Chapter 267: The Will of the World

"Crouch."

"Stand up."

"Roll over."

"Shake hands."

Watching Tian Hongzhi execute the series of commands without hesitation, Wu Chang was astonished.

No wonder he's the kind who went through great hardship yet willingly sided with monsters—he's perfectly suited to be a dog.

No, what astonished him was the strength of the mind resonance; the description said complete control, and that meant complete control.

As Tian Hongzhi carried out Wu Chang's orders, he seemed to have abandoned his own will, showing not the slightest hesitation.

Wu Chang looked at the buttons on his clothes and thought: thank goodness such a thing was in the hands of a righteous man like himself—if it fell into Tian Hongzhi's country, who knows how many hypnotic and brainwashing films they'd produce.

He still wanted to test how far the mind resonance's control could reach, but right now he had to hurry—staying too long in the dark, Jian Xing and the others might not be able to resist coming to find him.

He said to Tian Hongzhi:

"Give me the key to the underwater ruin's gate."

Tian Hongzhi took out a metal token from his pocket and respectfully offered it to Wu Chang with both hands.

Wu Chang took the token; its surface displayed two rows of flickering numbers—a forty-two-digit random password, specially encrypted and nearly impossible to crack.

It was the key he had seen in Mi Lahei's resentment.

He continued: "What is your purpose?"

Tian Hongzhi answered: "Desire and greed are polluting and destroying the world; only the divine gift bestowed by the gods can wash away this corruption and grant all things redemption."

"Evading sacred death is the devil's whisper to corrupt mortals—I cannot let sinners flee into the purified new world carrying their sins."

Wu Chang frowned, impatiently: "Speak plainly."

Tian Hongzhi: "The High Priest ordered me to prevent the Revelation Tablet from being discovered by outsiders, and to help him trigger the Great Flood."

Wu Chang nodded—now that was speaking plainly.

"Who is the High Priest? How did he find you?"

Tian Hongzhi said: "The High Priest was the last High Priest of the Naru people before the flood drowned the Death Temple. He believed the previous High Priest's actions were wrong—that leaving behind prophecies to avoid sacred death was a mistake. He thought the previous High Priest had lived too long, his spirit corrupted by the world's filth, so he devised a way to sink the Death Temple and permanently seal the Revelation Tablet."

"But he never imagined that thousands of years later, people would find the ruin and bring it back to light—so he came to me, asking me to help him complete the world's purification."

Wu Chang frowned: "He asked you to help, and you just agreed?"

Does the so-called High Priest also possess mind resonance?

Here, Tian Hongzhi suddenly burst into tears, saying: "He showed me the great will of the world—I understood that death is our true destiny, so I willingly aided him."

Wu Chang clicked his tongue—he's clearly been ensnared by an illusion.

He continued: "Was the attack on the Night Island research station your doing? Why did you leave four survivors alive? What's special about them?"

Tian Hongzhi wiped the tears from his face and said: "The attack was carried out by the Divine Envoy; I only handled the cleanup and final arrangements. I left the four survivors alive to lure more people to the island."

"The Divine Envoy needs food. It needs energy."

Wu Chang's expression confirmed his suspicion—he had seen nothing special about the four in Johnson's nightmares or anyone else's resentment.

Their jobs: one refueled the Night Lanterns; one recounted Naru history and bestowed buffs to outsiders; one guided outsiders through the research station and provided the key to the ruin's gate; the last helped decipher ancient texts and murals about the ruin.

Their roles were like pre-programmed guide NPCs—this was clearly no coincidence.

Coupled with the ship that approached Night Island every seven days, he had already suspected this was a deliberate method to attract outsiders.

"Is the corpse replacing you in the research station the Divine Envoy?"

Tian Hongzhi: "Yes."

Wu Chang narrowed his eyes: "After shedding its human shell, did it become a slime-tentacle monster underwater?"

Tian Hongzhi looked startled—he wanted to ask how Wu Chang knew what was underwater without even having the key, but his current status forbade questions, allowing only answers.

"Yes."

Wu Chang slowly circled Tian Hongzhi: "You recovered the key to the ruin because the Divine Envoy is already full and about to act?"

This time, Tian Hongzhi bowed deeply, bending his body at an angle exceeding ninety degrees, and said:

"Yes!"

Wu Chang was very satisfied with Tian Hongzhi's answer and said: "Last question: what is this 'will of the world' you saw?"

This was the question he most wanted to ask—but also the most dangerous—so he saved it for last.

Tian Hongzhi straightened up, and as he raised his head, Wu Chang saw tears streaming down Tian Hongzhi's face, sobs choking him.

He kept wiping his tears, whispering and sobbing, each attempt to speak cut short by his crying.

This was the first time since he was fully controlled that he had not answered Wu Chang's question.

Wu Chang repeated: "What is this 'will of the world' you saw?"

Crack!

This time, Tian Hongzhi bent his body again, folding at an astonishing one hundred and eighty degrees, his entire form collapsing inward.

But unlike before, this time he folded backward.

