Chapter 287: God and Believer (End): Then Let’s Get Married. Please, My Male Lord

Ever since Helios had been captured and brought back, he had known that his involvement with the Resistance had been exposed. Faced with his former mentor, the Marshal he revered, he made no attempt to conceal his beliefs and even hoped he could persuade the Marshal to turn back.

As for the Resistance’s internal intelligence and membership list, those were things he would never reveal.

If the Marshal intended to use him as a breakthrough point to strike at the Resistance, then his only option would be to end his own life.

And then Helios gradually realized that something seemed off.

The Marshal’s attitude was actually much better than he had expected?

Although the Marshal neither agreed nor disagreed with many of his views, he actually allowed Helios to finish speaking and didn’t say anything to refute him.

And he hadn’t even been beaten?

Helios had assumed there was absolutely no way he would escape a beating today.

The more he thought about it, the stranger it seemed. The Marshal had thrown him into confinement, but hadn’t sent him before a military tribunal or put him in the Military Region Prison... Although the Marshal’s expression remained stern, judging by his actual actions, he was really trying to protect him.

Helios looked at the Marshal in astonishment.

Could the bond they had built over the years as superior and personal guard truly be enough for the Marshal to personally step in and protect him?

It was impossible not to be moved.

But ultimately, they were walking different paths...

How could An Ruo possibly fail to notice something that even Helios had figured out?

In fact, he saw even more.

He had a certain understanding of Ulysses’s true nature and way of doing things. Seeing him behave like this, An Ruo knew the protagonist’s life had been saved. As for how things would develop from here, that would depend on Ulysses’s intentions and Helios’s attitude. It wasn’t appropriate for An Ruo to interfere with that.

He wasn’t the author anymore, and he didn’t want to involve himself in these matters again.

Besides...

An Ruo looked at Ulysses, the great villain, then at the protagonist wearing a suppressor inside the confinement room, and sighed inwardly.

They were both precious to him.

An Ruo floated past Ulysses’s ear and affectionately rubbed against him.

Ulysses’s gaze shifted slightly. It took conscious restraint for him to keep his expression completely composed.

An Ruo told him where he was going, saying that he would wander around for a while, then left Ulysses and the protagonist alone.

He felt that with him here, Ulysses was more self-conscious. Even when facing the protagonist, there was a faint sense that Ulysses was putting on an act. It would be better for An Ruo to leave and let the two of them speak openly.

An Ruo floated out from the top of the building and looked around.

This was the First Military Region.

He was clearly here for the first time, yet for some inexplicable reason, the place felt familiar.

For example...

He somehow knew that somewhere southeast of the Military Region was a heavily guarded steel building.

There were Zergs inside.

Many, many Zergs who needed him.

Following his perception, he floated toward it.

It was the Military Region Prison. An Ruo confirmed this from the engraved lettering and the highly trained guards patrolling the area.

He passed unobstructed through the outer wall of the Military Region Prison, crossed every security measure and defensive line, and traveled all the way to the first underground level.

There, he saw many military Female Zergs imprisoned because they had entered Psychic Riot.

Among them was a heavily restrained, black-haired military Female Zerg whose appearance bore some resemblance to Ulysses...

For some reason, a powerful feeling of unbearable sympathy rose in An Ruo’s heart.

He extended threads of Psychic Power and attempted to soothe them.

...

Ever since his god left, Ulysses’s thoughts seemed to have drifted away with him. He accelerated the conversation and quickly decided how Helios would be handled.

Helios would return to the personal guard unit.

He would wear a suppressor and continue serving as Ulysses’s personal guard.

Ulysses would only feel reassured if he kept the protagonist directly under his eye. At the same time, he would make Helios personally witness every change that was about to occur, until Helios completely abandoned the idea that the Resistance needed to “save the world.”

When that happened, Helios would become the most suitable Zerg to bring the rebels back into the fold.

Unless absolutely necessary, Ulysses had no desire to start a war within the Zerg race.

Zergs did not fear war. They even loved it.

But he disliked pointless casualties and meaningless bloodshed.

Ulysses walked out of the building and instinctively wanted to find his god. He could vaguely sense the direction his god was in.

Just then, the terminal on his wrist lit up.

He received a message...

His Female Parent, Selerus, had awakened.

And along with him, all the other military Female Zergs imprisoned in the First Military Region because of Psychic Riot had awakened as well.

Ulysses stared blankly at the contents displayed on the holographic screen.

He knew exactly who had brought about this change...

Again and again.

