Chapter 96 The Final Feast of Revelry (Sixteen) When the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman reaps the benefits…
Hu Tiankui slowly twisted his head, feeling as if his neck was a rusty gear. It was such a simple movement, but it was incredibly difficult for him to do.
The moment Hu Tiankui saw what was behind him, he couldn't help but wonder if there was something wrong with his eyes as well as his neck.
One, two, three... Six high-ranking members of the Gentlemen's Guild, notorious A-level ability users even in the notorious Lower City, remained seated, their expressions unchanged from before the incident. One of them yawned, his mouth still open.
But their eyes... the parts that should have been eyes had somehow melted into a mass, and a reddish-brown, viscous liquid dripped and flowed all over the ground. The smooth surface of the water, like a dim bronze mirror, reflected everything in this secret laboratory.
"This...this..."
Hu Tiankui was so shocked that he couldn't speak. He took several steps back until his back hit the cold glass wall. Only then did his dazed mind realize what had happened. A chilling coldness suddenly rose in his heart, freezing his limbs stiff. His tongue was tied in knots, and his lips trembled for a long time, but he couldn't utter a complete sentence.
His colleagues remained motionless in the same position, like breathing wax figures, except for the reddish-brown liquid flowing faster and faster from their eye sockets, like endless tears of blood, which soon covered the ground in a shallow layer, like a newly born sea.
Humans were melting, and a sea of blood was spreading. When the viscous, scarlet liquid, which emitted a strange fragrance, reached Hu Tiankui's feet, he felt as if struck by lightning the moment he made contact. A terrifying thought rushed into his mind, instantly occupying his entire being, haunting him like a ghost:
Do not look directly at God!
...They actually succeeded...
His thoughts became fragmented amidst immense horror and sudden ecstasy. A few seconds later, as his colleagues had "melted" to their half-body, and the sea of blood had reached his waist, he was trembling slightly for some unknown reason when another question surfaced in his mind:
He looked directly at the new god. Why was he alright?
You can even stand here and think about this and that.
But the next second, he had no time to think about these questions.
"Boom—crash!"
A sharp, explosive sound approached from afar, and at its loudest, it exploded directly in the middle of the sea of blood, splashing waves that hit Hu Tiankui's face. A series of rapid notes followed, tormenting his eardrums, like a heavy metal rock song played at ten times the speed.
He tumbled in the sea of blood, wanting to vomit but being squeezed by the sudden increase in air pressure, unable to vomit. His vision blurred, but for some reason he didn't faint. His vision spun, and all he could see was countless colorful musical notes swirling upwards from the center of the explosion in the sea of blood, like the eye of a gradually forming typhoon, howling as they crashed into the glass wall at the other end of the laboratory.
Strangely enough, the glass wall, which was only a palm's thickness and looked quite ordinary, actually withstood the impact of the seemingly powerful tornado without making a sound. The tornado collapsed instantly, as if it were made of sand.
The notes leaping from the sea of blood seemed even more enraged, their strange language carrying a powerful spiritual impact, creating ripples across the blood-soaked surface: "Liar! Thief! Traitor!"
The enormous roar slammed into Hu Tiankui's eardrums like a heavy hammer, causing a ringing in his ears. Countless voices arguing with himself echoed in his mind. It was as if he had split into six selves in an instant, each "Hu Tiankui" with a different personality, but all equally irritable, chattering incessantly in his brain from the moment they were born:
"It's the Joyful Orchestra! They're the mad dogs of [Decadent Sound]! How did they get in! Damn it, we've been betrayed! The hidden coordinates of the Spirit Realm have been leaked!"
"It's all your fault! Why did you have to come here? Now look what's happened, you've ruined us all! And you've dragged her down with you!"
"It's so cold... Why haven't the people from headquarters arrived yet?! You shouldn't have joined the Gentlemen's Club in the first place! You should have just died in that alley!"
