He and It Chapter 61: A God’s Marriage (32)

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Chapter 61: A God’s Marriage (32)

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: GaeaTiamat

 

“So what if I am, so what if I am not?” Roche was stunned, then asked, “A victor is a victor, and that’s something a loser can’t match.”

Yun Chi looked at him for half a day, really speechless…You don’t know anything, and you dare to make a scene in Sa’gya’s lair?

Roche looked at him, and smiled. “But all that is secondary to the fact that you are here, right in front of me…”

He reached out his hand, intending to brush the gold seal on Yun Chi’s earlobe with his fingertips. Yun Chi stared at him coldly and before he could touch it, Roche’s fingers gave a start.

He froze in mid-air for a long time, but let it go, then smiled as if nothing had happened. “It’s okay. We still have a long time to get used to each other.”

Yun Chi was almost amused by him. “Used to each other? Roche, do you think the world revolves around you? When I was that so-called human sacrifice, your Divine Favorites instructed your wind eagles to almost let me die at sea. You didn’t care then, but now with this inexplicable mark, you’re just going to sit back and take advantage of the situation and claim me as your bullshit bride? You’d sooner dream of it!”

Roche smiled broadly, and looked down at Yun Chi with a doting expression.

“Artful arguments, artful words, artful tongue,” the deity marveled. “You’re right about everything. Consider me a snob, but what does that matter? The rules are such that you are the human sacrifice I never agreed to give up, and your ownership, too, was always in my hands. What’s more, the False God picked you up, and even killed my priest in order to cover your tracks. How do you know that He wasn’t harboring vile and sinister thoughts? Coveting the potential that you could become a divine bride?”

“You think everyone is like you, that’s a real live way of measuring the heart of a gentleman with the heart of a small man!” Yun Chi’s eyes widened in exaggeration, then he put on a face and said in a deep voice, “Sa’gya will come back sooner or later. You can lock me up for a while, but not for the rest of my life, so think about what will happen to you in the future!”

It turned out that His priest was really dead. So was that Yan Yan’s doing, or the West Wind’s?

Anyway, no matter who did it, they had blundered, and it was obvious that Roche was perfectly capable of making even the dead speak…

Roche sighed sadly, seemingly distressed by Yun Chi’s stubbornness.

“No, He will never seek you out again,” Roche said regretfully. “It is often said that the Storm God’s shrine is at the end of the world…Where is the end of the world then?”

He raised his hand. A wisp of breeze haunted his fingertips, gradually manifesting the image of a translucent Wind Spirit. Roche encouraged, “Look. Look closely.”

Yun Chi fixed his eyes on it, only to see that the spine of the wind spirit was actually carrying a miniature palace, as if it was a nuclear sculpture scoured by knives the size of ants, every trace of pattern, every line was lifelike, and there were even movable figurines on it, even tinier than the cross-section of a hair.

“How much wind is there in the world?” Roche asked intimately as he approached Yun Chi. “With a single breath you create wind, and my shrine exists on the ridges of those winds. Billions and billions of wandering breezes, winter winds, gales, whirlwinds, monsoons, letter winds…With so many winds, can the False God find this place and find you? This is the true end of the world, the end of nowhere!”

The god looked at Yun Chi and smiled smugly, the look once again appearing on his handsome face.

“Me and you, we have endless time yet…Ah, time, what a terrible monster,” Roche sighed sadly. “I’ve seen impregnable cities slowly fall to pieces in the wind and snow; I’ve seen two blood feuding kingdoms finally merge into one, and their people who had sworn to be united with each other finally unite to produce a new generation of heirs; I’ve seen land swallowed by the sea, and I’ve seen oceans pushed back by rising land…I’ve seen too much. As for me, I have patience, persistence, and more than anything else, perseverance.”

Roche lowered his voice and whispered, “After a hundred years or two hundred years, maybe you won’t give in. But a thousand years, two thousand years, ten thousand years, twenty thousand years…When you can’t even remember your own name, how will you remember a False God? I am curious and look forward to your needless struggle, my bride.”

The veins slowly blossomed on Yun Chi’s forehead, and his hands, concealed in his sleeves, clenched, until Roche walked away with a wide grin, while he stood transfixed, his shoulders shaking with anger.

For a moment, he felt genuine fear from the vision Roche had built with his words. He was only human, and there was no way he could measure the thickness of a deity’s life or fight against an excessively long period of time, but as he gradually calmed down, Yun Chi suddenly sensed that something was wrong.

–Many crucial issues had been evaded by Roche.

For example, if Roche was so confident in himself, why did he take advantage of Sa’gya’s absence to join forces with another god and sneak up on the island? Then he said nothing about the identity of the Fourth Generation of Gods and was pressured with the truth about the past. He couldn’t touch his hand to the golden seal on his ear, and he sent someone to cajole Yun Chi into taking off his godly clothes…

He just acted very confident and arrogant, like he was winning at everything, but in reality, this confidence of his only almost fooled Yun Chi, a human. When one thought about it, one would know that it was broken.

