Chapter 84: [Dream], "Shit."
[Dream], "Shit."
Night heard [Dream] say something he didn’t expect to hear from a former Goddess... This ironically proved just how disastrous the situation he was in truly was.
Night asked in a slightly trembling voice, "Wh... what do we do...?"
[Dream] sighed heavily. "A Physique cannot be given up now that it has been awakened. It is a fundamental part of you, even if you somehow lose this body. Some Physiques like this one actually follow people into their reincarnation cycle like a bloody curse, so suicide is not an option either."
Unsurprisingly, [Dream] didn’t shy away from bringing up extreme options like suicide, but it didn’t matter anyway, since even that was apparently useless.
As Night lost all hope, he asked, "So I will have it forever?"
For some reason, as soon as he had read the System description, he became inherently aware of his new Physique and it was as the description said. This Physique was an disaster magnet and it didn’t just affect him, it also affected the people around him as well.
[Dream] warned, "It is better to hide it or be prepared to be relentlessly hunted down by everyone when the Merger happens."
Night gulped. "Is it really that bad?"
"Yes," [Dream] confirmed. "When I was alive, I had heard ancient stories of a Dragon who was born with this Physique. The Dragon only survived because its parents were incredibly strong and the Dragon tribe was very united. Though they scorned the child, they still fiercely protected it. As for any others... I haven’t heard of them, probably because they simply didn’t survive for very long."
The others in the room saw that something was wrong from his dark expression, but they didn’t dare interrupt him.
"So it’s possible to survive?" Night asked.
He was a walking disaster magnet, meaning any place he stayed in was no longer safe. Since he was an threat to everyone around him, eliminating him would literally be considered a righteous cause by the rest of the world.
"Yes," [Dream] agreed. "But be incredibly careful and don’t tell anyone other than your summons and friends about it for now."
Night nodded and, with hesitation, explained the situation to the gang.
He was now basically a walking red flag. He genuinely wouldn’t blame them if they chose to stay far away from him from now on, especially Sara and Blade.
Blade frowned. "How troublesome. Its name also matches the first Class you had." Shaking her head, she added, "We will just need to be far more aware of our surroundings from now on."
Sara clicked her tongue. "Tsk... what a troublesome kid." That was all she said. It didn’t look like she had any intention of leaving him...
Night felt emotional seeing this response. It was only when real trouble came knocking that you got to see the true nature of everyone around you.
It was a truly heartwarming feeling to know they weren’t faking their care for him.
System Girl chimed in cheerfully. "Don’t worry, Night! It’s just some stupid Physique. How bad can it really be?"
.
.
.
What did she know? Only the future would prove exactly how wrong she was....
....
Meanwhile:
Seeing the severely weakened Arthur sitting in front of her, Zora finally lost it.
Glaring at him, the ever-calm and collected Zora snapped, "Tell me what is really going on, or when I become a Demigod, I will...." She didn’t finish her angry threat, seeing no change in Arthur’s exhausted face.
Arthur looked out the window, staring at the beautiful buildings that possessed such unique structures... The entire city was truly dream-like...
Arthur finally turned back to Zora and said solemnly, "Our planet is being targeted by a God." He was already sure that Zora was not a puppet of [Zethe-thoth].
Zora raised her eyebrows, her expression practically screaming, So what?
The various monster invasions that had been happening recently were all races located much closer to the center of their universe, meaning there were already plenty of entities vastly stronger than them out there.
The System had only come to Earth recently, whereas those worlds had millions of years to develop powerful cultivation techniques. Which inherently meant many of them had Immortals, who were basically equal to Gods in raw power.
Arthur clarified, "There is a God currently in our world."
Zora frowned. "So what? They will still be suppressed. Before the System, even Gods are just ants as well."
Arthur shook his head grimly. "This one is not suppressed. At least, not nearly as much as it should be. Just a small fragment of its will made me completely powerless and I am sure it had the strength to kill me at any given moment."
Zora looked at him in sheer shock. This revelation broke all of humanity’s standing theories about the System protecting them in the initial integration stages.
Arthur continued, "The only reason it didn’t kill me was because it needs me... no, it needs us."
Zora’s pupils contracted. "Why?"