Including what had happened in the orphanage dream, this was already the third time his god had tirelessly saved the Zerg citizens who happened to fall beneath his gaze.

A warm current, aching with emotion, surged through Ulysses’s chest.

How could he not believe in his god?

How could he possibly not believe in his god?

Whether he was an unknown creature, a Psychic Soother, an author, or the “God of Rushing Deadlines”...

How could Ulysses possibly not believe in him?

Zergs had never worshipped intangible beings. The “gods” of their myths and legends had all been powerful Zergs from ancient times—S-ranks, SS-ranks, or perhaps even higher existences possessing overwhelming power.

Ulysses didn’t care where his god had come from.

The moment he descended into this world, the moment he accomplished all these things, he became a god worthy of the name.

Ulysses wanted to find him.

He wanted to go to his side.

By the time Ulysses found his god, An Ruo had already finished soothing every Zerg in an entire Military Region Prison.

The Military Region Prison itself had fallen into complete chaos because of the sudden incident. It wasn’t until the Marshal arrived that everyone finally had someone to take charge.

An Ruo was floating alone in a sparsely occupied corner of the first underground level, muttering to himself.

[I feel like... I’m a little stronger than I was before.]

He didn’t even know what “before” referred to.

He couldn’t remember.

But somehow, he felt that he shouldn’t have been capable of soothing this many high-ranking Female Zergs suffering from Psychic Riot all at once.

These Zergs were far too high-ranking, and the Psychic Riot had affected them too deeply. They were extremely difficult to soothe.

Yet he had simply... done it.

Could he really be some incredibly powerful Evil God?

An Ruo immediately felt capable again.

“God.”

Hearing the familiar call, An Ruo turned around...

Actually, he didn’t need to turn around at all. He could perceive everything around him and had already sensed Ulysses’s arrival.

He simply retained some human habits.

[You’re here.]

An Ruo turned and saw Ulysses. He also noticed that Ulysses had already dismissed all the surrounding military Female Zergs.

There was no one here except the two of them and the prisoners confined inside their cells, unable to see what was happening outside.

An Ruo shared his discovery with Ulysses:

[I saw a Female Zerg who looks a lot like you. He seems to be...]

“He is my Female Parent,” Ulysses said without avoiding the subject.

He had long since realized that the god who had appeared before him seemed to have sealed away part of his memories.

But Ulysses believed this was only temporary.

He was still himself.

Ulysses could feel it.

It had nothing to do with faith.

It was more like the intuition between lovers.

Even some of his little habits in bed hadn’t changed. He liked pressing close against Ulysses, liked his body and chest muscles, and was endlessly curious about his reproductive cavity and gestational sac. He wasn’t particularly malicious about it, but he would curiously tease and explore them. There was also the place where he always wanted to rest his hand while sleeping, and many, many other things.

More importantly, the sensations transmitted through Psychic Power could not deceive a Zerg.

They were as easy to recognize as a gaze overflowing with love.

After learning that Prisoner No. 1 was Ulysses’s Female Parent, An Ruo wasn’t surprised in the slightest.

Perhaps he had known from the very first moment he saw him.

Or perhaps he had known even earlier, somewhere deep within his subconscious.

He knew Ulysses hadn’t seen his Female Parent in a normal, lucid state for a very long time. Ulysses must have missed him terribly and surely had countless things to say to him.

So An Ruo pushed Ulysses toward Cell No. 1 and told him to have a proper conversation with his Female Parent.

As for An Ruo himself, he slipped away and hid outside.

He wasn’t ready to meet his “father-in-law” yet.

Father-in-law was the right term, wasn’t it?

He might be an Evil God, but he and Ulysses already had eggs together.

And so, immediately after getting pregnant with eggs, Ulysses first met with the protagonist and then received an opportunity to speak face-to-face with his Female Parent.

Selerus was no inexperienced youngster like Helios.

Even though he had only just awakened from his chaotic state and his mind was still not completely clear, the resonance of their bloodline, their similar faces, and the instinctive stirring in his heart were enough for him to recognize that the powerful, black-haired adult Female Zerg standing before him was his hatchling.

At the same time, he realized Ulysses was pregnant.

Naturally, he assumed Ulysses was already married and would soon have hatchlings of his own.

Selerus was overwhelmed by conflicting emotions.

He was delighted to have the chance to see his Female Zerg son again. He marveled that his son had grown so much and was already about to have hatchlings of his own, yet he also regretted everything he had missed.

And then there were those Zerg eggs...

Of course Selerus was happy that Ulysses would have blood relatives of his own.

