After the Evil God Pretends to Be a Player [Infinite] - Chapter 21

The firelight illuminated half of Li Zhu’s face; for a fleeting moment, he seemed almost divine. Yet, the second the perpetually smiling corners of his mouth straightened, he projected an aura of unapproachable coldness.

The surprise in La Lai’s eyes lasted only a second before she withdrew her gaze.

Meng Luo looked back and forth between La Lai and Li Zhu, sensing an odd atmosphere between them. She thought for a long while but couldn’t recall anything from her nine years of compulsory education or three years of high school that explained how to handle such a situation.

Wang Kai and Zhou Wen were equally dazed. They couldn’t understand how La Lai, who once seemed as frail and beautiful as a dodder flower, now radiated the commanding presence of a powerhouse.

However, Wang Kai’s most praised trait by his superiors was his habit of never asking about things that didn’t concern him. He cautiously asked La Lai, “Can we leave the instance now?”

La Lai replied, “Soon. There’s one last step: kill the instance boss.”

Wang Kai nodded. “Okay, kill…” A second later, he realized what he had heard. “What-what-what?! Why do we have to take out the boss?”

Meng Luo’s eyes widened like copper bells. Though she didn’t speak, her gaze screamed: Sister La Lai, please reconsider!

Meng Luo stammered, “This Miss Cui Yingzi is actually quite piteous. People spread those rumors about her for no reason, and just when she thought she was saved, she discovered her savior was the true culprit…”

La Lai suddenly glanced at her, and Meng Luo’s voice trailed off. For some reason, she felt that while La Lai appeared to be looking at her, her gaze had already passed through her, chasing some distant object in a far-off memory.

La Lai said tonelessly, “Yes, very piteous.” Then, her tone shifted. “But don’t you want to leave?”

That silenced everyone.

La Lai continued, “Besides, from the moment she became an Evil God, she had nothing to do with the former Cui Yingzi.”

Li Zhu suddenly spoke, his eyes fixed on her. “What exactly is an Evil God?”

“He is right before your eyes,” La Lai said.

As soon as she spoke, a figure slowly materialized in front of them. There were no black tentacles, no nauseating slime, and no terrifying shadows; the Evil God had returned to the form of Cui Yingzi. However, her once-lovely face had been peeled away, leaving behind a bloody, mangled mess.

The Evil God’s voice remained hoarse and low, but its tone had softened considerably. “A beautiful face is no longer my obsession. The foundation of my existence is about to be destroyed; I can already smell the elegy of death. Thank you. You may go.”

The group hadn’t expected leaving to be so easy. Just as they were secretly rejoicing, they heard La Lai say, “I’m sorry, but I must kill you with my own hands.”

In the next moment, they watched as La Lai stepped forward, produced an exquisite deep-blue dagger, and pressed it firmly against the Evil God’s throat.

Aside from La Lai and Cui Yingzi, no one knew that at that same moment, a voice broke into Cui Yingzi’s mind:

“Nice to meet you for the first time. I am from R’lyeh.”

No one knew what transpired in those brief thirty seconds. All they saw was the dagger instantly piercing through Cui Yingzi’s chest the movement was fast, ruthless, and without a trace of hesitation.

La Lai withdrew the blade. Not a single drop of blood remained on the deep-blue steel. She looked impassively at Cui Yingzi’s body as it slumped to the ground, but after a few seconds, she knelt down and gently closed those blood-red eyes.

Then, she pointed toward a certain direction. “You can go now.”

Every player simultaneously heard a prompt in their ears: [Beep-beep—Instance boss annihilated. This instance is permanently closed.]

Five meters away, a black door suddenly opened in the air. The moment it appeared, everything in the instance began to shrink and collapse like a knocked-over set of building blocks, just as Li Zhu had experienced in the “small world” before.

“Well then, until we meet again!”

Before the words had even finished echoing, Wang Kai grabbed his girlfriend and leapt into the door in three strides. As a player who had essentially been carried through the instance to a “free win,” his life’s motto was to run as fast as possible when the opportunity arose.

He failed to notice that as his girlfriend stepped through the door, she gave him a dark, haunting look, a flash of red appearing in her black pupils.

Meng Luo hesitated. She looked at the now-unfamiliar La Lai and finally said, “Can we exchange contact information?” Even though she felt La Lai was far more complex than the “demon-slaying family heir” she had imagined, the fact remained that La Lai had saved her.

