"Shit." Bai Liu lay flat on his back, staring up at Tawil, who was pinning him down. For once, Bai Liu's expression carried a flicker of stunned disbelief. His breathing was in complete disarray, yet his voice remained strangely calm.
"What are you doing? Let me go."
There was no emotion in Tawil's silver-blue eyes.
He used the whip to coil around Bai Liu's wrists, pressing them to the ground with one hand. His gaze lowered, focused solely on the person beneath him.
"Bai Liu, there is a price for making a wish to an evil god."
"You took my affection from the beginning. My companionship. My heart. My love. You wanted me to stay by your side forever." Tawil's long silver-blue curls spread across the ground, tangling with Bai Liu's black hair. He looked directly into Bai Liu's eyes. "In return, you must give me the same."
Bai Liu's reflection filled his pupils.
"You are my only believer."
"Your feelings. Your heart. Your love. Your pain. Your faith. All of it belongs to me. You are not allowed to offer any of it to another god."
Behind Tawil, the lake water—dyed red like burning fuel—surged toward him with frantic delight. A faint inverted cross emerged within his irises. Bai Liu's image was caught within it, as if nailed there, imprisoned.
[System Warning: Player Spades' Monster Book identity "The Fallen Old Evil God" is experiencing a complete loss of control. Mental value fluctuating at extreme frequency.]
Tawil's hand slid beneath the hem of Bai Liu's shirt.
Cold fingertips traced upward from his waist, inch by inch, until they reached his chest. His fingers unfurled slowly and came to rest over Bai Liu's pounding heart.
"…Your heart is beating so fast. Are you afraid of me now?"
Bai Liu lifted his bound hands and covered his eyes, his breath uneven.
"No."
"I can feel your fear." Tawil leaned closer. His voice dropped lower, closer. "An evil god on the verge of becoming a complete monster refuses to let you go. That's terrifying, isn't it?"
"But even so—"
He suddenly grabbed Bai Liu's wrists and tore his hands away from his face. Calmly, almost gently, he forced Bai Liu to look at him.
"I will not allow you to escape."
"The moment you chose to face me, you lost the right to be afraid."
Tawil's face—his wind-tossed silver curls—reflected in Bai Liu's dark pupils in slow motion.
The black spreading across the bone-spurred whip paused—
Then surged violently upward.
In one swift motion, Bai Liu lashed out. The whip snapped taut, freeing him instantly. It coiled around Tawil's arm and flung him aside.
Tawil staggered back, staring at Bai Liu as the red lake behind him churned like boiling blood.
"You've abandoned your faith in me," he said quietly. "Haven't you?"
"I no longer believe in you, Xie Ta." Bai Liu stood with the whip hanging at his side. Only a single speck of white remained upon it. His tone was calm—too calm.
"Then what are we?" Tawil asked.
Bai Liu looked at him silently. The crimson reflection of the lake flickered in his dark eyes. The last white fleck on the whip was swallowed whole, leaving nothing but black.
"If you cannot exist beside me as an individual… if even your memories and soul cannot be preserved…" Bai Liu tilted his head slightly, his lips curving into a faint smile. "Isn't it unfair to me to talk about 'us'?"
"I thought about it."
"There's no need."
His smile widened.
"There is no relationship between us."
The whip lashed forward.
"Boom—!"
Gunfire cracked through the chaos.
Bai Liu dropped to one knee, chest heaving violently. His white shirt was soaked red with blood. His face was marred with wounds, his voice hoarse.
"Spades. Stop."
Tawil lowered his head slowly.
In his hand was a black, bone-spurred whip dripping with blood.
In Bai Liu's hand—
A silver revolver.
And just moments ago—
He had clearly seen Bai Liu holding a whip.
The world around them fractured.
The lake vanished, leaving only a vast crater. The mud at the bottom lay exposed, strewn with countless bones. At an angle, an ancient wooden carving of an evil god jutted from the earth, its head tilted—smiling at Tawil.
Within the blurred and collapsing illusion, the wood carving spoke in a warm, compassionate tone:
[Tawil, if an evil god falls in love… is he still an evil god?]
[The once indestructible old god is now filled with desire. With emotion. With weakness. With fantasy.]
[Your human longing is strong enough to hear the oracle of a former god.]
[In your own subconscious illusion… are you so afraid of being abandoned by Bai Liu?]
[Tawil, you are only mortal now.]
[You stand a hair's breadth away from selling your soul—overwhelmed by emotion, desire, delusion—and falling from human into monster.]
Tawil looked at Bai Liu.
Bai Liu rushed forward, firing multiple shots at his head. His smile was strange, almost bright.
