A Foodie's Instincts Awakened

The stained-glass windows of the church no longer depicted sacred scenes, but tragedies filled with loss and pain.

The eternal drizzle stopped at this moment.

In its place came an even more suffocating, invisible "atmosphere."

It was not mere sorrow, nor was it pure despair.

It was a concept born from the fusion and sublimation of both, known as "Utter Despair."

An ultimate emptiness and silence capable of making the stars of the universe lose their light and bringing the river of time to a halt.

The church doors slowly opened, and a brand-new figure stepped out.

She still had the form of a woman, but she wore a magnificent black gauze gown woven from countless weeping faces of souls.

Her features remained blurred, yet anyone who looked at her would conjure the face they regretted most, hated themselves most for, and could never let go of in their entire life.

Fusion Deity—Elegy of the End.

Her appearance darkened the hues of the entire world.

Having just finished a feast and preparing to pounce on his next target, De Ba De suddenly halted.

For the first time, confusion appeared in his golden beast eyes, which burned with fire.

In his beast-like senses, the scents of those two "delicacies" had vanished.

In their place was a blank expanse.

A vast "void" without scent, desire, or anything worth hunting.

Before that void, his hunting instincts briefly failed.

It was like the fiercest starving tiger facing a rock. It knew it was not food, so it could not muster the slightest interest in attacking it.

"This is troublesome."

Inside the Command Center, Qin Chuan frowned slightly.

"Warning: High-level conceptual fusion phenomenon detected."

Ji Xing's voice rang out as streams of data rapidly reorganized within her pupils.

"The newly formed divine authority, Elegy of the End, has shifted from 'emotional amplification' to 'will stripping.'"

"This divine authority will directly affect the target's 'meaning of existence,' continuously weakening the underlying logical drive behind its actions until the target completely loses all subjective initiative and falls into absolute self-denial and emptiness."

"This attack pattern... conceptually counters the divine authority of the King of Beasts."

A beast's actions came from the purest instinctual drives—survival, hunting, and reproduction.

And the power of Elegy of the End told you from the very root: none of it had any meaning.

De Ba De's newly awakened, tyrannical Tiger God divinity was like a fist striking cotton before this newborn deity, its strength finding nowhere to go.

"I'm... a little sleepy."

Xiao yawned. He could feel the passion for battle in his heart rapidly fading.

Looking at the black-veiled goddess in the distance, he suddenly felt that all this fighting and killing was so pointless. He might as well find somewhere to lie down and get some proper sleep.

Even the Frost of the End surrounding Song Ling, those black flames that represented absolute denial, seemed to dim somewhat.

Because the emptiness brought by Elegy of the End was itself a kind of "end," a gentle yet irresistible "death" that robbed all things of meaning.

It did not fight you. It merely made you feel that fighting itself was utterly meaningless.

"This can't go on!"

Di Jia Ling Yu was the only one present who remained completely clear-headed.

Her divine authority was Absolute Stillness. On a certain level, it resembled the "stillness" of Utter Despair, so she was affected the least.

She pressed her palms together, and a pure conceptual power of "stillness" spread outward from her.

This was not meant to freeze the enemy, but to create an absolutely self-consistent "mental safe zone" for her allies, free from the erosion of "emptiness."

Blue crystals spread beneath everyone's feet, cutting off the gray aura that eroded their wills.

Xiao and Song Ling's spirits jolted, breaking free from that strange sense of lethargy.

"Thanks, sis-in-law!"

Xiao shook his head and gripped the Mekong Jaw Blade again.

Yet Elegy of the End merely watched them quietly. She did not even move.

She simply raised a hand and lightly pointed at the crystalline barrier Di Jia Ling Yu had created.

There was no energy impact.

Yet the edges of the area formed by the laws of Absolute Stillness began to silently "fade."

As though a vividly colored oil painting had been washed by time for billions of years, until every color lost its meaning and finally returned to a pale canvas.

Di Jia Ling Yu grunted, and a trace of golden Divine Blood spilled from the corner of her mouth.

Her laws were being "dissolved" at the conceptual level!

"Your struggles, your resistance, your so-called will..."

Elegy of the End's voice seemed to come simultaneously from countless times and spaces, from the endings of countless tragedies, carrying a weariness and sorrow that pierced through everything.

"...are merely insignificant notes in this elegy, destined to fade into silence."

Her gaze finally fell upon the half-human, half-beast figure still standing there in a daze.

"Especially you, noisy beast."

"Your hunger, your rage, your strength... will all eventually run dry."

"Then you will understand that eternal slumber is the only destination."

A power of emptiness so dense it became tangible transformed into a black chain and coiled toward De Ba De.

"Don't even think about it!"

A cold glint flashed in Song Ling's eyes as a wisp of pitch-black Frost of the End shot from her hand, striking the chain with perfect accuracy.

The law representing "Erasure" collided violently with the law representing "emptiness."

There was no sound.

The chain and the wisp of Black Frost were annihilated at the same time.

An even match?

No.

Song Ling's face turned somewhat pale.

Her attack had been condensed to its absolute limit.

The other side's chain had merely been a casual strike.

At that critical moment, a silver phantom abruptly appeared before De Ba De.

It was Jing.

She did not attack, nor did she defend.

She merely constructed an image within the illusion.

In it was a bloody, steaming piece of grilled meat.

It was De Ba De's usual favorite: iron-plate pork loin with double spicy sauce.

The image was so lifelike that even its spicy, enticing aroma seemed to pass through the illusion and slip into De Ba De's nostrils.

The golden vertical pupils of the bewildered De Ba De suddenly focused.

A suppressed, hunger-filled growl rumbled from his throat.

His instincts were awakening once more!

For the first time, a flicker of disturbance appeared on Elegy of the End's blurred face.

She did not understand.

Why, before laws capable of making even deities abandon the meaning of their existence, would this creature rekindle its desire because of an illusion of food?

This made no sense!