Nol… Xu Yue stood in the center of the living room.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the living room, he could see the beautiful greenery within the community. He had saved quite a bit of money during his university years and disliked sharing a home with strangers, so this house was just right for him.
He had already received a satisfactory offer. The place was very close to the company and satisfied him in every aspect.
"If you like this one, you might want to sign the contract sooner rather than later. The housing supply is tight during the graduation season." The faceless agent rambled on. "In this area, this set of rooms is the lowest priced, and you can furnish it yourself…"
A very nice house. Xu Yue became more satisfied the more he looked. If he really lived comfortably and work went smoothly, he could buy it.
The floor-to-ceiling windows weren't equipped with curtains, and the brilliant sunlight scattered all over the floor, illuminating the differently colored chunks of flesh on the ground. Xu Yue accidentally stepped on two pieces, and the room was filled with sticky, squelching sounds. An empty flower pot was placed on the windowsill, containing only blood-red soil.
"I'll take it." He suddenly had an inexplicable headache.
He seemed to have forgotten something important.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Teest hovered in midair. Beside him was Perradat's head. Her long golden hair flowed down from that beautiful head, making her look like a strangely shaped golden jellyfish.
The expression on both of their faces was terribly pale. Teest's forehead was covered in cold sweat. The surrounding scenery was unfamiliar and beautiful, but the atmosphere was suffocating—he felt like he was being toyed with in the teeth of a giant beast. At any moment he could become a lump of minced meat.
"What's happening?"
Teest's expression was grim. This wasn't the familiar white space, nor was it the "Gods Corpses Nol" he had seen before. The Nol in front of him did indeed have black eyes, but his body seemed relatively normal.
Everything in front of them was like a scene on a membrane, colors on a soap bubble. No one knew what would happen when it burst, but they were all clear that it wouldn't be anything good.
"This is the edge of Lord Nol's memory."
Perradat's long hair swayed. Her head floated back and forth in mid-air. "Your previous attempts, including the dragon's intervention, were all to probe the memory seal. In other words, you've been directly attacking it."
"My power is 'concealment'. Now, we are intentionally circumventing the seal. Even with all my strength, we can only stay on the edge."
Nol, in a white shirt, stood among many grotesque and terrifying chunks of corpses, looking out through the floor-to-ceiling windows. His blank gaze passed through Teest, looking towards a point in the void.
The room was half filled with densely packed chunks of flesh, each the size of a fist, loosely stacked together. Some of the flesh chunks had already rotted, while some were still twitching non-stop. Teest recognized several parts from the dead gods on them, which had appeared on the "Memory Seal" incarnation of Nol.
Teest disliked this scene. Nol stood there alone, as if he had fallen into this swamp of flesh and blood, ready to be devoured at any moment.
"What do you mean by 'the edge of memory'?" Teest suppressed the turmoil in his heart.
"What we see is all an illusion. This is Lord Nol forcibly rationalizing reality to maintain his sanity." Perradat said, "This place is too oppressive. It's better to observe from afar—best not to touch the 'reality'."
But that was far from enough, Teest thought.
Nol's memory was very dangerous. He understood this more than anyone. But if they were to guess wildly based on appearances, they would become the second Star Stealer Sol—unaware of the truth hidden at the deepest level, basing their plans only on superficial clues. That guy's failure in the Lost Tower was still fresh.
The Memory-Sealed Nol had him look for Perradat's core, certainly not to see "delusional memories". Could it be that by using Perradat's power, they intended to awaken Nol himself, trying to change the current situation?
However, Teest couldn't communicate with Nol at all now.
Teest floated close to the floor-to-ceiling window, one hand pressing against the huge glass, almost face to face with the Nol inside. His hand created ripples on the glass like water waves, but he couldn't reach inside.
Just a few steps away, Nol in the flesh and blood swamp turned away, leaving only a backlit silhouette.
"Nol!" Teest knocked on the glass hard, but the people in the room didn't even look back.
[Honey, I've found Perradat's core. What exactly do you want me to do?]
There was no response to the telepathic call.
Seeing Teest's displeasure leaking crazily, Perradat slowly backed away. "Don't be too anxious. Lord Nol himself can't bear the truth of the memories. This isn't something that can be easily resolved."
"Yes, he can't bear it himself." Teest muttered to himself. "He knows about your situation too. If it was just a blind attempt, he wouldn't have made such arrangements…"
Perradat bypassed the memory seal through her power, successfully touching the edge of Nol's memories.
Nol's memories were very dangerous. The last time he touched the seal, Teest was lucky to briefly contact a moment of memory. He knew how difficult that thing was to deal with—let alone Nol, who grew up in a peaceful environment, he himself couldn't handle those crazy memories and knowledge.
What exactly did he miss…?
"You really trust Him wholeheartedly." Looking at Teest, who was leaning on the glass in contemplation, Perradat couldn't help but speak up. "You, such a cunning and suspicious person, haven't even considered the possibility of Lord Nol being wrong."
Teest ignored her, just concentrating on thinking.
