Huang Tian, the Lord on High?
The High Firmament Zhonghuang Utmost Saint, Xuanshu Creation Great Heavenly Venerable?
"This is—"
Staring at the two honorific names, Zhou Heng went blank for a moment. "An immortal?"
Even though he was unfamiliar with this immortal god, the mere presence of "Lord on High" and "Great Heavenly Venerable" in the name told him that, in any pantheon, this had to be a supreme god!
"But—there are actually immortals and gods in the world?!"
He patted his own cheeks. "Entirely possible. If something as absurd as Joy Paradise can appear, why can't there be immortals? Only... could someone be playing a prank on me?"
He studied the message of unknown origin on his phone, sank into thought for a good while, then drew a deep breath. "Doesn't matter. Prank or not, I'll memorize the divine name first. What if it proves useful?"
With that, he began reciting the divine name silently. Once he had it by heart, he wrote it out from memory on paper dozens of times, as many as a hundred, making certain he would not forget it at the critical moment—
In the blink of an eye, another two days passed.
A familiar mechanical electronic voice sounded in his ear. "A new instance is about to open. Players, prepare yourselves. Ten-second countdown. Ten, nine, eight—"
Zhou Heng stayed in his room, looking out at the lead-gray sky, his mood heavy. Every time he entered an instance, it was like gambling his life. If his luck held, he survived, then waited for the next instance to open, the cycle never ending. If his luck was bad, he died—and the monsters in the instance would even eat his corpse, leaving nothing intact.
But this time—
He lowered his head for one last look at the message on his phone, hoping that immortals and gods truly existed, and were willing to shelter the people of the world. If so, he and the other players might escape the sea of suffering that was Joy Paradise—
Whoosh~
The next second, his vision blurred. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself on a stretch of wild ground. The sound of seawater striking reefs came to his ears. Soil, flowers, grass, and trees filled his sight, and a dozen or so people stood around him.
The group exchanged a look. Every face was exceedingly grim.
Because there were fifteen players here in all!
A fifteen-person instance!
It had to be dangerous rank!
Even desperate rank!
"We're done for!" A young woman in a white tracksuit showed her fear. "I've been through a seven-person instance. In the end, only I was lucky enough to survive. And this time it's a fifteen-person instance—"
"Fuck! Damn it! Damn it!" A powerfully built man cursed. "Joy Paradise means to kill us. Those bastards! Why not just give us a clean death and shoot us? Do they have to chase us to death with monsters inside an instance?"
To the burly man's right, a young man in black-framed glasses said bitterly, "In the eyes of the Master of Joy Paradise, we're ants. What power of choice do ants have? Unless we kill ourselves right now, we can only meekly submit to His arrangements."
At those words the burly man glared at him, the muscles of both arms swelling. "You mocking me for being afraid to die?"
The young man in black-framed glasses pressed his lips together and shook his head. "I didn't mean that."
"Enough, enough. At a time like this you're still squabbling over that bit of face. You've really got nothing better to do." Someone nearby spoke up.
The burly man whipped his head around and snarled, "And who the hell are you, mouthing off about people having nothing better to do?"
"Manners! Manners!"
"Ai, quit the damn arguing. We're all about to die—what's there to fight about? If you want to fight, get the hell away. I just want a moment of quiet before I die."
"Who says we're sure to die? Even in a desperate-rank instance, with a bit better luck there's a chance to live."
"Utterly ridiculous. Would someone with good luck be dragged into Joy Paradise to play the clown?"
"Who the hell asked you to butt in? Get the hell away—your daddy says so!"
"Fuck! Always 'your daddy' this and 'your daddy' that. Got the guts to actually fight?"
Watching the quarreling crowd, Zhou Heng's face was blank. In his heart he only recited the divine name.
"Ding~"
Suddenly a mechanical electronic voice sounded in everyone's ears. "The instance Five Days on a Deserted Island has officially opened. Rank: desperate. The instance lasts five days. Each day, different monsters will come ashore on the Deserted Island. All players are to survive their attacks as best they can!"
The words fell, and everyone on the Deserted Island went silent.
The burly man from before gave a cold laugh. "Just as expected. Desperate rank after all. Looks like we have the honor of dying together in this godforsaken place."
The young man in black-framed glasses said, "The instance lasts five days in all. By ordinary game logic, the monsters that come ashore on the last day are the strongest, and the first day's are the weakest. If we work together, we can at least get through the first day."
The woman in the white tracksuit hung her head, dispirited. "What's the point of even surviving the first day? We'll die here in the end anyway. It's only a question of which day."
At those words, the mood went cold and still at once.
"Wuu~"
"Roar~"
Just then, howls rose one after another from the distance. The burly man's expression changed. He ran to a large rock, jumped up onto it, and from that height looked all around. "On the outskirts of the Deserted Island, there are over a hundred—zombies? They don't look fast. About the same as our normal walking pace."
