first, don’t wait for me.”

Lin Chen’s heart skipped a beat, and he instantly thought of a terrible possibility: Li needed a newborn god as a sacrifice, so how could he let him leave so easily? Unless another existence had taken his place… Just as he was about to ask, he heard a helpless light click of the tongue: “What are you thinking? I won a game, and I’m just looking for the loser to divide the interests. It’ll probably take some time to haggle. It’ll be too late if you wait for me to come out.”

“Is… Is that true?”

“If you’re really worried, go to that restaurant we went to before and order a table of dishes. We’ll talk slowly after I come out.”

“Uh? Oh, oh! I’ll go right away!” Lin Chen breathed a sigh of relief. With a thought, his figure appeared under the World Tree in the Ruins of the Sunset the next second.

The player square was crowded with people. He said he was under the tree, but he couldn’t see the trunk, only the bobbing heads.

Turning around, he saw the cliff at the edge of the square just fifty meters away, and the ruins in the distance were clearly visible.

He couldn’t help but be dazed: Why are there more people in the Ruins of the Sunset today than the day Fu Jue appeared?

In his mind, Qi Si added unhurriedly: “Don’t forget to order Longjing Shrimp; it tasted good last time.”

“Mhm!”

Lin Chen withdrew his wandering thoughts, pushed through the crowd, and ran toward the European-style town on the other side of the square… Inside the ancient Greek-style temple, the light was dim, the murals on the walls had faded, exposing the cracked bricks beneath. The patterned dome was as high as the universe, and the worn gems dotting it were cold and lonely.

Sharp-edged rubble floated in the vast space, as if time had been frozen at the moment of collapse, orbiting the bronze long table in the center of the temple like small meteorites around a planet.

Li sat on one side of the long table, and Qi Si sat opposite him, smiling brightly: “All irrelevant people have been sent away. It’s time for further communication. First, I want to ask—your gamble with that guy Qi is over, right?”

“Yes,” Li didn’t seem to care about the disrespect in Qi Si’s words, his tone devoid of ups and downs, “He won. As the pawn He bet on, you swept my pawn off the chessboard.”

Qi Si raised an eyebrow at Him: “Listening to your tone, you don’t feel frustrated. You even anticipated and calmly accepted such an outcome.”

“Superfluous emotions are unnecessary. From your human perspective, this is just a cricket fight.”

Li raised his hand, and the phantom of a black-and-white chessboard appeared in the void. Various colored pieces moved on it by themselves, simulating and reviewing the progress of the game.

The red-and-white pieces and the black pieces met and then parted. The white piece in the shape of the Sea-God was pushed off the board. Pieces appeared and disappeared until only a few were left.

On the vast and lonely chessboard, a red-and-white piece and a black piece stood alone facing each other. At a certain moment, they suddenly moved and crashed into each other.

In an instant, the chessboard shattered, scattering into rustling powder, blown away by the sudden wind.

Li said indifferently: “I lost, which proves that Qi’s plan has a higher success rate and can be officially implemented. That’s all.”

Qi Si narrowed his eyes and said: “You weren’t so calm and collected when you were cheating with Qi before. I almost died at your hands in the ‘Shuangxi Town’ instance…”

“When humans play cricket fights, don’t they often reach their hands into the jar?” Li asked back and continued, “Of course, not long ago I realized that I chose the wrong piece at the very beginning of this game, and I was destined to be unable to achieve victory.”

Qi Si touched his chin, thought for a moment, and said: “When it comes to this kind of time, I usually choose to flip the chessboard and start over.”

“Pointless,” Li shook his head, “The referee has gone mad, so there is naturally no need for the gamble to continue. Rather than mending past mistakes, I would rather try new options.”

“Oh? It’s… like that?” Qi Si squinted his eyes.

He knew that the referee Li mentioned referred to the rule. Although he didn’t know how an abstract concept like that could “go mad,” he could understand that the importance of a gamble without a referee would plummet. After all, redeeming the stakes would become troublesome and would most likely come to nothing.

But the question was… was this far-reaching gamble really no longer important?

If so, why did Qi come to see him in person and promise to tell him the last part of the truth after the instance was cleared?

Qi had once told him: “A gamble of the gods involving the past, present, and future has begun. I have placed a significant amount of Chips and hope you keep winning until you take the final crown of the Ruins of the Sunset.”

From the results of the gamble, the “final crown of the Ruins of the Sunset” referred to the qualification to become a god.

But “the rule feeds on gods,” and the result of becoming a god was nothing more than being swallowed by the rule. What was worth pursuing?

And… what exactly were the Chips Qi had bet?

Something happened during the “Twilight of the Gods” twenty-two years ago. The Ruins of the Sunset was destroyed, and Qi was exiled to the “Carnivore” instance.