So far, their deepest inquiry into Nol's memories was using the "Bystander's Tongue" on a neighbor. The neighbor recounted events related to Nol, unaffected by the memory seal.
For Nol himself to recover his memories, he would have to face that madness-inducing memory storm. "Others" risk exploring a small part of the memory fragments and then narrating them to Nol, seemingly without issue.
Could it be…
Teest lifted his head, and suddenly, the shadow in front of him shifted direction—the sun behind him moved instantaneously, and Nol once again opened the door, entering the living room.
"If you like this one, you might want to sign the contract sooner rather than later. The housing supply is tight during the graduation season."
The faceless broker spoke again; everything was developing just as before. Nol and the end entered one after the other. The broker cheerfully introduced the home, while Nol stood in a swamp of flesh and blood, looking out the window.
The memory fragments of about fifteen minutes looped over and over.
As if waiting for something.
Teest put all his effort into breaking the glass. He used all his strength, and the power of destruction exploded outside the floor-to-ceiling window. But that unfortunate window only rippled, unmoved.
"Don't do this!" In the midst of the explosion, Perradat screamed. "Don't delve into His memory!"
"No, he wants me to delve into it." Teest touched the glass. "The memory seal can only 'unlock' or 'maintain'. For Nol to uncover the truth, it's impossible to just recover a specific bit of memory."
The last time Nol gave him the permission to view memories was precisely for him to understand the horror of 'Xu Yue's memories'.
"Only 'others' can safely view memory fragments." Teest said softly, "He even prepared the key memories for us, and specifically looped them over and over. I don't plan to stay here watching illusions. I want to go in."
"You're crazy!" Perradat flew a bit farther away.
Teest glanced at her with a "You're just realizing this?" expression. "As long as I can find a way to break through the illusions, plus your 'concealment' power, the memory seal won't attack me immediately."
Perradat angrily bit her hair causing her delicate features to become twisted. "Illusions aren't so easily broken through. This is a God of Creation. My power isn't omnipotent. Unless He specifically left a loophole."
Teest was stunned.
Right.
The last time they met, the Gods Corpses Nol had dug a bit of white scale debris from his chest and attached it to him. At that time, Teest felt much better, thinking it was just a simple healing act.
But it indeed helped him eliminate some of the memory's influence. Nol did this after instructing him to find Perradat… Could that be the "loophole" Nol specifically left?
That power then twined around his hair.
Teest simply pulled out a strand of silver hair, wrapped it around his finger, then placed his hand on the large floor-to-ceiling window. Before he could exert force, the glass of the floor-to-ceiling window suddenly emitted a gentle silver-white glow.
Perradat was petrified in midair. "This aura… Impossible!"
The glass melted like sugar in flames, revealing a large hole big enough for a person to pass through. Beyond the hole, Nol, with lifeless eyes, suddenly moved.
He stiffly raised his wrist, extending his right hand towards Teest outside the window, palm up.
As if inviting to dance atop a pile of corpses.
At the same moment, everything in the room began to warp. All things lost their fixed shapes, as if the world itself had erred. The peaceful yet chaotic illusion was on the verge of collapse, with reality about to break through.
Perradat's head shook violently. She looked utterly unwilling to enter the room.
Teest stopped in front of the shattered glass, cheerfully stepping forward without a hint of hesitation.
"Lunatic! I can't deal with this!" Perradat cried miserably, trying hard to protect herself and Teest with the power of "concealment". She flew towards Teest's back with difficulty and finally entered the room.
The next moment, the atmosphere in the room changed completely.
Gone were the warm sunlight and bright room. The interior was dark, filled with a strange, rotting smell, becoming as sticky as glue.
Teest stopped amidst the chaotic pieces of corpses, holding his breath. Perradat shivered and hid behind Teest, her head peeking out slightly from beside Teest's arm.
As False Gods, they could witness everything before them—the real memories of Nol; what had once happened. The memories sealed were about to reveal the truth to them.
Before them, "Xu Yue" was undergoing changes.
Xu Yue's eyes, black as night, were wide open, unblinking, and bloodshot. His skin had the pallor of a corpse, and if not for the rise and fall of his chest, he would look no different from a dead body.
He was still wearing that simple white shirt, which was now corroded by unnamed corpses to shreds, with only a few pieces of cloth hanging on Nol's shoulders.
Below Xu Yue's chest, he was completely sewn together with those pieces of flesh.
Countless black and red-light threads weaved through the corpse pieces, sealing them onto the living Xu Yue. Xu Yue convulsed from time to time without making a sound, as if trapped in some sort of dream.
Chunks of flesh moved and stuck together. The black and red light flickered on and off, gradually enveloping Xu Yue at the center, like rotten flesh crowding around a core.
Among them, a piece of gray-white remains was particularly eye-catching.
With strange magical fluctuations, it was sewn at the position of Xu Yue's heart. At first, Xu Yue's chest, arms, and head were still exposed, then his chest was buried by the flesh, his head sewn up, followed by his arms.
In the end, only one hand lay powerless on the outside of the flesh.
The forcibly sewn together flesh emitted chaotic powers, like numerous paints mixed together. These powers devoured and merged with each other, eventually becoming strong, cold, and terrifying.