"Hehe, what are you pretending to be so sentimental for? Do you think I don't know what you're thinking? A lifetime of redemption? Isn't it just watching her risk her life and then hypnotizing yourself into believing it was a necessary sacrifice? How ridiculous!"
"No...no..."
The deepest, most hidden thoughts were ruthlessly exposed, like a festering wound suddenly laid bare in the sun, causing not only physical pain but also intense mental humiliation.
The sea of blood had quietly engulfed his chest. Hu Tiankui struggled painfully within it, his expression a mixture of shock and rage. His reason was on the verge of collapse. He subconsciously looked at the transparent glass wall.
After Li Yueyuan chopped off that hand, the pain in her expression lessened considerably. She looked like a corporate slave who had finally completed a heavy task and collapsed on the sofa after get off work. When "Gu Xi" got off the operating table, she lay down on it instead, closed her eyes, and looked as peaceful as a corpse.
Gu Xi tiptoed, without any power leaking out, and with a light leap, naturally floated above the sea of blood, untouched by any dust.
The blindfold was still firmly wrapped around her face, but it had lost its function. The woman's gaze swept across the increasingly turbulent sea of blood, the angry roaring sound waves, the laboratory walls that became illusory, and the faintly visible shadow of the mine in the distance, as if it were a tangible thing. Finally, it landed on the person struggling in the sea of blood, and her gaze drifted over it lightly.
He even laughed at himself.
All the noise in his mind suddenly disappeared, and Hu Tiankui suddenly realized something: this was the most obvious form of ignoring.
After struggling with the decision for a long time, he finally watched Gu Xi go onto the operating table, clinging to the hope that the experiment might actually work.
Perhaps it was a change in mindset, but when the wave of blood surged again, and the viscous, strange liquid flowed into his body through his mouth and nose, Hu Tiankui no longer felt suffocated. Several voices in his mind were still arguing, but he could listen to them with a peaceful perspective. Moreover, he even "saw" many scenes—
There are members of the Gentlemen's Association who know full well that something is wrong, but turn a blind eye for their own benefit;
There are miners who know full well that the abandoned area is dangerous and that high income means high risk, but still come to the Fullenza dock with a gambler's mentality.
There are traitors who usually joke and play with their companions, promising to advance and retreat together, but when the Fallen Ones attack, they trip up their companions and try to escape on their own.
There are cowards who know danger is imminent, yet are so frightened that they become limp and unable to move, only able to stare wide-eyed and await death.
...
Greed, selfishness, cowardice, despicableness… countless images flooded Hu Tiankui's mind in a second, or even less. In this brief yet eternal moment, he witnessed the ugliness of humanity and instinctively understood what this ever-spreading sea of blood truly was.
Indifference, selfishness, greed, cowardice, laziness, rage, jealousy... This is the ugliness in the hearts of all humans in the small ritual space of the Flúnza dock, the collection of all negative emotions, the umbilical cord of human birth, the sea of blood that led to human demise, and the endless, cyclical original sin of humankind.
Two streams of hot tears suddenly flowed from his eyes, falling into the boiling, turbid sea of blood. It was not out of fear, but a sense of enlightened repentance and a feeling of relief that swept over the heart of this gangster who had once scorned all gods.
The man, who had been floating and struggling in the sea of blood and pain but had not melted away, looked up at "Gu Xi" floating in the air for the last time. His eyes no longer held the many complex emotions he had before, but only the pure joy and fervor of a fanatical believer who had finally seen his god.
Where the hot tears fell, they began to melt at a visible speed, merging into the turbulent, murky sea of blood. Hu Tiankui, however, was no longer in pain, but joyful, even eager to watch the scene before him. Prayers he had never heard of before naturally poured out between the opening and closing of his lips.
It was clearly a single voice, yet it seemed to contain countless echoes, creating ripples in the sea of blood, even overpowering the incessant roars and impotent rage of the colorful musical notes:
"Man is an unclean river. To contain an unclean river without becoming polluted, man must be an ocean."
