Volume One: The Nature of the Devil Never Changes
Arc: The Great Guerrilla War
Scarlet King moved and took out a gate badge. Immediately, a spiral gate opened, and he used Hegemon's Touch to lift the coffin and place it inside.
The Writer spoke with admiration:
"Oh, it is the Sealed World Gate. Your thinking always impresses me."
Scarlet King moved to leave the room, while the Writer continued speaking, floating behind him with a smile on his face:
"Ooooh, you are leaving? There is a lovely surprise outside. You can consider it a gift."
Scarlet King shifted his particles evenly through the gaps in the wall's particles and exited the room. The moment he emerged, he found five of the zombies that had severed his head earlier standing before him.
He said coldly:
"A truly generous gift."
The first zombie moved at terrifying speed to strike Scarlet King, but Scarlet King released hooks from his back that pierced the first zombie's head.
Then a cannon emerged from his right hand, and cannons from his shoulders. He fired at the second zombie, erasing it from existence.
After that, he drew a sword from his left hand and split the third zombie in half.
He fired lasers from his eye toward the fourth zombie, and its head exploded.
Then he seized the fifth zombie and tore it in two.
Scarlet King opened the Sealed World Gate once more and placed the corpses inside, thinking:
(They may prove useful. For selling, perhaps, or for conducting experiments on them.)
Scarlet King exited the cave swiftly and arrived in a calmer atmosphere—easier to breathe, quieter, gentler.
But he paid no mind to that feeling.
He simply flew, leaving the universe, the Writer following behind him.
Scarlet King stood floating in the void. Countless universes, stellar explosions, and blue and violet cosmic dust filled everything.
Scarlet King looked at the Writer with indifference and asked:
"Where can I find the Eternal Arm of Time?"
The Writer replied, placing his hand on Scarlet King's shoulder:
"Go to hell."
Scarlet King was silent for a few seconds, as if thinking. Then he asked, but a glitch twisted his words:
"Do you mean Iraq? But I destroyed the universe where that country exists. Besides, that was an ordinary planet with no cultivation power whatsoever."
Scarlet King was startled and wondered:
"Hey, wait. That was not me who spoke."
The Writer smiled with feigned innocence:
"A little narrative manipulation. Pay it no mind."
The Writer continued:
"I mean hell right here. Even if Iraq is a terrible country, its government corrupt and rotten, its people abandoned without awareness until they began defending their own executioner, and… well, I agree with you. But what you saw was merely a manifestation of the real world."
Scarlet King raised an eyebrow, surprised by the Writer's words:
"A manifestation of the real world? Wait… I remember living there. I was your assistant in writing novels, but your luck was terrible. All the information for the novels you wrote and never published was lost. Then I died and returned to the Primordial Origin World."
"So rebirth is not confined to one world. If I die, I may be reborn in another world outside the Primordial Origin. Even so, the Primordial Origin remains the lord of all worlds, the lord of existence and nonexistence, and the source of all worlds."
The Writer pointed at his stomach:
"The real world exists inside me. Also, why were you asking about the location of the Eternal Arm of Time when you already know where it is?"
Scarlet King was silent for a moment, then replied with boredom:
"Really? Well, if the real world is inside you, then it is still a part of you."
"And you are not immortal. Nor are you an ordinary mortal. You are something trapped in between."
"In other words, the weakest immortal cultivator is capable of beating you… and erasing that real world along with you."
"And my reason for asking about the Eternal Arm of Time's location was simply to confirm my information. Nothing more."
The Writer opened his mouth and arched his back:
"Aaagh! My dignity has been destroyed!"
Scarlet King replied:
"Your dignity never existed in the first place for you to mourn it. And dignity is not mentioned in the book of living in a cultivation world."
The Writer shouted:
"Wait, what book?!"
When the Writer looked, he found Scarlet King wearing thin-framed glasses, holding a book titled: Foundations of Living in a Cultivation World.
Scarlet King said:
"Look at page 69. It says that if you possess no power in a cultivation world, then you possess no dignity. And you can easily be crushed by an immortal. That is why you fundamentally have no dignity."
The Writer pressed his finger against Scarlet King's forehead in anger:
"Then you have no dignity either!"
Scarlet King shrugged:
"And who said I have dignity in the first place? Even I do not claim to possess any."
The Writer snapped his fingers.
A colossal gate opened behind one of the universes, and from it emerged a beast resembling a whale, but with horns, powerful black scales, and a sharp head.
The moment it appeared, it devoured the entire universe.
Scarlet King turned and saw it, then said:
"Oh? A Voidquake Beast from the First Dimension. But what is your rank?"
The Voidquake Beast replied:
"Third rank. And will that matter to you, weak human? I am hungry, and I wish to devour you along with the void."
The Voidquake Beast struck the space with its tail, and the entire void trembled, its layers distorting.
Scarlet King did not register what had happened until he found his body cut apart, his limbs separated from him, some of his parts lost within the void. One of his arms had nothing left but the hand.
He said with boredom:
"I have bad memories of my body falling apart."
Suddenly, bloody cords burst from his severed limbs and began pulling the scattered pieces toward his chest, preserving the natural shape and spacing of his body.
Then the cords swelled, and flesh, bone, and nerves grew from them, rebuilding the limbs that had been lost inside the void until his body returned to its natural state.
Scarlet King placed his hand behind his back and said:
"Writer, help me."
The Writer replied:
"No."
Scarlet King looked at him, then began rubbing his eyes.
"You bastard."
Suddenly, the Voidquake Beast appeared before Scarlet King and roared with a deafening sound. Then it swallowed Scarlet King in one swift bite.
The Writer moved away, speaking to himself:
"Well, this has nothing to do with me. I shall go to the void between the Seventh and Sixth Dimensions and watch from a distance. And also, for the record, the Voidquake Beast can devour spacetime and shake the void and time with complete ease, distorting them."
Then he vanished at once, as if he had never been the cause of the problem in the first place.