Chapter 771
Chapter 771 - 757: Mother Goddess’s Currency
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Fate has a script.
Perhaps for the unknowable living beings, it has no interest in interfering, but for certain Sons of Destiny (Lu Ping’an: fate’s puppet), it will "arrange" things for them.
It doesn’t need to arrange what you say or what you do, but at a specific time, it will place you where you’re supposed to be, confront you with the difficulties and environment you need to face, make you meet the people you should see, and everything will naturally happen.
What you say and think is not important... ultimately, you’ll do what fate needs you to do.
You will dance and sing on the stage of fate and then take a bow after you’ve completed your mission.
Why? How can it be done? You are nurtured by the world; your consciousness, your thoughts, your limits are always within the calculations of fate.
"How can one who has not seen the universe imagine the true nature of the world beneath their feet? Your vision determines the boundaries of your choices..."
Regarding the mysterious fate, Lu Ping’an is cautiously alert. Pretending not to care, he has actually been collecting relevant information and making multiple calculations.
He even deduced the script that fate had given him.
"I will restrain Big Cat, deter Big Cat, enslave her, and ultimately, at the time of Ascension..."
"...As long as I exist, everything hasn’t ended, and fate will give me a chance to prove my ’reason.’ I must let Lu Ping’an grow quickly, endure all kinds of humiliation, until that moment..."
Both of them see through fate’s arrangements and pretend not to know, patiently waiting for that day to come.
Ironically, Big Cat sees through the script too but indulges in it, treating it as her only way out and opportunity.
"...At the time of Lu Ping’an’s Ascension, our ’reasons’ will collide, and the winner will have the chance to ascend..."
She notices her chance, experiencing bitterness in preparation... or at least, that’s what she thinks.
As for Lu Ping’an...
"...This script is terrible. The survival of the fittest has been played for so many years and it’s still not boring. If it were up to me, I would choose..."
So, Lu Ping’an smiles, discards the script of fate, and sincerely invites Big Cat.
"...Let’s exchange our ’reasons’. I can take you farther. Well, or maybe, we could go farther together."
Compared to the one-way street chosen by fate, Lu Ping’an decides to jump out of the script.
"From the beginning, I never belonged to this world. The previous ’truth’ has already shown that I can’t be fully calculated by fate... Instead of letting two ’reasons’ collide, why not try to exchange and merge them? I know the chances of success are slim, but even so, if it’s the worst-case scenario, why not create another Divine’s Throne instead of fighting for one?"
Lu Ping’an uses persuasion, is it effective? He doesn’t know.
He does know that, for beings like Chris, wordplay and lies are meaningless. He simply expresses his true thoughts and hopes for a response.
But Big Cat...Kerdalais, in the end, she does not respond.
Promises? Vows? Agreements? Those seemingly reliable things are actually meaningless to her.
She is much more dangerous than she appears, and she is merely focusing on containing her talons, preparing for the final bite.
But now, her "master"... her prey says it’s not needed, wants to share the Divine’s Throne with her, says he can allow her Ascension to threaten him and promises to carry her across the boundless universe.
"How arrogant, how foolish, how proud, how ignorant of their own limitations, how..." In Chris’s eyes, these are absurd ravings of a madman, but in the end, she still doesn’t speak her curses.
She, a loser, a deserter, a coward, has no right to mock the innocent who have not yet given in.
She falls silent, she ponders, and she becomes even more unsure of how to respond.
"My starting point is ’Wound Repair’..."
However, she still prioritizes fulfilling Lu Ping’an’s request.
After all, in her view, this is something she cannot prevent... this man has countless means to force her to comply.
"Wound Repair? The first-tier Abnormal Ability of the Healers? The most common one?"
"Yep, but it differs from the usual Path. At the second-tier, I chose ’Flesh Stitching’..."
Wound Repair is the Abnormal Ability that every Healer, even zero-order apprentices, will prioritize mastering. It can "heal" wounds, but the effect is not very good.
Second-tier Flesh Stitching is another matter: incredibly effective yet extremely repulsive. After all, the feeling when a Healer takes out a piece of "raw meat" and performs on-the-spot "stitching" is something that those who’ve experienced it all know.
