absurd deduction game.

He, or rather, he is already Him.

His head was lowered, his hair covered his face, and only the outline of his chin could be seen. His limbs hung limply, his joints turned outward, and his fingers and toes were strangely curled.

It's as if they haven't yet adapted to this new body.

But He has a strong learning ability; He can master a body in just a few breaths.

A few seconds later, He controlled this temporary body and slowly raised his head.

A face completely different from the one when it first came alive emerged from behind its hair, its skin as pale as paper, with faint galactic patterns glowing beneath its skin. Its eyes were open, the pupils a pure dark red, with nebulae swirling in their depths—just like Evan's.

This body no longer needs to breathe; its chest does not rise or fall at all.

He just kept "looking" ahead.

He simply exists there, and He is the source of corruption. The priests' faith can no longer protect them. Amidst the constant chanting of prayers, some are silently distorted and begin to praise the ancient god without any discernment.

And the direction He was looking was precisely where Yu Xing was.

The moment the gaze fell upon Yu Xing, pure madness, blasphemy, and chaos struck the depths of Yu Xing's consciousness like a heavy hammer.

Even though Yu Xing had anticipated the intensity of the ancient god's contamination and had the confidence to deal with it, he still stopped breathing at this moment.

The black mist surged violently around him, trying to isolate him from the pollution, but this time the impact was too direct, and it would take time to adapt.

The scene before Yu Xing's eyes began to distort.

The fleshy walls of the attic melted and reformed, becoming the cold ceramic tiles of that laboratory from the Republican era.

The dark red glow of the altar overlapped with the incandescent halo of the operating lights, and the sweet, putrid smell in the air transformed into the odor of disinfectant mixed with fresh blood.

The voice of a performer rang in my ears.

"Young master, don't be afraid."

"It'll be fine soon."

"You will become... just like me..."

The icy, stinging pain of the needle piercing my neck was clearer than ever before, the burning sensation of the liquid injected into my veins, and the shattering feeling of my bones being forcibly altered—all returned without warning.

Yu Xing's pupils contracted sharply. The past, buried deep in his memory, was unearthed by the ancient god without any reason. In that instant, the past and the present became blurred without any boundaries.

His mindset seemed to have returned to the day he stormed out of the lab; his brain was hazy, and the sunlight made him dizzy.

"……who I am?"

"Humans... or..."

"monster?"

Fragments of memory churned in my consciousness: mahogany furniture in a Republican-era mansion, metal equipment in a laboratory, the lilting singing from a Peking Opera stage, tentacles reaching out from the darkness, inhuman silhouettes reflected in a mirror…

Just as the Kingdom of God descended upon Yorikef, everything was becoming blurred.

Yu Xing stood rooted to the spot, his fingers clenching tightly, his nails digging into his palms. The pain allowed him to maintain a sliver of clarity, but more madness was surging within him.

They want to destroy.

Want to devour.

He wanted to tear everything in front of him to shreds, to crush all those fragile, noisy, and self-righteous lives into mincemeat, and then...

Destroy everything.

The black fog seems to be getting out of control.

"Yu Xing!"

Carlos's voice came from the side.

The other person had somehow already passed through the kneeling priests and quickly arrived at Yu Xing's side. His face lacked its usual nonchalance; his brows were furrowed, and he placed one hand on Yu Xing's shoulder.

"Hey, wake up!" Carlos's voice was urgent. "I have confidence in the dungeon, but I don't have confidence in controlling you when you're going crazy!"

But Yu Xing did not respond.

His eyes were half-closed, and a dark red light flowed deep within his pupils—traces of the ancient god's corruption, resonating with his own madness.

"Tsk." Carlos gritted his teeth.

With his other hand, he pulled out the [Azure Dream] from his pocket. The moment the dagger was drawn, azure mist overflowed from the blade, colliding with Yu Xing's black mist and making a "sizzling" corrosive sound. Carlos whispered, "Yi Qing, Yi Qing, come out and get to work."

Yi Qing: "..."

Yi Qing, still holding the dagger, rolled her eyes in a rather unladylike manner and ignored the other person.

Unlike Carlos, he was not worried about Yu Xing's condition. As a thousand-year-old ghost, Yi Qing knew that Yu Xing would not put himself in such a dangerous situation. Since Yu Xing had let him stand in front of the ancient god, it meant that he had the ability to control the situation.

Ignored by Yi Qing, Carlos rolled his eyes, but the ancient god did not ignore him, and the same pollution spread to him.

Carlos gave a soft snort, and the air around him rippled for a moment, as if it had been cut into many planes, the intersecting spaces effectively isolating the pollution from the outside.

