Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

---

Chapter 69: The Burning God

Professor Gentry’s “rewind” magic was colorless.

His wand swept through the air, stirring up rings of transparent ripples. He drew another circle, and the crystal eggs containing the priest and the bones rapidly regressed, revealing their cracked, dust-covered forms.

Salaar immediately took two steps forward and supported the priest, who almost fell to the ground. The rabbit Jinx was still firmly stuck to his body, still looking half-awake and half-asleep.

Two steps away, the skeletal remains gave a light clatter.

The survivors were standing right beside the crystal egg, especially Sean, who was right next to the eggshell. Everyone thought he would catch the captain’s remains.

But he didn’t. Neither did anyone else.

The bones collapsed and rolled down. The skull rolled past the five people’s feet. The survivors wore smiles on their faces and didn’t even bother to glance at it again.

At the same time, from the shadows deep inside the master bedroom came an ominous scraping sound.

The oppressive magic fluctuations intensified. Myss unhappily rubbed his arm. It felt as if an invisible hand was pushing him outward.

Suddenly, the survivors moved.

They supported one another’s weakened bodies, stepped over the scattered bones on the ground, and advanced toward the source of the magic fluctuations.

They didn’t care about the fleshy tissue sticking to their bodies, nor did they care about the hazy, dreamlike crystal eggs. Without looking back, they walked into the darkness.

“Sean, Fiona—” Beverly almost cried out.

She was Professor Gentry’s student after all. Even though reality was this absurd, she didn’t immediately chase after them.

Asp anxiously turned his head and looked at Professor Gentry.

He said nothing, but even Myss could guess what he wanted to say.

The priest had already been rescued, and Captain Roman had been confirmed dead. The monster in the darkness was about to awaken. Even a complete fool could see now was the absolute perfect moment to retreat. No matter what was abnormal about the survivors, as long as Professor Gentry was willing to act, they could absolutely force those people to leave.

Though truthfully, Myss was in no particular hurry.

Hope Dungeon wasn’t going to grow legs and run away. If he wanted to pick the Abnormal Fruit, it would be better to wait until the priest was in better spirits and the situation in the Divine Realm was clearer. If Professor Gentry retreated now, it wouldn’t be too great a loss to him.

…However, Professor Gentry didn’t respond to Asp.

He sighed softly and pointed the fountain-pen wand at himself.

Another dense ripple of air appeared, and Professor Gentry’s appearance slowly began to change.

The wrinkles on his face completely disappeared, and his slightly curled white hair turned a deep gray like elephant hide, exactly the same color as his pupils. His slightly larger nose made those eyes look extremely sharp. His body, which had never been shriveled to begin with, became even sturdier, and the muscles beneath the fabric swelled slightly.

“Professor, this…” Asp nearly bit his tongue.

“Keep up.”

Professor Gentry spoke in a youthful voice.

At the moment, he looked to be only in his early twenties, right at the peak of his physical condition.

Beverly and Asp both looked as if they were facing a great enemy. Beverly’s measuring-tape staff and Asp’s sampling-shovel staff were gripped in their hands almost at the same second.

Without looking back, the three of them chased after the survivors.

Salaar was still carrying the priest. For some reason, despite his astonishing regenerative abilities, the priest remained fast asleep. The rabbit clinging to his body was too bizarre that Salar didn’t dare to rashly attempt to remove it.

His gaze shifted slightly, and his free hand did its best to grip the snake staff tightly. “Be careful.”

“His magic isn’t true temporal regression. It can’t change fundamental reality. He’s deceiving his own body, forcing it to exert the strength it had when it was young.”

Myss understood.

In other words, this Archmage was using magic to overdraw his body. Once the magic was released, Gentry would undoubtedly pay a heavy price.

This wasn’t preparation to “drag the survivors back.” This was preparation to face the Master of the Divine Realm.

It was far too reckless. Did this guy even realize what he was doing?

“You follow behind me. The moment there’s a problem, I’ll immediately grab you and retreat.” Myss spoke cautiously and glanced at Jinx in passing.

He had a strange sense of déjà vu. At this moment, they were chasing after the survivors a little like they had followed the rabbit Jinx not long ago.

Salaar silently nodded. He looked back at the wide-open exit of the room, his face showing more contemplation than doubt.

Tass shook his wings uncomfortably, his face a little green. But he said nothing and only slipped into the pocket watch on the priest’s body.

The survivors were either ill or crippled, so they were hardly moving fast.

Yet Professor Gentry controlled his speed with subtle precision, following behind them step by step, maintaining a distance where he was on the verge of overtaking them, but did not quite catch up.

