Liu Jiayi couldn't breathe as she looked at the dark blue hand. She choked and coughed twice, about to drown, but Tang Erda immediately brought her up to the surface.
Spades let go of his hands and floated in the water. He stared at the bottom of the lake motionlessly, then immediately floated up. In the process of floating up, he met the Reverse God, who was diving, and they floated to the surface together.
By the lake.
Liu Jiayi was choking and coughing with a pale face. She stared at the lake, as if expecting a Bai Liu to jump out of it.
Tang Erda patted Liu Jiayi on the back, his face almost blank; he seemed to have no idea what had just happened.
——Bai Liu, the omnipotent Bai Liu, became 100% alienated in front of them, and then died?
This sounds like a joke.
If the system prompt for all players had not been there, Tang Erda would have almost thought that this was another trick of Bai Liu.
Spades climbed out of the water, followed by Bai Yi and the others, who were full of questions: "What's going on? We just got into the lake, and we received the death notice of Bai Liu?"
"Bai Liu is not dead." Spades said without even turning his head, water dripping down the ends of his hair, his tone cold and calm.
Bai Yi was getting more and more confused. He opened his system panel, checked the bright red system notification two or three times, and muttered, "…I didn't see it wrong, it was a death exit…"
Spades turned around and stared at Bai Yi without saying a word. Bai Yi's voice gradually became weaker, and he finally shut his mouth. He hid behind Bai Jiamu, trembling a little and whispered, "Bai Jiamu, I feel like Spades is looking at me with murderous intent…"
The Reverse God looked at Spades: "Why do you say Bai Liu is not dead?"
Spades remained silent and did not answer.
The Reverse God understood instantly: "Is it your intuition that told you this?"
The Reverse God quickly accepted Spades' intuitive judgment and analyzed calmly: "If Bai Liu is not dead, then he cannot quit the game. He must be somewhere in this game. Now we have to find him in this game."
"But this game has many time loops, and there are external and internal worlds." Bai Jiamu frowned, "How do I find my way around such a large game map?"
The Reverse God smiled and said, "I have a way to find Bai Liu."
Bai Yi muttered softly: "But, Reverse God, this Bai Liu is none of our business; why should we help find him?"
Liu Jiayi supported her knees and helped Tang Erda to stand up. She looked up and stared at the Reverse God: "If you help me find Bai Liu, I can participate in all your training matches for free and ensure your safety."
The Reverse God turned around and glanced at Liu Jiayi, and suddenly realized: "You are the little witch with healing skills."
Liu Jiayi took a deep breath and nodded.
The Reverse God laughed: "It's a pretty significant bargaining chip. I'm really tempted."
"But little witch, didn't your tactician teach you that when negotiating with a smart person, no matter how panicked you are, you should never take out all your bottom line chips at the beginning?"
The Reverse God smiled gently and touched Liu Jiayi's head, saying softly: "– In this way, he will shamelessly take advantage of your bargaining chips."
"Bai Liu is very important to you, right?" The Reverse God smiled and casually threw a bomb, "How about I help you find Bai Liu, and you join my team?"
Liu Jiayi's pupils shrank, Tang Erda stepped forward and knocked away the Reverse God's hand that was touching Liu Jiayi, and said coldly: "Dream on!"
The Reverse God raised his hands with a smile, indicating that he meant no harm: "Just kidding, a big team like us, the Killer Sequence, generally doesn't do things like taking advantage of others' misfortunes to rob them."
But almost every member of Bai Liu's team was snatched from others.
This person was alluding to Bai Liu.
Tang Erda had a gun in his hand, and his expression showed a fierceness: "That has nothing to do with you."
The Reverse God opened his smiling eyes, glanced at Liu Jiayi, who was hanging her head, and then turned to Tang Erda: "But I think, as a tactician, I am fighting for you like objects, and then placing you so casually-"
"It's a little bit disrespectful of your feelings."
The Reverse God smiled: "——It's as if he is relying on you to follow him forever, clamping your emotions and making you fearfully accept all the consequences of his willfulness and recklessness, and you can't get rid of it."
"How should I put it? It's a more advanced way for a tactician to control his teammates than absolute control. You all definitely trust Bai Liu from the bottom of your hearts."
The Reverse God smiled: "——But the pain brought by this trust is also doubled, because you have deep feelings for him."
"But Bai Liu clearly knows that you will suffer for him. He can also design a game path that will not make you suffer, such as making you quit the game first."
