Chapter 308: Refining and Seducing, Insisting on Self-Existence

The seven pitiful souls are the natural chips and chess pieces in the gambling game between Mephisto and Calvin. Counting Calvin and the devil himself, they just reach the foundation of the holy number "9" of Tzeentch, which symbolizes extreme change.

A stage built with souls as sacrifices was slowly opened, and the dojo where two extraordinary beings debated each other with will and behavior also began.

This is the fall of Calvin prepared by the great devil, and it is also the place for the devil to upgrade himself.

The two beings, one man and one devil, at the moment of establishing the gambling game, their souls have been trapped in the eternal but fleeting chess game under the dual witness of the evil god and the emperor.

The first life.

Calvin woke up in an unknown world after all his memories were sealed.

As the son of the governor, he was born with a good life. The youngest position among many brothers allowed him to fully enjoy the love of his parents without worrying about the future.

But he is not a character who is willing to be behind others.

The glory of the family comes from the efforts of the ancestors, and the responsibility of blood makes him understand the meaning and price of nobility.

His body is not strong, but when he was old enough to receive education, he clearly expressed to his father his ideal of becoming an Astarte.

His parents who doted on him certainly did not want their youngest son to bear this price, but under his insistence, his father still went through a lot of trouble to invite a veteran who was lucky enough to survive the elimination of losers.

This soldier with a special origin will be responsible for his combat skills training and serve as his mentor to cultivate his body and skills.

In this way, he began a completely different growth path from his brothers, and a journey of practice to the starry sky began.

The baptism of will in the cold and hot seasons could not make him retreat, but the weakness of the body blocked his pace. Although the training for several years made Calvin strong enough to pass the selection that was known for its harshness.

But limited by his ordinary qualifications, whether he could pass the more dangerous transformation surgery later still needed the favor of something called "luck".

Calvin failed in the end.

After passing through layers of difficult selection, he was picked up from this planet by the airship belonging to the Emperor Angels and arrived at their palace flying in the starry sky.

He failed in the genetic surgery transformation after passing the selection, not because of lack of talent or insufficient physical development.

The reason for his failure was simply because of the natural rejection of his own genes and superhuman organs.

The severe rejection reaction has been struggling in his immune system since the first organ was implanted.

The pharmacists also tried drugs and other interventions, but when the third organ was implanted in the first stage of the operation, the redundancy that his body could allow finally came to an end.

Large-scale organ failure and genetic collapse were about to get out of control, and the discontinuation of tranquilizers awakened him from deep sleep with severe pain.

"You failed." The pharmacist informed him of his impending death through the thick glass of the life support cabin.

In his dying moments, he could clearly sense the pity in the pharmacist's eyes, and could also vaguely sense a hint of ridicule from the expression of that familiar face.

"Regret? You could have had a better life experience." The pharmacist asked.

"No!" Calvin struggled to spit out the last breath of blood-foamed air in his lungs, and then lost the last perception of this body.

Fragments of Calvin's soul fell on one side of the chessboard, and the demon on the other side of the chessboard grew accordingly.

Second life.

It was still the unknown planet, but Calvin's identity became the governor's eldest son.

He also had the ideal of yearning for the starry sky, but because of the continuation of the family, he had to give up his vision of becoming an Astarte and become a qualified imperial governor.

Since he was sensible, he has strictly required himself with military standards. In the more than ten years of growth, he has become tenacious, unyielding, optimistic and cheerful. In the eyes of everyone, he is a qualified leader and commander, and naturally a qualified successor in the eyes of his father.

But the disaster still came. The alien invasion was as powerful as thunder. The orcs were like endless green waves, destroying the defense system of his planet within a few days.

Calvin led the remaining defense forces on the planet to fight against the orcs, and was finally surrounded and killed in an unknown corner of the hive city.

"Do you regret it?" The orc warlord who knocked him down with his own hands asked Calvin, who was lying on the ground and dying, holding a huge power axe.

