Transforming Succubus: Almost Doomsday

Lin suddenly laughed, not expecting she, as a middleman, would now have to ask for intelligence from a brat.

The other party held secrets of which even she was unaware.

However, this also indirectly confirmed that the little brother had grown up a lot.

"You continue. Just tell me what you can," she said.

"Alright, the Book of Chaos mentions three names: you, Mel, and someone named Yu Ji," he replied.

When Lin heard the name Yu Ji, she didn't pay it much attention.

She just raised an eyebrow, with a kind of "How could I possibly be involved with someone like Yu Ji?" expression.

However, upon hearing Mel's name, Lin was quite visibly moved.

"To be honest, the unreliable god of fun was actually praising you," he said. "Above you, there should be a Saint, but it seems he didn't care much about Saints."

"In the eyes of the god of fun, the three of you were Mutators able to stand on your own, yet ultimately you did not tread your own paths," he continued.

"My thought is—Lin, you are still alive, and as long as you're alive, you shouldn't be compared with the Mutators who have died," he added.

"Because after the brutal battle of the gods, those who survived are the real geniuses," he concluded.

This was such a far-fetched hypothesis, completely lacking evidence; it was merely an assumption based on the context.

Yet, deep down, Lin, who longed for Mel to be alive, found it somewhat hard to control her emotions:

"You, you mean, Mel could really still be alive?" she asked.

"Yes," he replied.

Combining this with the dream she had had not long before, Lin didn't know what to say for a moment.

The consciousness of a middleman was divided into so many parts.

Falling asleep was very difficult.

Even if she managed to sleep, dreaming was rare.

But she had dreamt.

So much so that she began to suspect that the dream was somewhat odd.

The content of the dream was Mel wearing a mask.

Zhou Baiyu quickly caught the expression on Lin's face:

"Lin, could it be that you have also noticed something amiss?" he asked.

Lin replied, "I had a dream. In the dream, Mel told me that our journey hasn't ended."

Zhou Baiyu became interested:

"Are there any other details?" he asked.

"Yes... A spiral-shaped mask was covering Mel's face," she said.

Huh!

Zhou Baiyu suddenly opened his eyes wide.

With no outsiders here, he naturally didn't need to manage his expression.

Lin asked, "What is it?"

"That mask... Lin, could you draw it?" he asked.

"I can," she replied.

Lin said this and, dipping her finger into some wine, she drew the mask's pattern on the bar top.

At this sight, Zhou Baiyu was stunned.

Wasn't this—the number one attendant of the Strange Train?

Lin asked curiously, "What exactly happened, little brother, have you seen this mask before?"

Lin realized something.

If she seldom dreamed, then was it possible that her sudden dreaming was influenced by some force?

With Mel's capabilities, creating an item related to dreams wasn't difficult.

Zhou Baiyu had also thought of this:

"I've seen this person," he said.

Although Lin had already guessed this response, hearing it for real in that instant still felt incredible.

Under such dire circumstances... Mel actually survived.

"How is this possible? After the twilight of the gods, before I became a middleman... Mel and I chose two different paths."

"But I was certain, that path was not viable, it was a road to death..."

"She actually survived!"

"After all these years, she's been alive all this time!"

Zhou Baiyu looked at the disbelief on Lin's face and didn't interrupt her immediately, nor did he ask any questions.

After a good while, when Lin's emotions had settled, he slowly asked:

"How did Mel die? No, that's not right... What was that seemingly inescapable peril she faced exactly?"

The cigarette in Lin's hand had burned out. She lit another one, and with her other hand, she rubbed her messy hair; she looked as if she was sobering up after a hangover:

"After the war of the gods, we remnants of the old gods were hunted by the corrupted seeds and the forces of the new gods, and at that time there were still a few demigod-level beings."

"In fact, according to Mo Sangyu, you have already made contact with the Pantheon. To be honest, I'm surprised that you could defeat members of the Pantheon. This is something I could never have imagined before."

Lin's demeanor became unprecedentedly serious:

"What I am about to tell you is actually not something I should discuss with you at this stage."

"But I've never been too keen on following rules."

Appetite for Rules.

Zhou Baiyu became serious as well.

Lin said:

"Rules not only affect you pioneers of the new era; they also influence us remnants of the old one."

"To survive in that environment, one had either to abandon their inheritance and degenerate into corrupted seeds or... compete with others, to become a middleman."

What Zhou Baiyu hadn't expected was that Lin would directly reveal to him the origin of the middlemen.

"To become a middleman, one must commit some... atrocities."

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you what those sins are."

"And we must live in sin, atoning for our wrongs. At the same time, we completely alienated the pioneers of that age who were still alive."

"Sounds strange, doesn't it?"

Zhou Baiyu shook his head; his logical reasoning was clear, so he quickly sorted out various situations.

The rough logic was—

1. Twilight of the gods ends. The new gods and old gods become rules, but the influence of the new gods remains, substantially outpacing that of the old gods.

2. New god forces decide to completely eradicate old god forces. Pioneers of the old gods must survive by choosing to become corrupted seeds or—middlemen.

3. To become a middleman, one must commit extremely serious sins. These sins could lead to resentment from all the pioneers of that age.

4. Lin, Mo Sangyu, Yan Gu, Su Wang, Ji Ye... These middlemen, the great pioneers of their time, ultimately decided to commit sins and become middlemen, for the sake of survival.

After sorting out all this, Zhou Baiyu could roughly imagine that committing sins to become a middleman must be some kind of ritual.

Simply put, to survive, a price must be paid.

"Later, we began an endless imprisonment; we had to collect pioneer values, either reach the fifth order ourselves, or we cultivate someone... who could take our place."

"After the establishment of the nine middlemen, the war of the Origin World ended. We nine people are now in charge of the new world—the Advanced World."

"And the Advanced World, due to some rule mechanism, has established a barrier."

"Such a barrier can protect a certain area from being contaminated by the corrupted seeds of the Pantheon... from invading too soon. It's kind of like leaving you some precious development time."

"This is the gods' gambit."

"The nine of us have paid a heavy price to survive, and at the same time, we are imprisoned here, our consciousnesses divided into countless parts, serving the new generation of the Advanced World."

"You should understand how difficult it was for us to survive... Pioneer values are extremely important to us, that's one of only two ways to break our shackles."

"As for the other way, that is to cultivate someone who surpasses us. But the nine of us were very pessimistic at that time, thinking it impossible for such a new person to exist."

"Little brother, you've shown me the possibility of the second method."

"Perhaps one day, you can surpass me."

"Returning to Mel, you should know that she didn't want to become a corrupted seed, nor did she want to commit sins to compete with me for the middleman... She knew very clearly that if she didn't compete, the middleman position would inevitably be mine. I could definitely secure the position of the middleman."

"So Mel—she gave up both ways to survive."

"I still remember the words Mel said when we parted—'I have always hated this identity, but I dislike the other identities even more, Lin, our journey ends here, I won't compete with you for the middleman'."

"After that, Mel went to that place full of corrupted seeds..."

"Later on, when I learned that the Origin World had become completely corrupted, I could pretty much guess that Mel had died. At least... I couldn't imagine how she could survive in that world with several demigod-level corrupted beings."