Chapter 1 神明并不像我们想象中那么值得尊敬 (Gods Are Not as Respectable as We Imagine)

"Gods are not as respectable as we imagine," Lamont said faintly. "In the year that followed, we returned to the outside world.

At that time, a war that swept across most of the world had broken out. No one noticed us, and the Church's hunters no longer pursued us relentlessly.

We hid in the countryside, constantly trying to find a way to heal Ken.

The distortions on his body became more and more serious, and his brain was also affected by the resurrection, becoming somewhat muddled.

However, this was not a curse, but a sign of a creature moving towards perfection—De Lisha's Holy Light healing had no effect on him at all.

Ken, who had returned from the dead, should have looked like that in the first place."

Lamont's gaze seemed to drift over the package behind the Kui Niu mecha, "After all, his body was created by a god. It was already close to perfection. The medical methods of mortals are probably difficult to work on him.

After completely realizing this, we had no choice but to accept our fate and start preparing for our second trip to Holy Mountain."

Li Ang said, "This time, you asked about the illusion that De Lisha saw."

Lamont nodded. "We bought a sailboat and had Ken stay in the cabin.

With the experience from last time, our second trial of Holy Mountain went much smoother. We quickly arrived in front of the Wishing Machine.

De Lisha asked the question—what is the relationship between the world's natural disasters and the goddess?"

Ding Zhensi's heart stirred. Lamont and the others did not directly ask, "Are the world's natural disasters related to the goddess?"

Because if they asked that, the answer they received might just be "no" or "yes."

Asking what kind of relationship exists could get them more information.

Li Ang asked, "What happened next?"

"...The Wishing Machine was silent for a long time, and then, she appeared."

"She?"

Li Ang frowned. The translation system of the Killing Game directly transmitted the meaning of the words into the players' minds, so players could hear the difference in each word. "That goddess?"

"To be precise, it was her avatar."

Lamont said slowly, "The human-shaped shadow projected by the machine gradually gained color.

She descended in front of us, glanced at us indifferently, and then calmly answered our question—

A large part of the world's natural disasters were indeed designed and promoted by her.

As for the reason..."

Lamont paused for a moment, and said hoarsely, "She created our world.

Like laying soil and moss in a box, importing water, and raising insects, she created mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas, and created humans.

She didn't explain the reason for creating the world.

However, compared to the unthinking beasts and monsters, the reproduction and development speed of the human species was a bit too fast.

Humans expanded recklessly, encroaching on the sky, the ground, and the ocean, occupying the living space of other species.

Just like a gardener needs to clean the garden regularly, she also needs to periodically clean up some of the humans, and use other means to inhibit the speed of human reproduction and development.

For example, dispersing humans to countless islands across the ocean,

Guiding some Apocalyptic ones to launch wars, consuming the human population and energy.

And the Holy Mountain Trial is also one of the links—wishing is not without a price.

The energy source of the Wishing Machine is life, especially the souls of highly intelligent life.

Each wish requires a natural disaster to be generated as a supplement to energy."

Lamont slowly said, "You can imagine our world as a square box with a narrow opening. The god who is the creator of the box cannot enter the box in person because their essence is too profound, so they can only cast their shadow.

And the more times wishes are made, the more natural disasters are created, the closer the connection between her and the inside of the box becomes, and the more powerful her shadow becomes.

When human development reaches a certain level, and the power of the projection has accumulated enough,

She will come out of the Holy Mountain and perform a reset."

"Reset..."

Ding Zhensi clicked his tongue slightly. This word didn't sound like anything good. "Destroy the world and then recreate it?"

"Not for the world, but for humans, reset means destruction."

Lamont said in a low voice, "We are not the first team of heroes to reach this point. In fact, before us, someone had asked a similar question and received the same answer.

The unreasonable wars outside, the Church's absurd persecution of scholars, are actually all actions by human high-level officials to try to save themselves—by self-destruction, to resist and delay the arrival of natural disasters."

"So that's how it is."

Li Ang nodded. This explained why those countries that had developed a complete technology tree did not organize well-established teams of heroes to go to the Holy Mountain and make wishes—maybe they and the Church knew some of the essence of the Holy Mountain Trial early on.

