Chapter 1263
Chapter 1263 - 1249 Malice
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8 min read
Hua Xueyi, in the past Rebirth Club, could only be considered a marginal figure.
The reason wasn’t that her talent wasn’t good enough, or her progress not fast enough, but rather bad luck.
Simply being a "junior" in college, within the Rebirth Club that urgently needed immediate combat power, she wasn’t mature enough... In actual combat, she wasn’t as good as Xia Qin, who had graduated several years ago, nor did she have the potential of the prodigy Meow. As a warrior, she could only take a secondary role and saw no possibility of catching up.
"I want to stay, my family needs me to be stronger..." Among all those who chose to stay, she was probably the most positive.
She was in great debt and wasn’t used to always being just a background figure.
Time could change everything... Now, over the years, she was probably the most hardworking.
Thinking back on her life, the amount of time she spent as a professional warrior and as a normal person was about evenly split.
Considering the lifespan of an ordinary earthling, she was at a rather delicate age.
But as a "young" Sixth-tier professional, if she could advance successfully in her lifetime, taking into account the lifespan of Golden Beings, she could only be considered a "child" in terms of age.
Having spent nearly half her life in real combat, her combat experience and intuition were now quite impressive.
If it were the old her, in such an oppressive and terrifying environment, she would have probably been "taken out" at the first attempt... Now, she could bear with it, silently stalking for several hours in this desperate environment.
It might have been the past impressions that misled Lu Ping’an, or maybe time had left different marks on them, but Hua Xueyi’s current way of doing things and her approach to matters were beyond Lu Ping’an’s imagination...
"I ask, you answer. First question, in what you said before, did you hide anything from me?"
As she spoke, she tilted her head slightly, and with a flash of gold, the right hand of the Long Hand Clan member fell to the ground.
The scream terrified the two unfortunate souls next door, and the next moment...
The woman gave a light kick, breaking his teeth and pushing the rolling, screaming back into his mouth.
"Answer me, or I’ll slice you into pieces."
"Later, I’ll question those two guys. If you dare deceive me..."
"My patience has its limits, do not make me cut your ’sausage’ into slices to help jog your memory..."
Her considerably long mercenary life had given her rather "flexible" and "resolute" means of handling things... Her choice of words was also unequivocally "mercenary".
In her view, the acts of these trash had led to the downfall of the city and with the situation still deteriorating, it was necessary to use severe measures to obtain the most accurate intelligence... She didn’t trust the three individuals in front of her, especially since she couldn’t understand why they had survived, particularly when that so-called "Three Finger Broken Hand" was clearly not present.
And the development of the situation proved her speculations right.
"We... we heard about that legend, we stole it, it wasn’t me who wished! It wasn’t me!"
Upon hearing this, the golden woman sighed. Too many "incidents" simply originated from courting death.
But this time, something was clearly not normal. With the experience of the past, she could feel the unmasked malice within it.
As an Eastern Country University student, she of course knew of the stories like "Aladdin" and "Monkey Hand", but the development of these stories often had a sigh-inducing conclusion.
"It... it’s alive, it keeps us to continue making wishes..."
"Rules? Yes, yes, there are rules. It told us that once it grants three wishes, we must grant it one in return..."
"Who are we? I... we... we..."
Clearly, the person in front of her was completely beguiled by the vile creature, incessantly repeating the last phrase, until...
"...All of us... our world..."
The thief’s head burst open, and Hua Xueyi withdrew her boot, smeared with brain matter, her expression turning utterly grim.
Five minutes later, the same event occurred twice more; after confirming the information, she directly eliminated these three people.
At this point, they were completely befuddled and beyond saving, and if left alive, they would have been the greatest security threat.
With plenty of intelligence now in hand, Hua Xueyi pieced together the sequence of events.
An "aberrant object" seemed to possess wish-granting capabilities, but its way of fulfilling wishes was brimming with malice.
Its rules were similar to the Monkey Hand or Aladdin’s lamp, like "I’ll grant you three wishes, and then you set me free" or "after three wishes your luck turns to misfortune"... what it adhered to was a cycle of karmic retribution, where greed leads to one’s own downfall.
However, this entity, from the beginning, didn’t play by the rules at all; it clearly possessed self-awareness and fulfilled wishes with harmful intent.
With its current abilities, to let a "Mortal" live a bit longer, it didn’t need to endow him with the ability to devour others’ life force... Yet, by granting this power without providing him sufficient individual strength, it ensured that his end would be self-destructive.
The second wish, the yearning for "everyone to coexist peacefully and understand one another", was actually initiated with good intentions, and the Wisher did have some level of aptitude.
If it were a normal "wishing item", even if it couldn’t meet the requirements, it would still produce something like a "mental network" or a "mandatory peace rule"... Perhaps in the Wisher’s view, it was merely a probe, a wish filled with good intentions, an option that couldn’t possibly go wrong.
Clearly, however, this entity was truly filled with malice; it deliberately twisted this wish and fulfilled it in the worst and most inconceivable way.
"When all people merge into one consciousness, they can naturally ’understand and live in peace with each other’."
With this wish made, the city was still doomed... In fact, in Hua Xueyi’s review, the moment the aberrant object arrived in the city, a cataclysm was just a matter of time.
"That aberrant object left those three as options for wish-granting... the third wish must absolutely not be made!"
Many powerful "rules" and "World’s Reasons" come with preconditions and constraints; the trait of this aberrant object is that upon granting three wishes, it can then make "the world" grant one of its own wishes.
Given the way it fulfilled the second wish, along with its clearly incremental effect on abilities, its wish would certainly bring a global catastrophe.
Luckily, there were indeed a few capable individuals among this group of thieves.
One of them was the Wisher of the second wish, the ringleader of the thieves and the victim of this well-intentioned wish, who saw this as an ’opportunity to get rich’... It’s likely that at the moment the wish materialized, as part of ’us’ and ’everyone’, he had already become part of the mist.
This was also why Hua Xueyi was certain that the entity possessed self-awareness... and if this aberrant object sincerely lacked consciousness and simply granted wishes with ’malice’, there was no reason for these three unfortunate souls to be spared.
"Sudar, huh? Although he did wrong, such a choice is indeed remarkable..."
The thieves were actually a group of five; aside from these three ordinary soldiers, the real organizer and the brains behind the second wish was called Sudar, a very clever Naga and the strategist of this small team.
He just wanted to get rich through this plan, and the second wish he conceived was also just a probe to test the item’s capabilities.
But when the second wish was fulfilled in an extremely malicious manner, he instantly understood the situation and made the most correct choice!
"He... He injured us and stole the Broken Hand..."
Clearly, Sudar knew that these three ordinary soldiers stood no chance against the aberrant object and could not rely on their willpower.
He took action on the spot, directly wounding his former companions and taking the object from them.
The reason Hua Xueyi felt it was a benevolent act rather than avarice was that he had yet to make a wish...
"He must still be resisting; we need to find him as soon as possible, a Mortal’s will..."
From Hua Xueyi’s past experiences, some things were not simply negated by firm will; a Mortal’s will would eventually erode under the entity’s influence.
Even if he could resist...
"I’ve come to understand why, despite so many people dying, so many ’puppets’, these puppets have disappeared... He won’t last much longer."
Determined, Hua Xueyi gritted her teeth and prepared to step back into the mist once more.
But this time, it wasn’t so easy.
The solitary cottage, previously untouched by the mist, had been infiltrated at some unknown time, and as she attempted to jump through the window to escape, she found beneath her countless eyes opening and looking up.
She had been discovered.
— End of Chapter 1263 —