Chapter 323: God’s Descent

【The Ancestral God’s corpse was stranded in the Abyss of Extreme Darkness, and the remaining curse polluted the human race. Evil Spirits and Vengeful Ghosts crawled out of hell, and disaster and suffering ran rampant in the world.

Ignorant believers thought this was the work of Witches, so the stake was erected in the square in front of the Temple, and a steady stream of Heretics were tied up.

Unjust trials prevailed in the dark age; the disaster never ended, and Evil Spirits still raged. Amidst the cries of the masses, a Hero bearing courage and wisdom stepped forward.

He discovered that the root of the curse lay in the Ancestral God’s contamination. To gain credibility, he broke into the Temple and allowed himself to mutate. While humans only dared to judge their own kind, he attempted to judge the high and mighty Old Gods.

Believers and Heretics cursed his madness and fled in fear. Left with only his broken body, he stood alone, raising a torch and burning the Temple to ashes.

The great fire burned everything for three days and three nights, and no living creature, neither human nor God, walked out of the sea of flames.】

【Identity Card: Dark Judge】

…Ruins of the Sunset, Jiuzhou Guild base.

Ning Xu sat in the office. On her desk were two monitors: one was broadcasting the Colosseum instance live from Lin Ye’s perspective, and the other was compiling related discussions from the live stream comments and the game forum into a document in real-time.

The verbal war was raging, but Ning Xu observed from a detached perspective, calmly sorting out the sequence of events. Upon closer inspection, nothing was particularly strange.

First, Chang Xu defied the Investigation Bureau’s orders, entered the Colosseum instance after turning off the live stream, and activated the effect of the 【Dark Judge】 card to initiate the trial of Qi Si, determined to kill Qi Si at any cost.

Then, an unknown force intervened from behind, guiding Players to view the incident as persecution of a New Guild by Jiuzhou, causing suppressed conflicts from the past to surge forth, leading the situation to spiral out of anyone’s control.

And then it spiraled out of control.

The Investigation Bureau was generally vaguely aware of the things Qi Si had done, so although they were shocked, they could ultimately understand Chang Xu’s actions.

If Fu Jue hadn’t single-handedly withstood the pressure, using the excuse “don’t alert the enemy, lest it affect the plan” to stop other Investigators’ actions, Qi Si’s residence would have likely been surrounded long ago, and he would have been brought to the Investigation Bureau for questioning.

No one knew what Fu Jue’s plan was. Even the Headquarters was confused about the so-called big picture, let alone the Jiangcheng Branch.

The only thing certain was that the battlefield between the Eerie and reality would open in Jiangcheng, because… Fu Jue himself had moved his office to Jiangcheng, and aside from returning to the Beidu Headquarters once a week, he mostly stayed at the Jiangcheng Branch.

The wind was rising before the storm. Ning Xu thought she was close to Fu Jue, his capable subordinate, but in the end, she realized she knew nothing.

At that time, the shadow of the 【Dark Judge】 enveloped the entire world in the live stream. The black-clothed, golden-eyed Judge threw a cross into the arena, where it hung above Qi Si’s head.

The scarlet King Chess Piece, the backlash of activating the effect, condensed above Chang Xu’s head, embedded in the dim scene like a bleeding wound, seemingly foretelling fate.

Ning Xu saw in it a past where she was just as powerless as she was now. Memories that should have been forgotten were stirred up and surged forth, and her thoughts momentarily drifted.

Chang Xu was not the first master of the 【Dark Judge】; the first holder of this Identity Card was Lin Jue.

—The President of the Ark Guild, the top ranker on the Eerie Game Comprehensive Strength List at the time, the young man who died twenty-two years ago during the Twilight of the Gods.

Ning Xu entered the Eerie Game when she was twelve and was once matched into the same instance as Lin Jue.

That was a large-scale instance with harsh conditions. Players not only had to contend with endless emergencies and elusive eeriness but also had to find ways to counter the extreme cold in the icy, snowy environment.

There were too few clues, and the main quest objective was unclear. Players who went out to explore died in droves, and those who stayed behind at the Stronghold were also harvested by the invisible Grim Reaper.

When everyone was at a loss, Lin Jue activated the effect of the 【Dark Judge】, and the target of the judgment was himself.

The alternative main quest, 【Kill Lin Jue】, appeared on all the Players’ system interfaces, which was undoubtedly much clearer than the original main quest.

The young man, marked by a black cross suspended above his head, smiled and said to everyone, “If we still haven’t found a way to clear the main quest by tomorrow, I will commit suicide, and then everyone will be able to clear the instance.”

Lin Jue did not die that time. Perhaps because hope was rekindled, the Players actively spread out to explore new areas and gather clues, successfully clearing that instance, known for its Hell Difficulty, six hours later.

The effect of the 【Dark Judge】 continued. In every subsequent instance, Lin Jue would list killing himself as the final alternative option, until he died twenty-two years ago during the Twilight of the Gods.

Ning Xu had drifted in the Eerie Game for twenty-six years and was no longer young; everyone she knew was no longer young either. Some had perished in the river of time, while others were merely residual souls lingering in the world.

