Chapter 389: Absolute Chaos [4]

Chapter 389: Chapter 389: Absolute Chaos [4]

Chapter 389 – Absolute Chaos [4]

"Game of Truths," Meadow managed to say, mouth half-covered by the faceless substance, essence bursting from her body.

The faceless man had no time to block before he was pulled straight into the mental space forming her Ultimate Skill.

In an instant, Meadow and the faceless man sat facing each other on the ground, a simple wooden table between them.

Around them stretched nothing but a mass of churning pink and gold essence.

"This is..." the faceless man began, visibly thrown by the situation. He looked around, piecing it together. "A unique Ultimate Skill?"

It was quite unbelievable, even by Ultimate Skill standards. Some Ultimate Skills stood apart, not necessarily because of raw strength, but because of the conditions and rules attached to them which were enough to trouble even the strongest opponent.

Faceless knew his power was severely depleted. He’d given a great deal of himself to Green, and had spent even more trying to devour the Black Knight.

Both had been killed, costing him everything he’d invested in them. Add to that the enormous amount of energy he’d burned breaking through the Tier Three barrier just to drag Meadow inside, and he was currently fighting at roughly 15 percent of his full power.

Not a good position.

He turned his attention back to Meadow, who was already watching him with cold, murderous eyes.

Given who Meadow Wealth was, angering someone like her was a remarkable feat.

"Nothing but the truth," Meadow declared, and the surrounding essence churned as six cards appeared on the table, three on each side.

On Meadow’s side, the cards were pink and gold, marked with the image of a wide, pupil-less eye.

On Faceless’s side, they were solid black, blank.

Meadow steadied herself before reaching out. She picked the middle card among her three, and without checking its contents, began speaking.

"Each card holds a question you’re bound to answer," she said, working to steady her racing heartbeat. "You can lie, if you want. But if you do, and I catch it, you lose whatever you wagered on this round."

"Wagered?"

"We wager something on each card. Which means," she smiled coldly, "three wagers total. And our stakes must match in weight, in importance. And as master of the Game of Truths..."

Meadow’s eyes began glowing pink and gold.

"...I set the first wager."

The faceless man stayed silent, understanding there was no real choice but to play along. There was no escaping this now even if he wanted to, and he genuinely doubted some human barely 20 years old could even catch him in a lie.

Ridiculous.

So he agreed, curiosity growing over what this future vessel might actually be capable of.

Seeing no objection from him, Meadow decided to wager everything on this single card, hoping to end the game quickly. Even having pulled the monster into her Ultimate Skill, her mastery of it wasn’t deep enough to sustain it for long, and she still barely understood how it worked.

It was risky.

She could already feel the strain building inside her, pain slowly gnawing away at her from within.

"For the first Game of Truths," Meadow said, eyes resolute, "I wager my entire identity."

Faceless flinched visibly, staring at her in shock.

"You wanted my identity, didn’t you?" she said, smiling with something close to madness tangled with fear. "I’m offering it to you outright. Match it. Wager your own."

"Fool! My identity outweighs yours," Faceless laughed. "I don’t need to wager it, when I could wager something else instead." He stopped laughing, leaning forward, veined hands pressing hard enough into the table to make it creak. "I’ll wager one of the identities I’ve stolen, for this first round."

Meadow said nothing to that, only smiling knowingly.

Once both wagers had been declared, a voice echoed through the space, closely resembling Mother System’s,

<Wager invalid.>

"Hm?" Faceless exclaimed.

<The identity of Meadow Wealth is worth hundreds of times the identity you have wagered, Faceless.>

"How is that—!"

<Meadow Wealth is the sole daughter of Willow Wealth, the woman chosen by gold and wealth, the wealthiest woman in the world, and the third-wealthiest being in the world overall.> The voice continued flatly. <She is Chosen One of a First Generation god, the Keeper of Truth. She is the Herald of Fate of the Church of the Reader, her influence growing rapidly. She is the sun of a hidden sect. And finally,>

Faceless had no facial features to speak of, but Meadow could see shock radiating off him in waves.

