37: In the name of my disaster, I grant you eternal damnation

Facing Su Ke Ke's indifferent gaze, the Pseudo-Dragon Progenitor's soul screamed and trembled in its depths.

That wasn't the look of a hunter observing its prey.

It was the look of a creator scrutinizing a defective product.

"In endless cycles of reincarnation, I have tasted endless despair."

Su Ke Ke's voice was soft, like a demon's whisper, resonating within the Pseudo-Dragon Progenitor's conceptual core.

"Today, I shall let you taste what eternal despair is like."

She slowly raised a finger and lightly pointed it at the Pseudo-Dragon Progenitor.

"In my name as Calamity, I bestow upon you the punishment of ten thousand generations of reincarnation!"

Boom!!!

There was no earth-shattering explosion.

No world-destroying light.

Su Ke Ke used the Pseudo-Dragon Progenitor's divine soul as paper, the prayers of billions of readers as ink, and her own endless suffering in reincarnation as a blueprint.

She created an absolutely subjective, inescapable prison where the flow of time was infinitely accelerated!

Om—

The Pseudo-Dragon Progenitor's massive body trembled violently.

His ferocious dragon eyes instantly lost all their luster, becoming hollow and bewildered.

His consciousness was stripped from reality by an irresistible mighty power.

[First Life]

He became an ordinary office worker, with a gentle wife and a lovely daughter who had just started elementary school.

His happiest moment each day was when his daughter would laugh and rush into his arms after he returned home from work.

He would be so excited he couldn't sleep all night when his daughter first called him "Daddy."

He would feel incredibly content with a simple "You've worked hard" from his wife.

His life was ordinary, mundane, yet filled with sunshine.

Then, on his daughter's tenth birthday,

He returned home with a carefully prepared gift, only to see towering flames and the terrified screams of his neighbors.

The flames were identical to the Dragon Flame he loved to use.

He rushed in like a madman, only to carry out two charred corpses.

[Second Life]

He became a gifted swordsman, a childhood sweetheart with his sect's most outstanding junior sister, and they were deeply in love.

They practiced swordplay together, descended the mountain together, and vowed to become the world's foremost "Immortal Couple."

On the eve of their wedding, the Demonic Cult launched a surprise attack.

To protect him, his junior sister had her heart pulse shattered by a palm strike and died in his arms.

His hair turned white overnight, and he slaughtered the entire Demonic Cult, but he could never bring back her charming smile.

[Third Life]

This time, he became a "prophet" in a future world.

His identity was that of the most brilliant theoretical physicist there.

Through calculations of spacetime curvature, he predicted that in 720 hours,

A sub-space storm would engulf the entire galaxy, and no one would survive.

He possessed the "wisdom" to save billions of lives; his soul screamed frantically, urging him to warn the world.

However, his body, in a laboratory accident,

Was deprived of the ability to speak, write, or even perform any complex movements.

The only thing he could move was his eyeballs.

He was treated as a vegetable and placed in a top-tier sanatorium.

He desperately tried to convey information with his eyes, tapping out Morse code with their movements.

But the nurses only saw it as meaningless spasms, pityingly wiping away the tears from the corners of his eyes.

He was trapped in his own consciousness, watching the clock on the wall tick second by second towards the apocalypse.

He watched as people on screens still celebrated.

He watched as politicians still argued over trivial issues.

He watched as the doomsday scenario he had deduced slowly became reality.

Finally, when the purple sub-space storm tore through the sky,

He lay in his hospital bed, looking through the enormous floor-to-ceiling window,

Calmly watching everything he had foretold engulf the entire world.

The pain of possessing truth yet being unable to speak it; the despair of having the ability to save the world yet being believed by no one,

Completely crushed his pillar of "will."

[Fourth Life]

He "lived" again.

This time,

He became a cancer cell with self-awareness.

His host

Was a young painter named "Xi Xi," kind, optimistic, and full of love for life.

He had no sight or hearing; his way of "seeing" the world was by perceiving Xi Xi's emotions.

When Xi Xi created a satisfactory work, he could feel that pure joy.