"The self-imprisoned on both ends of the scales of fate, the source and end of the river of impure hearts, the guardian of natural disasters, the lord of the realm!"
"The purifier of filth, the guardian of destruction, the one and only that is endless!"
"The unclean repent before you! We beg for your forgiveness, we pray for the day of purification! On the day the defiled world ends, the pure will be reborn in your embrace!"
"Man is an unclean river. To contain an unclean river without becoming polluted, man must be an ocean."
"The self-imprisoned on both ends of the scales of fate, the source and end of the river of impure souls..."
The repeated chanting of prayers echoed in the cramped laboratory, in the turbulent, filthy sea of blood, and on the isolated island abandoned by the city in the gray fog.
Even though Hu Tiankui had already melted into the sea of blood, his voice, along with the voices of countless others, still echoed in this space. The orderly sound waves converged together, forcefully suppressing the constantly shrill and piercing colorful musical notes.
"Before the eternal night arrives, gods may not walk among men! Even if you have touched the 'moon,' you cannot break this ironclad rule!"
The colorful musical notes dodged and weaved in the surging sea of blood, eventually being forced to condense together, transforming into a simple, ancient-looking seven-stringed zither with many damages on its body. This was the seventh string, the divine messenger of the "Misty Melody".
However, its expression was no longer as arrogant as when facing ordinary people. Its voice was angry, but it also contained a suppressed fear that was still revealed.
Ignoring it, Gu Xi turned her head amidst the increasingly urgent and resounding prayers, seemingly taking in the entire scene of the dock in that instant.
Then He shook His head disapprovingly, His voice sounding like that of a renowned teacher explaining a difficult problem to a student—calm and gentle, yet carrying an undeniable certainty:
"...To create 'calamity,' to dominate the 'mind' with pain, to use the Holy Grail to accommodate a second characteristic, and to rewrite the definition of 'group domain' tendencies? A very creative idea."
"Unfortunately, aren't the answers to the open-book exam all laid out there? 'All are prisoners under fate, and there is no freedom in the realm.' [Calamity] is a gift from [Fate], and [the mind] is a prisoner of [Fate]. The essence of [the mind] lies in obedience. Our Lord is the sole lord of [the realm] and the sole master of [the mind]."
"Pain? Sorrow? Anger? They are but tiny ripples in a vast ocean. When true destiny arrives, the only refuge for the soul is submission. Only children rebel. The mark of maturity is accepting reality and obeying the arrangements of destiny."
After saying that, "Gu Xi" stood there for a while, seemingly waiting for something. After a moment, she shook her head in disappointment and sighed from her chest: "Running away is useless. She doesn't dare to look directly at [fate]. She's still an immature child."
"However, you are a bit braver than that child [Mimiyin], but you are also too cautious."
After Gu Xi finished speaking, she bent her knuckles and tapped lightly in the air. The seven-stringed zither, which was already barely held together, collapsed again, and countless colorful notes fell into the sea of blood. In the blink of an eye, some of the notes were stained with an ominous brownish-red color.
Ignoring the Seventh String's furious curses, He tapped his finger again, and a ripple appeared in mid-air. A piece of amethyst containing a cluster of flames suddenly appeared, fell down, and disappeared before it hit the sea of blood. The next moment, it hovered in another area, and the surrounding space distorted for a while, but it could no longer disappear into the space as before.
Du Yu's heart sank. This space was very special. She had used her faith points to condense this faith crystal and squeezed in.
She discovered this special space "locked" in the spirit world by following the group of people from the Joyful Band.
What makes it special is that this laboratory, which should theoretically be located somewhere underground at the Flúnza docks, can always be found by digging deep enough.
But now this space, which is clearly in the real world, has been forcibly isolated and placed in the spirit world by some unknown method.
In this way, digging three feet into the ground would definitely not find this space, and since this laboratory is not in the spirit world, it cannot be reached by traveling through the spirit world.
