Chapter 814 — The God After Decay

Moonlight that should not have existed shone down upon the sinking plain of darkness. At the center of a world long since ended, the Upper Narrator lay quietly prone upon the spiral hill, its divine limbs still clinging tightly to the rocks formed from the fragments of history. The clear moonlight draped over this divine creature like a thin gauze, and the bright moon hung directly above the hill.

Gao Yang raised his head and looked at that enormous spider.

It was as if He had died on the road while chasing the moonlight.

What He chased could not possibly have been moonlight—this sandbox world, like the reality outside, had no "moon"—but the posture in which He had died clinging to the hillside... did indeed look as though He had been chasing something.

Magnum raised his head. The Upper Narrator's limbs blocked the moonlight, casting a vast shadow beside him. The irascible red-haired bishop narrowed his eyes slightly. "Ahem... truly magnificent..."

"We've come to the true side of this world... but what do we do now?" Yuri could not help asking. "The Upper Narrator is already dead—are we supposed to resurrect Him and then kill Him again?"

"His corpse is indeed here, but think of that 'veil' that deceived all of us, and think of those spiders that attacked us," Gao Heng said unhurriedly. "The life and death of a god is a concept far more complex than that of mortals. He may be dead, but in some dimension, on some plane, His influence is still alive..."

Gao Dai was deliberately vague because there were matters even he dared not be certain of—yet concerning "the life and death of gods" he did have certain conjectures. The gods of the real world had also "died"; the combat records of the god-slaying fleet, and the divine corpses in the deep sea and within the Fortress of Defiance, could not be falsified. Yet the gods still returned again and again, answering the prayers of the faithful again and again, and that alone was enough to prove one thing:

Even if a god is dead, even if His corpse lies right before your eyes, on some plane He is still alive.

Selina likewise raised her head, cautiously observing the gigantic spider's remains, her brows knitting slightly. "It seems He was protecting something in His final moments."

Following Selina's gaze, Gao Yang looked up and saw that between the Upper Narrator's limbs unusually thick spider silk was wound, and in the gaps between the strands, something did indeed seem to exist, faint and indistinct.

They seemed to be several "cocoons" woven from spider silk.

As though the Upper Narrator were protecting those "cocoons," part of its limbs were tightly drawn in beneath its body.

"It really is protecting something..." Gao Qi frowned and strode forward. "Perhaps what He protected is the key."

Yet just as he walked toward that spiral hill, an invisible wind suddenly swept across the desolate plain. Amid the dust and debris whirled up by the wind, Gao Yang and the others instinctively halted. When the gust subsided, a figure stood at some unknown moment not far ahead.

It was an old man draped in a worn robe, tall of stature, with white hair and beard, carrying in his hand a battered lantern that seemed to have seen long years of use.

Duvalt, the one who called himself the Upper Narrator's priest.

Yuri's and Magnum's expressions turned grave at once, and they noticed that the white-haired girl named "Naretir" did not seem to be beside the old man on the ground at that moment.

Duvalt came walking out of the wind, and his gaze fell first upon Gao Yang.

"I am astonished," he said, looking at Gao Dai, his voice no longer kind and gentle as at the beginning, but carrying a certain sharp, hoarse tremor, as though his throat had long since rotted and the sound resonated out from shattered flesh and blood. "I have never seen an individual like you... The information you brought nearly contaminated the entire story."

Gao Yang gave no response. He merely stepped forward, and a long sword that gleamed dark red within black suddenly appeared in his hand; one more step, and he had donned the heavy armor this body had worn seven hundred years ago when it went to war.

"Very well. This manner of 'conversation' is more direct."

The shabbily dressed Duvalt watched Gao Yang draw his sword and advance without a word, his expression placid, and spoke in an indifferent tone, then unhurriedly tossed away the lantern in his hand.

The firelight within the lantern winked out instantly, but in the very instant it was extinguished, countless rising shadows burst forth from Duvalt's aged body. Those shadows shrieked madly, twisting and swelling in the air, and in the blink of an eye transformed into a gigantic spider composed of ash, smoke, shadow, and dark red patterns—identical to the dead Upper Narrator upon the spiral hill!

A bizarre shriek rose from the smoke and dust. The black spider, its body covered in divine patterns, raised one limb to block the blazing long sword in Gao Yang's hand. Sparks burst and scattered between blade and limb, and Duvalt's voice, no longer human, came from within the spider's body: "What a pity—how could that blade of yours, born of reality, stand against endless nightmare..."

Gao Yang gripped his long sword tightly, meeting those dark red eyes that flickered in the smoke and dust with a placid gaze, a faint illusory glimmer creeping along his blade. "What a coincidence. I happen to have some small mastery of dreams as well..."

Phantom flames rose along the surface of the Pioneer's Sword, and the spider limb that a moment before had seemed indestructible was severed in two in an instant. "Duvalt"'s vast body shifted sideways with incredible agility, evading Gao Yang's follow-up strike, and let out a string of chaotic, inexplicable shrieks.

Gao Yang turned his wrist, the long sword tracing a semicircle at his side, and the next second he was charging in again, sword in hand, asking as he did: "Are you the Upper Narrator? Or His avatar? His projection?

"And what is that girl called Naretir?

"The god is dead... so where does the presence lingering here come from?"

The spider-transformed "Duvalt," facing Gao Yang's storm-like assault, kept dodging and counterattacking while uttering whispers laced with murky noise: "Outsider... you have so very many questions...

"What a pity—there are no answers in nightmare!"

A thick fog descended abruptly upon the plain. The heavy mist screened off all senses in an instant, and in the darkness one could only see the vague shapes of what seemed gigantic spiders darting swiftly through the fog. Yuri spread both hands wide, ceaselessly tracing golden runes to fortify everyone's mind, while Magnum stirred up a mighty psychic storm, continuously dispersing the mental contamination that pressed close. Selina held her lantern, watching warily for changes in the fog while glancing toward Gao Song.

Gao Cen gripped his long sword tightly, his gaze slowly sweeping the thick fog before him. The vast spider's phantom flashed past, yet he merely took half a step back, placid, and said without turning his head: "Yuri, Magnum—return to the real world."

...

Deep within the underground palace of the Sleeper headquarters, the bottom-level containment zone was utterly silent, as though the entire palace had been shrouded in a tranquil deep sleep.

In a separate containment room near the bottom-level assembly hall, "Spirit Song" Wendy—gentle of feature and serene of temperament—sat quietly upon her bed, watching a white spider, nearly transparent all over and of unknown origin, as it diligently spun its web in the corner, watching it scurry to and fro across the floor.

Wendy's face was calm, her gaze as silent as water; she seemed to have been watching this way for a century, and intended to keep watching.

Suddenly, she blinked and lifted her head as though startled awake from a dream.