Like all dying people, Calvin's eyes flashed with memories of this life when he heard this.

"No!" He answered.

And the sound of the orc swinging the axe to chop his head was the last memory of his life...

The third life.

Calvin became the second son of the family. He was born with rich emotions and was quick to learn, especially good at handling government affairs.

When he was young, he vowed to become a qualified governor while playing with his brothers.

But as he grew up, he realized that it was the glory that belonged to his brother. He gradually became silent but did not forget his childhood ideals.

But his relationship with his brother eventually made him turn to theology and devote his energy to theology.

He finally completed his theological studies before the bishop of the star region became old and became a glorious imperial priest.

Under the arrangement of his teachers and parents, he boarded a spaceship to study in Terra on the eve of the Orc invasion.

He dreamed that he could help his brother continue the family's glory and career in another direction, so as to serve the Emperor and the Empire.

But who knew that this separation would be forever.

The huge size of the empire made the bad news of the disaster spread slowly. He realized that his family no longer existed and was disheartened. From then on, he became one of the countless silent copyists in the Terra Seminary.

He was old and had never married and naturally had no children. Before the end of his life, he donated all his property to the poor people of the empire.

In a small church in the slums of Terra, with the help of an unknown priest, he completed his last mass and the sacrament of anointing.

"Do you regret it?" The state priest who had been silent all the time suddenly asked, making Calvin, who had finished reciting the Emperor's words, a little dazed.

He recalled his short and simple life, and finally, while lamenting the impermanence of fate, he also strengthened his original vision.

"No! I won't regret it!"

He firmly uttered his last words, and as the priest gradually showed his unwilling expression, he closed his tired eyes forever...

Reincarnation after reincarnation continued, and Calvin's answer remained unchanged.

When the devil first saw the cracks in Calvin's soul, he also had a hint of pride and snickering.

But in the process of those fragments being disintegrated and discarded, the golden essence of Calvin's divine soul gradually became purer and more dazzling under the purification of reincarnation.

Seeing that the reincarnation place he had carefully prepared gradually became a helper for Calvin's soul practice, the devil, who felt that the situation was out of control, began to forcibly interfere with Calvin's fate of reincarnation in it in panic.

A more tortuous and unfortunate fate became an indelible haze on Calvin in the world after this. But no matter how the devil manipulated fate, Calvin in this world always kept his original intention and did not waver in the direction of evil.

The holy number of "nine" eventually became the total number of reincarnations of Calvin who kept his original intention in the devil's helplessness.

After Calvin completed his ninth reincarnation, the demon himself was bound by the game rules he customized and became the chip placed on the scale in the bet of this game.

"No! This is impossible!" The great demon Mephisto screamed at the top of his lungs.

On the opposite seat of the chessboard in front of him, Calvin's golden soul was emitting the brilliant brilliance of humanity and divinity in a purer and taller posture.

At this point in the bet, the winner and loser of both sides were clear.

But the desperate demon obviously did not respect the rules enough, and it wanted to use the vague definition of numbers in the rules to try to make more struggles.

"The game is not over yet! Let's continue!" The demon still tried to struggle, but the scale above the chessboard had begun to tilt.

The eyes of the Emperor's holy image suddenly lit up in the real space, and the black light representing His sacred will formed the power of judgment and judgment in the subspace.

At the moment when the demon tried to rewrite the rules, this silent sacred existence finally woke up and began to fulfill the supervisory responsibility of witnessing this bet.

"Excuse me..."

An equally powerful force appeared out of thin air, rushing towards the top of the chessboard from the depths of the warp.

After sensing this force, the Emperor's might became particularly active, and took the lead in sending protection to Calvin's soul.

But unexpectedly, the target of this force was not Calvin himself.

After it appeared, it landed directly on the mad demon, and before the Emperor's power could react, it took the lead in annihilating Mephisto's soul.

