World Three, Incantation

Chapter 40: World Three, Incantation

"God is a position, divine power is a tool. That is how I see it."

Si Ming held his teacup, answering nonchalantly. "Life prays and worships until a god is born; the god then manifests in the world, continuing to exist to satisfy the prayers of life. In other words, if this manifested god truly fulfills the prayer that gave it birth, then it is worthy of worship. This can be viewed as a simple exchange, and the god's power is naturally the tool it uses to fulfill its duties."

"Do you think gods should be worshipped?"

"If it fulfills the corresponding wishes of those who expect it to perform its duties, then yes. I believe those who worship it should indeed do so—who told them they couldn't achieve what they wanted themselves and had to rely on a god? Worship is the wage, miracles are the results. It's a legitimate transaction. Is there a problem with that?"

"Don't you think that because a god is born from human worship, it has received a great favor from humanity, and to repay this debt, the deity should take the initiative to do something?"

"You're using human morality to define a tool?" Si Ming smiled. "Or are you suggesting that gods are children and humans are parents? Then tell me, who was the one praying to the other during the process of birth?"

"It seems we have some disagreements." Jacob poured himself a glass of water.

However, Si Ming merely waved his hand.

"Do we really have disagreements?" He poured himself a cup as well. "You stand in the position of usurping divine power, justifying your reasons for doing so. I stand in the position of inheriting divine power, finding a reason to absolve myself of responsibility. Whether it's you or me, aren't we both just leaning toward pragmatism?"

With that, Jacob laughed as well. He raised his glass and clinked it against Si Ming's in the air.

"Death Divinity?" He could sense the special nature within Si Ming's power.

"Mm, death." Si Ming did not deny it, but he didn't explicitly mention the Death Divinity either. "Deep beneath the ruins in the first Alien vs. Predator movie, in the depths of that ancient pyramid, the ancient civilization's worship of death itself was gathered. I obtained the qualifications to activate it because I exchanged for necromancy-type enhancements, and after a series of trials, I acquired it."

He paused.

"[Fear death, follow death, we shall all eventually return to death]—this was the dogma born from that ancient civilization under the guidance of the Yautja. And if I were to truly inherit this power while also inheriting that 'great favor of birth'..."

He set his glass down: "Wouldn't I have to find a place to slaughter people every single day?"

"Which day do we reincarnators not spend slaughtering people..." To the side, Yu Zhiwei muttered, her voice just 'quiet' enough for everyone to hear.

"Peaceful solutions are certainly better than resorting to killing..." On the other side, Valentina nodded, agreeing with Si Ming's line of reasoning.

The voices on both sides cut off simultaneously. Yu Zhiwei had done it on purpose, while Valentina had genuinely choked. The former began to smile sweetly, while the latter turned her face away as if she had seen something filthy.

"Avoiding combat is ultimately better." Jacob glanced at the two women. "I feel that I am more adept at reasoning with people."

Unfortunately, he hadn't been able to reason with the reincarnators of the Sandbar Team.

"Unless the things you encounter are incapable of reason." Si Ming nodded. "For instance, in the last world, I went to the world of I Am Legend. Aside from a very small number of survivors, everyone I encountered was a Night Demon with whom there was no reasoning. So, I had to spend some effort to have a proper talk about physics with them."

"There is indeed no reasoning with non-human creatures." Song Tian, who had been silent, spoke up. "The world I went to last was The Descent, and before that, Day of the Dead and Night of the Living Dead. All I could do was swing my blade."

"Fighting zombies for three worlds? That must have been exhausting for you, Song Tian."

"The Descent doesn't seem to be about fighting zombies..." Valentina, being more serious, corrected him subconsciously, then immediately added, "Though those cave monsters really aren't any different from zombies."

She paused, then began to recount her own experiences.

"My first world was True Lies, and the second was Mission: Impossible. They were basically all about dealing with people, and the missions could be completed with very little combat. The third was Kingdom of Heaven, where I assisted the blacksmith Balian in defending the Holy City, which was harder to defend than in the original story. But the others on the Forest Team felt that selling out Balian to obtain side quests was a better option... That was where I parted ways with the others."

So that was it; no wonder she liked reasoning so much. The themes of her three worlds were all within civilized settings, the type where one could clear the stage smoothly by sticking to a firm path.

Then...

Everyone turned their gaze toward Yu Zhiwei, who was lying lazily on the table.

