Chapter 24: Ragnarök*

Ge Xiu stayed in this world for five years.

He drove the Leviathan to an unknown galaxy in a desolate civilization. The remains of the war left by the Alliance expansion war were left far behind.

They crossed the edge of the world known to mankind, and an even wider sea of stars awaited before them quietly.

Five years were fleeting.

They had witnessed black holes tearing apart stars, colliding galaxies, supernova explosions leading to annihilation, and their lives have been hanging by a thread*, but they have always longed for unknown places beyond. No matter what kind of danger, it couldn’t stop their exploration.

Until the death stepped closer, drawing out life in Ge Xiu’s body little by little.

His organs were heading towards the inevitable failure and collapse without a doubt. He first lost mobility, followed by vision. After the failure of the circulatory system, the respiratory organs, then the heart, he lost the last trace of pulse in his chest.

He died.

According to his last wish, Ge Xiu’s body was cremated and his ashes were spilled across the galaxy.

After his consciousness plunged into pure darkness, a long-lost metal sound suddenly rang in his ears—cold, without any human emotions, the one that only appeared on the first day he entered this world.

【Punishment World One has been completed. 】

【After testing, the total value of the punished evil points is 1156 points, 6 points for evil were deducted and there are 1150 points left.】

“What ??”

The presiding judge’s voice was full of disbelief. He started at the report on the smart brain in front of him and couldn’t believe his eyes.

He could hardly control his tone of voice: “Six points??? How is it possible???”

The executive officer of the court was silent, he lowered his sweaty forehead.

After all, even he himself couldn’t believe that this data actually existed.

What did six points mean?

After spending five years in the punishment world, the basic value of 5 points was deducted. However, other than that, the pain and torture that Ge Xiu received was only one pitiful point.

This was a punishment world! Not vacation world!

The presiding judge’s face was extremely ugly, and he coldly said to the executive officer: “Where did the deducted point that exceeded threshold pain come from? I want the detailed data.”

The executive officer hurriedly operated the light brain and recalled the relevant data at the fastest speed.

His face turned pale:

“According to statistics, the source of 23.3% of the pain value was the boredom caused by the restriction of personal freedom, and the remaining 76.7% came from…”

The presiding judge raised his brows and urged with some impatience: “Huh?”

The executive swallowed hard, and finally said as if he wasn’t afraid of dying, “…tooth decay.”

The air quickly fell into extreme silence and stagnation.

This was equivalent to saying that Ge Xiu has been playing happily in the world of punishment for five years, and the major source of pain that exceeded the normal threshold… were actually teeth cavities.

The presiding judge stood up angrily, gritted his teeth and roared:

“I want his all data from this punishment world! I…”

Before he finished speaking, he was interrupted by a voice not far away: “My apologies.”

A mediocre man in uniform walked out from behind the executive work platform. He quietly said, “You do not have permission to review this data.”

The presiding judge stared at him coldly and said stiffly: “Ge Xiu is a prisoner under the jurisdiction of the Interstellar Referee.”

The man looked back lightly, with a calm expression on his face:

“However, the Pandora project related to this is the prosperity of the entire interstellar. “

The presiding judge stared at him deeply, with jealousy in his eyes.

Finally, he averted his gaze and backed down: “But this trend cannot continue.”

“Yes.”

The man nodded in agreement: “So, when the data of the punishment world came out, we started to analyze and calculate non-stop.”

He turned on his smart brain, briefly touched with his finger twice on the screen, and sent a document to the official smart brain of the presiding judge, and then continued: “We think the problem mainly lies in the initial punishment world’s setting and realism. The similarity of it to the real world was too high, so we re-constructed punishment world 2 on the basis of this experience. This is our final decision.”

The chief judge hurriedly glanced at the light screen in front of him, occasionally focused on some in some key areas, after reading, his complexion finally eased.

He nodded reluctantly:

“Let’s proceed according to this plan for now.” The man slowly turned off the light screen. He didn’t seem surprised by the result. He nodded and saluted: “Thank you for your support and approval.”