"Why did Bai Liu choose to suffer and let you watch him suffer?"
"The evil spirit loves to observe the suffering of others."
The Reverse God's tone was so light that it sounded like a whisper: "–Don't you think that from the very beginning, Bai Liu was showing your pain to the evil god to prove his true nature, and then let the evil god wholeheartedly choose him as his successor so that he can enter the territory of God–"
"——Your suffering is nothing more than his tribute to the evil god——"
Liu Jiayi and Tang Erda drew their weapons almost at the same time and clamped the Reverse God from both sides at a speed invisible to the naked eye. Liu Jiayi jumped onto the Reverse God's shoulder, clamped her legs around the Reverse God's neck, and pointed the smoking poison spray bottle at his Adam's apple.
Tang Erda clamped the Reverse God's hands behind his back with one hand and pointed the gun at the Reverse God's temple.
Bai Jiamu and Bai Yi picked up their weapons almost instantly, their expressions turned cold, and they aimed at Tang Erda and Liu Jiayi.
"Let go of our tactician."
The atmosphere was tense.
The Reverse God interrupted with a nonchalant and laughing voice: "Relax, I was just joking."
"Bai Jiamu, Bai Yi, put down your weapons, they won't kill me."
Bai Jiamu and Bai Yi hesitated for a moment, but finally put down their weapons.
The Reverse God turned his head to look at Tang Erda, who was pointing a gun at his temple. After thinking for a moment, he suddenly laughed: "I have investigated you, Tang Erda, the former third captain of the Heretic Administration, right?"
"In reality, I am a good citizen who has never done anything bad to any creature. I pay taxes on time, work overtime every day, and I have never killed any innocent people in the game." The Reverse God smiled frankly, "Are you sure you can kill a normal person like me, who does not meet your killing standards at all?"
Tang Erda clenched his teeth, and the finger holding the trigger trembled slightly.
–cannot.
His principles do not allow him to kill normal people.
Liu Jiayi's eyes were red, her fingers were stuck on the poison spray gun, her expression was almost unconcealable malice: "–Tang Erda can't kill you, but I can, help us find Bai Liu, or I will kill you!"
"The cause and effect relationship is wrong, little sister." The Reverse God was unmoved and pinched the muzzle of Liu Jiayi's spray gun with two fingers, looking back at her with a smile, "–You want me to help you find Bai Liu, so you have no way to kill me."
The Reverse God looked at Liu Jiayi gently: "Are you sure you want to kill me now?"
Liu Jiayi clenched the spray bottle tightly, then slowly put it down.
Bai Liu's obvious weakness was in the hands of the other party, and she really had no initiative.
Bai Yi stared in amazement as he watched the Reverse God resolve a crisis with just a few words.
Bai Jiamu turned the scalpel as if he were used to it.
The Reverse God's tactical style has always been like this. He is not very controllable and has a good or a bad relationship with every team member. Even if he has a conflict with the enemy, he will try not to use force to solve the problem.
After all, the Reverse God is a tactician who can make the opponent surrender directly without drawing their weapons in the league game. The title of low-casualty tactician is not for nothing.
Liu Jiayi jumped off the Reverse God's shoulder, and Tang Erda took back the gun.
"Even if Bai Liu is sacrificing your pain, you have to find him, right?" The Reverse God asked softly.
Liu Jiayi turned her back to the Reverse God, her shoulders and voice tensed: "——Yes."
She clenched her fists and sneered, "We, the heartless team members who were snatched away by him like goods, can feel the pain of Bai Liu's self-destruction——"
"——How miserable Bai Liu must be."
Liu Jiayi took a deep breath:
"If Bai Liu is really offering pain to the evil god, then the most important tribute is his own pain. Our pain is just an addition, a secondary offering."
Liu Jiayi turned around and looked at the Reverse God calmly: "You don't have to rely on this kind of sophistry to shake the relationship between Bai Liu and me."
"Bai Liu is the person I chose myself. I know what kind of person he is better than you do. When I followed this guy, I was ready to be used to death by him."
"Bai Liu is my tactician." Tang Erda said solemnly, "As long as he wants to win the game, the main attacker must bear all the pain and do his best."
"As his team member, I will not be easily shaken by this little pain."
"…So determined?" The Reverse God thought for a moment, then smiled. "That's beyond my expectations. Okay, I'll help you find Bai Liu for free."
Liu Jiayi looked at him warily: "Free of charge?"