"What are you looking at me for? Oh... I'm the only one left, huh." She tilted her head, revealing an expression of 'sudden realization.'

"Nothing special. My first world was The Thing, some incomprehensible American horror movie. The second was Event Horizon, an incomprehensible British horror movie. The third was One Missed Call, an incomprehensible Japanese horror movie. I survived the first two, but I couldn't make it through the third. However, before I died, the Guide paused time, so I became the captain and ended up here with the Celestial Team."

"...The difficulty of your films sounds a bit high."

Si Ming had heard of these three movies and could imagine their state at the lowest difficulty. Even in their original flavor without any added elements, they were by no means stages that an ordinary person could easily clear.

"Who knows? Maybe the Main God saw that I killed too many India Team newcomers and was in a hurry to send me on my way?" Yu Zhiwei remained in her lazy posture. "No one is trustworthy; everyone suddenly turns into a monster or gets possessed by a ghost. The person laughing a second ago suddenly opens their mouth into eight petals to bite you, and the newcomer or plot character you worked so hard to save suddenly disintegrates into a puddle of toxic gore right in front of you..."

"After thinking it over, it really is more convenient to just kill everyone. The living, the dead, those that look like corpses, those that are still breathing, those with smiles, those full of fear—everything is only valid once the Main God's point deduction notification sounds... Ah, though sometimes even the Main God's notifications can be wrong. After all, ghosts are one thing, but nerve gas can cause auditory hallucinations in your head."

"...Maybe it wasn't your problem." Valentina frowned and said, "There might have been other reasons."

"Perhaps." Yu Zhiwei stretched. "Maybe it was just a random combination of arrays, maybe the India Team was just unlucky. Maybe the difficulty of those three stages wasn't actually that high, and it was my wrong strategy that made things so bad. But now, it's all in the past."

Perhaps it was in the past.

Si Ming studied this person, suddenly recalling a setting he wasn't sure existed.

"Mystic Eyes of Death Perception," he said. "I previously... when I was in the real world, heard of a setting. Abilities related to the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception cause a drop in luck when used. The more you use them, the worse your luck becomes. Only a sufficiently massive scale can suppress one's own fate, thereby breaking free from such a miserable destiny."

"The real world? Where did you hear of such a setting?" Yu Zhiwei frowned slightly.

"Some secondary creation, fan fiction, or something similar. I don't remember clearly."

The person who had become interested curled her lip.

"I don't usually read novels."

"But I'll try to take a look... anyway, if I can't do it, I won't live much longer."

The atmosphere became slightly unpleasant. Jacob reached out and exchanged for a glass of grape juice and a glass of wine.

"Care for a drink?" he invited the others.

The first afternoon meeting of the Celestial Team concluded. The team atmosphere had achieved a breakthrough from nothing, and the reincarnators had gained a little more understanding of each other. Although it was unclear how many had achieved their goals, for Si Ming, who had orchestrated all of this, it was a good start. Because he only needed this meeting to exist, and for it not to fall apart.

The first day was like this.

The days that followed were the same.

However, compared to the depth of the first day, starting from the second day, the topics of conversation among the reincarnators began to extend into areas that did not involve personal matters. Song Tian finally found another time to spar with Si Ming. Regrettably, even this time, he failed to force out Si Ming's close-combat abilities. On the other hand, Valentina fought several more matches against Yu Zhiwei and actually managed to stab her a few more times.

Women are indeed hard to understand; after being stabbed a few times, Valentina's attitude toward Yu Zhiwei was no longer as repulsed as it had been before. Of course, it was also possible that Yu Zhiwei's previous display of misery had taken effect.

Si Ming would bet fifty cents that she had been playing the victim back then.

But that was not a big problem.

The Celestial Team gradually transformed from a scattered pile of sand into a mound of sand. Although this was still far from being an alliance, let alone a complete team, at least the five reincarnators, who had been strangers to one another before this, would no longer get in each other's way.

That was enough.

And soon, when the seventh afternoon meeting began, everyone was somewhat at a loss for words, to the point where they had to resort to boring topics like "the weather is nice" just to pass the time. The privilege belonging to the holder of the captain's authority finally successfully entered an activated state at this very moment.

"Let me see what the next world is..."

All five people were looking, but the first person to speak was Yu Zhiwei.

"Incantation? What kind of movie is this? Is it another supernatural horror film?"