He was in the same place, yet it seemed as if he wasn't.

Seeing this, Fernal smiled.

“Mr. Carlos,” her voice was soft and pleasant, “you’ve finally decided to show up again? You did quite a few… remarkable things while you were gone for one night.”

Carlos ignored her and tried to wake Yu Xing up.

Fernail raised her right arm, her fingers gently hooking towards Carlos.

"Shhh."

she says.

It's just one syllable.

Carlos froze.

An anomaly suddenly erupted within his body. Starting from deep within his chest, a burning sensation rapidly spread to his limbs and bones, as if molten iron were flowing through his blood vessels.

"Well!"

The excruciating pain made him cry out, and Carlos immediately stopped what he was doing to assess his condition.

His skin began to lose its color, turning bluish-gray, and his joints felt stiff and painful as his muscle fibers hardened.

He looked down at his hands.

The magician's hands are the most important, but now, the skin on his fingers is turning from normal flesh color to the grayish-white of a corpse, dark purple bruises are appearing under his fingernails, and fine spots resembling lividity are beginning to appear on the surface of his skin.

“This is…” Carlos’s pupils contracted.

He is rapidly transforming into a corpse!

Ah... last night at Fernail's manor, that cup of black tea... that's what it had.

The magician lost his balance and fell dramatically to his knees. Clutching his heart, which was gradually losing its beating strength, he said intermittently, "I had the church people check me... and they didn't detect any toxins or curses in my body. Also... Zeng Lai... used his special abilities to investigate, and they didn't find anything either."

“I put corpse heart powder in the tea,” Fernal explained patiently, like a teacher explaining a difficult problem to a good student. “It’s made from the hearts of thirty-three virgins who died in despair, ground into powder, and mixed with a Tantric conversion ritual. It’s not toxic in itself, nor does it leave any trace of energy; it’s just… a simple ‘material’.”

She paused.

"Just like you need flour to make a cake and bricks to build a house, corpse heart powder is just an 'ingredient,' harmless on its own, but when I activate the corresponding ritual—"

She drew a tantric symbol in the air with her finger.

"—Only then will it be activated."

Lividity had spread to Carlos's neck. He could feel his heartbeat slowing down.

One, two, the intervals become longer and longer, blood flow slows down, body temperature drops rapidly, and black spots begin to appear at the edge of vision, which means the optic nerve is dying.

“Those useless bunch at the church…” Fernail said gleefully, “of course they won’t be able to find out…”

"Ha...good tricks..." the magician sneered defiantly.

"Thank you for the compliment." Fernail gave a graceful bow.

Then, she looked toward the center of the altar.

The galaxy texture beneath "His" skin reached its peak brightness, with dark red light emanating from each texture, illuminating the entire body like a glowing star map.

Meanwhile, in the sky, the pupils of the Ancient God's Eye lit up simultaneously, forming a visible energy channel between them.

A dark red, viscous substance, like liquid starlight, flowed from the eyes and entered the body through the channels.

The will of the ancient god, the human body, and the flesh altar—the three formed a delicate balance.

Will provides "existence", the body provides "container", and the altar provides "anchor point".

The balance is fragile, but it is stabilizing.

Fennell's smile was so bright it was almost distorted.

"Almost done..." she murmured, "Almost there..."

She turned her head and looked at Carlos and Yu Xing.

Carlos knelt on the ground, half of his face covered in lividity, his breathing so weak it was almost stopped. Yu Xing was completely shrouded in black mist, only a vague human figure could be seen trembling in the mist, his breathing sometimes normal, sometimes terrifying.

These are two problems, two variables.

It's better to resolve this completely now.

Fernail raised the ceremonial scepter in her hand and pointed it at the two of them.

“It’s time to say goodbye,” she said. “Although you are all interesting in your own way, which I admire, I hate betrayal and manipulation. You have ruined your own chance to join the new world.”

But at that moment, Yu Xing slowly opened her eyes.

The dark red light that lingered deep in his pupils did not dissipate; instead, it settled into something more profound, almost pure black.

The dark brown, decaying tendrils, like a giant python awakening from the deepest abyss, spread wildly outwards from his foothold.

"Crack—Crack—"

The attic floor, made of flesh and blood, was easily torn apart, and thick branches sprouted, entwined, and overlapped, taking over the entire attic space in just a few breaths.

They pushed aside the broken furniture, shoving the priests, who were huddled in the corner and still struggling against the pollution, toward the walls on the edge. Like a black tide engulfing everything, the layers of branches eventually formed a writhing cage, surrounding the central altar, Funel, and the body that contained the will of the ancient god.