Arthur spoke with absolute conviction. "It is after the Primordial God’s corpse hidden in the No. 1 Death Zone. And I will make absolutely sure to destroy it even gets close to it."
Zora was stunned. Despite facing such terrible, impossible odds, her brother still had the guts to act this calmly and even boldly declare he would kill a God.
Slapping her own cheeks to pull herself together, she sat down beside him and said, "Tell me everything."
Whatever they were going to face, she would gladly face it together with her brother; even if it meant certain death
...
Back in Nightmare Castle:
After a week,Night was sitting cross-legged in the massive Training Hall, looking around at the others.
When they finally came to terms with the harsh reality that their future would be full of troubles, they made a collective decision.
After some intense discussion, they came to a very obvious conclusion: they needed to stick to improving their combat prowess using the divine artifact – Game of Chess.
According to Blade, the improvement she had experienced in her strength and control after playing the game was incomparable to any actual life-and-death battle.
So, that was exactly how the current situation came to be.
In the game, Night concentrated as he moved his 16 pieces. Yes, it took a ridiculous amount of mental effort, but he had good motivation to keep himself going. He had barely slept a wink over the last few days; if not for the soothing effects of the [Song of Death] sunglasses, he would have definitely developed dark circles under his eyes just like Sara.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t find another pair of glasses like them in the System Shop and Sara refused to borrow his.
Everyone was highly motivated.
The divine chessboard had expanded to properly accommodate their complex gameplay; it was now a three square meters in size. It had even developed realistic real-world features like small hills, ponds and if you looked closely at the top, you could barely see faint clouds.
On the board, the intense battle was no longer just epic; it was downright legendary.
Eve’s Rook viciously took out his Pawn, while Lilith’s Knight aggressively flanked from behind to fight his Queen. From the rear, you could see Sara’s Mage constantly bombarding his pieces with spells, only for them to dodge with slick movements.
Thanks to his growing mastery, all of Night’s Pawns now looked like him, casually wearing bone-white sunglasses, a white hoodie, shorts and flip-flops.
Each of them menacingly carried a axe that gave off Nightmare Mist.
Yes, after so long and on the insistence of System Girl, he had finally relieved his power of the bland name ’Black Fog’.
He now coordinated the movement of 15 pieces simultaneously to aggressively counterattack Eve’s formation. He ruthlessly took out her Rook, Queen, and finally her King in one flawlessly quick retaliation.
Her robotic eyes flashed with sad, dim lights as she reluctantly exited the game, joining the other depressed spectators.
Beside her, Sage gave her soft, comforting pats on the shoulder.
Ek ekek ekk eek!
(Next time we will beat him for sure!)
Eve nodded sadly and turned to look at Blade.
Blade was staring blankly into empty space with a dark look, probably pondering the Grand Dao. Beside her, Lucy’s shadow twisted weirdly on the floor as she tried to mimic the complex game and practice for their next round.
Meanwhile, Death was seated comfortably at the back, eagerly watching the game with renewed fervor. She happily munched on the popcorn she had ordered from the System Shop as she proudly watched Night kick everyone else’s butts left and right.
Yes, Night was an absolute menace in this game.
At first, he had been clumsy and could barely manage to move two pieces at once. But with his renewed motivation, he refused to give up. Soon, after just a couple of games, the total number of pieces he could control rapidly increased.
Just yesterday, he had finally managed to effortlessly move all 16 pieces simultaneously, while even the pros like Eve, Lilith and Sage were still heavily struggling to properly coordinate just 8 pieces.
As Night flawlessly finished off the rest of Sara and Lilith’s pieces, he exited the game. He got up from his mat and stretched his sore muscles, only to trip over his own feet.
Barely managing to balance himself which suddenly seemed to have exponentially increased in difficulty.
Sara tried to teleport directly in front of him to catch his fall.
But for some inexplicable reason, no doubt thanks to a certain Physique, her always-perfect teleportation failed her for the nth time this week. She materialized horizontally in mid-air instead of appearing vertically on her feet.
Slam!
Night finally succumbed completely to the laws of gravity and fell right on top of Sara.
"Ouch..."
Both of them exclaimed in pain as they accidentally slammed their foreheads against each other.
Night sat up, rubbing his head, as he thought to himself:
Well, just these small mishaps, maybe being a disaster magnet isn’t quite as bad as I thought...