Step after step, the group moved through the tunnel constructed from white flesh. The stench of blood in the air grew stronger and stronger, and the glow of the crystal eggs was dizzying.

Myss began to feel suffocated.

It was pure pressure, only a little weaker than Salaar at his peak. The problem was that neither he nor Salaar was anywhere close to their respective peaks currently.

The unknown pressure scraped over his nerves like a blade, and Myss’s cold sweat crawled uncontrollably from his pores. Salaar’s breathing became rapid. Myss guessed that was most likely not because of the fatigue from carrying the priest.

The stone tiles underfoot seemed to have turned into cold, damp mud. Myss’s steps grew increasingly difficult. His body drew closer and closer to Salaar’s, ready at any time to pick up his enemy and run.

If necessary, he would even be willing to abandon the troublesome priest.

This was definitely not pressure that a human body could withstand… Was this what a fully mature “god” was like?

Looking forward, Professor Gentry’s steps were still relatively steady, but Beverly’s and Asp’s legs had already begun trembling. Asp especially was staggering with every step. If Beverly hadn’t reacted quickly, he would have fallen flat on his face.

Beverly wasn’t much better. She couldn’t control her choked sobs and had to use all her strength to suppress her voice, as if there was a war waging between her mind and body.

The beast Magibases of the two students didn’t even dare remain outside. They all withdrew their forms and returned into their masters’ bodies.

Yet at the very front, the survivors’ steps didn’t slow in the slightest.

“Professor…” Beverly whispered with a trembling voice. “Professor, something’s wrong.”

“I can blow up the path at the very front and stop Sean and the others… Let’s retreat first. Something is wrong with this place…”

Asp could no longer speak. His throat made a faint clicking sound, as if he was having an asthma attack.

Professor Gentry still said nothing.

Under the radiance of the lighting magic devices, Myss could see the gleam of sweat on his skin. This Archmage was clearly also enduring it with sheer willpower.

“Banquet… Banquet… hehe…”

In that terrifying dead silence, only Jinx on the priest’s body was still making sounds. Its deformed ears twitched—undoubtedly it was having a wonderful dream.

Finally, this short yet long pursuit reached its end.

After seeing what lay at the end, Asp screamed and fainted on the spot, his body slowly sliding down along the white web of flesh.

Beverly collapsed to the ground, breathing with a whistling sound. She barely managed to stay conscious, but black-red blood flowed from her ears and nose.

“Close your eyes, Beverly. Don’t force yourself.” Professor Gentry sighed. “Your lesson can end here.”

“No…” Beverly stared with bloodshot eyes at the five survivors, who were still moving forward.

Myss, meanwhile, was watching the target the survivors were advancing toward: the existence that had brought Beverly and Asp to the verge of collapse, the Master of this dungeon Divine Realm.

It was an incomparably huge crystal egg that was suspended by the tough web of flesh. It hung vertically above a decaying four-poster bed.

Inside the crystal egg, a giant was curled up with his arms around his knees in a fetal position, his face buried between his knees.

The giant’s skin was shockingly pale. Snow-white hair surrounded his body like smoke. It filled the dark gaps, making him into a patch of pure white.

However, the structure of his body was extremely distorted, like soft wax that had been reshaped. Through the crystal eggshell that looked like a layer of ice, Myss could only make out a vague structure.

At the top of the crystal egg, there were beautiful cracks like a spiderweb.

The giant’s left arm was wrapped around his knees, while his deformed right arm was raised high. A thin, twisted finger protruded from the crack, burning with a cluster of pale flame.

From time to time, milky-white mucus dripped along the cracks and fell onto the four-poster bed below, turning into wriggling snow-white flesh. The four-poster bed was covered in white flesh, like accumulated wax drippings that were piled up.

Even more mucus drifted toward the smaller crystal eggs around it, slowly filling in the empty spaces inside them. A few eggs the size of fists were already full, vaguely revealing the appearance of baby rabbits.

Professor Gentry extended his wand without the slightest hesitation, and a ripple floated toward the enormous crystal egg.

The next second, along with a burst of exploding air, Professor Gentry was thrown backward. Salaar took two steps forward and barely blocked the Professor’s back with his body.

The pinnacle of human magic, one of the seven Archmages, Professor Gentry’s magic had no effect at all.

It was easily dissolved by that thing, like a reef scattering a wave.

Salaar placed the unconscious priest among the soft threads and looked intently at that strange god.

“You two really are… not simple…”

Professor Gentry coughed twice and glanced at Beverly, who was clutching her head and muttering chaotically in place.

“Then aren’t they even less simple?”