The Reverse God turned his head and looked in distress at Spades, who was squatting by the lake, staring at the lake and poking it with a whip from time to time.
Spades seemed to think that Bai Liu had sunk to the bottom of the lake and would soon come out, so he squatted beside it with his knees hugged, watching over him.
The Reverse God sighed helplessly: "It's not just you who are being used and sacrificed by Bai Liu and suffering, but also my ace team member."
"Your tactician, Bai Liu, is really a tough guy. He took away the soul of our team's main attacker in just one game."
The Reverse God smiled with crooked eyes. He turned his head to look at Tang Erda and Liu Jiayi: "As a return gift, I originally wanted to let his team members' souls be seduced by me; it seems that my skills are still not good enough."
Liu Jiayi and Tang Erda didn't know why, but they felt a chill down their spines when they heard the Reverse God's laughter.
——For some reason, this tactician, called the Reverse God, makes you want to run away when he laughs.
"How did you find Bai Liu?" Liu Jiayi asked directly.
The Reverse God smiled and said, "Use props."
"What props?" Tang Erda asked.
The Reverse God scratched his face, his eyes wandering: "Well, we have to thank our team's main attacker. He gave Bai Liu a very important contact item in our team. The judgment of this item is very strong. As long as the player is still there, it will automatically pop up from the item panel when the bell rings."
"If Bai Liu is still in this game, you can find him by ringing the bell."
Hearing this, Spades, who was squatting by the lake, slowly straightened his body. Without saying a word, he pulled out the bell from the system and shook it violently. As a result, the bell disintegrated after only two rings.
Spades uttered a slow "Ah! I broke it."
The Reverse God took a deep breath and covered his face: "…Yes, you have made this bell before. The reason why it can last until now is because of its good quality."
"Let me do it."
The Reverse God had no choice but to take out his bell, hold the handle, and shake it lightly twice. Suddenly, several bells rang at the same time.
The bells of Bai Jiamu and Bai Yi were ringing, but the Reverse God immediately looked towards the other side of the lake: "There are no people from us on the other side, but there are bells ringing."
Spades disappeared almost the moment the bell rang on the other side of the river, followed by Tang Erda and Liu Jiayi.
The Reverse God looked at Bai Jiamu and Bai Yi beside him and said, "Let's go too."
On the other side of the lake, next to the wooden sculpture of the evil god.
The corpses that had just been attracted away by Bai Liu in the lake had now come back one after another, dancing wildly around the two wooden sculptures of evil gods, chanting the evil god's songs with strange intonations in their rotten throats.
"…The mortal body has decayed, and the believers have carved new vessels to hold the wandering souls…"
Bai Liu on the new wood carving of the god became more and more lifelike, with only the head and shoulders still connected to the original wood, and the rest of the body having been completely carved; only the hair on the head was left uncarved.
The corpses who carved the wood carvings moved the old evil god wood carving next to the new wood carving that looked like Bai Liu, and compared the carvings carefully. They told "Bai Liu" that his originally short hair had been carved into a long ponytail that was loosely tied and hung to the side of the waist, just like the old evil god wood carving.
It seemed that because of this change in the new evil god wood sculpture, the smile on the face of the old evil god wood sculpture became more and more satisfied.
The corpses shook their arms and legs around the wooden sculpture of the evil god, and the chanting became louder and louder:
"The evil god boasts that there will be people wandering in his shadow.
The person in the shadow is fourteen years old.
So the evil god gave this man a spine, a heart, and a divine emblem.
Boasting that this person will be its only believer and will become the next new god
The person in the shadow is 24 years old.
Then the evil god fell, and the souls of his followers wandered around.
Spine, heart, and divine emblem, all broken,
The change of evil gods,
God died, but he survived, and he lives forever because of evil. "
-----------------
As the chanting continued, the new wooden carving was gradually completed. A corpse staggered forward, lifted a large stone, and smashed it against the old evil god's wooden statue. The patched-up statue shattered easily under the blows.
The corpses began to dance wildly. A pure white bone whip and an inverted cross pendant slowly emerged before the ruins of the old statue.
They raised their trembling hands, and the chanting swelled louder:
"…The evil god bestowed upon this man a spine, a heart, and a divine emblem…"
"With the spine of the old god and the heart's blood of the new god, this evil faith shall arise from the depths of eternity—death itself cannot extinguish it—"
"—Create a new evil god to rule the universe."
The corpses quivered as they lifted a sharpened stake and drove it viciously into the heart of the old wooden statue.
