The Vessel of Divinity

Chapter 19: Vessel of Divinity

Lex saw Professor Si once again—when she spotted him, the stranger of Eastern descent was sitting on an icy rock by the sea, feeding penguins. Beside his hand lay a crystal skull that looked like a piece of fine art. But Lex only glanced at the skull twice before feeling a wave of dizziness wash over her.

She dared not look again.

She struggled to remain vigilant.

Not long ago, when she mentioned to the base commander that "a stranger entered with me, and you even gave him a top-secret file," the commander had first looked at her with disbelief, then his face changed drastically after checking the file cabinet. She was immediately ushered out and placed in a lounge under guard. After that came the sound of alarms and rhythmic footsteps.

Lex had originally thought the base commander truly believed her and was attempting to capture the stranger who could distort human cognition. However, it wasn't until she was released from house arrest hours later and heard the base broadcast announce that a spy had been captured that she realized the commander had interpreted her warning as a hint that "a spy had stolen classified documents."

Correction was useless; she realized one thing—she had once again encountered an anomalous phenomenon that transcended the boundaries of human cognition, and this time, she should remain calm.

"We meet again, Dr. Wood." Professor Si nodded toward her and tossed a small piece of salted meat into the penguin colony. Those upright little creatures immediately gathered, hopping about and making gurgling, cackling sounds.

"Professor Si." She took a deep breath. "You seem to have had a good harvest?"

"Not bad." The stranger from the East nodded, tossing more salted meat toward the nearby penguins. "You look troubled, Professor Wood."

"...Just some trivial matters." Lex shook her head slightly, hesitated, and then tentatively asked, "Are you also... someone from elsewhere? Like those hunters, those Yautja?"

She saw the professor seem to nod, yet it was as if he hadn't. He neither admitted nor denied it.

He did not answer her.

But he reached out and tossed a small pendant toward Lex.

It was a very familiar pendant; Lex was certain she had seen a necklace of this style somewhere before. She subconsciously opened the cover of the ornament, and the headshot inside made her eyes widen.

Is... is it him?

She felt as if she had returned to that dark ruin, back to that cliffside. She had watched helplessly as her companion was snatched away by a Xenomorph before her eyes. Not long after, she was forced to raise her pistol and fire a bullet into the heart of the companion who had been parasitized by the 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!]

Though she hadn't shed a tear at the time, she couldn't help but weep now. She clutched the pendant tightly to her chest, letting the tears dampen her eyes.

"I cleared out the underground; there is basically no danger there now. Of course, there is some damage, but it shouldn't affect your archaeological excavation."

He rose from the icy rock and walked toward the edge of the polar day. It was already early September, and the boundary between dawn and dusk had become blurred.

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

Lex shouted loudly toward his receding back. His footsteps seemed to pause briefly, and then, his silhouette blurred as he waved a final farewell.

Perhaps it was an illusion, but before he vanished, Lex felt as if she saw a surge of loneliness emanating from his back.

He was gone.

She never saw him again.

When Si Ming returned to the Main God square, exactly one second had passed. He held the crystal-colored skull lightly in his hand and placed it on the open-air desk he had exchanged for.

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

The return adventure was over. All objectives had been achieved, and all spoils were in his hands. The resources consumed for this operation were not as high as expected.

The firearms could be reused, and the prepared scrolls and heavy firepower had not been fully utilized. The corpse of the Burrowing Devil Worm, which he had spent a fortune to purchase, remained intact; now, it rested in his summoning space along with the Skeleton Soldier he had prepared and that Battle Qi Wind Wolf.

The harvest was plentiful, and no mistakes had been made. His Night Battle Qi, Necrotic Aura, and even the first-order Gene Lock itself had been significantly strengthened. Furthermore, he had gained a considerable sum of rewards.

"...Still stingy."

Si Ming vaguely remembered that in the third generation of the original canon, when some unlucky soul brought the Death Divinity back from a reincarnation world to the Main God space, the Main God had given them an additional A-rank side quest reward. Yet, in his case, he didn't get a single hair.

Connections, he couldn't compare.

The faint dissatisfaction that surfaced in his mind was silently extinguished by him.

There was no point in dwelling on it. He immediately closed his eyes, stopping all inner review, summary, correction, and thinking.

