Chapter 1756: Heart-wrenching, You Know, Heart-wrenching
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Frankly speaking, that was the most genuine, unadulterated, convincing “heart” Hao Ren had heard. Rheia was visibly shaking when she was speaking, and even the listeners felt a surge of pain there…
However, Hao Ren was not joking with her, and while his suggestion may seem like he was messing around. “You can find a way to not get affected. I just want to see the details in that scene… I don’t know why, but I feel like I’ve missed out on something…”
Seeing how serious Hao Ren was, Rheia ceased her grumbling. “Missed out on something? What exactly?”
“My vision was limited then.” Hao Ren pointed to his eyes. “I could only see things in the first person, but I felt that something was happening in the surrounding… The deicide was not that simple no? Just like I said, taking a direct hit from the Divine Wrath, the destruction of the soul is probably the lightest of it, but I actually reincarnated back on Earth. That means not only was I not destroyed, but it was as if I was protected!”
Rheia understood where Hao Ren was coming from: A soul from the Plane of Dream, to reincarnate on Earth after death would mean crossing the Wall of Reality, and most demigods would not be able to pull that off under normal circumstances, but yet a soul destroyed by Divine Wrath was able to do it. That only meant that… an external force had shielded this soul and “pushed” it to the surface world.
“All otherworldlings from the Plane of Dream that had ‘gone through’ Earth have one similarity.” Hao Ren said, “They were all sent here by you. Or simply put… within the Plane of Dreams, you are the only one who is capable of sending anyone through the Wall of Reality.”
Rheia’s eyes widened. The information volume of what Hao Ren had just said was immense!
“If that was the case…” Rheia was almost mumbling at this point. “You ran the sword through me, and I purposely preserved your soul. Before dying, I used whatever strength I had to send you to the neighboring universe…”
Hao Ren met Rheia in the eyes. “You don’t remember what went through your mind then?”
Rheia frowned as she tried to remember, and shook her head. “No, I don’t remember… That stab was not just simple physical damage, even my soul and memories were damaged as well. And every memory to that stab was as blurry as a fog. If not for me having a taste of it again myself, I don’t even remember where was I stabbed.”
Hao Ren pondered for a bit before going, “So let’s go with my suggestion then. Let’s rewind and have a look…”
Rheia’s tiny face frowned so hard it looked like it was going to crumble upon itself. The goddess of creation was facing… one of the toughest choices in her life, but after a moment, she bit the bullet. “So… let’s rewind and have a look?”
“Remember to pull us out,” Hao Ren reminded her. “You can retract that command, right?”
“Of course!” Rheia rolled her eyes. “Once is enough!”
As she said that, she stood on her toes and gently tapped Hao Ren on the chest before drawing another shiny rune over herself to dispel the “All shall return to where they were” command. She then softly clapped. “Rewind.”
As she spoke, the entire hell started swiftly rewinding.
The broken pillars and domes were restored as the conflagration died off as two figures suddenly appeared inside the sacred hall, one was the goddess of creation, and the other, the godslayer glad in a crimson-gold armor.
Hao Ren and Rheia stood on the side as spectators, as if watching a part of the play where they were the cast.
“This feels weird…” Hao Ren muttered. “Why is there this mysterious sense of embarrassment?”
“Same here,” Rheia replied. “Seeing myself ‘die’ again… while not really dying, is weird.”
Hao Ren frowned as he watched the scene unfolding before him. He then suddenly asked, “Say, can’t we get rid of that fog?”
Rheia slapped her forehead. “Oh-oh, right. That is the fog caused by the information disruption in the Gilded Disc. Let me fix that.”
As she said that, the layer of fog and light over the godslayer and the goddess that hid their real looks disappeared. As Hao Ren took a good look, he rumbled. “I was actually better looking than Sanba in the past?”
“Don’t get so full of yourself, that’s due to genetic manipulation. Whether you get a pretty face or not is down to technique.” Rheia pursed her lips. “Plus, look at that fashion sense you had in your past life. Clad in gold from top to toe with a boatload of nonsensical doodle on your helmet, aren’t you embarrassed?”
Hao Ren had no response, and at that moment, the rewound dimension started flowing normally again.