Yun Chi loosened his clenched hands and sighed in heartfelt relief.

No matter what, the ability of the gods to compel people’s hearts was really terrifying. He almost snatched the fruit knife on the table on impulse just now and hurled it towards Roche’s back. If he really had done that, wouldn’t that be another gift?

He found a random soft stool and sat down, wondering when Sa’gya would return from seeing the Time God.

Their island home, the forest, and the little sea otter…he couldn’t know what had happened to them now. When he remembered the moment when the little sea otter had been thrown out of his arms, Yun Chi’s heart clenched.

Anyway, he had come here, so he couldn’t just surrender his neck to death, could he? He made up his mind and stood up anyway.

Gotta poke around here, gather some useful intel, try and see if I can find a breakthrough…

Yun Chi pushed open the door and tried to walk out.

.

The sky was dark and gloomy, with overcast clouds that fearfully obscured the sunlight and churned uneasily in all directions. On the boundless sea of ice, no fishing boat still dared to sail out of the docks, and no one would swim in the water if they wanted to live. The always deep blue sea of ice, at that moment, was a horrible thick inklike color that covered the ice and snow glaciers. It was like the plain clothes of a funeral sacrifice, with the faces of dead corpses that were white to the point that there was not even a trace of life in them. Sa’gya looked straight ahead, and every step he took, the cohesion of the blood puddle of ice cracked again, as it all submerged into the bottomless dark sea.

There were no more thousands of circling sparkling stardust as Sa’gya’s eyes were black as night. Like they were shadows that would never fade. He gently ripped the feathered wings from a wind eagle, letting it land on a pile of corpses that was pointed like a small mountain.

The trees of the island were ravaged, the forests tumbled and fell into disarray, and the elves who inhabited them helped each other to climb out of the ruins. The blood of the sea monster was everywhere around him, while a huge, sinuous limb floated in the thick black water. The only thing left was a little sea otter that lay alone on the beach, sobbing.

Everything he saw, everything he witnessed. He replayed the scene over and over again: the nightmare. Yun Chi, who was forced to flee his home and seek refuge in the sea, who escaped the search of the wind eagles and the wind spirits, who finally jumped into the sea, only to be forcibly taken away…

Sa’gya walked over and held the little sea otter in the palm of his hand.

“Roche,” the god said, his voice as grand as the hissing of thousands and as sharp as a string about to snap. “Roche took him.”

The little sea otter turned into a pile of wet fluff that quickly drifted into Sa’gya’s long, thick fur.

“Roche!” roared Sa’gya in a harsh voice, fangs bared like thunder that resounded through the world. It roared through the icy sea and the dead center of land and sky. “Give him back to me!”

At that moment he did not look like a noble and majestic god at all, he was simply a demon, an evil spirit that chose people to devour!

Roche naturally heard this furious grandiose voice. He frowned and snorted again.

Still think you’re the same Lord God of yesteryear who called the wind and the rain and was omnipotent? Your time has passed. The gods of old are just fine languishing in the corner, why bother meddling in the vibrant newborn world?

“Here I am, Lord God.” He manifested himself lazily, not very intimidated. “Oh, I forgot! It is no longer the Second God Generation, and you are not the second Lord God of Kaleva, so what can I do for you?”

Sa’gya looked up at him. For the first time he looked squarely at the new god before him, and anger and remorse enough to destroy the world filled him. It was his contempt and lack of care that had led to Yun Chi’s exposure to Roche’s eyes that led to the consequences of their separation.

“Give him back to me.” Sa’gya took a step forward, his white hair like a shadowy flame. “I’m only warning you this once, New God, he’s not yours to own. Give him back to me!”

“Ha!” Roche burst out laughing. “He is the human sacrifice I never gave up, a child born from the city-state I sheltered, and now, he is my bride as well. What say you, Old God? Surely he is mine to own, and mine alone!”

Sa’gya stared motionlessly at the storm god and Roche snorted, “Quite a battle…So what are you going to do if I don’t let go? Try to capture any breeze in the world and find my shrine from above? Or are you going to destroy Samar, and all the city-states I shelter?”

He lowered his voice, “Resign yourself to your fate, Old God. Just as you could not protect your people when the divine generations changed, so now you cannot protect my human sacrifice. It is the law of all things: the old are always replaced by the new.”

Sa’gya’s eyelids fluttered gently, and he raised his eyes to look at Roche, who towered above the heavens.

“I will not destroy only Samar,” he said. “I will destroy all the lands of Kaleva, and I will burn every wind in the world until the world, too, returns to its chaotic normality, leaving a total vacuum…unless Yun Chi returns to me.”

The smug look on the Storm God’s face suddenly froze.

“The oath is established, and if that is what you want,” Sa’gya flashed a twisted, demon-god-like grin, “Then I will grant your wish, New God!”