Chapter 66: Split Up

Chapter 66: Splitting Up

Xiao Luo returned to the fourth floor. Just as she turned the corner of the staircase, she was abruptly blocked by a towering, swollen wall of flesh.

The man, dressed in a business suit, stood over two meters tall. His arms were long and thick, dangling limply at his sides like two pythons. His shoulders and head pressed tightly against the ceiling, unnaturally slumped low, making the hallway feel cramped and oppressive.

He looked like a normal person enlarged to monstrous proportions, casting a deep, oppressive shadow.

—It was "Dad."

Perhaps she had been away for too long, arousing his suspicion enough to deliberately wait here for her!

Realizing this, Xiao Luo swallowed hard and involuntarily stepped back.

Cold sweat instantly beaded, dripping down her spine and soaking her clothes.

But for every step Xiao Luo retreated, "Dad" advanced, his massive shadow completely engulfing her, who stood less than half his height, radiating a deadly warning.

There were only stairs behind her now. With no room left to retreat, Xiao Luo stood rooted in place, hearing "Dad's" booming voice boom from above: "Where were you just now?"

"I—I went downstairs to help Mom take out the trash," Xiao Luo scrambled for an excuse to explain her prolonged absence. "The knot on the trash bag came loose, and the garbage spilled everywhere. It took me a while to clean it up..."

"..."

"Dad" fell silent for a moment, his bulging eyes bloodshot. Suddenly, he roared, "Liar! You're lying!"

"You already threw the trash bag into the bin—I saw you! I was standing by the window watching you the whole time!"

Xiao Luo's mind froze at his words, cold sweat drenching her back.

When she had thrown out the trash, had a pair of eyes been pressed against the window, watching her every move from the fourth floor?

The image of the abnormally tall "Dad" standing silently by the window, staring unblinkingly at her, made Xiao Luo's skin crawl...

What could she do? Was there any way to fix this?

In "Dad's" eyes, she had lied and deliberately delayed returning home—she no longer met his definition of a "good child"!

Just as terror seized her heart, she heard a voice in her mind: "Run downstairs."

At the same time, "Dad" raised a massive, fan-like hand and swung it toward Xiao Luo's head, whipping up a gust of wind—

In that split second, before her mind could even react, her body instinctively obeyed the command.

She spun around and fled downstairs without looking back. As she rounded the corner, her arm slammed hard against the rusted railing, pain lancing through her, but she didn’t slow down, leaping down the steps as if the wind itself propelled her.

For a moment, the sound of frantic footsteps—hunter and hunted—echoed through the stairwell, triggering the motion-sensor lights. The previously silent apartment building was now brightly lit.

Several times, Xiao Luo felt the danger closing in, but her agility allowed her to barely evade, finally reaching the first floor.

"Enough," the voice in her head stated calmly. "Avoid the stairs."

Xiao Luo obeyed, ducking beside Grandma Li’s door and pressing herself flat against the wall. She looked up in panic—

Just as "Dad's" figure appeared at the top of the first-floor stairs, the motion-sensor light above him emitted a shrill screech. The wires embedded in the wall snapped all at once, and without warning, the fixture crashed onto "Dad's" face!

Instantly, Xiao Luo heard a faint, sickening squelch—like a watermelon being split open. Crimson and yellowish fluids erupted from "Dad's" face, arcing across the walls.

A deep gash ran across most of his face, splitting from his forehead down to his nose.

His nose bridge was shattered, flesh torn open, exposing a section of pale skull to the cool air.

Xiao Luo touched her own face reflexively, horrified by the gruesome sight.

Letting out a piercing shriek of pain, "Dad" seemed just as stunned by the unexpected disaster.

He swayed, his arm instinctively reaching for the railing to steady himself.

But the moment his weight shifted onto it, another nails-on-chalkboard screech tore through the stairwell.

With a deafening crash, "Dad" plummeted to the first floor alongside the collapsing railing—landing headfirst.

His skull struck the ground at nearly a 180-degree angle, snapping violently. A shard of broken beer bottle plunged into his eye socket, mashing his eyeball before the impact drove it deep into his skull...

Blood and brain matter sprayed everywhere, spreading rapidly.

Xiao Luo stood petrified against the wall, only snapping back to reality when the spreading blood nearly reached her feet. She scrambled up the stairs in panic.

This apartment building had long been neglected. Flickering motion-sensor lights could indeed fall, and rust-eaten railings could collapse—but the odds were vanishingly small.

Just like how, as long as people kept breathing, they faced tens of thousands of such "dangers" daily—water could choke them, frayed wiring could electrocute them, even roads could collapse and kill...

But these probabilities were so negligible that no one ever paid them any mind.

—So who could have predicted that "Dad," such a hulking behemoth, would suddenly die from a chain of such "accidents"?

After a long silence, Xiao Luo spoke reverently amid the thickening metallic scent of blood: "Great Lord of Fate... was this Your divine miracle?"