The flesh ball moved and continued to merge. Finally, Xu Yue's last hand also disappeared among the chunks of flesh.
He was completely swallowed by the fleshly marsh.
As the powers merged, the colorful flesh gradually turned into a unified hue of green and red. The mass began to fill the entire room, expanding and changing like a monster embryo trapped in an eggshell.
Sticky membranes parted, and bizarre eyeballs moved erratically. The thing emitted strange, dream-like sounds. As it wriggled unconsciously, a dark black slime spread out.
The space in the room grew smaller. Teest pulled the dazed Perradat back step by step.
There were few scattered pieces of flesh left in the room, with the black and red light flickering on and off above them. Teest casually picked up a light thread, feeling a familiar magical fluctuation on it.
"The power of the Blood Potion," Perradat said through gritted teeth. "This is the authority of Star Stealer Sol… Damn, he dared to do such a blasphemous act. How despicable!"
"I guess these pieces are the remnants of other 'gods'."
Teest looked at the oddly shaped corpses on the ground, expressionless. "Enbillick used his power to merge the remnants of other 'gods' into Nol."
No wonder the Supplement Demon Potion required a special mix of Enbillick's blood.
Just as Perradat controlled "prophecy" and "concealment", the authority of Star Stealer Sol was "reversion" and "fusion".
Merging local monsters with humans resulted in shockingly powerful yet generally short-lived augmentations. So, what kind of "creature" would result from the merger of countless divine remains with a human?
From his own experience, Teest knew that before considering the strength, first, Nol would suffer unimaginable pain.
"These gods were definitely not killed by Star Stealer Sol himself. Before he came to Tahe, he must have wandered the universe, stealing many corpse fragments."
Perradat's voice was full of disgust. "No wonder I've never encountered his kind—creatures that shun the light."
Teest stood still, statue-like.
"All these remains contain residual power and spirit, but they're too diverse and too small to be able to disperse Lord Nol's consciousness in the short term… Star Stealer Sol is forcibly creating a 'god'!"
Perradat, no longer caring about appearances, continued cursing and grumbling. "That guy is too weak. He couldn't handle Earth himself, nor could he cultivate a civilization on his own. So, he simply created a short-lived 'god' to steal the existing civilization of this planet."
"…A short-lived god."
The monstrous flesh within the room slowly expanded. The dark black liquid reached Teest's feet, submerging the soles of his shoes. Teest stepped back twice more, his voice so soft it was almost inaudible.
"Right. Even if it's just corpses, a god is still a god. The deeper the integration, the greater the power and spiritual influence of the corpse pieces. Lord Nol is just an unfortunate human, utterly unable to suppress it. Sooner or later, his body will collapse, and his mind will become disordered… He's just a one-time God of Creation," Perradat said, her words tinged with sympathy.
"In Nol's perception, he was creating a game." Teest's tone was eerily calm. "Is this how Star Stealer Sol steals civilizations?"
"Don't underestimate the creations of the locals." Perradat spoke with complexity. "The ecological situation of this planet, the types of species, the forms of society… Whatever Lord Nol has created, these pieces of information will be reflected in his work."
"If the Creator's ability meets the standard, the created world can operate stably. If it fails, Star Stealer Sol just needs to make another 'God of Creation'. The case of replicating Earth is much more convenient than 'spending billions of years cultivating a new civilization'."
One of Star Stealer Sol's powers was "fusion", and Nol was a "God of Creation Tool" he forcibly constructed from countless divine remains, destined not to live long.
If Nol successfully created Tahe, Star Stealer Sol only needed to completely annihilate Nol to comfortably take over the ownership of Tahe. As for others in the Joy Garden being implicated and dying, Enbillick probably wouldn't care. However, this didn't explain Nol's resurrection.
Teest raised his head, looking at the sorrowful and deformed god in front of him.
"Is this all your speculation?"
Teest stared unblinkingly at Nol's huge eyeball, his voice growing increasingly grave. The degree of integration of those corpses was getting higher, their power stronger, making "directly looking at Nol" increasingly difficult.
It turned out, Perradat indeed possessed much knowledge from the stars. However, having discussed similar topics with Nol themselves, if this were the only conclusion, they could have come up with it on their own.
Teest then plucked another strand of hair, which floated up in the palm of his hand, emitting a faint silver light. In response, a weak silver light appeared on the monster as well. "This is a 'loophole' specifically entrusted to me by Nol. He expressly asked you to speculate. Maybe you should look more closely—like, what exactly is this thing that surprised you just now?"
Perradat was sulking over the corpses strewn across the ground, turning her head irritably, nearly getting brushed by the floating strand of hair.
The moment she clearly saw it, Perradat froze.
The author has something to say:
Teest: In this world, only I'm the one who excels at tailoring (×
Kinky Thoughts:
Holy shit, this twist… I have to say out of all of Nian Zhong's works, this is probably the biggest twist I've read. The development, the pieces coming together (kind of like how Nol is formed)… I'm quite mind blown.
Well, this is probably why he is called Star Stealer Sol.