Chapter 248: Today's 【Prosperity】, Feeding Complete

Today's 【Prosperity】, feeding complete.

Reality, an unknown province and city, a certain laboratory.

Li Zhi awoke on an operating table. He slowly opened his eyes and removed his glasses.

These were plain glasses, a small trick he usually used to disguise his eyesight, but this session clearly hadn't required them.

He stood up, first examining himself, then beginning to carefully take stock of the operating room he had lived in for "a very long time."

This was a completely sealed operating room—three walls and one wall-sized steel door. Normal ventilation and air exchange relied entirely on the vent beyond the air-wall above his head. He had always assumed this was the medical room of some underground military facility, but today, that notion changed.

If he was a slice, then the original could never have allowed him to grow into an independent player. He must have been watching him from the shadows, observing him, never once loosening his control.

So... was this really an operating room?

Could it possibly connect to another space? Logically speaking, no—because Li Zhi had once confirmed that the air-walls surrounding the room didn't seem faked.

But today he suddenly realized he had missed one thing—that... the vent!

In his memories, he had once tried to climb up to that vent, but the air-wall had blocked him.

But note... that was in his memories!

So Li Zhi gripped a scalpel tightly and began groping around the space once more. This time he would no longer trust his memories, because a slice's memories were meaningless.

And when he had finished groping all four walls again, his gaze finally turned to that lone vent.

He dragged the operating table over, attempting to step on it and climb up—but at that very moment, the vent, which only allowed one person to pass through, actually opened on its own!

Yes, opened on its own!

The sound of mechanical gears rang out. The louvers of the vent slid open to the left and right, revealing a pitch-black passage within. And at the far end of that passage, a hoarse voice was chuckling.

"You found it after all. Come, come over. Every answer you want is here."

Li Zhi's pupils contracted sharply, and his whole body tensed.

He had a premonition that this speaking lifeform might just be his original.

The moment had finally arrived—the moment when slice and original would face each other.

Li Zhi gripped the knife in his hand deathly tight, even casting three Calming Arts on himself in succession before crawling toward the depths of that unknown passage.

And the being at the other end made no move while he crawled in his constrained manner.

Until Li Zhi crawled into another space and poked his head out of the ventilation duct, he was shocked to discover that this space held over a dozen devices identical to Selius's experimental cultivation pods. And in the middle of those devices sat a freak who was both young and old, squinting at him.

"You're a smart man. Come down. I won't hurt you."

Li Zhi's breath hitched, and then he cautiously jumped down.

He stood before that freak who was half young and half old, his eyes full of suspicion and astonishment.

"You are..."

"You know who I am, don't you?

That's right, your guesses are probably all correct. Seeing my appearance, you should know that I am both the beneficiary of this experiment and its victim.

And you... like me, are also a victim of this experiment."

"Heh." Even Li Zhi, with the best of tempers, let out a sardonic laugh upon hearing this. "So I was never a beneficiary."

"Our goals are the same. Someone has to sacrifice themselves for the experiment, no?"

"Then why wasn't the one who sacrificed yourself!?"

"How do you know I haven't sacrificed? Look at this 【Prosperity】 flowing through me, look at this 【Decay】 rotting on me, look at me becoming neither man nor ghost. Not frightening?

This is my sacrifice."

"So you were trying to cultivate your former self—that is, me—as a vessel for you to shed your shell, a new body!?"

"No, no, not at all. That's not what I meant. Don't get worked up."

"No? Then why did you create me? To prove your research capability has reached the point where you can replicate Selius's slice experiment?"

"You're still so obsessive. Beneath all that composure and steadiness lies the most irreversible obsession." The freak sighed. "I split you off precisely so I could continue my experiments in peace. That way, you walk your path, I walk mine. Isn't that good?"

"Sorry, I can't determine whether what you're saying is true or false, but... I don't need to determine whether it's true or false. The moment you let me through, you should have known this matter couldn't end well!"

Li Zhi's gaze hardened. He pulled from his bosom the concentric dagger he had exchanged with Cheng Shi, then kicked off the ground and, taking advantage of a gap in their conversation, violently lunged and stabbed viciously at the original, whose body was both old and young.

Unexpectedly, however, the freak didn't dodge. He simply stood there, waiting for Li Zhi to drive the dagger into his chest.

"Hsss—"

The blade tip pierced flesh and pierced the heart, yet not a single drop of blood spurted out.

Li Zhi stared at the freak who hadn't died, his face filled with horror!

"You... you... how is it possible, how could you not die! This is..."

The freak laughed eerily. He extended that withered hand and pinched the concentric dagger, then, bit by bit, pulled this murder weapon out of his own rotting heart.

"This is the concentric dagger of the slice Selius, isn't that what you wanted to say?" The freak's laughter was like a dead man gasping for air—broken and chilling.

"!!!"

Li Zhi's pupils contracted sharply. He stared at the freak in disbelief, too horrified to speak.

He knew!

He had anticipated this long ago!

"Are you shocked?

Are you wondering how I know the dagger in your hand is that slice Selius's concentric dagger?

There are two concentric daggers in total. One is Selius's, specifically used to excise the weaker personality. If a conflict arises between identical personalities and one side possesses the dagger, it can be used to deal with those disobedient slices—most effective.

The other belongs to the slice Selius.

As a slice, he naturally couldn't hold a dagger that could kill him at any moment, so he modified this dagger, turning it into a weapon that only kills the stronger personality.

This was his weapon for killing his original. And you, too, wanted to use that same concentric dagger to kill me. Li Zhi, you are very clever, but you overlooked one thing!"

As he spoke, the freak pinched the tip of the concentric dagger and, with a speed the naked eye couldn't follow, "whoosh"—stabbed the dagger into Li Zhi's chest, and in the manner of stabbing with the handle, drove the entire dagger backward into Li Zhi's heart.

"Pfft—"

Li Zhi suddenly spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, clutching his chest as he staggered and collapsed. The fear on his face deepened, because he felt his life slipping away and his personality dissolving.

The Concentric Dagger meant to kill the dominant personality—had actually killed himself!?

How could that be!?

"You..."

"Confused? Puzzled? Shocked?

The Concentric Dagger that only kills the strong actually killed me. I love that look on your face, Li Zhi. Even though I've seen your terrified, doubtful expression countless times, every time I see it again, it fills me with pure delight.

Yes, just like you, I'm a splinter too—and I'm the weakest of all the splinters, which is why I used 【Divinity】 to complete my personality.

As for our great original body, I killed it long ago using the very same method.

Ha, hahahahaha, how about that? Looks like I'm just as clever as you!

Not only that, I even stuffed this very realization into your memories.

Have you ever thought—if the memory of the ventilation shaft is fake, then couldn't the method you remember using to kill me also be fake?

The method itself is real, but unfortunately, it's exactly what I deliberately taught you.

Ha, happy now?

Yes, that's it—I love your fear!"

As he spoke, the freak used his obese hand to lift Li Zhi directly. Before Li Zhi had fully died, slowly, bit by bit, with a look of utter relish, he stuffed Li Zhi... whole into his mouth, which had opened wide like a giant python.

Swallowed him down in one gulp.

"Crunch crunch crunch..."

"Ah—

Today's 【Prosperity】, feeding complete.

Too bad, no 【Sprouting Divinity】—looks like the fear wasn't quite enough."

Next chapter: Audience with the God, opening the floor—guess which one!