The only way to enter this laboratory is through the "passage" left during the cutting process, the only connection between this laboratory and the real world.
It must be said that even with Du Yu's current level of expertise in the supernatural realm, forcibly separating the space of the real world and placing it in the spirit world would be absolutely impossible, let alone finding the passage left by the other party during the operation.
For some reason, Du Yu had a premonition that even if the goddess [Mi Mi Yin] herself came, she probably wouldn't be able to do this.
But the members of the Joyful Band managed to get in, into this theoretically impregnable space.
When the members of the Joyful Orchestra transformed into musical notes and met Gongyang Niexiu in a hidden underground space, all of Du Yu's confusion was resolved, and most of the mystery that had been hanging over the mine dissipated.
The Six-Star Grail possesses the property of "containment," and Quark Pharmaceuticals and Lange Communications, two top conglomerates in the Upper City, have decided to utilize this property to conduct a secret experiment—which is likely the god-making experiment being carried out in the laboratory right before our eyes.
However, this news was somehow leaked out, and the Holy Grail was shattered in a joint attack by several major cults, scattered everywhere with the help of fragments from the spirit world.
Quark and Lang's people certainly wanted to retrieve the Holy Grail, but finding 99 fragments within the vast City of the Sun and the even larger Spirit Realm was a task far more daunting than finding a needle in a haystack. So they devised a wicked plan:
They secretly supported the Gentlemen's Guild, one of the three major hunter guilds in the lower city, allowing them to seize the Frenza Wharf, which may have a somewhat special geographical location, and build a fictitious mine there. They then used the Holy Grail's ability to contain and attract massive amounts of spiritual energy to search for the Holy Grail.
By drawing upon the suffering and spirits of tens of thousands of people on the verge of death, and with the aid of special rituals, ripples are created in the spirit world to attract the Holy Grail to descend, and then it is forcibly brought to its fall.
Judging from the scene in the laboratory, the two conglomerates have made the most of their resources. They not only want to use this ritual to retrieve the Holy Grail, but also want to take it one step at a time and use this ritual to carry out their crazy plan to create an artificial god.
Judging from Gu Xi's current state, their vision seems to have been partially realized.
But clearly, fate always plays tricks on people unexpectedly, and things don't always go according to plan.
One of the true culprits who caused the Holy Grail to shatter, the members of the [MiMiYin] group, also set their sights on this mine. They secretly sent people to infiltrate the mine, intending to use the Gentlemen's Guild's rituals to their advantage by spreading pain among the people, and to seize the Holy Grail.
Their plan nearly succeeded, but Hu Tiankui's despicable act of planting a curse seed deep within the miners' spirits triggered a ripple in the spirit world at the crucial moment, causing the Pleasure Troupe's scheme to fail. The Holy Grail still fell into this laboratory, and their insane experiment was finally able to proceed.
However, although the members of the Joyful Band were frustrated, they were not too surprised, as Yu had found the reason during the tracking just now.
The members of the Joyful Orchestra were secretly colluding with Gongyang Niexiu, who was sent by Lange. It was she who transformed into a musical note and led the members of the Joyful Orchestra into this laboratory.
However, the Seventh String, who was originally confident, lost control of his emotions and shouted angrily when he entered the laboratory and saw "Gu Xi"—clearly, even with Gongyang Niexiu as an inside agent, "Gu Xi's" success was not within their expectations.
Du Yu infiltrated the group with the members of the Joyful Band and pieced together parts of the truth from their angry shouts.
The members of the Joyful Band somehow managed to "turn" people within Blueg Communications, obtaining inside information. Not only did they successfully destroy the Holy Grail in the past, but they now want to repeat the past and infiltrate the secret laboratory again to seize the Holy Grail.
However, when the snipe and the clam fight, the fisherman benefits. Behind the fisherman are bureaucrats who do not engage in production but instead enrich themselves through layers of exploitation.
