Chapter 254: 【Void】A Few Matters (Part One)

【Void】A Few Matters (Part One)

【Chaos】Beyond the temple, in the void, amid the endlessly churning breath of chaos, a pair of eyes brimming with the will of 【Chaos】gazed toward the place where Cheng Shi had departed.

Those eyes first revealed a trace of a deity's approval toward a favored one, then flickered with the schemer's disappointment in the one who held firm.

He was so complex that the aura at His side grew even more chaotic under the sweep of His will.

And just then, a violent ripple suddenly came from the void. The corners of those eyes lifted slightly, and in an instant they vanished. In their place, a colossal hand condensed from chaotic yellow mist tore through the surging, roaring flood of chaos and appeared where they had been.

Before long, a pair of eyes painted all over with star-points and spirals opened above the void. He gazed coldly down at the colossal hand of chaos before Him, His voice like the howling bitter wind in a frigid abyss.

"【Chaos】!"

The colossal hand did not move, and let out a turbid sound of 【Chaos】.

"【Fate】......

Why have you come?"

"You should know why I have come." Those eyes, with a gaze that pierced through everything, penetrated the endless breath of chaos, as if they had already seen every shift of fate. "Whatever pact you have struck with Him, the terms of that pact should not include the believers under my protection.

Fate has already turned. I have come to remind you: it is time to draw up a new pact with Him."

The colossal hand neither agreed nor disagreed. He swept away the chaotic yellow mist between Himself and the eyes, then rumbled:

"Who is He?"

The eyes' tone grew colder and colder: "【Chaos】is not 【Void】—there is no need to dissolve the meaning of self. You know perfectly well whom I mean!"

"I do not know."

"......" The eyes' gaze swept over the colossal hand without a shred of emotion. He gave a cold snort. "Words end here. There will be no next time."

Having spoken, He prepared to dissipate. And at that moment the colossal hand asked again:

"Are you 【Deceit】?"

The eyes froze for a beat, then filled with ice: "Want to have a fight?"

"Oh, so you are not 【Deceit】. Since you are not He, why meddle in the affairs between me and Him?"

"I see. So you really do want a fight.

Come then—let me show you why my believers refuse to join this tedious 【Chaos】."

A great battle erupted in the void.

This battle came suddenly, without the slightest warning. So fierce was the fighting that the entire void felt the trembling and the humming.

"You keep rewriting the fate of my envoy, letting the divinity that should have sprouted upon Him dissipate and vanish. So......

In the end, is it that He is unwilling, or that you are unwilling?"

"Ridiculous. Without 【Divinity】, what talk is there of an envoy?

He is a Walker of 【Void】—when has He ever followed 【Chaos】?

The words of 【Chaos】amount to no more than this."

"Hah, 【Fate】is nothing but a silver-tongued sort."

"......"

"Boom—"

The trembling of the void grew even more violent.

Cheng Shi woke, and was back on his own rooftop.

But he did not open his eyes. He lay flat on the ground, his mind replaying the words 【Chaos】had spoken:

"This glory does not yet belong to you."

He keenly caught the key words in that sentence: "yet" and "not yet"!

That doesn't make sense—what does that mean?

Does it mean that if I change my mind later, I still have a chance?

"?"

Cheng Shi incredulously felt his own head, afraid that this audience just now was yet another of his own deductive fantasies—after all, he knew that 【Chaos】had stolen the authority of deduction from 【Time】.

But if it wasn't a fantasy, then why would this so-called most mad 【Deity】of all the cosmos look upon him with such special favor?

On what grounds?

Just because my reputation among the 【Gods】is bad?

Just because some god keeps saying I'm greedy?

Huh? Being greedy gets you benefits?

Greedy people who never know when to stop are ten a penny under heaven, and I've never heard of a second Ultraman......

This time Cheng Shi really was thrown for a loop.

He thought for a long time, gained nothing, and so decided to "seek the Way" from the 【God】.

By rights, it was 【Deceit】who had changed his identity into an envoy of 【Chaos】, so if he wanted to ask questions now, he ought to ask 【Deceit】.

But the trouble was that Cheng Shi had now become a believer of 【Fate】, so he had no idea whether, if he recited the name of his former patron at the dice again, his current patron would help him put the "call" through......

Probably not, right?

After all, what person...... what 【God】could stomach that.

But even if 【Fate】knew a great deal, asking Him about 【Chaos】's affairs was a bit too outrageous. Besides, that side was also hoping he would break his oath.

Damn it.

Cheng Shi suddenly found himself in a dilemma. He turned it over in his mind for a long time, nearly scratching his hair bald, before finally coming up with a clever little trick to slip through the loophole.

He prepared to chant the prayer of 【Fate】at a certain mask. That way, if 【Deceit】summoned him, he would have achieved his aim; and if 【Fate】intercepted him, he could still argue that he had picked up the wrong thing.

What a clever little devil I am!

No sooner said than done!

So Cheng Shi pulled out a golden mask and, full of trepidation, muttered softly at it:

"If life were a skyful of stars, I could only gaze, never reach..."