He folded himself backward by arching his spine, then, unsatisfied, grabbed his calves and pulled hard, his upper body folding back through his hips into a grotesque posture, staring at Wu Chang.

His face still wore the expression of weeping—but now the tears were bloody.

Wu Chang clapped his hands. "Impressive. Triple fold—no matter how you bend, there's always a face."

Plop.

A phone fell from Tian Hongzhi's pocket; its back logo was a bitten pear.

Tian Hongzhi glanced at his phone, rolled his eyes upward, his entire cervical spine bending backward, then—crack—he died.

Wu Chang sighed. Even fruit users have too much temper—quadruple fold was unnecessary.

Though Tian Hongzhi was dead, he did not die peacefully—a deep crimson resentment rose from his body.

This was the first time Wu Chang had seen Blood Testament since entering Night Island; it was clear Tian Hongzhi was furious for failing to achieve the Four-Fold Fold.

His gaze fixed on the crimson resentment, the scenery before him shimmered, and he entered Tian Hongzhi's resentment.

"Mr. Tian, have you made any new discoveries?" asked a researcher wearing a white down jacket.

Tian Hongzhi said: "I just found a new set of ancient script. Send someone to record it."

"Understood. No wonder you're Mr. Tian."

After the researcher left, Tian Hongzhi stared at the blank wall before him, his eyes filled with astonishment.

The characters on the wall were visible only to him—and the whispers in his ears were real!

While the other staff weren't looking, he recorded the parts only he could see in his personal notebook, in the form of scribbles.

That day's exploration ended with Tian Hongzhi's major discovery; the expedition leader had already compiled his latest findings and sent them to the island's exterior at maximum speed.

It was said that in the central research facility, two days ago they had summoned a genius in ancient script decipherment named Wells, who had cracked many completely lost ancient scripts—he was a genius among geniuses, and the academic world praised his arrival as the key to recovering all lost civilizations.

Tian Hongzhi wore a sneer on his face. This ruin was unlike any he had ever visited, unlike any ruin known to the world.

Even a genius here was merely an ordinary person.

But not long after, Tian Hongzhi could no longer smile.

Wells was indeed a genius; after joining for only half a month, he had not only deciphered all the accumulated prior materials but also decoded the portions Tian Hongzhi had used for testing, and urged the field staff to accelerate exploration.

His tone of urging was extremely rude.

At that moment, Tian Hongzhi realized that even among geniuses there were differences—his hard-won, practical knowledge meant nothing before the other man.

But it didn't matter—he could catch up.

Tian Hongzhi forced a smile through the entire lecture in the conference room. When he stood up, leaning on the table, and turned his back to the crowd, his false smile vanished, replaced by a twisted, greedy expression.

As soon as he stepped out of the conference room, his steps staggered. Hallucinations flooded his vision: the ancient script within the ruin seemed alive, spinning around him, whispering itself aloud.

The murals came to life, reenacting the history recorded in the ruin. He chuckled, heh heh heh—could a genius see these things?

No!

But when he sought to examine these hallucinations more closely, he saw the mural figures transform into his colleagues from the station, who then turned into fish-headed, human-bodied monsters, advancing toward him.

He tried to flee, but could not escape the fish-men, until they trapped him in a dead-end corridor of the ruin.

"Ah!"

Tian Hongzhi shouted aloud, jolting upright from his bed. He came to his senses and realized it had all been a dream—he was lying in his own bedroom.

A single room of only a few square meters. To be precise, this was not his bedroom, but an isolation chamber for team members whose mental states were unstable, who frequently suffered hallucinations and nightmares.

The behind-the-scenes bosses of the expedition feared their team members might go mad, yet craved the inspiration and productivity such madness brought—so they confined near-breakdown members in these small rooms.

Every morning, a mental state survey form was slid through the meal slot in the door.

If the test results were satisfactory, they were released to resume work and continue exploring the ruin; if not, they were locked inside the room.

!

Shhh, shhh.

He heard the sound of a pen scraping paper at the door—That bastard Pei Taiheng was surely recording his nightmares to deduct tomorrow's test score.

He wanted to scream out, "I'm a genius—I'm not mad!"

But he couldn't. Doing so would only let Pei Taiheng, that beach-born bastard, deduct two more points—nothing else.

He could not refuse to be locked here, nor could he refuse to fill out the mental state survey form.

Previously, one explorer had resented this system. He refused to fill out the form—and instead defecated on it.

It was said that for the next half-month, he received no proper meals at all; even when food was delivered, it came through the meal slot tainted by his own filth.

Though called expedition members, the moment they stepped onto Night Island, they became prisoners.

Yet for fame, for money, they willingly accepted it.

Damn desires. Damn bosses.

Everyone—including himself, who caused all this—deserved to die!

Huh.

He exhaled the heavy air in his chest, then began to sob. He didn't want to be locked in the isolation room anymore. He didn't want to be treated like a madman to be discarded after use.

He was a damn legendary adventurer!

Of course!

He just needed to release that guy—he had promised Tian Hongzhi he would earn him everyone's recognition and show him the truth of the world.

