Chapter 110
Amid the panic spreading like wildfire across dry grasslands—among reality slowly transforming into a blank canvas, among colors fading like an old painting left beneath sunlight for too long, among voices disappearing one by one like people leaving without farewell because they know no one will miss them—the Cancer plague Consciousness began to speak with a strangely calming composure, its voice still carrying the distinct resonance from the era when the Cancer plague swept across the civilizations of the Gods and made the universe tremble like frightened leaves.
Not hurriedly like someone fleeing death, but leisurely, like a teacher sitting in a rocking chair on the porch during a bright afternoon, explaining a lesson to their favorite student resting sleepily on their lap yet still listening carefully because they know the knowledge will one day become important.
"Listen carefully, Ling Xu," said the Cancer plague Consciousness. Its voice was no longer alert and sharp like when it saw The Silent One altering reality, but calm and measured, like someone reading a map amidst a storm because they know the storm will pass and the important thing is not to lose direction.
"Within the realm of Humanity—the realm you only reached after dying eleven times and resurrecting eleven times, after devouring the entire civilization of the Gods and turning them into flesh within your stomach—there are four levels, Ling Xu. Not three, as you assumed from that lazy Huan Zheng who never seriously explained anything. Four levels: the Legs of Humanity, where you currently stand; the Abdomen of Humanity, where nourishment is digested and strength absorbed; the Head Humanity, where thought and will are forged; and finally, the highest and rarest level, one so unattainable that even humans scarcely dare dream of it—the Complexity Dao, Ling Xu. A realm where love, hatred, and everything that keeps living beings breathing even while the world around them burns reside. And to ascend from one level to the next, Ling Xu—from Legs to Abdomen, from Abdomen to Head, from Head to the Complexity Dao—there is only one way, one path, one method unchanged since this realm was first discovered by the first being bold enough to dream of becoming more than dust drifting in the wind: kill fellow humans, dominate them, or enslave them. There is no other way, Ling Xu. No shortcut. No miraculous potion you can drink while sleeping."
Ling Xu, hearing the explanation of the Cancer plague Consciousness—hearing that to ascend from the Legs of Humanity to the Abdomen of Humanity she must kill, dominate, or enslave fellow humans, not Gods, not beings from other universes, but humans, humans like those who once violated her mother, like those who once beheaded defeated Goddesses, like those who once laughed hysterically while blood flowed through the streets and screams became lullabies for those too exhausted to cry—felt her chest tighten.
Not because of the Cancer plague, for the plague had already become part of her, but because of the irony, an irony so bitter, so piercing, so unbearable that she nearly laughed, nearly cried, nearly screamed because she no longer knew how to express what she felt in a way that would not make her seem insane before The Silent One, who was still busy transforming reality into a blank canvas.
"So," whispered Ling Xu. Her voice was no longer cold and resolute like when she delivered her ultimatum to The Silent One, no longer filled with conviction like when she released the nature of the Cancer plague, but bitter—deeply bitter—like coffee drunk without sugar on a cold morning, like medicine that never becomes sweet no matter how much honey is added to it.
"To become stronger, to protect Huan Zheng, to avenge my mother, I must do the same things as those who hated me? I must kill, dominate, enslave? I must become the same kind of monster they were?"
And within her consciousness, in its darkest corner where the Cancer plague patiently resided, the Humanity Star Consciousness sighed—a sigh that sounded like wind whispering through dried leaves after a storm had passed, a sigh carrying the burden of knowledge it had never shared with anyone because no one had ever asked, because no one had ever cared, because everyone was too occupied with battles and political schemes and overlapping murder plots like spiderwebs gathering dust in the corner of an abandoned room.
"It is not that simple, Ling Xu," replied the Cancer plague Consciousness. Its voice was no longer calm and measured, but heavy and deep, like a gravestone dropped into the depths of a bottomless well. Yet beneath that stony weight, something stirred, something that people who still believed knowledge without wisdom was a poison might have called a warning.
"Because the humans within each region—within each universe—are different, Ling Xu. There are times when Universe A, inhabited by cultivators at the Legs of Humanity, is regarded merely as imagination, fantasy, or scribbles that cultivators at the Legs of Humanity in Universe B can tamper with. Thus, between the universes of humanity—which are infinite in number and endlessly give birth to more infinite universes—there exist structural differences, Ling Xu. Just as two-dimensional beings are insignificant to three-dimensional beings, and onward, and onward, without ever finding the point where that chain of differences ends because it has no ending, no limit, no edge you could ever reach even if you flew for thousands of years."
Amid the expanding void—among the blank canvas created by The Silent One beginning to crack in several places because the pulsating flesh of the Cancer plague from Ling Xu's body had begun creeping across its surface, refusing to be erased, refusing to be forgotten, refusing to become mere scribbles manipulated by insane hands attempting to rewrite reality—the Cancer plague Consciousness continued its explanation.
Its voice was no longer heavy and deep like when warning about the structural differences between universes, but calm and measured, like a judge reading a verdict within a silent courtroom, a verdict no one could refute because it was born from fact, not opinion, not emotion, not a desire to please or to wound.
"The Abdomen of Humanity, Ling Xu," said the Cancer plague Consciousness, its voice resonating softly within her mind like the ringing of a distant bell on a fog-covered morning, "can be called the most stable realm, perhaps even regarded as a state of existence far beyond the 'Legs.' Not merely one or two levels higher, not merely a difference bridgeable through hard work, talent, or luck, but a fundamental difference, a structural difference, a difference so vast that a cultivator of the Abdomen of Humanity in Universe A may view a cultivator of the Legs of Humanity in Universe B the way a two-dimensional being views a point, the way a three-dimensional being views shadows on the wall of a cave, as something without thickness, without volume, without enough existence to truly be called 'alive' in the fullest sense."
To be continued…