“The other guest holding a whip has left for the time being. He said that after he finds the heart, he will grant me the death I desire.”
Edmund gazed at Bai Liu peacefully, serenely, smiling as though he had expected everything. “But I know he won’t find it, because that heart doesn’t belong to him—it belongs to you. You found the place where I hid the heart, didn’t you?”
Bai Liu raised an eyebrow. He sat down on a wooden stool with practiced ease and lifted his eyes to study Edmund opposite him with a trace of interest. “It seems you aren’t an ordinary NPC. How did you know?”
Edmund removed the spectacles hanging from his ears. Beneath eyes filled with crushed ice, there seemed to be an infinite, hidden, profound sea.
As if caught in a trance, he lightly touched Bai Liu with his withered knuckles. “I have seen you, in a certain person’s dreamlike prophecy.”
Bai Liu asked, “Whose prophecy?”
“[The Judge Who Defies God], a fellow who betrayed God.” Edmund murmured softly, his gaze vacant. “I can extract his memories. And so, within his memories, I saw the truth of everything. I saw the future and the prophecies concerning you.”
“I awakened because of it. I can no longer forget anything that has happened, nor can I move toward death and extinction, because none of it is real. I know I will come back to life again.”
“In the end, I had no choice but to punish myself again and again through the hands of you players, using that to maintain my existence.”
“Only the Lord, only God, can completely absolve my sins and dissolve the existence of this evil, game-like world.”
Edmund’s eyes lost focus as he looked at Bai Liu, his lips trembling.
“—I saw it in the prophecy. You can accomplish all of this.”
“That was a prophecy filled with hope and despair. It is the fate that belongs to you, and to God.”
In a distant, sacred tone, Edmund recited the prophecy he had seen:
“The Evil God boasted that everyone wanders in his shadow.
The person in the shadow is fourteen years old.
Thus, the Evil God bestowed upon this person a spine, a heart, and a divine emblem,
boasting that this person would be its only believer.
The person in the shadow is twenty-four years old.
Then the Evil God falls upon the snowy plains, and the believer’s soul drifts in the deep sea.
Spine, heart, divine emblem—all shattered—”
Edmund looked straight at Bai Liu.
“The Evil God changes; God dies because of you, and exists eternally because of evil.”
After he finished reciting, he doubled over in a violent coughing fit, as if struck by some irresistible curse. Edmund hurriedly pulled a bloodstained silk handkerchief from his breast pocket and covered his mouth, coughing hoarsely as blood spilled out.
Edmund seemed to be enduring some kind of agony. He strained his head back as if he could not breathe, his face twisting in pain as sharp gasps escaped his throat.
He gripped Bai Liu’s hand with deathly force, staring at him with bloodshot eyes.
“Only the games God has stepped through are real. Only the games God has abandoned can be destroyed. Only the monsters God has killed will truly cease to exist.”
“—Bai Liu, from the moment you entered this game, it became real across all dimensions.”
“If Spades truly destroys those corpse pieces, Tawil will no longer exist anywhere, at any point in time.”
“He will be like the monsters in all the games you’ve cleared before. Once his weakness is exploited, he will completely, eternally, and thoroughly disappear from every perceivable world. Even the traces of his existence will be erased.”
“He is not a monster without a weakness, child. The death you bestow is his only weakness.”
Edmund’s face turned a purplish red from excessive suffocation, and his voice became so faint it was almost inaudible. Tears filled his eyes, and he looked as though an invisible hand was viciously choking him, stopping him from revealing this prophecy to Bai Liu.
“I know he is very important to you. But child, no one can escape fate. Not even God.”
“The price paid for defying fate is beyond your imagination.”
The moment Edmund loosened his grip on Bai Liu’s hand, the hand choking his throat seemed to release him as well.
He slid off the wooden stool, stumbling as he propped himself up, gasping and coughing weakly. Trembling, he pulled a flat iron flask of vodka from the pouch at his waist, tipped his head back, and took two quick gulps. Only then did he finally manage to compose himself.
There was not a trace of emotion on Bai Liu’s face. His hands remained on the table in the same position they had been in when Edmund gripped them. His pure black eyes looked at Edmund sitting opposite him without a single ripple.
“Since defying fate has a price, then it is nothing more than a transaction.”
Edmund, his cheeks flushed from the alcohol, looked back at him. “It is indeed a transaction, but that price is too high. The God we trade our fates with is far too greedy; no one can redeem their own fate from his hands.”
Bai Liu said calmly, “Since the transaction is impossible, then kill him and find someone else to be God.”
After saying this, he rose from the table with a natural expression, as though he had heard nothing at all. Edmund shook his head and waved a hand.
“I know what you all came here for. The fuel is behind the house. Take it all.”
He took another sip of strong liquor and muttered to himself, “—Just leave one barrel for me. I’ll use it to burn myself to death.”
“Everything... is almost over.”
Bai Liu’s departing footsteps did not pause for even a second.
The group took the fuel and headed back. Edmund seemed to have known they were coming and had even tied the fuel to the sleds in advance, so there was no need to notify Tang Erda and have him fly the helicopter over to load it.
Everything proceeded exceptionally smoothly, but on the way back, everyone was silent, and the atmosphere was inexplicably heavy.
Mu Shicheng wanted to ask what that prophecy had been about, but the look on Liu Jiayi’s face—ugly to the extreme—suppressed his desire to speak.
