Chapter 171 - Vol2 Ch69: A beautiful dream built on lies
As the wielder of the Omniscient Eye, he obtained this spider body, representing the fearful thoughts within this illusion.
To the weak-willed, the spider was the germs infecting the outside world; to the powerless, the spider was the suppression of the strong over the weak; to the feeble, the spider was might.
They were powerless to resist these people and could only live on with these wormy thoughts, while this illusory domain was created on the foundation of such thoughts. For that reason, the weak people were represented as powerless weak worms that couldn’t do anything, only the might that they could not resist was represented as the spider.
Fang Ze’s group realized this, and so they attempted to exploit it. By changing the thoughts of these people, this illusory worm world would become full of holes, allowing them to regain their senses and break through this ridiculous illusion.
They did succeed somewhat, but as soon as Negary appeared, their efforts became completely meaningless, as the weak people choose to surrender to Negary’s fear and returned to being a worm.
〖 You are creating a beautiful dream for these people, telling them to try their best, to believe in others, to improve themselves, to retaliate. And yet, this would do nothing but cause their despair to become even worse 〗
In reality, these people were laying in the grass, their brows knitted tightly as if experiencing some sort of nightmare.
Negary didn’t try to act, he could actually sense that if he truly went in for the kill, something else would surely come to interfere, which would in turn ruin his preparations.
The main use of this illusion was to conduct a test, unless Negary assumed incorrectly, the final thin veil behind the [Protagonist Aura] would soon be pulled away, only by confirming this conjecture would he truly have a chance to resist ‘destiny’.
〖 You told the bullied to let go of his fear and take this chance to retaliate, thus truly obtain freedom 〗Negary said: 〖 But you only told him to retaliate without telling him how to retaliate 〗
〖 The weak that arbitrarily tries to retaliate against the strong would only be beaten down for good, as they would lose what little value they had as a plaything 〗explaining so, Negary waved his hand to summon a picture that showed the bald-headed young man from before in reality.
He seemed to have been affected by Fang Ze’s group encouragement within the illusion, so he tried to retaliate as he was bullied, only to have his neck simply broken by the bully equipped with Biomass Gear and get tossed aside. Sooner or later, his corpse would most likely be picked up by those who had gotten fed up with eating grass.
〖 You told the weak-willed person to grow brave, that he can’t keep relying on his wife selling her body to live, but you ignored that his entire life had been dedicated to teaching other people without the skills to survive in the apocalypse. When he finally mustered the courage to go outside and search for resources, he was killed by a monster, leading to the woman who sold her body to earn their livelihood to lose her will to live as well 〗
Another picture appeared next to Negary, showing a relatively well-kept older gentleman in glasses. He had ignored the pleading of his wife who was covered in wounds to join the scavenger group, only to be killed by a monster who disguised itself as a book while he was careless. After learning of this, his wife also lost her will to continue living and chose to commit suicide.
〖 You told the old man to trust in others, that there are good people in this world, and that he should look for help. Yet you forgot that there are so many more people who hold ill will than there are those who hold good ones 〗
A picture appeared to show the old man, who was led by some people into a secluded alleyway and turned into a literal pot of meat and bone broth.
〖 You told the woman that you’d make sure that the world returned to its original order by defeating me, so she went around spreading this belief, calling everyone to live in peace and share their resources. The people around assumed her to be insane and excommunicated her from their shelter 〗
A picture showed a woman wandering through the ruined streets, muttering to herself: ‘he promised me, he promised me’, then finally got ambushed and killed by a random mutated germ creature.
〖 For you, what you declared might be the truth: the bullied should resist, those who are looked down on should be brave and strive for greatness; but for others, these are nothing but lies. You conveniently disregarded their limitations, telling them to change their minds, crafting them an ever-wonderful dream. And yet, that beautiful dream was built on what were essentially lies〗
〖 For them, not exerting themselves means that they wouldn’t need to face despair. For the lives of such people, living through one rough day means having many more days to live through, rough or not 〗
Step by step, Negary walked towards them, his words pierced their hearts like the blade of sharp knives.
“Perhaps we made a mistake, perhaps we did forget a few things, but the biggest error here was always you” Fang Ze declared as he watched the pictures:
“Wasn’t it you who created all of this in the first place? Those people may be weak, feeble, and powerless; they may fall into a tough situation right now, but they haven’t given up on their lives, they haven’t given up on living!”
“They may be worms right now, but people can’t always be worms! They all have the same thought, they all want to triumph against this apocalypse, to allow the world to regain its original form! That is their common shared desire!”
“You’ve miscalculated, Wang Yuan! Humans can grow!!” Fang Ze roared towards Negary as his worm body appeared to be glowing:
“Your mistake was to underestimate us, and to underestimate humanity!”
Negary suddenly noticed that the Omniscient Eye had lost its control over this illusion, in other words, he had lost control over this illusion. On the contrary, the interference force that made up this illusion was being absorbed by Fang Ze, turning into the glow around his body.
Borrowing the property of Soul Essence, Fang Ze’s connection to these people became unprecedentedly clear, the huge amount of Soul Essence that was being stored inside the hovering Omniscient Eye was being forcefully siphoned towards Fang Ze. The glow formed a transparent crown above his head as the illusion around them gradually crumbled and collapsed.
“I will end you right here!” Fang Ze declared as he struck Negary with his fist, now infused with both Disasforce and the brilliant glow. The Disasforce destroyed Negary’s body, while the glow destroyed the soul within that body.
Everything slowly faded away, the tall grass that was made to grow tall quickly withered, and Fang Ze felt indescribably glad as he lowered his fist.
Within the illusion, when he found out that he could see other people’s thoughts when he touched them, he had already thought about executing a technique like this through his [Origin] ability of borrowing the power of others.
By borrowing this property of the illusion, he transmitted the thought of triumphing against Negary to everyone and resonated with them, calling them to harmonize with him, thus allowing him to borrow power from their souls, which granted him the ability to damage the soul.
The most troublesome ability that Negary had wasn’t his strength, but rather the property of his soul that allowed it to be transferred at any time he wished. So having gained this ability to damage the soul, Fang Ze took this chance to defeat him once and for all.
〖 So that is how it is〗
Negary’s voice emerged again, causing Fang Ze’s expression to turn grim.