Chapter 13

“Chapter 13: Liars’ Devourer and the Prisoner of Fate”

Transcendents, as the name suggests, are individuals endowed with extraordinary abilities.

But where do these extraordinary abilities come from?

The answer is quite simple.

In this world that’s a mash-up of steam mechanics, swords, and magic, they’re a gift from the gods.

Thus, Transcendents can also be called Divinely Chosen.

Generally speaking, to become a Transcendent, one first needs to choose a belief and join the corresponding Church, then head to the Cathedral for a qualifications test.

This test can distinguish between ordinary folks and those with extraordinary talent, and those who pass become candidates.

Once opportunities arise, the Church gathers the candidates for a unified divine bestowal ceremony.

During this ceremony, the probability of success is significantly higher for those with sincere faith.

After passing the divine bestowal ceremony, you’ll face trials from the gods—typically, the difficulty of these trials correlates with your rank.

The lower the rank, the simpler the trials you’ll have to complete.

For example, to become a First Stage Transcendent, you’ll often just need to please the gods by offering some treasures.

However, as the rank increases, the difficulty of the trials escalates exponentially.

Take the famous powerhouse from the Empire, the “Dragon Slayer” Beo from the Holy Dragon family. His trial to reach Fifth Stage Legend was to slay a live dragon! Once you complete all the trials, you can actively communicate with the gods and request a promotion to the next rank.

The benefits of rank advancement are enormous.

Not only do you gain new extraordinary abilities, but you also ignite more divine factors, allowing your powers to be more effective.

However, it’s generally the case that the type of ability awakened by Transcendents is closely tied to the authority of their respective gods.

For example, those who formerly were believers of the Church of Heavenly Justice.

The god worshiped by this Church is the Lord of a Billion Stars, so most abilities awakened by Transcendents from this faith are related to airflow, gravity, weather, or even magnetic fields.

Once you choose a belief, you can’t dabble in another.

Thus, Transcendents in this world often have limitations or a single type of ability.

It’s rare for someone to master multiple faiths’ extraordinary powers.

Or rather, there’s almost never been such a precedent.

However, from now on, Lynn is set to become that precedent.

Though his divine factors have been stripped away and his faith dissipated, everything can easily be resolved with the system.

He simply needs to increase the plot deviation of his original character to continuously earn system points, which he can use to draw or enhance his extraordinary abilities.

According to the system, he can even ignite divine factors with his own willpower!

The effect is undeniably astounding.

But then again.

Increasing another’s plot deviation doesn’t seem like an easy task.

For that 0.01% change, he almost got killed by that villainous princess! So at this moment, staring at the rapidly spinning embossed disk in front of him, Lynn was surprisingly a bit anxious.

What would the first ability from the system be? For him, this was a matter of life and death, determining whether he could survive this experiment.

As Lynn watched, the spinning of the embossed disk gradually slowed down, eventually coming to a halt right in front of him.

The pointer settled on a strange mark.

The mark was quite abstract and complex, resembling a crying clown or a puppet manipulated by strings.

[Congratulations! You have drawn a First Stage Ability—Liars’ Devourer.]

Liars’ Devourer? Lynn gasped in shock.

Well, well, well, what an interesting system you are!

He thought there might be a chance to draw abilities like body enhancement or some shadowy phasing effect like Morris had.

Basically, as long as he could escape from here, anything would do.

But instead, the system handed him something conceptually complex.

Lynn awkwardly clicked on the skill description and started browsing through it.

[Name: Liars’ Devourer]

[Rank: First Stage] [Effect: Lies spoken by you become easier for others to believe; conversely, lies spoken by others are easily seen through by you.]

[Activation Condition: None]

[Points Required for Rank Advancement: 10]

As expected, it seemed like a somewhat lame ability.

Maybe it could shine in daily life or in battles, but it hardly seemed to solve Lynn’s current predicament.

Probably only after leveling up would the effect start to improve.

For now, it was just a standard ability suited for a First Stage Transcendent.

Besides, he had no idea which faith it belonged to.

In frustration, Lynn tried to activate this ability.

The moment he did, layers of rippling waves suddenly appeared before his eyes, and the scene of the underground laboratory disappeared in an instant.

In its place was another scene.

W-Where is this?!

Lynn suddenly felt as if he could move freely and blankly stood up.

But his gaze was fixated on the bizarre scene before him.

Before him stretched an endless void, yet it was not just an endless void.

Beyond the emptiness and desolation, threads seemed to breach the limits of time and space, weaving through the void.

Like tiny worms moving in strange patterns.

These threads appeared to possess life and intelligence, all sharing a highly unified goal, surging towards that target ceaselessly.

Countless threads combined to form a sea, ultimately converging towards a certain point high above.

Lynn looked up.

There, a gaunt humanoid shadow was entangled and pulled by those threads, twisted into a cross shape, suspended in the air.

Many threads congregated around their arms, bearing a pained expression, eyes tightly shut.

Yet still, those threads gushed like rivers and oceans, relentlessly tormenting them, as if that was some form of amusement.

“Prisoner of Fate.”

For some unknown reason, Lynn slowly uttered this name.

In the next moment, the layers of rippling waves surged again, and an intense sense of unreality brought him back to reality.

“What are you dawdling for?”

Milani waved her hand hard in front of him.

“Oh, nothing.”

Lynn answered casually, though that was far from the truth!

In reality, a storm was brewing inside him, leaving him far from calm.

What did that scene represent? Lynn’s mind felt blank, just as his throat went dry.

“If everything’s fine, the experiment is about to begin.”

Milani blinked at him.

This was bad.

Almost forgot the most important thing right now.

The will to survive made Lynn momentarily suppress the shock and confusion in his heart, turning his gaze to the little girl in front of him.

He took a deep breath.

Then, under the effect of Liars’ Devourer, he slowly said, “Miss Milani, I have something to tell you.”