Infinite spooky game

Qis didn't remember how long he lay in the snow and ice; maybe just one night, maybe half a century. But that didn't matter anymore.

He felt cold, very cold, the biting cold penetrating his skin and flesh, seeping into his bone marrow, as if even his soul could be frozen, and his thoughts were also covered with a thick layer of frost, becoming sluggish.

The ghosts that attacked him were lured away by Lin Chen, but the wounds they caused were deeply rooted. Blood gushed out, taking away life and warmth. The moment it flowed out of the body, it turned cold and lifeless, turning into scarlet ice shards that covered the body surface and unknowingly built a golden-red tomb on the spot.

All of Qi Si's strength dissipated like mist. Even with a desperate struggle, he could only lift his limbs a few inches before crashing heavily back onto the ice.

His vision gradually dimmed, his consciousness teetered on the edge of unconsciousness, and his body was unable to move. Even though he knew the way to pass the level, he was unable to carry it out himself.

Qi Si's thoughts wandered aimlessly. In his current state, without anyone else's intervention, he was afraid that he could do nothing but lie down and wait to die.

Lin Chen has left forever, leaving him all alone. There will be no one to lend him a hand or be of use to him anytime soon.

Almost all the soul leaves dimmed, and all the souls controlled by the [Insomnia Germ] and [Colosseum] were thrown into the altar. Just as the rules said, at that time he only had Lin Chen as his sole believer; but now, he has no one to believe in him.

Qi Si thought with a touch of humor that even during the period when the covenant was most unrestrained, and people would kill a few believers to add to the festivities, he had never ended up so alone and isolated.

From this perspective, the final instance had a significant impact, and in reality, a great many people likely died. Otherwise, even the Libra Church, known for its fanaticism, wouldn't have been unable to gather a complete group of believers.

Having roughly imagined the devastation of the world, the frequent disasters, and the mass annihilation of humanity, Qi Si was in a rather good mood, a kind of bittersweet result. Unfortunately, he was in the final instance and could not see the outside world with his own eyes. He could only savor the remnants of what his dead followers had seen and heard before their deaths through their last memories.

So, is a god without believers still a god? That's a good question. Well, a god is self-existent and eternal, independent of the will of believers.

Deep within the Hall of Thought, the once lush and verdant scarlet plant was reduced to a withered branch. Lu Li and Xu Yao's soul leaves, however, remained vibrant. Lu Li was completely unusable, but Xu Yao could still communicate with them, chattering incessantly through her soul leaf: "Qisi, I encountered Lin Chen. He's also turned into a ghost, and a group of ghosts are following him... I feel a bit off right now; I can't help but want to follow him..."

Qi Si remembered that Xu Yao was also an undead in the strict sense and would be affected by the [Undead Shepherd]. It seemed that he couldn't count on her for the time being.

The path to breaking the deadlock is right in front of us, but hope is growing increasingly faint. Every path is just one tiny step away from being found. Perhaps this time we really won't be able to get out of this snow-capped mountain.

Qiss would not accept death with pleasure, but he would not hate it either.

Everyone dies, even gods perish, so why can't death come upon him? Anyway, he doesn't want anything anymore.

Of course, there are still some regrets.

Despite all the scheming and calculations, in the end, they still couldn't escape the control of the rules.

My billions of years as a god, and twenty-two years as a human, have been a generally pleasant experience of unleashing malice upon the world, yet I cannot stop doing so now.
As a player in this game of chess between the gods, he failed to win in the end;
He wanted to find an interesting way to die, but was forced to die an ugly death on the snow-capped mountain.

Qi Si thought, it would be better to die in Rose Manor.

However, he was too bored and too tired along the way, so stopping here and letting the cold of Shangri-La freeze his existence seemed like a good ending.

Since this world is going to be remade by the rules anyway, and he doesn't want to become an ancestral god, he is destined not to live to the next era. So dying a few days earlier or a few days later doesn't seem to make much difference.

Qis closed his eyes and felt his blood flowing on the ice, the golden liquid flowing downwards and converging into a surging river in the ravines, just like the ancestral god's corpse that crashed to the ground under the World Tree millions of years ago, his divine power merging into heaven and earth and transforming into rivers.

He initially felt pain, but gradually he lost all feeling. Even his hearing and sense of smell faded away with the erosion of death, becoming untouchable.

