Chapter 198.1: A Village God’s Manifestation
As it happened, there was quite a coincidence here.
Both Wang Moning and Gong Cheng had joined Blue Sea later on. Both had the character (宁) in their names, and both were psychic-type ability users.
Their greatest similarity, however, was that both had nearly become idiots after catching a glimpse of a god.
—Strictly speaking, Gong Cheng had actually become an idiot back then. It was only later that the great and mighty god had fished him back out of that state.
Perhaps that was why, despite the fact that Gong Cheng had nearly been reduced to an empty-headed state by the countless visions of the future flooding his mind when he glimpsed the [Eye] left behind by a god, his first reaction upon seeing a giant eyeball perched atop everyone’s head at that very moment was actually to feel a deep sense of familiarity.
His second reaction was to hurriedly look up at the top of his own head. Only after discovering that he, too, had an enormous, evil-looking eyeball perched there did he finally relax.
Wang Moning maintained a posture in which she kept her head lowered toward the ground while turning her body slightly to the side, peering at people out of the corner of one eye.
This posture allowed her to see only half of a person’s body when speaking to them, without having to look at the evil giant eyeball above their head.
Wang Moning had practiced this technique that very morning. She had originally planned to pass on everything she knew to Gong Cheng, but when she saw that this colleague, who had suffered the same kind of mental trauma, seemed completely unbothered by it, she was suddenly the one left astonished.
“Aren’t you afraid? I don’t even dare look at them. I’m afraid I might trigger [Perception].”
Gong Cheng answered with complete confidence.
“Why would I be afraid? My ability is [Prophecy]. If I can trigger a prophecy about the future, then the prophecy can let Blue Sea know what’s going to happen. That’s a good thing.”
“Besides…” Gong Cheng declared proudly, “We’re under the protection of our God. With our God watching over us, nothing will go wrong.”
Cheng Qisheng, who had spent the entire night squeezing giant eyeballs until she felt as though her body had been completely drained, had just been about to take a breather when she heard those words.
Cheng Qisheng: “…”
All she could say was that if Gong Cheng once again ended up with his mind wiped blank because he had been overwhelmed by too much prophetic information, she would definitely piece his fragmented memories back together for him again.
That was one of the biggest problems with being a god. Believers tended to think their deity was omnipotent.
Who could have imagined that, at this very moment, their god was slumped on a sofa, utterly exhausted from spending the entire night squeezing giant eyeballs?
And the way this god chose to recover her energy was to hold an ice-cold Coke in one hand, dip her fries in ketchup with the other, and keep her eyes glued to a melodramatic TV series, letting her brain unwind as she watched its ridiculous eight-way love triangle unfold.
Aether floated beside her shoulder, just as engrossed in the show. It even imitated Cheng Qisheng by “copying” a miniature cup of ice-cold Coke for itself. Its entire jellyfish body tilted slightly to one side, as though it were reclining on its side, too.
The scene looked exactly like a couch potato and a couch-potato jellyfish giving up on life together.
In truth, she wasn’t hungry. After advancing to the Tier 7 Transcendent, Cheng Qisheng could easily go ten days without eating. Nevertheless, she deliberately maintained these little habits associated with being human.
For example, when she felt exhausted, she’d eat some junk food to comfort herself.
Then she would let her mental power wander around, checking on what her believers were doing.
—Although psychic-type ability users could see the evil giant eyeballs above her believers’ heads, that wouldn’t do at all.
Cheng Qisheng was gradually beginning to understand the fundamental principles governing energy in the greater universe.
Whether they were ability users or the gods, demons, and monsters found in worlds like Fallen Heaven Star, they all fundamentally gained their various abilities by absorbing energy.
Their paths might differ, but ultimately, they all led to the same destination.
If psychic-type ability users could see the [Eyes] she had placed above her believers’ heads, then once she reached Fallen Heaven Star, the gods and demons there would surely be able to see them too, provided their ranks were high enough.
That simply wouldn’t do. Setting aside the fact that giving large groups of people a shared [symbol] would inevitably attract investigations from all sides, there was also the matter of the evil eye’s appearance. It really made Old Eighth look like a bad guy.
