In the central plaza of Cuifeng City, believers were sharing the holy meal.
The Flying Pie God floated in mid-air, its divine face emitting a holy radiance as it looked down compassionately upon the happy and joyful crowd below.
The bishop and the congregation wept with joy, immersed in the supreme ecstasy of the true god's descent.
The air was filled with the fragrance of food.
Absurdity and divinity intertwined.
At that moment, on the edge of the plaza, a shadow that had originally existed in the corner between buildings suddenly came to life.
The shadow detached itself from the background.
Like a shadow in an oil painting suddenly gaining an independent will, it rapidly stood up and transformed into a massive humanoid black shadow.
The position of the black shadow was uncanny.
No matter which angle one stood in the plaza, no matter how one adjusted their gaze, this shadow remained perpetually at the very edge of one's vision.
No one could look directly at the shadow; no one could place it at the center of their visual focus.
The shadow made no sound and performed no aggressive actions.
He simply stood there silently, quietly watching the most dazzling existence in the center of the plaza—the Flying Pie God.
Time passed second by second.
At first, nothing seemed to happen.
The Flying Pie God continued to emit a brilliant white light, and the believers continued to eat the great pies.
But gradually, an indescribable sense of detachment began to permeate the area.
The light of the Flying Pie faded slightly.
Like an old photograph, the color saturation was quietly bleeding away.
The fragrance of the food also began to grow bland, losing the freshness that struck the soul.
The reactions of the believers below were also changing.
Cracks appeared in the happiness and joy on their faces.
Those eating the pies suddenly felt the taste was strange, as if it weren't that delicious after all.
The chanting of some grew hesitant, their eyes turning vacant. Some couldn't remember why they were here or why they were so excited.
They subconsciously ignored the Flying Pie in the sky, their gazes drifting as they began to pay attention to the hems of their companions' clothes instead.
The Flying Pie God, who should have been the absolute center of this ritual, now seemed to have become a background element—an insignificant decoration.
The Flying Pie God quickly noticed this abnormal situation.
That massive face made of filling suddenly flared with brilliant white light!
"Insolence!"
A grand, layered, and majestic divine voice exploded directly over the plaza.
The Flying Pie God showed divine wrath at being offended.
It did not move, but starting from its center, the rules of the entire plaza space began to be forcibly rewritten.
"God said, light is grace."
Thus, the nature of that originally holy white light changed abruptly.
Wherever the light shone, the ground turned into a golden, crispy pie crust.
The air heated up and fermented, filled with the sweet aroma of malt.
The snow on the ground reorganized, turning into sparkling icing sugar.
Part of the plaza was being forcibly transformed into a surreal kingdom of food.
The shadow at the edge of vision shook and trembled continuously before this tyrannical power.
"God said, believers shall be fed."
The vacant believers shuddered.
Their eyes were filled with pure white light, and roars erupted from their throats.
Their bodies expanded like balloons. Beneath their skin, it felt as if countless ingredients were squirming.
They gained power and frantically lunged toward the shadow at the edge of their vision!
These believers were using the most primitive methods to attack the entity interfering with the divine descent ceremony.
The battle between the two sides unfolded in an abstract and absurd manner.
The gaze of the shadow seemed capable of erasing the presence of the Flying Pie God.
The Flying Pie God countered by forcibly rewriting the rules of reality, making the world edible to frantically emphasize its own presence.
The collision of the two on the level of rules gave the plaza a bizarre, fractured feel.
One area would be the normal world, while the adjacent part turned into a pie plain with a river of cheese.
Some believers stared around vacantly, while others were gnawing on buildings that had turned into bread.
Light and shadow flickered; rules twisted.
Reality was like a scroll being wantonly smeared and torn by a child.
The shadow seemed to be at a disadvantage.
His power was constantly being disrupted by the Flying Pie God's powerful reality-overwriting force.
That shadow at the edge of vision fluctuated even more violently.
High above Cuifeng City, behind the clouds, Yue Shi was looking down at the absurd battle.
Meng Xuan introduced from the side:
"That is one of the high-level members of the Bureau, 'Silent Silhouette'."
"His ability, Backgrounding, is extremely domineering. If he observes a target continuously for over a minute, their presence is forcibly erased, turning them into a background element of the world."
"Unfortunately, the casting wind-up is too long. A full minute of observation is easily interrupted."
Yue Shi's gaze was deep; he recognized this shadow.