<...she is a friend of Cassius Desdemona, favored son of goddesses, bound to him by a strong thread of fate.>

The space fell dead silent.

<The only wager worthy of her identity is your current identity, Faceless. Wager it, and let the game begin.>

Meadow stared at the faceless man, a cold grin curling on her lips, one eerily reminiscent of Cassius’s own,

"Shall we? I’ll ask the first question," she said, her eyes turning frigid. "Let’s see who devours whom today."

...

While Meadow waged her truth battle against a being she could barely comprehend, Horus Skygazer was in dire straits.

After the Tier Four bomb had gone off, the old man had barely kept himself alive by redirecting part of the blast away using his Sky abilities.

But he was only Third Rank. A special one, sure, but still Third Rank. That attack alone had shattered most of his defensive artifacts, even the one the Fangs Sect had gifted him.

Having barely survived that, body drenched in blood, he now found himself fighting Hel Hood’s newly-made Commander of Death.

This bloody family!

’Vorn, curse you!’ he gritted out, as the Commander of Death drove a knee straight into his stomach.

The air was knocked from his lungs, eyes bulging with pain. Without pause, the Commander chained his strikes together, eyes hollow, burning with death fire, as if genuinely reveling in the moment.

Horus barely registered the harrowing, death-coated punch that struck his masked face before it fractured, then exploded outward, splinters scattering.

His face now fully exposed, the Commander grinned before headbutting him with everything he had, cracking Horus’s forehead open.

The Fangs assassin hit the ground hard, blood splattering. His head spun, and after everything he’d already spent surviving Hel Hood, then the bomb, Horus had nothing left in reserve.

He lay sprawled, blood sputtering from his mouth, choking him. He tried coughing it out, but the Death Commander’s foot came down onto his chest, deepening the agony to a whole new level.

Horus looked up at his opponent, and saw someone in even worse shape than him, but still blessed, cursedly, with the ability to feel almost no pain at all.

Death-baptized beings were just unfair like that.

"The Queen has given her orders," the Death Commander said, blood streaming down his own face, left arm hanging limp and useless. "You have two choices: bend the knee, join the Queen’s Death Confidants or die. Choose."

The Death Commander raised his hand towards Horus, and it began morphing into the gaping maw of some monstrous beast.

Horus smiled wryly through the blood pooling in his mouth. He didn’t know exactly what aspect this man carried, but he understood, clearly, that he wouldn’t survive whatever came next.

Still, Horus had no intention of joining the ranks of the dead. Not just because he despised Vorn and his nepotism-favored Hood family, but because...

"...sorry, young man," Horus spat onto the Death Commander’s crumbling armor. "I already have a master. Don’t need two."

"Who—!"

A flash of gold light, gone in less than a heartbeat, and the Death Commander suddenly felt a searing-hot hand clamp around his skull.

"Hello, you." Cassius whispered gently. Before the man could react, Cassius unleashed his plasma ability at full strength.

He manipulated the electrochemical signals firing through the Death Commander’s brain, while simultaneously injecting red plasma directly inside.

Controlling both at once, he drove them towards a single point, using the resulting electric fields to violently ionize the surrounding matter.

Then he let the two forces collide. For a fraction of a second, a tiny, blank point formed inside the man’s skull.

Then everything within that point detonated, and the Death Commander’s head burst apart, spraying in every direction.

His body stood upright for one more heartbeat, heart still beating as though oblivious to its own death, before finally collapsing, deader than dead.

Horus Skygazer watched the masked man in front of him with sudden dread, wondering what exactly had just arrived to reclaim the artifact.

Before he could scramble through any possible escape plan, the masked man crouched in front of him and spoke, his voice carrying a smile within it:

"Been a while, old man. Still kinking?"

—End of Chapter 389—