The presiding judge frowned and watched the man’s back leaving steadily for a long time. When the other party finally left his line of sight, he couldn’t help but curse in a low voice: “The pretentious bastard of the Secrecy Bureau.”

【The virtual world is emerging… 】

【Transmission completed】

Ge Xiu was struggling on the edge of suffocation. Under the pressure of sticky layers of blood , his all five senses and awareness*** were occupied by the heavy smell of rust, as if it could penetrate every inch of his skin into his bones and internal organs.

Finally, he got rid of the bloody swamp that dragged him down and stuck to him, and struggled to get out.

Ge Xiu coughed hoarsely, while wiping the half-dried blood that covered his eyes, nose and mouth. The dry and cold air swept through his throat like a knife blade and poured into his chest cavity.

The smell of copper spread in the mouth, and he wasn’t sure whether it came from inside or outside of his body.

He staggered and stood still, blinking, looked around at the world surrounding him through the black and red eyelashes that stuck together.

A blood-red crescent moon hung over his head.

The scarped and sharp edge of the abyss cut the sky into two distinct halves, and the narrow visible sky was dyed a dark red by the moonlight. Where the moonlight couldn’t reach, the dense and indistinct darkness surged and overflowed, and the strong smell of blood almost condensed into a tangible substance.

Very quiet.

There was no human voice, no air currents, only the sticky sounds of the blood swamp under his feet when it was flowed into the dark night.

A familiar voice rang in his ears: “Welcome to the punishment world 2: Calvary.****”

Ge Xiu tried to move his limbs, and a dull pain pierced through his bones to the entire body, he sucked in a cold breath:

“Wait, I have a few questions…”

The blood clot that had dried up on him fell down with his movements, and reintegrated into the dense blood swamp under his feet.

The tone of the punishment system was calm: “Please say them.”

Ge Xiu took a deep breath and slowly looked around in the darkness around him. His gaze stayed on the blood moon high above his head for a few seconds, and finally he asked in a hoarse voice:

“…what the hell is this place?”

In his eyes, every inch of the air here was filled with some kind of a eerie, gloomy and sticky substance, that pressed down on him so heavily he could barely breathe – completely different from the last punishment world.

But when Ge Xiu moved his fingers, what touched his skin was only the feeling of normal air.

Can be seen, but cannot be touched or perceived.

Just like the tracks of lasers and scanning rays in the last punishment world that couldn’t be detected by the naked eye.

Probably some kind of peculiar form of energy?

Ge Xiu was a little uncertain.

However, this weird feeling of being in a jelly-like sticky substance, but unable to touch anything, made Ge Xiu really uncomfortable. He frowned slightly, waiting for an answer from the punishment system.

“Insufficient authority to answer.”

——As expected.

Ge Xiu sighed, it was probably because he was too comfortable in the last world, which made the referee anxious.

So stingy.

He murmured in his heart, and then changed the question smoothly: “So, what determines the length of my stay in each world? I have been in the last world for five years. What about this world? Is there a time limit?”

“The basic value of the punishment for staying in one world is ten years, and the specific period will be adjusted according to the state of the punished person.”

It was similar to Ge Xiu’s guess.

The voice did not stop, and continued: “Because you are extremely unprogressive in the transformation process the first punishment world, and the attitude of repentance was extremely poor, the difficulty of this virtual world will be greatly increased. Please correct the attitude, criminal 7098, and cooperate with the punishment.”

Then it fell into silence.

No matter how much Ge Xiu asked, the other party never said anything.

It seems that it was all the information he could get.

Ge Xiu pulled out his leg stuck deep in the blood swamp and walked to the shore with difficulty. The blood shell covering on his clothes cracked and peeled off with his movements, revealing the indistinct coloured fabric underneath.

He looked down at himself.

This time, the body was thin and slender, with well-proportioned bones. Although it still wasn’t particularly strong and healthy, it is much better than the skinny bag of bones in the last world.

Ge Xiu raised his eyebrows unexpectedly.

Hasn’t the difficulty increased? Why was his physical condition so good this time?

In the next second, he seemed to feel something, and looked up at the blood moon in the sky.

