Chapter 432 - 429: The Lively Companion

Chapter 432: Chapter 429: The Lively Companion

In the warm ocean, Mo Ling was swept up by the currents, drifting about aimlessly.

It took him a long time to get used to his new body.

The cell was simply too fragile, completely unable to withstand the churning seawater.

"What are you doing?"

When Mo Ling came to his senses, he discovered a gigantic cell beside him, as steady as a mountain in the seawater.

The cell moved right over and pressed Mo Ling against its surface.

"Come on, let’s go fight."

Without waiting for Mo Ling to react, the giant cell took him directly into the depths of the ocean.

"Charge!"

The giant cell brought Mo Ling to an underwater Volcano and began fighting the cells already gathered there for food.

The smaller cells were no match for the massive one; they were smashed until they burst, their cytoplasm spilling everywhere.

"Fun, right?"

After annihilating all the cells there, the giant cell said to Mo Ling, who was off to the side.

It was only then that Mo Ling realized this giant cell was his lively companion.

It had not fulfilled its divine duty. Instead, it had transformed into one of the living creatures to play in this world.

But this was understandable. These cells had no concept of making wishes, or even any consciousness. They simply moved about aimlessly, consuming food.

These primitive lifeforms had not yet reached a stage where they would pray to a god.

"Have you always been playing like this inside your own body?"

"Of course. It’s way more fun in here than outside. It’s too boring out there," the giant cell replied.

’But is this what a god should be doing?’

A trace of doubt rose in Mo Ling’s heart, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what was wrong.

While he was still pondering this, the giant cell led him to a new enemy.

This enemy was a bit strange.

It was a collective formed from a group of cells fused together. This cluster of cells, when aggregated, was actually comparable in size to the giant cell.

"Come at me together!"

The giant cell charged right in, trading blows with the cell collective.

"So much fun."

After destroying this strange cell collective, the inside of the giant cell suddenly began to change.

"These guys are getting stronger and stronger. I need to modify my body. If I can’t beat them, it won’t be fun anymore."

The cytoplasm within the giant cell suddenly swirled into a vortex, and some strangely shaped bubbles began to appear.

Then, these bubbles transformed into the shape of the cell collectives they had just fought.

"Modification complete. Onward!"

The giant cell, with Mo Ling in tow, continued its search through the great ocean.

When it encountered those cell collectives again, the giant cell was no longer as reckless as before. It ejected the bubbles from its body, sending them to fight the creatures directly.

Even if the bubbles were defeated, it could quickly create new ones.

"Fun."

And so, the giant cell constantly sought out enemies, and the enemies it encountered grew ever stronger.

The cell collectives they formed also became more and more organized.

Finally, Mo Ling saw a familiar creature:

It was the prototype of an early animal, a simple-structured worm.

The giant cell didn’t initiate a direct battle. Instead, it reshaped one of its bubbles into the form of the worm, released it, and had it start fighting the real worm.

"Why aren’t you talking? Are you not having fun?" the giant cell asked Mo Ling while it was fighting.

But before Mo Ling could answer, it began to mutter to itself.

"I guess just fighting all the time isn’t that fun. Let’s try something else."

It continued to sink toward the seabed, found a strange slug with tentacles, and then a bubble changed again, taking on the slug’s appearance and bursting out from the cell membrane.

"Race you. Whoever gets to that rock over there first wins," the bubble said to the slug, not caring whether it understood.

As soon as it finished speaking, the bubble squirmed its way onto the rock, claiming an instant victory.

The slug, however, remained where it was, motionless.

The bubble felt no joy in its victory and sullenly climbed back down from the rock.

"Can’t you understand me? Race... that rock over there... Did you get it?"

The slug waved its tentacles, grabbing food from the sand and mud, completely ignoring the bubble.

The bubble looked at the food and pondered for a moment.

"I get it. You want the food, right?"

A faint golden light emanated from the bubble’s body, and in the next moment, a large clump of food appeared on its tentacles.

When the slug saw such a large clump of food, it immediately rushed toward the bubble. The bubble casually tossed the food onto the rock.

"The race is on!"

Just like that, both of them excitedly dashed toward the rock.

Unfortunately, the bubble didn’t seem accustomed to its newly acquired body. It was left behind by the slug and ultimately lost the race.

"You win!"

The bubble didn’t seem upset at all. On the contrary, it was overjoyed.

"So there are things more interesting than fighting!"

The slug lay on the rock, devouring the food. Its intelligence was insufficient to understand the food’s origin, but that didn’t stop it from enjoying the meal.

The bubble leisurely drifted back into the cell membrane.

"So, I have to give them something to get them to play with me," the giant cell said with sudden understanding, watching the ravenous slug.

Having understood this point, the giant cell no longer worried about the creatures not playing with it.

"Living beings all have things they want. As long as you provide a sufficient temptation, they will join the game for it."

The giant cell incessantly used its bubbles to replicate the appearance of the creatures it met, transforming into their likeness to play games with them.

As the creatures it encountered grew larger, it modified its own body to become larger and larger to accommodate enough bubbles.

The games were all very simple, but the giant cell played them tirelessly and joyfully.

The simple creatures couldn’t understand complex games. All they knew was that a big pile of food was waiting for them.

Appetite is the simplest desire, and the giant cell fulfilled their wishes.

Watching the giant cell endlessly amusing itself, Mo Ling suddenly felt that things had taken a wrong turn.

At that moment, the vast voice returned:

"The Joyful One, addicted to amusement, has forsaken its divine duty. Though it satisfied the desires of its people, its actions are in fact selfish, driven only by the pursuit of pleasure."

"From the very beginning, the flaws were apparent. As its threshold for fun increased, the Joyful One would continually raise the difficulty of its games to obtain the pleasure it sought."

"As a god, it has fallen into a spiral of desire from which it cannot extricate itself, sinking into an abyss of hedonism..."

Along with these thunderous words, everything before Mo Ling’s eyes began to accelerate.

He watched as the Joyful One gradually spiraled into its hedonistic desires.

The Joyful One completely immersed its consciousness within the giant cell, no longer paying attention to the outside world.

The once vibrant ocean slowly cooled. The Volcanoes ceased to erupt, the raging waves gradually calmed, and land was exposed.

But the Joyful One was completely unconcerned with these matters. Its entire mind was consumed by the game.

It remained focused within its cellular body, replicating every creature it saw and playing its games tirelessly.

"Fun."

Because its threshold for amusement grew ever higher, it no longer enjoyed fair games. It grew to love the sight of creatures winning its games only after immense hardship.

The more difficult and complex the game, the more fun it was.

Winning or losing didn’t matter.

The desires those creatures desperately pursued, it could grant with a mere wave of its hand...

As Mo Ling watched the wantonly reckless cell, the vast voice echoed in his mind once more:

"The Joyful One... is no god..."