A Vessel for Divinity

Chapter 19 · A Vessel for Divinity

Lex saw Professor Si again. When she spotted him, the unfamiliar man of East Asian descent was sitting on an ice-covered rock by the sea, feeding penguins. A crystal skull that looked like a piece of art lay beside him. But after Lex glanced at it just twice, she felt dizzy.

She didn't dare look at it again.

She tried hard to stay alert.

Not long ago, when she mentioned to the base commander in his office that "a stranger came in with me, and you even gave him a classified document," the commander had looked incredulous. Then, after checking the file cabinet, his expression had changed dramatically. She was immediately ushered out and placed under guard in the lounge. After that came the alarms and the sound of footsteps rushing about.

Lex had originally thought the base commander had truly believed her and was trying to capture the stranger who could distort human perception. But it wasn't until hours later, when her confinement was lifted and the base broadcast announced that a spy had been captured, that she realized the commander had interpreted her warning as a hint that "a spy stole classified documents."

There was no point correcting him. She realized she had once again encountered a phenomenon beyond the limits of human understanding, and this time, she needed to stay calm.

"Good to see you again, Dr. Wood." Professor Si nodded to her and tossed a small piece of cured meat into the flock of penguins. The little upright creatures immediately came hopping over, making soft clucking noises.

"Professor Si." She took a deep breath. "It looks like you've had some success?"

"Not bad." The stranger from the East nodded and tossed more cured meat toward the penguins nearby. "You seem troubled, Professor Wood."

"...It's just some trivial matters." Lex shook her head slightly. She hesitated, then ventured a question. "Are you also... from somewhere else? Like those Predators, those Yautja?"

She thought the professor might have nodded, but perhaps he hadn't. He neither confirmed nor denied it.

He didn't answer her.

Instead, he reached out and tossed a small pendant toward Lex.

It looked familiar. Lex was certain she had seen a necklace just like it somewhere before. She instinctively opened the pendant's cover, and her eyes widened at the half-length portrait inside.

It was... him?

She seemed to be back in that dark ruin, back on that cliff. She had watched helplessly as her companion was dragged away by a Xenomorph. Not long afterward, she had been forced to raise her pistol and shoot a bullet into the heart of her companion, who had been impregnated by a Xenomorph.

"Dr. Sebastian..."

She still remembered her companion's final warning.

[They must never reach the surface... They must never reach the surface! Do it!]

She hadn't cried then, but now she couldn't hold back her tears. She clutched the pendant tightly against her chest, letting the tears blur her vision.

"I cleared out the underground. It should be mostly safe now. There was some damage, of course, but it shouldn't affect your archaeological excavation."

He rose from the ice-covered rock and headed toward the edge of the polar day. It was already early September, and the boundary between dawn and dusk had grown indistinct.

"Thank you! Professor Si, thank you for letting him rest in peace!"

Lex called out to his receding figure. He seemed to pause briefly, then his silhouette blurred as he waved goodbye.

Perhaps it was just her imagination, but before he disappeared, Lex thought she saw a trace of loneliness stirring in his back.

He was gone.

She never saw him again.

When Si Ming returned to the Main God Plaza, exactly one second had passed. He held the crystal-colored skull lightly in one hand and set it on the outdoor desk he had exchanged for.

He leaned back and sat down in his office chair. He silently exhaled, then relaxed his mind.

The adventure had come to an end. He had accomplished all his objectives and claimed all his spoils. Yet the resources consumed during this operation hadn't been as great as he'd expected.

The firearms could all be reused. The prepared scrolls and heavy weapons hadn't been fully expended. The Burrowing Devil Worm corpse he had bought at great expense was still intact. It was now resting in his summoning space alongside the Skeleton Soldiers he had prepared and the Battle Qi Wind Wolf.

He had come away with a full haul and made no serious mistakes. His Night Battle Qi, Necrotic Aura, and even his first-level Gene Lock had all grown considerably stronger. On top of that, he had a substantial sum of points in hand.

"...I was still too stingy."

Si Ming vaguely remembered that in the third generation of the original story, when some unlucky bastard brought Death Divinity back from a reincarnation world to the Main God's space, the Main God had even given him an extra A-rank side-quest reward. But when it came to him, he hadn't gotten so much as a hair.

Connections. He couldn't compete.