The roar of combat rang across the hall, as the hall shook violently as the dome and pillars cracked and collapsed with flames blasting out from all directions. And within the collapsing temple, the godslayer was slowly approaching the goddess who stood upon the altar.
The goddess of creation pursed her lips, no fear or anger was apparent on her face. She was simply waiting quietly there as if she was facing something that did not concern her.
Rheia, who was standing some distance away, commented. “Look how calm I was then. So calm that I’m impressed with myself.”
“…Wow, that’s narcissistic bragging. Let me tell you, when I first saw your looks I was actually awed by your aura, don’t you go ruining that tiny bit of good impression I have of you…”
“Eh, I always take good care of my image, need to give those children a good example after all. I’m just taking it easy here… ah, he had lifted the sword!”
“He’s gonna do it, he’s gonna do it…” Hao Ren tensed up as he witnessed the thing that was happening before him, not letting any details pass him, “He’s aiming… He stabbed! He stabbed!”
“Eeekkk!” As she watched the goddess of creation in the illusion being stabbed, Rheia clutched her chest by reflex, and that shocked Hao Ren. “What’s wrong? Didn’t you already break the link…”
Rheia was still clutching her chest. “Imaginary pain…”
“You sure were a bastard in your past life. You’d even kill a loli!” Rheia glared at Hao Ren but there was clearly no hostility in her voice.
Hao Ren could only shrug. “That’s a bit early, and if I didn’t see it wrongly… that stab 10,000 years ago definitely has some oddity.”
“You actually noticed something?” Rheia was stunned.
“Just rewind a little,” Hao Ren nodded. “Right at the point where I’d just stabbed you to death…”
A vein immediately popped up on Rheia’s forehead. “Vivian was right, your mouth is really asking for a beating at times!”
“…I spoke too fast, too fast.”
Even as she grumbled, Rheia still rewound the time as Hao Ren had requested and replayed the scene when the deicide was just about to happen.
And this time, she even put it in a looping slo-mo…
“I feel like I’m taking massive mental damage here. If I replay this two more times I don’t think I can do my homework for today,” Rheia said with a pitiful look on her face. “So what did you manage to see?”
“Stop there!” Hao Ren was focusing on watching the illusion before him with a tensed look, and he suddenly yelled. “Right, just right there…Look, you were smiling!”
Rheia paused the time in the dimension, and at that moment, the heavily wounded goddess of creation was slowly falling, her body stopped midair, and her expression was just like what Hao Ren had described: she bore a faint smile.
A smile that was bizarre.
Even Rheia was confused as she saw the smile, as she had no memory of it. After recovering from a short stupor, she rather gingerly said, “Perhaps… it was like a release of burden? As I planned this all along, and the plan came to fruition…”
“But it was not only you who was smiling,” Hao Ren’s face was deadpan serious, as he pointed towards the godslayer. “Look at ‘my’ expression.”
Rheia turned to where Hao Ren was pointing at, and her expression slightly changed. She saw a smile.
The godslayer bore an almost similar smile as ‘her in the past’.
The knowing smile was a congratulatory and relieved smile of two individuals who had managed to achieve their goal after so many trials and tribulations.
In other words, their plan had succeeded.
“There’s definitely something off with these two.” Rheia circled around the duo that was frozen in time, after some peering about she said with a serious face, “This is the first time I see both the killer and the victim having such an expression when they eyes met.”
“What these two, aren’t they us?” Hao Ren rolled his eyes. “It’s clear now, while the godslayer race was used as pawns with muddled heads, at least one person among them…”
As he uttered that, he walked to the projection of his “past self”.
“Was very clear on what was happening.”
“We must have planned something back then. You and I, we had a plan between ourselves.” Rheia muttered. “Seeing this, the stab was probably the last part of this plan.”
The Godslaying War itself was an intricate plan from the beginning, a result of both the machinations of both the goddess of creation and the Mad Lord, so Hao Ren and Rheia had no questions about this war itself, but that the very last moment of this war, when the godslayer ran the goddess of creation through with the blade, there was a deeper, different objective.
And this objective was probably the true objective hidden under layers of misdirection and deception.
Hao Ren looked at the knowing smile between the godslayer and the goddess of creation as they floated in the air, before turning to the Godslayer that he had stuck onto the ground.
He suddenly had a gist of the truth behind all these.
“Perhaps… we were just creating a weapon.”