Chapter 27

87

I was very interested in this newly crowned emperor.

Apart from the amusing incidents my avatar on Earth shared with me in real time, he himself had qualities that could impress me. For instance, he seemed insane, but was actually very calm; he seemed bold and arrogant, but was actually meticulous, and not nearly bold enough to stake everything he had on a chance at survival; he seemed clearheaded, but in truth had never stopped deceiving himself and evading responsibility.

In short, this was a very interesting soul, so interesting that simply reading my avatar's records could perk me up.

To entertain him, I extracted the concepts of "table," "chair," "vessel," and "water brewed with plant leaves" from the records, while my limbs and the Sea of Flowers served as the surrounding vegetation. I carved out a little courtyard in this desolate, silent void, hoping he could relax in these familiar surroundings and have a serious conversation with me.

He sat across from me and soon regained his senses. His fragmented body was covered in wounds caused by the Red Moon's corruption. He looked at me. Similar looks I had read about in the records represented "suspicion," "wariness," and "hostility." There was, after all, a considerable difference between seeing things from my avatar's perspective and witnessing them in person. I began looking forward to our conversation.

-His gaze wandered a little. Probably because he did not know which of my eyes to look at. So I temporarily closed the others.

"Why did you help me?" he asked. "What do you want to do?"

Ah, help? Taking him from the Mother Goddess of Depravity counted as help? Had he not realized that he had already been corrupted back on Earth, and that the corruption in him was now resonating with me? My corruption and spirituality quietly restored some of his reason. He was looking at me, his gaze even more inscrutable. I thought he was probably mocking me in his mind.

In a tenth of a second, I reviewed the records in my thinking organs again, searching for keywords such as "Roselle's native language," "Chinese definitions and pinyin," and "knowledge stolen from the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings." The subtle feeling of consulting a cheat sheet right under an invigilator's nose left me faintly guilty. Using simulated vocal cords, I said:

"Because I really want to talk to you, Roselle."

That sentence was spoken in perfectly articulated Chinese. Roselle's eyes abruptly widened, and the madness receded from the surfaces of those blue organs. He narrowed his eyes and scrutinized me for a long time before slowly saying, "Outer Deities are adept at deception and manipulation. I've experienced that firsthand. How am I supposed to trust you?"

Being manipulated and deceived meant you had value. Although his wariness had only dropped from 100 to 90, seeing him finally show a desire to communicate made me feel that the atmosphere I had specially prepared, and the appearance I had just fashioned so humans could readily perceive me, had proved useful.

"You don't need to trust me," I replied cheerfully in Chinese. "I only want to ask you-Mr. Huang, you thought you had arrived in another world, so you simply treated the whole world as a strategy game, discarded the morals expected of a human from the old era, and freely waged wars and invasions, only to discover that this place was Earth-how did that feel?"

He became angry. Exactly as my avatar's impression of him suggested.

As I recalled, humans-or rather, Earth's true gods-did not overturn tables and chairs or throw away food on their first visit to someone else's territory. So he should not have ripped out a dozen of my eyes all at once, either. He digested my spirituality and quieted down. Several tentacles I had used to construct the table and chairs were mercilessly pinned beneath his feet, an uncomfortable sensation rather like having one's hair trapped.

"Roselle, how does it feel to build a general's glory on ten thousand bleached bones? You're already a mythical creature, so does trampling your former kind make you happy, or guilty? Or do you actually feel nothing at all, because to you they're no different from insects and dust, with no value beyond serving as anchors? When you shifted your sins onto me, did you ever consider how your innocent, adorable daughter would react upon learning the truth?"

A torrent composed of pure knowledge and information surged toward me like crashing mountains and roaring seas, the red fissures becoming conspicuous coral within it.

My earnest questions received no rational answer, so I seized his shoulders with my branches and leaves, embedded roots and twigs in his body, and pressed him back into his seat. A torrent of knowledge at merely Sequence One was little more than a toy in the spiritual world of the cosmos; whispers and gazes could easily corrupt it. If he truly fought me in earnest, he might return carrying thoughtful souvenirs for Earth from every Outer Deity. This little struggle, lasting only a few seconds, cost my garden a few flowers. That was fine. I could replace them with my hands.

"There's no need for you to go out of your way to insult me, Outer Deity!" he raised his voice. "I will never help you! Kill me!"

Despite his apparent resolve to die rather than yield, he still had not answered my questions. Flames of anger burned within him. His will to survive and his suddenly fierce desire to protect his homeland had made him more sensitive than ever. What was done was done. Why refuse to admit it? I felt a little disappointed, though this, too, fit my avatar's assessment of him.

"I originally wanted you dead, but now I find you very interesting. Your ritual is complete. Any further delay will arouse suspicion, so I should send you back. Of course, you'll forget everything that happened in the cosmos."

In all fairness, I had none of those things. Performing my duties required no personal feelings. Humanity would make me partial, and authorities from pathways other than adjacent pathways would compromise my purity. The planet where I was born had fallen into permanent decay when I ascended to my divine throne. Though I carried it with me, I soon forgot it. Was it still in my hand, or had I casually destroyed it after losing interest? I could not remember, and it did not matter.