But this surprises Lu Ping’an. This purely therapeutic Abnormal Ability is, in fact, Big Cat’s starting point.
"...There is no difference in life itself. The weaker die, the stronger live, and the strong survive on the flesh and blood of the weaker..."
After hesitating for a moment, Chris used the theories of the Mother Goddess cult to explain it.
Now, Lu Ping’an understood completely.
At that time, for Chris, flesh was simply the "Currency of Life," a bargaining chip used to save people.
Perhaps, at that time, Big Cat was a pure healer.
"We went through war, or rather, massacre. My daily work was to dig out usable flesh from corpses and patch it onto the still-breathing warriors who could still go to battle..."
Within such plain words, there might be a human purgatory that Lu Ping’an couldn’t imagine.
"...I started doing this at the age of six, till I was eighteen. At that time, I had only this one ability, and there were many like me. I lasted the longest, I guess I might be a genius..."
"...At that time on the battlefield, the flesh of the dead was a hard currency, a chip that could produce more warriors..."
At this point, Chris was surprised to find that her own starting point was astonishingly similar to Lu Ping’an’s... She hadn’t looked back at her origin in a long time.
After reviewing her completely unrecognizable life, she sighed and continued:
"Everything originates from the Mother of Life. She is the source, the beginning. She loves every life equally, and it is for this reason that every life has the right to survive - that is their only chip..."
Hearing the creator of the Mother Goddess cult, combined with her own life experience, explaining her "reason," Lu Ping’an felt increasingly subtle.
He also noticed that at least at the starting point, Big Cat was quite similar to him. Both were raised in an environment that didn’t value life as a "necessity," and both viewed life as a kind of ’chip’.
"...Getting more chips will gain you more favors and a longer life..."
But here, it obviously went wrong.
Perhaps the difference in their worldviews resulted from their worlds. In Chris’s world, there might not have been any order to speak of, and thus no trading.
It’s not an excuse for Big Cat - rather, in certain environments, there are only specific "futures" and "worldviews," and no one can easily jump over their own "limitations."
Her ’evil’ is factual and comprehensive.
"...Putting everything on the table, the winner eats everything of the loser, gaining the opportunity to evolve, and the loser lives on in the winner’s belly, blood, flesh and bones. The winner must survive, carrying everything..."
Well, this is undoubtedly a heresy. Perhaps the starting point was just a bit twisted, but at this point, it had become completely distorted.
"My law is the ’Flesh Balance’. On both ends of the balance, both parties put forth all their chips. The winner gets everything. This is why I am called the Disaster Beast of the Balance..."
In a way, Big Cat is a "gambler." She is addicted to duels and obsessed with gaining more opportunities for life chips.
Thus, when she lost everything, the only "ruined building" left in the Life Courtyard was the crumbling arena;
That was her core and her origin.
She crazily collected more chips, and then...
"After you collected them, how did you deal with them?"
"Of course, eat them, turning them into the foundation of my growth. The weaker become part of the stronger, earning a blessing. The evolving one will get infinitely closer to the Mother Goddess and become her most beloved child..."
Here, a clear divergence appeared between Lu Ping’an and Chris.
Lu Ping’an chose "trade"... And the premise of trade is acknowledging the necessity of each individual’s existence. From the beginning, this was erased by Chris.
She believed that life only exists in competition, and the weak should become the "nourishment" of the strong.
As insatiable and greedy as she was, it’s no wonder her title was "Lord of Thousands of Greeds."
In such an extremely dangerous "path," once she became the world’s principle,...
"...The whole world might be eaten by you until only one was left." No wonder, the world didn’t allow her ascension, and gave her the highest level of difficulty as a test.
"No, we’ve only fused together. I will carry them forward, gain the love of the Mother Goddess, and also eternal life."
Within Big Cat’s words, there was still fanaticism, but Lu Ping’an saw the exhaustion and unease hidden within them.
Perhaps, after experiencing all this, she couldn’t even deceive herself anymore.
At this point, Lu Ping’an fell silent, pondering, making choices, and then he laughed.
"Thank you, that was very helpful. You’ve done me a great favor."
— End of Chapter 771 —