Chapter 704: Still Don’t Understand the Truth of This Hell?

"You are all nothing but prisoners in this cage. You think yourselves clever, but little do you know—from the moment you fell, everything about you has been under the gaze and control of the jailers."

"You even delude yourselves into thinking you can cross the boundaries and return?"

The God of All Machines and Sir Aiwen both turned their heads, their gazes locked firmly onto that massive eye surging within the rift in the distant sky.

The Flesh-and-Blood Dominator, the native Root of this hell.

"What… did you say?"

The God of All Machines' murderous eyes churned with a boundless tide of darkness.

That eye still watched them without a single ripple of emotion, as if observing a pitiful bunch of playthings that could only be toyed with.

"This is your cage, you wretches. Haven't you realized it yet?"

"The reason you've been able to persist here, unextinguished for so long, isn't because you're lucky or unlucky enough—it's because you're still useful. Every single one of you represents some system of knowledge, some doctrine."

"Mechanical Ascension, Flesh-and-Blood Ascension, Psychic Ascension, Holy Power, Eternal Nature, Titan Divine Might—you're nothing but specimens left behind by that Darkness. It's the same as how, to ensure that slaughtered beasts don't go completely extinct, some embers are always kept alive among their kind, raised carefully in pens."

"You think you're facing a winter?"

"No. The old order that you represent—that IS the winter."

That hoarse, cold laughter was almost overflowing with sarcasm and mockery.

The gazes of all the Roots locked onto him with deadly intensity, but his words struck like knives, crashing heavily into their minds.

That eye gazed at them with contempt.

As if watching a group of struggling clowns.

His venomous, jeering voice rumbled in their ears.

"Among you, there should be those who've existed since the dawn of the New Era, right? Then why don't you think about it carefully? In that era when you first sprouted, why weren't there gods in the heavens like there are now, covering nearly every domain?"

"Were they never there to begin with… or did something happen to them?"

"You should be able to figure it out. Look at yourselves. Look at the present. Look at this hell. Don't you understand the truth of this hell's existence yet?"

He laughed scornfully, that massive eye watching every Root present.

"Just stay put, you wretches! There is no calamity, no darkness. What you call the Cataclysm, starting three thousand years ago, is nothing more than the inevitable cycle that every era must endure!"

"And soon, you too will become old gods. Like us remnants of the last era, you'll be gradually abandoned and forgotten in the river of time."

"That is your fate."

He laughed out loud, a bitter, sardonic cackle that was like a knife crazily slicing at your eardrums.

That eye twisted madly, countless hideous, grotesque faces writhing out from within it, the contorted mockery and derision in its smile enough to drive anyone mad at a single glance.

"And if I'm not mistaken… the jailers are about to go to work."

…

Beneath the surging black mist of the distant sky.

"Heeheehee—HAHAHAHA!"

A cracked, grinning Black and White Clown mechanically clapped its hands with a clattering sound, its garish, multicolored clown hat reflecting the long, dark sideburns beside it.

In the swirling sandstorm, the Pig-Headed Butcher, carrying his butcher knife on his shoulder, came to a halt. He looked up, his expression indifferent and placid as a dead pool, gazing into the sky.

On his shoulder.

The clown with half its face crying and half its face laughing continued its mechanical laughter, but the sound was now so grating it was like an ugly wail.

"It's trying to escape! Doing that will disturb that one's slumber, you know, heeheehee—HAHAHA!"

The Pig-Headed Butcher looked up blankly, staring at the sky.

He said nothing.

As if just going through the motions.

He took down the burlap sack hanging from his waist. Within it, the crisp sound of marbles colliding with each other could faintly be heard.

He reached in, grabbed a handful of colorful beads, sniffed them lightly, then crushed them bit by bit. With wisps of black qi and sharp, shrill screams, the broken beads quickly gathered in his hand, forming a new, pitch-black marble.

(Click here to go to Chapter 188)

"Although we didn't trade for the Colossus's Heart and gave it the chance to cross the boundary, with this supplement of malicious thoughts, hell should be able to beat it back to its original form."

"If that doesn't work, we'll just have to ask the master for help."

He said this indifferently.

The laughing-and-crying clown twisted its head all the way around, looking at the Pig-Headed Butcher, and tilted its head with a strange grin.

"But that one… hasn't been clear-headed for a very long time. Last time, if I remember you saying it, was at the very beginning of this era."

The sky.

The black mist grew increasingly wild.

The Pig-Headed Butcher raised his head, gazing at the surging black mist above for a long time, as if he could see through that dust and perceive the colors of the higher heavens. In his eyes flickered countless light rings that no one could decipher.

After a long while.

He withdrew his gaze and slowly loosened his hand.

"Yeah."

That pitch-black marble slipped from his hand, fell heavily to the ground, and kicked up a few specks of dust.

"If he doesn't wake up soon…"

"Then we'll be accomplices to evil."

Crack—

A series of clear cracks split open on that marble. Countless surging black qi crawled out from within, hideously twisting, gradually forming a mass of contorted darkness that the earth devoured in great gulps, chewing noisily.

The towering black mist, faintly visible with that spot of red light at its peak, seemed to become even deeper and darker because of it.

#