Chang Xu advanced toward the statue at the heart of the altar, his steps slow and deliberate.
A torrent of thoughts, none of them his own, washed over his consciousness, gradually merging with his own mind until they were inseparable.
Phantasmagorical visions swam around him. The immense specter of a whale drifted overhead, and he felt as if he were walking on the ocean floor, stumbling forward with each unsteady step.
Another stone stele materialized before him. Chang Xu halted, his gaze sweeping over the inscription as the system interface processed the information, displaying a series of fragmented phrases:
[Rule... Contamination... Sacrifice...]
[Sin... Devouring... Nightmare...]
His mind automatically filled the gaps between the words, weaving them into a grotesque vision:
A hideous, ancient creature erupted from the earth, only to immediately begin to decay at its edges. Its limbs vanished piece by piece, as if being devoured bite by bite by an invisible entity.
Thick black smoke billowed from the wounds, shrouding vast stretches of the sea. All living things seemed to be erased inch by inch, as if by a phantom eraser, vanishing on the spot and leaving only empty ships adrift on the water.
Chang Xu found himself unconsciously reviewing his experiences since entering the instance.
At the very beginning, Captain Crouch had demanded the passengers sleep, warning that anyone who awoke mid-journey would vanish into thin air...
There was no night on the island, only a perpetual twilight staining the sky. The architecture defied logic, its geomancy unsettling. The clock tower almost certainly housed a parallel space, since none of the teams sent to explore it had ever crossed paths...
The hands of the Fate Pocket Watch, an instrument meant to mark objective time, were frozen...
The answer was clear. A voice whispered strange syllables beside his ear, like a divine proclamation: "Awaken... Leave this long dream that does not belong to you..."
The surrounding scenery began to vibrate violently, the light before him intensifying at a tangible rate. Chang Xu knew this was the prelude to awakening from the great dream.
His intuition told him that waking up would mean clearing the instance. Or rather, some power wished for him to go no further and was offering his departure as a compromise.
But he couldn't leave.
Qi Si and Liu Yuhan were still in the Puppet Master's clutches. If he failed to retrieve Poseidon's Scepter, they would die.
Chang Xu closed his eyes and declared with calm conviction, "This is not a dream."
In the endless void, an invisible world-line twisted for a moment. The space around him stabilized, and the brightness receded, returning to its original gloom.
Chang Xu opened his eyes and resumed his advance, his expression unwavering.
Phantoms of myriad sea creatures drifted through the void. From the distance, the wind carried the melody of an ancient, indecipherable ballad.
The white statue, with its fish head and writhing tentacles, was only a few steps away. Directly in front of it stood the final stone stele.
Chang Xu approached it, taking in every character of the inscription. He then followed its instructions, kneeling and bowing low to the ground.
"The Lord of Time and Space, wandering the border between life and death."
"The Master of Fate, presiding over calamity and fortune."
"The Immortal Existence, heralding doom and revelation."
The instant he finished reciting the three divine names, a figure with black hair and black robes materialized before him. It seemed another illusion, its edges fading into near transparency, with only a pair of brilliant golden eyes standing out with piercing clarity.
The vision flickered and was gone, the figure vanishing without a trace. In its place stood a bone-white scepter. The slender, two-meter staff stood stark and solitary, its pointed tip reminiscent of a legendary trident.
Chang Xu reached out, his hand closing around the scepter. It was ice-cold. The instant he touched it, a chaotic stream of characters flashed frantically across his system interface, like a malfunctioning string of code.
[Name: Poseidon's Scepter]
[Type: ##(Data Deleted)##]
[Effect: ##(Data Deleted)##]
[Note: ##(ERROR!)##]
A torrent of information about the entire island poured into his mind, followed by data on the surrounding seas, near and far, and even territories so remote they defied comprehension.
The vast network of waterways and the scattered landmasses within it felt as if they had become part of his very soul—an extension of his body, a continuation of his limbs.
His consciousness was a swirling vortex, his thoughts no longer clear, yet Chang Xu still knew what he had to do.
Clutching the cold, white scepter, he turned with difficulty and began to retrace his steps, heading back toward Qi Si and Liu Yuhan.
The young man beside the "Let the Dead Halt Here" stele still had the girl's slender neck in a tight grip. Her eyes, fixed on Chang Xu, were filled with sorrow and a desperate plea for help.
Chang Xu came to a stop before the young man and offered the scepter. "Let them go," he stated.
"Of course." The young man's smile was genuine as he reached out with his left hand to take the scepter. "The Sila Guild's reputation is impeccable. I, the Puppet Master, never break my word."
Chang Xu felt a flicker of strangeness at the statement, but before he could grasp the source of his unease, the young man flipped his wrist and thrust the sharp end of the scepter at him.
He tried to dodge, but the power of the Sea God burst from the scepter's tip, pinning him where he stood.
He lowered his gaze to see his chest run through. Blood snaked down the stark white staff, staining the young man's pale fingers and splattering onto his pristine white shirt.