The square instantly became quiet. On the vast, pure white earth, only his rhythmic breathing and steady heartbeat remained. This was what was meant by closing one's eyes to rest and meditating in silence, and in this tomb-like stillness, 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 that had lingered around him vanished without a trace following this brief self-adjustment. Then, he reached out and pressed his palm onto the crystal skull.

"I can feel it."

The Death Divinity was floating quietly within the crystal skull. It was no longer active, yet it still possessed a vast, latent power. Only those who practiced death were qualified to touch it. In the silence, all the Night Battle Qi within Si Ming's body transformed into death energy once more, quietly flowing into the deepest part of the crystal skull.

It truly existed.

He touched it.

And then...

"...So it really doesn't work."

It couldn't be done.

The Necrotic Aura had indeed successfully made contact with the Death Divinity, yet it failed to budge even a fraction of that magnificent power. It was akin to using pliers made of cotton to tear through refined steel; the Necrotic Aura, lacking the necessary level of existence, could only shatter in vain against the structure of the Death Divinity.

He was too weak.

To devour the nature of a god, one must at least possess near-godly power. And if one lacked near-godly power, one should at least possess a near-godly vessel.

He had neither, so he could not effectively absorb, let alone control, it. After all, even in the third generation of the original canon, a certain unlucky fellow favored by destiny had to rely on a group-purchased S-rank Four Symbols Five Elements Eight Trigrams Formation to ensure his physical body wouldn't be blown apart by the divinity sealed within him. Later, he even required the assistance of a Saint-level powerhouse to successfully refine the sealed Death Divinity while unlocking the third stage of the Gene Lock.

He did not have that much currency, nor did he have teammates who would pay for him or look after him at critical moments. Thus, he knew he had to choose another method.

"Main God," Si Ming looked up at the golden sphere of light hanging in the sky. "I want to use the creation authority."

Reincarnators possessed the authority to create humans. By paying 500 reward points, the user could create a Main God-brand human with a single attribute not exceeding 200 points, who would be completely loyal to the creator. Of course, this authority could be exercised an infinite number of times, but while each subsequent creation cost 500 reward points, the very first creation required no expenditure at all.

--[Processing...]

The radiance of the Main God descended. A vast and intricate creation interface immediately appeared within Si Ming's consciousness. He could follow his own will to create any physique and appearance that did not exceed the human category. The Main God also provided an auxiliary function to extract templates directly for fine-tuning, so that those who were poor at sculpting faces wouldn't suffer while looking at a pile of sliding parameters.

But that was not the point; the point was the utility that the created human could provide.

Since Si Ming's current specifications could not handle the Death Divinity, he would find a way to imbue this Death Divinity with a will that obeyed him, making the divinity actively cooperate with his actions!

Therefore—

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

He received a reply immediately.

--[Processing... This operation cannot be performed. The vessel of the created human cannot bear the Death Divinity raw material provided by the Reincarnator.]

It wouldn't work. Then he would try adding more points.

"How many attribute points does a created human need to be able to bear the divinity?"

Reincarnators could exchange for six-dimensional attribute enhancements at a 10-to-1 ratio. Naturally, the same applied to created humans.

--[Calculating... 4000 points of Cellular Activity and 4000 points of Intelligence are required to reach the minimum requirement for bearing the Death Divinity.]

It was a bit expensive, but it was good.

This proved that this path was entirely viable, and problems regarding base attributes could always be bypassed in this Reincarnation World using items or bloodlines.

An exchange entry caught Si Ming's eye. It was one of the methods he had used earlier to verify the essence of Night Battle Qi, and it might just serve a critical function.

--[Spirit Possession Physique—Originating from 'Pan-Mythology'. The exchanger will gain the trait of being able to easily bear the power of external deities, demons, and other higher-level entities. At the same time, their aptitude as a ritual sacrifice will be significantly enhanced. When performing any ritual to communicate with higher-level powers, if this exchanger acts as the officiant or the sacrifice, the success efficiency of the ritual will be significantly increased.]

--[To exchange for this enhancement, one must pay 1 B-rank side quest and 6000 reward points. Before exchanging for this enhancement, the recipient is required to have absolute purity of bloodline and power.]

"Main God, if I exchange for the 'Spirit Possession Physique' enhancement for my created human, can I additionally add the Death Divinity I have in my possession during the creation?"

--[Calculating... This operation can be executed.]

As expected, it was possible.