The faint discontent that surfaced in his mind was quietly erased.

There was no point dwelling on something meaningless. He closed his eyes and stopped reviewing, summarizing, correcting, or thinking about anything.

The plaza fell silent. On the vast expanse of pure white, only his steady breathing and the measured beat of his heart remained. This was what it meant to rest with his eyes closed and clear his mind. In the tomb-like silence, time flowed slowly and soundlessly.

One minute, two minutes.

One hour, two hours.

His eyes opened again, his gaze sharp once more. The melancholy and boredom lingering around him vanished after this brief adjustment. Then he reached out and placed his palm on the crystal skull.

"I can feel it."

The Death Divinity floated quietly inside the crystal skull. It was no longer active, but it still held immense power, ready to be unleashed. Only those who practiced death could come into contact with it. In silence, all the Night Battle Qi in Si Ming's body transformed into deathly energy once more and flowed toward the deepest part of the crystal skull.

It was really there.

He had touched it.

And then...

"...As expected, it doesn't work."

He couldn't do it.

The Necrotic Aura had indeed come into contact with the Death Divinity, but it hadn't managed to budge this mighty force in the slightest. It was like trying to tear steel apart with a pair of cotton tongs. The Necrotic Aura was too weak to do anything but crash uselessly against the structure of the Death Divinity.

He was too weak.

To devour a god's nature, he needed at least near-divine power. And without near-divine power, he would at least need a near-divine vessel.

He had neither, so he couldn't absorb it effectively, let alone control it. After all, even in the third generation of the original story, some unlucky bastard blessed by fate had needed a group-purchased S-rank Four Symbols Five Elements Eight Trigrams Formation to keep the divinity sealed within his body from bursting him apart. Later, he had also needed the help of a near-sage expert to refine the sealed Death Divinity while unlocking the third level of his Gene Lock.

Si Ming didn't have that kind of money, nor did he have teammates who would fund him and watch over him in a pinch. So he knew he had to choose another method.

"Main God." Si Ming looked up at the golden orb hanging in the sky. "I want to use my creation privilege."

Reincarnators had the privilege of creating a person. By paying five hundred reward points, they could create a Main God-made person who was completely loyal to them, with no single attribute exceeding two hundred points. Naturally, this privilege could be used as many times as they wanted, but the first creation cost nothing.

--[Processing request...]

The Main God's radiance descended. A vast, detailed creation interface appeared in Si Ming's mind. He could follow his wishes to create any physique and appearance within human limits. The Main God also offered a template feature that allowed for adjustments, so those who struggled with character creation wouldn't have to suffer over a pile of sliding parameters.

But that wasn't the point. What mattered was what a created person could do.

Since Si Ming couldn't handle the Death Divinity at his current level, he could give it a will that obeyed him and make the divinity cooperate with him of its own accord!

So—

"Main God, I want to add this Death Divinity as material in the creation process."

He received a reply immediately.

--[Processing... This operation cannot be completed. A created body cannot bear the Death Divinity material provided by the Reincarnator.]

No. Then he'd try paying more.

"How many attribute points would a created person need to bear the divinity?"

Reincarnators could exchange points for enhancements to their six attributes at a rate of ten to one. The same applied to created people.

--[Calculating... A minimum of 4,000 points in cell activity and 4,000 points in intelligence are required to bear the Death Divinity.]

A little expensive, but that was good.

It meant the method was entirely feasible. As for the basic attributes, there had always been ways to work around those in the reincarnation worlds with items or bloodlines.

An exchange option appeared before Si Ming's eyes. It was one of the methods he had used earlier to verify the true nature of Night Battle Qi, and it might be the key.

--[Spirit Possession Physique—Source: "Pan-Mythology." The recipient will gain the trait of easily bearing the power of external gods, demons, and other superior beings. Their aptitude as a ritual sacrifice will also increase dramatically. When the recipient acts as the officiant or sacrifice in any ritual that communicates with superior powers, the ritual's success rate will increase significantly.]

--[This enhancement requires one B-rank side-quest reward and 6,000 reward points. Before purchasing this enhancement, the recipient must have a bloodline and power that are absolutely pure.]

"Main God, if I purchase the Spirit Possession Physique enhancement for my created person, can I add the Death Divinity I have on hand during their creation?"

--[Calculating... This operation is possible.]

Just as he'd expected.