Hell's Handbook

Chapter 391

“Dang, that wasn’t what I had expected!” Su Jin mumbled again and again. Time went by differently in this universe, but 20 years was a long enough time for him to feel it.

“You can’t have it any earlier?” he asked.

Bifang shook her head and explained, “It’s not that we don’t want to, but it takes time to birth the demons. Humans need a good nine or ten months to have a baby, right?”

“A baby? You mean these demons are your children?” said Su Jin in shock.

“No, no, I’m just using it as an example. In any case, we’d need at least 20 years to have all these demons again. The last batch have all been killed and there’s nothing we can do about it,” said Bifang.

Su Jin felt like crying. He asked again, “Do you know of any other method to make yourselves participants in a Challenge?”

“Perhaps there is a way, but we don’t know how. Whenever we lead the demons on the night parade, owners like yourself would suddenly appear. We’ve not run into any other similar situation,” said the nine tailed fox.

Su Jin sighed and decided to give up. It was his fault for not checking first, so he would have to go through these 20 years. In any case, he knew that the universes used by the Handbook for Challenges were those where time flowed faster than usual. He could use these 20 years to think about what he should do next and draw up a proper plan.

Meanwhile, inside a damaged space, the Mad Hatter’s brows were tightly knit. Pinocchio had been severely injured and was no longer breathing, but there was a wooden puppet next to the Mad Hatter’s Hand. The wooden puppet was moving its head about as though it was trying to get used to its body.

“Oh my god, that was such a close shave. If I hadn’t made this wooden puppet ahead of time and left it here, I’d have died with those idiots,” said Pinocchio as he patted his chest.

The Mad Hatter nodded and said, “That was a close shave, alright. I didn’t expect Hell’s Handbook to have slayed all those gods with just one slew. That was a group made from elder and current gods working together, and they were way more powerful than we are.”

Pinocchio suddenly looked up at the Mad Hatter and asked, “Hey, do you think… do you think we might be watched by Hell’s Handbook, then… then…” Pinocchio shut his mouth again because he felt like he was being too pessimistic.

But the Mad Hatter shook his head confidently and said, “Don’t worry, we won’t end up like that.”

“Why not?” asked Pinocchio curiously, as though he were an ordinary, curious, young boy.

The Mad Hatter laughed. “Because we’re weak.”

“What sort of reason is that?” Pinocchio glared at the Mad Hatter.

But the Mad Hatter only laughed again. “The best sort of reason. Why do you think that group of gods got themselves killed?”

“You mean it wasn’t because the Handbook had discovered them?” asked Pinocchio puzzledly.

The Mad Hatter sneered, “Because they had been discovered? Gosh, Pinocchio! You still haven’t gotten this part straight. We’ve never been able to hide from the Handbook. To the Handbook, we’re like pawns on a chessboard. Have you ever heard of a genius chess player who doesn’t even know where his pawns have gone?”

“Then… why do we bother to hide?” asked Pinocchio in an indignant voice.

The Mad Hatter said quietly, “We’re hiding so that ordinary people will not discover us, and it’s also to send a signal. If the chess player finds that this game is boring, wouldn’t you be afraid that the chess player would just push everything aside and refuse to play?”

“So… everything we do is being watched by the Handbook?” asked Pinocchio.

The Mad Hatter nodded slightly. “We’re all gods. The owners call us elder gods, but sadly, most of them never realize that they will become elder gods someday. And by the time they realize it, they would be left with very little time to do anything about it. That group of elder gods and current gods were idiots like these.”

“They had realized their inevitable fate and tried to fight back, but their methods were awful and worse, they made the Handbook angry, so… they were completely destroyed.”

“Then… what are we going to do? What can we do?” Pinocchio suddenly felt very lost. He had done many crazy things, some he regretted, some that made him happy. But now, he realized that he was actually very helpless.

“We need to make the chess game more interesting. As long as the chess player thinks the game is worth playing, they will not abandon the game,” said the Mad Hatter very confidently.

“I’m really curious… if this is a game between two players, where one side is Hell’s Handbook, who’s on the other side?” asked Pinocchio curiously. He sounded a little excited as he said, “Is it us?”

The Mad Hatter wished he could say yes, but he could only smile sadly at Pinocchio as he said, “I really wished we were. But in reality, we’re just a fairly useful pawn. The one playing against Hell’s Handbook… I think they’re going to put their pawn down soon, and I think this is going to involve a lot of people.”

Pinocchio was disappointed. He wanted to be part of the game. But he also did trust what the Mad Hatter said most of the time. And if the Mad Hatter said they were pawns, he wanted to be the general, the Chinese chess equivalent of the king piece, and not the soldiers, equivalent to the pawn piece, that nobody cared about!

“Do you think…if those guys weren’t in a hurry to start up that thing they call The Beginning, they wouldn’t have died so tragically?” Pinocchio asked the Mad Hatter again.

The Mad Hatter nodded, then shook his head, which confused Pinocchio. “What does that mean? Why did you nod, then shake your head?”

“What I’m trying to say is that, if they hadn’t activated The Beginning, of course they wouldn’t have died. But they didn’t have a choice. They had to activate The Beginning in order to hang onto the chess game and keep going.”

“But they’re already dead,” Pinocchio pointed out.

“They’re dead, but they didn’t lose. Until the very last stage of the game, you won’t know which player will win and which player will lose. These seemingly rash fellows might turn out to win.” The Mad Hatter still had respect for the gods who supported Jing Hua and his companions. If they had not moved quickly enough, they wouldn’t even have had the chance to activate The Beginning.

The Mad Hatter did know that Kano Mai was a primordial deity, and after he sent Pinocchio out to be a spy and Pinocchio came back with information about The Beginning, the Mad Hatter realized that the fact that Kano Mai was a primordial deity was a very important factor. But he didn’t know that Kano Mai had already given away the item that helped her to hide from the Handbook. If Carl and his group did not quickly activate The Beginning and waited until Kano Mai ended up dead, it would be too late.

On the primordial deity planet, Carl was still looking at the operating The Beginning. A long time had passed since they activated The Beginning. It had been so long, Carl felt like his old bones were about to disintegrate and become dust.

“How long has it been? Since the first destruction of the universe,” murmured Carl.

“I don’t remember. But I know that beings similar to myself have appeared several times,” said Phyge.

“They only look like you. As long as they’ve got similar genes, they’d look somewhat like you,” said Carl quietly as he chuckled, “But none with your level of strength has ever appeared before.”

“The strength I have was gained at the expense of the lives of 90% of my people, so I’ve never seen it as anything good,” said Phyge without mincing his words. He didn’t want this strength at all.

But Phyge did agree with one thing Carl said. The three of them were simply too old. But now, it seemed that Arutus couldn’t be any older than them. That fellow who had gone ahead of them had the power to fight the will of the universe, yet he had continued to hide in a corner.

He was still a mighty creature, however. After watching so much time go past, he had finally used his life to activate The Beginning and had done a wonderful thing for all living creatures in the universe.

“By the way, three out of the ten rune warriors created by The Beginning have still not returned, and I think something bad must have happened to them,” said Phyge with a frown.

Carl sighed and said, “I hope they’ve been blown to such small pieces, they’re even smaller than powder. That way, we won’t have to worry about the Handbook following their traces all the way here.”