Chapter 243: Chapter 241: Death and Life
Endless flying parts swarmed forward, trying to obstruct the agile little eel, but nothing they did had any effect on it.
No matter what kind of attack the flying parts used, the attacks would pass straight through the eel’s soft, transparent body before dissipating into thin air.
Some parts began to glow all over and rammed toward the little eel, only to come to a dead stop after passing through it.
The runic carvings on the parts first faded slowly, then vanished completely, as if someone had simply filled them in out of nowhere.
Without their runes, the parts became useless. They fell from the sky, crashing straight to the ground like worthless scraps of iron.
The little eel ignored the frantic parts. Wriggling its body, it roamed freely through the sky and plunged into the clouds and mist. A swarm of parts converged into a dark, oppressive cloud and gave chase, disappearing from sight.
The Fishman Race was clearly startled by this scene.
They must have never expected that the Chali Race, who had offered no resistance, could cause such a commotion.
Bai Zhou had been circling the great tree, but in the blink of an eye, the permissions on his armor were locked, trapping him where he stood, unable to move.
"Search!"
Another group of armors and parts surrounded the great tree, but this time, the tree showed no reaction, as if it had truly sunk into eternal death.
Spiked parts emitted a faint glow and passed through the great tree.
A large hole appeared, running straight through the trunk.
Looking inside through the opening, the interior was completely solid. There was nothing like growth rings or natural grain, as if it were a board made from wood that had been pulverized and then pressed back together.
Only wood, no grain.
Some parts with reconnaissance functions flew forward slowly and scanned the great tree, but they found nothing.
Moreover, it seemed physical effects like burning or acid corrosion had no effect on this wood either.
"It’s really dead. Completely dead."
No interaction with the outside world—this was true death.
Mo Ling listened to the helpless voices on the Fishman communication channel, utterly shocked.
He had thought undying wood was merely ’incorruptible’.
He never imagined that complete death would be like this. The wood seemed to have lost all connection to the world; no matter what was done to it, it would not change in any way.
It couldn’t fight back, but in isolating itself from all ’life,’ the wood had also isolated itself from anything that could change its state.
This was true immortality.
As Mo Ling was still marveling at this, a new wave of surprised voices came from the Fishmen.
Following the voices with his gaze, he saw that the captive Chali Race members on the ground had all begun to transform into the shape of great trees.
Their forms grew taller, their limbs elongated, pushing aside the mist...
It seemed they too had resolved to achieve eternal life.
The Fishman Race tried to stop them, but their parts could only blast the great trees, sending wood chips flying. Shortly after, a dazed, transparent eel would fly out from amidst the wooden debris.
The Fishmen were completely helpless against these eels. They could only watch as they flew into the sky and merged with the mist, just like the little eel from before.
After realizing their attacks were futile, they all ceased their actions, looking helplessly at the still-stretching trees.
Countless transparent eels flew out from the great trees, crisscrossing in the air. Their translucent bodies refracted the light, their jelly-like surfaces shimmering.
Under the dark swarm of parts, these schools of eels looked like a cluster of fragile glass.
But they were not as fragile as they appeared.
The parts that failed to dodge and were passed through by the swarm of eels froze in mid-air before crashing to the ground and sinking into the mud not long after.
Before long, the swarm of eels blotted out the sky. They circled and intertwined, slowly rising higher and disappearing into the endless mist.
And on the ground below, only lifeless great trees remained.
"General, what do we do?"
The Fishmen asked Jeff for instructions, their voices filled with helplessness.
"Have everyone stand down. Let them go," Jeff said calmly, watching the unstoppable eels in the sky.
"But..."
Jeff cut him off. He turned to another Fishman beside him and asked, "Are the results in?"
"They are. Eternal life does indeed count as a skill, and we have already learned it," the Fishman beside him replied.
"What did it replace?"
"Origami. Specifically, folding paper into the shape of a dragon. No one in the Fishman Race knows how to fold a dragon anymore."
"Mm," Jeff nodded. "An acceptable price."
Then, he ordered the Fishman, "Have someone start experimenting immediately. It doesn’t need to be precise, just as long as they achieve eternal death."
"Yes, General. Someone is already trying it."
...
Mo Ling listened to their conversation, somewhat surprised.
’Learned it?’
’They’ve already learned eternal life?’
Although he had just seen what the Chali Race member did and had listened to his explanation, Mo Ling didn’t understand at all.
’I get the principle—half eternal death in exchange for half eternal life—but how do you actually do the exchange?’
Mo Ling had no idea how the Chali Race member had transformed into a tree, nor did he know how to turn a soul into an eel and have it emerge from the tree.
Watching the earnest members of the Fishman Race, Mo Ling suddenly realized he was the only bad student in the class.
The teacher taught a math lesson on addition and subtraction within ten.
"Class, five plus five equals ten. Got it?"
"One half is five, and the other half is also five!"
The students below all replied, "Understood! That’s too easy, Teacher!"
But Mo Ling was scratching his head:
’What is a five?’
After the students learned it, they all started doing the problems. Only Mo Ling remained in his seat, staring blankly. The teacher didn’t pay him any mind and simply ended the class.
The teacher probably never imagined that someone hadn’t even learned their numbers, let alone addition and subtraction.
’But nobody ever taught me how to turn into a tree!’
Mo Ling felt a bit helpless. ’Can these Fishmen really figure out anything?’
He was now like that bad student, sitting in his seat, looking around helplessly as everyone else scribbled furiously. His heart was filled with both suspicion and confusion.
Soon, all sorts of discussions began to ring out among the Fishmen:
"Use the transformation rune, link it to wood material, and target the boundary between living and non-living states. For the conversion base, don’t use the whole body at first. Test it on something else."
"Nope, it threw an error."
"Then the problem must be with the ’living and non-living’ targeting. It’s too vague. We need to find a way to make it more precise."
"You can’t be precise with that. It’s either living or non-living; there’s no in-between."
"Yes, you can. Open the settings. There’s a ’Precise Search’ option. Check that box, and then go into personalization settings and turn off ’Automatically Snap to Approximate Values.’"
"Okay, I’ll try..."
"Did it throw an error?"
"No, everything’s normal. It’s loading..."
