Volume 5, Chapter 74 – What is Corruption?

At the edge of a ravine on a certain large island,

“Hm?”

After sensing a wave of special energy fluctuation, Lenis, who was Luolin’s contractor, turned her head to look behind her. The next moment, under her serious gaze, the space at the ravine’s edge quietly twisted.

Immediately after, accompanied by the shattering of space, a certain rabbit doll with a cigarette in her mouth walked out swaggering with an arrogant gait that showed no respect for anyone.

It was Luolin, who had just finished her conversation with Astral.

Upon seeing Luolin emerge, Isabelle, who had been waiting nearby for quite some time, immediately stepped forward respectfully with a group of House Solrog attendants. They brought wine, cigars, and towels, clearly intending to respectfully serve the rabbit doll.

However, the rabbit doll was not appreciative.

Having grown accustomed to being slovenly, she seemed uninterested in this kind of refined, luxurious service.

Glancing at Isabelle with displeasure, the rabbit doll muttered with disdain:

“Enough, don’t come over. Really… what’s with finding so many young women? I’ve told you how many times—I like married women, okay… hmph.”

After a cold snort, the rabbit doll took a puff of smoke and directed her gaze toward Lenis in the distance.

“Magic Auntie! What are you staring at? Pick me up and carry me!”

As soon as these words fell…

——”BOOM!”——

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Accompanied by a tremendous crash, the rabbit doll’s head was embedded in the ground, with a massive mace sticking out of the back of her skull. After putting away the mace, under the strange gazes of Isabelle and the various House Solrog members, Lenis picked up the rabbit doll from the ground with a cold expression.

And treating her like garbage, she held her in her hand and slowly walked toward the distance.

“I’ve told you how many times not to call me ‘Auntie’—you damn brat still don’t learn, do you?”

After walking for some time and putting distance between them and Isabelle and the other House Solrog family members, Lenis gazed at the distant seascape while asking softly:

“How is it with your colleague?”

Upon hearing these words, the rabbit doll, who had been sticking out her tongue and looked half-dead the previous second, immediately took out a cigar for another puff, giving her reply through clouds of smoke.

“Not bad. Looks like he’ll be able to break through to the Divine Graced Realm. And if he can complete the breakthrough, his raw strength will definitely be stronger than mine.”

“From what you’re saying, you’re planning to stay and fight those monsters one more time?”

“Mm.”

After a moment of silence, the rabbit doll nodded.

“Oh, is that so?”

Lenis gave a calm response.

“Aren’t you afraid? There’s a very good chance you could die.”

“So what?”

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Lenis said nonchalantly:

“If you hadn’t saved me back then, I would have died long ago anyway. Besides, since those monsters want to destroy my home, I can’t just sit back and do nothing, can I?”

“True enough.”

“However…”

“Mm?”

“Since we’re all planning to go fight those monsters to the death, you should tell me what exactly those monsters are… and what this Corruption you keep talking about is, right?”

Glancing at the rabbit doll from the corner of her eye, Lenis lowered her voice and asked in a serious tone.

In the past, the rabbit doll had never been willing to discuss such matters, and out of respect for her collaborator’s privacy, Lenis had never pressed the issue. However, the situation was different now—since they were going to risk their lives fighting these beings, understanding exactly what kind of existence they were dealing with was quite important.

And this time, the rabbit doll didn’t plan to change the subject again, but nodded quite honestly.

“Alright, I understand.”

Taking a deep breath, the rabbit doll’s expression also rarely became grave and serious.

“Actually, what exactly Corruption is—even now I’m not entirely certain. Although sometimes it appears to be a black mist that devours everything, that… seems to be just one of its manifestations. But in any case, it’s a terrifying existence that devours our worlds.”

“…”

“Though it wants to devour our worlds, these things don’t seem to exist in the same dimension as our worlds, so initially, Corruption actually couldn’t pose too great a threat to our worlds.”

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As these words left her mouth, everything that had happened to her former world began playing slowly in Luolin’s mind like a video, causing a trace of deep sadness to gradually overflow in her expression.

“Though it can’t directly interfere physically, Corruption possesses terrifying mental infection abilities. When Corruption attempts to invade a world, at first… it lurks in the shadows, observing, then through dreams, whispers, mental suggestion and other methods, it influences the hearts of those with weak willpower, stimulating the dark sides of these people’s hearts, awakening the desires within them, and then turning them into puppets that can be manipulated at will.”

“Next, Corruption uses these puppets to influence more people and create chaos and strife. Perhaps because Corruption can peer into the desires and dark sides of human hearts, once it begins this step, the effects are surprisingly effective. The entire world quickly becomes embroiled in various chaos… wars, plagues, genocidal acts and such continuously unfold, filling the entire world with resentment.”

“After that comes finding vessels capable of withstanding resentment and creating outer gods… or rather evil gods… each world calls them slightly differently. Hehe, but that’s not the point. In any case, after evil gods are born, they eliminate all living beings in the world, allowing the world to be completely shrouded in curse power. And at that point, the world becomes completely devoured by Corruption, becoming its nourishment.”

Listening to the rabbit doll’s explanation, Lenis’s expression became increasingly grave.

“Your previous world fell in this way…”

“Yes.”

Nodding, the rabbit doll sighed with extreme exhaustion.

“After my other two colleagues’ worlds perished, I specifically tried to prepare defenses… but Corruption’s mental offensive was truly impossible to guard against completely… ultimately large-scale conflicts I had no time to prevent suddenly erupted, so many people died… the outer god’s descent was ultimately unavoidable. What happened after that, you already know. I absorbed my world’s Heart of the World… but still couldn’t win. An outer god that had absorbed sufficient resentment, at full strength… simply can’t be defeated.”

Speaking of this, Luolin’s expression was full of dejection and helplessness.

“Simply can’t be defeated?”

Silently repeating Luolin’s words, Lenis frowned slightly.

“Wait, you damn brat, I remember you said before that there are also Corrupted Beasts in certain ruins on Earth. Doesn’t that mean Corruption also invaded Earth?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

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“But isn’t Earth perfectly fine now? How did you deal with the outer gods before?”

“Before?”

The moment that word was mentioned, a trace of deep longing appeared in the rabbit doll’s button eyes for the first time in a long while.

“Back then… it was because the Boss was still around.”

“Boss?”

“The Lord I mentioned to you before… I, and Astral who was just hiding in that barrier, are all the Lord’s apostles. Back then, when Earth was invaded by Corruption, it was the Lord who defeated the outer god.”

“The outer god was so strong, yet she could repel an outer god? How strong must she have been…”

“She was the creator of our five worlds, of course she was strong… it’s just… after eliminating the outer god, the Lord was no longer…”

“No longer?”

“Yes.”

Nodding, the rabbit doll took a heavy puff of her cigarette.

“She perished together with the outer god… but I don’t believe that… I believe that the Boss couldn’t possibly have just vanished like that…”

Lenis: ……