"As long as I sacrifice you—the old evil god—I can fully become the new one's successor."
The recoil sent Tawil crashing into the mud.
Rain fell suddenly—violent, torrential. It filled the lake in seconds. Vines burst from the mud and wrapped tightly around Tawil's limbs.
The wooden carving's severed head rolled beside him, still smiling.
[You didn't resist at all.]
[You know this Bai Liu is likely fake. Yet you didn't dare fight back.]
[Because you're afraid it might be real?]
[If Bai Liu truly hates you… fears you… Perhaps he would really do this.]
[After all, your connection is fragile. Just a coincidence from ten years ago.]
The lake shrank.
From a vast expanse to a narrow pond.
From murky red to clear water, where tiny fish swam peacefully.
A rope bound Tawil's ankles, knotted tightly, as if someone feared he would drift away.
Someone jumped into the water and pulled him up.
It was Bai Liu—wet-haired, looking twenty-four years old. Yet the surroundings were unmistakably those of the orphanage from when they were fourteen. Bai Liu wore the orphanage uniform.
"I'm here to feed you, Xie Ta."
His face was pale. He smiled.
"Drink this, and it will all be over."
"I'll never let my life be ruined again because of a terrifying monster like you."
In his hand—
A bottle of witch's poison.
When Bai Liu raised it to his lips, Tawil paused only briefly—
Then opened his mouth.
Afterward, he was shoved back into the pond.
He sank.
And sank.
And sank—
Until the mud beneath him transformed into smooth ceramic.
A hand grabbed his hair and dragged him upward.
The pond had become a baptismal font.
The orphanage had become a church.
Moonlight filtered through stained glass, casting halos over Tawil's drenched face. Where Jesus once hung upon the cross, there was now an inverted cross—and the broken carving of the old evil god.
Still smiling.
A sharp female voice shrieked behind him:
"You monster! What have you done now?!"
"I'll punish you in God's name!"
He was forced under again.
When he surfaced, the statue had changed.
Bai Liu stood upon the altar.
He crouched, gently lifting Tawil's wet hair from his forehead with a gloved hand. He cupped his face.
"It hurts, doesn't it?"
"I was hiding behind the church curtains that day. Watching. It hurt so much."
His smile was gentle. Moonlight painted rainbows across his lashes.
"But the pain you feel now—"
"—a monster who cannot die—"
"—isn't even one tenth of what I felt for you."
The shrill female voice screamed again, shoving Tawil back beneath the water.
"That strange child Bai Liu who sticks with you—he can't be good either!"
Tawil was dragged from the water once more.
The sculpture upon the altar had been replaced. The orphanage director had been drained of blood; his corpse now knelt beneath the cross, strung up like a grotesque effigy. His face was twisted in horror, as though he were confessing his sins to an unseen congregation.
This time, it was Bai Liu who pulled Tawil from the baptismal font.
He slid an arm around Tawil's neck with deceptive gentleness. Then his fingers began to change.
His knuckles warped. Nails lengthened, blackened, sharpened—curving into two cruel, glistening claws. With elegant composure, he crossed his hands and clasped Tawil's throat.
The thief's monkey paw.
"You know," Bai Liu murmured, almost tenderly, as his claws pressed into Tawil's veins, "if it weren't for you, I might have lived as an ordinary man. A man who indulges his desires without hesitation."
His lips curved faintly.
"What a blessing that would have been."
Blood burst from Tawil's throat and poured into the baptismal pool below, staining the holy water a violent crimson. From the depths, blood-red ganoderma vines sprouted—spined, writhing, hungry. They coiled around Tawil's limbs and dragged him downward.
Bai Liu stepped back, expression cool, watching as Tawil sank. Blood dripped lazily from his darkened claws.
"Xie Ta," he said flatly, "the faith you gave me was worthless. It brought me nothing but suffering."
"And even so… you still selfishly expect me to keep believing in you?"
The vines tightened and pulled. Deeper and deeper Tawil descended into a bottomless red haze, as though paint were seeping into his very flesh.
—
Strange, pallid natives hauled him from the lake.
They bound his limbs with vines and fixed him upon an inverted cross, shaping him into a macabre wooden idol. The villagers gathered, chanting in warped accents, their movements slow and ritualistic.
Bai Liu emerged from the crowd.
A dagger gleamed in his hand.
He approached step by step, smiling faintly. When he reached Tawil, he pressed the blade's tip against his heart.
"Xie Ta," he whispered, voice soft as breath, "from the moment I met you until now… the only time I was ever free was the ten years after you died. When I forgot you completely."
"I had no faith in you. No feelings. No thoughts. I was just an ordinary man—occasionally tormented by greed. Such vulgar happiness."