He already had nothing left. The remaining things he could put on the gambling table were all of great importance. How could what he bet be as casual and insignificant as Li said?

Or was it that the Gods Gamble in his and Li’s perceptions was not the same?

“I understand.” Qi Si looked at Li calmly, “No wonder you clearly knew my plan but never intervened or obstructed it. I guess you had a new plan outside of the original gamble, so the pawn Chang Xu was insignificant to you.”

He propped his chin with his hand, his lips curling with malice: “In that case, how about giving me his body? I’ll make a specimen as a souvenir, otherwise, I’ll always worry that he’ll come back to life one day.”

Li refused: “No, his shell is still useful to me.”

“Useful? What do you plan to do?”

“I want to go and see your world.”

Li answered simply and then changed the subject: “Compared to him, I want to know your choice more. You proposed a transaction with me and bet with me on the outcome of the game, but you haven’t placed your Chips on the gambling table until now. Instead, you’re asking me for the so-called stakes. I know you’re planning something big.”

Qi Si didn’t get Chang Xu’s body and was a bit disappointed, but not by much.

He believed that Li, as the current main god of the Eerie Game, wouldn’t be so classless as to deceive him and secretly resurrect Chang Xu.

He tilted his head and said lukewarmly: “You want to see my value, and I show you my value. That’s all. The fact that I want to win the Gods Gamble should be enough for you to give me a little more recognition.”

“And then?” Li watched him with golden pupils, the golden light in the depths of his eyes flowing like a vortex, “The rule is about to awaken, but I gave up the sacrifice that was within my reach as you wished.”

“That involves the transaction I want to talk to you about.” Qi Si looked up at the dome, where the gems embedded there had turned into a uniform bright gold at some point, “The nutritional value of a newborn god is likely not as sufficient as that of an Old God. I think one person holding the authority of Contract is enough, and the remnants of the old era should rest in peace—what do you think?”

He didn’t say it explicitly, but the hint behind his words was clear: he wanted to sacrifice Qi, and then… take his place.

Li’s tone finally had some fluctuation: “You are the pawn Qi chose. Your past experiences of twenty-two years all have His shadow, and you received much help from Him after entering the Eerie Game. I don’t understand why you would make such a choice.”

“Because of interest.” Qi Si lowered his eyes, his voice very soft, “An exiled and imprisoned god can no longer bring me more interest. I have already squeezed enough value out of Him, even part of the authority of Contract.

“For the next games, I want to be the player, take His place, and sit at the rule’s gambling table.”

Li asked: “Why do you think I will agree to trade with you?”

Qi Si didn’t answer immediately.

A blood mist like pearls and gauze precipitated in front of him, condensing into a bright red scroll in a few seconds, with the golden word “Qi” shining on it.

He smiled, his eyes curving: “If you want to completely control the Eerie Game and freely create instances, you will inevitably need to use the authority of Contract. I suppose that’s why you are constrained by Qi everywhere. That’s why you had to risk being caught cheating to find me in ‘Shuangxi Town’.

“Now I can tell you that the authority of Contract on me is not complete; a part of it is still under Qi’s control. But I believe that as long as I can kill Him unexpectedly, I can inherit everything of his and become the new god.

“You haven’t moved to kill Qi for so many years. I guess you were restricted by the rule, right?”

Qi Si deliberately paused, waiting for Li’s answer.

Li said: “Yes, I cannot kill an existence with the same status as me, unless He falls into an evil creature and goes mad, like the Ancestral God.”

“I see.” The evil appearance of the Lord of Life in the “Frog Hospital” flashed before Qi Si’s eyes, and he knew it was unlikely for Qi to develop to that extent.

He continued: “Then things are very clear. As a player, killing a god is allowed and even encouraged by the rule. In ‘Frog Hospital’, I even unlocked the ‘Blasphemer’ achievement. I think you will need my help on this point.”

He tilted his head slightly and spread his palms: “You know, I’m just a player who has only been in the Eerie Game for over a month. I don’t have much experience, and my combat power is even more worrisome.

“What you have to consider is whether to take a gamble—gamble that the me at that time will be easier to deal with than Qi.”

Silence spread in the temple. Golden light spots floated and flew irregularly, sometimes dispersing and sometimes aggregating, weaving into various magnificent and beautiful patterns.

After a long time, Li nodded: “I will help you within the scope allowed by the rule. In the next instance, you may have an opportunity to seize divine power.”

“I’m already starting to look forward to it.” Qi Si stood up and made a move to leave.

Halfway through, he turned back and asked seemingly casually: “Is He still in the ‘Carnivore’ instance?”

“No,” Li said, “He is in ‘Rose Manor’.”