He didn’t notice when the blood-red moon rose to the top, hanging high above in the dark gap of the abyss, and the cold dark red spread silently.

An arc of blood reflected in Ge Xiu’s eyes.

Almost immediately, a burst sharp pain rose from the depths of his spinal cord and bones.

Ge Xiu fell to the ground unprepared, his cold and sweaty forehead slammed into the bloody mud, he gritted his teeth and his brain went blank in an instant.

The scorching pain writhed from the gaps in his bones, gnawing at his nerves and skin, rushing through his body quickly like electric sparks. He felt as if every inch of his skin was torn off and reorganised, his internal organs twisted in a ball from pain instantly.

Ge Xiu’s eyes were scarlet and he gritted his teeth. There was only one clear thought in his mind that was split apart in the excruciating pain:

Sure enough…! !

The bloody moon hung above his head like a ruthless eye, quietly looking down at the bottom of the abyss, and the dim red light outlined the youth’s twitching and trembling body.

On the pale skin that was not covered by clothing and blood stains, the shallow red lines became deeper, gradually becoming clearer, turned into lines showing a skeleton of a beast with teeth and claws, forming a giant totem that was both strange and beautiful.

The pain seemed to be endless.

He didn’t know how long it took, before the severe pain of destroying the muscles and bones finally disappeared, the scarlet and odd totem on his body slowly faded, and the original colour of his skin was gradually restored.

As if every trace of strength in his body was taken away, Ge Xiu lied down with his back in the mud, his chest undulating violently.

Heavy cold sweat soaked his whole body, sweat mixed with melted blood dripped down, washing out traces of blood on his face.

He looked at the diminishing bloody moon hanging high in the sky.

The blood moon was slightly offset from the angle just now, and it was hid behind the sharp cutting edge of the abyss.

The illusion of pain still resided in his nerves and passed all over Ge Xiu’s body occasionally from time to time, his torso seemed to be crushed by a boulder, and he felt it was impossible to lift a finger.

Ge Xiu controlled his breathing, inhaling and exhaling slowly.

His brain became clearer after being baptized by pain, and he began to analyse and think about his current situation.

This kind of pain was certainly not entirely unfounded, but the punishment system did not reveal any information to him except the world name, so he must explore the reason and principle behind this pain.

Ge Xiu not so naive to think that this kind of pain would only occur once.

But it was so fucking painful.

At this moment, he felt that besides the pain, there was a numb itch coming from his palm on the ground.

Ge Xiu raised his hand with difficulty, and his whole body trembled because of painful nerves. Ge Xiu let out a cold breath, he wrinkled his face in a painful expression without a care for his image.

He cursed and looked down.

The parts covered by the mud under his body just now were corroded with a layer of flesh and blood left, the bright blood was still dropping, following the slope of his arm, it slowly merged into the blood swamp he had just crawled out of.

…Corrosive.

Ge Xiu determined without any ups and downs in his heart, he didn’t even feel a slightest surprise in his heart.

He even admired it a little.

——Sure enough, it’s a world with increased difficulty.

Ge Xiu thought while struggling to drag himself out of the mud, he then stumbled on his feet.

However, before he had time to stand up upright, he saw the faint change in the dense darkness in front of him.

The heaviness in the air was on the verge of overflowing.

The dense darkness condensed into almost touchable thickness, nearly a hundred times thicker than the surrounding particles in the air, and slowly approached Ge Xiu with a dangerous and deadly sense of oppression.

A nauseating stench came over.

Where the moonlight didn’t shine, there was a sticky squirming sound, as if some strange creature was approaching step by step.

Ge Xiu squinted his eyes slightly and fixedly stared at the direction of the sound.

In the next second, a terrifying behemoth appeared under the moonlight. It seemed to be a monster made out of blood and bones. Its uneven surface was covered with slowly surging blood foam, and its white skeleton suddenly emerged from all parts of the body. It’s size suddenly stretched out, and the foul-smelling mucus dripped on the ground with its movements. Every place it went through was corroded and it made a slight sizzling sound in the silence.