Lamont said calmly, "Part of the reason we volunteered to stay in the Holy Mountain was to eliminate other heroes inside the Holy Mountain, to prevent later heroes from continuing to make wishes, so as to reduce the occurrence of natural disasters.

On the other hand, it was to stop her when the god's projection came out of the mist gate and was about to reset the world."

Ding Zhensi said in shock, "You want to kill a god?"

"It's a god's projection."

Lamont corrected, "According to Solomon's speculation, the god's projection and the god themselves do not share memories.

If we can eliminate the projection inside the Holy Mountain, then the god outside the box will not know what happened specifically."

Hohhenheim frowned and asked, "Even if it's just a projection, I'm afraid it's not something you can solve, right?"

"Someone has to do it, even if the hope is slim."

Lamont raised his arm and slowly uncovered the faceplate of his armor, revealing a gaunt, pitch-black face like a dried corpse.

"Finn and Ken's behavior of destroying the Holy Mountain Gate in the outside world was just an attempt to trap the god's projection inside the Holy Mountain.

I, who am responsible for god-slaying in an irreparable situation, am the final insurance.

No matter why you have come, no matter what your purpose is, please stop and leave here.

I don't want to kill anymore."

"Killing? You might have misunderstood something..."

Li Ang rubbed the beard of the dragon head mask, smiled casually, and instantly flickered to Lamont's side. The Tyrant's Horizontal Spear and the cross sword burning with flames collided.

Boom!

The air exploded, and the sharp sound of metal collision resounded throughout the sacrificial ground.

Both of them flew backward. Lamont's metal boots dragged long cracks on the ground, and after all, he flew farther than Li Ang, who relied on the Cloud Stepping skill to step on invisible stairs.

"Just because we don't want to engage in meaningless battles doesn't mean we don't have the ability to win."

Li Ang casually flicked the Tyrant's Horizontal Spear and said calmly, "In your current state, I'm afraid you don't have the strength to stop us from entering the mist gate.

Moreover, in dealing with the god's projection, our goals are the same."

"What?"

Lamont was slightly surprised, "Aren't you interdimensional travelers who want to go home?"

"The home we want to return to is not within the range of the god's call. She doesn't have that much value to us."

Li Ang smiled. The other party didn't know that the task objective of the players present had changed again, from completing the Holy Mountain Trial to eliminating the projection behind the mist gate.

"What are you going to do?"

Lamont said in a low voice, "Killing the god's projection that is preparing to reset the world is the last choice in an extremely bad situation. It is a last resort.

This is a completely different concept from directly entering the mist gate to kill the god's projection!

I stayed in the sacrificial ground because no one can return behind the mist gate without undergoing a complete Holy Mountain Trial.

If you fail, you will only anger her in advance! Let her carry out the world-destroying reconstruction sooner!"

"Just like you said, we are just interdimensional travelers and don't have that much attachment and connection to this world."

Li Ang said lightly, "And you better not try to stop us—the result of stopping us is either that you eliminate all of us and suffer heavy injuries yourself, and have no energy to kill the god's projection that will appear sooner or later,

Or we will eliminate you and challenge the god's projection with casualties, increasing the probability of failing to slay the god.

No matter which angle you look at it from, your best way is to let us pass from here.

If we succeed in slaying the god, then everyone will be happy.

Even if we fail to slay the god, we can at least cause damage to the god's projection, allowing you to complete the next task."

"..."

Lamont was silent for a long time after hearing this, weighing the pros and cons, and finally collected the cross sword and gave way to the road leading to the mist gate, "I hope you know what you are doing."

"Don't worry,"

Li Ang put away the Tyrant's Horizontal Spear and walked towards the mist gate with his companions, smiling, "It's just a god..."

He stepped into the mist gate, and the surrounding scenery suddenly changed, becoming a cave.

The cave was shaped like an open teapot, and bright sunlight shone down from the top of the cave, illuminating the surrounding scenery.

Li Ang and the others were at the bottom of the cave, stepping on soft sand.

In front of them was a lake with clear water. On a sand dune in the middle of the lake, a rectangular metal machine was quietly placed.

