Yggdrasil—the diseased part of the Heart of Darkness—was clearly in an extremely unstable and irritable state. Thousands of years of corruption and erosion had likely driven him close to madness. Or perhaps the corruption had nearly replaced his rational mind altogether. Now, this powerful demigod wanted nothing but to die, and even while thinking about it, his not-so-normal brain seemed sluggish.
For example, it had taken him until now to realize that Hao Ren could help carry out his death sentence.
But Hao Ren clearly had no intention of agreeing to his request.
"Things might not be that bad," Hao Ren hurriedly tried to dissuade Yggdrasil. "You might not have a way to fix this, but what if I do?"
At that moment, the healthy consciousness within the beam of light—the "Executioner Consciousness" Yggdrasil had created himself—spoke up as well. "I think that makes sense. We can't solve the corruption because we're trapped inside this body, but this outsider can do what we can't."
Hao Ren suddenly remembered that he hadn't greeted the beam of light yet. He quickly turned and said, "Oh, right. I haven't introduced myself. I'm..."
"I know," the beam of light said softly, its voice rising above the storms and waves of the Dark Sea. "I am also the master of this world. The other me and I share all the information here. I heard you introduce yourself just now. I didn't want to appear at first, because facing another version of myself is always troublesome, but your arrival... made me feel there might be a glimmer of hope."
"Hope, hope. What a weightless thing," Yggdrasil's Heart of Darkness muttered. "It gives you motivation for no reason at all. I've never understood why you let something like that drive you."
"As you can see, the dark,