Chapter 16

But is this really enough?

Elaine simply could not accept this outcome.

"O Lord, I beseech Thee, have mercy on him according to Thy benevolence, and watch over him according to Thy abundant loving-kindness…"

Even with parched lips, she continued to pray for Qi Xing.

"Please open the gates of mercy for us. By placing our hope in Thee, we shall not perish; through Thee, we shall find deliverance from suffering."

Qi Xing… could you really have died just like this?

Is this the final battle of your life, the final adventure?

She did not believe it.

— —

The [Inner Realm] is located in a dimension deeper than the human material world.

It is situated between the [Dream of All Living Beings] of all mankind and the material world.

In other words, if one were to compare the material world to [Air] and humanity's collective unconscious to an [Ocean], then the [Inner Realm] is a bubble floating within that sea, rising and falling, sinking and drifting.

If the [Inner Realm] were to suddenly collapse and burst, the people and things inside would naturally be cast into the ocean, dissolving and disappearing in the [Ocean of Disintegration].

Qi Xing suddenly opened his eyes, as if startled awake from a dream, and looked around.

Cold and darkness lingered around him, as if he were slowly sinking into a gloomy, deep sea.

In the dead silence of the seawater, only scattered specks of blood-red light were strewn around him, drifting in the currents.

Oh, no, he was wrong.

Besides him, there was another person here.

"Wuu, wuu…"

The shadow of the Loli Evil God was drifting up and down in the seawater.

Are you, this Evil God, unable to swim? Are you kidding me?

Qi Xing just wanted to mock her, but when he reached out to paddle in the water, he discovered that the seawater had absolutely no buoyancy.

Swimming was useless, and he was sinking rapidly toward the seabed.

Fly? As if Qi Xing could fly.

This is the [Dream of All Living Beings], the collective unconscious of humanity; it does not allow a mere Earth Immortal like you to go around riding the wind here.

"I actually got screwed over by an Alien once again…"

Samael, sinking in the sea, let out a sob of extreme pain,

"Only the soul enters, and then it is reincarnated into a physical body in this world? Damn it, because the matter was the same, I didn't look closely…"

She was not dead yet; this avatar had not dissipated.

Something that dies just because its throat is pierced or its head is blown through has no right to be called a [God].

Only by possessing unrestricted, or even near-infinite, omnipotent power can one be worthy of the name of a true God.

Therefore, her power could not be measured by the common sense of mortals.

Even if she only had one finger left, she could still exert the authority and power befitting a God.

So now, she was crying.

She was angry, even gnashing her teeth and trembling with rage, and she glared fiercely at Qi Xing with her golden eyes, looking very, very fierce.

(Alien?)

Qi Xing had never heard anyone refer to him by this term. It was too strange.

But he wasn't stupid, and he could guess what Samael actually meant.

"That's right, I am a Transmigrator."

There was nothing to hide now, so he admitted it honestly,

"Losing to a Transmigrator is better than losing to someone from this world, right? It's better for your self-esteem."

This remark made Samael so angry she nearly passed out.

What was even more pathetic was that Qi Xing was absolutely right.

After two thousand years, losing once again to an Alien visitor from a higher universe was better than losing to the humans she had created.

"Hmph… hehe… haha… Hahaha! Fine!"

So, after a while, Samael finally laughed.

Even though she had been defeated by a reversal five minutes ago and stabbed fiercely by Qi Xing's spearhead, her ability to switch emotions and pull herself together was truly admirable.

"Hahaha! Fine, Qi Xing, you win this time! I really didn't expect there to be such a human!"

She was moving around aimlessly in the seawater and unnecessarily striking a hands-on-hips pose.

For a moment, her hearty laughter filled the Dream of All Living Beings, as if a devil were sneering at the whole world.

However, this was also the first time Samael had truly spoken Qi Xing's name in their conversation.

"You just screwed yourself over."

Qi Xing retorted coldly,

"If you hadn't been playing the role of Isis, and hadn't tied your own hands and feet, I wouldn't have been able to stab you even with the Holy Spearhead. You shot yourself in the foot."

"Then again, your true form won't be harmed anyway. In a while, I will melt into the [Ocean of Disintegration], so it can't really count as a win."

He had successfully saved about two thousand innocent citizens, and most importantly, saved his teammates, preventing the thing he feared most from happening.

So Qi Xing could reluctantly accept this outcome.

But whether he was particularly satisfied with this outcome—that was nonsense. How could he be satisfied?

His ambitions had yet to be realized, and his goals had yet to be achieved.

Qi Xing sighed. Having fought the most terrifying battle of his life against a devil in such a spectacular fashion, this way of dying could only be described as not too bad…

"Who said you would melt?"

Samael raised her eyebrows,

"How could an Alien's soul melt into the [Dream of All Living Beings] of my world? You are a foreign object."

"Huh?"

After two seconds of dullness, Qi Xing waved his arms and legs again, trying to flounder in the water and swim up—but it was useless; he was still sinking deeper into the sea of the unconscious, into the pitch-black silence.

"Although you won't melt, you can't get up on your own either. It's just like throwing a gold brick into the ocean of the material world."

The Loli Evil God was amused by his futile efforts,

"You just won't melt, but you can't possibly use one person's will to overcome the subconscious of eight billion people."

By the same token, no supernatural power or spell is useful in this [Ocean of Disintegration]. Unless you can defeat the will of all humanity with the power of one person. Qi Xing clearly could not, at least not yet.

"Am I going to keep sinking in this seawater where there is nothing, unable to live or die, forever?"

Now Qi Xing was truly a bit terrified,

"That would be worse than letting me die! Gulp, kill me!"