The next day, he completed the mental state survey form without issue, and by a stroke of luck, discovered a hidden room.

The room was filled with freezing seawater, its temperature below minus twenty degrees Celsius—far below the theoretical freezing point—yet not a single trace of ice formed.

Floating in the water was a corpse. Protected by the peculiar seawater, it had not decayed or bloated, but remained as if alive, lifelike.

He wore the robes of the high priest depicted in the murals, and around his neck hung a white conch shell.

The monumental discovery sent the expedition into a frenzy; Tian Hongzhi's prestige soared.

That night, Tian Hongzhi no longer had nightmares, and his hallucinations grew rare—no longer interfering with his daily life.

He was soon released, restored to normal status, and once again became one of the world's most famous explorers.

Perhaps soon, his title would no longer carry the "one of."

Though he no longer had nightmares, he began dreaming of the young man with the white conch—the very being who had first whispered to him.

In his dreams, they spoke at length; the other showed him the virtues of embracing death, letting him feel the ecstasy and freedom of merging with the will of the world.

He began to believe what the other said. Whenever he had free time, he sought out the Naru shaman—the very person he had once despised—and asked about Naru history and beliefs.

The young high priest taught him much, but the most crucial knowledge remained buried in the world's will, for the priest had been dead too long—Tian Hongzhi himself had to decipher it.

After all, he was the one chosen by the world's will—and so the world's will had sent the high priest to aid him.

To fulfill his mission, his hands had grown stained with filth—such as eliminating Wells—but he felt no regret.

He had never regretted his choices; he had always believed so, until he fully deciphered the writings in the ruins and told the High Priest.

He regretted it now—he thought of his family, of the fame and glory he had already achieved, of how he would become a legend once he left.

He did not want the world to end, at least not before he died.

The High Priest did not oppose his withdrawal, only smiled without speaking.

A few days later, he had another nightmare.

He dreamed of a massive black shadow emerging from beneath the water, coldly staring at the research station.

Under the shadow's gaze, all members of the expedition walked like sleepwalkers out of their rooms; under that immense stare, their human heads slowly transformed into fish heads.

They walked together into the underground space and began busily working—erecting racks, hammering in hooks, hanging ropes.

Then they hung themselves.

Dozens of fish-headed human creatures hung below, their bodies swaying in unison, singing as they swayed.

Their song sounded like ocean waves, like ancient sobbing; they praised the end of all things, welcoming the glorious arrival of death.

Not only the other expedition members—Tian Hongzhi himself moved too. He descended underground, found his own noose, stood on a crate, and shoved his head into it.

Thud.

The instant the crate was kicked away, violent suffocation emptied his mind.

The will to survive made him realize this was not a dream.

He wanted to struggle, but his hands grasped nothing; he wanted to scream, but his mouth opened like the others', producing only chanting.

In a daze, he saw the young High Priest again.

The High Priest asked him once more: Would he become the World Will's agent, purifying all corruption in the world?

Agree, and die afterward; refuse, and die now.

There was no good choice—he immediately agreed.

The instant he agreed, the noose around his neck untied, and he fell to the ground.

The young High Priest hung himself above, then slowly shed his human shell.

"You've always wanted to see the World Will, haven't you? I always said we'd wait for an opportunity—now, the opportunity has come."

Boom—the consciousness of Tian Hongzhi detached from his body, ascending infinitely, arriving at an aerial俯瞰 perspective.

He saw a colossal pale-red figure awaken from beneath the sea at the deepest part of the wasteland; it raised titanic waves, effortlessly erasing every trace of human existence on land.

The massive red figure that raised the waves was the "World Will" of the Nalu people.

The World Will revealed a reddish-brown eyeball, gazing toward Tian Hongzhi's consciousness in the sky.

The instant he met the World Will's gaze, Tian Hongzhi's tiny human self-awareness shattered—like being controlled by psychic resonance, he became the World Will's loyal hound.

The World Will did not stop there; it shifted its gaze to Wu Chang behind Tian Hongzhi.

It seemed to sense that another consciousness was spying on it here.

Perhaps having been purified by the black malice within the Omniscient Crystal, Wu Chang met the World Will's gaze as if gazed upon by a secretly adored girl—feeling only a gentle breeze, sensing no pressure at all.

Is this all you've got? You dare come interact with him?

Wu Chang narrowed his eyes and said, "What you lookin' at? Keep staring, I'll gouge out your eyeballs."

He'd been wondering how to steal another eye from the Quietist Sect after Lyman's second eye was absorbed—if this thing didn't open its eyes, he wouldn't mind giving the Poison of the Mortal a new flavor.

Sensing Wu Chang's naked hostility, the World Will closed its eyes and sank back into the sea.

With the World Will's disappearance, Tian Hongzhi's resentment ended too—a blood-red last message appeared before Wu Chang.

【Find the Tablet of Revelation, stop the apocalypse.】

Meanwhile, in Wanghai City, You Feipeng grabbed the regional director of the Revelation Zone and stopped a taxi.

(End of Chapter)