When Xi Xi embraced her lover, he could experience that sweet happiness.

When Xi Xi held an umbrella for a stray cat, he could share in that gentle kindness.

Day after day, he fell hopelessly " in love" with this girl.

He longed for her to be happy forever, longed to always be bathed in her warm emotions.

But he was a cancer cell.

His survival, every division and growth, was plundering Xi Xi's life.

He could clearly feel that because of his "growth," Xi Xi's body was weakening day by day.

He could feel her pain beneath her forced smiles, and the heart-wrenching despair during chemotherapy.

He loved her, yet he was killing her.

His very existence was a curse upon the one he loved.

When Xi Xi closed her eyes with a smile in her lover's arms, and the flame of life completely extinguished,

He, the murderer who "loved" her, also plunged into eternal darkness.

The ultimate paradox of love and sin completely collapsed his core of "self."

[Fifth Life]

Another reincarnation.

He found himself back in the past.

He became the arrogant "Pseudo-Dragon Progenitor," filled with power and awe-inspiring divine might.

But before he could rejoice,

A script titled "Puppet" appeared in his mind.

On the title page of the script was written—[Starring: Pseudo-Dragon Progenitor].

He saw his entire "plot."

When he would meet Su Ke Ke.

When he would utter arrogant lines.

When he would be stripped of all his power.

When he would experience that absurd reincarnation... and how he would be completely erased.

"No!!"

He let out an earth-shattering roar, trying with all his might to resist this predetermined "fate."

He wanted to escape the Ancestral Dragon Court.

But his body uncontrollably remained, waiting for the protagonist to appear.

He wanted to beg Su Ke Ke for mercy, but his mouth automatically spoke the most vicious taunts from the script.

He wanted to take his own life, but his divine power automatically protected him, keeping him perfectly unharmed.

He became a marionette with self-awareness.

He watched himself, clearly, step by step, precisely, walk towards the script's ending.

When Su Ke Ke's cold finger was about to touch his brow,

This "actor" of his shed two clear tears, filled with endless despair and absurdity.

He perfectly played out his life as a clown, destined for destruction.

[Sixth Life]

At the moment his soul shattered, he "woke up" again.

He, or rather "she,"

Became a courtesan named "Wan'er" during a chaotic era.

She possessed captivating beauty and was noticed by a powerful warlord, who forcibly married her as his seventh concubine.

The warlord had a face identical to his own when he was a pseudo-dragon, full of possessiveness and brutality.

Initially, there was endless doting, gold, silver, jewels, and fine silks.

But soon, when the novelty wore off, came endless torment.

The warlord would, after drinking, beat and kick her over trivial matters.

He would whip her smooth back, enjoying the aesthetic of the blood marks blossoming.

He would humiliate her like a dog in front of all his servants.

She tried to escape, was caught, and had her legs broken.

She begged, but it only led to more brutal abuse.

In this cage, she was not a person, but merely a possession, a plaything.

Finally, on a winter night, she was beaten to death by the warlord, her body carelessly rolled into a straw mat and thrown into a mass grave.

That bone-chilling coldness and powerlessness made her understand the feeling of an "ant" for the first time.

[Seventh Life]

Consciousness re-condensed.

This time, he became a pig.

Confined in a dirty, foul-smelling pigsty.

He possessed fragmented memories from his previous lives.

Yet he was trapped in this foolish body, unable to even utter a complete sentence.

He could understand the butchers' conversations, knowing he would be sent to the slaughterhouse tomorrow.

Endless fear enveloped him.

He roared frantically, banging his head against the bars.

But he only received the indifferent stares of his kind and an impatient kick from the feeder.

The next day, driven by an electric prod, he walked with the other pigs down the bloody path to death.

He smelled the strong scent of blood and heard the mournful screams of his kind before they died.

When he was hoisted up and saw the butcher's cold, indifferent eyes,

He finally experienced the most primitive, purest fear in the eyes of all beings when he was a god, looking down upon them.

The sharp knife pierced his throat, warm blood gushed out, and his consciousness sank into eternal darkness.