Chapter 532 (1): Can’t Hurt to Try. What If It Works?

Mirror world.

The inner world was a pathetic inverse world consisting of the negativity of the surface world, filled with darkness, cruelty, and despairing tragedy. The cities were all wastelands, strewn with broken walls, rusty metal, dried riverbeds, and lifeless wilderlands. There was nothing but ash and remains as far as the eye could see.

However, there was something positive about the inner world. Looking up, the surface world could be seen thriving. The more desolate the inner world was, the more beautiful the surface world appeared.

Following a flash, Wayne emerged in a ruin with Shadow Nightmare in hand. He had arrived at the Lando Estate in Londan, or what little remained of it.

If possible, he would’ve liked to avoid entering this world.

“As the trashcan of the surface world, the inner world carries the negativity of the Chosen Land. Without the inner world acting as a filter, the surface world won’t be able to resist the corruption from the Astral Plane...”

“Is that really the truth?”

Wayne murmured to himself. He had believed the explanation, but once Elohim was connected to the Final Judgment, he no longer believed that was why Elohim had created the inner world.

The inner world was a massive petri dish. Through its repeated destructions, it gave birth to the Horseman of Famine, one of the Four Horsemen.

“Famine means a serious food shortage resulting from a poor harvest, or it can be a terrible financial state. In the context of the inner world, famine refers to overall scarcity. Here, there is no happiness, hope, or peace. Nothing wonderful could be found here.”

“The Horseman of Famine, born in the inner world, is an amalgamation of negative information. They represent famine, but also the lives filled with bitterness and grievance in famine...”

Wayne looked up at the surface world, then at the now ruined Lando Estate. Seeing the Four Horsemen in his mind, he said calmly, “How could I let you have your way?”

Rumble—

Large swathes of white foam rolled out from Wayne’s feet, rushing into the city in shambles. The twisted pale ocean appeared to consist of countless writhing tendrils, filling the space between heaven and earth with no end in sight. It covered all of Londan with unstoppable momentum.

There was no life. All living beings had wilted.

Violent waves roared at the sky, shattering space and burrowing through the fissures, turning the inner world pale from the inside out. Within the waves, large eyeballs opened, filling the air with rotten, slimy, indecipherable whispers. A massive tentacle beyond measure pierced through the spatial ramparts and thrust into the land of the inner world from above.

Then another followed. Yet another...

Windsor, Franc, Prussia, Iberia, Rus Federation, Graeci, Sverige...

Every country that had once existed in the inner world welcomed the massive tentacles. Wherever the whispers reached, all matter turned pale in mutation.

If he let go, he could single-handedly corrupt all living beings in the Chosen Land. Naturally, he could do the same to its mirror world—the inner world.

Wayne didn’t know how the Four Horsemen would descend. The Revelation said that seven angels would sound the horns and lift the seal to release the Four Horsemen, but that would be stupid. He now owned Heaven. If Elohim entrusted the seven angels—the Seven Sacred Virtues—to herald the Final Judgment, Wayne would say Elohim was not a worthy opponent after all, plagiarizing from the source material without thought.

It was more likely that Elohim had only copied part of the text. There was a different solution more suitable for the Chosen Land, and there had to be contingency plans. He wasn’t going to put all the eggs in the basket of the Seven Sacred Virtues.

Since Wayne couldn’t figure out how Elohim would do it, he decided to just make everything explode!

“You’re the Horseman of Famine, aren’t you? Congratulations. You’ve just found petroleum on your land. Expect a war to break out.”

Wayne’s eyes sharpened. Tens of thousands of thick, twisted tentacles reached down from the sky, sweeping everything in the inner world and turning all into his shape. Once things settled down, the sky was a mirror that reflected the wonderful surface world, while the land was occupied by writhing paleness—sickly, rotten, with bulging growths.

Rip!

In the center of the inner world, a massive eyeball occupying several nations opened, looking at the surface world in the sky. At that moment, negative information that had been imperceptible manifested in the form of black particles. They gathered and formed a black tornado, rushing toward the massive eyeball.