She once thought that after all these years, she understood Fu Jue enough to grasp the thoughts and emotions hidden beneath his icy exterior. However, she suddenly realized that the man at the pinnacle of the Eerie Game was far removed from the image she held in her memory.

He transformed step by step from an idealistic boy into a calm and decisive young man, and then died at his most fervent and dazzling moment, like the sun. He crawled back to the human world from hell with another body and face, discarding his original name and becoming the so-called “God Fu.”

The person who once resisted being overly deified had actually begun to contend for that illusory, mirage-like Divine Throne under the rules… “People change, Fu Jue. Thirty-six years have passed. Have you changed too?”

Using Lin Ye’s live stream perspective, Ning Xu could see Chang Xu using the black Life Severer to split open Qi Si’s chest. Viscous blood sprayed out like ribbons, and in the background, the audience seating, filled with animals, squirmed excitedly like worms.

She began to consider how the Investigation Bureau would handle this emergency.

Chang Xu escaped the control of the Investigation Bureau, publicly killed Qi Si, a member of the Unnamed Guild, and ignited public opinion, striking a blow against Jiuzhou’s prestige and the credibility of the game forum.

Although someone else was truly controlling all of this, he certainly provided the knife for those people to stab the Investigation Bureau. More importantly… he had learned to defy orders.

This kind of uncontrollable monster, deeply entangled with the Eerie Game, ought to be contained in the Investigation Bureau’s sunless Fifth Underground Level.

Ning Xu, being high-ranking, frequently accessed the Fifth Underground Level and had seen some of the creatures imprisoned there, such as Zhang Yiyu.

She knew that such an environment was enough to drive someone mad. Even a normal person would become a dangerous lunatic after staying there for a month, and then people would say in hindsight, “See? Good thing we locked him up early.”

What if it was Chang Xu who was locked up?

Ning Xu recalled the first time she met Chang Xu; he was still an ignorant yet cruel youth, like a wild beast. She brought him back, which was merely executing Fu Jue’s orders, yet she couldn’t help but say a few extra words to him.

The concern was incidental; anyone with a benevolent heart would act that way in that situation, just as a cat lover might casually feed a stray cat a treat stick. But regardless, Chang Xu was not a stranger to her.

She thought, perhaps she could plead on his behalf to the Investigation Bureau. After all, although Chang Xu’s act of killing Qi Si was impulsive, it was understandable, wasn’t it?

Ning Xu left the guild base, logged out of the Eerie Game from the Game Space, and returned to reality.

The moment she opened her eyes, she saw countless strange and magnificent sights. Golden leaves appeared mid-air without roots or source, violently blown down by a fierce wind; a golden River of Blood twisted wildly like diseased veins, and a black-clothed young man stepped onto the bank from the river bottom.

The river bit its own tail like a long snake, twisting into a flowing Mobius Strip. Fragments of clocks and hourglasses danced by the river, along with parchment scrolls, gramophones, oracle bones, metal slabs, and old telephones belonging to various regions and eras… All reality turned into dust, becoming servants of this river, flying and surging in a chaotic, disorderly manner, without distinction of time or sequence.

Ning Xu felt a large influx of emotions that didn’t belong to her. The pasts of those strangers continuously washed over her—painful, joyful, confused, angry, regretful… Unknowingly, she was already in tears. She wanted to close her eyes but couldn’t move. Under the severe pain, her eyes bled, covering her vision with a layer of crimson blood film.

The world became blurred, making it impossible to see many details, which paradoxically helped her regain clarity. She heard a piercing alarm.

【Warning! Increased Eerie content detected in the nearby space-time, suspected A-Class or higher Eerie entity escape.】

Ning Xu clearly knew that the eeriness descending at this moment could not be only A-Class; the signs clearly indicated phenomena only caused by directly facing a God.

A God from the Eerie Game had come to reality. Who could it be? How did they get out? And why did they come here?

On the coffee table in Fu Jue’s office, a strangely shaped Goddess Statue was gushing blood tears, and within seconds, it was completely soaked in blood, with no trace of its original whiteness visible.

Ning Xu struggled to push the door open and stumbled toward the elevator.

She knew that facing a God with her strength offered no chance of victory, but she had to grit her teeth and push forward. Even if she died, she had to contain the God within the Eerie Investigation Bureau to prevent a wider disaster.

The elevator was ascending from the Fifth Underground Level, and the floor numbers changed rapidly. The only exit from the Fifth Underground Level was this elevator; Small Nuclear Bombs were buried in the walls everywhere else, ready to explode immediately if attacked by an A-Class or higher Eerie entity.

The Investigators needed to guard this sole elevator and initiate the Self-Destruct Sequence if anything else came up from below.

Ning Xu and several hastily arriving Investigators stood by the elevator entrance. Without exception, everyone had bloody tears in their eyes and looked extremely miserable.

None of them knew what would emerge from the Fifth Underground Level; none of them knew if human weapons could kill a God.

