Chapter 424 - 421: Wish Fulfillment

Chapter 424: Chapter 421: Wish Fulfillment

Mo Ling instantly understood. Xia Buluo wanted revenge against the Ever-Thirsty, which was why he had come to the Mirage.

As the Ever-Thirsty’s power grew, Xia Buluo found he couldn’t hope to catch up, no matter how hard he tried. It seemed his revenge was becoming a lost cause.

So, after learning that a wish-granting relic existed within the Mirage, he had come here without a second thought, seeking a way out of his predicament...

"But how am I supposed to grant your wish?"

Mo Ling wasn’t a god; he couldn’t just conjure a relic out of thin air.

Just as this helpless thought crossed his mind, the golden light around him suddenly began to shift and flicker.

A moment later, a bizarrely shaped relic appeared beside Mo Ling.

It was dark, resembling a small spinning top.

Mo Ling quickly looked around, but his surroundings were perfectly still. There was nothing but the golden light drifting everywhere.

’The wish... was granted?’

’Just like that?’

The golden light nudged the relic, slowly guiding it to Mo Ling’s side.

Mo Ling instantly understood what it meant:

It wanted Mo Ling to help it deliver the relic to Xia Buluo.

Mo Ling didn’t take the relic.

"Who exactly are you?" Mo Ling shouted into the empty space around him.

But there was no reply.

"Are you the Sea of Creation? Or the Spring Elf? Aladdin’s Magic Lamp? Or maybe the Olive God?" Mo Ling shouted his guesses one after another, his voice echoing from his stone bracelet and reverberating all around.

However, once his questions sank into the Golden Light Sea, they were met with silence.

...

In the mirror’s reflection, Xia Buluo was still gazing devoutly at the blue olive.

His pitch-black shrimp eyes revealed boundless anticipation.

Mo Ling’s gaze shifted back and forth between the relic and Xia Buluo for a long while.

Finally, with a helpless shake of his head.

Mo Ling couldn’t bring himself to stand idly by. Besides, for him, this was a trivial effort.

"I’ll only help you this one time," Mo Ling said to the space around him.

Aiming the portal frame at the strange, top-like relic, Mo Ling activated the teleport, sending it to the other side of the mirror.

And within the Mirage, the surface of the blue olive rippled, and a moment later, a glittering golden relic suddenly materialized.

As the golden light slowly faded, the relic’s true form was revealed.

It was the very same top-like relic.

Xia Buluo tilted his head back, his two pitch-black shrimp eyes flickering. The slowly descending relic represented not just power, but also his hope for revenge.

He raised his pincers, accepting this precious hope with the utmost reverence.

He then respectfully retreated, leaving the spot for the other supplicants.

Mo Ling silently watched him back away and leave the Mirage.

’What a pitiful race.’

For some reason, Mo Ling could feel the emotions flooding out from the blue olive.

It wasn’t just Xia Buluo’s personal experience, but everything that had happened to the Lobster Race.

Mo Ling also felt a profound sorrow. It was the pain that Xia Buluo refused to remember, but alongside it was an unconcealable rage—the fire of vengeance. Xia Buluo desperately wanted to suppress that anger, but it burned on nonetheless.

And mixed in with the sorrow and rage was a sliver of hope.

This tiny sliver of hope was all that propped up Xia Buluo’s will, keeping him from being consumed by his suffering.

These emotions were transmitted from the blue olive directly into Mo Ling’s heart, raw and real.

It was only after fulfilling Xia Buluo’s wish that Mo Ling belatedly noticed the disturbance caused by these emotions.

’This blue olive... it seems to do more than just act as a magnifying lens.’

It seemed to amplify the emotions in the supplicants’ hearts, laying everything bare for Mo Ling to see.

’It’s a magnifying glass that lets you see through everything.’

Seeing through their lives, seeing through their emotions, all so a god could weigh whether or not to grant their wish.

"What do you really want me to do?" Mo Ling asked the wavering golden light.

But the golden light remained unresponsive. On the other side of the mirror, the water on the blue olive rippled as it began to display the wish of the next supplicant.

It was an orca with a scarred face.

...

A short while later, the orca also received the relic it desired.

Mo Ling scratched his Block head, still trying to process everything.

The orca’s story was also tragic. Its entire race had been consuming a type of food from the surface, becoming completely dependent on it. They eventually discovered it was merely bait set by another species—a food that was making their entire race incredibly dull-witted.

Therefore, the orca wanted a relic that could nullify the food’s effects.

"I’ll help you just this once. No more after this..." Mo Ling said to the golden light.

Yet, when the next supplicator arrived before the blue olive, Mo Ling was once again moved by another tragic story.

This supplicant resembled a walrus, and its wish was simple—

To let its people have enough to eat.

Food in the sea was becoming scarcer. Overfishing by powerful civilizations had squeezed the living space of weaker races like theirs, and its people hadn’t found food in a very long time...

"This is the last time," Mo Ling said, shaking his head in resignation.

Supplicant after supplicant came forward. Every time, Mo Ling told himself he wouldn’t help the golden light again, but every time, he found himself empathizing with their stories.

The blue olive transmitted their true emotions to Mo Ling. Through the rippling water, he saw the raw, genuine wishes of the supplicants.

Not a single one of them was lying.

Oppression, hunger, war...

They were powerless to resist; the Mirage was their only hope.

Mo Ling was unwilling to betray the compassion in his heart.

Helping a race escape its plight required just a single, simple teleport. It was, without a doubt, an incredibly worthwhile thing to do.

Gradually, Mo Ling stopped saying "this is the last time." He simply watched in silence as supplicant after supplicant approached the blue olive, feeling the faint hope they carried with them.

However, as Mo Ling continued to teleport relic after relic, a strange set of emotions began to stir within him:

’I’m so tired.’

’Why do I have to help them?’

’Wouldn’t it be better to just let them fend for themselves?’

’What do the problems of other races have to do with me?’

Mo Ling’s heart suddenly felt incredibly weary. He was constantly empathizing with all these different races, feeling their suffering, and reliving their similar tragedies over and over.

’Why is the abyss filled with so much pain?’

’The abyss is ruled by the law of the jungle. Races are eliminated every day, and they deserve to be. Even if I help them, they’ll just fall into hardship again one day because they’re weak...’

Gazing at the images within the rippling water, Mo Ling’s heart gradually grew numb.

No longer moved, no longer empathetic, no longer compassionate...