A thick, crimson liquid—like congealed blood—oozed from the carved heart.
With reverence and awe, the corpses raised the white bone whip and let the red liquid drip onto it. Beginning at the handle, the whip was gradually stained a pure, lightless black. As the dye spread, the bone spurs along its length split open, appearing extraordinarily sharp.
Alex, bound to a stake, grinned.
That was red paint.
—These red paints were produced from the evil god's wooden carvings.
As long as one pierced the heart of the statue with a thorn, a strange red paint with magical properties would continuously flow out, capable of fulfilling people's desires.
At first, Alex had thought it was merely some peculiar sap from the wood used to carve the statue.
Later, he realized it had nothing to do with the wood at all—it was the statue's heart and blood.
Drop by drop, the bright red liquid stained the bone whip. The dyeing process was already halfway complete. A corpse carefully hung the inverted cross pendant around the neck of the newly carved statue.
Alex tilted his head back in relief, closed his eyes, and smiled faintly in a trance.
"…It's finally over."
Suddenly, the sound of ringing bells echoed from the new wooden statue shaped like Bai Liu. Fine cracks, brittle as eggshells, spread across its meticulously carved surface. With each chime, the cracks widened, as if something inside were about to break free at any moment.
The corpses panicked, halting their chanting and ritual.
"…The bone whip hasn't finished being dyed…"
"…The New Evil God shouldn't enter the vessel yet!"
Alex froze, staring at the statue.
The half-lidded eyes of the new carving blinked faintly.
A fierce wind swept through the jungle, dispersing the lingering smoke. The wooden shell split apart entirely. A long, loose ponytail pierced through the breaking wood and streamed in the wind. The inverted cross pendant was lifted into the air, glinting in the dark rainforest.
Sawdust drifted down.
Bai Liu slowly opened his pitch-black eyes.
His ponytail hung loosely behind his head, falling over one shoulder and reaching his waist. His face bore no expression—only a stillness as calm as windless skies. Yet within his eyes seemed to reside all of humanity's desires, sorrows, and joys, as though they reflected eternal galaxies and the laws of the universe.
The corpses in the rainforest collapsed to the ground, trembling.
The miasma that had blanketed the forest dissipated. A faint light descended from the illusory sky, falling upon the sacrifices bound to wooden stakes who had witnessed everything.
Alex stared up at the newly born god before him, dazed, barely breathing.
—This was the new god, the old evil god had waited for so long.
[System Alert: Player Bai Liu's body has been replaced. Overall panel values rising rapidly… Calculating…]
[…surpassed 10,000… unlocked Bronze False God achievement… unlocked the low-level faith value system…]
[…surpassed 30,000… unlocked Silver Pseudo-God achievement… unlocked the intermediate faith value system…]
[Comprehensive panel value continues to rise. Calculating…]
[…obtained the system's Crown-Level Gift Package (a gift from the evil god)…]
[…acquired a bone whip of unknown attributes, and a reverse cross pendant capable of communicating with the evil god…]
[…gained a new hidden identity (Heir of the Evil God). Based on this identity, the evil god grants Player Bai Liu a world-line save point—congratulations to Player Bai Liu for obtaining the world-line game design rights for "Secret Order Border."]
[From this moment onward, Player Bai Liu is the supreme god of the world line "Dense Forest Frontier." You may rewrite and design all stories within this world, save and retrieve at will, and rewrite at any time—so long as you find it interesting. This is the authority granted by God to the heir.]
[…based on the identity (Heir of the Evil God), Player Bai Liu has dramatically unlocked the (Heir of the Evil God's Faith) collection system…]
[Player Bai Liu, becoming an evil god requires not only power, but also faith.]
[To kill the evil god and ascend as the new god, you must not only surpass him in strength, but also continuously accumulate humanity's faith. This is the most crucial factor. When your faith value exceeds that of the current evil god, you will gain the right to kill him.
[How will you make humanity believe in you?]
[Friendly advice from the evil god: Only when humans suffer deeply enough will they believe in God. Create sufficient pain, and in despair, they will sell their souls, becoming believers of the evil god and praying for wishes and salvation.]
[In other words, whenever a human becomes a player in the evil god's game, the evil god gains their soul and faith.]
[For you, Bai Liu, possessing a person's soul banknote means possessing their faith. When the quantity and quality of your soul banknotes equal mine, you will see me.]
(I believe that day will come soon.)
[Looking forward to meeting you, Bai Liu (laughs) — The Evil God Remains]