noveltune Chapter 92 The Swarm
Chapter 92 The Swarm
Two bored gods in the clouds.
After a long tug-of-war between cheating and being caught cheating.
Liang Jiu looked at Su Cheng sitting opposite him and said.
"Has your transformation of your family members reached such a thorough level?"
Su Cheng leaned back in his chair, holding the remaining card in his hand. He shook his head in response to Liang Jiu's question.
"That was not due to my modifications. I never interfered with them in a very precise way. It was all the result of natural selection."
"In the early days of the Divine Realm, I crammed over two thousand strange races into that wild and untamed ecosystem," Su Cheng recounted his past experiences raising his followers. "Resources were always scarce, and the living space was limited. To survive, they had to find ways to adapt to the environment."
"Struggling, eating and being eaten are the underlying themes of life."
Liang Jiu listened quietly without interrupting.
"Cooperation, symbiosis, and even parasitism are all forms of wisdom that life demonstrates in order to survive."
Su Cheng laughed and opened his arms wide, like a parent showing off their best child.
"Those dark red tentacles were originally the weakest mollusks at the bottom of the swamp, with almost no intelligence and poor hunting ability. But they took the initiative to approach the dire wolf, and the two combined in a desperate situation, bringing about a delightful result."
He laboriously moved the chair he was sitting on, hopping and skipping, until he reached the edge of the clouds, looking down at the massive herd of beasts he had single-handedly created.
"It's not just about interspecies symbiosis; in my divine realm, there's also the chain of predator and prey," Su Cheng continued. "The long-term pressure of survival pushes the entire ecosystem to the edge. To avoid being eaten, prey will do everything in its power to evolve more bizarre and deadly defenses, while predators, in order to fill their stomachs, will also hone their killing skills to the fullest."
He turned around and looked at Liang Jiu.
"Life will find a way, the way that is best for them, and that is my confidence."
"You have deprived them of the opportunity to embrace true wisdom." Liang Jiu looked at the monsters that acted on instinct in the wilderness, like walking corpses.
Like viruses in the microscopic world, they have only one mission: to live... nothing else. They are pathetic creatures, living without knowing why they are born, and dying without knowing why they die.
"That's a luxury, and it's dangerous, Liang Jiu. You should know that the wisdom of the retinue will one day kill their gods. For them, maintaining proper savagery is the best state to be in."
Su Cheng scattered the cards, and the wind in the clouds ruffled the hem of his clothes.
"When creators begin to contemplate the meaning of existence and begin to establish complex morals and ethics, they become weak. They empathize with the suffering, fear death, and may even turn around and question the gods who gave them life: why did they have to endure war, and why did the omnipotent gods create an imperfect world?"
"You are the one who caused them pain; their suffering stems from your indulgence. Only by maintaining their instincts and following nature can a species transcend its limitations. As for injuries and deaths, they are merely the early disposal of substandard and defective products."
Liang Jiu listened quietly to these remarks, finding them very insightful, but he did not agree with them.
"You've simply disguised degeneration as evolution."
"They stifled creativity and the possibility of building civilization, confining an entire tribe to a primitive, bloodthirsty era. All you got were a bunch of reasonably useful weapons. Without the accumulation of civilization, they could only devour each other in the wilderness forever, eventually turning into monsters."
Su Cheng let out a sneer.
"Monsters are what we need, aren't they? Ask yourself honestly, what is the relationship between your family and humans? Aren't they monsters too?"
The two represent completely different divine paths, and neither can convince the other verbally.
Su Cheng stopped getting bogged down in the debate over ideas.
"So, this god who generously bestows wisdom upon his followers," Su Cheng finally posed his probing question, his gaze sweeping over the other man, "from the start of the card game until now, you've been sitting here leisurely, Liang Jiu. What exactly have you been doing, expending such immense divine power?"
There was a moment of silence above the clouds.
"What you just said was indeed very interesting." Liang Jiu also stood up, looking down at the battlefield shrouded in mist below, and gave his reply, "Since you gave me such a big surprise, I should give you a gift in return."
……
The pungent smell of herbs permeated the sacrificial area of the Xin tribe, attempting to mask the stench emanating from the beast's carcass.
Several elderly priests, along with their apprentices, gathered around the stone platform, carefully peeling away the dark red tentacles that were entangled with the internal organs.
Xinwu sat in a corner, somewhat absent-minded.
He gripped the bone staff, searching time and again in the ocean of his mind, trying to establish a connection with the gods high in the clouds. He desperately wanted guidance, for the gods to send down divine pronouncements to resolve his confusion.
A sense of resentment and frustration welled up inside me.
He was saddened by his mediocrity; whether it was martial arts or the control of extraordinary power, he always seemed unsatisfied and could never do anything to the best of his ability.
What shamed him even more was the fear that spread like a bone-deep infection.
When he was surrounded by wolves and in dire straits, he could have fearlessly burned with righteous indignation and faced death with equanimity. But now, back inside the safe city walls, as the shadow of death dissipates, a belated sense of lingering fear has gripped him.
It made him unable to stop overthinking.
He was afraid of death, and even more afraid that this fear meant he was not devout enough to the gods.
However, every earnest and fearful plea ultimately met with the same receiver.
The voice of the divine messenger rang in his ears.
"(¯︶¯) Don't bother. Although you have lost your god, you still have me. Lord Jane can completely replace him and become your spiritual mentor, guiding you through your confusion."
Xinwu sighed, just about to end this meaningless exchange.
A terrified scream suddenly came from the direction of Shitai.
A priestly apprentice, who was cleaning the abdominal cavity of a corpse, collapsed to the ground. A thick, dark red worm suddenly sprang out from deep within the completely dead body, heading straight for the apprentice's face.
The worm disguised itself as fragments of inactive organs, fooling everyone.
Before Xinwu could think, his body reacted instinctively. He took a few steps forward, swung his bone staff, and smashed it down on the monster in mid-air.
The worm was deflected and flew past the apprentice's shoulder.
But as it landed, its tail contracted rapidly like a spring, using the momentum to spring up and bite Xinwu's wrist.
There was no excruciating pain as I had expected.
Xin Wu felt a sudden darkness engulf him. The inner fire that had been burning within him was suddenly and unexpectedly connected to a vast and chaotic signal network.
The surrounding scenery distorted and faded like ripples on water.
When he could see things clearly again, he found himself standing in a damp, dark, and vast cave.
The surrounding stone walls and the dome overhead were teeming with countless dark red worms. They intertwined haphazardly, forming a nauseating mass of flesh and blood.
The moment Xinwu stepped into this place.
All the worms in the cave stopped moving. Countless eyeless heads turned in unison to face his position.
The massive cluster's awareness detected the intruder.