I continued my discussion with him.

I tried to make him understand that, in fact, both decay and withering were inevitable stages that matter had to undergo-in short, fallen leaves returned to their roots. Without death, there would be no new life. It was just that most living beings resisted death, while I was the embodiment of this fated cycle, the guide of the laws governing the development of all things, leading them toward their inevitable decline and death in accordance with those laws.

"So, if Earth is destroyed, I'll take the largest fragment with me. I hope there won't be too many people on it."

Roselle, my friend. Guiding catastrophes, provoking wars, then watching the tragedies wrought by our own hands-what a perfect diversion! Sorrow, pain, overflowing despair, and fear of the future. Perhaps it was my nature as a teacher, but I appreciated humanity's reckless courage, and the way they struggled onward for even the most unattainable hope. Of course, humans were creatures in whom virtue and ugliness coexisted. Though incomplete and riddled with flaws, they could not simply be dismissed.

...Do you understand what I mean? I mean, yours is a race full of possibilities, and I particularly look forward to seeing your entire species sink into despair.

Roselle became angry again, struggling violently in his chair several times. Why? Was it because I had not spoken to him in human form? Still, I was skilled at curses, and equally skilled at dealing with violent tempers. Like a doctor administering a sedative to a patient in a hospital, I pushed spirituality that induced cold indifference into him, and so he quieted down against his own wishes.

"...You know my ritual. You speak Chinese." He stared fixedly at me. "Who are you? What exactly do you want?"

"We're old friends, Roselle," I answered him. "I'm your subordinate. You shifted the blame for more than half of what you did onto me. Besides that, you guarded against me at every turn, refusing to let me become Sequence One, refusing to give me a chance to advance my ritual, and refusing to help me act. Were you trying to prevent another 'King' from emerging among your subordinates?"

"You did very well, but what a pity," I said. "When I ascended the throne, your ancestors were still picking fruit in the trees."

From the moment I spoke the first sentence, his expression had become spectacular. "Mountains collapsing and the earth splitting apart" would almost have described it.

"Edward?" Roselle's expression changed drastically, but he controlled himself. "But you couldn't have known about the old era and its civilization out of nowhere. There really was a survivor from that era, and then you took him over?"

It sounded very much like a product of that old civilization, something called a "horror film": a monster lurking in the darkness devoured a companion who strayed from the group, then returned wearing that companion's skin and waited for its opportunity. I felt pleased. "He is a part of me, but I am not him."

"Are you going to condemn me? I think you ought to thank me. After all, that brief life was prolonged because of me."

How to efficiently create greater catastrophes, how to make more sentient beings die over long periods of time, and how to strip vitality from an entire planet were the research subjects that interested me most-and the only ones. To that end, I continually made all sorts of novel attempts. For instance, becoming an observer, becoming those beings' god, or sending fragments of my spirit among them to guide them.

Yet even after countless times watching magnificent civilizations perish, mighty empires come crashing down, floods raze everything, and ice, snow, or lava cover every trace of existence, I still would never tire of it. I would forever rejoice in it, because this was the truth I bestowed.-Did you think I killed living beings as a hobby, killed lives as insignificant as ants, killed ordinary lives that yearned for a future and a tomorrow...? No, that would be meaningless. I did not do this for amusement. The decay of all things was inevitable; life was merely a fleeting dreamlike illusion between birth and death.

"You're very interesting, Roselle. I really do like you." Time was limited, and I did not intend to wait for him to say anything else. He would soon forget all of this anyway, while I only needed to wait. "I'll keep helping you. You have the ability to bring catastrophe to this land, and I look forward to that day. But when the entire continent meets its decline in the flames of your wars, how irritating you and your nation will look, so full of life by comparison."

"So, when that time comes, I'll happily kill you."

88

Roselle's journey into the cosmos was very successful. Following the safe route he and his subordinates had devised, he broke through the atmosphere without incident and returned just as smoothly, obtaining some of the knowledge he wanted. Upon waking, he clearly realized that the remnants in his mind that led toward losing control had become more active, and that he would need some time to eliminate their influence.

...And he had also received unexpected news.

This was the homeland he had sought for decades. This was Earth. The underwater ruins, the calendar system, the time and the planet's rotational speed-every suspicious detail connected at that moment. He had never left this place. He had merely awakened in another era-a distant era of Beyonders, thousands of years later.

Three loyal knights were checking him for any lingering adverse effects. All of them rejoiced at His Majesty's return.

Amid the lively atmosphere, he sensed a bone-piercing chill, as though a devil stood behind him, laughing. Roselle whipped his head around, only to see his own overlapping, fragmented face in several joined panes of stained glass.

TBC

"I am the Ruler of Withering, the King of Decline."

"And the final journey of all living beings."

*I originally wanted to put this chapter in the extras, but on second thought, it worked in the main story too.