Negative information was still information, and the Book of Greed could consume any information. Even if the book found it bland and didn’t want to have potatoes for every meal, Wayne still had ways to process the negative information.

He had reshaped the inner world and consumed the information with his pale ocean. He wasn’t just using it for his evolution. There was a more important reason he was doing this: as long as he ate everything, the Horseman of Famine would have nothing!

Soon, though, he realized something terrible. He had turned the whole inner world pale, but didn’t see the Horseman of Famine. Famine had already awakened and departed.

“Where exactly are they hiding...”

Wayne’s expression turned grave. Because the enemies were in the dark while they were in the open, he had been reacting rather than acting. What he knew about the Four Horsemen was pure speculation, while Elohim and Elian, among the Four Horsemen, knew everything about the goddesses on his side.

Suppose this was an information war. He would be Windsor, while the Four Horsemen would be the Rus Federation. The intelligence discrepancy was too great for him to play properly.

Still, it was possible to win a war with a disadvantage in intelligence. Prussia was a good example.

Indeed, Prussia’s information had been leaked. The Allies knew everything. But so what? They couldn’t defeat Prussia even with all cards on the table.

Wayne, however, wasn’t Prussia. The top god and goddess were in the enemy’s camp, while he and his allies were forced to take the defensive. They couldn’t find the enemies even if they wanted to take the offensive. They might as well be Franc.

The better the Four Horsemen had been hiding, the more foreboding the situation seemed to Wayne. The fact that the enemies had been staying put despite having the advantage in information and raw power had to mean that they were preparing for something big.

They would go big or go home!

“I wonder if the defenses I set up could withstand it...”

***

Divine Realm of Darkness.

Heart of Supreme Darkness, twelfth level.

In a corner of the temple garden, Wayne summoned the four goddesses and told them about his encounter with Elian and his visit to the inner world.

“That’s how it is. You’re all old goddesses—I mean, you’re all goddesses with eternal youth and a wealth of experience. I want to pick your brain for other possible hideouts in the Astral Plane.”

“Elohim’s Heaven has already been corrupted by you, so have our Divine Realms,” Siluk said. “Putting aside the unknown spaces, the only possible option is the Chosen Land.”

The Chosen Land was a small box, but it was also big. It depended on the frame of reference. Compared to the vast, boundless cosmos outside the box, the box would be an isolated Solar System, too small to be worth mentioning. It wouldn’t even be a hair on an ox’s body. To a human, though, the Solar System was measured in light-years, so vast that it evoked despair.

Inside the box, there were still many unexplored grey spaces and projections. Some were ruins from the Faith of Wars, others were projections of the ancient gods’ Vassal Realms.

Wayne’s question was too big for the four goddesses to provide any constructive suggestions.

“Damn it, now we’re really going to be like Franc, waving our white flags...” Wayne grumbled. “Let’s start looking in the Chosen Land, then. We must find them even if we have to turn this land upside down.”

He tossed out four octopi. “These are my replicas, able to replicate, corrupt, and detect. Take these and make decrees to have them placed in the headquarters of each church branch.”

He explained the reason: the Divine Realm and the inner world had been corrupted, leaving only the Chosen Land. Based on the intelligence available to them, the Horseman of Pestilence was very likely to be Elohim, and Pestilence’s ability was to spread corruption. In case the Horseman suddenly descended and caught all of them off guard, Wayne would spread his replicas across the Chosen Land.

He would fight corruption with corruption!

Ines frowned. “Pestilence’s ability is already known. If you’re so wary of him, why don’t you corrupt all lives in the Chosen Land as you’ve done in the inner world?”

Wayne was silent for a moment. “If everyone is reshaped by me, would the Four Horsemen be the bearers of apocalypse, or would I be?”