Ge Xiu’s gaze fell in the blood swamp below its body, and he felt a sudden shock in his heart.

He rolled forward on the spot, managing to avoid the huge tentacles protruding from the blood swamp behind him. The body that haven’t forgotten previous pain was trembling slightly in the extreme tension and coldness, then he fell to the ground embarrassedly.

The place where he woke up was actually this monster’s lair——!

The monster slowly turned around and continued to move in his current direction. All the blood marshes on the ground began to boil violently, foul blood foaming up, and countless tentacles made of bones and bloody mud crawled out of the marshes, crawling towards Ge Xiu’s feet.

Overwhelming, in great amount everywhere.

Dangerous and evil aura filled the air, but it didn’t seem to be in a hurry to attack, as if a predator was unhurriedly playing with its prey.

There was nowhere to escape, there was nowhere to avoid.

Ge Xiu calmly moved his gaze, swept across the sky to the ground, and finally fell on the huge monster in front of him that was slowly approaching.

His expression was unexpectedly calm and his eyes flashed with a kind of almost pure curiosity and thirst for knowledge, as if a child curious about everything was looking at the toys in his hand with interest.

It’s as if what was in front of his eyes was not a terrifying and deadly monster, but some kind of an unusual landscape painting.

The monster was irritated by his fearless attitude. The tentacles creeping on the ground sped up several times and they rushed to the extremely small and weak human in front of it, as if they could tear apart his body in the next second, craving the blood flowing in his body.

Its viscous body surface cracked open a huge hole and the white bones flashed coldly in the blood stain, as if it had opened a large mouth of a blood basin that was selected and eaten, and highly corrosive liquid dripped on the ground. A deep pit was melted out in an instant and then it quickly rushed towards him.

Ge Xiu curled up his lips, showing a slightly excited smile.

There was a scorching dark fire burning and stirred at the bottom of his eyes, like the sparkling moonlight reflecting off the surface of a dark sea.

The teenager smiled and opened his arms without evading.

In the next second, the monster made of rancid smelly plasma and rotten bones instantly swallowed his body.

The bottom of the abyss suddenly became quiet.

The tentacles wriggling on the ground slowly slid back into the blood marsh, and the contented monster retreated into the darkness. After the faint and sticky flowing sound of the water wave disappeared, the ground was again shrouded in a false peace.

Only half of the waning moon was left, looking down coldly.

As possibly the first person in this world to be swallowed by a monster, Ge Xiu was not insane.

In fact, he was very sober.

Of course, it’s also crazy all the way and thorough.

After all, the worst conclusion is nothing more than death. At most, it’s just to change of the punishment world to play. In addition, Ge Xiu was confident that the punishment system would not create a world specifically, just to torture him for two or three hours.

——About 50% sure…

Right?

The feeling of being digested by a monster was very strange.

As if one’s head was plunged into hot boiling water, the skin on the surface was corroded and melted by mucus in an instant, and then the muscle fibres underneath. When the blood vessels ruptured, the corrosive liquid from the hungry intestines sucked up all the gushing blood, greedily gobbling every bit of delicious juice from his limbs.

However, in a serious comparison, this feeling was really not worth mentioning compared to the pain before.

It was even a relief for his limbs that felt phantom pain in all his nerves from before.

Ge Xiu raised his head with difficulty in the slimy passage, and “looked” at a place not far above his head.

Saying “looked” was not entirely accurate.

Especially when his eyelids and eyeballs have been dissolved, but he could actually “see” everything around him, distinctly and clearly.

This feeling was really new.

Ge Xiu could see that the weird substance in the air he was aware of just now seemed to be highly compressed and purified, condensing into a dark solid around him, mixed in the viscous corrosive liquid, and was eroding and chewing on his body. Ge Xiu could even clearly see the way his vitality was absorbed.

Everything around him was dark gray and black, only a piece of scarlet flesh not far above his head was beating regularly.

When it was outside the monster’s body just now, it was wrapped in thick flesh and blood, and combined with visual interference, Ge Xiu wasn’t sure what he saw.

