Chapter 6: The God of Eternal Life
In the quiet, long-uninhabited room, moonlight streamed in through the half-drawn curtains. A pale-faced man lay on the bed, his appearance suggesting he had just recovered from a serious illness.
In reality, the man known as the young master Cranke had been playing piano at the concert hall that very morning, passing the time that he found so tedious every day. Or rather, playing piano pieces without an audience was one of his few hobbies.
As the saying goes, fortune is fickle. Yesterday morning, Cranke, who had been perfectly fine, had an 'encounter' with a renowned physician. This physician saw that he was 'unwell' and specially took him to a secret stronghold, where he cured his 'chronic ailment' free of charge.
Due to the many details involved, it would be difficult to describe in just a few words everything that happened from yesterday morning to midnight tonight.
The civilian residence where Cranke was staying was an excellent place for recuperation, located in the southeastern corner of High Wall City. Because it was within the "Southern District: Plantation and Pasture Zone," the scenery here was quite good. Outside the window was a large expanse of farmland, and further away was a birch forest. The rain had just stopped, and frogs in the ditch across the way were croaking incessantly, giving a refreshingly cool feeling typical of a midsummer night.
A gentle breeze blew in through the window. Cranke, lying on the bed, trembled his eyelids and opened his eyes. The whites of his eyes, originally clear, were now covered with a black, velvet-like pattern. Just waking up, he was extremely weak and groaned softly:
"Water~"
Cranke swore that in his 27 years of life, he had never been this weak. This feeling of weakness, where every cell was shriveled from lack of water, made him want to stick his head into the ditch outside and compete with the frogs for that not-so-clean but equally drinkable precious fresh water.
As if hearing Cranke's weak call, the door was pushed open. A young man wearing a long coat with a collar so high it covered his nose entered the room. It was one of Su Xiao's newly selected space-type subordinates, Xiusi.
'Kill him, devour his blood, and you won't be thirsty anymore.'
A voice suddenly appeared in Cranke's mind. He used his strong willpower to suppress the thirst that threatened to consume him and instead tried to sense the source of the voice in his head.
Cranke was very calm. He quickly realized that it wasn't some consciousness invading his mind, but something more directly biological... no, it should be a parasite, lodged inside his body.
A liquid flowing sound came from beneath Cranke. A semi-fluid like black mud seeped from his back, forming black tentacles as thick as little fingers, propping him up from the bed.
"Strange... parasite."
Cranke spoke, his lips cracked and his whole body reduced to skin and bones. At first glance, it seemed Black A had successfully symbiotized. In reality, these semi-liquid tentacles spreading from Cranke's back were controlled by his own consciousness. Black A's consciousness had been trapped by Cranke within his own mental space.
Although Black A was formidable, this time it had been misled by its old flame, Aichi. When it had parasitized Aichi before, Black A could do whatever it wanted; with a little temptation, Aichi would fall for it.
Compared to its previous parasitism of Aichi, this time parasitizing Cranke was a setup from the start. Someone like Cranke, who was mostly indifferent to emotions, possessed willpower beyond ordinary imagination, along with judgment that was almost cold-bloodedly calm.
Faced with such a person, among the series of Devourers, Black A, Boiling Red, and Dark Sun had no chance. Only the Fourth Generation Devourer, Sun Apostle, could compete with Cranke in terms of willpower.
The reason Black A was chosen this time wasn't to fool the chosen one through the Devourer, but to be kept as a backup. For someone like Cranke, using [Betrayer's Will] and fusing [World Eye] from the Time Trio with his eyes required a trump card that couldn't be removed and was strong enough.
That was Black A's purpose. When Cranke attempted to become Su Xiao's enemy, Black A inside him would erupt with ferocious force, killing him in a short time.
Of course, implanting Black A wasn't just for this purpose. Black A had growth potential unmatched by other generations of Devourers, especially in mapping this potential to its host. Looking at Aichi back then, one could see how obvious this growth potential mapping was.
Simply put, it was to give Cranke a faster rate of strength improvement. Su Xiao didn't have several years to wait for the other party to slowly grow; he didn't even have a few months, at most a few days.
At first glance, this seemed unbelievable, but don't forget that Cranke's strength growth buffs were almost maxed out right now.
In the room, Cranke and Xiusi looked at each other in silence. The former was too thirsty to speak, and the latter couldn't speak due to acquired reasons.
In the study next door, Su Xiao closed the ancient book in his hand and looked at the projection that had just appeared on the wall ahead. Cranke had woken up successfully, but there was one thing Su Xiao still couldn't figure out.