"Over a hundred slow-moving zombies. The threat isn't too great. We can handle them," the young man in black-framed glasses said calmly. "Look around for weapons. Stones, wooden sticks, anything will do."
Skree!
Suddenly, more than a hundred birds came flying from the edge of the sky. Not one had flesh or blood. From head to foot, only stark white bone remained. Their beaks were savage, their eyes blood-red, and they dove toward the Deserted Island.
"Besides zombies, there are monsters that can fly!" The young man in black-framed glasses's eyelids twitched wildly. "It's already this hard on the first day?"
"Looks like on the first day we'll lose at least three or four people. Heh." Someone gave a cold laugh.
"Stop talking so much. Find weapons to defend yourselves first, or it'll be too late!" the young man in black-framed glasses said quickly.
At that, the others all moved. However desperate they were, none of them truly wanted to die, or they would long since have ended themselves in the real world.
Through all the ages, nothing has been harder than dying. Live one more day if you can!
"Hm? Buddy, what are you kneeling for?" The burly man was just about to turn toward the surrounding woods to look for a handy weapon when he suddenly saw Zhou Heng kneel where he stood and kowtow toward a certain direction.
"You're not praying to gods and Buddhas, are you?" The burly man laughed and laughed. "Which of us hasn't prayed to so-called immortals and gods? In the end it did nothing at all. Immortals, gods, and Buddhas don't exist, you idiot!"
Someone beside them frowned and urged, "Young man, if you don't want to die, hurry up and find a weapon. Otherwise, when we face the monsters, no one will risk their life to save you. Better to rely on yourself than to beg others!"
But Zhou Heng still did not answer. He only kowtowed three times on his own, his face devout, his mouth softly chanting, "I pray to Huang Tian, the Lord on High, and to the High Firmament Zhonghuang Utmost Saint, Xuanshu Creation Great Heavenly Venerable, to send down divine ability and destroy this evil—"
"A fucking idiot. No—not an idiot. A madman!" the burly man said irritably, and was about to turn away to look for a weapon.
The few people around them all shook their heads, a thread of pity and mockery in their eyes.
Immortals and gods?
Immortals and gods did not exist!
They were only a spiritual comfort dreamed up by the ancients—
"Whoosh~"
Just then, an ethereal voice sounded in everyone's heart:
"Zhonghuang's image descends, and primal chaos opens;
The Xuanshu of creation holds the writ of heaven.
The Utmost Saint, majestic, presides over all that exists;
One breath, formed whole, commands the profound order!"
As that ethereal voice streamed down, a wash of light suddenly appeared in the sky.
At first it was only a thread of blue-white, as if someone had lit a lamp. The light slowly seeped out, flowing, spreading by degrees.
Its color was extremely faint, so faint it was nearly transparent, and yet layer upon layer—like the white of the moon, like the green of mountains.
Light and shadow drifted, as distant mountains hold mist. When the light came down over them, there even seemed to be a sound, like countless clear crystals striking one another, spilling cold and pure from the crown of the sky.
Immortal light washed over the withered trees of the Deserted Island, and the dead branches burst into delicate blossoms. It passed over clumps of grass, and the grass sprouted and grew, lush and green. It swept across those hundred-odd savage-faced zombies. Without the slightest wail, all hundred zombies halted as one, then vanished in ash and smoke.
At the same time, the immortal light stretched across the whole sky, blooming toward the horizon, and swept over that flock of white-bone birds diving in.
Like the morning sun shining through dawn mist, every white-bone bird gave a tremor, then turned inch by inch into fine dust. The flying dust drifted, hanging in midair as a vast silver-gray haze, then floated down into the surging sea.
Every monster was gone.
A clear breeze moved gently, the seawater lay mild and glimmering, and immortal light spread on and on. The whole Deserted Island, sky and ground, was veiled in thousands upon thousands of strands of radiance like silk ribbons, like a gauze robe thin as a cicada's wing.
Marvelous.
Beautiful.
And at the very center of the immortal light in the sky, an illusory, hazy figure slowly emerged.
The face was free of worldly dust. A white jade crown rested on the head, and five-colored rosy-cloud robes clothed the body. When the sleeves spread in the wind, it was as if clouds and sunset glow flew about, and a faint, pure fragrance drifted far.
This was an avatar of Huang Tian, formed of spiritual power!
"An immortal—there really are immortals?!"
The burly man's eyes bulged round, utterly unable to believe it. After he had become a player of Joy Paradise and luckily survived an ordinary-rank instance, he too had gone everywhere in the real world praying to gods and Buddhas. It had done nothing. The next time he entered an instance, it was just as perilous.
From then on he had no longer believed in any immortals, gods, Dao, or Buddha. But now, looking at the Daoist in the sky, like an immortal lord, he could not help his knees going soft. He dropped to the ground and stammered, "I, I—this believer, this believer greets the immortal!"
The others also came back to themselves from shock and stupor, hurriedly knelt, and said words of greeting the immortal.
"Ding. Instance error, instance error—the final boss of the fifth day has awakened. Executing purge task!"
Abruptly, a mechanical electronic voice exploded in everyone's ears.
The next moment, beyond the Deserted Island, the sea that had been calm boiled. It heaved up like a mountain, then burst apart with a boom, flinging up thousands of thick columns of water!
An enormous head broke the surface, black and wetly gleaming, like an inverted mountain peak hauled up from the seabed. Spray poured off the slick skin and gathered into countless waterfalls.
The monster of the sea kept climbing. Eight huge limbs unfolded one after another, each thick and sprawling as a mountain ridge. The limbs swept and flailed at will, kicking up walls of waves that surged into the sky!
And in the instant the monster appeared, the heavens changed.
The sky, bright only a moment before, went black all at once. Heavy clouds closed together and swiftly turned black. The black clouds hung like mountains, pressing down on everyone's heart until it was hard to breathe.
"Boom!"
From within the black clouds came peal after peal of shocking thunder. Thousands upon thousands of bolts, dragon-like thunder and serpentine lightning, roamed among the clouds. The lightning lit heaven and earth a deathly white!
"Wuu~~"
The huge sea monster, like an octopus, let out a sound like a woman weeping, then stretched out its tentacles, pushed aside wave after wave, and made its way step by step toward the Deserted Island.
Looking at an octopus larger than a mountain, every player felt fear rise unbidden.
"Th-this is the monster we have to face on the fifth day? Are you kidding? If it casually slapped the island with a single tentacle, the whole Deserted Island would probably sink. How could we possibly survive?"
"Desperate rank. Heh. No wonder they call it desperate. It doesn't give anyone a chance to live."
"Fuck the Master of Joy Paradise's grandma!"
A few people cursed bitterly, but most looked to the immortal in the sky, still composed, immortal light spilling in every direction, hope in their eyes. Zhou Heng led the prayer. "We beg Huang Tian, the Lord on High, to save your believers from this peril—"
"We beg you—"
Every player prayed with devout sincerity.
In the sky, Huang Tian's gaze was calm. He looked at the dreadful giant octopus, extended the index finger of his right hand—a point of frost-white gathered at the fingertip—and pointed distantly at the sea.
From the place his fingertip indicated, a ring of frost-flowers bloomed upon the sea. Like ink dropped into clear water, in an instant it spread and stained a thousand li.
Wherever the frost-flowers passed, wave crests froze into ice sculptures, droplets of water became ice crystals, and even the waterfalls pouring off the giant octopus became hanging curtains of crystal.
The giant octopus let out a shrill cry. Its head struggled with all its might. The muscles of its eight tentacles bulged, and fine, dense cracks burst across the ice.
But for every bit a crack opened, a denser cold climbed up and layered over it again, until its whole body was sealed inside a mass of ice that seemed formed by nature itself.
This ice was extraordinarily clear and bright. The giant octopus was fixed within it, eight limbs curled, head tilted slightly upward. Yet though it was sealed in ice, a ghostly blue light still flickered in its eyes, as if it were striving to throw off the bindings and burst free.
Just then, Huang Tian drew his finger back, and the radiance behind his head suddenly bloomed!
At first it was only a shallow, clear glow, like the first thread of white at the sky's edge when dawn begins to show. Then the five colors appeared one after another.
Green as spring mountains after new rain, red as cinnabar dotted on snow, yellow as the old silk of an ancient scroll, white as a crane's newly grown feathers, black as a lightless night.
The five colors washed out layer upon layer and blended into one another. Rising from behind his head they were especially soft and slow, yet in the instant they caught the wind and unfurled, they spread wide in a blaze of splendor, like a peacock fanning its tail!
Divine light fell, like a great rainbow crossing the heavens. It spanned the sea and crashed down again and again upon the ice that sealed the giant octopus!
"Boom!!"
A heart-shaking crash rang out. Then the enormous block of ice shattered in an instant, and together with the giant octopus's huge body became billions upon billions of fine ice shards. The shards streamed on the sea wind, rustling down into the vast ocean.
After the giant octopus was slain, the Five-Colored Divine Light rolled back upon itself, gathered once more behind Huang Tian's head, folded layer upon layer into the void, and at last vanished without a trace.
Between heaven and earth, all was silent. Only the sleeves of the five-colored rosy-cloud robes hung down, drifting lightly, their cloud patterns flowing like water, as if breathing as one with the boundless sea—
Chapter 236