Chapter 204: You Are the Prey, and I am the Hunter (Two-in-One)
“My beloved, what are you doing?”
Feeling Rast leisurely and methodically closing the gaps in his spiritual world.
He realized that his divine consciousness from the Divine Descent had been completely sealed within Rast’s mind, in a state that he could never escape.
Even with the knowledge of the Deep Blue Port Evil God, he couldn’t help but feel slightly bewildered at this moment.
Had he been trapped on the threshold of the Radiant Heaven for too long, rendering him completely unable to keep up with the thought processes of present-day humans?
Why was this Divine Descent process so different from his expectations of a magnificent reign, easily able to crush all with mere aftershocks?
“Of course, I am doing what you see, my lord.”
Rast’s voice remained respectful and pious, making the consciousness of the Deep Blue Port Evil God feel quite good, as if bathed in a spring breeze.
However, within that respectful tone, there lay a strange sensation that made the divine consciousness feel a slight chill deep down.
“After all, a great existence like you was sent fleeing like a stray dog by humans at the end of the First Era in the Age of Gods, taking refuge on the threshold of Radiant Heaven in disgrace.”
“Over the years, all that the mortal realm has heard is the names of gods, yet it has been difficult to find the traces of deities… Even if one exhausts all efforts to search, one can often only find small fry like cultists.”
“A living divine half-body and a fresh living divine consciousness… This is an extremely rare treasure in the Western Continent.”
In the spiritual world, Rast’s spiritual avatar leisurely wiped his hands, carefully scrutinizing the divine consciousness of the Deep Blue Port Evil God.
His serious and focused demeanor resembled an archaeologist appraising a prehistoric artifact of great scientific value.
“Just like a hunter in the forest, after enduring countless hardships and using various tricks, finally finds the trace of a rare prey and lures it into the trap he has set—”
“Having come this far, how could the hunter allow such a rare prey to escape easily?”
Listening to Rast’s words, the expression of the Deep Blue Port Evil God’s consciousness gradually darkened.
Though the tone of this believer in front of him remained respectful… the things he said grew increasingly strange, increasingly felt wrong.
Until Rast finished his last sentence, the Deep Blue Port Evil God finally realized.
“Prey—”
“You mean, you treat me… the deity on the threshold of Radiant Heaven as prey?”
The grand and expansive voice echoed throughout Rast’s entire spiritual world, thundering like a clap of thunder.
“Do you understand what you are saying?”
“A mere human, akin to an ant, actually dares to hunt a god?”
The tone of the divine consciousness sounded as if it had heard the greatest joke.
“Do you know that even if it is just a little of my power that descends through the threshold of Radiant Heaven, to erase you, such an ant is as easy as lifting a hand?”
The Deep Blue Port Evil God raised both hands, as if to activate their divine power to unleash divine punishment, intending to directly turn this audacious human, who dared to deceive him, into ashes.
However, alongside their furious voice, divine punishment did not descend.
The Deep Blue Port Evil God was slightly taken aback, then came back to their senses, retracting the previous action.
The power descended through the threshold of Radiant Heaven was divided into “Divine Power” and “Divine Consciousness,” these two parts complementing each other, yet existing independently.
At this moment, according to the original Divine Descent plan, his divine power was acting directly on the body of the other party, while the divine consciousness was sealed by Rast within his spiritual world—this connection between the two was severed by body and mind, thus unable to exert any effect.
It was as if the military command system had been incapacitated by electronic warfare during military operations.
Without a command system, which was his divine consciousness’s dominion, even the strongest divine power that descended could only be a masterless entity, incapable of exerting any effect.
“I see—”
“You want to trap my divine consciousness in your own spiritual world, forcefully severing the connection between my power and consciousness, and then completely claim all that masterless divine power for yourself?”
The divine consciousness felt that it finally saw through Rast’s scheme.
“But have you ever thought—”
“With your mortal body, can you truly bear the weight of my divine power’s blessing?”
“And with your meager soul, your pitiful experiences and insights accumulated over a mere few decades of life, is the thin spiritual world you have constructed even qualified to imprison a deity’s will?”
The furious voice of the Deep Blue Port Evil God resounded like thunder, shaking the heavens and the earth.
In his eyes, everything that Rast had done was absurd enough to make him want to laugh.
How many years could a mere human, with a lifespan totaling his entire life, possibly have?
Decades? Or a couple of hundred years?
Yet even those rare few humans who lived for hundreds of years had experiences that were laughably scant compared to those of true deities.
Each mythical being that has survived since the Age of Gods existed on a time scale measured in tens of thousands of years.
In the presence of those who had lived for a hundred thousand years or a million years—the insignificant human, with a mental world forged over mere decades, was as fragile as a sheet of paper.
The disparity was akin to comparing a human’s soul with insects that only live a few weeks; what might seem a mundane week to humans could represent a lifetime for insects.
For the deities on the threshold of Radiant Heaven, even a simple sleep could span several generations of humans’ lifetimes.
Even a single strand of divine consciousness separated from the true deity, descending into the mortal realm, could easily crush any human soul into powder.
However, listening to Rast’s furious sound, he merely sighed softly.
“First, I must correct one of your misunderstandings.”
“Don’t flatter yourself; I have no interest in your masterless divine power from the Divine Descent, even a smidgen.”
“Perhaps those powers seem like blessings to you, treasures that elevate mortals to the heavens… but in my eyes, these so-called divine powers from others are nothing but secondhand rubbish.”
“I have a bit of a cleanliness obsession and do not like using things others have used; I believe that trash should be swept into the garbage and not be sold.”
He paused slightly.