Bai Liu handed the fuel over to Tang Erda with a normal expression, then returned to the helicopter to record data. He sent the other three into the tent first to warm up, then prepared to rotate with Tang Erda himself.
He arranged everything in perfect order, without a single flaw.
But Liu Jiayi did not enter the tent to warm up as Bai Liu wanted. Instead, she climbed into the helicopter.
She was shivering all over from the cold, and the wind had reddened the rims of her gray, hazy eyes. Her voice was hoarse from restraint.
“Bai Liu, what are you trying to do?”
Bai Liu was sitting in the pilot’s seat. He did not turn around to answer her question—which was very rare.
This person seemed extremely dictatorial, but ever since Liu Jiayi had communicated with him at the Rose Factory, Bai Liu had always carefully asked for and summarized everyone’s opinions before making a decision.
Bai Liu was not a truly autocratic tactician. On the contrary, he was the rare gentle type who never avoided his teammates’ questions.
If Liu Jiayi’s previous hesitation had come from an incompatibility in style, a kind of inappropriate questioning, then Bai Liu’s silence now confirmed the suspicion that had just sprouted in her mind.
Bai Liu... was really going to do something out of bounds.
Liu Jiayi asked again, “Bai Liu, do you dare look me in the eye and tell me what you were thinking when Edmund told you Tawil would disappear?”
Bai Liu still did not turn around, but this time, he answered.
“I was thinking about how to beat Spades.”
“On the premise of not destroying Tawil’s heart, right?!” Liu Jiayi’s voice was almost sharp.
She fought to keep calm. “Bai Liu, wake up. Spades has already found the [True End] route. Most of Tawil’s corpse pieces have already been destroyed by him. If you want to clear the game, you have to destroy the heart.”
“Even if we take ten thousand steps back and say you can beat Spades and force him to quit the game, if you want to protect Tawil from being destroyed, you can only stop this game from ending. Then you would have to forever—”
“—Stay in this snowfield with this heart forever.” Bai Liu turned his head and calmly finished the second half of her sentence. “As long as one player remains trapped in the game, the game will not end. The ending of the game cannot be loaded into reality, and time will remain stagnant. Even if Tawil has only one heart left, he can exist forever.”
Liu Jiayi’s tears fell like rain. “Fuck your father, are you crazy?! You’ll freeze to death here!”
Her voice trembled. “Bai Liu, the system shop and warehouse inside the game pool are closed, and no game can be returned to the game pool’s rotation before it ends. If you stay here, and if we’re forced by you to quit the game, no one will ever be able to find you again. Even if you use soul notes, there’ll be no way to contact us.”
“You’ll be alone here in isolation, using up the supplies bit by bit, and then you’ll either starve or freeze to death.”
If Bai Liu intended to stay here, Liu Jiayi could completely guess what this person’s next move would be—he would absolutely force them away!
Bai Liu did not deny the situation Liu Jiayi predicted. Instead, he looked at her with a smile. “Not necessarily. I can eat the monsters’ flesh, and if I turn into a monster, I can survive...”
Before he could finish, Liu Jiayi stepped forward with her head lowered and slapped him fiercely across the face.
Bai Liu’s head was whipped to the side by the blow.
“You really are a beast, Bai Liu.” Liu Jiayi lifted her head slightly. Her eyes behind the goggles were hazy and unfocused, and tears fell one after another. Her cheeks were flushed from crying, but her voice remained fierce. “You just have to tell me your damn fate, don’t you?”
—Even though she knew what Bai Liu was going to do, even though she knew this person would act this way regardless—lonely and unstoppable—even though she knew she could guess what he was going to do—
She still could not stop him. That bastard Bai Liu could always find a thousand, ten thousand ways to achieve his goals. So she could only guess, and then watch helplessly as he walked toward the very step she had predicted.
Liu Jiayi could no longer hold back her tears. Through gritted teeth, she cursed, “Bai Liu, you really are something. I must have been blind to join your team.”
Bai Liu lowered his eyes, a small five-finger mark on his face. “I’m sorry.”
Liu Jiayi turned her face away and sniffled.
Since joining the team, Bai Liu had never said “I’m sorry” to anyone else.
Both times this person had apologized, it had been to her. But he said it and never changed. Whenever something happened, he only cared about others and never about himself.
Who wants him to care!
He just doesn’t know. He doesn’t know...
Thinking of this, another wave of inexplicable anger rose in Liu Jiayi, making her wish she could slap Bai Liu again.
But in the end, Liu Jiayi only sat back down in exhaustion, shrinking into the seat that was far too large for her. She hugged her arms against the cold, curled herself into a ball, and asked softly in a lost voice, “Is that wandering NPC called Tawil really that important to you?”
Bai Liu looked out of the helicopter.
The wind and snow outside had stopped. The rare sunlight of this Antarctic season spilled across the snow, reflecting through the glass and casting a hazy, ethereal layer of pale white light over Bai Liu’s face.
At this moment, he was actually still smiling. Reflected in that clear light on the snow, there was a touch of tenderness like melting snow.
“Yes.” Bai Liu turned his head to look at Liu Jiayi, his voice gentler than it had ever been before.
Bai Liu’s eyes curved slightly as he repeated, “Yes.”
“He is very, very important.”
—
Author’s Note:
The finale is HE!!! A happy-ending kind of HE! Screaming!
