TOMWDET Chapter 198

Which Came First

 

“……The detection results of the remaining traces confirmed that the Beast King Clemens had disappeared.”

 

One of Leia’s subordinates said this.

 

Everything that happened seemed sudden, yet perfectly timed.

 

It was just a pity that those land monster beasts still hadn’t gotten the answers they wanted.

 

While Leia thought this, he said aloud, “It looks like the Beast King is still alive.”

 

After that pillar of light, dominated by cyan color and almost illuminating the entire world, had ended, there was completely no trace of the [Tiger] at the place where Clemens had been.

 

This was very abnormal.

 

A [Tiger] of such massive size could never have been completely pulverized and destroyed.

 

If the [Tiger] had truly died, there would definitely have been his bodily remains at the original location, otherwise everything pointed to the contrary.

 

That is to say, Clemens had not died.

 

During the previous battle between the [Tiger] and Su Li, he had used dark elements to merge with darkness more than once. Facing such an attack, he could similarly choose to merge into darkness.

 

That state between void and reality would be enough to preserve Clemens’s life.

 

Leia thought this way, and said so as well.

 

His subordinate offered no rebuttal. The explanation came from Su Li, who looked somewhat exhausted.

 

“Whether Clemens is dead or not, I’m not certain, but when facing that attack, he couldn’t possibly have chosen to dodge it.”

 

“As for the reason… I always feel that even if I explain it, it would be full of that domineering sense of ‘interpretation rights belong exclusively to me.'”

 

Su Li complained about himself.

 

Afterward, Su Li rubbed his aching temples while slowly exhaling a breath.

 

As if relieving some discomfort, Su Li continued, “The Beast King abandoned the Beast Tribe because he wanted to die.”

 

“He established the rules to force out a strong person capable of killing him under the pressure of powerful rules…”

 

The [Tiger] no longer wanted to live.

 

This answer seemed so absurd.

 

But it was the truth.

 

The reason?

 

Even without thinking too hard, Su Li could easily come up with two or three reasons.

 

Clemens was a transformed monster beast, and one of the earliest batch to appear after transformed monster beasts came into existence.

 

Monster beast society had a major premise: the phenomenon of monster beast suicide, namely [Madness Disease].

 

The earliest transformed monster beasts obviously didn’t know they had this problem, nor were they clear that natural monster beast genes could relatively alleviate it.

 

Life chooses suicide for too many reasons.

 

But when intelligent life chooses suicide, aside from being forced by reality, only pure inability to continue living remains – unable to keep persisting.

 

Clemens was the same.

 

However, the appearance of transformed monster beasts had an extremely short time interval from the period after human birth.

 

A race (transformed monster beasts) that had been controlled by the abnormality of suicide since its appearance, and claimed to be the continuation of monster beast civilization.

 

Compared to the natural destruction of civilization, after the continuation of civilization appeared, it would instead suffer destruction due to certain special reasons. Comparing the two, the latter was actually harder to accept.

 

Having hope made it impossible to accept despair anymore.

 

How could transformed monster beasts be freed from the suicide phenomenon?

 

Without psychological counseling, in the earliest period, the natural monster beasts who had no common ground with human thinking at all could only research the topic of how to forcibly make transformed monster beasts stay alive.

 

As long as monster beasts could live, then whether transformed monster beasts or natural monster beasts, monster beast civilization could never be destroyed.

 

Just like in modern society, even if the entire Earth exploded, things that had departed from Earth and landed on other planets could still represent traces that human civilization had once existed.

 

Enough of the digression.

 

What Clemens encountered could be described in four words: God-making experiment.

 

If there existed something that, as long as people believed it existed, would continue to exist… then was it possible for such a thing to form?

 

Of course it was possible.

 

When everyone believed a certain existence was the incarnation of evil, then that existence, even if it had never done anything wrong, never even stepped on an ant, would still be the incarnation of evil.

 

The world of idealism was just that unreasonable.

 

As long as people believed there was a God of Darkness in the world, and that the God of Darkness was Clemens, then even suicide would be useless for Clemens.

 

Not ineffective, but useless.

 

Unable to die, unwilling to live.

 

——How could one make oneself continue living?

 

——By making one’s own death the goal.

 

This was Clemens’s choice.

 

Su Li couldn’t deduce all the details from the current situation, but Clemens wanting to die had become an ironclad fact for him.

 

The Beast Tribe only knew Bartholomew, not Clemens.

 

Survival time of at least over a thousand years.

 

Mechanically imposed rules.

 

Humans in Rota County who gathered various monster beast characteristics.

 

What Bartholomew had once said: “That monster doesn’t even know its own abnormality.”

 

Bartholomew’s turn toward being a pure power-type light element warrior.

 

Instructing the unicorn to unite with the Water King to attempt killing Elvi Bessemer.

 

Obviously being able to directly crush Matilda, yet engaging in joke-like combat.

 

The abandoned Ergonikin.

 

The abandoned numerous territories…

 

During the battle, the method of merging into darkness that was only used later.

 

Because Su Li gave him a reason, he would reveal his physical form for close contact with Su Li in every battle.

 

After the controlled dark elements were sent into Su Li’s body, they only injured his internal organs rather than directly pulverizing them.

