The Monsters All Covet Him - Chapter 18

The indifferent, silver-white pupils looked as if they were staring at an intruder. In an instant, they were enveloped in countless amounts of hostility and deterrence.

Get out, inferior product.

It was forced out of Lin Yang’s memories by that indifferent, hypocritical god.

Hmph, disgusting fellow. Claiming it wants Lin Yang to surrender, but in truth, it just wants to trap the man in its own territory and watch him be covered from head to toe in its own scent, satisfying its morbid desire for control, right?

“Lin… Yang.”

Lin ground out Lin Yang’s name between its teeth. Once it dealt with the living creatures on the ground, it would settle accounts with Lin Yang in meticulous detail.

Lin Yang returned to the ground while the sky was still relatively light. Several women were waiting at his door, holding withered fruits wrapped in clean cloth.

“These are for you. Thank you for helping us last night. We have nothing else to repay you with, only these fruits…”

The fruits were a grayish-green, shriveled and no larger than a thumb, but for them, they were already the most precious of possessions. The Evil God had descended disaster, and all living beings were suffering; the land had become barren, making it very difficult for crops and fruits to grow.

Lin Yang took them and ate one. A strong, bitter, and sour taste spread through his mouth. He said with a smile, “Thank you. The fruit is delicious.”

The women spoke many more words of gratitude before leaving. Lin Yang stored the fruit in Lin Lin’s belly, giving a few to 00. 00 was so sour that tears shot out of its eyes. “Lord Lin Yang, how can there be such a terrible-tasting fruit in the world? Ugh… I never want to eat them again.”

00’s tongue hung out, and the entire feathered snake became listless. Lin Yang ate them without a change in expression. “Barren land cannot nurture plump fruit. In the human world, there were strawberries in spring, watermelons in summer, persimmons in autumn, and frozen pears in winter.”

00 leaned limply against Lin Yang’s calf, its listless snake tail giving a springy bounce. “Those all sound very delicious. Has Lord Lin Yang eaten them all?”

“None of them. I only heard the elders tell us about them. Even the elders had never seen them with their own eyes; they were told by their own elders.”

Stories of human cities, bustling streets, vast orchards, and lush green crops were all matters of the distant past. After the monster invasion, those things had gradually collapsed. Human dwellings became spheres encased in steel, and the food consumed became quick-fix compressed biscuits. The scenes described by the elders—sitting on a reclining chair under an old tree on a leisurely summer night, drinking tea and enjoying the cool breeze had become a fairytale-like luxury.

Lin Yang didn’t continue. 00’s small hands grabbed onto Lin Yang’s clothes, struggling to climb onto his shoulder. Its round golden eyes widened. “Is it because of the monster invasion that those things are all gone?”

“Mm.”

00 grew depressed. It buried its head in Lin Yang’s clothes. “I’m sorry.”

Lin Yang was silent. He stroked the cold tip of the little feathered snake’s tail. “Maybe one day those things will all come back. We must keep hope in our hearts.”

“Mm!”

Lin Yang and 00 sat on the ground and finished those sour, bitter fruits together. After eating, Lin Yang stared blankly at the ground for a while. As his focus returned, his gaze happened to meet Lin’s fragmented corpse. He had been in a hurry this morning, tossing the duplicate body parts inside and ignoring them. These duplicates didn’t rot even after death; they were like ragdolls, yet possessed the texture of human skin.

Lin Yang knelt before the scattered remains and carefully used needle and thread to sew Lin back together. Once the body was complete, he felt a bit better. He placed the sewn-together Lin next to the one with the red shackles on its neck. His behavior was like that of a morbid stalker, filling a room with life-sized figurines of the one he adored.

A fanatical believer.

Such a phrase suddenly surfaced in Lin Yang’s mind. He let out a laugh—he might as well be a fanatical believer. A fanatical believer who was morbidly twisted, and whose ultimate destination was deicide.

After dealing with everything in Lin Lin’s belly, Lin Yang went to find Fu Bai. He needed to ask clearly about everything that had happened back then. He always felt that the Evil God fragment in this world didn’t represent evil from the very beginning.

The Evil God was summoned here by Fu Bai. If the people offered sacrifices to a god, they must have wanted something from that god. Therefore, this world must have already had significant problems before the Evil God arrived.

Lin Yang walked to Fu Bai’s dwelling. Fu Bai was currently teaching a class to several young people. These youths all had human legs and produced pleasant, melodious voices.

They were Silver Merfolk.

Lin Yang didn’t enter; he stood at the door. Fu Bai saw him and gestured that he would come after finishing the class. Lin Yang indicated it was fine. He leaned against the doorframe with his eyes closed to rest. After being cursed by the Evil God, his five senses were much sharper than a normal person’s. He didn’t intend to eavesdrop, but the content of Fu Bai’s lecture drifted uncontrollably into his ears.

“With blood as the guide, and a curse as the array, one can bind the living and summon the dead.” “Time has cracks and flows at different speeds. Find the crack, probe the root; the stars shift, and the seas change into mulberry fields.”

He seemed to be teaching knowledge related to magic arrays. Lin Yang had no interest in these convoluted readings; when he encountered a problem, he preferred to solve it with violence. If his fists couldn’t kill it, he used a blade.

