Episode 189

Inside a city filled with demons, several owners were running for their lives. The people they ran past suddenly had bloodshot eyes and fangs, and it didn’t take long for the owners to be trapped in a dead end. They were about to face an attack from at least a thousand humanlike demons.

“We’re doomed, we’re doomed! We can’t get away this time!” One of the owners broke down. He clutched his head with both hands as he slowly squatted down and trembled violently, losing all hope of possibly escaping his fate.

Just then, a crack appeared in the sky. A giant piece of flesh that looked just like a butt came falling from the sky, followed by innumerable vengeful ghosts.

The owners were completely stunned by the sudden turn of events and they lost all hope now. They were already trapped in a dead end, and now, they were joined by this weird creature and vengeful ghosts? Was this really a Level C Challenge?

Just when the owners were at their wits’ end, the butt-shaped creature killed off all the humanlike demons. It seemed like the ghosts and the demons weren’t on the same side either. Any of the demons that tried to stand in their way would be torn to pieces. It was clear that the demons were no match for these ghosts and that butt-shaped creature.

“You pathetic spirits! How dare you fight with me, the God of Excretion! I’m going to kill all of you and make sure none of you make it to the next life!” That butt-shaped creature was none other than the God of Excretion. It had been sent to this Challenge by the Mad Hatter along with these ghosts.

The owners were completely befuddled. Even though the God of Excretion sounded absolutely terrible, the truth was that this butt-shaped thing was extremely formidable. Along with those ghosts, they had wiped out more than half of the humanlike demons that had been running after them.

“What’s going on?” The owners were really confused. Was the God of Excretion friends with the ghosts?

Just when they were still trying to wrap their heads around what in the world was going on, a red beam of light appeared from their Handbooks and enveloped them.

“An unknown error has occurred, so your Challenge will end now. There will be no point calculation for this Challenge and any owners who died in this Challenge will be revived without condition,” spoke the frosty, sinister voice that usually did the introduction to the Challenges. This time however, the words that the voice had just uttered sounded like music to the owners’ ears.

Immediately after the voice had made that declaration, the red light around the owners flashed and they disappeared, leaving only the God of Excretion, the ghosts, as well as the humanlike demons to fight one another.

At the same time, a similar scene was happening in various places, whether it was an empty plain, a dark haunted house, a dim sewage tunnel or a barren desert. These deities had barged into a variety of ongoing Challenges and the Handbook ended every single one of them by force.

Meanwhile, Su Jin and the Mad Hatter appeared at the top of the tallest skyscraper in a modern city filled with similar steel structures.

The Mad Hatter sat on the edge of the roof and allowed his legs to dangle. He frowned at Su Jin, who was busy trying to find himself a place to hide, and said in a mocking voice, “You dare to fight deities but you’re afraid of heights?”

“Deities are deities, heights are heights! They have nothing to do with one another!” Su Jin was pale in the face. It was harder for him to overcome his fear of heights than to bomb the Train of the Supernatural.

The Mad Hatter burst out laughing for a while, then grew serious again as he said, “Thank you, though. If not for you, it would have been impossible to save my friends.”

Su Jin waved it off and said, “If you weren’t holding my very life in your hands, I wouldn’t care. Besides, that’s not the end of this matter. I’ll take revenge one of these days.”

“Haha! You’re welcome to take revenge any day! Besides, even if you don’t intend to, we will definitely have to fight each other someday in the future. That’s unavoidable. Whether we live or die, whether we win or lose, will be decided by this very fight!” said the Mad Hatter coldly as he stared at Su Jin.

Su Jin was rather puzzled by the Mad Hatter’s words. When he said he would take revenge, he was just saying it to sound tough. The Mad Hatter was already formidable enough on his own, and now, he had released so many deities. Put together, these deities were powerful beyond words. He had enjoyed a huge increase in his prowess, but he was definitely no match for a group of gods.

But the Mad Hatter didn’t look like he was kidding. You could even say that the Mad Hatter could see the future and already knew that they would eventually come to blows.

The Mad Hatter noticed the puzzled look on Su Jin’s face and sighed. He said in a low voice, “There are too many things that I can’t tell you because it’s a matter of life and death. But you’ve helped me out before, so I could give you a hint.”

“Please enlighten me.” Su Jin became serious as well. The Mad Hatter had put him in dangerous situations more than once now, but it was clear that this fellow knew what he was doing. Something that could make him look this serious was certainly no small matter.

“I am an elder god,” he said while pointing to the sky, “and a current god,” he said while pointing to himself. “And you… are a new god,” he said while pointing to Su Jin.

Su Jin blinked in surprise for a moment, then furrowed his brows as he considered what the Mad Hatter just said. A moment later, his eyes widened and he opened his mouth to speak, but the Mad Hatter put a finger on his lips to tell him to remain silent.

“It’s enough that you know. The great war of the future will happen sooner or later. We will be enemies, so don’t hold back!” The Mad Hatter got up.

Su Jin nodded slightly. He had finally understood what Hell’s Handbook was essentially about, why it existed and why there were so many parallel universes.