It is the embodiment of the evil god Tzeentch's part of the contract among many powers. The emergence of this force is also the embodiment of the contradictions between Tzeentch's countless wills and powers.

This force did not try to continue to violate the rules, but put the power and soul left after the clean death of the demon on the scale.

After his appearance, his respect for the rules allowed the bet to continue, and the Emperor's holy image had no reason to enforce the rules in person under this action, and returned to cold silence.

But it was not the end of everything.

The side of the scale representing Calvin was falling heavily. At the moment when the bet was about to be completed, this force replaced Mephisto's position and asked Calvin, who had just escaped from the chess game, a question that caught him off guard:

"Hero of mankind, your determination shocked me, and your quality is worthy of praise.

As another witness of this bet, I invite you here: Are you willing to enjoy the glory of the gods?

Or let me be more clear, are you willing to become one of the gods?"

--

Become a god?

This idea appeared in Calvin's mind, which was not without temptation. After all, it represented transcendence, and represented that his life form would enter a higher dimension from now on.

But almost at the moment when this thought appeared, Calvin had keenly realized the heavy price behind this seemingly generous gift.

"Can I still retain my will?"

Calvin looked at the existence in front of him and asked this question involving the most core interests under the witness of the Emperor.

As expected, this existence was silent in front of Calvin's core questioning.

It is not that it does not want to deceive, but it cannot and dare not hide anything under the witness of the Emperor.

Granting Calvin, who already possesses the essence of divine soul, the upgrade to become His subordinate god is only good for Him and not bad.

But what He wants is a ready-made helper rather than a new enemy. This kind of grant naturally carries the constraints of genealogical nature. How can it be possible to allow Calvin to have a completely independent will?

"Can I still guarantee absolute rationality and maintain absolute independent thinking?"

Calvin asked again, and the answer he got was a silent denial.

He smiled, and the so-called temptation to become a god also dissipated in his mind like smoke.

If he cannot have his own will, then what kind of god is he?

If he cannot retain absolute rationality and independent thinking, then after becoming a god, is he still himself? I am afraid it is just a manifestation of the countless wills of the gods.

"Then this god, it doesn't matter if it doesn't work." He looked at the existence in front of him and gave his answer.

"You know how rare this opportunity is... The projection of the evil god stared at Calvin without any more advice.

But in countless timelines, the same question has the same answer in different contexts.

"Well, excuse me..." The projection disappeared after saying this, as if it had never been there.

He could not interfere any more, because the Emperor's will was watching from the side.

Being able to have such close contact with Calvin, now thinking about it, it is not so much a tacit understanding based on abiding by the rules as it is the Emperor's absolute confidence in this special soul.

The balance of the bet finally slipped, and everything that the demon Mephisto had was obtained by Calvin at this moment.

The chess game and the illusion turned into ashes after losing the support of power, and disintegrated and dissipated little by little in front of Calvin. And Calvin's soul returned to the body and fell towards the direction of reality.

This special duel and dialogue finally came to an end. Calvin, whose consciousness returned to reality, slowly opened his eyes and knelt on one knee. He looked at the still silent holy image in front of him, then turned his head to look at the place beside him.

The place where the great demon Mephisto used to be was no longer there, and only the ashes on the ground proved its existence.

The blasphemy and pollution created by the evil demons in the Hall of the Emperor of the Faith burned spontaneously when Calvin saw it.

The souls of the seven victims under the holy image had disappeared, and the remaining bodies were also reduced to ashes in the flames.

The psychic crystal coating of thousands of weapons of the Heavenly Punishment Field that had been polluted by the evil demons, the pollution of the demons had also disappeared;

These weapons made of special materials that could carry psychic energy were restored to their original blank state without any energy imprint.

The celebration on the surface was still going on, and the hymns praising the Emperor were so loud that the breeze in the corridors outside the hall was singing.

Calvin stood up slowly, took one last look at the hall in front of him, and then left this place that was once full of sin and blasphemy with the same firm steps as when he came.

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