The cloying stench in the air was replaced by a more primal, desolate stench of decay—the scent of coffins buried deep in the soil for millennia, the poisonous mushrooms quietly blooming on the bones, and the silent deathly aura that settles after all things have withered.

Fennell's expression froze.

The insect wings inside her body vibrated uneasily at high frequencies, and countless crystal lattices flashed wildly in her emerald green compound eyes, trying to decipher the incomprehensible power before her.

The branches and tentacles were covered with jet-black patterns. They writhed slowly but powerfully, and wherever they passed, the dark red starlight emanating from the altar seemed to encounter the suppression of some higher being's domain.

“This is…” Fennell’s voice lost its previous composure, filled with disbelief and astonishment, “The aura of the abyss? No… not just the abyss… but also something even more ancient, like decay and curse…”

She suddenly looked at Yu Xing, who was surrounded by black mist and branches. His eyes were cold and empty, but deep inside burned a greed that made even this monster feel uneasy.

"What exactly are you?" Fennell tilted her head in confusion. "A demon from the abyss disguised as a human?"

Yu Xing did not answer.

He didn't even look at Fernal.

He simply raised his hand and gently pressed it against his abdomen.

Through the clothes, I could feel a dull, continuous gurgling sound coming from under my skin, like countless mouths whispering and rubbing inside my empty stomach.

The sound grew louder and louder, gradually drowning out the throbbing of the altar, the faint whispers coming from the sky, and even his own increasingly rapid heartbeat.

hunger.

Here it comes again, that feeling of hunger.

He licked his slightly chapped lips, and his tongue tasted the rusty flavor of his own blood.

“Originally…” Yu Xing finally spoke, her voice a little hoarse, “I was already full.”

His gaze passed over Fernal and was fixed on the center of the altar.

The young man's body had now fully "come alive," and he turned his head slightly.

Their gazes met in mid-air.

“It’s you…” Yu Xing’s lips curled into a strange smile, and black mist churned violently around him, outlining a terrifying, menacing shape. “It’s made me feel hungry again.”

The moment the words fell, a tentacle as thick as a bucket, closest to Carlos's "corpse," suddenly shot out like a javelin without warning!

A sticky, penetrating sound rang out.

The tip of the branch easily pierced the chest of "Carlos," who was kneeling on the ground covered in corpse spots, and lifted him into the air like a rag doll.

"That pretentious act is ugly and an eyesore." Yu Xing didn't even look in that direction and coldly uttered a sentence.

The pierced "Carlos" body shuddered violently, then quickly withered and faded, turning in the blink of an eye into a white paper figure with charred edges, hanging helplessly on the grotesque branch.

In another shadowy corner of the attic, the air rippled like the surface of water, and the real Carlos staggered out.

The next second, his figure turned into a blank sheet of paper again, and the real person appeared in another place.

Once, twice, three times.

Carlos quickly changed positions while painfully consuming his stockpile of paper figures, his figure flashing at several different points on the edge of the attic.

It wasn't until the seventh paper figure turned to ashes that the burning sensation of the "corpse transformation" within his body, along with the terrifying corrosive power brought by Yu Xing's attack, was barely suppressed by the layers of substitution and transfer.

Carlos finally steadied himself in a relatively safe corner, leaning against the cold, writhing branch wall, panting heavily. He glanced with lingering fear at Yu Xing's inhuman back in the distance, then looked at his almost depleted stockpile of special paper dolls, and his eye twitched violently.

"Hiss... Luckily, I had enough supplies and reacted quickly enough..." He wiped non-existent beads of sweat from his forehead, muttering under his breath, his voice filled with lingering fear, "I almost got killed by the BOSS, but I got riddled with holes by my own people first..."

His gaze swept over the altar, over Fennell, and finally settled on Yu Xing. In those usually cynical eyes, there was now only solemnity and a deep sense of inquiry.

Is this true or false?

What is Yu Xing up to now?
At this moment, Yu Xing had already taken a step.

The branches that wrapped around him were like the skirts of living creatures, spreading and unfolding forward with his steps.

He walked straight to the altar, toward the container that exuded an enticing aroma of "food".

Fennell realized it seemed completely immune to the contamination, and sensing something was wrong, she suddenly stepped between him and the altar, her insect wings fully extended: "What do you want to do?"

Yu Xing did not stop walking, nor did she even shift her gaze.

He stared at the starlight flowing beneath the container's skin, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed, the sound clearly audible in the suddenly deathly silent attic.

It smells good.

He had never smelled such a wonderful aroma before.

“I’m hungry, so,” he said ominously, each syllable dripping with frantic hunger, “it’s time to eat.” (End of Chapter)