Life Game In Other World
Chapter 488: The Ultimate Secret of the Fountain of Youth (Long - , Asking for Monthly Pass)

Chapter 488: Chapter 488: The Ultimate Secret of the Fountain of Youth (Long Chapter, Asking for Monthly Pass)

He Ao held the short sword across his chest,

"I have heard, in the eternal night’s desolate silence, only life shrieks and sings."

Vast and boundless gazes were cast through endless time and space, and the stars in the sky, like a curtain, trembled.

In the enhancement potion research area of the middle level of the building, in each laboratory filled with the carcasses of monsters, the Great Tree patterns drawn with pure white blood radiated a dazzling brilliance.

And outside the windows of these laboratories, the conveyor belts dangling the carcasses of exotic beasts were still running, though they had departed from their original programmed course. Each hook was lifting these carcasses, fixing them in disarrayed positions.

If one were to slice open this entire area and look down from above, they would discover that these differently directed Great Tree patterns on a larger scale sketched out an even more abstract giant tree pattern.

And those disorderly placed carcasses of exotic beasts constructed the branches that connected these Great Tree patterns.

This was a massive Array slicing through the entire building, with a diameter of several hundred meters.

Gigantic mechanical hooks, manipulated by the main computer, moved and swayed, the exotic beasts sketching out grotesque dances.

The boiling Blood Pool was ignited by the pure white light, burning with an immense brilliance.

As if a glorious sun was lit here, dispersing the endless mist.

The light shone from the building to the rooftop, where the blossoming flowers ceased to sway, and the bright petals fell from their stems, decaying in the wind.

Those sharp vines also drooped down their branches, emanating an aura of decay.

In the sky, the curtain of stars wavered as if some terrifying being was about to tear through from behind the curtain.

"Life Goddess?"

Janos’s expression finally darkened. He watched He Ao, "Are you a lapdog of the Life Goddess?"

That pure white radiance also enveloped He Ao, with a mild and gentle Life Force emanating from it.

At this moment, his mind was filled with twisted and insane murmurs, driving him to drain all strong life and then sow the seeds of life.

He gripped the hilt of his sword, his expression serene, watching Janos.

He was actually well aware that his words would alert Janos that his target was the Fountain of Youth, thus shattering the image he had painstakingly crafted before and prompting Janos to quickly make a deadly move.

But he also knew that Janos would not act before he finished all his analysis.

It is difficult for a person to become an absolutely rational animal; even if rationality told Janos that he should act while He Ao was speaking, emotions would still compel him to listen to He Ao’s story.

Even if that story had perhaps replayed countless times in his mind, this was the first time he had heard it from someone other than himself in forty years.

For the majority of those forty years, he faced constant surveillance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation; he could not show the slightest laxity and had to be careful every moment not to let the truth leak.

His nerves were always strained, like a taut wire that would tremble intensely at the slightest touch. He couldn’t trust anyone.

Loneliness had built high walls around him.

And He Ao was the first to smash through the high wall and appear inside it.

In a certain sense, knowing his deepest secrets, He Ao could already be considered his ’soulmate’.

Of course, this did not affect his decision to kill He Ao.

Enemies and acquaintances are not contradictory.

So what He Ao could really strive for was just enough time to present his analysis.

And that little bit of time was already sufficient.

The Sacrificial Array itself was content from the Life Canon, which, while recounting those legendary stories, also incorporated secret knowledge.

Ordinary books mention someone conducting a ritual as just a mention, but the Canon would illustrate the Ritual Array beside the text, and annotate the detailed steps and materials.

These rituals directed toward the Life Goddess carried her gaze and contamination, and this was one reason only core believers were allowed to read the Life Canon.

However, those more advanced Arrays, like the ’Linked Sacrifice Array’ mentioned by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, are not found in the Life Canon; they’re likely accessible only to higher-ranking clergy.

But these basic Sacrificial Arrays were already enough for He Ao to use; what he needed was just a channel to connect with the Life Goddess.

Since entering the Life Elixir mixing area, He Ao had been consciously exposing his own figure to attract Jeno’s attention.

On the other side, Eve, who had already taken control of the main computer in the Strengthening Potion area, used fabricated surveillance and data to deceive Jeno and, following He Ao’s instructions, arranged the final part of the Sacrificial Array.