Manipulating the course of fate, adjusting probabilities... Was this also a manifestation of the power of "fate"?

It was terrifyingly powerful, utterly unpredictable, and impossible to guard against.

[For convenience, you may call me "Narrator,"] He replied, neither confirming nor denying her guess, chuckling lightly. [These were just... a series of marvelous coincidences, weren’t they?]

His tone carried admiration and satisfaction, as if reviewing a masterpiece.

Xiao Luo felt both fear—toward this invisible, all-powerful force—and an inexplicable relief. She understood: the crueler her protector was to her enemies, the kinder it meant He was to her.

"...Thank You for Your generous aid," Xiao Luo said, her voice still trembling but resolute. "Praise be to fate!"

A moment later, He commanded: "Conduct the ritual beside the corpse."

"Offer it to Me."

"As You will."

Without hesitation, Xiao Luo scattered another portion of cremains on the first step and began the ritual anew.

But this time, it was no ordinary Prayer Ritual—

It was a divine descent ritual.

As Xiao Luo recited the Narrator’s sacred name with devout reverence, a slender silver snake’s phantom emerged from the depths of the scale at the ritual’s center.

Its tail undulated sinuously, gliding over the gruesome bloodstains yet remaining pristine—holy, beautiful, and deadly. It slithered into "Dad’s" lifeless, terror-widened eye.

From the moment the silver snake appeared, Xiao Luo instinctively lowered her head, fixing her gaze on the ground, not daring to look upon the True God... even if this was merely a fragment of His presence.

But she could still hear it—a blood-curdling, grinding sound, like the groan of bones being crushed by a serpent’s coils, or perhaps—

The bones were breaking, growing, and rearranging at an unnatural speed and manner, rapidly constructing a makeshift body that pleased Him.

At the same time, Xiao Luo was startled to realize that her memory of "Dad" was rapidly fading until it was gone completely.

The figure as towering as a mountain that should have left a deep impression seemed to be erased by an invisible force, replaced instead by a slender silhouette shrouded in silver light, its face unclear.

This mysterious power acted directly upon her consciousness, leaving Xiao Luo momentarily disoriented. She nearly convinced herself—since the start of this dungeon, "Dad" had always been that silver-cloaked figure.

Fortunately, when her lowered gaze met the silver snake scale at the center of the ritual, it was as if ice-cold water dumped over her head, snapping her back to reality.

...What "Dad"?

That was clearly the True God she worshipped and summoned!

Thankfully, she regained her senses in time. Otherwise, if she had blurted out "Dad" to Mr. Narrator, she... she couldn't even imagine the consequences.

She wouldn’t need His wrath—her own shame would drown her first. Xiao Luo thought with lingering dread.

...

The moment the ritual began, Yi Fengchu barely felt a pulling force.

He closed his eyes and put up no fight, allowing the ritual’s power to guide his direction.

Like an unseen boat rocking unsteadily, it crossed through the barriers between worlds and dimensions, carrying Yi Fengchu’s consciousness to the edge of the dungeon.

This place should have been locked down by the curse's power, preventing any outsider from bypassing the Father of Curses’ permission to infiltrate.

But after Luo Shengle’s repeated connections and rituals, a small opening had appeared in the outermost boundary, allowing Yi Fengchu to push through more of his power.

In the depths of his awareness, Yi Fengchu felt countless limbs extending from his body, countless vicious snake heads gathering near the gap, pacing impatiently.

Some widened their snake eyes, peering inside, while others twisted their slender bodies, attempting to squeeze through...

But the gap was still far too narrow for Yi Fengchu’s massive true form.

Even the smaller serpent fragments of his being struggled to enter, gradually losing patience and hissing angrily at the gap.

Amidst the chorus of impatient hisses, suddenly, the skinniest and frailest little snake managed to slip through.

It seemed just as surprised, twisting its head back with gold-flecked eyes to stare at its companions—and the dominant true form—through the barrier.

Yi Fengchu’s main body: "..."

What a peculiar feeling. It was as if one strand of his hair had gently detached—part of him, yet not entirely him.

And this strand could move, holding a piece of Yi Fengchu’s awareness. He could even see through its eyes, witnessing everything his detached part perceived...

It was strange, an experience Yi Fengchu had never known in his time as a "human."

"Never mind," Yi Fengchu mused, guiding the little snake to wriggle into the dungeon world in response to the ritual’s call while he slowly began retracing his steps. "We’ll act separately for now."

So the current situation was: he had been successfully summoned, but not entirely.

For Yi Fengchu, this was an unavoidable hiccup.

But to Xiao Luo, it couldn’t have been more reasonable—if she had known Mr. Narrator had originally intended to respond to the ritual in his full form, she would have been scared out of her mind.

Most deities moved through the world as manifestations. What right did she, an ordinary Ability User in a state of amnesia, have to summon the complete Lord of Fate into the material world?

This was an honor even divinely appointed pontiffs and popes could hardly ever receive!