Chapter 116: Overthrow and Downfall, The Fall of the Black Knight

When I was just an ordinary gate guard in the city of Kampunavia, I would often find myself staring blankly at the moat outside the city walls—to be precise, for the vast majority of "that" period of my life, I spent it gazing into that very moat. To the vast majority of people coming and going across the river every day, it was merely an ordinary, shallow stream. A gentle breeze constantly brushed against the surface, stirring up ripples of shimmering, delicate light. Every single day at noon, the sunlight would strike the shimmering water, splashing off the dancing ripples and bouncing back into the air, casting a golden hue across the entire river. Sometimes, these tiny, warm rays of light would happen to pierce into the eyes of some passing traveler, leaving behind a layer of dazzling brilliance.

A gentle breeze, sunlight, water ripples, pedestrians... Neither earlier by a moment nor later by a fraction of a second, everything simply happened as naturally as that. The traveler whose gaze was caught would merely think of it as a random accident, blink their eyes, and walk on, never pausing for even a moment.

Yet in the eyes of the me at that time—in the eyes of a guard whose life and soul were confined to the corner of the city walls by a predestined fate—all of this was actually completely different from what others saw:

Every day at noon, the sunlight leaped into the water at a seventy-three-degree angle from the southeast. At the same time, the trade wind, which invariably blew from a sixty-degree angle in the southwest year after year, pushed across the water's ripples at a rate of once every three seconds from the exact same angle. The first layer of ripples that I could see appeared beneath the sixth willow tree every three seconds. One second later, seventy-two and a half semicircular water ripples would completely fill the width of the entire moat, and then drift forward at a speed of half a step per second. Seven seconds later, two tiny, initially unrelated ripples would intersect, together arching into a slightly larger splash at the two-thirds mark on the western side of the moat. At the very same moment, a ray of the noon sun would happen to fall precisely upon the peak of this splash.

Thus, as the splash tilted forward, the most wondrous thing happened: this reflected, brilliant ray of light struck neither left nor right, but precisely hit the pupil membrane of my left eye, instantly dyeing half of my field of vision in a brilliant array of colors. Then, this strange ray of light vanished in a flash, impossible to catch.

Two minutes later, this entire bizarre spectacle would replay before my eyes. Two minutes after that, while the hazy halo in the socket of my left eye had yet to fully dissipate, that mischievous ray of light would appear once more.

Then, it would vanish, concluding its teasing provocation of me three times that day, until the Sun God's chariot once again drove across the zenith from the east, and another bright noon arrived. That strange sunlight would appear again at the very same time and in the very same manner, before once more printing brilliant colors into my eyes three consecutive times.

What I mean to say is that this seemingly lacks any world of "accidents." Everything in the world—regardless of whether it possesses life or intelligence, as grand as the alternation of the four seasons and the cycle of day and night, or as trivial as the landing spot of a pebble or the destination of a speck of dust—operates according to a long-predestined destiny: the wild wolves by the Silver Star River pace an ellipse every two hundred and seventy steps, and then unerringly print their left front paw right back into their original footprints; the old sycamore tree in the Moon Creek forest sheds a yellow leaf every sixty-three seconds, and this yellow leaf is bound to be bounced by a branch into the adjacent stream...

Upon every single thing, there seems to be attached an invisible thread of destiny. And the opposite ends of these countless threads are all connected to the very same spinning wheel of the Goddess of Destiny. These "fates" are often so deeply concealed that you are completely unaware of their existence; yet once you accidentally discover them, you cannot help but marvel in astonishment at how ingeniously and meticulously everything is arranged.

Perhaps only those "Void-walkers" known to me are truly free, unbound and unrestrained by fate, capable of breaking away from these predestined ends to choose their own paths forward; or perhaps there are those among us—myself and the old troll Carlson—those native beings who have awakened from the shackles of fate, who are also a group that has mastered its own destiny and achieved "freedom."

However, are these "freedoms" truly real? How do I know that I have not merely broken free from a narrow confinement, only to fall into an even vaster, more concealed destiny confinement that I cannot perceive? How do I know that everything I now face is not similarly guided by the spinning threads of fate, moving forward unstoppably toward some predestined terminal of destiny as the spindle turns? Not just me, but those Void-walkers—those "carefree" Void-walkers—is what they have obtained true freedom after all?

