novelraw Chapter 692: Twisted Life
Chapter 692: Twisted Life
First, moving the perspective temporarily away from the grueling battlefield of women below, time trickled back to the moments before Pandora's phantom plummeted.
At this moment, Fisher was completely unaware of the internal conflict breaking out below; he was still single-mindedly focused on his battle with Heon before him. Meanwhile, Aris, responsible for chasing down the chaotic avatar of Chaotic Guidance, had yet to catch up with the erratically fleeing avatar. She merely pursued relentlessly from behind, bombarding its body with attacks.
"..."
"Buzz...!!"
This constant feeling of chasing without catching gradually made her slightly uneasy, but upon seeing that Fisher's situation seemed relatively optimistic, she relaxed a bit.
'As long as there are no problems on that side...'
"Boom!"
Just then, countless bubbles surged upward, blooming with brilliant peach blossoms. That petite elf's body twisted and leaped among them, engaged in a scorching battle with the seemingly battered avatar of Usurping Life.
In her peripheral vision, Lord Tao glanced at Aris still in pursuit and shouted loudly,
"Why are there threads of Destiny everywhere here?! What is that thing doing?""What threads of Destiny?"
Aris was slightly startled. Meanwhile, Lord Tao landed another palm strike on Usurping Life, looking at her in utter bewilderment as she said,
"What do you mean 'what threads of Destiny'? Can't you see them? This place is completely filled with the thread tangles left behind by that avatar! Aren't you its host? Don't you know what this thing is for?"
"Buzz!"
Aris's mind instantly jolted. For these past thousands of years, to suppress the chaos within her body, she had always treated it as an enemy. After comprehending its knowledge, Aris embarked on a journey of ascetic cultivation and restraint. Not only did she utterly strip those pieces of knowledge from her mind, but she also avoided using its power as much as possible.
So for a very long time, Aris had never observed Destiny, nor disturbed Destiny...
Although dulling her senses protected her from the bewitchment of chaos, that dullness now ruined things. She had actually failed to notice the threads of Destiny left behind by that avatar!
And Lord Tao, an Elf-kin favored by destiny, noticed this in her peripheral vision.
In other words, Chaotic Guidance wasn't actually fleeing, but continuously laying down threads of Destiny...
'Calm down, Aris. Don't forget you have read the Completion Handbook. You should know how [Chaotic Guidance] functions.'
If Destiny was a current, a myriad of possible probabilities, then Chaotic Guidance was a fallacy existing outside probability.
Its power could alter the predetermined direction of destiny. When the threads of Destiny knotted together, the originally determined possibilities would hit a dead end, with nowhere to go.
They hadn't anticipated that Fisher could control Dagon's Authority to a certain extent, or... had they already foreseen the potential difficulties?
Therefore, the avatar of Chaotic Guidance had been running away right from the start, because it knew a direct attack on Dagon above would not succeed. What it was actually doing now was searching for an opportunity to make the ending of 'Fisher's victory' become 'chaotic'.
"Bad, bad, bad, bad..."
Cold sweat instantly broke out on Aris's forehead, and her facial muscles trembled. Immediately after, she fiercely raised her hand and slapped herself, her heartbeat accelerating.
Because of her negligence, she had let such a huge disaster slip by. Lord Tao could firmly suppress Usurping Life, and Fisher was even fighting two against one, yet she had achieved nothing and dragged them down.
It would have been better to let Fisher kill her from the beginning!
Aris frantically raised her hands and closed her eyes. By the time she opened them again, her vision was already densely filled with golden threads.
Those threads wrapped around her, Lord Tao, and Fisher, but the most tangled around Fisher.
"Buzz buzz buzz..."
The threads pulled by Chaotic Guidance all around them suddenly began swaying. Following Chaotic Guidance's erratic movements, those once smooth threads were now entirely entangled with each other, rapidly forming rope knots one after another.
Aris gritted her teeth tightly, fiercely reaching out to touch the revolving golden threads above, attempting to stop them from deteriorating into chaos.
"Ahhhhh!!"
Just upon touch, a mist of blood burst from Aris's hands. Those threads were like steel cables, almost lacerating her skin entirely, yet she still gripped them desperately, trying to force them back into place.
