219 is zero

◎Innocent Man◎

How to break the deadlock?

When the bullet pierced Qi Qiuxue's shoulder, leaving a deep blood mark that took a long time to heal, Qi Qiuxue realized that [Damage Transfer] and [Regeneration] had become ineffective.

There was no more time to waste. Qi Qiuxue dodged Purcell's next attack while quickly checking her health bar. Without the bonus of the two items, her health bar dropped rapidly under the opponent's strong attack. If she didn't think of a way to survive quickly, she would lose her life in a very short time.

On the other hand, looking at Purcell's health bar——

Is there one percent?

Has she lost even one percent of her health since the start of the game?

What to do?

What should I do?!

"What are you thinking?" Purcell clearly noticed her embarrassment. Like a hypocritical judge, she offered false concern and comfort to her prey while continuing to judge it mercilessly. "Axue, after actually competing with a god, do you still arrogantly believe you can win?"

"Your teammates are all dead." She pointed her weapon in Qi Qiuxue's direction and unleashed a barrage of arrows. Countless bullets and arrows rained down from the west, trapping Qi Qiuxue like an icy prison, forcing her to endure the pain of a thousand arrows piercing her heart. "Because they were incompetent, because they were weak."

"As a fellow human, what's the difference between you and them?" Purcell looked up, seeing Qi Qiuxue lying on the ground, bleeding and severely wounded. Then he watched her steadfastly climb back to her feet. "Want to end the game, prevent the disaster? Want to negotiate with the gods, avenge your teammates? All of that is just wishful thinking."

Purcell changed the crossbow in his hand into a chain blade. The cold chain hit Qi Qiuxue's body heavily, knocking her to the ground in an instant. The blade at the end of the chain pierced deeply into her abdomen, leaving a horrifying gash.

"Puff." Qi Qiuxue felt a sweet and fishy taste in her throat. She raised her hand to cover her abdomen, tilted her head and coughed out large mouthfuls of blood.

"You won't make it to the temple." Purcell stepped forward and slowly squatted beside her. "Why don't you admit defeat now and beg me to give you a quick death?"

"I know you must be very unwilling to accept this." Purcell stared into Qi Qiuxue's eyes and spoke slowly, "But don't you understand? Some gaps can never be bridged. No matter how hard you try, it's just a pointless struggle for me. Just like your companions, you will eventually die here. All friendships, family ties, and love will vanish with your death, as if they never existed."

"How sad and pitiful." Purcell said, sliding his fingertips down along Qi Qiuxue's wound until he touched the end of the blade, and then pressed down hard.

"Axue, I really feel sorry for you."

“…”

[System prompt: Your health is rapidly decreasing! ]

Amidst the intense pain and emotional fluctuations, Qi Qiuxue's eyes fell into darkness. Purcell's voice came intermittently, just like the system's reminders over and over again, noisy and non-stop.

Qi Qiuxue could no longer make out the content of these words. She seemed to be sealed in a transparent barrier. Her hearing, smell and touch all became light and blurry, like flowers in the fog.

Many images flashed through her mind hazily, about Li Yiqing, about Liu Ge, Su Wen and Wu Shanyue, about the Hope Guild, and about the companions who had fought side by side in the dungeon.

The human brain may have a special processing system. Even though most of the time there are mixed emotions, gains and losses, happiness and sorrow, as time goes by, people tend to forget the bad things. Instead, the happy and lucky things are still well sealed in their memories, still vivid and beautiful.

She will miss Li Yiqing's hugs and kisses, her friends' smiles and encouragement, the days when they all sat around the table to eat together, and the unfulfilled promise of going to see the sea together.

As Purcell said, once a person dies, all emotions and memories will disappear with him, including all of this.

But she didn't want them to disappear. In her early years, Qi Qiuxue was cold, alienated, and had nothing, but the Qi Qiuxue now was not like that.

She had it all.

She also greedily wanted to keep them forever and didn't want to lose them.

Qi Qiuxue opened her eyes the next second, tightened her grip on the bone knife, and stabbed towards Purcell's body with her backhand.

As if he had not expected her sudden action, Purcell stood up and leaned back to avoid her attack, but he did not expect that Qi Qiuxue's attack was just a cover. Her real purpose was to distance herself from her.

Qi Qiuxue took the opportunity to kick Purcell in the calf and knocked him to the ground. There was only one healing item left in the backpack. Qi Qiuxue quickly chose to use it, stood up and ran forward without looking back, putting some distance between herself and Purcell behind her.

Attacking is ineffective in a confrontation with gods. There is indeed an essential difference between humans and gods, a height that cannot be achieved by stacking countless god-level props and ordinary props.

There may be other ways to survive.

What is it?

Even though her body was in great pain and her legs felt heavy, Qi Qiuxue didn't dare to stop running. She wanted to buy herself as much time as possible to think about more things.

The system once said: [Even if you fail to complete the mission, there is still a chance to successfully complete it. One way is to successfully defeat the god, and then XXX..., or XXXX...]

Qi Qiuxue originally thought that these two situations were relative. Combining with what Li Yiqing had said about living towards death, she thought that perhaps another condition for passing the level was to lose, and then be killed by God or commit suicide to complete the living towards death.

But through the previous few games, she found that her guess might be wrong. Living towards death is not applicable in this game, or perhaps there must be some additional conditions for it to succeed.

Goodwill value and sin value.

Two progress bars.

Heaven, temple.

People whose happiness lives here can be seen but cannot be touched or communicated with.

Meng Yiyue’s call.

Statues and nuns in the church.