In his hazy state, he felt something wet and warm licking his cheek. Qi Si slightly opened his eyes and vaguely saw that the black dog he had fed in Jiangcheng had somehow come to his side. Its sticky tongue softly licked his face, and when it saw that he was awake, it snuggled into his arms, its thin body radiating a slight warmth.

But how could there be dogs on a snow-covered mountain? Qi Si pondered for a while, but his thoughts were stuck and he couldn't come up with a solution. However, he did recall the scene of the black dog rummaging through the trash can. So he said softly, "Stay away from me, you're too dirty."

The black dog lingered around him for a while, then left, glancing back several times. Qis closed his eyes again, and after a long while, footsteps sounded.

The woman selling egg pancakes, leaning on a bamboo cane, staggered over, the roses blooming vividly from her eyes, nose, and mouth. She bent down with difficulty and reached out to pat Qi Si's face: "Child, wake up, what are you doing sleeping here?"

Qi Si wanted to ask, "Can't you see I'm about to die?" but then he thought that it was all just a hallucination on his deathbed, and he felt there was no need to be so emotional.

He thought for a moment, then casually made up a story: "I'm doing performance art, and my project is to record how many people ask me this question in a day..."

The proprietress continued to ramble on, saying things like, "The ground is cold, it's bad for your health," and "I really don't understand young people these days." Seeing that Qi Si wasn't going to pay attention to her, she finally sighed, turned around, and left.

Qi Si closed his eyes to rest, thinking with some irritation, "How come he's still not dead? He's bleeding all over the place, yet he's still conscious. Is he going to have to call everyone he knows to hold a memorial service for him?"

Just as his thoughts touched upon the key words, another series of footsteps sounded, sounding quite familiar. He had no choice but to open his eyes again and look in the direction from which the sound came.

The young man, dressed in a red Tang suit, had a small braid and his sunglasses were covered in snowflakes, giving him a somewhat travel-worn look.

Hmm, not only did the footsteps sound familiar, but the faces also looked quite familiar.

Qi Si stared at it for a while, and the images matched his memory, revealing the identity of the person he had retrieved. He laughed.

There's still a chance; it seems he won't die for now.

At this moment, Jin Yusheng, carrying Qi Si on his back, trudged towards the settlement on the glacier, and couldn't help but ask, "Old Qi, what's going on? How did you get yourself into this state?"
"I told you I was a good fortune teller. I said before the New Year that you shouldn't leave Jiangcheng this year, or something bad would happen. And look, you've only been in this godforsaken place for a few days and you've already gotten yourself all bloody." Qi Si lay on Jin Yusheng's back, blood dripping from the wound like a scarlet curtain hanging down, trailing a long red ribbon behind him.

He was too lazy to speak and replied listlessly, "It's nothing, I guess I've done too many bad things and it's karma."

"You still believe in retribution?" Jin Yusheng was greatly surprised. "I was thinking that if you went to the underworld, you wouldn't mind going through all eighteen levels of hell... Is this a case of regaining your conscience as you're about to die?"

Qi Si stopped talking, and what was never there could not be retrieved. Jin Yusheng always liked to talk nonsense, especially when he was unsure of himself, he was more accustomed to using some irrelevant words to relieve his tension.

Qi Si wondered inexplicably, if he really understood Jin Yusheng, did Jin Yusheng also understand him? Roughly speaking, this guy was probably the living person who had known him the longest...

Jin Yusheng waited a while but didn't hear anything more, so he started talking to himself: "Old Qi, what's happened these past few days has really turned my worldview upside down. I've had some experience with ghosts and monsters before, but I never expected them to be this bizarre..."

"That day, as soon as I stepped out, I was chased all over Jiangcheng by a group of monsters covered in roses. I prayed to Buddha, the Three Pure Ones, and Jesus, and used holy water and talismans, but none of them worked..."

"Old Qi, don't try to hide it from me anymore. I'm sure you know what happened. Tell me, what happened after we parted ways yesterday?"

Qi Si felt a little dizzy, unsure whether it was from Jin Yusheng's incessant chatter or from excessive blood loss.

He adjusted his position on Jin Yusheng's back to make himself more comfortable, and casually said, "To put it simply, I almost got promoted to the Creator, but I gave up at the last minute..."

"This is ridiculous! By the way, why did you give up?"

"Because I'm bored," Qi Si said calmly, looking up ahead.