“What truly interests me is your divine consciousness—”
“Or rather, the secret knowledge about the Age of Gods, the threshold of Radiant Heaven, and other deities contained within your divine consciousness.”
“Compared to the secondhand divine power I disdain, this is what I find truly valuable.”
“And then…”
Rast’s gaze returned to the divine consciousness of the Deep Blue Port Evil God.
“As for your previous remark—whether my spiritual world has the qualifications to bear the weight of a deity’s soul…”
“I believe, it should.”
His spiritual avatar couldn’t help but smile: “After all, not long ago, one of your deity kin was also swallowed by me using the same method.”
“Although the other party had been silent for several eras, their consciousness had only just awakened from annihilation, surely incomparable to you, who has never slept and is hidden in the threshold of Radiant Heaven—but after all, you are but a glimpse of divinity, while the other is the true will.”
“With that in mind, I think the quality of your two consciousnesses should be similar.”
“My kin?”
The divine consciousness of the Deep Blue Port Evil God paused again, but then suddenly connected the dots.
Most of the deities that he knew of, surviving from the Age of Gods until now, were trapped on the threshold of Radiant Heaven, each aware of all the movements among them.
To the knowledge of the Deep Blue Port Evil God, in recent millennia, no other deities from the threshold of Radiant Heaven had performed an act of Divine Descent like this.
Therefore, the only explanation left was the one that vanished from sight several eras ago—some deities believed that this being had already perished, while others speculated that they were waiting for an opportunity to resurrect, that ancient God of d*ath.
“You mean, the God of d*ath?”
“You hunted the soul of the God of d*ath?”
As soon as the words escaped, the consciousness reacted.
No wonder the other party was so well aware of the hiding place and the Abyss where the God of d*ath lay asleep—
This was not due merely to luck, but rather because this human had already hunted the former God of d*ath, knowing all the secrets that lurked within that soul, thus made it omniscient.
“Yes, but that time I wasn’t the one hunting; the other party tried to invade my body, intending to use me as a vessel… I merely counterattacked and killed them, just as I did this time—I’m just passively retaliating.”
Rast chuckled lightly: “Strictly speaking, this should be considered ‘justifiable defense’, so I am acting reasonably and legally.”
“Of course, if you interpret it as entrapment, that’s also fine.”
“Now—” his voice paused for a moment, “after discussing the foreplay for so long, it should be about time to start our main event.”
Rast extended his hand, forming an imaginary grip in the air, mimicking a g*n.
“Let us see whether with my meager and pitiful spiritual world, I can hunt down the divine soul of a towering deity…”
“Wait—”
The Deep Blue Port Evil God instinctively opened his mouth, seemingly wanting to say something.
Under normal circumstances, he naturally would not have to fear any mortal; a human’s soul trying to contend with his divine consciousness was akin to a mantis trying to stop a chariot—he could easily crush them.
But at this moment, the situation felt entirely abnormal, far too off.
Even the ancient God of d*ath’s soul had been hunted—
Then what about his solitary divine half, far removed from its true form, isolated and helpless… It seemed, perhaps, he didn’t have any guarantee of victory.
However, within the spiritual world.
Rast’s actions showed no signs of wavering due to the compliance of the Evil God’s consciousness.
He simply pointed his finger, mimicking a g*n’s trigger, at his own temple.
Then, slowly pulled the trigger.
Boom—
Clearly nonexistent, merely a conjured firearm.
Yet at the moment the trigger was pulled in the void, there was indeed an illusory flash of fire that ignited throughout Rast’s entire spiritual world.
Growing clearer and more pure, blazing brightly.
In the clear and pure light, behind Rast, the originally obscured spiritual world that seemed enveloped in a layer of mist began to shed that obscurity.
The fire illuminated the true form of his spiritual landscape.
The ground cracked with enormous fissures, collapsed buildings, and the hot winds filled with searing smoke, deformed metal pipes twisted in high temperatures.
It was a desolate ruin, known as the remnants of “Canaan.”
In the distant horizon, burning flames leaped.
The murky sky was filled with enormous gears obscuring the sun, meshing together and slowly spinning.
This was a world reminiscent of an iron smelting factory, devoid of anything save for the small-town ruins on the crimson wasteland and those slowly rotating enormous gears in the dim sky.
The instant he beheld this desolate, factory-like spiritual world—
The Deep Blue Port Evil God realized he was wrong, terribly wrong.
From beginning to end, this was not a boastful human’s reckless action, oblivious to the heights of heaven and depths of earth.
But rather, it was a precisely designed hunting operation, with every aspect meticulously arranged and seamlessly structured.
The other party was the hunter, and he was the prey.
As the prey, the only thing he could do was exert himself fully to try every possible means… to escape and hide.
Even if he lost ninety percent of his divine consciousness, suffering heavy casualties, as long as he could have even a tenth of his consciousness survive, that would already be his greatest victory.
Yet, he had misunderstood the concepts of hunter and prey from the start, neglecting that as prey, the only path to survival lay in lowering his posture to struggle, seeking any means to escape.
Because of this, he missed the initial moment when the spiritual world’s seal had yet to be reinforced, the only possible opportunity to flee.
Now, at this moment, the seal had already taken complete form.
Thus, the fate of this divine descent avatar had already been determined, with not even a sliver of maneuvering chance left.
Thunderous—
Thunderous—
Above the murky skies of the spiritual world, the crimson gears slowly rotated, emitting the sounds of mechanical operations.
This was a desolate cage, also a scaffold for executing deities.
It was slowly contracting, gradually falling.
Towards the already predetermined, irreversible conclusion.
(The End of This Chapter)
