Hell's Handbook

At the temple, Su Jin’s expression grew frosty because the information The Beginning had given him was simply too mortifying. Xu Ran and the rest were seated around him and they didn’t know what happened yet, but they knew from Su Jin’s expression that it must be bad.

“What’s happened, Su Jin? Hurry up and tell us,” Xu Ran hurried him.

Su Jin nodded slightly, then pointed at the floor and said, “The Beginning, bring me to the world you were reporting to me about.”

“Got it,” responded The Beginning emotionlessly. The temple travelled through the universe and came to a different one. They had arrived just in time to watch something that seemed completely insane.

Within this universe, planets were shattering one after another. After they shattered, the shards would fly toward a particular spot in space. Nothing on these planets was spared. It was as though there was a mouth in that spot that was able to swallow anything.

It didn’t take long for everyone to notice another problem. They sensed that this universe was shrinking rapidly. The edges of this universe shrank so quickly that some of the planets on the border that hadn’t shattered yet were pushed to the middle.

“This… the universe is collapsing and shrinking!” Situ Jin couldn’t believe his own eyes. He stared at Su Jin and said, “The will of the universe has started to destroy the universes again?!”

Su Jin nodded slightly and sighed. “A hundred universes have started self-destructing. The will of the universe has begun to destroy the old cycle.”

“What about the lifeforms within this universe?” asked Ye Yun.

Su Jin furrowed his brows and shook his head. “The moment the universe started to collapse, the lifeforms within it failed to endure the huge and sudden changes, so most of them have already died. Only a very small portion of races with extremely advanced technology or those with magical powers have survived that initial stage. But most of them have also died by now.”

“How did that happen?” asked Ye Yun with a bewildered look on her face.

“It’s the geniuses. Those immortal geniuses have acted like the will of the universe’s sword. The will of the universe gave them the order and they started hunting down all the lifeforms that had a chance to escape destruction.” Su Jin had not witnessed that for himself, but the information that The Beginning gave him was very clear and filled with details, so it was no different from seeing it with his own eyes.

Everyone fell silent. The thing they had been resisting all this time was the destruction of the old cycle. That meant that everything they knew would disappear. Their family, friends, country, and even their race. Nothing could survive the destruction of the old cycle.

“Can we stop it?” Situ Jin was indignant. He used to be the guardian of his nation, but if the old cycle was destroyed, his country would cease to exist.

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Su Jin hesitated for a moment, then nodded slightly. “There’s only one way. Defeat the will of the universe and the Handbook. We could possibly stop the further destruction of the old cycle, but we won’t be able to bring back what they’ve already destroyed.”

Xu Ran and his group were furious, while the current gods on board the temple had sad looks on their faces. They had watched as their worlds were destroyed too. They were new gods from the previous cycle that had become current gods of the current cycle. But if this current cycle was being destroyed, then what would they become?

“The will of the universe is forcing us to fight him!” Wu Chen frowned.

Su Jin nodded slightly and sighed. “He’s not destroying everything at once but doing it in batches. He’s just trying to push us toward our limit. Once we can’t stand it anymore, we’ll eventually come out and fight.”

“Let’s just hang in there for a bit. Doing anything rash now might ruin our plans. You’re like a tree with roots now, so one, two, ten, a hundred rings later, you’ll grow into a huge tree. When that time comes, you’ll be good enough to fight your enemy,” said Xu Ran very calmly. He knew that it was pointless to get all agitated now. Being a hero required more than sheer passion.

Su Jin was silent for a moment. He shook his head again and said, “No, this battle has to end within this cycle. I have to fight him as soon as possible. If we can save the next cycle, that would be best.”

“Are you insane?” Xiang Nan couldn’t hold himself back. He shared the same sentiments as Xu Ran. Since they were able to take their time to strengthen themselves, then rushing into a battle right now would be the epitome of foolishness.

Su Jin smiled sadly and said, “I’m not insane. It’s just that… The Beginning is not going to make it.”