Was there any way to make these giant eyeballs invisible during everyday life?
Cheng Qisheng flipped through the instruction manual again.
But with only two short sentences in the entire manual, it was obvious no matter how many times she read it that there were no instructions on how to conceal one’s mental power.
Unwilling to give up, she asked the Truth Stone again.
This time, the Truth Stone struggled for quite a while, but for the first time since Cheng Qisheng had started consulting it, the surface of the ruby remained completely blank.
—There was no answer.
For the first time, Cheng Qisheng felt as though she had hit a bottleneck.
Did this mean Blue Sea’s residents could only show up on Fallen Heaven Star with their giant eyeballs out in the open?
Would they have to make their debut as an evil god idol group?
But if they did that, wouldn’t the believers they attracted all be evil god worshippers who took endless delight in doing bad things?
By then, there would probably be rumors spreading across Fallen Heaven Star that, following the madness of the righteous gods, a new kind of mad evil god had appeared—one that went around killing its own believers.
Cheng Qisheng didn’t give up. She continued pondering what other methods she could use to solve this problem.
Meanwhile, one of the many threads of her attention caught a scene playing out in the melodramatic TV series before her: the seventh male lead was having an emotional breakdown.
“What do you mean, you don’t love me? Do you think love just appears out of thin air? You have to give me time! Give us time! I’m begging you—for the sake of the child, we can slowly create love together and give the child a complete family.”
—Cheng Qisheng slowly sat upright.
She felt that the seventh male lead had a point, even though he was being completely unreasonable in this scene, since the child wasn’t even his in the first place.
Still, the idea of “creating something that doesn’t exist” had given her inspiration.
Exactly!
Had psychic-type ability users known how to use their abilities from the very beginning?
The fact that there was no answer for “concealing mental power” only meant that no psychic-type ability user in the greater universe had figured out how to do it yet. It didn’t mean mental power was inherently impossible to conceal.
And even if mental power couldn’t be concealed on its own, couldn’t she use some other method to help conceal it?
Cheng Qisheng thought of the large quantities of threads of rules she had devoured on Moon Silk Star.
Rules were different from mental power. When she accumulated too much mental power, her mind would start to lag, but she could consume as many [Rules] as she wanted without any adverse effects. In fact, they had even helped alleviate her mortal-body syndrome.
Ever since eating those threads of rules, Cheng Qisheng had become noticeably smoother in her movements.
She could even play video games now without her teammates calling her a bot.
—Farewell, my gaming skills that had finally become just a little less clunky.
After some thought, Cheng Qisheng randomly selected one of the giant eyeballs she had created earlier and separated out a tiny thread of rules, making it coil around the eyeball.
She had originally intended to directly replicate the Cognitive Lock. However, after drawing a miniature Cognitive Lock, she discovered that it consumed far too much mental power.
The mental power required to create a single miniature Cognitive Lock was practically equivalent to the amount she had used to create ten million eyeballs.
Since the rules governing the Cognitive Lock were too difficult to work with, Cheng Qisheng simply began experimenting at random, relying on her instincts.
As the saying went, doing something was better than doing nothing. Doing it well was ideal, of course, but even if it didn’t work out, nothing much would be lost.
The great Creator God of Blue Sea was beginning her experiments!
If she wanted to conceal mental power, then surely the first step was to create some kind of framework around it to contain it.
Under Cheng Qisheng’s control, the tiny thread of rules slowly expanded until it completely enveloped the giant eyeball.
Hmm… No, that wouldn’t work. This way, the mental power would be sealed inside as well, leaving it unable to protect the residents.
Got it! Only wrap the outer layer.
She could mold mental power into shapes. Surely she could shape rule energy too, right?
Let’s give it a try.
Oh! She really could!
She made the eyeball a little rounder. Perhaps it was some hidden law of the greater universe, but Cheng Qisheng had discovered that round objects seemed to absorb energy more easily.
As for the outer appearance of the rule energy, she would shape it into something mechanical, so that it would blend in with the other components of Blue Sea’s airships.
