The Monsters All Covet Him - Chapter 33

“Do not pray.”

“Prayers bring only misfortune.”

Lin Yang screamed these warnings, but in the fixed record of the past, no one could hear advice from the future. The tragedy could not be rewritten.

On the battlefield the following day, Lin Yang’s ominous premonition came true.

Those who had participated in the battle survived “intact,” but the eyes, arms, and legs they had lost were replaced by parts taken from their fathers, lovers, and children.

They stared in a breakdown at the familiar body parts now attached to them, screaming that they were monsters, desperately wishing for death—yet they couldn’t even manage to die.

They would live forever.

Meanwhile, the people who had been whispering soft, tender words to them just the day before had become a collection of scattered parts, stripped of any possibility of life.

Those who instinctively avoided the bloodshed would never have the chance to live again.

In just a few short days, the despair and pain experienced by humanity surpassed a hundred years of struggle against the Silver Jiao.

Amidst those shrill, piercing screams, Lin Yang saw Fu Bai.

Fu Bai looked dazed, no longer knowing what to do.

If he didn’t pray, humanity would be swallowed by the Silver Jiao, losing their homes, their dignity, and their lives.

If he did pray, the Evil God brought even greater calamities.

It seemed humanity could only choose between a humiliating death or an agonizing one.

That night, Fu Bai did not come to the temple to interrogate Lin, nor did he make a new prayer. He brought ordinary food from the human world and placed it before Lin, sitting down to share a first dinner together like a normal father.

Lin’s hand was unsteady as it gripped the chopsticks.

More and more malicious thoughts were pouring into its body. Its physical form devoured them by instinct but could not withstand the weight. Cold sweat broke out across its forehead, and a bone-eroding, heart-piercing pain surged through its entire being.

Clang—

Lin’s vision went dark. The chopsticks slipped from its grasp and it fell from the stone chair, its body curling into a ball as it rolled across the floor.

It hurt so much.

Fu Bai stood up in worry. He tried to approach Lin, calling out its name. “What is wrong? Can I help you?”

Lin could not answer. It felt as though ten thousand withered, skeletal hands with sharp nails were tearing it apart from the inside out. It was like a piece of shriveled human skin, being peeled open a hundred, a thousand times, and then forcibly stitched back together.

This catalyzed an explosive desire for destruction—a frantic urge to claw and crush everything in sight.

Lin’s clean fingers scratched startling bloodstains into the ground. Black blood flowed from its body, staining its silver-white fishtail and tender wings until they were filthy and unrecognizable.

Lin’s eyes and nose vanished; even its mouth, which was writhing and whispering “it hurts,” was cruelly sealed by this blood.

It looked like a monster that had just crawled out of the mire, bearing not a shred of resemblance to the clean, innocent young Evil God Fu Bai had first met.

The anxious, worried look on Fu Bai’s face was replaced by sheer terror.

As that filthy hand, covered in black blood, reached out toward him, Fu Bai took a step back. Immediately afterward, he ran out of the temple as fast as he could, shouting to the guards outside, “Evacuate this place! Do not approach the temple for the foreseeable future. Something is wrong inside.”

Lin’s eyes, covered by black blood, felt a surge of intense pain.

Did I scare Father?

A warm body suddenly draped over it from behind. Clean fingers laced through its blood-soaked ones, and soon those warm, dry hands became wet and dirty as well.

A neck pressed against its own, and a cheek leaned against its face. Lin turned its head slightly and saw a pair of clear, dark eyes.

Those eyes watched it with a smile, as if admiring its current wretchedness and agony. A soft, red tongue flicked out, whispering, “Lin, does it hurt very much?”

It was like a beautiful, brightly patterned poisonous snake flaunting its power, flicking its tongue at him.

Drowning in pain, Lin shook its head as if possessed. “It doesn’t hurt.”

Lin instinctively squeezed the warm hand intertwined with its own. “Who are you?”

Lin Yang allowed his full weight to press down on Lin. He was so close that he felt he might be burned by the overwhelming intensity of the emotions in Lin’s silver eyes.

It was as if he should have been in a frozen wasteland, yet an unquenchable fire had ignited within the ice. The snow and ice melted, forming a boundless ocean that swallowed Lin Yang whole.

Lin Yang kissed Lin’s pitch-black lips, tasting the metallic, cold blood. “Lin, I am the lover you carved into your body. My name is Lin Yang.”

“Lin… Yang?”

Lin used its right hand to grip both of Lin Yang’s hands firmly, then turned its gaze to the inside of its arm to see the carved handwriting. Dark red, scarred lines formed the name Lin Yang.

“I know you, but I don’t remember you. Were those memories eaten?”

Lin Yang realized that Lin could grip both of his wrists with just one hand. His self-esteem took a hit, and he tried to pull his wrists away, but to no avail.

Lin was still staring at him expectantly.

Lin Yang could feel that Lin was still shaking; the pain had never left.

He decided not to hold it against Lin for the moment; having large hands wasn’t exactly Lin’s fault.

Lin continued to stare. Its small face was black, its pupils were black, and its features were no longer distinguishable. The way it focused its gaze was quite eerie.

Lin Yang felt no discomfort being stared at by such a face. He answered Lin’s question: “Those memories were never meant to exist. My appearance here is an accident.”

Lin gripped Lin Yang even tighter, its eyes wide. “You’re going to disappear, aren’t you?”

“I won’t disappear, Lin. I am always by your side—in the form of someone who hates you, and someone who loves you. I will entwine with you forever.”

“Do you know about ghosts in the human world?”

