Chapter 280: The Truly Twisted One

Su Mu walked through the harmonious little village. Everyone looked perfectly normal now, their facial features no longer distorted. He even spotted a few "acquaintances."

The man who had previously been hugging a thick tree and professing his love to it was now simply watering it and pruning its branches.

"Give it another month and the fruit will be ripe. Hopefully it fetches a good price," the man said, wiping sweat from his brow before getting back to work. His behavior was indistinguishable from that of an ordinary orchard farmer.

Soon after, he spotted the two men who had previously been dueling over Xiaoli. Although their appearances had changed, their general features remained the same. They had merely moved to a different location.

Both were lean and muscular with dark skin, bearing enough of a resemblance around the eyes to pass for brothers.

They were working an anvil in front of a furnace. One man held a red-hot sword in place while the other struck it repeatedly with a heavy hammer.

"Brother, this sword is already sharp enough," the younger man holding the blade said. "We just cleaved clean through that thick iron rod when we tested the edge. Why are we still forging it?"

The older brother was sweating profusely as he swung the hammer. "There's still a slight flaw. It cut the iron rod, sure, but the edge curled a bit. It needs to go back into the forge. Quit complaining and focus on the work.

"I'm counting on this sword to fetch a good price. Once I scrape together enough money, I'm going to marry Xiaoli."

Su Mu narrowed his eyes at the sight, a startling realization beginning to dawn on him.

Perhaps the ones who had been distorted weren't Su Qing and the others at all, but... himself!

Members of the Twisted Divine Cult never considered themselves abnormal. They believed they were perfectly sane and that the world itself was distorted. That was why their ultimate goal was to reshape the world into what they perceived as normal.

But to ordinary people, the cultists were the ones who were truly twisted. They were raving lunatics who acted bizarrely, were impossible to communicate with, and possessed grotesquely deformed bodies.

This raised a glaring question: if the members of the Twisted Divine Cult were truly like that, how had they managed to form a sect and grow its ranks? Could a band of senseless madmen pull off something so organized?

Organization required communication and cooperation among twisted ones. Their methods simply appeared utterly bizarre and incomprehensible to normal people.

Yet now, he could suddenly understand how the twisted ones communicated. They all appeared perfectly normal to him. What did that mean?

It meant he was the one who was truly twisted!

A twisted one was somewhat akin to a psychiatric patient. It was common knowledge that psychiatric patients perceived the world differently than normal people did, which was exactly why they behaved so erratically.

Take someone talking to empty air every day, for example. That was how it looked to outsiders, but in the patient's own eyes, they were conversing with a friend constructed by their own mind—a friend only they could see. Because others couldn't see this friend, the person was labeled insane.

With this realization, many things fell into place for Su Mu. Back before he was distorted, he had seen the farmer professing his love to a tree. But to the farmer and the other twisted ones, he had merely been watering it—a perfectly normal act.

His teammates hadn't betrayed him at all! He was the one with the problem!

It was highly likely that Lin Nanxing hadn't sneakily drawn his bow to ambush him. He might have just felt an itch and scratched his arm, but through Su Mu's distorted perception, the action had morphed into drawing a weapon.

Yan Wu and Lin Nanxing had probably just bumped into each other to ask if either had found any clues. Yet to his ears, their casual exchange had sounded like a treacherous conspiracy. Hell, it was entirely possible Yan Wu hadn't even been there at all!

Lin Nanxing might have merely been asking a passerby for directions.

An excited smile suddenly tugged at the corners of Su Mu's lips. "Just what I'd expect from a God. They always find new ways to surprise me!"

Back then, the Celestial Sovereign of Longevity had forced him to hurl himself into the sea to commit suicide, and he had only managed to resurrect by borrowing the power of the Sea God.

Now, the Twisted God had turned him into a twisted one and made him feel utterly deserted by all. Clearly, not a single deity could be underestimated.

"When did I fall victim to it?"

Su Mu guessed that the distortion must have begun taking root when he heard Lin Nanxing complaining about Xiaoli being ugly. It just hadn't been severe at the time. As time wore on, the symptoms worsened, ultimately leading him to the delusion that his entire team had been twisted and were plotting to murder him.

Now that he was completely distorted himself, he finally perceived all the villagers as entirely normal people.

He also understood why he was the only one who had been affected. He was the only person in the entire group who had kept staring at the Statue! The others had all kept their heads down as they walked.

"I really was careless this time." Su Mu shook his head with a wry laugh. His codename, Pride, truly suited him. To maintain such arrogance even in the face of a God... no wonder he had fallen into the trap without realizing it.

However, given the chance to do it all over again, he would still make the exact same choice. After all... it was far more interesting this way, wasn't it?

"It seems the Twisted God is capable of more than just manipulating Twisted Thoughts; they can also distort one's perception of the world."

He was absolutely certain that his own thoughts hadn't been twisted. This felt completely different from his previous experiences. Back in the twisted illusion, it was as if he had become a completely different person, his very personality shifting. But that wasn't the case now.

What was distorted now was his perception of the world. Every piece of external information was being warped to some degree the moment his brain received it.

In other words, his entire perspective had shifted. He was now viewing the world through the eyes of a twisted one.

A simple handshake between two people might look to him like someone drawing a gun and opening fire.

In layman's terms, he had gone insane. A neurological disorder was causing his brain to incorrectly process all external stimuli.

"Since the problem lies within me, it's actually much easier to solve. I just need to swap out my brain."

Su Mu already had a solution in mind, but he didn't implement it immediately. His current state was incredibly rare and presented the perfect opportunity to gather intelligence.

When he had previously questioned that arrogant shop owner, the man's answers had been complete nonsense. That was because the information the owner perceived was twisted to begin with, making a coherent answer impossible.

He sought out the shop owner once more. This time, the man looked completely normal, lounging leisurely in a recliner while fanning himself.

The eye that had previously sprouted from the top of his head was back where it belonged. With his facial features restored, he was actually somewhat handsome—passable enough to be called good-looking.

"Welcome to... oh, it's you again, you weirdo. Just a moment ago, you were shoving a mirror in my face and demanding to know who I saw in it. Who else would I see?

"Are you buying anything or not? If not, get out!" the shop owner grumbled with obvious displeasure.

A crystalline blue light flashed in Su Mu's eyes. The shop owner was instantly hypnotized, his gaze turning hollow and vacant.

This time, he took out the portrait of the First Red King and asked, "Have you seen this person?"

"I have."

"Where did you see him?"

"In my house."

"..." Su Mu was left speechless.

He frowned. He had clearly become a twisted one and should be able to communicate with them normally now. Why was he still getting answers like this?

"Where is he right now?"