Even after everything Selerus himself had experienced, he had never regretted conceiving and giving birth to Ulysses.

To a Female Zerg, a hatchling was precious—an existence that could even transcend the value of one’s own life.

But precisely because Selerus had experienced those things himself, he was even more afraid that Ulysses might suffer a similar fate.

He couldn’t stop worrying.

Ulysses patiently reassured him.

When Selerus asked about the Male Zerg, Ulysses was afraid of upsetting his Female Parent, who had only just awakened, so he carefully selected what to tell him.

He said his male was an exceptional Psychic Soother.

He said they loved each other deeply...

None of that was technically wrong.

He simply omitted the minor detail that his “male” was currently a tentacled psychic-entity god.

After arranging his Female Parent’s living situation, Ulysses left the cell.

When he saw his god floating toward him, the corners of his lips curved upward.

Then he lowered his eyes, stroked his abdomen, and said with apparent distress:

“My Female Parent is very worried that I got pregnant before marriage. What should I do about that, God?”

Toward the end, he lifted his eyes again and stared directly at the god floating in midair.

There was laughter in his gaze, as though he were absolutely certain his god would solve this problem for him.

An Ruo was so startled that he bit the tip of his own tentacle.

What should they do?

Pregnant before marriage...

That really was... really was a bit inappropriate.

Ulysses was carrying his eggs, and An Ruo was the culprit responsible for the whole situation.

He really did need to find a way to resolve this.

After Ulysses had already demonstrated that he would rather receive eggs from an Evil God like him than seek out a Male Zerg, An Ruo understood perfectly well what Ulysses meant.

What Ulysses wanted was absolutely not some nominal marriage to a Male Zerg.

An Ruo met Ulysses’s eyes.

Within those silver-gray eyes, firm to the point of stubbornness, he found his answer.

An Ruo himself felt strangely relieved.

He took the initiative and said:

[I can take the form of a Male Zerg. I’d only need to obtain an officially recognized identity, and then I could... marry you.]

Toward the end, even An Ruo’s Psychic Power weakened.

Not because he was unwilling.

Because he was nervous.

Would Ulysses accept him?

A god and his believer were ultimately different from a Male Zerg and Female Zerg entering into marriage.

As Marshal of the Federation, obtaining a legal identity for him wouldn’t be difficult for Ulysses.

What mattered was what Ulysses himself wanted.

Under An Ruo’s anxious gaze, Ulysses smiled.

It was the first time An Ruo had ever seen such a bright smile on his face, completely untouched by any shadow.

“Then let’s get married,” Ulysses said with a smile.

His smile was radiant.

He wanted to restrain himself and keep from looking too delighted, lest the male suddenly come to his senses and change his mind.

But there was simply no suppressing the joy rising sincerely from his heart.

In the end, all Ulysses could do was gaze tenderly at the male, trusting that he wouldn’t hold this momentary lapse in composure against him, and say with a smile:

“Please, my Male Lord.”

An Ruo wasn’t actually a Male Zerg, but hearing Ulysses call him “Male Lord,” confirming their marital relationship with those words, still made him feel so light and buoyant that he thought he might swell up, float away, and pass straight through the ceiling.

Then An Ruo suddenly remembered something.

Since they were getting married, didn’t he need to prepare a lot of things?

At the very least, he needed to prepare wedding rings.

The moment he thought about wedding rings, An Ruo was suddenly struck by another strange sense of familiarity.

It seemed that a very long time ago, he had already thought about preparing a ring for Ulysses.

But when had that been?

He had clearly only just transmigrated into this world.

He hadn’t known Ulysses for very long either.

Had they really...

only just met?

An Ruo wasn’t someone who warmed up to others quickly.

He wasn’t the type to fall instantly and passionately in love at first sight. Even getting him to crawl out of his shell and become close friends with someone was extraordinarily difficult.

Yet he had become affectionate toward Ulysses incredibly quickly.

That wasn’t right.

He kept feeling as though he and Ulysses had already known each other for a very, very long time...

Not the kind of familiarity that came from knowing someone as words written in a book.

They had spent their days and nights together, whispering intimately beside each other.

There had been cautious probing that slowly turned into a connection built step by step.

There had been a heart pounding harder with every kiss.

The fog covering his memories gradually dispersed.

An Ruo remembered how, back in the prison, he had wanted to personally design and commission a pair of rings for Ulysses.

He remembered how they had met, come to understand each other, and fallen in love...

He remembered the scarf they had worn together in the snow.

He finally woke completely.

His eyes flew open, suddenly clear.

That was right.

It was time to give Ulysses his ring.