Foolish Game of the Gods Chapter 35

Chapter 35: [Deceit]

Cheng Shi opened his eyes and found he wasn't on the rooftop.

His stomach dropped. His first thought was: Did I guess wrong? Was Xu Lu telling the truth?

But when he discovered he was floating among the stars, above the constellations themselves, that thought was immediately negated.

He hadn't been wrong.

His body had simply been transported by a mysterious force.

This was a power he'd heard other players speak of in previous trials.

According to them, when [God] favored a particular follower, He would descend in a form comprehensible to humans and summon them at the trial's end.

"Holy shit, it's real?"

Cheng Shi's brain buzzed, ringing hollow.

He'd never imagined that the joke stories those bastards told were actually true.

Just as he held his breath and searched the resplendent starfield for his patron, a pair of gargantuan eyes that could only be described as terrifying snapped open directly before him.

An indescribable pressure slammed into him, striking straight at his soul and freezing him in place.

Compared to these pupils, which resembled black holes, Cheng Shi's body was like a single grain of dust in boundless space.

"Thump…"

Cheng Shi gaped, his heart hammering.

He felt his heartbeat accelerating, syncing with the void's undulations beneath this starfield within a few breaths, and then gradually losing all sensation of being "human."

If he had to describe the feeling, it was roughly like his soul leaving his body.

Cheng Shi looked down in shock and found that his physical shell had indeed remained in place, wearing a vacant expression.

And his current self was transparent and drifting, wraithlike.

Only then did the unfathomable, terrifying pressure gradually dissipate, and Cheng Shi slowly regained control of his consciousness.

It was also at this moment that the voice from those eyes before him, eyes "whose whites were painted with spirals and whose pupils were dusted with stardust," spoke with an ancient, eternal coldness.

"Cheng, Shi."

This voice was unlike any sound Cheng Shi had ever encountered. Hearing it for even a moment made one feel as though they were dissolving into nothingness.

He felt he should be trembling right now. A glance downward confirmed it: his body was indeed shaking.

Yet his current spirit form felt no fear, so he answered softly.

"Yes."

But then, he felt that wasn't enough.

No one could maintain human composure before [The Gods].

Even if someone could, that someone was far beyond Cheng Shi's current level of power.

So he added, like a sycophant:

"Praise be to Nihility, praise be to my Lord. To be granted Your summons, what an honor."

Staying alive wasn't shameful.

Unexpectedly, that all-seeing eyeball shifted slightly and produced a sound of derision.

"Weak human. You don't even recognize your own patron, yet you dare prattle about praise."

"!!!"

It wasn't [Deceit]!

Cheng Shi's eyes went wide in instantaneous terror, but quickly narrowed again. His mind racing, he hazarded a guess.

"[Time]?"

Upon hearing this divine name, those eyes rotated rapidly like clock hands. The voice grew even colder:

"Uttering a god's name in vain. You are judged guilty."

The words had barely landed when Cheng Shi's spirit form instantly dissolved into nothingness.

As though it had never existed.

His physical body likewise crumbled into scattered sand, swept by the interstellar wind into the boundless abyss.

The massive eyeball spiraled round and round, until it sensed a certain person's fate bend at this juncture, and then closed with evident "satisfaction."

As though it had never existed.

Time began to flow.

It felt like a century. It also felt like a single second.

In that chaotic measurement of time, after who knows how long, those eyes reopened in the same position.

Except this time, the corners of those eyes curved upward ever so slightly. Clearly smiling.

"Oh my, not too late."

Those spiral-and-stardust eyes blinked. With each blink, bright stardust appeared where Cheng Shi's shell had been.

The motes of stardust attracted one another, fusing and condensing.

When they were once again kneaded by an invisible force into a human shape, this clay figure crafted beneath the stars opened its eyes.

"Ugh, hah…"

Cheng Shi gasped for air, his forehead and back drenched in sweat.

He looked at the eyes before him and ground out a single word through clenched teeth:

"Fuck!"

Those eyes visibly paused for a beat, but then, they smiled even more joyfully.

"According to my understanding of your human language, this word appears to express that you wish to share [Birth]'s authority with Me?"

The eyeball spun twice and chuckled:

"Or perhaps you wish to drag Me into [Defilement]'s sea of desire and do unspeakable, oh no, should I say un-divine things to Me?"

Cheng Shi listened to all of this in a daze, forcibly swallowing the expletive-laden greeting he'd been loading up.

Both in form and tone, this was clearly not the same one as before.

His mind churned for a moment. Seemingly guessing something, his face darkened as he said in a low voice:

"You stood by and watched Your follower get killed by another [God]. As my patron, I'd like to ask: where is this so-called protection of Yours?"

The eyeball beneath the starfield spun again and laughed:

"It seems you've already guessed My identity. But you got one thing wrong.

I didn't watch Him kill you.

I came with My eyes closed."

"?"

Cheng Shi was stunned.

So there's a reason I'm shameless.

The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as they say.

But!!!

Is that what the hell I'm talking about right now???

Cheng Shi was speechless, but he had confirmed one thing.

At the very least, the other party had responded to him and acknowledged being his patron.

[Deceit].

And furthermore, the so-called "divine follower meet-and-greet" wasn't nearly as solemn and grave as he'd imagined.

The first session didn't count.

"So, could You tell Your bewildered follower what just happened? That murderous culprit… which God was He?"

"Do you warm up to everyone this quickly?"

"?"

Cheng Shi had recovered some of his basic human instincts and retorted:

"I have social anxiety. I'm not great with people."

"I can roughly understand your emotions. So?

It's only because I saved you, and because I'm your patron, that you're so…

Let Me think, the appropriate word would be:

Uninhibited?"

Cheng Shi shook his head, rejecting [Deceit]'s framing.

"It has nothing to do with that."

"?"

"Because You're not a person."

"Hahahaha."

A burst of delighted laughter rang across the starfield. Those eyes, painted with spirals and stardust, were laughing so hard they'd lost all control of their blinking frequency, distorting and warping.

He regarded Cheng Shi with gleeful abandon, as though admiring a precious art collectible.

"You are the second work that has satisfied Me."

Cheng Shi raised an eyebrow, his expression composed, though inwardly he felt a twinge of unease at the word "work."

"And who was the first lucky one?"

"An interesting young girl named 'Zhen Xin.' In your parlance, she is My [Chosen]."

Cheng Shi's pupils contracted.

The Gods knew about [Chosen].

Of course, the Gods should be omniscient.

But when a deity discussed players like merchandise right to his face, Cheng Shi still felt somewhat peculiar.

"Oh? You seem to be experiencing anger regarding your identity as a player?"

Cheng Shi dropped the flippant act. He shrugged and replied with a punchable expression:

"Not allowed? Sorry. Can't help it."

"All anger is nothing more than self-deception. The harder a fragile life tries to conceal its own impotence, the angrier it becomes."

The eyeball scrutinized Cheng Shi's thoughts and chuckled:

"Do you want to take revenge on Him?"

Ch. 35 Foolish Game of the Gods Chapter 35

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