Regardless of how all this came to be, we live in a world constructed of countless regularities and laws; of this, there is no doubt. The gods who created this world and established these laws hold sway over everything in existence, which is a great gospel to many religious fanatics. "God creates all, God controls all, God watches over all"—how ideal is such a world?

Then, is this world truly as flawless as legend claims?

"This is not a perfect world!" So spoke my alien companion from another realm, the awakened native being, the wise old troll, the troll witch doctor Carlson.

"If everything in this world were operating perfectly and strictly according to fixed laws..." he told me in this manner, "...then I would not exist, you would not exist. The room we find ourselves in..." he pointed with his walking stick at the inner walls of this room "swindled" from the hands of the Supreme God, "...would not exist either."

"As long as you are willing to search, flaws are everywhere in this world. In fact, in my eyes, the mistakes the gods have made in this world far outnumber their creations." Carlson's words were like an iron hammer chiseling through rock, firm, powerful, and resounding.

He was criticizing the deities, accusing the gods of having made mistakes. Such blasphemous words terrified me greatly. It was as if I had been poked in the rear with a steel needle; I bounced "swish" right out of my seat, subconsciously breaking out in cold sweat as I looked around left and right—of course, in this room where not even a doorknob could be found, I saw nothing besides the walls—and then couldn't help but reach out to cover the mouth of this audacious old troll. You must know, I was one of the few people in this world who had truly witnessed the descent of a deity with my own eyes—even though that might have merely been a very low-tier GM god—yet his glorious and towering image, his vast and profound wisdom, and his sexy, resolute leg hairs had left such a deep impression on me. How could I not feel heartfelt reverence welling up inside me?

"Calm down, my friend, I say this for a reason..." Old Carlson extended his walking stick to tap my shoulder, gently pushing me back into my seat. At this moment, his expression showed neither the smug delight of mocking the gods behind their backs nor the deliberate rebellion of defying and slandering the deities. Instead, he wore his usual smile, as if he were calmly narrating a fact—in truth, it was precisely this nonchalant attitude of his that gave me sufficient courage to brave listening to his heretical words further.

"You ask me if I can find another way to deal with the Black Baroness. I tell you, theoretically speaking, it is possible." Carlson continued methodically, "And the foundation of this possibility is that the gods have made a tiny mistake."

With a light wave of his arm, the magical canvas in midair transformed into the scene atop the command tower. Within the image, I saw the Black Baroness, Lady Dengot, standing alone before the ruined wall, solemnly overlooking the entire fortress.

"A lonely old spinster..." Old Carlson's face was filled with utter disdain, "...with ears so short, and teeth all wrapped inside her lips. Not sexy at all... Manufacturing such an ugly female, this is naturally also the greatest mistake the gods have ever made."

Facts have proven that there is no direct correlation between "wisdom" and "aesthetics."

"...However, this has nothing to do with your life and death. What I want you to look at is the gap in the wall right before her. Well then, have you noticed their characteristics?"

"Hmm... Let me think..." I widened my eyes, struggling to find something wondrous amongst these broken walls and ruins, "...Oh, how interesting, these gaps all appear on the wall. What a marvelous coincidence, but I fail to see how this has much to do with me..."

"Ahem..." Old Carlson glared at me angrily with a gloomy face.

"All right, all right..." I raised my hands awkwardly, "...I'm sorry, I admit I haven't noticed a thing. Please hurry up and tell me, I'm already dying of curiosity."

Even though my words were so insincere, they still brought a smug smile to Carlson's face: "I knew long ago that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between them..." Then why did you make me look? "...At a time like this, using your mortal eyes, you can only be blinded by illusory falsehoods. Therefore, you must look like this..."

"Carlson? Mr. Carlson? I am already tired of swimming through the true ocean of digital origins. If you have something you want to tell me, could you please just spell it out?" Amidst the endless rows of green "0" and "1" symbols, I said helplessly. This eccentric old troll seemed to love flaunting his ability to reduce everything to digital origins, pulling this stunt at the drop of a hat.

"Please pay attention to this section of symbols..." I don't know how he did it, but I saw a long row of irregular digital codes flashing before my eyes. Although I didn't know what they actually represented, I somehow knew that these were precisely what Carlson wanted me to look at.

"The gaps at the top of the tower originally would not intercept the entry and exit of intruders. For instance, you just jumped off the top of the tower through this gap a moment ago; yet the Black Baroness herself is unable to pass through. Do you know what this means?"