Lin Yang felt drowsy as he listened. Half an hour later, Fu Bai’s class ended, and the young people came out one after another. One youth bumped into Lin Yang’s shoulder as he passed, letting out a cold snort. Lin Yang remembered this face—it was Shan, the one who harbored intense hatred for the evil creature and had incited the people to kill the Evil God at Su Gang’s house.

Lin Yang bared his teeth at him. Shan took a step back. He had thought a “big figure” like Lin Yang viewed him as an ant and wouldn’t care about being “bitten” by an ant. Lin Yang mimicked Shan’s cold snort and stepped into Fu Bai’s dwelling. Shan was left in a moment of disarray.

Fu Bai’s dwelling was equally simple. Aside from the necessary bed and table, he received no special treatment despite being the Grand Ritualist. However, there were many books inside; the shelves carved out of the stone walls were filled with them, and they were all over the desk and bed.

Lin Yang flipped through them randomly; they were filled with obscure ancient scripts he couldn’t understand.

Fu Bai’s gaze fell on Lin Yang’s hand as he looked at the books. “I found these books in a tomb. Back then, the humans and Silver Merfolk were fighting fiercely. My parents and my older brother and sister all participated in that war; they all died tragic deaths, leaving only me.”

“I searched for their bodies in the piles of dead and found a quiet patch of land to bury them. While digging the grave, I didn’t expect there to be another tomb below. That tomb chamber had no body, only an empty coffin, and inside the coffin were piles and piles of books.”

“I brought those books back and spent half my life studying them. I finally learned a fraction of their secrets. The books told me that there are gods in the world.”

“I wondered: if there are gods, why don’t they save us? People died every day. Human strength was not even worth mentioning against those powerful Silver Merfolk. They wanted to emerge from the ocean and invade the continent. Humans were in constant retreat. They forcibly occupied human land and stole human legs and voices. I hated them, but I was too weak. My own strength alone was not enough to kill all the Silver Merfolk.”

Lin Yang closed the book. “So you summoned the Evil God.”

Fu Bai gave a bitter smile. “Yes. I used the array in the ancient books to summon the Evil God, inviting an even greater disaster. I am a sinner to both humans and Silver Merfolk.”

“Can you tell me exactly what happened a hundred years ago?”

Fu Bai sighed. “When I saw you, I knew why you came to find me. Very well, you have the right to know everything.”

“Hundreds of years ago, humans lived and worked in peace on this land. It was surrounded by sea on all sides, and the people all made their living by fishing. One day, a fisherman hauled up a Silver Merfolk infant. He didn’t recognize it, and the crowd was amazed, calling the Silver Merfolk a ‘blessed creature.’ Rumors spread that eating a Silver Merman could strengthen the body.”

“So, they divided and ate that Silver Merfolk infant, enraging the Silver Merfolk race in the depths of the sea. When the King at the time found out, he handed over the humans who had eaten the infant to be dealt with as the Silver Merfolk saw fit. Things were quiet for a while afterward, but soon the Silver Merfolk discovered the physical weakness of humans. They began to slaughter humans on a massive scale, intending to come ashore and occupy both the sea and the land.”

“The disparity in strength between humans and Silver Merfolk was vast; humans were bound to lose.”

Lin Yang was all too familiar with this kind of story progression; countless small worlds had fallen in just such a way.

“Indeed,” Fu Bai nodded heavily. “What happened next is what I just told you. I used the method in the ancient books, and I never expected to truly summon a god.”

“The god listened to the wishes and granted them. With the help of the deity, humans gained the strength to resist the Silver Merfolk. Once the Silver Merfolk realized this, they also entered the temple. The scales of victory began to tip toward the Silver Merfolk.”

“The god had no stance. From then on, whoever stepped into the temple first could seize the ultimate victory. The casualties on the battlefield grew heavier and heavier, and the number of dead humans and Silver Merfolk increased. Those who made wishes, whether human or Silver Merman, underwent mutations. Their own kind feared them and drove them away; they were neither recognized as humans nor as Silver Merfolk. They were all killed.”

“We finally realized that the god in the temple could not bring happiness, only disaster. But it was too late. The summoned Evil God could not be sent away. Terrified humans and Silver Merfolk charged into the temple, trapping me—the culprit—and the Evil God inside, attempting to burn us to death.”

“The Evil God cannot be killed, and because I used forbidden arts, I suffered a curse of physical immortality.”

“At first, I didn’t understand why eternal life would be a curse to a human. Only after experiencing everything did I realize that being unable to die is the most painful torture.”

“The Evil God did not die, and intense rage was born. From then on, the seawater inverted, the ground became muddy, the Prison Tower was suspended in the sky, and blood-water corroded all things.”

Lin Yang walked out of Fu Bai’s dwelling just as evening arrived.

If what Fu Bai said was true, the evil creature’s grudge lay with the humans and Silver Merfolk. However, if the humans and Silver Merfolk simply wanted to kill the Evil God, and their lives were traded as a result, the evil creature shouldn’t have gone as far as involving innocent descendants and torturing them for a century.

Fu Bai hadn’t mentioned where those chains binding Lin came from. This certainly wasn’t something that could be achieved overnight; it was a premeditated imprisonment.

Since coming to this world, there was one point Lin Yang hadn’t figured out: the evil creature was powerful so why exactly was it trapped in the temple, unable to take even a single step out?