Chapter 804

Until the very last moment, completely collapsing, with no measures for recovery~.

"This, was it a deception from the very beginning?"

"No, to go through so much trouble, except for those in the know, who could know so much and think so much? The two sides of the confrontation are not even on the same level!".

"First, using information asymmetry and the inertia of human thinking to guide them to the wrong concept, and then in subsequent steps, continuously using positive feedback to reinforce this wrong concept, until the final step, the whole plan is completed... impressive, impressive."

"It's over, this game can't be played anymore; crushed in terms of intelligence, crushed in terms of force, and the other side even has a divinity watching them... might as well just wait for death..."

"I already feel shadows crawling on me; this is a complete dead end, what should I do? Fight, can't win, can only commit suicide... destroy the altar, and you'll be killed directly... kill the shadow, that's equivalent to suicide..."

"If you can't beat them, join them; defecting directly to become a shadow isn't impossible!"

"It's a good thing you aren't D-14134, otherwise the number of times the Foundation initiates 'Deus Ex Machina' would probably have to increase by one."

……

D-14134 looked up at the departing shadows, just staring blankly at this scroll of hell.

He didn't know what they were doing.

Perhaps it was to summon their Lord.

Or perhaps it was to break through this place to gain freedom.

Regardless of the reason, the situation certainly wouldn't be ideal.

He didn't say anything; what else was there to say?

For the current situation, it could be said that he bore a large part of the responsibility.

Of course, he could find countless reasons to shirk it:

That "Lord" was incredibly evil;

The shadow monster was very cunning;

This trap was hidden too deep to be detected;

Barclay misled him in the report...

But no matter what reasons he found or how he defended himself, it couldn't change the current result.

Manslaughter is still manslaughter; it won't change because there are other hidden circumstances—just like his past.

He knelt down dejectedly, his eyes vacant, muttering to himself.

"I knew it," he said.

"I knew I would be like this, never able to do anything right; I'm just this useless."

The spirit in D-14134's eyes was extinguished, leaving only a gaze full of indifference.

The monsters' ritual took place before his eyes, but it only reflected in the depths of his eyes, as if it had fallen into the lens of a camera.

Everything was so distant, the world was so strange; if he hadn't done anything, things wouldn't have turned out so badly.

If he had died sooner, would this trap not have worked?

But, at this point, what was the use of saying these things or thinking these things?

Everything had been messed up.

Everything was beyond repair.

He was like a foolish, hot-blooded idiot, led by the nose by the great villain, and until the moment before the mystery was revealed, he was still self-righteous, fantasizing that he was a great hero saving the world.

His eyes were vacant, his gaze wandering aimlessly.

A lost ghost, drifting here and there, unable to find a place to call home.

A moment later, his gaze landed on the altar.

The patterns on it were intricate and complex; even the symbols that resembled writing were far beyond his knowledge.

Spirals, geometric figures, and some symbols that seemed random but appeared to contain deep meaning, intertwined and overlapped in parts, forming new symbols.

Of course, there was no hint of holiness, only strangeness, distortion, and cruelty.

And that was the "key," the core of the ritual.

Looking at it, D-14134 seemed to see the shadow monster's smile again.

Accompanied by that undisguised smile, the words it had just said echoed back, segment by segment, sentence by sentence:

"Thank you for everything you have done."

"... In fact, our current form is what humans are truly meant to be..."

"... when it has not yet completely died, we can use the 'key' to open the lock of the cage..."

Wait...

"Key"...

D-14134 suddenly remembered something, his body jolted, his slack face regained vitality, and his eyes suddenly brightened.

His concentration returned, carefully nurturing the spark that had sprouted from failure and dejection.

"Using the 'key' can open the lock..."

The "key" is the altar, the "cage" is the heart, the "lock"...

Reverse it...

The intermittent thoughts in his mind became clear in an instant, like an epiphany.

The spark in D-14134's heart suddenly expanded, the flame flickering, emitting endless light and heat, filling his stiff body, and relighting the flower named hope.

But, would this work?

This was not self-deprecation, nor was it self-denial.

It was taking a step, turning around, and examining the whole idea from beginning to end.

Only...

No matter how he thought about it, the whole idea was too naive, too whimsical.

But...

Besides this, what other choices were left?

Wait for death, wait for death, wait for death...?

There were no other better choices.

This thinking didn't take much time; as long as the various possibilities were listed, there was no need to even think about the cost.

He wouldn't lose anything more; besides his life, at worst, he would just lose the soul of a sinner.

D-14134 closed his eyes.

There were two bullets left in the gun, and a tactical knife with a broken edge in his hand.

Not far away sat a bottle of alcohol, still more than half full.

And the floor beneath him, wooden, and quite dry.

He opened his eyes and gazed at these remaining things one by one.

Immediately, he raised his head and looked at the mass of shadows gathered together.

It was constantly "fermenting," like a giant virus.

He looked at the altar again.

In fact, after gaining some experience in "cleaning up," D-14134 had become bold, repeatedly fiddling with and even trying to destroy the altar.

Each time, the duration wasn't long, only giving him a rough understanding of this thing.

But it was enough.

The most crucial thing was that the talking shadow and other monsters hadn't paid any attention to him.

He was just an ant that happened to pass by; all the explanations given to him earlier were just the victor's mockery of the loser, to make the latter fully understand the gap between them.

But now, this was exactly what he had hoped for.

He let out a breath; now he was the D-14134 from before again, the D-14134 who struggled bitterly all alone, the D-14134 who kept "cleaning up" without ever stopping.

The collapse just now was only because the change came too suddenly and too intensely, making one feel unable to resist for a moment.

This was not enough to completely destroy his inner self.

What could be more devastating than becoming a Foundation D-Class personnel?

"Morituri te salutant"

This was the last sentence Barclay said to him, and now he said it to himself again.

He smiled.

The one who smiled this time was him, not someone else.

……

The black shadow smiled all over its face.