“What?!” That really shocked everybody. The Beginning was the foundation of the temple. If The Beginning was about to collapse, then that meant the temple would collapse sooner or later.

Su Jin quickly explained himself, “It’s not the way you imagine. If the temple remains nothing more than our shelter outside of a planet, then The Beginning can continue operating as it is. But if we want to upgrade The Beginning and rely on it to fight the Handbook and the will of the universe, then that’s impossible. The Beginning has already reached its limits.”

“Why do you say that?” asked Ye Yun.

Su Jin explained, “The Beginning is like a copy of Hell’s Handbook… but the ones who created it were not primordial deities. The reason why it’s been able to keep going until now is because Mai gave herself up to become its core, thereby filling in the many gaps it had. But Mai’s efforts are not sufficient to make The Beginning match up to Hell’s Handbook.”

The gods of the first cycle had built The Beginning, but they had been unable to activate it despite the countless cycles they had gone through. If Kano Mai had not sacrificed herself at that time, The Beginning would still be a pile of trash.

Of course, it wasn’t that the intelligent lifeforms over the countless cycles were no match for the primordial deities, but they had been given too little time. The will of the universe had clearly ensured that no cycle lasted too long, so that no cycle would be long enough to allow a race on par with the primordial deities to emerge. The cycles were too short for anybody to even have potential.

The primordial deities were the first race to develop extremely intelligent lifeforms within the very first universe. They started their very own advanced civilization even before the will of the universe was born. While nobody knew how long they had existed before then, they had definitely been around way longer than one cycle.

“What do we do now? If we fight them now, will you have any chance of winning?” asked Su Yunshan.

Su Jin shook his head and let out a bitter laugh. “Any chance of winning? We had no chance right from the start. I’ve never seen any spark of hope. Like the saying goes, I’m just a roach trying to stop a car from moving forward.”

“But you’ve never given up!” added Su Yunshui.

Su Jin chuckled and murmured, “Give up? How could I give up? When the Mad Hatter died, I could have given up. But when my parents died, could I have given up? And when the Demon Lord died? Could I have given up? If the day comes when each of you die before my very eyes… do you think I can give up?”

There was no way for him to retreat now. Su Jin never had any grand dreams in the first place. All he wanted was for the people he loved to remain by his side. If the will of the universe wanted to ruin that for him, then the only thing he could do was to fight back. Could he win? His opinion was to fight first and talk about that later!

The temple left the universe before it was completely destroyed and traveled to a universe that hadn’t begun to self-destruct. Su Jin dismissed the group and sat in front of The Beginning by himself.

“Mai, I want to ask you… what sort of suggestions would you give me?” murmured Su Jin before suddenly breaking into a smile. “You’ve always trusted me so much, so I suppose you would just tell me to fight on.”

He got up and looked into the distance. “Since you want a fight, I’ll fight you. But I don’t like it when others try to take control of the situation. I’m going to muddy the waters!”

On that same day, Su Jin released all the rune creatures he had. Their mission was simple. They had to go out there and find a soul for themselves. Su Jin allowed the creatures to enter the universes that were being destroyed and search for the soul that felt the most emotional. The rune creature would become that soul’s body, thus giving the rune creature a soul as well.

The last ones to die when the universe was collapsing would definitely be the best of the lifeforms from that universe. They would be very suitable souls for these rune creatures.

Within a month, all 36,000 rune creatures under Su Jin returned. This time, Su Jin did not allow them to engage in battle. They were just to find a soul and absorb it, so none of them were injured.

After all 36,000 creatures had returned, Su Jin came to them and said, “Everyone, I have given you new life.”

The rune creatures did not respond. They weren’t sure who they were right now. Were they a rune creature, or the elites of their universe that died, or a combination of the two?

“I know you’re rather confused right now. You are not rune creatures, neither are you those elites who have passed on. You are now The Beginning’s Deities! The strongest fighters of my temple!” declared Su Jin.