 

When talking about selfishness, he suddenly began following Su Li’s topic…

 

Completely uncaring about the life and death of his own kind.

 

Though his main purpose was clearly to destroy the Winged Tribe’s remaining forces, he endlessly entangled with unrelated humans.

 

As a tribal king, if he wanted unification, even if he was later truly entangled by humans, from the moment he discovered the mermaid’s appearance, his target should have shifted.

 

Someone who had lived for over a thousand years, with power so great that others couldn’t resist, yet still allowed monster beast society’s three tribes to fight endlessly. After the Winged Tribe was defeated, instead of immediately eliminating the remaining faction, he sent mobile squads to make Rota County disintegrate…

 

Power?

 

If he felt the Beast King’s authority wasn’t great enough, then why was it always Bartholomew who had a rising reputation outside?

 

Wealth?

 

The Beast Tribe territories had long formed systematized resource acquisition methods. Why would Clemens need to attack the other two tribes for these things?

 

Pure desire for slaughter?

 

A thorough tyrant would first harm not his opponents, but his own kind.

 

Unification?

 

That was clearly wanting to make enemies of the entire world!

 

“If you think the above information still isn’t enough to prove that Clemens wanted to die, then when [Spirit] actively stopped me the first time I wanted to kill him, but then when the second opportunity came, wanted me to pierce through the center point of Clemens’s forehead…”

 

“That actually provides secondary proof.”

 

Su Li’s gaze was cold. In his brain, there was still a voice continuously making sharp, clamorous noise.

 

Then it stopped abruptly.

 

“What a pity, Clemens didn’t die.” His tone was full of strange regret.

 

“Do you still remember a certain term you found when investigating the Water Tribe territories?” Su Li looked toward the mermaid.

 

Leia hesitated for a while before saying, “…Creator God?”

 

“Exactly.” Su Li nodded. “Whether the Creator God of this world truly exists or not, I don’t know, but that Clemens is equivalent to the God of Darkness, and Spirit can be equated with the God of Light – these two pieces of information are already certain.”

 

“Furthermore, there’s the priority of mental influence. Rules were born from resistance after oppression (Beast Tribe), suggestion was to point out the correct path for power development (Bartholomew), teasing was for a desperate strike after wounded pride (Matilda), choosing to follow my line of thinking was to let me know he could be influenced and controlled by me.”

 

It was too easy, so easy it seemed fake.

 

If Su Li used the same methods to deceive the current Egbert, even a young man who had lived for half a lifetime wouldn’t so simply forget the previous topic.

 

Let alone this Beast King who had lived for at least a thousand years, with an unknown upper limit.

 

“The reality is, control doesn’t exist at all. If he had truly been influenced by me, he should have directly told me then about his thoughts of choosing to abandon the Beast Tribe, rather than truly pretending all doubts didn’t exist when I tentatively deviated from the topic.”

 

Leia asked in confusion, “But if it’s really as you said, why would you judge that the current Clemens is still alive?”

 

“A monster beast that wants to die, as long as it chooses to give up resisting such power, couldn’t possibly survive, right?”

 

What the mermaid more wanted to say was, if Clemens really wanted to die, then he should openly display his attitude of wanting to die.

 

In that case, there would be plenty of monster beasts willing to provide him with various methods.

 

…However, in the blink of an eye, the thought that perhaps Clemens had tried all those methods but they were all useless instantly crushed his previous thinking.

 

“Giving up resistance doesn’t mean he would die.” Su Li’s tone was sighing. “Killing a god, just as Spirit said, requires destroying the divine nature.”

 

“But for a god’s growth, devouring another god’s divine nature is also proper development.”

 

“We can’t kill Clemens, just as people in this world are destined to be unable to escape from elements.”

 

Su Li’s gaze was filled with a compassion for heaven and humanity that even he couldn’t perceive.

 

How to put it?

 

Anyone who knew that humanity’s current situation was caused by the Human Spirit, a spiritual consciousness entity born from humans, would be unable to control themselves, right?

 

Su Li’s first attack had aimed at Clemens’s heart.

 

Initially he thought this could kill the [Tiger], but looking at it now, even if that attack had truly been launched, there would have been no way to kill the [Tiger].

 

Moreover, after that attack was launched, it might instead have had the possibility of affecting the [Spirit].

 

What did the [Spirit] want?

 

Growth, the growth of devouring another’s divine nature, the goal of developing toward the Creator God’s direction.

 

The first attack was forcibly avoided.

 

And the second attack——

 

The [Spirit] had aimed at [Tiger]’s divine nature.

 

Su Li had noticed the abnormality. At that moment his body had repeatedly been beyond his control, like sleep paralysis – having clear consciousness but unable to control his body.

 

Su Li had exhausted all his strength and could only shatter the ring that absorbed and stored elements, making the attack aimed at the center of the ‘王’ character deviate from its target.

 

The [Spirit] could no longer use the elements Su Li could mobilize to invade the [Tiger].

 

The [Tiger]’s existence was the civilizational inheritance anchor point chosen by natural monster beasts.

 

And the [Spirit] was the consciousness collective of humans, this primate life form.

 

The former was created by monster beasts, the latter should have made humans live better, yet it had gained self-consciousness.

 

Or rather, it had learned to imitate.

 

Which came first, the God of Light or the God of Darkness?

 

——Clemens came first.