Before he could finish, his vision went black and he passed out.

When he opened his eyes again, a pair of eyes woven from a sea of stars opened once more before him!

【Fraud】!

Those whimsically swirling spirals and joyfully twinkling star-points could only be his former patron—【Fraud】!

The moment Those Eyes opened, the entire void began to take on a strange, mocking air.

"Worthy indeed, the favored child of another house. Under 【Fate】's shelter, you dare use another's prayer to blaspheme against me."

With just that one sentence, Cheng Shi broke out in a cold sweat from head to toe.

He's really sweated too much cold sweat today; at this rate he's going to dehydrate.

But you can't blame only me for this, my lord Patron. There wasn't a single mask in that starting point of the fate-path where one gets to start over!

Where were you at that time?

If you'd put half the energy you spend mocking me here into that moment, could I have broken my oath? Huh?

Thinking of this, Cheng Shi's eyes suddenly lit up.

Right! How could breaking the oath be my fault?

I couldn't resist it anyway. This is clearly you selling me out, and I haven't even come to you for an explanation yet!

So Cheng Shi lifted his head with full confidence and prepared to have a proper debate with his former patron, but who would have thought that those eyes seemed to see straight through Cheng Shi's inner thoughts, and the instant he raised his head, they shifted the subject without leaving a trace:

"Whatever you want to ask, ask quickly. I'm only passing by and can't stay long."

"..."

"Um... why did you make me break my oath?" Cheng Shi abandoned his original question and blurted out.

Those Eyes flickered twice and laughed mockingly:

"You picked up His dice yourself, and yet you dare bring this up before me?

Who gave you the courage to blaspheme against me?

Was it that new patron of yours, the one you used to call a 'whore' every time you opened your mouth?"

"..."

What a thoroughly satisfying scolding!

No—look, if you've got business, let's talk business. Can you stop tacking 'blaspheme this' and 'blaspheme that' onto every sentence?

Who did I blaspheme?

At this point I don't even blaspheme myself.

Cheng Shi set his little face and protested:

"Lord Patron, let's stick to the facts. When I returned to the starting point of the fate-path, was there only the dice inside, and no mask!?"

"What did you call me?"

"..." Damn, he'd gotten so used to it that he still forgot to correct himself every single time.

Yet those eyes in the void didn't seem to mind. Not only that, the entire void even began to liven up, with psychedelic colors quietly rising.

But Cheng Shi, wound up to the utmost, didn't notice this at all. After a moment's hesitation, he muttered softly and corrected himself.

"For... former lord Patron."

The seething void instantly froze!

Wave after wave of indescribable pressure rose from all directions. At this moment, if Cheng Shi hadn't been able to see that what stood before him was 【Fraud】, he would have even felt he was back at that moment at the starting point of the fate-path, reaching out to touch the mask!

This terrifying pressure was far stronger than back then!

Those Eyes swept over Cheng Shi with neither joy nor sorrow, their voice cold as the icy wind sweeping through an abyss.

"How do you know there was no mask inside?"

Cheng Shi stuck out his neck and said: "I reached out three times, and 【Fate】 was about to finish me off, and I never touched a single mask!"

Those Eyes shifted slightly, becoming utterly playful: "Why must the mask be placed in its original spot?"

Huh?

Huh?

Huh?

Huh?

(The meme is gone—please help me put a little kitten spinning-in-circles picture here!)

So the mask could be somewhere else?

Cheng Shi was dumbfounded.

No—at that point in time, you could still move the mask somewhere else!?

Lord Patron, please have a heart, please. What's the difference between this and not placing a mask at all?

No, there is a difference!

The difference is that it made me realize I'm a clown—a clown who lost his mask!

"So... you still placed the mask at the starting point of the fate-path, I just didn't find it, is that right?"

At this point, Cheng Shi was "utterly despondent," and he even began to doubt himself:

Why didn't I search a little longer at the starting point of the fate-path?

Why did I keep going to blaspheme against 【Fate】, pressuring my own time to choose?

Could it be that I really don't belong to 【Fraud】 but to 【Fate】?

Could I really not be a born swindler? Otherwise, why didn't I find it, or even sense the mask that should have belonged to me?

He was dumbfounded, feeling that he was now like a clown with no righteous cause and no strong voice, absurdly questioning a lofty "Him"!

If this isn't blasphemy, what could be called blasphemy......

He tried several times to open his mouth, wanting to ask where that false face had been placed, but then closed it again, unable to face himself.

But just then, the spiral in those eyes suddenly began spinning rapidly again, and "He" laughed, laughing happily.

"Heh~

I really didn't put it away."

"......"

Cheng Shi felt as if struck by five thunderbolts, his mind going blank for an instant. He looked at those rapidly blinking eyes before him in disbelief, and finally recognized one thing again, namely:

Cheng Shi is a clown!

"He" was right, Cheng Shi really is a clown!

However......

What a coincidence, my damn name is exactly Cheng Shi!!!