Hell's Handbook
Chapter 371

Kano Mai’s smile was very pretty and it was pretty enough to mesmerize most people. But none of the people here right now were most people. These were all very mentally resilient characters who were destined to become gods.

“I’m sorry, but the battle has already begun, so it will only end when one side goes down!” said Immortal Bai without hesitation. To him, once a fight had started, it was not right to stop it while both sides were still in good shape.

“Heh heh! In that case… the side going down is yours!” Jing Hua took a step forward to protect Kano Mai and said to her, “Take him away, we’ll handle the situation here.”

Kano Mai was stunned. “You don’t have to…”

“Never mind whether we have to or not, I’m just very interested in these three fellows. Such formidable foes… are worth fighting!” said Jing Hua without holding back.

The Dog God chimed in, “I totally agree. We’ve been commanded to protect you, so if we do this, we’d be both fulfilling our mission and getting the chance to fight people at our level. That’s a win-win situation!”

Kano Mai was still hesitant, so Phoenix smiled and said, “Don’t worry about us. We’re now four versus three, plus we’ve already located gravestones suitable for ourselves and can leave anytime.”

Kano Mai only nodded after hearing what Phoenix said. She walked over to Su Jin, who was kneeling on one knee. Morgan bellowed, “Who allowed you to…”

“How dare you shout at a woman so fiercely! You’re not gentlemanly at all!” Before Morgan could finish speaking, Jing Hua appeared behind him with his sword in hand.

The Dog God and Phoenix took on Immortal Bai and Ghostly respectively. Only Tiny was watching from afar. He looked frightened, but he did not run away.

Kano Mai stood in front of Su Jin and helped him to his feet. Su Jin stared blankly at Kano Mai as a look of disbelief slowly filled his eyes.

“You…you…” Su Jin didn’t know what to say. The person in front of him was definitely Kano Mai, right? But… but… how could it be?

“We’ll talk later. We need to get out now.” A white beam of light flickered in Kano Mai’s hands. Su Jin felt a warmth around him, then found himself in a completely different place.

“Where are we?” Su Jin was certain they were no longer in the Grave of the Gods. This was probably another world used for Challenges.

“This is my place of refuge. I’ve been able to survive the change in cycles because I can hide here safely,” said Kano Mai with a smile.

Su Jin looked confusedly at Kano Mai and asked hesitantly, “Is it… really you?”

“It is!” Kano Mai had no reason to hide her identity from him. They had come to a point where it was meaningless to do so.

Su Jin didn’t really know how to react. When he decided to give up on becoming a god, the one thing he was most worried about was that he might not be able to revive Kano Mai and the rest of his deceased team members. Even though he told himself that Situ Jin and Chu Yi could also become gods and they could also help to revive these people, he was still filled with guilt because he felt he was the one who was to blame for their deaths, so he ought to be the one responsible for bringing them back to life.

Kano Mai smiled and said to him, “I’m sorry Jin… I don’t know how to say this, but… I’m no longer Kano Mai.”

“You’re no longer Kano Mai?” Su Jin was stunned for a moment before he made a guess, “Is it because you’re a primordial deity?”

She nodded and said, “I’m the only surviving primordial deity. Every time a new cycle begins, I will begin a new life at the same time. And when that life ends, I will not actually die, but return to my identity as a primordial deity.”

“Exactly what is a primordial deity?” asked Su Jin. When they were still teammates, he already knew that she was one, but he never asked her for more details. But now that he was going to embark on a different path, he had to gather more information in order to deal with possible dangers in the future.

“You can try and guess,” she said with a chuckle.

Su Jin gave it a shot, “I suppose the most important part is not the deity part, but the primordial part, am I right?”

She nodded and said, “Actually, if we’re going to talk about primordial deities, then we should start with this universe. Or rather, we should talk about the meaning of a cycle. Jin, are you sure you want to know about this?”

“Of course. I don’t really have a choice, do I?” Su Jin laughed. From the moment he gave up on becoming a god, he had no choice but to become an enemy of Hell’s Handbook instead. The only way he could survive was to stay on this radical path. Sᴇaʀᴄh the ɴøvᴇlFɪre.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of nøvels early and in the highest quality.

When Kano Mai saw him nod, she took a deep breath, then began, “At the very beginning, the universe was just a dot. This dot exploded and kept expanding, and eventually lifeforms appeared.”

“The big bang theory. That’s nothing new,” said Su Jin with a nod.

Kano Mai nodded too and went on, “That’s right. When the universe exploded the first time, it gave birth to a universe, and that became the root of all universes.”

“The root?”

“Yes, the root. You can imagine the universe as a huge tree. The first universe is the roots of the tree. But as time passed, the universe evolved too. From roots grew branches and leaves, so the universes where Challenges occur, the universe where Chu Yi lives, the one where Wu Chen is from, and even the one where you live in, are just branches of this big tree.

“The first group of intelligent lifeforms on the root universe, or the first universe, the only group of intelligent lifeforms were us, the primordial deities,” Kano Mai paused before continuing, “That was a very long cycle. As the first and only group of intelligent lifeforms, we were able to develop and become extremely powerful. So powerful that we could kill any of the gods you know now with ease.

“In fact, the reason why they even called themselves deities was because they had taken inspiration from my people. They didn’t dare to really consider themselves exactly the same as us, so they just made it a generic term and used the word ‘gods’ as well.”

Su Jin did not interrupt and quietly listened to Kano Mai tell him the story of the primordial deities and the very first universe.

“After a long time, besides the first universe, the other universes began to develop. Just like the first one, intelligent lifeforms began to appear on the other universes as well. But the resources of these branch universes were nowhere as good as those of the root universe, and the intelligent lifeforms on these universes ended up starting wars.

“Different universes had different lifeforms and civilizations. We had become way more superior than them, so we became observers of these universes, until the root universe developed its own will – the will of the universe.”

“The will of the universe?” Su Jin frowned slightly.

“The will of the universe. You can see it as the physical representation of the first universe. In other words, the root universe now had its own will that was way above anybody’s will. It was eternal, noble, and worthy of nothing else but worship.

“The will of the universe contacted us, the lifeforms who belonged to the root universe. He told us that the appearance and growth of the branch universes were a terrible burden on him. The branch universes were sapping energy from the root universe, and if this went on for too long, the root universe would weaken and even die.

“Just like how one needs to prune a tree’s branches, the root universe had to do that too in order to ensure that the branch universes did not drag it down and eventually destroy it.

“But the will of the universe was sympathetic toward the lifeforms that had grown on these branch universes and could not bear to destroy all civilization, so he decided to create a selection process of every branch universe. And as primordial deities, we were responsible for creating the tool that could do that.”

“Hell’s Handbook!” said Su Jin immediately.

Kano Mai nodded with a sad smile and said, “That’s right. We created Hell’s Handbook. We used our extremely well developed technology and magical powers as its basis, then added the powers from the will of the universe to finally create what you now know as Hell’s Handbook.”

Su Jin was completely flabbergasted. Hell’s Handbook had actually been a product of Kano Mai’s own hands. He asked puzzledly, “Why didn’t you tell me these things earlier?”

She shook her head and said, “I couldn’t. When a new cycle begins, I receive a new lease of life, but in exchange, a large part of my memories will be sealed away. I will only get these memories back after I revert to my primordial deity state. So, before I revert to my original state, I don’t know what’s going on either.

“I only remember myself going through countless cycles all by myself, dying again and again, then reviving again and again.”

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