Samael's words added fuel to the fire: "You could also make a wish to me."

For a moment, Qi Xing was truly wavering. Because if he were really to soak in this void-like dark seawater for a few weeks, he would definitely go crazy sooner or later.

Fortunately, at least there was a talking devil beside him.

Fortunately, this devil didn't keep nagging in his ear, urging him to sign a contract or make a wish.

Not long after, she stretched and said to Qi Xing: "Follow me. As an answer for the victor, I will take you to see something interesting."

"How do I know you aren't trying to screw me over?"

"Considering you are a Transmigrator and just defeated me, I will allow you to question my wisdom."

The Evil God scoffed, her lips curling in disdain, "But I have not fallen to the point of being shameless. Follow me."

After speaking, she took Qi Xing's hand and led him to swim toward the depths of the [Dream of All Living Beings], casting themselves into the unfathomable darkness.

In an instant, the scenery around them changed again, and their vision was filled with hair-raising colors.

For some reason, in this originally dark, silent, and deep blue sea of humanity's collective unconscious, it was filled with a terrifying, disgusting white, like rotten milk.

That foul-smelling white formed a vortex, churning and rotating in the [Dream of All Living Beings] like a bruise, the eerie color spreading endlessly, twisting into horrific shapes, like crazed faces and tentacles covered in mouths. That disgusting, filthy white was almost about to swallow them up.

It was lust and malice, corruption and depravity.

But Samael waved her hand and flicked away the tentacles of depravity, pulling Qi Xing to continue swimming deeper, downward, toward a place deeper than the human collective unconscious, diving all the way!

In an instant, they passed through the ocean!

What did Qi Xing expect to see on the other side of the sea? Anything was possible. Everything. But—there was no attack, no ambush. If this was a trap, it was a strange or rather crude trap.

Suddenly, he discovered something in front of him, and it was huge in scale, making Qi Xing's scalp tingle.

It was a machine that towered into the sky. A magnificent machine. Everything Qi Xing had seen in his life could not compare to this grand mechanism.

It was indescribable, even leaving him speechless for a moment. Its vastness transcended scale and dimension; it was glorious and brilliant, yet it left one unable to move; it was magnificent and grand, yet also terrifying.

Countless stars were constantly rotating within this grand machine. Inside, there were countless wheels and spindles made of gold, silver, iron, and tin, spinning rapidly, and several crystal-like matrices were floating there. Some were like gears burning with solar flames, and others were indescribable flowing energy webs.

These gears and strings vibrated, resonated, plucked, chased each other, and blended together in unison, playing incredible music like a choir, resembling the loud chorus of billions of people. That music flew out of the Earth, leaped out of the solar system, reached the infinitely expanding boundaries of the universe, and permeated the entire universe.

It was beautiful.

But within that wonderful grand movement, there was a flaw, a crack, a fault, some noises that could not be ignored…

What Qi Xing saw at the end of the world, on the other side of the [Dream of All Living Beings], at the very bottom of the universe, was actually a broken, giant music box.

At the top of the music box was a seat, a black throne, sitting amidst dust made of broken dreams.

Sitting on the black throne was a lifeless corpse, an eternal emperor with infinite power, the creator of a universe.

A golden shackle bound her to the throne, bringing a sense of a prisoner's desolation, while adding a touch of color to her beauty, a goddess-like divinity. In just an instant, her beauty stole Qi Xing's gaze.

"Welcome to my world, Alien guest."

Then, that thing, Samael on the throne, spoke to Qi Xing, "Do you have many opinions about it?"

020: The Idiot Goddess Chronicles

Opinions?

Qi Xing certainly had many opinions about this damned Slaaneshi mire of a world!

But now, he had more questions.

Sitting on the black throne was an eternal emperor possessing infinite power.

Using the countable quantifier [one] to describe her was probably not accurate enough. Because she was both an individual and everything in this universe, and at the same time, she was an individual condensed from everything, so there was no need to count them one by one.

She was the Dark King of all things, and she claimed to be the creator of the entire universe.

But at the same time, she was a lifeless corpse, an incorruptible and immortal Corpse God, more incompetent than someone who was completely paralyzed.

Why do I have such a connection with zombies?

Although Qi Xing really wanted to retort, it was a pity that in just an instant, that beauty had stolen his gaze.

As the saying goes, clothes make the man. If the Samael he encountered before was just her side as an abominable, arrogant, stinky brat, then the one sitting on the throne now was the young Dark Queen.

Her golden eyes were lazily half-open, as if she were sleepy, gorgeous yet not cute. If not for the movement of her eyes, this face would look more like a masterfully crafted statue.

Her atmosphere, her gaze, and the corners of her mouth carrying a hint of amusement all formed a beautiful picture.

This was the first time Qi Xing had to admit her beauty.

Although she was in such a sorry state now, like a corpse on a throne, she was still beautiful.

She looked like a child who hadn't fully become an adult, yet she was a young girl who couldn't be called a child.

However, to call her a woman would be too young.

Although she had been killed, she was still alive, sitting on the boundary line between life and death, beautiful enough to make one amazed and astonished!

Therefore, after being speechless for a long while, the first question Qi Xing couldn't help but ask was: "What exactly are you?"

"What am I?"

This question made the Corpse God on the throne laugh,

"'What am I,' that is truly a profound way to ask."

"Unlike asking who I am, just telling you my name is not enough to answer."

"Then let me put it this way."

She opened her mouth and began to speak as if singing,

"I am the Demiurge, the Creator God, the Creator."

"I am EL, and I am Elohim."

"I am Brahma, and I am Vishnu."

"I am Ra, and I am Ptah."

"I am the Primordial Heavenly King, I am the Ancestor Hongjun."