While Cranke was anesthetized and unconscious, Su Xiao had used [Betrayer's Will] on him. The awakening of Betrayer's Will was one thing, but more importantly, Cranke didn't die, meaning he was now the World Child.
Strangely, after Cranke became the World Child, there were no celestial phenomena or attention from the World Consciousness of this world. It felt as if the world had given Cranke the resources to become the World Child but not its favor.
This struck Su Xiao as strange. Or rather, the Gloomy Continent itself was a strange place. Its land area was so vast it was unbelievable. Compared to Ser Star or Alliance Star, the land area here was hundreds of times larger, and the ocean hadn't even been explored to its limits.
The area of High Wall City was equivalent to two-thirds of Ser Star's land area. From this, one could imagine how grand and incredible the construction of these high walls had been.
It was precisely because of this that the land resources within the high walls could support a population of tens of millions and allow ordinary families in the city to eat meat every week as long as they were willing to work.
With the Gloomy Continent's vast land area, the wilderness outside the walls seemed dead. Su Xiao had stood on the high wall and looked into the distance earlier. Within a radius of several kilometers, there wasn't a single tree, and even half-dead weeds were rare.
The refugees outside the walls, from a certain perspective, were actually more dangerous than the beasts or mad beasts outside. Those refugees could no longer be considered intelligent beings with civilization; they were just intelligent human-shaped beasts.
As for why the difference between inside and outside the high walls was so great, no one knew. Even Su Xiao, as the Vice Dean of the Healing Academy, didn't understand. Perhaps only the two old immortals in the Grand Cathedral of the Healing Church knew the hidden truth.
In short, the situation outside the walls was very simple: refugees, beasts, and mad beasts. The refugees mostly lived in tribes, forming various large and small tribes. There was no essential difference between beasts and mad beasts; both were creatures resulting from multiple deformities due to excessive supernatural influence.
Both had considerable intelligence. The beasts believed they were used to living outside the walls. Even if they were somewhat envious, they wouldn't go inside the high walls. Some beast tribes even used hardship as training to hone their unparalleled purity and strength.
Mad beasts were actually also beast tribes, but they were distinguished by their strong aggression and invasiveness. Mad beasts always wanted to break into the high walls, kill all the humans here, and occupy High Wall City.
Su Xiao sat on a wooden chair, holding the closed ancient book in his hand. He ran his thumb over the slightly rough book cover. He wasn't particularly concerned about the situation outside the walls. What he cared more about was the fluctuation this world had shown after Cranke became the World Child.
The only change was a surge of World Force that entered the unconscious Cranke's body. This World Force combined with part of his blood to form Fate Blood.
Su Xiao was quite familiar with Fate Blood. The World Child used this substance to gain rapid strength improvement.
Su Xiao had obtained Fate Blood before and, after studying it, found that he couldn't use it at all. This substance had a difficult-to-crack 'recognition' characteristic. Only the World Child themselves could use it to accelerate their strength improvement.
Su Xiao had long given up trying to crack this 'recognition' characteristic. Researching this aspect was too time-consuming, and the returns weren't worth the effort.
Compared to studying Fate Blood, Su Xiao preferred to study its superior form, World Force.
Su Xiao had Space-Time Power but had never obtained World Force. In the previous world, after learning about the characteristics of World Force, his first thought was to use this strange energy to enhance the effects of [Permanent Enhancement Potions], thereby improving some physical potentials that couldn't be enhanced before.
Regarding obtaining World Force, the only known channel was Cranke. Or rather, only after he became a relatively strong World Child could he produce a sufficient amount of World Force.
In this regard, the effects of the World Trio were of utmost importance.
[World Eye (Immortal Rank, Set, Fusion-Type Equipment): This equipment will fuse with the user's eyeballs to form the World Eye. When the user's emotions fluctuate strongly, the World Eye will absorb World Force, thereby enhancing the user's overall combat power.]
[World Hunter (Immortal Rank, Set, Pendant): After killing someone who threatens the world's safety, a certain amount of World Force can be obtained.
Tip: World Force can enhance the quality of Fate Blood and serve as a superior enhancement-type energy.]
[World Attachment (Immortal Rank, Set, Ring): After wearing this ring, Luck Attribute will be increased based on 30% of the user's Charm Attribute.]
Making Cranke a relatively strong World Child in a short time seemed impossible, but in reality, the success rate wasn't low. To obtain more World Force, Su Xiao had given Cranke a bunch of strength-enhancing buffs, summarized as follows: