"Beep beep, Greater Will, received, please respond."
A very familiar aura, and a very annoying one. It was also a voice that piqued the Greater Will's infinite curiosity.
"Spit it out, whatever it is."
Although the Greater Will was very interested in Yu Jin, it was naturally impossible for him to show him any kindness.
The Greater Will felt some conflict within him. He liked order, but beneath order lay endless eternity.
A self-consistent and stable-running world had a certain beauty. But occasionally, the Greater Will would also feel bored.
How long had he been playing sandbox games? The Greater Will himself didn't know. But he continued to play.
Brave or cowardly, great or vile, the lives he created always brought him some peculiar feelings.
It wasn't about good or bad; it was just that with life, at least some things could enter his eyes.
"You old geezer, I didn't realize you were a tsundere?" Yu Jin's voice came through, sounding quite disbelieving.
"Too noisy, both you and those wailing things inside you. So, hurry up and spit out what you have to say!"
The Greater Will clenched his fists, his half-smile looking rather eerie. He hadn't expected what Yu Jin would say, which was good.
But the very act of "Yu Jin speaking" was quite unsettling to him.
"Send Lanssangx back, she has work to do." Yu Jin didn't waste much time chattering with the Greater Will. He didn't know when this state would end, so he wanted to quickly finish the important business.
And then continue to chatter.
"That dragon? Is it worth such a fuss?" The Greater Will was surprised. Dragons were powerful beings to ordinary creatures.
But in his eyes, dragons were just like other creatures. Equally weak, equally crude. And on this point, Yu Jin was probably similar to him.
"Yes, she's one of my friends, after all." Yu Jin said, as if it were obvious.
"Is doing this interesting? You should know everything about them, shouldn't you?" The Greater Will didn't understand Yu Jin's actions.
"Go away! Don't think of me as a pervert like you. I don't have a habit of peeking into other people's privacy everywhere." Yu Jin decisively denied the Greater Will's statement.
Who knew everything about them? This was blatant slander!
"Bored? I used to be like you, but ever since I gouged out my eyes and lost my mind, I haven't been bored."
"You can learn from me."
Then Yu Jin enthusiastically began to impart his experience of self-harm to the Greater Will, causing the Greater Will's face to twitch repeatedly.
"Get lost!"
In response, the Greater Will only gave Yu Jin one sentence, and then kicked him away.
"Damn it, you old..." Yu Jin's words "geezer" were cut off before he could finish, as the communication was severed.
Although he had chatted with Yu Jin for a while, in the real world, it was only a brief moment.
The Greater Will came back to his senses, looking at Ranni, who held the fingerslayer blade nearby. He began to recall Yu Jin's words.
"Dark Moon's Empyrean, didn't you claim to defy me? I'm giving you a chance now, don't hesitate."
The Greater Will's gaze remained as calm as ever. It was as if he didn't care about the fingerslayer blade in Ranni's hand at all.
"Hmph!" Ranni looked at the Greater Will, who was seated before her, and couldn't help but tighten her grip on the curved blade.
"Then please try it, the wisdom of the Nox!" With that, Ranni fiercely thrust her blade towards the Greater Will before her.
"Buzz—" The dark red, foul fingerslayer blade touched the Greater Will's now somewhat pale skin, immediately emitting a subtle hum.
The twisted blade quickly pierced through the Greater Will's tangible skin, delving into his intangible essence.
Just as Ranni was shocked that the fingerslayer blade could so easily penetrate the Greater Will's flesh, she found that the Greater Will had somehow grabbed her wrist.
Then, an unstoppable surge of power came from the Greater Will's hand. This force guided the fingerslayer blade in Ranni's hand directly towards the Greater Will's eyes.
"Sizzle—" Like a branding iron plunging into ice water, something within the Greater Will gradually melted away.
The fingerslayer blade greatly surprised the Greater Will, for it contained a power that the Greater Will had not even conceived of.
That power was very "jumpy"; it impacted the Greater Will's essence, causing cracks to appear in his eternally brilliant body.
However, that was all. This power was jumpy, but not *that* jumpy. Because it was bound by something—the fingerslayer blade itself.
The Greater Will was not convinced. Where was he now? He was still far from gouging out his own eyes.
So he exerted more force, plunging the entire fingerslayer blade into his head. Not only that, he fiercely twisted the blade.
"Holy crap, don't do something rash!" Patches saw the horrifying scene before him. He immediately stepped forward and pulled his and Ranni's hands apart.
Patches truly didn't understand the Greater Will's thought process. He was either sleeping or interrupting his work every day, and now he'd probably have to add a new label: "self-harm."
The moment the fingerslayer blade detached from the Greater Will, his face, with its mangled features, instantly returned to its original state.
The Greater Will touched his restored face, then looked at the fingerslayer blade in Ranni's hand, which glowed with faint golden light, and said calmly:
"The wisdom of the Nox, very good. I have witnessed it, though it is a trick."
The Greater Will uncharacteristically nodded at Ranni. Whatever the Nox's purpose in creating this weapon, this wisdom deserved his praise.
"Un... unharmed?" Ranni held the fingerslayer blade, a hint of disappointment in her eyes.
The scene before her was truthfully telling Ranni that her ethereal guidance, all her plans, if truly fully realized, would at most only pierce the Greater Will's skin.
Slaying a god was simply a delusion.
"Not unharmed, there was a little DMG." The Greater Will spoke truthfully, but it was even more disheartening.
"The Nox are very clever; they knew that mere temporal distortion could not harm me. So they sought a higher level of power."
eternity is a characteristic of deities; time leaves no trace on them. Thus, distorting time is the easiest and most accessible power for god-slaying.
But for an entity like the Greater Will, distorting time held no meaning. He was inherently a level above all other things, including deities.
"Higher level..." Patches scratched his bald head. A power higher than distorting time? What was that?
"Fate. To harm me, you need power that transcends fate, transcends causality."
The Greater Will seemed to know Patches' thoughts and, without any hesitation, directly answered the question in his mind.
Then he looked at Ranni, who was deep in thought, and continued:
"Blue Marionette, do you think by obtaining this blade, you can control your own fate? Gain a chance to defy me?"
Ranni didn't speak; in fact, she had thought so before.
It was precisely because of this that Ranni became so distraught after seeing that the fingerslayer blade could not kill the Greater Will at all.
"Hehehe, the 'fate' you control was anchored for you by the Nox in the distant past."
"Turning all possibilities of fate into a definite 'destiny,' this clever manipulation, even surprised me a little."
"Barely, it can be considered escaping fate?" After all, fate is inherently unpredictable, and forcibly fixing it can also be seen as a form of "leap."
The Greater Will smiled and shook his head, allowing countless uncertain futures to intertwine, extracting their intersection point, which became this "fingerslayer blade."
And the individual whose entire future was anchored early to the fingerslayer blade was Ranni, standing before him.
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