On the side of the machine, several rays of light were refracted like a projector, forming a human-shaped shadow.

The appearance of Li Ang and the others seemed to break some kind of silence. The figure gradually became clear and gained color.

It was a woman wearing a plain dress with an indifferent expression. She raised her head, looked up at the sunlight in the dome of the cave, and slowly turned around to look at the players.

"How... how could this be?!"

Ding Zhensi shouted in shock, and even forgot to turn off the public microphone of the Kui Niu mecha because he was too shocked.

His voice echoed in the spacious teapot-like cave, but Hohhenheim and the others didn't have time to worry about whether this would startle the snake—they were also in a state of extreme shock.

The figure projected by the Wishing Machine was none other than Su Ni Sheng of the Otherworld Society, whom the players present had seen in the Lost World not long ago.

"I understand, I understand,"

Ding Zhensi murmured at a rapid pace, "This is all an experiment of the Otherworld Society.

Creation and destruction are all experiment logs happening in the box..."

"What are you talking about?"

David couldn't help but interrupt, "Why is Su Ni Sheng here? Isn't she from your Special Affairs Bureau?"

"This is not reality in the true sense!"

Ding Zhensi roared in a low voice, "We are in a past, disappeared time!

The Killing Game has extracted a period of the ancient Otherworld Society's experience and made it into a script mission, throwing us into it.

What we are seeing is Su Ni Sheng of the past Otherworld Society era!"

Ding Zhensi only felt the hairs on his back stand on end, and a chill passed through his entire body from the soles of his feet, reaching the top of his head.

The historical Otherworld Society often conducted some inexplicable experiments, leaving a large number of obscure and difficult-to-understand experimental logs.

Ding Zhensi didn't know the experimental content of this "Box World" in front of him.

However, when the Killing Game releases a script mission that is related to history, it means that this history has been extracted separately.

Players are like experiencing a fantastic adventure described in a book, and their actions will never affect the real world.

And the Su Ni Sheng in front of him will never know about the Special Affairs Bureau that should happen in the future.

The Su Ni Sheng phantom projected by the Wishing Machine is subtly different from the Su Ni Sheng that Li Ang had seen not long ago at the Special Affairs Bureau headquarters.

Not only is there a difference in the style of the plain dress, but there is also a difference in the temperament of the whole person.

The phantom in front of him is even more cold, like a true god overlooking the ants of the world.

"Hmm?"

The phantom glanced at the players indifferently, and frowned slightly as if it had noticed something. Its palm moved casually towards the players.

A huge invisible repulsive force suddenly formed behind the players. Ding Zhensi didn't even have time to start the jet propulsion device of the Kui Niu mecha before being pulled to the front of Su Ni Sheng's phantom.

Crack.

Su Ni Sheng gently broke the two thick arms of the Kui Niu mecha with a light snap.

With another snap, the front armor of the Kui Niu mecha, which could withstand the high-frequency bombardment of tail-fin stabilized discarding sabot projectiles, was neatly torn off,

Revealing the extremely shocked Ding Zhensi in the cockpit.

Su Ni Sheng's phantom took a step forward, and her gaze passed over Ding Zhensi, focusing on the depths of the Kui Niu mecha's cockpit—the place where the Kui Niu mech spirit resided.

"Stop her!"

Hohhenheim roared in a low voice, and the Book of Sand in his hand spun rapidly.

The situation changed too quickly. He didn't know what these people from the Otherworld Society were up to, but one thing was certain—the other party was extremely powerful, so powerful that they had to concentrate all the players' strength and eliminate them as soon as possible.

【Flame Storm】

【Rapid Freeze】

【Frost Nova】

...

In an instant, Hohhenheim had released more than a dozen high-level spells. The magic power accumulated throughout the entire script mission was now vented out,

Turning into dazzling energy shocks,

Sweeping towards the phantom.

At the same time, David and Amberly also reacted. One was on the left and the other was on the right. The former directly used the third skill of the Inquisitor's Spear with the greatest power, and the latter drew the Tidebringer scimitar, summoning the phantom of the skeleton pirate ship.

And Su Ni Sheng, facing the overwhelming attacks, simply opened her palm.