Back in Yujing, this was the thing that had tried to stop him, and it was also the thing that had given him a slight sense of crisis.
It seemed he wasn't the only one improving; these individuals perched at the peak of power hadn't been idle either, making rapid progress of their own.
But compared to Silent Silhouette, Yue Shi was more focused on the Flying Pie God at this moment.
The art style of this god was abstract enough to be laughable.
However, the power it displayed was truly glorious, holy, grand, and majestic.
Turning everything into food was a direct interference with and definition of the rules of reality.
Yue Shi couldn't help but tilt his head slightly to look at Meng Xuan beside him.
"This god... you actually modified it into such a ghostly state."
"How exactly did you do it?"
Meng Xuan smiled. "I have you to thank for that."
"If not for you, I wouldn't have returned to reality and begun reshaping it so quickly."
"You were very cautious and weren't bewitched by the Tree of Truth."
"Otherwise, we might not be standing here speaking so calmly."
Meng Xuan was Old Dream.
Yue Shi hadn't swallowed his core authority back then, but had instead attacked the Tree of Truth.
"You left so many contingencies; even without me, you wouldn't have been in any real trouble," Yue Shi said expressionlessly.
"I originally thought the highest manager of the Temple was just a puppet pushed forward, but I didn't expect it to be a data backup of yourself."
"I certainly didn't expect the creator and mastermind behind the Supernatural Forum to be you as well."
"You never went completely mad, or rather, you only went partially mad."
"The part of you that remained sane has been secretly watching and guiding the real world all along, right?"
Meng Xuan remained non-committal, which was as good as a default admission.
Yue Shi rolled his eyes. This man really carried the 'mastermind behind the scenes' role to the end.
A true mastermind of the mess!
Just then, the battle below changed once again.
Silent Silhouette was being beaten back by the Flying Pie God.
Another figure suddenly appeared in the air at the edge of the plaza.
It was a female figure wearing a dark gray hood, her face obscured.
Beneath the shadow of the hood, only a pair of eyes flickered with a muddied yellow light.
She held a smartphone in her right hand, its case covered in various anime character stickers, her thumb sliding rapidly across the screen.
Her other hand was casually tucked into her pocket.
Beside her floated numerous books that were automatically flipping through their pages.
Another high-level member of the Bureau, the fujoshi, had made her move.
But she didn't seem to intend to directly intervene in the duel between Silent Silhouette and the Flying Pie God.
Her muddied yellow eyes scanned the believers in the plaza below, and she curled her lip.
"Tsk, what a mess. Not a single bit of chemistry between them."
"They're all just one-sided fanatics and chaotic alignments. No sweet fluff to be found here."
The fujoshi extended her index finger and began gesturing in the air toward the dark mass of people below.
Her movements were light, as if sliding across a touchscreen.
"Everything Can Be a CP Sweet Paradise!"
As she gestured, countless pink silk threads suddenly emerged above the heads of the believers.
These threads connected randomly among the crowd.
A fanatical brute of a believer was linked to a vacant-looking old woman beside him.
Two crazed believers were simultaneously linked to a priest in the distance.
There was even a thread connecting a cultist to a streetlamp on the plaza!
"Forced Shipping!"
"Rumor-Style Shipping!"
"You two are a match made in heaven!"
The fujoshi frantically activated her abilities, shipping them with wild abandon.
Targets connected by the red threads, regardless of their previous state or relationship, were now forcibly formed into 'CPs'.
The fanatical brute stopped all his actions and gazed deeply at the old woman.
The old woman also turned her head, her cloudy eyes reflecting the brute's face, which was covered in food scraps.
The two felt as if they had met far too late; one was a celestial flower from the immortal gardens, the other a flawless jade.
Alas, when you were born, I was not; when I was born, you were already old.
The two crazed believers stopped their madness and simultaneously fixed their eyes on the priest.
Their gazes were thick with passion, as if they wanted to start tossing and turning in passion right then and there, oblivious to the world.
Then, the books beside the fujoshi flipped open automatically, the pages dancing wildly without wind.
"Doujin Descent: Plaza █rgy█."
Instantly, the air around the successfully 'shipped' CPs began to twist, manifesting various ambiguous and dramatic illusory scenes.
The brute accompanied the old woman as they ran through a sunset—it was her lost youth.
The two believers and the priest officially staged a Burning Winter.
A certain cultist fell in love with a streetlamp.
The originally fanatical believers were pulled into even more absurd romantic dramas.
The originally vacant believers were injected with false yet intense emotional entanglements.
