Apocalypse Forecast

Chapter 1164: Chapter 891: Home Is the Executioner

Nothing can obstruct an Alchemist’s hunger for knowledge.

Just as human ambition has never been truly restrained, it is no different from what is called "hope," what is called "ideal," and what is called "desire."

Whether draped in a beautiful title or branded with an evil name, their essence does not differ in the slightest.

If the living bear original sin, then this original sin accompanies life from the instant the eyes first open.

For the Alchemists of Helios, the existence of this guilt is all the more important.

A Soul that has lost its desire to know has no reason to exist; achievements that content themselves with the present have no meaning to be preserved; an Alchemist who no longer yearns for more—what kind of Alchemist is that?!

For the sake of this "hunger for knowledge" that extends all the way down toward Hell, they paid countless Sacrificial prices, including their own Souls and lives, and still, not knowing when to stop, they refused to rest.

To grasp the Power of Gods, one must obtain Talent that matches it.

If one does not possess Talent, then one must rely on those who do! If one cannot obtain Talent, then one must create Talent itself!

This is the origin that has doomed everything to be as it is now.

In order to forge an Alchemist who could take that one step forward, they spent long ages and an inexhaustible cost, gathering every technique they could use, breaking through every problem blocking their path.

Not only Source Studies, Soul Studies, Creation Studies In Alchemy... but also the Scholars’ Genetics, Life Science, Eugenics, and so on and so forth!

Every technique that could be used had to be obtained.

Every Power that could offer even the slightest assistance had to be poured into it.

Enduring tempering, exploring the unknown, conquering obstacles.

What they finally derived was the existence known as an artificial Great Grandmaster!

When all were on the verge of despair, it descended like salvation itself!

Every price paid was worth it!

All Sacrificial offerings were about to be repaid.

But before that, before the artificial Great Grandmaster’s success... there were still more experimental subjects, more failures, more defective pieces, and unusable wastes being born from the Cauldron of Life.

Like those silent ashes buried nameless in the graveyard.

Long before "Publius" was born, countless of his blood kin had already withered away in the darkness.

It was precisely because of this that He Di would come into this world.

His birth even preceded Publius by a step.

Regrettably, after examination, although He Di possessed astonishing Talent, he still could not reach into the Domain of a Great Grandmaster.

The Ability of an ordinary person might still have room to advance; regrettably, for He Di, his upper limit had already been fixed before birth... he could only be sealed away, to exist as a defective specimen in the control group when success was one day verified.

From the day he was capable of understanding words, he was given the truth of his own birth.

Yet toward this, He Di had never harbored any resentment.

Not everyone is born whole and flawless; in the Current Circumstances, are there not infants born without limbs, or blind and deaf from the outset?

It is merely a slight misfortune, an obstruction, yet one that can still be overcome.

He accepted his Fate, his Future, and everything else.

Even if none of it had ever been perfect, like himself, born incomplete.

And now, at last, he stood before a Great Grandmaster.

He had become his enemy.

"You’re remarkable, He Di."

Garand opened his mouth and vomited scorching blood: "I regarded him as my opponent, and you were the only one I overlooked."

"The gulf in Talent has long predetermined all of this; it is only natural."

He Di calmly drew out the dagger: "Someone as minor as I am, a Joker-like Clown, is not someone you should have paid any mind to."

Garand stumbled and fell, yet before he could hit the ground, He Di raised his hand; an invisible Power tugged at him, suspending him in midair.

Behind He Di, those hazy Pseudo Spirits rapidly contracted, transforming into Lock Chains that lashed onto Garand’s four limbs, forcibly shackling him.

Immediately after, the sealing formed from the Souls of the Alchemists began to spread.

A pitch-black matrix emerged from Garand’s shell, proliferating, sealing inside and out like a cage.

This was a living seal.

Different from those rigid fetters, only the Alchemists’ own wills could, at every instant, sever Garand’s connection with the outside world completely.

They would not even permit him to die.

As his wounds knit shut, only a few droplets of lingering hot blood fell to the ground.

"Rest assured, brother, I will not kill you."

He Di said coolly, "It is enough merely to confine you here."

Though it seemed somewhat soft-hearted, in truth, this was the safest and most rational course.

If the enemy is a Great Grandmaster, one must never underestimate him at any time.

Now that Publius stood on the brink of success, who could know what kind of Transformation would be triggered by Garand’s death? What devastation might a Great Grandmaster wreak by offering up his own life?

It was enough simply to imprison him.

Seal him and lock him away.

Reduce him to utter powerlessness.

Ensuring he is cut off from all contact with the outside world, becoming a mere spectator, a helpless onlooker.

Garand turned his head with difficulty, looked toward the surrounding matrix, and could not help but shake his head.

"From whom did you learn this?"

"Isn’t it very similar to what you once did to Publius?"

He Di told him: "The inspiration came from you—when dealing with a Great Grandmaster, it is far easier to handle him alive than dead."

"I only... hoped he could think it through, understand clearly who he truly is... what it is he truly wishes to do."

Garand let out a hoarse laugh: "I did not expect the Moon Prison would be unable to hold him. By the last time I saw him, I had already understood that he had escaped... by a method I had never anticipated."

