Chapter 1471: I Am Not Me

Avatar of withering, source of the sin plague, midnight nightmare.

Inside the dim Warehouse, having finished his task for the day, Fu Qian silently reminisced about the departed soul.

Though its titles sounded incredibly intimidating, Brother Huo was best described by its own name. Its performance throughout their journey could only be described as embarrassingly clueless.

Perhaps that came from its experience as a born Divine Being, but as far as Fu Qian was concerned, it had still managed to break through the floor of expectations.

As the old saying went, "Our child is very smart; they were just led astray by others."

Fu Qian was highly inclined to use that excuse to explain the anomaly.

In other words, Huo's behavior along the way was the result of someone scrambling its brain into mush—even after he had helped "purify" it.

As a master of mental pollution, Fu Qian knew that the highest tier of enlightenment was never about violently forcing a target to accept your thoughts, but rather making them accept "their own."

And based on his past experiences, a certain peer of his had also mastered this high-end technique.

Who did the covenant on Mr. Rick come from?

By nature, Fu Qian would never simply attribute it to some unknowable higher entity.

From the very beginning, when he first deduced that the concept of "existence" had been polluted, the Blasphemy Monarch—whom he had met back at Silver Mist Manor—was the first name to pop into his head.

After all, during their first encounter, that Excellency had generously gifted him a past life, attempting to replace his very essence with the reincarnation of a higher entity.

At the same time, if he remembered correctly, the other Divine Entity present—the Mother of Gospel, even if only a projection—had reacted as if seeing absolute filth she refused to touch.

And this time, the irresistible Rick, who had been impossible to guard against completely, undoubtedly shared that same pervasive, dog-shit style.

...

The only pity was that the target of the covenant really did seem to be, just as Huo had said, extremely inactive.

Throughout the entire ordeal, the only threat had come from Rick, the sole Covenanter, bolstered by Huo—who mistakenly believed it had reversed control of the situation.

And after he borrowed a knife to kill, everything had remained perfectly peaceful right up until the task settlement was complete.

Having finally found release, Huo had even gifted him an opportunity out of gratitude.

It had shown him a certain ritual, one that seemingly offered a path to advance another step and ascend to Tier 1.

However, this well-intentioned gift, this unexpected yet entirely reasonable stroke of luck, was precisely what Fu Qian had been anticipating, filling in the final puzzle piece of the entire incident.

Even looking at it from a completely objective standpoint, the arrival of this gift had been silently nourishing all things—more natural than nature itself.

The opportunity was fleeting. A moment of hesitation would have meant missing it entirely; it didn't resemble a conspiracy in the slightest.

The motive was completely sound. He had helped a desecrated life achieve purification, and the entity had simply offered a small reward on its deathbed.

Its death was real, too. The task completion prompt strongly supported that fact.

Even the contents of the vision contained elements of his own hidden secrets.

If he had even a fraction of the self-awareness of a Child of Destiny, he would have gladly accepted it, then poured all his efforts into finding that illusory river, waiting for the chance to claim his rightful place.

Unfortunately, while he didn't doubt the sincerity of Huo's gratitude, he severely doubted its cognitive abilities.

...

The profound sense of destiny he felt upon seeing that vision made it far too easy to recall his time at Silver Mist Manor, when he had witnessed the fall of his so-called past life.

And facts had later proven that to be a complete illusion, one convincing enough to fool even himself.

If even his own internal senses could be manipulated, what made Huo—an entity poisoned for so long—think that every thought in its head actually belonged to it?

In Fu Qian's view, Huo might have been right about one thing: the pollution was truly irresistible.

It had completely failed to retain any clear self-awareness.

What it believed to be its own thoughts, its resistance, its unyielding nature, and even its final sense of relief—none of it was reliable.

Putting himself in their shoes, if he had been the Higher Existence behind this incident...

The Covenanter they had painstakingly cultivated was dead, and the unexpected harvest that was Huo had been destroyed. Under those circumstances, was there any way left for turning waste into treasure?

Of course there was.

A dying man's words are always kind. A defiled, pure creature finally finding salvation—that sort of narrative was perfectly suited to serve as the backing for a lie.

Out of sheer professional habit, this application was the first thing Fu Qian had thought of.

And it seemed that great minds think alike, because something very interesting had indeed appeared afterward.

So, no matter how profound that sense of destiny had been in the vision, Fu Qian didn't feel the slightest sense of a grand fate being bestowed upon him.

As for the elements that supposedly belonged to his own hidden secrets?

He hadn't forgotten that during the Blasphemy Monarch's first strike, the entity had effortlessly pulled out his exact appearance from another world.

Both involved deception. But compared to Brother Patches, who took great pleasure in tricking people, the greatest feature of the blasphemy authority was its hands-off approach. It didn't need to weave lies at all.

His method was akin to tossing a lump of filth to lock onto a target, letting the pollution "find its own way." It would automatically seek out opportunities to erode the victim.

The incident at Silver Mist Manor had already proven that. He hadn't even known what Fu Qian was seeing.

Speaking of which, from that perspective, this attempt at erosion had been far more patient and subtle. Did that mean the entity was acknowledging his strength?

Of course, at this stage, this was all just him assuming the worst. To know for sure, he still needed to check the Warehouse's evaluation.

Amidst his lightning-fast deductions and quiet self-praise, the task summary rang out.

...

[Task Evaluation: Omnidimensional Deliverance]

[Mr. Rick had long forgotten when he first felt that sense of satisfaction.

His increasingly superb medical skills had earned him immense respect, but only he knew the true reason behind them.

Things that would naturally evoke disgust and terror in others were, in his eyes, treasures hidden within flesh and blood—his own flesh and blood.

He existed far beyond the humanoid outline recognized by the mundane world.

He continuously tasted himself and continuously spread himself. All of this took place in shadows unknown to anyone, until one day, his greed erupted like a flash flood, entirely impossible to contain.

The withered dragon, unexpectedly desecrated, refused to yield to such a fate and began its own resistance.

The most direct consequence was that Rick's pollution became just as intense as his greed. He began eroding everything in sight—and even things out of sight—using almost any concept.

The very definition of "evading his observation" would bring about pollution, let alone attempting to kill him.

Once polluted, due to the existential connection and the conceptual protection naturally afforded to the source of the sin plague, you would never again be able to enter the dream where it hid.

Even killing every other polluted individual would have been useless. As long as you survived, the dreamscape would persist, but you would be barred from entering it until the age of 59.

Fortunately, you cleverly circumvented this stalemate. From body to soul, you performed a thorough deliverance on Huo, who had already become the source of the sin plague.

After countless years, a sliver of opportunity for the Blasphemy Monarch to escape had once again been completely crushed by you.]

[Kill: Huo]

[Reward: SAN Value +25]

[Special Reward: Typhoid Terror]

[Current SAN Value 98, Current inspiration 99]