"Crack! Crack! Crack!"
As the threads of Destiny formed more and more rope knots, an extreme sense of unease instantly welled up in Fisher's heart.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!!"
Right above them, although the impact of the twelve Chaos-kin demigods seemed terrifying, since Dagon Himself was a deity, he couldn't be killed just like that. But as the rope knots took shape and countless threads entangled, one unpredictable collision from the upper Chaos-kin suddenly struck a specific spot on Dagon...
"Wooo—"
A distant, horn-like sound echoed. Fisher, connected to Dagon's Authority, instantly felt the entire Crevice begin to tremble. The already heavily injured Dagon found His wounds worsening further amidst the continuous siege.
"Crack! Crack!"
The entire sky shattered in an instant, and twisted chunks of Dagon's tissue began raining down from above. Fisher's connection to Dagon's Authority severed at this moment, and the suppressive force that caused the avatars' ranks to plummet gradually receded.
The avatars of Chaotic Guidance and Usurping Life at the very top were the fastest to undergo changes, because they were closest to Dagon's main body.
"Damn it, ahhhhhh!!"
Aris gritted her teeth in deep remorse, desperately clinging on to the multiplying threads. The terrifying power began to twist a little bit before her very eyes, astonishingly showing signs of recovery.
"You small fry, don't move around, let's do it together!"
Lord Tao, rich in combat experience, battered Usurping Life back right before its chaotic rank could elevate, and hurriedly flew toward Aris to help her handle the threads of Destiny.
They couldn't let Chaotic Guidance continue anymore. At this rate, if Fisher blundered, not only would they all die, but the entire world would be finished.
Lord Tao also couldn't help growing tense. Gritting her teeth, she arrived by Aris's side, joining forces to attempt to snap the destiny threads of Chaotic Guidance.
The threads of Destiny were intensely fragile, essentially because this wasn't destiny itself, but the deity's means of influencing destiny. Because of the Barrier and the Crevice, this method couldn't reach the level of a True God. Reaching the Mythic rank was already impressive; it was merely because the sheer quantity was too much for Aris to handle alone.
"You... small fry, break... for me!!"
Lord Tao and Aris gritted their teeth together and pulled at the threads of Destiny. Chaotic Guidance above clearly had no intention of wrestling with them; seemingly, in terms of combat, it was the weakest of the three avatars.
In frontal combat, Usurping Life was the strongest, followed by Heon and Pandora, with Chaotic Guidance being last.
"Crack! Crack! Crack! Crack!"
As the two women exerted force together, the threads disrupting the entire space emitted harsh, tearing sounds, like glass being cut, giving both Aris and Lord Tao splitting headaches. But soon, the surrounding threads began snapping continuously, causing the constantly trembling Dagon above to slowly quiet down.
"Urgh, ahh!"
Lord Tao gasped heavily, pulling all the threads apart alongside Aris, returning the entire environment back to normal.
Near exhaustion, the two of them half-knelt on the ground. Lord Tao glared at Aris with the disappointed resentment of iron failing to become steel.
"You small fry, you couldn't even notice this little thing. What use are you?!"
"...Sorry, my fault."
Aris was deeply remorseful as well. She took a deep breath, but just as she lifted her head, she saw behind Lord Tao a red shadow opening a bloody, gaping mouth lunging toward Lord Tao's neck.
"Lord Tao!! Behind you—"
Aris's expression changed wildly, but everything seemed too late. The bloody, gaping maw of the chaos of Usurping Life was about to bite off Lord Tao's neck in an instant. Aris didn't even have time to finish her sentence.
"What did you s—"
"ROAR!!"
Lord Tao paused slightly. Just as she was about to move, she heard an explosive sound of something tearing through the air from below.
"Swoosh!"
At the critical moment, a wooden walking stick shot straight up into the clouds like a bolt of lightning. Penetrating countless bubbles in the Crevice as it soared higher, it pierced right through Usurping Life's head the very second the avatar opened its bloody maw. Amidst the upward-spraying blood mist, its wide-open mouth was firmly propped open by that walking stick.
"Arooo—!!"