The fujoshi still wasn't satisfied.
Her figure swept through the low air, a light humming coming from beneath her hood.
Occasionally, she would punch or kick certain targets that didn't meet her expectations.
"Orientation Correction Punch!"
"Fan-fiction Makeover Kick!"
The mental worlds of the believers gradually turned into a chaotic stew filled with pink bubbles.
The plaza had completely devolved into an abstract battlefield.
Behind the clouds, Yue Shi silently withdrew his gaze.
It was confirmed—it must have been that detestable woman who had secretly cursed him!
At first, Yue Shi truly hadn't noticed anything because his narcissism was real; he only loved himself.
It was only when he had existed simultaneously with his future self that he had vaguely sensed something was wrong.
To have a tiny bit of deviation added onto his narcissism, leading to something happening with his past or future self, was something he could not accept.
"The Bureau is truly full of 'talents'," Yue Shi grumbled.
Meng Xuan's light and shadow flickered slightly as he appreciated the farce below, his voice steady and calm:
"Standard."
"The Bureau headquarters is just a ragtag group."
He changed the subject, asking Yue Shi: "Why did you suddenly attack the Tree of Truth back then?"
"Given your insatiable greed, it's rare that you resisted the urge to make a move on me."
Yue Shi said casually, "I could sense the malice from the Tree of Truth."
"It didn't matter how gentle it appeared to be."
"Besides, ghosts are things that exist after death, and you hold the authority over 'ghosts'. I felt that even if you died, you might continue to exist in another form."
"As it turns out, I was right."
Meng Xuan chuckled. "The Tree of Truth is a master at bewitching hearts."
"It will use ninety-nine true statements—words that are actually useful to you—to wrap a single poisoned statement, making you willing to swallow the toxin."
"If you deal with it, you'll eventually fall into its trap without even knowing how."
Yue Shi's gaze turned subtle. "You seem very familiar with it. Is that how it screwed you over before?"
Meng Xuan nodded directly in admission. "Yes, that's exactly how it got me."
"The Tree of Truth was originally neither a righteous god nor an evil god; it was truth itself."
"But after finishing the calculation of Pi, it started shouting about how 'truth is not true' and how all transcendental numbers could be fully calculated. Then it just went mad for some reason."
"After that, it did many things that made no sense."
"Sometimes it would actively erase its own existence, leaving no trace of its name in the world, as if it were hiding from something."
"Other times it would act on a massive scale, attacking all divine ghosts in a frenzy and even exploring outer space."
Meng Xuan looked seriously at Yue Shi. "Pi was fully calculated; it's a finite decimal. Do you know what that represents?"
Yue Shi spread his hands. "Don't test me with such difficult questions. I'm bad at math."
Meng Xuan snorted coldly. "Your mind is clearly full of many incredible conjectures. Are you unwilling to speak, or do you not dare to?"
Yue Shi: "..."
Meng Xuan continued, "The Tree of Truth firmly believes that this world is a false world created by humans."
"Its words may not necessarily be true. Just take them with a grain of salt."
Yue Shi kept his face stiff and didn't say a word.
A silent atmosphere permeated the air.
The fight on Cuifeng City's central plaza had reached a fever pitch.
The fujoshi had driven away most of the citizens on the plaza, albeit through rather bizarre means.
Silent Silhouette's attacks had only been probes.
After testing out the Flying Pie God's methods, the high-level members of the Bureau all struck together.
After a long while, Meng Xuan spoke again: "You asked me earlier how I managed to modify the god of the Radiant Church into a Flying Pie?"
"I can tell you now that gods who rely on faith are extremely powerful in some aspects and extremely fragile in others."
"Their foundation is humanity. Their authority, image, and titles are all born from human civilization."
"I didn't directly modify that god itself; I only needed to interfere with all of its believers. Thus, it transformed from God into a Flying Pie."
"It is humans who created gods, not gods who created humans."
"Humanity is the creator that built the world!"
Hearing this, Yue Shi increased the distance between himself and Meng Xuan, saying coldly:
"You warned me not to believe the words of the Tree of Truth."
"But looking at you now, it seems you've completely bought into its theory."
Meng Xuan waved a hand. "Even mad ramblings have some merit, don't they?"
Yue Shi immediately backed away even further, his eyes fierce. "No, you're lying."
"In fact, you are the Tree of Truth!"
The gray-white figure froze, then sighed and gave a helpless, bitter smile while rubbing his forehead.
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