“You said that, but while the lives you corrupt would lose their freedom, they would get to live. They wouldn’t have to worry about dying on the day of the Final Judgment.” Ines nodded. “Listen to me. Put aside your worthless principle and corrupt the world. That is the simplest and most efficient solution.”

Aztimor nodded. She also saw that as a once-and-for-all solution. “Don’t you always wish for world peace? When there is only one voice in the world, no one would have to fight for resources. Then, there would be peace.”

She believed Her master had suffered unjustly, having been running around taking care of every little thing. He didn’t have to push himself like that. He didn’t owe the Chosen Land anything.

Moreover, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse bore the name of judgment, when they were actually bringing destruction. Rather than letting them destroy the world, it would be better to let Wayne reshape it.

Any vassal of his would come to the same conclusion. Aztimor found Wayne wonderful. The others might reject corruption at first, claiming that they would rather die than lose their freedom, but they wouldn’t think the same after they were corrupted.

“What would be the value of a thoughtless world following one faith blindly? Just to make me happy? Then it might as well meet its doom.” Wayne shook his head. “I cannot reverse my corruption, and I cannot break out of the box. I’ll consider your opinions, but I’m not going to do it now. Unless there is no other way, I will not reshape the world in my image.”

Then he added, “Stop saying things like that. If I truly put aside my principles, you’ll be the first to suffer for it.”

“Suffer corruption?” Siluk asked quietly.

“Worse.” Wayne covered his forehead with a hand. “I’ll grant everyone evolution randomly and fairly so that everyone will get their candy, but it won’t be my concern whether you can take it or whether you’ll go insane. I’ll become a supreme being, truly above all. I won’t care about having, nor would I care about not having...”

He waved his hand, unwilling to continue.

He had almost turned into that once, but he rejected it at the last moment. A life with no care about anything was empty. He couldn’t understand or imagine it. He chose to walk his own path instead.

“You are responsible for protecting the peace of the world, too. Your followers have provided you with faith to ensure your sanity. That’s the protection fee they paid you. Now, some people are breaking down the restaurant to stop them from eating. You have to get moving.”

Wayne looked at the four goddesses. “Come on. I’ll provide the physical bodies, while you’ll provide the thoughts. Let’s comb through the grey spaces in the box. We’ve been too passive. Only by finding the Four Horsemen’s hiding place can we gain initiative and keep War out of the Chosen Land.”

“Also, try to see if you can merge your Divine Realms. It might not have been possible before, but now...”

He waved, manifesting the simplified version of the Book of Greed’s cover on the table. Countless smaller eyeballs circled a large eyeball, and because of the large eye, Nature, Darkness, Death, Sun, Moonlight, Heaven, and Hell had a backbone to attach to, no longer separate.

United they stood, and divided they fell. If the gods could be integrated into a complementary system, the synergy might help them all.

It was an audacious idea that might or might not work. Since all Divine Realms were now pale, sharing a commonality that could be the basis for integration and assimilation, it was worth a try.

That can’t hurt. What if it works?

To this day, Elian had been the closest to the ideal. The Goddess of Nature had formed the Life Alliance. That, however, was a loose framework similar to a council. Wayne’s idea, on the other hand, was more radical. Referencing the pantheon of Greek mythology, he would also make the system an authoritative one.

He would create his own divine system!

The four goddesses didn’t understand him. Still, their Divine Realms had been corrupted, so Wayne could do whatever he wanted. They couldn’t stop him. Might as well let him try.

“Follow me. Once the company becomes bigger and more robust, I’ll give you a raise and a promotion.”

“Then, Sir Capitalist, what are you going to do?”

“I’m too stressed. I need some entertainment.”

“???”

He left just like that. Ines couldn’t believe what was happening. Entertainment? What entertainment? Wasn’t She entertaining enough?

“Damn it, I shouldn’t have agreed to his proposal!”

“It’s not too late to get a divorce.” x2

Aztimor and Kaleb offered the same suggestion at the same time.

Ines rolled Her eyes and pointed at the gateway of Her Divine Realm, kicking Her three neighbors out.