“By the way, why did all my friends get sent out of the Challenge but I’m… I’m still here?” asked Su Jin. The rest of his team had been whisked away by their Handbooks, but he was the only one left behind.

“It’s your level of power. Your psychokinesis grew way too much in the long river of time, which makes you equivalent to a deity. The Handbook’s power can only control those below this level and can’t do much to you,” explained the Mad Hatter.

Su Jin was even more mortified now. What should he do? He stared at the Mad Hatter and his eyes lit up. “That’s right, why don’t we use your hat? It can travel to other dimensions, right? Send me back!”

The Mad Hatter shook his head and sighed. “It’s not going to work. Your world is different and I can’t go there at the moment.”

“What am I going to do then? Do I really have to just stay here until I die?!” Su Jin glared at the Mad Hatter. “You can’t do this to me. I won’t accept this.”

“Actually, there is a way to send you back, but I’m not sure if you’re willing to take this option.” The Mad Hatter stared at Su Jin with a strange look in his eye.

Su Jin felt like he was being watched by some weirdo and shrank back a little. The Mad Hatter explained, “The problem now is that your psychokinesis has become too powerful, so the Handbook can’t send you anywhere even if it tried. So… the only way is to seal up your psychokinesis so that it goes back to the level it was at previously and I’m pretty sure you’d be able to go back after that. But my seal will be very strong so that it doesn’t loosen along the way as you head back to your world. If that happens, you will be shredded to pieces from the energy between dimensions.”

This made Su Jin narrow his eyes. He snorted and said, “You’re hoping to pare down my powers in advance because I’d be a formidable enemy in the future, aren’t you? You can seal my powers up, but is there a need to make sure it goes all the way back down to the level it was at before?”

“To play safe, I’d prefer to do that. You’re too powerful right now, so if I don’t do that, I’m afraid something bad will happen along the way.” It was hard to tell if the Mad Hatter was sincere in saying this. He smiled and said, “Of course, you can choose to remain here. You’re invincible here and you’re a real god here. You can do whatever you want here. This looks like a pretty technologically advanced place, so I think you might get used to it pretty quickly.”

Su Jin laughed sadly. He didn’t have a choice, really. This place didn’t seem bad, but he couldn’t stay here. Ye Yun was still waiting for him, so he couldn’t just remain in this place.

“Let’s do it then! I can undo this seal, right?” said Su Jin with a frown.

“Of course. It’s just a seal, so you can definitely undo it,” said the Mad Hatter with a snicker. That smile gave Su Jin a very bad feeling.

“Alright then. I’ll go ahead with the sealing process.” Su Jin nodded.

A glint flashed across the Mad Hatter’s eyes as he nodded as well. “Excellent. Do not resist my power, otherwise this process will fail.”

The Mad Hatter placed one hand on Su Jin’s forehead before he could even respond. An insanely powerful beam of energy surged into his body. The energy from the Mad Hatter was just as crazy as its owner and it gave Su Jin a very strange sensation. Su Jin felt that the Mad Hatter’s energy was virtually uncontrollable and for a moment he thought that the Mad Hatter was trying to harm him, so he nearly tried to fight back.

The energy bumbled its way through Su Jin to find the source of the psychokinesis. It then gathered itself from various areas and enveloped Su Jin’s energy.

This layer was done in a haphazard manner, like how cheap courier companies wrapped packages without caring to make it look pretty. Along the way, a lot of his psychokinesis flowed out. He had to force his psychokinesis to stop resisting. As long as he even just thought of resisting, his psychokinesis would immediately start ramming itself against the Mad Hatter’s seal.

A short while later, Su Jin’s incredibly formidable psychokinesis had turned into nothing more than a large purple ball that floated within his subconscious. There was some that managed to escape the seal, and even though it wasn’t much, it was much more powerful than whatever Su Jin had before entering the long river of time.

“Oh my! What a surprise! I actually succeeded!” The Mad Hatter looked so amazed by himself as he started applauding his own efforts.

Su Jin stared at the Mad Hatter. So, this fellow wasn’t even sure if this was going to work? What in the world? But Su Jin didn’t have the energy or time to get angry with him, because a red beam of light shot out from his Handbook again and wrapped itself around Su Jin.

“Goodbye, young man. I’m sure we’ll meet again soon.” The Mad Hatter bent at the waist to give Su Jin a princely bow.

Before Su Jin could say anything, he vanished along with the red light. After he was gone, the Mad Hatter paused to think for a while, then smiled faintly. He threw his hat into the air, then leaped into his hat and disappeared.

Instead of returning to his Personal Hell Domain, he returned to his world. He had a big grin on his face because on his way back, he had heard the frosty voice of the Handbook say that all owners who died in ongoing Challenges would be revived. That meant that Chu Yi would be revived too.

He flipped his Handbook open to call all his teammates to meet inside Hell’s Bar. But when it came to calling Chu Yi, he stared blankly at his Handbook for a long time. Chu Yi’s information was still there, which meant that he had been revived, since any information concerning an owner would disappear when that owner died.

The problem was, Chu Yi’s information was no longer appearing under Team Boning Knife. In other words, Chu Yi had decided to leave Team Boning Knife.