The Creatures That We Are-Chapter 1201: Ignorance

Apple Island, Dongyu District.

The explosion laid waste to the island. Under the white moon, the lingering flames clustered like monochrome flowers. The only bright color amid the purgatory was a golden phone booth, unconnected to the rest of the world and unable to reach anyone.

The Absolute Barrier shattered into flying golden particles. Adept Horse stilled like a statue, while Chen Ying slumped on the ground.

After a silent moment, Adept Horse sighed. “I think it’s fair to say that I understand how you’re feeling, Chen Ying, but we have business to take care of.”

Chen Ying stayed unmoving with her head downcast.

Adept Horse urged, “Get yourself together, Chen Ying. Check if Greed is dead with Sensory. The Battle of the Curtain Call isn’t over yet.”

Chen Ying remained unresponsive.

Adept Horse hesitated and crouched down to place a hand on her shoulder. “Chen Ying—”

He felt a shudder and moved to pull his hand back, but it was too late. Dominating power crept up on him, piercing his blood, flesh, mind, consciousness, and even soul like tens of thousands of threads. He lost everything that made up himself.

Greed is still alive!

That was Adept Horse’s last thought.

“Hahahaha!” Greed’s laughter rang across the hell on earth that was the charred clearing. Countless vertical eyes reappeared all around Adept Horse and Chen Ying. They opened and gazed in the same direction. An entity of black energy threads emerged at the intersection of their lines of sight, as if born from their visions. It rotated and spread like a vortex.

At its center, a dark red vertical eye opened. It had no pupil—or it had a countless number and they all blended together like the countless reflections in two mirrors facing each other. The resulting space was infinitely vast and deep.

That was Greed’s true form.

“Pathetic, ignorant, foolish.” Greed’s voice echoed darkly in the air without a definite source. “My gaze reveals all secrets. I know all of your plans.”

Indeed. The moment Greed succeeded in prying, the four awakeners could no longer hide anything from it.

They had been scanned. While Greed had yet to establish a link to their fates to occupy them, it had already glimpsed into all their memories, thoughts, and emotions. That was why Greed was able to replicate their Fate Slides to fight them.

Therefore, Greed had always known about Nine Frost’s hidden ace, about the rings he and Harvest Song were wearing.

Greed continued the charade. It wasn’t concerned at all. Neither the original Surnamed Li nor the cadaver it manipulated was its true self. Its existence was conceptual, nestled in the fates it had occupied. That was the greatest treasure in the world and its trove.

So long as Greed did not show itself, it should be theoretically impossible for anyone to kill it.

Greed only had to appear when it was assimilating one’s fate in its entirety, meaning the last stage of occupation.

Nine Frost and Harvest Song’s contact with Surnamed Li accelerated Greed’s occupation of their fates. They were now assimilated.

With Nine Frost’s fate claimed, it became incredibly easy to pry, link, and occupy Chen Ying’s fate. Then Adept Horse touched her shoulder, hastening his end.

Now, Greed could put the treasure into its trove.

It looked down at the now immobile Adept Horse and Chen Ying. “Come. Give me your all and share eternity with me. This is the otherworld for all lives...”

It wasn’t able to continue. The moment it was about to complete assimilation, it saw—Chen Ying kneeling before Nine Frost’s tomb alone with silent tears, a Fate Slide from her future.

But it couldn’t be.

Greed had intended to keep Chen Ying and Adept Horse alive after claiming their fates, using them as pawns to deal with the other awakeners. Thus, they did have a future. However, under Greed’s dominance, Chen Ying wouldn’t be crying before Nine Frost’s tomb. That could only have come from herself, meaning she had broken out of Greed’s control.

But how? Was its occupation of Chen Ying’s fate...a failure?

Yes, it was.

Greed realized that its assimilation had failed to complete like file transfer stuck at 99.99%. It wasn’t for a lack of intention, but ability.

A will had shackled Greed.

The monochrome world shuddered. Its colors flooded back in. Then da ignified, distant, ancient voice echoed:

“Overlord descends. All will submit.”

Dragon! It was Dragon!

How? Wouldn’t he be going after Pride?!

Greed abandoned Adept Horse’s and Chen Ying’s fates without hesitation, attempting to return to its trove.

But it was no use.

The moment Greed heard those words, it had already become the sinner awaiting Overlord’s judgment.

Finally, Greed experienced what those dying at its hands felt like.

It stayed unmoving, not even given the chance to despair. A figure appeared on the horizon—a tall, slim androgynous man with beautiful heterochromatic eyes, wearing a pristine white cape with long white hair. It looked like an ascetic wandering the earth for a thousand years without getting a speck of dust on him. Although he walked slowly in bare feet, although he had started from the horizon, he was suddenly right before Greed between one blink and the next.

Inside the Overlord realm, Dragon was God.

God could do anything He wished to.

“No, impossible! You-you shouldn’t have been here...”

Greed’s voice trembled with fear. It didn’t know that it was due to Dragon’s grace that it was even allowed to be scared.

Penance and terror—that was all a sinner should leave behind in death.

Greed didn’t repent, of course. Its vortex of black energy sped up in an attempt to cover up the red eyes in the center, but it couldn’t.

Uninterested in its struggle for survival, Dragon pointed at Adept Horse’s forehead gently.

“Gah!”

Adept Horse jerked awake, reclaiming his fate. He gasped for breaths like a drowning man. He thought he was dreaming when he saw Dragon. “Captain Dragon...why-why are you here?”

Dragon smiled. “Where else would I be?”

Adept Horse didn’t know what to say.

“You’ve done well. Leave the rest to me.”

Without wasting another second, Adept Horse picked the unconscious Chen Ying up and Jumped away from Dragon and Greed at his maximum speed. He only sensed himself going through a thin layer of energy barrier when he reached the edge of the island. He stopped to look over his shoulder. A numbness prickled his scalp.

The entire island was shrouded in a hemisphere of gray, at least five kilometers in diameter.

Adept Horse knew about the weakness of an Overlord realm. He wondered about the risk of it breaking from a flying bird or a mouse, but then he realized:

All irrelevant creatures vanished at the beginning of the Three Double-Hours of Heavenly Tribulation. That’s why Dragon dares to go this far!

As expected of Heavenly Way’s older son—Gao Yang being the younger son—he is able to run free under its blessing!

Adept Horse took several steps back to keep a safe distance from the hemisphere, lest he accidentally break it. A terrifying thought suddenly occurred to him—once Overlord reached level 8, would its domain cover an entire district or even a city?

Then it wouldn’t be difficult for him to take down all seven death monsters. The man hadn’t been exaggerating.

However, the damage brought about by the judgment of his enemy would be his to bear, too. Dragon would die killing the seven death monsters.

That was why Dragon must not be the main force in this battle. He couldn’t die here. He said so himself; he had his own mission, and it would follow Gao Yang’s.

What, though, could that mission be?