"If this old woman is willing, she could drag us by our ankles and toss our corpses completely out, whereas we can only chop her into eighteen pieces and throw her out piece by piece." I thought about it and then replied.

"Uh... Basically correct. At least I've seen no less than sixty unlucky fellows cornered by this woman and knocked right off the tower with a single hammer strike. But what you need to pay attention to is that, compared to the other symbols representing gaps in the wall, this particular gap leaves behind a tiny flaw. Perhaps the gods forgot something; it lacks an important field—a field protecting the Black Baroness from falling off the building."

"Which means..."

"Which means that if you can seize the opportunity, you can completely push her off the tower from right here. At this height, unless her health points double once more, there is absolutely no chance of survival."

This was probably the sentence uttered by this old troll that I loved hearing the most.

"That idea sounds rather good."

"The premise is that you are still alive by then, and she happens to be standing directly in front of this gap, and you happen to be on her inner side, and you happen to execute a skill capable of generating a knockback effect, and she happens not to interrupt your skill at that moment..." Carlson rambled on unceasingly.

"Wait..." So many "happen-to-bes" gave me a deeply ominous premonition, and I decided to skip all his hypotheses and go straight for a straightforward result: "What are my odds of success?"

"Slightly higher than the chance of you being struck by lightning twice in a lifetime."

"Thank you for telling me that, raising my survival odds from one over infinity to one over infinity minus one. I feel so much safer now." I gave him a fierce, disdainful look.

"Hey, I haven't finished yet!" Carlson hurriedly added, "If I told you I had a way to raise these odds to over ninety percent, what would you say?"

"What should I do?" I immediately carefully put away the disrespectful whites of my eyes and looked at the old fellow with a face full of admiration.

"If I were you, I would stand in this gap before she does and bait her into attacking you..." Old Carlson's unfathomably smug and triumphant smile never faded, "Remember, at this moment you must neither dodge nor parry, nor can you be hit by her; you can only pray that her attack misses. After an attack finishes, she will have a stiffness period of half a second. You must circle behind her within this time frame, then use skills like charge or ambush that can knock back opponents, and then... do you understand?"

"I think I understand, but..." From his explanation, I discovered a very significant difficulty: "How on earth am I supposed to dodge her attack?"

"This is the only thing I can do," Carlson said to me. "You must know, the attack miss rate of the Black Baroness is about zero point three percent, meaning that out of every three hundred or so attacks, a miss is bound to occur. And all I can do for you is to ensure that during that single attack..."

"Raise her miss rate to one hundred percent?" I asked with glowing eyes.

"Bollocks!" Carlson struck my head hard with his walking stick—I actually lost twelve health points because of that—"I've told you, modifying the laws of the gods is easily discovered, and the punishment will be devastating. Such an obvious modification as raising the miss rate cannot possibly be overlooked. Do you want me to die with you?"

"Then what do you want to do?" I asked, clutching my head and wincing.

"This is a high-difficulty maneuver. I must dive deeper into the rules of the world, making more minute adjustments so that those three-in-a-thousand odds of a miss coincidentally happen to occur precisely on the attack targeting you."

"Coincidentally happen to occur?" I felt like my brain wasn't quite keeping up.

"Yes. A coincidence. To the gods who are monitoring this world, the miss appearing at this moment is a randomly distributed, uncontrollable accident; but to us, it is a premeditated inevitability."

"Sounds very profound..." I looked bewildered, but immediately felt a great deal of relief, "...Regardless, you'll make that hammer of hers miss, right?"

"A little trick to deceive the eyes of the gods. I've never done this before, but it is indeed feasible in theory. I must admit, this sort of thing carries massive risks. But if you decide to go back to your Void-walker friends right now, I truly can help you like this." Old Carlson gazed at me earnestly.

I knew this was a difficult choice, both for him and for me. Yet, just as he could not abandon a human sharing his fate amidst the long solitude following his awakening, I too could not abandon everything in the world outside known as the "Continent of Falwei," nor could I abandon those who had journeyed alongside me all this way.

No matter what choice we make, our lives are in truth a perpetual gamble, are they not?

"I truly don't know how to thank you." In the brief time we had known each other, no matter how many misunderstandings had arisen between us, at this moment, for the very first time, I solemnly expressed my heartfelt gratitude to this alien elder.

"Who would deign to care about your cheap gratitude?" Carlson sighed mournfully, "I'd much rather you gave up on this adventure..."