If it were a completely normal situation, no matter how well-disguised these ’little actions’ were, they could very likely have been noticed by a vigilant Jeno.

So He Ao needed to make enough noise, even directly draw Jeno’s attention in front of him to cover for Eve’s actions.

"You used yourself as bait to cover for your partner building the Sacrificial Array and used the exotic materials in the blood pool that I used for experiments as sacrifices to summon the Life Goddess’s advent, quite courageous,"

At this moment, Jeno finally realized his mistake. His gaze was somber, the white water beside him boiled, and those vines that had already begun to rot shone again with resplendent green,

"But first, you need to survive until the Life Goddess’s advent."

The milky water boiled, a powerful life force surged forth, and the surrounding flowers, which had already withered, grew rapidly and blossomed anew.

Jeno’s gaze was icy, "Once the host is gone, the ritual will naturally collapse."

"You are trying to mislead me, making me think that the Fountain of Youth is right beside you,"

He Ao’s expression remained calm, "That way, even if the Life Goddess arrives without the correct guidance, she won’t be able to identify the true form of the Fountain of Youth. The Fountain can then, just like what has happened before, go into hiding after paying a small price and wait for the next resurgence."

"An interesting idea,"

Jeno said calmly, as countless vines twisted towards He Ao, attempting to strangle him.

This time, the immense pressure was dissipated by the glow of the Sacrificial Array, allowing He Ao some freedom to move.

He darted into the night, barely managing to contend with those frenzied vines.

While contending, he slowly narrated,

"In the records of the Andavi family, the Fountain of Youth probably appeared around a thousand years ago when a stonemason accidentally unearthed the spring and drank from the Fountain of Youth, thereby gaining eternal life and beginning to enslave the surrounding lives.

"But there’s a question that I’ve always been unable to figure out, ’Where does the Fountain of Youth really come from?’

"Such a powerful transcendent item, just buried casually among the rubble and then found by an ordinary stonemason?

"I believe that behind every coincidence there probably lies some sort of inevitable rule.

"At that time, I was pondering whether the Fountain of Youth had appeared long before that, only without leaving any clear records?

"Could it have been the work of some great being?

"And then it led me to the second mural passed down in the Andavi family,"

He Ao’s back was struck by a vine, ripping away another piece of flesh, at that moment he had closed some distance with Janos, his expression unchanged, he continued to narrate,

"In that mural, a ’person’ as tall as a mountain appeared in the lake where they dwelled, and accompanying this figure, was a massive amount of deaths among the Andavi family members. In their own legends, these family members suffered from a plague.

"In fact, when I first saw this mural, I was thinking whether this ’person’ could be a powerful transcendent, whose presence caused mutations around, leading to masses of deaths among the Andavi family.

"In fact, in the third mural, there appeared people within the Andavi family who had transcendent powers, which could also be interpreted that the transcendent’s pollution caused some people to gain transcendent powers, but what attracted my attention the most in the third mural were those people crawling toward the lake in an attempt to drink the water.

"These ’people’ closely resembled the monsters controlled by the Fountain of Youth in the later murals.

"But at that time, I did not obtain any other clues, so I could only suppress the doubts in my heart.

"Until I opened the Life Canon."

He Ao severed the vine in front of him with his sword, his figure flickering in the shadows, "I saw the story of an angel, a story of an angel who fought with the Life Goddess, ’Andaville’."

When he mentioned that name, he looked up briefly and used Super Memory to glance at Janos, and in an extremely short time, a subtle change appeared on the ’Senator’s’ face.

He Ao diverted his gaze and continued, "This angel died in the war with the Life Goddess, and at that moment, a spark of inspiration struck me, leading me to wonder if the time of Andaville’s fall coincided closely with the history of the Andavi family.

"I further speculated whether the ’transcendent’ in the Andavi family’s murals with a huge physique might be that angel called Andaville.

"Following this train of thought, I found that many of the original doubts could be explained. Andaville fell next to the lake upon which the Andavi family depended for survival, his blood and body polluting the entire lake, causing a great number of people to die, but he did not completely perish; he still wanted to return from death.

"So, he polluted the lives along the lake, and it is very likely he controlled the Andavi family at that time as his servants. The name Andavi family, perhaps, was named after borrowing from his name at that time.

"The Andavi family’s murals also depicted scenes of offering sacrifices to Andaville.

