“Damn it! Evil God! Blood Feast Lord…”
If he hadn't faced a Saint before, Xia De would have definitely collapsed the moment that figure appeared.
His vision blurred, ears buzzed, sense of smell was disoriented, taste was lost, Balance was chaotic, touch disappeared, memory deteriorated, and emotions were in turmoil.
Xia De wanted to laugh out loud, to cry uncontrollably, to kneel and pray, and yet also to curse the heavens.
His mind was strangely calm, but his body was completely out of control. The shadow of a high-dimensional existence appearing just before its manifestation, the essence it displayed, had already nearly driven this body insane.
This was not an incarnation by borrowing a vessel, descending in a Saint's state; this was an Evil God descending directly.
“No, how can I go mad so easily! The doctor and the others are still waiting for me to lead them away, Miss Annette is still waiting for me to keep her token safe, and Mia is still waiting for me to come home!”
The Outsider had been fearful when he first arrived in this world, but he was never weak. Human courage was a hymn of praise. He had almost nothing in this world, but because of that, he cherished everything he did have even more.
His stubborn will persisted, making him bite the tip of his tongue to regain clarity through the pain, but more crucially, the blessing granted by The Innocent Creator exerted its final power at this moment, allowing him to finally regain some control over his body.
Just the blurry figure descending at this moment was enough to almost drive Xia De insane. The Gods of this world were truly high-dimensional existences.
“This is truly bad.”
Xia De thought to himself. As the Blood Feast began, the other living sacrifices in the room had gone completely mad. They tore at each other, walking towards death the moment the God's shadow stepped into the room.
“Since you’re conscious, do you want to escape?”
The woman murmured, her voice brushing against his mind, unexpectedly making his consciousness clearer. Xia De even felt a separation between his body and soul at that moment; his body was going mad, but his soul remained stable.
“Even if I could leave, what about here? What about the doctor and the others? What about this City? I'm not some righteous messenger, but now, no matter what, I can't leave.”
The figures of the wildly dancing monsters flickered in and out of the blood mist, and human remains, served on silver and gold tableware, collectively called for Xia De to partake of them.
He dragged his disobedient body towards the red-robed great one's figure, which was gradually becoming clearer.
“You still have a way.”
“Even if I die, I can't die on the run. I still have a crazy idea, even though it's just a Document-level relic.”
“But it’s already your only idea.”
Xia De nodded weakly amidst his trembling, forcing himself to put on the vampire ring.
The ring could absorb the blood of humanoid creatures through touch to help its wearer heal. The living sacrifices were all dead, and the distorted monsters in the blood mist certainly weren't humanoid creatures. But besides Xia De, there was one other here.
The illusions before him intensified. The Blood Feast, with its hanging blood corpses, almost completely overlapped with the Lakeview Manor's banquet hall. The Evil God's shadow had fully descended, and then came its true form.
He leaned on the long table, trying not to touch the empty chairs or the exquisite utensils and delicacies on the table. With each step he took, the real banquet hall faded a bit, and the illusory, bloody hall became a bit more real.
By the time Xia De, almost unable to bear it, reached the main seat of the banquet hall—the only golden chair at the end of the long table—he even began to doubt that his entire new life was just a dream.
“Sorry, if I die, you’ll also disappear, right?”
“Do you finally believe that I am you?”
The impulse made Xia De want to collapse right then, but the courage and resolve in his heart still made him extend the hand wearing the vampire ring, reaching towards the still very illusory reflection of the red-robed Evil God, about to descend, in the golden chair before him.
His consciousness was about to sink, and the blood mist was harming his body. The great one's reflection was right before his eyes, and he was finally about to collapse. He felt as if he were trying to touch an abyss, and the abyss was devouring his everything.
“Whether you are me or not, it no longer matters. I'm sorry I couldn't let you see more stories, more journeys.”
At this moment, Xia De completely understood: whether she was him or not was unimportant, but having someone accompany him in the last moment of life, that was important. She truly had been with him all along, even now.
The Old God's reflection trembled slightly, turning towards the man who was about to fall. The immense pressure made him tremble. The Innocent Creator's blessing was about to disappear; once he collapsed in this Blood Feast, he would become part of the feast, just like those living sacrifices.
His finger moved slightly forward. In his blurry vision, his finger was only an inch away from the Evil God's shadow. But with a soft click, a crack appeared in the amber of the ring's face; the ring could not withstand close contact with a God.
“Sure enough, a Document-level (Tier 4) relic is useless against a God.”
He fell towards the ground, which was covered in a writhing, blood-red fungal mat.
“Of course it’s useless in others’ hands, but you are different, Outsider, because…”
“Sorry.”
“Why sorry?”
A soft and warm female body embraced him from behind, steadying his steps. The woman's head rested on Xia De's shoulder, her long hair gently caressing Xia De's cheek. This was reality, or perhaps an illusion; Xia De could no longer tell the difference.
“Do you still refuse to accept my existence?”
She whispered in his ear.
“Are you really me?”
He whispered before her.
“What does that matter? You have come here; you should accept all of this. If you can't even accept the present, how can you accept yourself?”
She asked softly.
“Will you always be by my side?”
He asked with his last shred of consciousness.
A soft laugh came from beside his ear, her hair brushing against his ear.
Her hand took his hand, but Xia De, who could barely open his eyes, could not see the appearance of that arm.
“Of course, Outsider, I am with you.”
Their hands reached forward together, and they both murmured:
“You are me…”
“…I am you.”
Xia De's hand touched the still not fully manifested shadow of the Old God, the Blood Feast Lord. The cracked ring on his finger drew power, then the amber of its face crumbled into dust, and the ring itself quickly corroded and cracked.
As the corroded metal fell from his finger, the illusory Evil God's shadow was absorbed into Xia De's palm. He felt as if a mountain had been crammed into his arm, and a distorted, violent force impacted his soul. The Blood Feast before him became even blurrier, his soul seemed to expand to its limit in an instant, and the distorted monsters in the blood mist, whether real or not, roared. For a moment, he even saw himself sitting on that grand golden chair.
But he also felt an endless emptiness in his stomach and perceived the woman letting out a delightful chuckle:
“You have touched the shadow of the Old God ‘Blood Feast Lord’.”
“An existence born in endless revelry, immersed in desire and pleasure, taboo and blasphemy. In the twilight of the old days, it survived by hiding in the shadows of human hearts, freely traversing joyful banquets.”
“You have listened to the story of the Old God ‘Blood Feast Lord’, and you have learned of the Miracles of the Old God ‘Blood Feast Lord’.”
“Outsider, you have inscribed the silver blasphemy Ling Rune - Gluttony.”
The endless hunger tore Xia De from the dying illusion. The power drawn from the Evil God's shadow repaired his severely injured body and the negligible cost he paid for writing the script.
Behind him, bells hummed, whistles sounded, steam surged, and giant hammers pounded.
The rotating brass Destiny Ring reappeared in the material world, and above the Destiny Ring, the silver Ling Rune gluttony, as if dripping blood, manifested.
At the same time, a drop of golden liquid silently permeated into the Destiny Ring.
“Xia De, perhaps, this is your welcome Blood Feast.”