A cold rain poured down from the heavens. Its briny scent was so strong it felt like waves surging up from the depths of the sea. The drumming of the rain on the sand mingled with the sound of the surf, becoming indistinguishable, and even the tolling of the distant bell seemed to fade into an ethereal silence.
A voice from deep within his memory laughed and asked, 'Is that a bell calling to prayer, or is it a death knell tolling for the dead?'
His strength ebbed away with his blood. The searing pain of a pierced heart dragged his consciousness into chaos.
Chang Xu sank weakly to his knees. Scattered memories surged like a returning tide, images flashing past too quickly for him to grasp.
In the hazy darkness, he heard the voice of a god, sacred and solemn:
"Awaken."
...
Qi Si yanked the scepter free and watched Chang Xu's body collapse to the ground, too waterlogged to even kick up sand.
The rain fell hard, quickly forming shallow pools on the stone platform. The water washed the blood away, diluting its crimson to a pale, watery pink.
Qi Si scrutinized Chang Xu's body, which lay motionless on the ground. Still feeling uneasy, he lifted the scepter and stabbed the corpse several more times in the back for good measure.
Once certain that the man was as dead as he could possibly be, Qi Si bent down and searched the body from head to toe. To his disappointment, the man was so destitute that he carried nothing but the clothes on his back.
Losing interest, he pulled back and turned to the vacant-eyed Liu Yuhan beside him. "Let's go," he said. "Time to take the real TE route."
Still reeling from Chang Xu's death, Liu Yuhan asked numbly, "Why did you kill him? Wasn't he your teammate?"
"Because he'd outlived his usefulness..." Qi Si's mood lifted as he recalled the sight of Chang Xu's death.
He started walking toward their destination, explaining with a grin, "A fool like him, with his bleeding-heart complex and love of livestreaming, was nothing but a liability. Rather than have him figure things out later and chase me to the ends of the earth, it's much more convenient for everyone to just... see him off now."
Liu Yuhan's breathing grew ragged, laced with palpable fear.
Qi Si offered her some mock comfort. "Don't worry, I won't do the same to you. After all, your soul is in my hands. I have no reason to fear you'll do anything I can't control."
"Of course," he added, "if you ever get any bright ideas, killing you will be even easier than it was to kill him."
Liu Yuhan listened in silence, her fists clenched.
Yes, she had signed a Soul Contract, pledging her soul to some unknown, malevolent god... From now on, as long as she was in the game, Qi Si would know her every thought, control her every action. She was no longer her own person, but a demon's tool, an accomplice in harming others...
What was the difference between a "Soul Contract" and "Puppet Threads"? No, this was worse. A puppet was already "dead"; their sins were disconnected from who they were in life. But she was alive, forced to consciously serve dishes at a banquet of evil...
The right thing to do would be to kill herself on the spot, to refuse to be an accomplice to this demon. But she couldn't bring herself to die so easily, not after she had fought so hard for a new lease on life...
"Interested in another contract?" Liu Yuhan heard Qi Si ask, his voice full of mirth.
She started, her first instinct to refuse. But then a thought followed close behind: *Things are already this bad. How much worse can they get?*
And so, against her better judgment, she asked, "What kind of contract?"
Qi Si turned to look her in the eye. "Clear one hundred more instances, and I'll set you free."
In the sanctuary of her mind, a blood-red contract unfurled. It was already filled with gilded script—the terms of their previous agreement. A golden quill materialized out of nowhere and added a new line in fine print at the very end.
Liu Yuhan saw new text refresh on her system interface.
[Soul Redemption Progress: 0/100]
One hundred instances was a staggering number, an impossible task at first glance. But it was infinitely better than an eternity of enslavement. At the very least, a glimmer of hope had returned to her bleak life.
Liu Yuhan was accustomed to climbing toward hope. For eighteen years, her goal had been to escape her small hometown and get into a university in a major city. Now, that goal had merely shifted to clearing one hundred instances. She would succeed. She had to, just as she had before...
"If you want your freedom, you'd better get to work clearing instances. One a day, and you'll be free in a little over three months, won't you?" Qi Si said with an encouraging smile. He walked a few more paces and stopped in front of a skeleton that had long rested among the coconut palms.
This was the skeleton he had tasked Chang Xu with retrieving from the top of the clock tower. As far as Qi Si was concerned, it was the key to a perfect clear.
He summoned the recorder from his inventory, pressed play, and bent to place it at the skeleton's feet.
"Oh, gods, save me..."
As the familiar song played, a confused Liu Yuhan asked, "What's this for?"
Qi Si patiently explained, "You must have figured it out by now. Yuna wanted to become a god-like being. She sacrificed others to the Sea God so she could live forever in this secluded sea, free from harm."
Liu Yuhan thought for a few seconds, then nodded.
"Given your intellect, you've probably also deduced that this sea isn't part of reality. It's a dreamscape. We were brought here automatically after falling asleep in the so-called 'Devil's Triangle.' And if you die here, you vanish."