"This is his fate, isn’t it?"

"This is not ’his’ fate, He Di. Aren’t you of all people supposed to know that perfectly well?"

Garand retorted coldly, "His obsession is even stronger than I imagined. But where does your obsession come from? To create a God, you did not hesitate to create Hell... At what point did you sink to this?"

He Di thought for a moment and shrugged: "People change, don’t they?"

"Yes. But did you really change for yourself?"

Garand lifted his eyes, staring hard at his face—this former friend and ’blood kin’. "The He Di I remember, after realizing his own incompleteness, wished instead that others might find happiness!

When did you begin to turn into this, He Di? After you grasped the limits of your own Ability? Or was it after you lent your ear to the Piper’s seduction? After you became First Chair? After you inherited the frenzied learning and pollution of those Alchemists?

Is everything you do now truly born of your original intent?"

Garand rasped his question: "Do you still remember what you were originally like, He Di?"

In the long silence, He Di did not speak.

He only gazed quietly at the distant Sun of Nothingness, slowly sinking, falling toward the Black Tower.

After a long time, he began to laugh soundlessly.

As though he had just heard a ridiculous joke.

"It’s nothing but Transformation. Is that so strange?"

He turned back, asked in puzzlement: "Changed by the Piper or changed by others—what difference is there? When you say this, have you not realized that you yourself were changed by the world of the Astronomical Society? By the Stone Pot Society, by your students, by your friends, by everything you encountered...

People all change, for better or for worse.

The funny thing is that you treat ’change’ as a disaster—yet is not the one who most desperately longs to Maintain himself, most loathes change, most desires to remain eternally unchanged, standing right before your eyes?"

He raised his hand and pointed toward the dark tower in the distance.

At that Great Grandmaster Pobrus who was laughing uproariously, arms spread wide, yearning to embrace the Sun of Nothingness!

"Look: to seek immortality, to refuse to be ground away by this world... the price is to destroy this world." He Di said. "The truth is that simple—you just don’t want to understand."

Garand did not speak—or rather, he no longer wished to say anything at all.

To a madman, no exhortation has any use.

"Oh, and one more thing. You may have gotten it wrong." He Di told him solemnly: "I chose my own fall, not because of anything else—not because the Piper misled me. I sought out the Piper of my own accord."

"...Why?"

Garand’s pupils froze for an instant.

In disbelief, he raised his head.

And saw the contempt in He Di’s eyes.

"Not everyone can be like you, choosing freedom without bearing any responsibility."

This ’prime culprit’ who had personally ruined Helios lifted his head, looking down on the ’savior’ before him who was trying to mend everything: "Isn’t all of this precisely the result of what you did?

Did I not ask you back then? But you simply didn’t care what everything would become after you left, did you?

You didn’t care about everyone’s Sacrificial offerings and their expectations of you; you thought only of yourself. And what could I do?

I only wanted to take your place and fulfill my own mission—to see all those sacrifices repaid. Is that so wrong?"

Garand no longer looked at him.

He only felt a wave of absurdity and mockery, yet could not laugh at all.

He wanted to lash out—but no longer had the strength to.

"Compared to me, it’s actually you who is more strange." He Di asked coldly: "Since you had already left, why did you come back?"

Yes—why come back?

To return to the cage he once escaped, the place he regarded as Hell.

Garand tilted his head back, gazing into the dark cosmos, and after a long while, let out a self-mocking sigh: "Perhaps... because I regretted it."

Regret.

Yet regret comes too late...

He regretted fleeing his Fate.

He regretted pushing his only ’friend’ and only remaining ’blood kin’... toward such an ending.

Even if they were spurring their steeds joyfully down the road to annihilation.

Perhaps there was a trace of hate as well.

Hatred for Helios, hatred for those God Spirits who left behind secrets, hatred for those madmen lost in their delusions... but most of all, hatred for himself, who in the name of freedom had personally wrought all of this.

When he wished to reclaim his original Fate and steer everything back onto its proper track, he was already Garand. He was Grandmaster Garland, no longer Publius, and had nothing more to do with Helios.

By the time he finally made up his mind, it was already too late.

Perhaps this was his price.

"Look on the bright side. At least you’ve come home, haven’t you?" He Di ’considerately’ offered comfort. "After so many years of wandering, you’ve finally returned to the place you were meant to go back to."

"Home?"

Garand choked, shaking his head: "Here there is only ambition, arrogance, and sin, He Di. That sort of thing has never existed..."

"No. It exists. It has always been here."

He Di raised his head, gazing out at the shattered Helios.

At that rolling land of steel, and the thick exposed pipelines beneath, the ancient devices, the enormous installations, the countless workshops, and yet more secrets.

"Look—this is our home."

He said, "The pity is that it’s not a warm place, and it has no such luxury as love. At most, it’s nothing but a great assembly line."

"We are tools, components, gears whose Fate has been set from birth. We exhaust everything we have to carry out our mission, only to end in damage and discard.

And now, the time for production has finally come—"

He Di turned back, revealing a smile, just like many years ago, and gently greeted:

"Welcome home, brother."

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