Mirror-like ice walls stand tall ahead; we've arrived at our destination, the glacier. The key to breaking the deadlock lies here, awaiting verification.

Qi Si curled his lips into a smile: "If you really want to know the whole story, put me down in front of you, then listen quietly. How much you understand depends on your luck."

"What you're saying is really mysterious. The more I listen, the more I think you have something wrong with me," Jin Yusheng complained, but still did as he was told, carrying Qi Si to the brightest ice wall.

Qi Si jumped off his back. His body, weakened by blood loss, collapsed onto the ice wall as soon as he landed. Behind him stretched a golden-red river of blood that stretched for miles, while the ice wall in front of him reflected his pale face, making him look like a demon about to crawl out of a mirror.

“You look like you’re about to die.” Zhou Ke, inside the ice wall, smiled maliciously, gloating. “I don’t remember ever making myself look this pathetic before.

“It will happen.” Qi Si smiled as well. “Once you become me, you will have all the experiences you’re meant to have. And… after seeing you, I realized I’m still far from death.”

"Oh?" Zhou Ke's expression became playful. "It seems you've discovered something."

Qi Si smiled and explained in detail: "The core of this instance is actually very simple: how to obtain immortality? Just keep turning back into a child. Simply put, it's about repeatedly rewinding yourself to the past timeline."

"The same person on different timelines is both themselves and others. Similar experiences and souls, the same origin, yet at countless crossroads of choices, different roots extend. Faced with the same dilemma, people on different timelines may have different solutions."

"Our interests are aligned, and our lives are intertwined. Naturally, our relationship is closer than that of others. My predicament is easily resolved for you, and you also need me to survive so that our future destiny will not be severed at this moment."

"What happened to Lin Chen tells me that the same person in different timelines can be swapped through a mirror. So, Zhou Ke, would you be willing to swap with me?"

Zhou Ke tilted his head, his smile deepening: "Not a bad idea. In my timeline, all I need to do is kill Lin Jue to pass the level; but in your timeline, the sin belongs to you, not me, and I, who am currently 'innocent,' will suffer less karmic retribution—it sounds like a win-win deal."

He pointed a finger at the ice, then changed the subject: "But are you sure? Those who go back to the past will ultimately be trapped in it; those who hesitate will inevitably lose the right to compose the final act. So, Qi Si, you're willing to give up your chance to compete for the final copy and trade with me, is that right?"

“I have no other choice either, do I?” Qi Si also raised his finger, touching Zhou Ke’s index finger across the ice. “Rather than waiting for a doomed end, let’s take a different path and wait for a glimmer of hope.”

"Hahahaha! The expected choice! I must say you are indeed a rational person who pursues stability, right?" Zhou Ke bent over and laughed out loud. "In the 'Grand Performance' instance, due to risk assessment, I gave up binding the [Fool's Deceiver] card, which led to my existence branching out."

"From then on, you became more cautious and meticulous, calculating the success probability of every move until you were completely exhausted. Forgive me for being blunt, but living like you is really painful. If it were me, I would have ended my life long ago."

"I don't want to lose, it's that simple." Qi Si's voice was calm. "Including coming here to find you, and putting your madness into this body, it's all to try and win a chance in a dead end."

"I hope you win, I bet you will win."

Blinding white light burst forth from beneath the ice, and crimson and black raven feathers appeared and disappeared from the void, scattering in a flurry. The crimson beams of light and the shimmering gold fragments met at the ice surface, then shattered into dust the instant they touched.

Jin Yusheng stood frozen in place, watching as the young man who had been half-dead and lying on the ground stood up as if nothing had happened, turning his head to look at him with a gaze that was both familiar and strange.

“Jin Yusheng, you may call me ‘Siqi’ from now on, since that’s the name that corresponds to the [Crimson Priest] card that someone is bound to.”

The youth's wounds healed at a visible speed. Since the soul from the past hadn't committed too many sins, erasing the wounds caused by the ghost's revenge was perfectly reasonable.

Qis couldn't trust anyone but himself. He was willing to entrust the possibility of winning the game to another version of himself, just as Qi had once relinquished the decision-making power of the Gods' Gamble to him.

After straightening his disheveled red suit, Si Qi looked around, surveyed the terrain, and then his gaze fell on Jin Yusheng again.

He tapped his chin with his index finger: "Jin Yusheng, we need to seriously think about how to get out of the snow mountain. After all, I promised 'myself' just now." (End of Chapter)