It let out a vicious roar, its entire body carried into the sky by the tremendous force. Lord Tao looked down with lingering trepidation, only to see Fisher still maintaining his throwing posture.
He panted slightly; in the midst of combat, diverting attention to save Lord Tao and Aris naturally came with a price.
Sure enough, the next second, Heon's wing fiercely slapped towards him.
"Rumble—!!"
Fisher's pupils shrank slightly. He raised both hands in front of himself to block, but unable to react in time, he was slapped entirely away, soaring into the clouds.
"Usurping Life!"
Heon's cryptic voice resounded through the Crevice. The Usurping Life avatar pierced by the walking stick above shook its head to toss the walking stick away. Immediately after, its entire body expanded continuously, transforming from Lord Tao's elven body into a shape resembling a gigantic python.
As Fisher's mind went blank in mid-air, having not fully processed Heon's tremendous force yet, Usurping Life behind him had already opened its bloody maw, descending upon him to swallow him whole.
"Fisher!!"
Lord Tao's face changed wildly. She violently stomped the ground, dashing into mid-air to attempt catching Fisher, but the python-like Usurping Life was much faster. Tearing through the clouds, it bit down hard onto Fisher's neck with one bite.
'Too late!!'
"Pfft!!"
With a burst of intense pain, Fisher, looking savage, violently grabbed Usurping Life's body, cursing out loud directly,
"Aren't you deities? Why are you only fit for biting people like wild dogs?!"
"..."
Usurping Life from behind gave no response, the bite that seemed to pierce his very soul simply deepening. In an instant, the light before Fisher's eyes practically exploded like a kaleidoscope. Amidst the shimmering golden radiance, his consciousness began to gradually blur.
"Lord Tao, catch!!"
Below, Aris quickly noticed the walking stick tossed off by Usurping Life plummeting down. She hurriedly flew over to catch it, spinning around to hurl it toward Lord Tao up in the sky.
"Good timing!"
Lord Tao paused slightly, gritting her teeth in mid-air and delivering a rotating kick. Her little girl-like body unleashed terrifying strength in that instant.
"Boom!"
With a sonic boom, in the instant Fisher's head was about to be torn off, the walking stick shot forward like lightning, about to pierce right through Usurping Life's head once more.
But this time Usurping Life had learned its lesson. Suddenly twisting its neck to flee in another direction, it caused the flying stick to miss entirely.
Lord Tao took the momentum to fly further up and catch Fisher, who had a bloody and mangled mess on the back of his neck, as they plummeted down together.
The battles at the Mythic Rank were truly much too fast, completely happening in a flash.
In just a few short seconds, Lord Tao's skirt was dyed red by Fisher's flowing blood. But since he was still conscious, he quickly began mending his wounds utilizing the power of Usurping Life.
"Ahhhhh!"
Lord Tao hugged him as they fell. Fisher, mending his wounds, barely realized that Usurping Life really did bite off a chunk below his neck like a dog. Moreover, the chaos of Usurping Life within his body was fully triggered, uncontrollably driving his body toward mutation.
"Fisher, are you alright?!"
"Urgh... I'm fine... I just... need some time... Urgh ah!"
Lord Tao landed beside Aris while hugging him. Feeling his flesh squirming and struggling, she knew this was the manifestation of the chaos of Usurping Life running out of control.
Infuriated yet helpless, she couldn't help gnashing her teeth and saying,
"You small fry, how could you divert your attention to turn back and save us at a time like that? Do you not know that if you die, we're all finished?!"
Fisher clutched his body in extreme pain, but he still squinted at Lord Tao.
"If you die, Valentina would definitely be heartbroken. I promised her I'd save you..."
Lord Tao froze for a moment. Her mouth trembled as if wanting to say something, but finally turned into a helpless smile.
She always believed that everything she cared for, and everything that cared for her, had all perished in the long river of history. She always felt she only lived to fulfil her duty and seek vengeance. But looking at it now, it wasn't entirely so.
'The future... Valentina...'
"Truly an answer fit for a scumbag like you... The guy behind us is definitely related to your women too, right?"
Aris looked at Fisher. Of course she knew Fisher did it for Asuka; he hoped that one day, he would see Asuka reunite with the juniors she cared about so deeply.