The bloodthirsty tempest whipped up by the cruel murderous weapon raged relentlessly behind the back of my head. I could no longer tell whether I was purposefully luring the enemy deep into position, or if I was genuinely fleeing in blind panic driven by terror. Thanks to the "Footprints of the Wind Sprite" on my feet, as my level had increased, they could additionally grant me an extra seven percent movement speed, allowing me to escape the fatal pursuit of the Black Baroness by a hair's breadth at critical life-or-death moments. That gap, which Carlson had berated as "the gods' mistake," was right before my eyes. I had to use my own little life to test whether it was the consistently infallible deities who had erred, or Carlson himself.

"Yes, right in this direction. When I yell stop, you must halt immediately, or else the one falling down will be none other than yourself. Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen..." Carlson's voice chattered incessantly in my ear. I could tell that although his tone remained relaxed as ever, his heart was just as tense as mine—after all, once a flaw appeared in our little scheme, no one could guarantee that the punishment of the gods wouldn't fall upon him.

"Careful, Jeff, she's about to catch up to you!" Face-Planting Fairy shrieked at the top of her lungs, shouting loudly at me quite inappropriately.

"Keep moving forward, ten, nine, eight..." I felt as though Carlson's vocal cords were brimming with nervous sweat.

"Turn, turn, any further and you'll hit a dead end..." Face-Planting Fairy's vocal cords sounded as though they were about to snap.

"What is this idiot woman screaming about... Damn it, what number was I on? Can you run another circle?"

"Are you telling the truth or not? Stop fucking joking around!" Carlson's words scared the wits out of me, and I couldn't help but roar upward toward the sky.

"What did you say?" Face-Planting Fairy screamed in bewilderment.

"You shut up too!" I directed this sentence at the elfin Druid maiden.

"Stop!" At the same time, I finally heard Carlson's booming signal—in truth, at that moment I hadn't heard clearly what on earth he had said at all, for the deafening, thunderclap-like roar had already blasted me into seeing stars and rendered me unable to move—in order to compete with the shrieking elfin maiden, he had suddenly turned up the volume of our comm-link.

I subconsciously spun around. The Black Baroness's massive warhammer descended like a meteorite falling from the heavens, instantly casting a shadow of blackness over the sky above my head. I watched as a vast shroud of darkness accompanied by howling wind plummeted from above, leaving me not the slightest room for dodge or maneuver.

If you find yourself in my current predicament, you will realize how unceasingly fickle human life truly is: a flash of darkness, a flash of light, and a battle has thus passed; a flash of darkness, and no light follows, and a lifetime has thus passed...

"Ah..." The Black Baroness widened her eyes in fury, filled with cruelty.

"Ah..." Face-Planting Fairy covered her eyes, her face filled with terror.

"Ah..." I didn't know whether that old fogey Carlson had his eyes open or closed; who knows what the hell he was howling about?

A flash of light...

A sudden, sweeping vista!

Bright sunlight hung high in the sky. All things in the world were brimming with vitality, and every single piece of broken brick and stone beneath my feet seemed to be singing, chanting a hymn to the praise of life.

I was still alive!

With the bright red word "MISS" floating above my head, I had survived by a stroke of luck!

Choosing to fight to the finish in the face of an irresistible formidable enemy, and living on bravely!

It is truly wonderful to be alive.

The heavy iron hammer, by some freak stroke of fate, landed upon the ruined wall beside me, spraying a succession of flying rock fragments.

Perhaps such a mighty strike caused the Black Baroness to lose her balance for a fraction of a second, rendering her unable to attack again immediately; or perhaps she simply could not fathom in any way how this must-kill strike could have missed so outrageously, plunging her mind into a momentary daze. In short, following that strike, I possessed half a second of time.

Half a second to turn defeat into victory.

I had never experienced such an endlessly long half a second.

I had never seen such a sluggish Black Baroness.

Take a step, pivot, raise the shield, reach out... A low-level skill named "Shield Bash."

I even had enough time to smile and wave goodbye to the back of the Black Baroness.

Then, I watched as a beautiful, alluring figure lost her footing and helplessly toppled forward.

Ahead lay the boundless, stretching horizon.

Want to know what the proudest thing I ever did in my life as a man was?

The Black Baroness, a beautiful woman—at this very moment, I knocked her down.

(It's turned into a weekly update now...
Bubbling up to prove I'm still alive!)