La Lai: What is “contact information”?

She and Meng Luo stared at each other for a while, both feeling confused. Finally, La Lai feigned nonchalance and said, “You guys add each other first; I’ll deal with it later.”

Meng Luo and Li Zhu exchanged contact info and departed. Before leaving, Meng Luo waved reluctantly at La Lai. “I hope we can play a game together again next time!”

In this space, only Li Zhu and La Lai remained.

La Lai asked with some impatience, “Why haven’t you left yet?”

Li Zhu remained unhurried. “I have one last question. What’s the deal with that dagger?”

La Lai countered, “How did you get out?”

For a moment, even the wind seemed to cease. The sounds of snapping trees and collapsing buildings faded away. Li Zhu heard a sigh echo in his own mind. He had initially thought she wouldn’t bring this question out into the open.

There was still no hint of guilt on her face. To her, leaving an innocent person in a life-threatening predicament seemed like a matter of course. She watched him calmly; just as she said, she simply wanted to know how he had escaped.

It seemed that the person she loathed held much more weight in her heart than he had anticipated. Li Zhu’s heart sank. He didn’t know what kind of explanation he wanted from her. He wanted to demand:

Do you really think I’m that much like him? What if you guessed wrong? After experiencing so many life-and-death moments in this instance, did you not hesitate even for a moment when you struck your teammate?

But in the end, Li Zhu said nothing. He took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing all his anger and violent emotions. He said with a look of feigned indifference, “It was simple. I used Cui Yingzi’s power.”

Then, his tone shifted as if asking casually, “Otherwise? If it were that person, how do you think he would have gotten out?”

La Lai pondered for a moment, then suddenly said, “Actually, the moment I saw you, I knew you probably weren’t Him.”

“Even in disguise, He cannot hide His lofty disdain for lower beings. If it were Him, Cui Yingzi wouldn’t be standing there. He wouldn’t listen to a single word she said; instead, with a face like a spring breeze, He would crush her directly under His feet like an insignificant ant.”

“I am sorry for the previous test.”

She spoke the words of apology, but her face carried no apologetic meaning whatsoever.

“In exchange, I can answer your question from earlier. That dagger was once my possession.”

Li Zhu’s expression shifted slightly, but before he could organize his thoughts, La Lai spoke again: “You can infer whatever you like, but none of it matters. Because from now on, your path and mine are separate. we shall not meet again.”

As soon as she finished, Li Zhu felt a violent push from behind. Before he could utter a single word, he was shoved directly into the door by La Lai!

Now that all the bothersome humans had left, La Lai looked around. Ignoring the sight of the collapsing world, she finally slowly unclenched her hand, releasing the power she had been deathly suppressing.

The moment she let go, the collapse of the world abruptly stopped!

Surging tides silently flooded the campus, gradually submerging every inch of bare earth. The water rose higher and higher. The raging fire at the top of the School History Hall was quietly extinguished. Within minutes, Pretty Middle School was submerged in a vast ocean.

La Lai stood at the crest of the waves, looking out over the blue expanse. she watched as countless NPCs some with faces, some without were swept into the tide. Webbed feet grew from their soles, and gills unique to aquatic life appeared on their cheeks.

She had killed Cui Yingzi with her own hands, and thus her domain would be swallowed by La Lai’s power. Every follower within that domain would now become her servant.

The webbed feet of these servants slapped the water’s surface as they gradually gathered, looking up at her as if worshipping the one and only deity. La Lai looked down at them, but her gaze didn’t truly focus on them.

The words Cui Yingzi had spoken just before her death flashed through her mind:

“I understand…”

“Please kill me. If this can provide even a tiny bit of help to your plan… it would be my honor…”

“But… the path you want to take against Him is too difficult, too lonely, and too bitter. You cannot be soft-hearted, you cannot hesitate, and you cannot make a single mistake… Even if you do all that, will this path truly yield a result?”

In her mind, Cui Yingzi’s words were filled with anguish. In reality, her followers knelt in submission.

La Lai let out a self-deprecating laugh. Then, without looking back, she walked slowly toward the black door leading to reality, and her silhouette vanished.

However, she didn’t know that the “Evil God Forum” was currently in a total uproar because of her.