The elevator stopped at the First Underground Level, which was the floor where the Investigators were. The elevator door slowly opened, revealing a tall young man in black, pale-faced and gloomy.

“Chang Xu?” Ning Xu called out the person’s name. Her heart relaxed for a moment, only to be immediately seized by a frantically spiking danger alert.

She had never seen Chang Xu like this—extremely rational, sober, indifferent, with eyes that reflected no one, dangerously unlike a human or a monster, but like a God.

An Investigator who had just learned the ending of the Colosseum in the Ruins of the Sunset gasped: “Chang… Chang Xu, didn’t you die?”

Yes, Chang Xu died. Under the brilliant golden eyes of the Evil God, he was stabbed through the chest by Qi Si using a pure white Scepter and killed.

What exactly was standing here now?

All the Investigators saw that on Chang Xu’s familiar face were a pair of hollow golden eyes, clustering infinitely deep worlds, endless space-time, and the desires of countless people… Like a God, exactly a God.

“Let Him go.” The Investigators heard Fu Jue’s command ringing through their headsets.

In fact, even without Fu Jue’s order, they couldn’t do anything.

They were immobilized under the God’s gaze, like ants pinned down by a fingernail. They couldn’t even tremble their lips, realizing for the first time how foolish their previous contingency plan—detonating the nuclear bombs and perishing along with the Eerie entity—was.

They couldn’t press the Detonator button. They could only watch helplessly as the God occupying Chang Xu’s body walked straight to the stairwell, disappearing at the edge of their vision, without giving them a single glance from beginning to end.

Suddenly, everyone collapsed to the ground, bleeding from all seven orifices, writhing like centipedes and gradually stiffening… In a hospital in Modu, Chu Xun sat by a girl’s bedside, watching the frequency of the Electrocardiograph on the nightstand change at a visible speed, a clear sign that the patient was about to wake up.

He knew that the Sphinx had granted his wish. This girl, who insisted on sharing adversity with him after his family was ruined but accidentally fell into a coma after a car accident, would finally recover.

And he no longer owed her anything.

Chu Xun walked out the door and pressed the call button on the way.

Doctors and nurses rushed over one after another. Someone exclaimed, “Patient in Bed 219 is awake!”

The newly awakened patient couldn’t speak yet, clueless like everyone waking up from a long dream.

Doctors and nurses spoke excitedly nearby, praising the medical miracle and starting to measure the patient’s various vital signs with different instruments.

Chu Xun didn’t look back. He merely tightened the greatcoat around him, still feeling cold. He stopped dwelling on it and began running wildly down the corridor.

The corridor, which normally took only a few steps to traverse, suddenly felt as long as a lifetime for some reason. He ran and ran, but felt his body sometimes heavy as lead, and sometimes so light that he couldn’t grip the floor and was about to float away.

The end of the corridor grew further and further away, until only a tiny speck of cold white light remained… “Bang!”

He heard the sound of his body hitting the ground.

“Someone fainted!” screamed a nurse.

A hand reached toward his nose, and a shrill cry followed: “He’s dead!”

All sounds fell into instantaneous silence, as if severed decisively by a sharp guillotine.

Chu Xun’s eyes were wide open, but he could no longer see any light… In Ning Province, South City, in a Single Apartment, Liu Yuhan’s corpse lay quietly on the bed, gradually turning cold.

In her hand, she tightly clutched a crumpled sheet of paper, seemingly torn from a notebook, containing Contract clauses such as mortgaging one’s soul.

That was the Soul Contract she signed with Qi Si in the Hopeless Sea instance. It allowed passage between the game and reality and could not be destroyed. After leaving the instance, she knew she would surely die, but she only wanted to leave as many clues as possible for the Eerie Investigation Bureau.

—Unfortunately, she didn’t know that the Eerie Investigation Bureau was in chaos under the dual pressure of public opinion and the God’s Descent Event, with no time to deal with these minor details.

Liu Yuhan’s body was discovered five days later.

The late spring weather was already hot, and the body began to rot and smell quickly. The neighbor next door was offended by the stench and angrily knocked on her door. After finding it locked, they grew suspicious and strangely called the Security Bureau.

The door was pried open violently. Everyone saw the corpse, oozing pus and infested with maggots, with purplish skin and swollen limbs, already showing signs of becoming a Bloated Corpse.

The summoned Police Officers all felt unlucky. A few inexperienced ones didn’t even dare to look at the body and leaned against the door to vomit.

The Forensic Doctor perfunctorily performed a hasty examination, concluding “not homicide.” The paper in the corpse’s hand, soaked in corpse oil, was naturally dismissed as an absurd fantasy.

The Security Bureau conducted a humanitarian investigation into the deceased’s background. After learning that her parents were dead and her only relatives lived in the countryside in another province, they called them.

Upon learning that the deceased had no inheritance for them, those relatives all claimed they were too busy to handle the funeral arrangements.

The entire process took only two days. Liu Yuhan’s body was sent to the Crematorium for burning, and her ashes were environmentally scattered into the mountains designated for unclaimed ashes.

She vanished from this vast world like a drop of water merging into the ocean, without causing a single ripple.