Lin, who happened to have heard Fu Bai explain this concept and had developed a fear of such unknown creatures, was stunned.

A look of obvious fear crossed its face. “Ghosts are very terrifying.”

Lin Yang felt a sense of trance. Watching Lin make such a serious statement, he fell into a heavy feeling of unreality.

The Evil God from a hundred years ago is afraid of ghosts?

That… wasn’t funny at all.

It felt like a rusty knife scraping against Lin Yang’s neck. He couldn’t help but pat Lin’s head. “Afraid of ghosts, huh? I’m very afraid of them too.”

Lin pursed its lips and asked hesitantly, “Is Lin Yang a ghost-like existence too?”

As Lin Yang was thinking of how to explain, Lin had already turned around to hug him. Silver tears fell from its eyes. “Then… is Lin Yang already dead?”

The icy tears turned into white pearls and fell into Lin Yang’s clothes.

Fu Bai had told Lin that life was a precious thing for all creatures, and that death meant endless suffering—an existence more terrifying than going to hell.

Lin closed its eyes. “I pray for Lin Yang to come back to life.”

A voice surfaced from the depths of its mind: “All your prayers shall be fulfilled.”

Something heavy and agonizing instantly filled Lin’s body. In the blink of an eye, Lin’s face aged into that of a young man, then from a young man into middle age, and finally settled into the form of a withered, hundred-year-old man.

Bones grew painfully and then withered.

Skin became wrinkled and leathery, and bright eyes turned cloudy. A decaying aura of death permeated the air.

Lin stopped breathing.

Everything happened in a matter of seconds, giving Lin Yang no time to react.

He had heard Lin’s prayer.

This time, black mist overflowed from Lin’s aged corpse, circling the dome of the temple. The body on the ground began to change again, reversing from old age to middle age, and finally fixing itself between the stages of a youth and a young man.

It was the form Lin held in this world.

It opened its silver eyes. Lin Yang looked directly into them, and in an instant, the agony of birth, aging, sickness, and death flooded him.

Lin realized something was wrong with its eyes and hurriedly closed them. “I’m sorry, Lin Yang. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I will gouge these eyes out right now.”

How could it have such eyes? These shouldn’t be its eyes.

A god is born from destruction.

These words surfaced abruptly in Lin’s heart. The voice that had answered the prayer sounded so much like its own, as if it was itself.

What kind of being was it, exactly?

Lin used its sharp nails to poke at its eyes, but Lin Yang was quick enough to stop it. “Lin, what are those? What does that agony from birth to death mean?”

Lin lowered its gaze.

It couldn’t explain.

Lin Yang squeezed Lin’s hand. “After you prayed, you died once in my place. In a few seconds, you experienced the transition of aging and death. That pain was your own experience, and finally, that pain gathered in your eyes, allowing you to share it with others.”

“A god is born from destruction, right?”

Lin was startled. The words from its heart had been spoken by Lin Yang, word for word.

Lin Yang thought to himself: I guessed right.

When the pain from the battlefield entered Lin’s body, there was nothing special about Lin’s eyes, voice, or scent.

But just now, Lin died, and its pain began to be shareable.

But something was wrong.

Lin Yang was a visitor from another time. According to the rules of time and space, he shouldn’t be able to change the past. Why would such a pivotal event—the Evil God’s first mutation—happen because of him?

Most importantly, he wasn’t even dead to begin with.

Did Lin pay the price of its life for a false prayer?

Just who was the being fulfilling all these wishes?

Too many things were tangled together, making Lin Yang agitated. His tone became urgent. “Who did you just make a deal with? What did you hear? What did you see?”

Both of Lin’s hands were pinned down by Lin Yang, even as it restlessly tried to gouge out its own eyeballs. It didn’t know how to lie yet. While its hands struggled against Lin Yang, it answered truthfully, “I heard someone say all my prayers would be fulfilled. That voice sounded very much like my own.”

Lin’s voice?

The evil entity in the crystal palace?

But even if everything happening now took place a hundred years ago, the timeline must be after that evil entity had been blown into countless fragments.

Lin Yang thought of another absurd possibility: if the Lin with the mermaid tail in this world was a fragment of the evil entity from the crystal palace, then why couldn’t that entity be a part of an even larger evil entity?

Were there more evil entities in the world?

Lin Yang fell into a maze of Russian nesting dolls. Lin took the opportunity to pull its hands free. It didn’t want these terrifying eyes. It reached out its fingers and gouged out the pair of silver eyeballs.

It was about to happily tell Lin Yang that those scary eyeballs were gone.

Then, footsteps echoed from outside the temple.

“Are you sure it’s this temple?”

“There’s no mistake. I followed that human named Fu Bai and watched him enter. Ever since he started coming here, we Silver Jiao have never won a single battle. There must be something strange going on!”

“Come on, let’s go inside and see!”

Several Silver Jiao with fish tails entered the temple. They saw a beautiful youth sitting in the inner court, holding a pair of eyeballs in his hands, his eye sockets hollow.

The youth had long silver-white hair and wore a faded white shirt. He sat barefoot on the ground, his head tilted as if looking at someone, his lips slightly parted as if he were about to say something.

The Silver Jiao in the lead spoke up boldly, “Are you the deity of this temple?”

Lin held the pair of eyeballs, looking dazed. Why did I gouge out my eyes?

It didn’t remember.

Its half-open mouth seemed to want to call out… “Lin”?

Half a second later, Lin couldn’t even remember that half of the surname.

It turned its head, its hollow eye sockets staring forward. “I am the Evil God of this place. Do you wish to make a prayer?”