The members of the Joyful Band, confident in their control, rushed in eager to get a share of the profits, unaware that it might all be bait thrown in by the fisherman.
Du Yu's thoughts were churning, and he almost immediately recalled the scene when that madman You Shi sacrificed the Holy Grail fragments to him. That madman called the Holy Grail fragments "bait"!
Since there is bait, there will naturally be people fishing on the shore.
Quark, Blue, Gentlemen's Club, and Joyful Band were fighting tooth and nail. If you looked up, you might find that the people who casually threw bait on the shore were watching with glee!
Whoever ultimately takes the bait will get the biggest and fattest fish!
Judging from the scene in the laboratory, it seems that the Gentlemen's Club has the upper hand. Despite the interference of the Pleasure Orchestra, they successfully obtained the Holy Grail, and their crazy experiment in creating a god was also incredibly successful.
But Du Yu "saw" it clearly. In her eyes, the human spirit had already dissipated completely when Li Yueyuan stabbed him. The "Gu Xi" standing here now had an aura that Du Yu had only seen on that madman You Shi.
The only thing that can catch the eye of a god is the aura left behind by another god!
It's the [Lord of the Pure Sea] that You Shi, that lunatic, believes in!
Several forces fought tooth and nail, and the "god" they painstakingly created was snatched away by the Lord of the Pure Sea the moment he ascended to godhood. The "Gu Xi" they see now is nothing more than an avatar of the Lord of the Pure Sea!
No, to put it another way, the only reason this flawed and incredibly rudimentary god-making plan could succeed is that the most powerful god at present, the Lord of the Pure Sea, secretly interfered!
Of course, the members of the Joyful Band were so angry not just because they had lost the Holy Grail.
What can enrage mindless fanatics is, of course, the deity they worship.
The Lord of the Pure Sea, having gone to such lengths and gone to great lengths to perfect the ceremony for the Gentlemen's Guild, is certainly not here to do charity.
Du Yu could sense that although the aura of [Mi Mi Yin] had disappeared at some point, it was clear that the members of the Joyful Orchestra had interfered too much in creating ripples in the spirit world!
Deities can use faith to control believers, and believers can also refer to deities through certain methods.
The spiritual ripples created by the spirits of tens of thousands of people even drew the attention of the gods. The members of the Joyful Orchestra also left many traces in the ripples in their struggle for the Holy Grail. Even though [MiMiYin] fled when she saw that things were not going well, the traces left in the spiritual realm still exist.
Du Yu could sense that, in addition to the heart-palpitating aura within Gu Xi's body, the aura belonging to [Mi Mi Yin] was also rising sharply.
Clearly, the Lord of the Pure Sea is an excellent fisherman. Even when the fish are startled and try to escape, he still manages to tear a chunk of flesh off them with his hook!
The regret that "Gu Xi" felt when speaking to herself stemmed from this.
However, due to the recent upheaval, instead of rescuing the miners and staying away from the vortex of the spirit world, she also joined the ranks of those vying for the Holy Grail. Now, because of the traces left in the ripples of the spirit world, she will have a piece of her flesh ripped out by the Lord of the Pure Sea!
The strength of the Lord of the Pure Sea is unfathomable; because of this trace, the opponent could even directly reach the interior of her divine kingdom!
Du Yu was filled with excitement, experiencing for the first time in a long time what it felt like to be targeted as prey. In this space abandoned by the city, humans were persecuting humans, and gods were hunting gods!
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Author's note: I'm an hour late, but I've added an extra 1,000 words.
Because Bao said he couldn't understand it, I explained it a little bit at the end. Please don't think I'm being long-winded, lol.
P.S.: I was busy and forgot before, thank you all for your support! My post has surpassed 1000 nutrient solutions, I'm so touched!
I've started a thread in the best comments section where you can make wishes for supporting characters. I'll try my best to fulfill your requests. Everyone is welcome to join!
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