His gaze lifted.
"You said you wanted me to be happy. Yet once I entered the game, you never let me go. You clung to me. Guarded me in every round. Branded me your only believer, terrified I might forget you… abandon you… choose someone else."
"You kissed me. Tempted me. Changed me."
His fingers lifted Tawil's eyelids gently, almost lovingly.
"You allowed your only believer to fall in love with you. To offer you his love and his soul. And you quietly took ten years of his pain as a sacrifice."
His smile sharpened.
"Tell me—how are you any different from the evil god now?"
Tawil lowered his head. He did not deny a word. Water slid from his long lashes.
Bai Liu drove the dagger into his heart.
Bright red blood flowed out, dripping onto the nearly black whip coiled in Bai Liu's other hand.
Assassin's dagger.
The last pale streak upon the whip slowly darkened under Tawil's blood.
"You see?" Bai Liu's smile deepened. "Your blood is just as corrupt."
He cupped Tawil's blood-streaked face.
"Xie Ta, since it has come to this… do one final thing for me before you disappear."
Tawil lifted his head. His face was pale, eyes dim.
Bai Liu's smile blazed.
"As a sacrifice to the new evil god—break free of all restraints. Become a god for me."
"And die in the nightmare you created."
The whip in his hand split open. Bone spurs burst forth, writhing like living thorns. They coiled up the inverted cross and wound it around Tawil's wrists and ankles.
The spikes pierced snow-pale skin.
The whip's tip hovered over Tawil's heart and plunged in.
Blood soaked the weapon. The final white trace vanished. The whip turned pitch black.
Bai Liu stepped forward and embraced him, bone thorns between them. He leaned close, lips brushing Tawil's ear.
"Xie Ta… your death is the most valuable thing you can give me."
"I like valuable things."
"I will fall in love with you at the moment you die. I will chase you. Miss you. Remember you."
"After you die, you will have my love forever."
"Isn't that what you wanted?"
He pressed his palm to Tawil's chest.
"Shall we make a deal? Your death… for my love?"
At the words eternal love, Tawil's pierced heart began to pound wildly.
From afar, the evil god's oracle echoed, amused:
So this is what you fear most, Tawil.
Once you feared nothing. You desired nothing.
Now all your fears and desires revolve around Bai Liu. You fear abandonment. You fear being forgotten. You fear he will love another.
You want his feelings. You want his faith.
When a god gains emotion and becomes human, he becomes full of desire. And desire turns gods into monsters.
You knew this… and yet you still fell in love with him.
How interesting.
Blood dripped from the bone spurs.
Tawil blinked slowly. The silver-blue light in his eyes dimmed… and went out.
—
When he opened them again, he stood in the town tavern.
The room erupted in cheers.
At first glance, it was a wedding celebration. But every face was pale. Everybody bore crude stitch marks. The guests were all corpses.
Tawil wore a black groom's suit, immaculate and precise.
On the stage stood Bai Liu, dressed in a white shirt and suit trousers, holding a bouquet of brilliant flowers. He smiled.
The corpses chanted in eerie unison:
"Let the groom place the ring upon the bridegroom—"
"And then the bridegroom may kiss the bridegroom."
Bai Liu stepped down from the platform, bouquet in hand. He stopped before Tawil and drew a ring from his pocket.
It was shaped like a coiled bone whip, encircled with thorns.
He looked up, smiling brightly.
"Put on the ring," he said gently, "and I will love you forever."
"Let's get married."
Tawil gazed at him.
There was no light left in his silver-blue eyes.
—
When they were children, they once spoke of marriage.
"Marriage," Xie Ta had said quietly, "is when two people bind each other with love and law. They promise to stay together forever."
"Bai Liu… have you ever thought about who you would marry?"
Bai Liu had been half-asleep, chin propped in his hand. At the question, he turned and laughed as though it were absurd.
"No."
A long silence.
"Why?" Xie Ta asked.
"I won't love anyone forever," Bai Liu replied lightly. "That's far too worthless."
Xie Ta fell silent again.
Noticing his expression, Bai Liu leaned closer with curiosity.
"You don't plan to marry a woman and start a family, do you?"
Xie Ta lowered his gaze. "Am I not allowed to think about marrying someone?"
"You're allowed to think." Bai Liu's brows curved in a wicked smile. "But it's just a fantasy."
"An immortal monster like you can't register a marriage."
He crouched before the fourteen-year-old Xie Ta, lifted his chin, and forced him to look up.
"You'd better give up those strange ideas and stay with me forever."
His smile was bright. Cruel.
"After all… I'm the only one willing to accept you and play with you."
"Little monster."