Myss snorted and looked toward the survivors walking toward the giant. “Those guys are definitely being controlled by this thing. They led us all the way here, and you actually fell for it!”

Professor Gentry had been acting mysterious the whole journey here, refusing to say a word. Myss had thought this guy had a backup plan, but when the moment of truth arrived, the Professor had proven utterly powerless.

Professor Gentry lightly shook his head. He looked at the burning god with eyes stained completely blood-red but still didn’t explain.

Myss instinctively looked toward Salaar and discovered that Salaar was still thinking, remaining equally quiet.

“Banquet… Banquet…” Only Jinx kept murmuring nonstop in the priest’s arms. “The banquet is about to start…”

Humans were troublesome enough.

Since Roman was dead, there were only two possibilities for the origin of the Master of the Divine Realm.

Either an exploration genius before Roman had been trapped here and received V.O.R.’s invitation letter, or the Abnormal Fruit had already appeared at the end of the Night Scourge under Hope’s rule.

The second possibility was especially shocking. It might even be related to Salaar. Myss felt an absolute imperative to uncover the truth.

Myss raised his wrist and used Fork to shoot out a fine thread.

He did his utmost to suppress its presence, making it look unlike an attack. Gentry was too useless. He had to test this thing’s depths.

Whether because he was too much of a genius, or because the Master of the Divine Realm disdained such trivialities, the magic thread smoothly climbed onto the shell of the crystal egg and quickly invaded the crack.

In the next instant, the earth abruptly trembled.

The white flame burning at the fingertip of the Master shook violently, like a dying candle in a gale. It made an ominous, soft sound, and its light instantly dimmed by more than half.

The large and small crystal eggs around them flickered nonstop, and the unformed little rabbits inside kicked uneasily. The fleshy threads around the crystal eggs twitched wildly, and the majestic pressure instantly became chaotically disordered.

Professor Gentry let out a muffled groan and almost collapsed onto Salaar. Amid the storm-like chaotic fluctuations, his magic became unstable, his face sometimes old and sometimes young.

Only, whether that face was old or young, it carried an unchanging heaviness.

“The banquet… Oh no…”

The rabbit Jinx moved in the priest’s arms. It twisted its deformed body and pressed closer to Father Kalen’s chest, like a child drawing warmth.

“No… The banquet…”

Myss shuddered and instinctively withdrew the thread in an instant.

Salaar finally spoke. “What is it?”

“This thing…” Myss frowned at that terrifying god and lowered his voice. “This thing is an empty shell. It’s about to die.”

Beneath that incomparably powerful fluctuation, the aura of the Abnormal Fruit was pitifully faint, exactly like sugarcane pulp after they had been chewed dry.

That terrifying pressure from earlier had now changed in nature. It seemed more like a beast putting on a show of force for its enemies when its oil had run dry and its lamp was spent.

But why?

If the Master of the Divine Realm wanted to live a few more days, it would have been better to simply scare them away. It had no need to control those survivors and lure them here… Wait.

If not for the survivors insisting on advancing, and if Professor Gentry hadn’t acted as if possessed and refused to stop them, they would have already left this place when faced with such a powerful and unknown existence.

If these were not the wishes of the Master of the Divine Realm, then the ones that were truly wrong were—

Myss held his breath and looked toward the five survivors.

Sean stood at the foot of the four-poster bed, with his four physically incomplete companions behind him. Under the god’s chaotic pressure, their expressions didn’t change at all.

They wore stiff smiles and looked at the weak god before them. Only now did Myss realize that those stiff smiles weren’t forced. Rather, they… could only smile like that.

Their bodies were this weak, yet they remained unmoved under the pressure of a god. There was only one kind of person in this world who could do that.

The dead.

Silence spread through the air.

Myss was clearly not the only one who had realized this, nor was he the first person to realize it.

The wide-open exit of the Divine Realm, the clearly marked traps, the rabbits who cared for humans, the god who made dreams come true.

And the miraculous “survivors” who played along with this crude fairy tale.

“We won’t be fooled by a pile of bones. If you want to play an evil god, you’re eight hundred years too early.”

Sean stretched his hand toward that weak god. It was too far away, and he couldn’t touch it.

He calmly withdrew his hand and gently pressed it against his chest, his smile not fluctuating in the slightest.

“The fairy tale is over. It’s time to wake up.”

“The ones who should leave this place aren’t us, Captain.”

---

The author has something to say:

The truth will be revealed in the next chapter. I’ll hold back and make the next chapter a long one—!

For these two, the true battleground isn’t in combat—it’s in **** [doge emoji]

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>