He just vaguely knew what he seemed to “see”.

But the exact location and shape were unknown.

But now, with his eyes unable to function, Ge Xiu could finally feel everything about it clearly-

– its vigorous, smooth surface, bright red colour, the way muscles and muscles were entangled, the twisting green veins and the weak heat radiating slowly toward the outer edge.

Ge Xiu put his hand out, and his fingertips struggled through layers of the digestive juice.

The skin and flesh were quickly peeled off the white bones, his nerves were exposed and then quickly dissolved, leaving only hard and slender bones.

The dark shadow surrounding it seemed to be aware of something, and began to struggle frantically, devouring Ge Xiu’s body with the fastest chewing speed, trying to stop his attempt, but whenever it touched the chest of the teenager, it was always forced to retreat by some unknown force – some kind of bright red totem covered the depths of his body, preventing the erosion from reaching it.

Finally, he was melted to the point where only the white bones were left, and slowly touched the crimson flesh that was throbbing in front of his eyes.

An angry roar faintly came from my ear, everything around him was shaking and fluctuating because of this touch.

But Ge Xiu couldn’t hear it.

After all, he had lost his hearing.

He just raised his head, concentrating on the warm meat in front of him, and then slowly inserted his sharp fingertips, he grasped it, tightened and squeezed.

He could slowly sense the temperature of warm meat again.

In the next second, the warm current flowed down from his fingertips to his whole body.

It was like…

he was absorbing the energy inside the opponent’s body.

Their status seemed to be reversed in an instant.

Predators became prey. The digested person in turn digested the hunter.

Everything was trembling, everything was shaking, the earth-shaking sense of weightlessness hit, Ge Xiu’s body undulates weakly in the the floating and surging undercurrent.

Those dark and stagnant strange substances were drawn into Ge Xiu’s body by invisible force, rushed into his body like a tide, and then quickly deconstructed and reorganized to build blood, muscles, nerves, and skin——

The monster was still struggling desperately under the moonlight, roaring, and rolling desperately. The blood swamp on the ground was boiling because of its madness, but there was nothing to do. Its ugly and juicy body seemed to be shrinking and dissolving fast at the speed visible to the naked eye, like remnant snow quickly melting under the noon sun.

The hard bones fell to the ground, and the thick blood that could no longer be kept in place seeped into the ground.

In the end, with a loud cracking sound, the huge body as tall as a hill collapsed, revealing the only existence at the center that kept its shape.

A naked teenager stood in a pool of boiling blood.

The blood spattered like a heavy rain, but there was not a single drop left on his skin.

Only the dim red moonlight poured down quietly, painting his pale body with a faint bloody cold frost.

In the depths of the abyss, the young man stood quietly in the center of this silent killing, sacred and clean, like a holy relic.

—————————————-

*Ragnarök, end of the world in Scandinavian mythology. It was followed by demons and giants attacking gods, who then died like heroes. The sun would darken, stars would vanish and Earth would sink under a sea. You could say it’s a cold and cruel apocalypse for gods and humans alike~

**九死一生 literally meaning, nine deaths in a lifetime, it means escaped by a narrow margin from death

***five senses and awareness, most likely referring to sixth sense or Buddhist belief; The senses (five senses) of ordinary people include eyes (vision), ears (hearing), nose (smell), tongue (taste), skin (touch) or other senses familiar to science today. Because the definition of the sense organs is very vague, the definition of “super-senses” is also very vague, but it is generally believed that “super-senses” refers to information that is not familiar to science today.

Six senses are integral to Buddhist devotion: sight, hearing, smell, touch, taste, and mind (or the activity of thinking, including what is perceived via the other senses).

****Calvary, or Golgotha, was, according to the canonical Gospels, a site immediately outside Jerusalem’s walls where Jesus was crucified

Bamboo has something to say:

On the first day in the new world Ge Xiu had:

– blood bath!

– excruciating pain!

– being eaten alive!

– and eating the monster back!

Ge Xiu gives a 9/10 to this vacation world! (one point deducted because pain was too boring, lasted too long)