Thinking of this, her expression grew even more remorseful.
"...Sorry. Earlier, if it weren't for my negligence, this complication wouldn't have occurred."
"Alright, small fry. SInce it already happened, there is no need to repent. Give it your entire focus right now. We must buy time, at least survive until he fully recovers—"
"Recover?"
Right then, Heon's voice rang out anew from nearby. Fisher raised his eyebrows, looking back at the Crevice space behind him, only to see that the Usurping Life avatar down there had already landed beside Heon. It wasn't just it; Chaotic Guidance and Pandora's phantom were there as well.
"Do you think you still have a chance?"
Lord Tao and Aris stiffened simultaneously. They knew perfectly well that even if Dagon's Authority was still present and they could barely endure without getting killed, if the avatars resolved to kill Dagon, they wouldn't truly be able to stop them.
Fisher strictly kept his eyes closed, buying even one extra second to stabilize the out-of-control chaos awakened by the Usurping Life avatar within him.
But just as Heon was about to move upwards and finish Dagon, a bizarre anomaly occurred.
The avatar of Usurping Life, shaped like a giant python, continuously trembled its jaws, dripping scarlet blood. It wasn't its own blood, but Fisher's flesh and blood...
It swallowed all the flesh and blood into its stomach, and then its entire avatar's body began trembling uncontrollably, emitting a terrifying low hum,
"This is... this is... what is this..."
Its body shook incessantly, looking frightful as if it couldn't maintain its shape. Even so, Usurping Life's tone carried a hint of excitement distinct enough even for humans to distinguish.
"...Understood... I understand everything now... So this world possesses such a precious thing like you. No wonder... no wonder the legendary Azanroth and Ocean would reveal their traces. It turns out it was entirely because of you... The 'reckoning', the 'extinction'... those were all fakes..."
"What?"
Lord Tao and Aris stared blankly. Even Heon beside Usurping Life hadn't expected it to say these words. Murmuring momentarily, its filthy wings extended subconsciously from its back. But Usurping Life just continued talking to itself, appearing as if tasting Fisher's flesh truly delivered no small shock even to a deity.
"I feel it... that precious property capable of housing conflicting Authorities... that mighty power capable of manifesting the mysteries of all things... In your eyes, what does this universe look like? Tell me, what have you seen? Where exactly did you acquire this property capable of containing other Authorities?"
Usurping Life inevitably stumbled toward Fisher. But just as it tremblingly moved closer to him, Heon behind it cryptically spoke up,
"Capable of containing more Authorities?"
"Heon... you think that peculiar property of his is supplementary to his body... No, his body was created to encapsulate that property... That's why I couldn't usurp his property when I bit him just now. But I swallowed a part of his property... just a tiny bit, and it is still continuously dissipating within my body... It can only be contained by him, it can only exist on him... That property is him, and he is that property..."
Usurping Life turned its head, speaking faintly,
"He is an Authority without 'Mass', capable of accommodating every Authority in this world. Heon, do you know what this means?"
Heon was slightly stunned, suddenly realizing why Azanroth and Ocean had appeared.
On a smaller scale, the properties deities possess from birth are fixed, meaning their innate Authorities are unalterable. Certain more powerful deities spanning across the Milky Way could possess more than one Authority, like Ramastia.
But equipped with this guy's property, deities could devour the properties of other deities, altering their number of Authorities.
On a grander scale, the nature of the universe itself is also an Authority. That is the 'Default Law' situated above all Authorities. No matter how powerful the nature a deity possesses is, it is but merely a distortion and rudimentary modification of this default law. Yet, the vast galaxy is far too extensive for even deities to measure. As Heon had stated, the universe remains an unknown, pitch-black, endless path to Them.
Equipped with this guy's property, deities could even try forcing the universe's inherent Authority to manifest. All the mysteries of the universe were about to unfold to the deities through the property of the man before Them...
Yet having such a terrifyingly precious property, he nonetheless lived his entire life bound by the illusory rules woven by those idiots like Ramastia, having never even witnessed the truly vast realms.
'Genius...'
'Genius...'
'Those guys like Ramastia, they truly are geniuses!'