Liu Yuhan recalled the ship from the beginning of the instance and Captain Crouch's seemingly alarmist warnings. She nodded lightly.
Qi Si picked up the recorder and stood beside the skeleton. "Here's another clue for you. The first people Yuna sacrificed were slaves during the triangular trade. They wanted to seal off the sea lanes to foreign lands to end their people's suffering. So, based on their wishes, the Sea God created this collective dreamscape: the Hopeless Sea."
"Yuna deceived them," Liu Yuhan said, realization dawning. "The triangular trade didn't end. She just used their lives to enclose this stretch of sea for herself and then appointed herself their savior."
"Clever girl," Qi Si said, his eyes curving into a smile. "So, tell me, how do you think they'll feel when they realize their sacrifice was pointless? That, in fact, more of their people died because of them?"
The rain was a torrent, splashing up fine droplets that hung in the air like a white mist.
Qi Si stood drenched in the aqueous light of this world. Water streamed from his hair, ran down his cheeks, and soaked deeper into his sodden shirt.
Fish-headed monstrosities peeked out from behind the dense palm trees, one by one, and gathered around the skeleton. Communication between the living and the dead may be difficult, but now that they were all among the dead, their memories and thoughts could connect. And so, a long-buried truth clawed its way back to the surface.
The monstrosities seemed to understand. A chorus of whimpers and roars rose into the air. The landscape began to shudder, dissolving into mottled patches of color, like the tangled, confused moments just before waking.
The rain seemed to connect everything. Qi Si raised his eyes and saw a beautiful woman in a long blue dress standing a short distance away.
Sorrow and confusion were etched onto her lovely features, her expression a silent question: Why was he doing this?
"The answer is simple," Qi Si said, smiling through the downpour. "You have nothing left to offer me, so I have to pursue the perfect clear that I want." The malice behind his smile was bone-chilling.
The world dissolved into a vast, milky whiteness. Through the mist, Yuna's image was no longer visible.
Amid the roaring rain, Qi Si gave a slight bow, his smile stretching into a grotesque grin. "Humans believe in gods for one reason: to invent a sliver of hope in the harsh struggle for survival. To convince themselves that their suffering will be rewarded, that their souls will find salvation."
"In the faith you once followed, you must have heard the words: 'Before the Messiah can build his kingdom, he must suffer and die.'"
"So, since you want to be a god, why don't you—go have a taste of death first? Hahahaha!"
Amid his crazed laughter, the scene faded to black, and lines of silver text scrolled across the system interface.
[Entire Worldview Decoded]
[Congratulations to the player for clearing the multiplayer instance "Hopeless Sea"]
[A god is a god. They need not love the world, nor do they require faith. Those who would become gods through deceit, seeking faith through lies, will ultimately face the backlash.]
The sound of the rain never ceased.
The darkness around him gradually receded. Qi Si found himself standing on the deck of a massive sailing ship. His hair and shirt were surprisingly dry, stirring gently in the sea breeze.
Only then did he realize that the torrential rain he'd been hearing was nothing more than the sound of waves crashing against the ship's hull.
He glanced around. The deck was much emptier now. Besides himself, only Liu Yuhan and the captain remained—or more accurately, one human and one ghost.
The [Fate Pocket Watch] in his item slot had become usable again. It seemed he had finally escaped the collective dreamscape of the Hopeless Sea.
Gazing at the watch's unused effect, [Rewind Objective Time by One Minute], Qi Si felt an irresistible, self-destructive urge welling up.
He promptly strolled over to the captain and asked with a gossipy grin, "So, Mr. Ghost, what was your relationship with Yuna? Don't tell me it was some cliché plot where you fell for her and willingly helped her lure people to their doom?"
...
The time reversal effect activated, and the pocket watch icon in his inventory went gray.
Savoring the phantom pain of his recent death, Qi Si wisely propped himself against the ship's rail, keeping a healthy distance from the captain. He had no desire to provoke the simple-minded, muscle-bound NPC a second time.
The massive galleon sailed slowly across the sea. Qi Si caught the scent of blood on the wind, a metallic tang half-lost in the salty sea spray carried from afar.
He looked up to see a snow-white corpse sprawled across a black reef. Tattered blue rags clung to its limbs, dotted with bloodstains.
Several fish-headed monsters were crouched over the corpse, tearing away mouthfuls of flesh. The exposed ribs, arranged in neat rows, made the body look disturbingly like the half-eaten carcass of a fish.
Qi Si glanced over at the captain, who was also staring at the corpse on the reef. There was no fear in his eyes, no grief—only a placid indifference, like a stagnant pool in the depths of a forest.
Was Yuna truly the only one who had prayed to the Sea God, paying the price with the lives of others?
[Religion is hypocrisy, divine power is fragile; faith that begins with a lie will end as a lie.]
A cold, electronic voice delivered the epilogue, the words appearing on the system interface:
[True End of "Hopeless Sea" - "The False God" - has been logged.]
[Automatic teleportation from the instance in three minutes]