"But this dead angel’s plan did not last long before it was snuffed out by the saints dispatched by the Life Goddess, the ’saint’ took away some key item of Andaville and destroyed his power, leaving him no chance of revival.

"This event is reflected in the Andavi family’s murals as the great earthquake in the fourth mural.

"Later members of the Andavi family believed their ancestors had migrated, but perhaps their ancestors did not migrate; instead, the saint’s power filled the entire lake, turning them from lakeside dwellers into land dwellers.

"They still lived in the original area."

He Ao flickered out of the shadows, appearing not far behind Janos,

"Once I realized that, I understood what the ’Fountain of Youth’ really was.

"The so-called Fountain of Youth is the lake water that had once immersed the corpse of Andaville. This water itself underwent some kind of mutation and accumulated life force, but the Saint of the Life Goddess either didn’t realize it—or he realized it but thought simply filling in the lake would suffice.

"This also explains why the Life Goddess Church seems unaware of something as potent as the Fountain of Youth that gathers life force—they actually knew, it’s even mentioned in the Life Canon, they just thought it had vanished."

"This inference can explain why there is no spring of the Fountain of Youth beneath Stars Supreme Hospital and can solve the mystery of the moving spring."

"But as I speculated this far, I realized another problem,"

He Ao stopped in his tracks, his body already covered in wounds, "Nine hundred years ago, an Angel destroyed the Fountain of Youth. If the Fountain were really just a spring emerging from an underground lake, that Angel would have needed only to destroy the lake. So why did the Fountain of Youth reappear?

"Moreover, during the construction of Limen City, a lot of underground work was carried out. If there were truly a vast underground lake, then why didn’t the Federation’s exploration agencies find any trace of it? Construction of the tall walls needed to meet strict subterranean criteria.

"Furthermore, I visited your underground garden; it’s completely sealed off with no signs of digging. Although I didn’t unravel the truth back then, the rich Qi of life around the garden led me to speculate that the spring of the Fountain of Youth might emerge there.

"But obviously, there was nowhere in that underground garden that could produce a spring.

"Until I saw that droplet of water condensing on the rock and falling to the ground,"

He Ao’s figure was now very close to Janos, staring at him, "Why must the Fountain of Youth be a tangible entity?"

He glanced at the fog that blanketed the city under the night sky, attaching his Divine Sense to his sword and slashing through all the vines in front of him,"It’s not that the Fountain of Youth appeared in this city."

His voice deepened, "It’s that this city is within the Fountain of Youth!"

The starry veil in the sky was abruptly torn apart, and a massive green leaf emerged through the rift, casting its blurry pure white glow down, with a tremendous force covering the entire city in an instant.

The hazy fog retreated abruptly, trying to conceal itself back into the void, but their bodies were illuminated by beams of pure white light.

The light shone like brilliant ropes, capturing the fog and dragging it towards the green leaf in the sky.

The power of the Fountain of Youth was suppressed at that moment.

"You panicked."

The hoarse voice of He Ao came from behind Janos as a silver short sword pierced through Janos’s back and out his chest, with fresh red blood trickling down the blade.

"The so-called spring is just the exit where the Fountain of Youth’s substance condenses. This exit can appear anywhere. Did you think it was the data from Reid that told me the Fountain of Youth’s spring was in the Stars Pharma building?

"No. He simply said that the spring was near the sky. I deduced the existence of the Fountain of Youth and understood the true nature of its spring, which allowed me to deduce that this ’spring’ was in the Stars Pharma building.

"After knowing this, with the data from the research institute, I could roughly understand what you were planning, and I also knew that the true Fountain of Youth must only reveal itself at the final moment.

"You are very patient, even if already prepared, you would surely wait for the right opportunity. Forty years was a long wait, and a few more days or months didn’t matter, since longevity is your advantage. So, I created an opportunity for you.

"The mercenary corps from Stars Pharma outside the city wasn’t here to help you; they were sent by the board of directors of Stars Pharma to monitor you. Those old geezers have never trusted you, so I found a way to lead the mercenary corps away and draw the attention of the entire high ranks of the Federation.

"For you, that was a perfect opportunity. Right?"

He Ao smiled as he pulled out the short sword, "So you did as I thought, summoning the Fountain of Youth, revealing this behemoth that had been hidden here for centuries."