Heon trembled uncontrollably. To Him, Ramastia and others were like baboons using the divine fire granted by the gods for creation to roast their own rears—useful for nothing else but burning themselves red!
"Are you certain of what you say?"
"...Devour me, and you will know everything."
Heon pondered for a moment. Under the horrified gaze of Fisher, Aris, and Lord Tao, He suddenly thrust out His tentacles. Extending His avatar into a pitch-black space as dirty and deep as the Abyss, He grabbed the Usurping Life avatar tightly and dragged it into His own body.
The direct power of Authorities would naturally repel each other. Unless one naturally possessed multiple Authorities from birth, it would always be this way. This is the nature of Authorities, and also why one could not read more than one Completion Handbook.
They were both direct avatars of their respective deities. Yet right now, devouring each other should have triggered repulsion leading to annihilation. But Heon struggled for a moment, and His entire colossal body bizarrely stabilized.
Not only did it stabilize, it started weirdly undulating up and down, looking extremely similar to Usurping Life's power...
His avatar... had devoured the power of the Usurping Life avatar!
Fisher, whose body was initially mutating out of control, suddenly reverted to normal, the connection with Usurping Life's power snapping to grant him a breather.
He sat up clutching his head, looking at Lord Tao and Aris beside him, momentarily confused why those avatars hadn't attacked them but instead allowed him to recover. Their faces were equally perplexed, staring at Fisher with astonished eyes.
Fisher glanced at them and stood up, asking in confusion.
"What happened?"
"We aren't quite sure either, but over there, it suddenly..."
"Over there?"
Fisher quickly raised his eyes to look below. The avatar of Usurping Life had vanished without a trace at some point, leaving only the continuously trembling, agonizingly squirming Heon. Its giant eye blinked rapidly, its cryptic voice rumbling "Heh-heh" like a wild beast, while its pupil erupted with golden radiance.
"You... have lost..."
Fisher furrowed his brows, watching the constantly twisting Heon below. Behind Heon, the tangled bundle of golden rope knots—Chaotic Guidance—also looked at Heon confusedly. But it was abruptly seized by a giant hand of unknown race stretching out from that very eye.
"Wooooo—"
Chaotic Guidance instantly let out a string of anxious, ethereal sounds out of panic. No one could understand it, and could only watch helplessly as Heon's eye opened up once more, converting into an abyss, and swallowed it into its belly.
With two divine avatars devoured, Heon's body distorted once more.
The power of the three Authorities tangled and clashed within Heon's avatar at this moment, driven by some sort of property to eerily merge into one...
"Boom!!"
An extremely terrifying power blossomed from below. Fisher raised a hand in front to block, his black hair blown into chaos, and the bubbles within the Crevice were blown apart everywhere...
"Crack! Crack! Crack!"
An absolutely unprecedented sense of terror erupted from Heon's avatar. Lord Tao's eyes widened, her gaze filled with disbelief...
"Is that... making a Law even under the suppression of Dagon's Authority?"
"What do you mean, Lord Tao?"
Looking below, Aris still failed to grasp the meaning. Fisher's face, however, scrunched deeper.
"Heon knows that Dagon's Crevice unconsciously repels foreign chaotic powers, hence why Their powers were continuously suppressed. But now, having amalgamated the powers of Usurping Life and Chaotic Guidance, it forged a new path, actually simulating the miracles of demigods within this world—a Law... a prototype of an Authority. This way, He won't be affected by Dagon's Authority."
Hearing Fisher's words, Aris's breathing grew heavier. She looked at the gigantic monster whose power was continuously ascending below. Its appearance completely lacked any recognizable reference points; specifically, it looked like a lifeform pieced together from various eyes, rotting corpses, and severed limbs, with only the golden eye on its chest still shining...
Lord Tao sweated profusely from her forehead, her small palms trembling.
"What... what a twisted life this is..."
Fisher paused slightly, murmuring as well.
"Twisted life..."
The World-Ending Prophecy...
Twisted Life will stir up huge waves, erasing the rules that living beings depend on to survive...
"This, this... this is actually... is actually true..."
Below, Heon's frantic, raving mutters instantly smashed into Fisher's mind, making him clutch his head in agony,
"Fischer Benavides!!!"