Qi Qiuxue tried again and again to connect all these clues together.

In fact, from the very beginning, she had doubts about the message of "living towards death" in her heart. She was not doubting its authenticity, but doubting its definition.

Here, what represents death and what represents life?

Normally, people refer to "leaving" the human world as death, and its corresponding "birth" means going to heaven or hell, ending the past and gaining a new life.

What about here?

“Click.”

The sound of bullets being loaded was getting closer and closer to her. A huge murderous intent came from behind, causing Qi Qiuxue's heart to beat wildly and her body to tremble slightly, but all this also drove her and pressured her to think faster and faster.

——If death means leaving "heaven", and life means going to the "human world" or "hell", this seems to be a rebirth, but it is contrary to the conditions given by the system at the beginning.

The system initially stated: [Here, players need to complete two tasks and then undergo an awarding ceremony at Heavenly Headquarters. This will allow them to successfully complete the game, become a First God, and realize their wish.]

Their final destination should be heaven, then the temple, not the human world or hell.

etc.

Another bullet hit Qi Qiuxue's back. The huge pain made her suffer, but it also made her mind clearer.

Is it fixed thinking?

The system's hints, the people living happily here, the beautiful scenery, all of these have subtly made them think that this is heaven. But from the time they arrived here until now, no one has actually ever told them exactly where this place is.

What if it's hell?

What if... this was actually hell? Those humans they could clearly see but couldn't reach were actually just projections of heaven, and they, the players, and the gods and nuns who could interact with them were actually in hell.

“…”

If this is true, then Meng Yiyue's call is explained. She can see them and call them. She and these players are in the same state and the same area, while those humans who cannot see them, touch or communicate with them are in another area.

That is the real paradise, and this is just hell carefully disguised as a fictional paradise.

"Swish." Purcell had come behind her. She didn't know when she had changed her weapon to a sharp sword, and stabbed straight at her.

Realizing that she could no longer escape, Qi Qiuxue quickly dodged, turned around, and raised the bone knife to block Purcell's attack.

"Axue, you are nothing more than that."

Compared to Qi Qiuxue's desperate fight, Purcell seemed quite relaxed. "Are you giving up just like that?"

"Why are you running away?"

"Are you scared?"

Facing Purcell's ridicule, Qi Qiuxue did not respond. She seemed not to be disturbed at all, and her brain continued to work rapidly.

Just like their misjudgment of heaven and hell, what do the two progress bars represent? Because of their fixed thinking, they naturally assume that the progress bar that increases with task completion represents goodness, and the progress bar that decreases with prayer represents sin. But is this really the case?

As if she suddenly thought of something, Qi Qiuxue gradually widened her eyes, and a kind of anger of being teased and realizing it belatedly surged in her heart at this moment.

Perhaps... the progress bar that decreases with each effective prayer they perform may not represent sin, but progress.

——Trigger the remaining progress of the petal easter egg.

"This is a special design by the Lord God."

"Don't you think this design is very humane? Every time you pray effectively, you receive a smile from the gods. It's a reward, an encouragement. It fills us with hope and gratitude, and we look forward to the next prayer!"

"See the halo above the statue? After you pray effectively seven times, flower petals will fall from there!"

Tears rolled down her face unconsciously. At this moment, Qi Qiuxue gradually recalled what the nun had said.

...Yes, the petals will only fall after seven valid prayers. They only had six days and only made six valid prayers. Of course, they couldn't trigger the easter egg, and the progress bar certainly wouldn't be completely cleared.

It turns out that everything has a traceable path. No wonder the church only opens at noon, because the order has been arranged for them in the secret copy. First, a false plot design was deliberately created during the last copy test to make them feel guilty, collapsed, sad, and questioning. They were made to pray for the last time with these emotions, so that they naturally believed that they were deeply sinful and their sins could not be washed away.

Those gods once said: "No matter what the test results are, there will be no negative impact on the players."

Since it cannot cause any negative impact, how can it affect their sins? Instead, they are confused by everything in front of them and are convinced from the bottom of their hearts that they are guilty, so they fail to complete the task.

So there was no progress bar for determining sin value from the beginning, right? If there was no progress bar, it meant that no matter what happened, their sins would not change.

God said that ideally, every player would be able to successfully clear the level and become a beginner god.

In other words, if they had seen through all this earlier, if they had not considered themselves to be sinful, if they had understood the Lord God's tricks early on, none of them would have died, and everyone would have been able to live smoothly.

Because from the very beginning, their sin value has always been...

zero.

"Qi Qiuxue, you are crying." Purcell's voice came to her ears again. At the same time, her health was almost at the end. A golden thread grew out from her wrist, one end was at her and the other end was at Purcell.

Qi Qiuxue quickly guessed the meaning of the golden thread.

It turned out that all the gods before them had disappeared in this way. It was the result that her companions, after struggling hard, finally chose to die together with the gods.

"Are you going to die with me?" Purcell knew she could guess. "This is your last chance."

With a faint smile on her lips, she asked the person in front of her in a very soft voice: "Do you want to kill yourself and me too?"

"No." After saying that, Qi Qiuxue shook her head slightly.

Purcell's expression showed a moment of astonishment. "Don't you want to avenge your companions?"

"Of course not." Qi Qiuxue said weakly but calmly and firmly, "Precisely because I want to avenge them, I should strive even harder to live."

"I am innocent."

She spoke each word with great force.

"Purcell, I am innocent."

【Author’s words】

Here we come!

Thank you all for your Bawang tickets and nutrient solution, and thank you for leaving comments and reading~