Looking at the giant eyeball now encased in a [black metal mechanical ring], Cheng Qisheng nodded in satisfaction.
Taking Wang Moning’s lingering trauma into consideration, she thoughtfully placed the eyeball in front of Gong Cheng alone to see whether he could still perceive it.
Gong Cheng took one look and was ecstatic.
“Our God! Is this a special design made just for me?!”
Cheng Qisheng: “…”
What the heck did he mean by an eyeball?!
She closed her eyes and examined the images in Gong Cheng’s memories, only to give herself a fright.
What a gigantic eyeball! This time, even the outer contours of the eye were gone. The vast expanse of white made the pitch-black pupil look particularly terrifying. It gave the impression of staring straight at someone without blinking, or perhaps of a gigantic black hole.
Cheng Qisheng: “…”
Suddenly, she found the evil giant eyeballs Lilith had designed for the airships rather attractive.
The great Creator God of Blue Sea refused to think about the fact that she had made this monstrosity herself and got straight to work correcting it.
It was probably because the threads of rules had only covered the outer layer that the eye’s appearance had been concealed, leaving psychic-type ability users able to see only the parts that hadn’t been hidden: the white of the eye and the pupil.
However, she couldn’t completely cover those parts either, or the mental power wouldn’t be able to get out.
After thinking for a moment, Cheng Qisheng quickly changed her approach. She made the threads of rules extend outward, then split them into countless finer strands, as if slicing vegetables, and let them slowly creep across the eyeball.
Fortunately, Lilith’s original design for the evil giant eyeballs already included blood vessels. She could simply make these strands look like the veins in an ordinary human eye.
She adjusted their color to the red of human blood vessels and spread them across the entire eyeball, adding a few strands inside the pupil and iris as well. She could even design some pretty patterns within the iris, resembling tiny flames scattering in all directions.
The more Cheng Qisheng “drew,” the more confident she became. She had a feeling that this time, she would definitely succeed.
“Done! Finished!”
Cheng Qisheng withdrew the vast amount of mental power she had been using to manipulate the threads and began inspecting the finished product.
Across the ghastly pale iris, countless vein-like strands crisscrossed and spread like creeping vines. Since the threads of rules themselves moved slowly, the branching veins appeared almost alive.
The mechanical frame, which had looked particularly impressive before, had now also been overrun by red strands, lending it an eerie quality out of nowhere. There was a cold, twisted feeling to it. Deep within the pupil, the flame-like patterns gathered together, resembling a narrow, vertical slit that stared coldly ahead without a trace of warmth.
—It was practically an Evil Giant Eyeball Plus Edition.
Cheng Qisheng: “…”
The great Creator God of Blue Sea comforted herself with the thought that, at the very least, the visual impact was certainly strong enough.
Besides, perhaps it was because of Old Eighth’s influence, or perhaps the sight of a mechanical frame clamping around an eyeball was simply very cyberpunk, but there was something inexplicably cool about it, too.
Cheng Qisheng placed it in front of Gong Cheng. Gong Cheng carefully examined his surroundings, even searching the ground beneath his feet.
Yet even though the Evil Giant Eyeball Plus Edition was right in front of him, silently staring at him, he still couldn’t perceive a thing.
“Our God, I can’t see anything.”
Phew!!
She’d finally succeeded!!
Cheng Qisheng poured herself a glass of Coke to celebrate.
Now she could safely send Blue Sea’s residents to Fallen Heaven Star.
And she’d learned another trick, too. From now on, whenever she had some spare time, she could make more giant eyeballs like these, just as she made protective shields for the residents.
<< _ >>
**TN
“Wang Moning and Gong Ning had both joined Blue Sea later on. Both had the character (宁/Ning) in their names…”
Gong Cheng 龚成, Gong Ning 龚宁
The author used a diff character, IDK why. Should I continue using Cheng or Ning? *cries*
I didn’t replace Gong with Ning here to avoid confusion, but the whole chapter used Ning. (╥﹏╥)
Thank you for the update 🩶