Chapter 283: God and Believer (2): He Was Willing to Make Himself a Breeding Ground and Bear Offspring for the Evil God

How could Ulysses possibly believe in an evil god?

No, no, no. Perhaps this Ulysses wasn't the great villain from his novel. Maybe they merely happened to share the exact same name, were both Zergs, were both Marshals of the Federation, and both just happened to be dealing with rebels from the Ninth Military Region...

Even An Ruo couldn't keep making excuses for himself.

[Ulysses?]

He tentatively called his name, wanting to confirm whether his identity was indeed what he suspected.

Ulysses had noticed long ago that he had awakened, but it wasn't until he heard the god speak that he truly breathed a sigh of relief.

"You're awake?" He tilted his head slightly and looked toward his left shoulder, his expression unexpectedly gentle.

An Ruo froze.

Once again, he found himself wondering whether this really was the great villain from his novel.

Would Ulysses, the great villain, ever look at a person or anything else with an expression like that?

Of course, An Ruo knew perfectly well that it was normal for fiction and reality to differ.

Even if this was a world populated by Zergs and Ulysses, one that seemed almost identical to the contents of his novel, events wouldn't necessarily unfold exactly as he had written them.

But seeing Ulysses make an expression like this still shocked him enormously.

A Ulysses who apparently worshiped an evil god...

As the evil god being worshiped, An Ruo was so frightened that he started nibbling the tip of his tentacle.

Ulysses continued staring intently at the place where the god was.

There was nothing there, yet he could sense the god's presence.

The god was still the same god, yet something about him had changed.

Through the mental call, Ulysses could sense the confusion and tentative probing being transmitted to him...

The god seemed to have returned to the state he'd been in when they first met, retreating back into his shell. Yet it was different from the beginning. He wasn't avoiding Ulysses completely, and at the same time, he was extending a curious tentacle toward him.

Ulysses grasped the tentacle that had cautiously reached out and asked gently,

"You slept for six star-hours, and you seem a little more subdued. Are you low on energy? Do you need to eat to replenish it?"

An Ruo's entire being jolted when his psychic tentacle was caught.

After hearing those words, he looked down blankly at his incorporeal body... In fact, he couldn't even perform an action like "looking down." It was merely his consciousness observing itself.

Could he even eat in this state?

And... how exactly did an evil god eat?

"You can eat me," Ulysses said, his expression perfectly serious, without the slightest indication that he'd just casually said something utterly terrifying.

An Ruo's consciousness nearly exploded from shock.

Then he heard Ulysses, who sounded as though he were offering himself as a sacrifice to an evil god, continue,

"You can draw energy from me. Please don't feel troubled about it. It would be my honor if I could provide you with a satisfying meal."

An Ruo's entire consciousness was about to blow apart.

He couldn't eat Ulysses! Even if Ulysses apparently meant that An Ruo should absorb energy from him.

He wasn't actually an evil god!

Even if he was an evil god, he was the Tentacled God of Rushing Deadlines! He didn't do those evil flesh-and-blood sacrifices!

An Ruo's consciousness desperately sent Ulysses a stream of "No eating! Not eating!" signals.

"All right." Ulysses agreed, actually looking somewhat disappointed.

What are you disappointed about?!

An Ruo wanted to interrogate his very soul.

He couldn't understand what the Ulysses before him was trying to do.

As an author, he had encountered a character he himself couldn't understand.

If the Ulysses before him hadn't shared far too many similarities with the villain from his novel, and if An Ruo's subconscious hadn't firmly insisted that they were the same Zerg, he might genuinely have believed he'd gotten it wrong.

A Ulysses who seemed somewhat OOC.

Yet strangely enough, An Ruo didn't actually feel that Ulysses was OOC. In his eyes, however the Ulysses before him behaved was simply what "Ulysses" was like.

He merely observed this Ulysses with even greater curiosity.

The spacecraft was heading toward the Zerg Federation, undergoing several hyperspace jumps along the way.

Ulysses had only done so after asking An Ruo for permission. He seemed worried that the spatial jumps might leave him behind.

Of course, An Ruo wouldn't be left behind by a spatial jump. As long as his consciousness remained attached to Ulysses, he would always stay beside him, regardless of space or time.

During these days, An Ruo followed Ulysses everywhere, practically never leaving his side.

He didn't actually want to behave like such a pervert. At the very least, when Ulysses was sleeping and resting, An Ruo had thought about leaving so he wouldn't disturb him.

But whenever he tried to go, Ulysses would instead make a very strange expression, obviously unwilling to let him leave.

In the end, An Ruo was invited back into bed to sleep with him.

This was very strange.

An Ruo lay beneath the blanket, the tip of his tentacle resting on top of it, and thought: Had Ulysses's faith in the evil god already reached the point where they had to sleep in the same bed?

And even after lying down, Ulysses insisted on staying extremely close to his consciousness.

Even when An Ruo deliberately tried to maintain some distance and shifted toward the edge of the bed, Ulysses's body would somehow follow him over.

If An Ruo tried to flee to the other side again, Ulysses would open his eyes and stare at him until he no longer dared to move around.

An Ruo didn't know why, but whenever he faced Ulysses's calm gaze, he inexplicably felt guilty.

As though wanting to sleep farther away from Ulysses was something terribly unreasonable.

He should stay closer to him, even closer, close enough that they completely merged together, their very souls intertwining.

The thought that suddenly appeared in his mind startled An Ruo.

Once again, he marveled at how much potential he apparently had to become an evil god.

Several times, Ulysses looked at him as though he wanted to say something. An Ruo could tell that he wanted to speak to him, but in the end, Ulysses said nothing and merely coaxed him to sleep.

Coaxing an invisible, intangible consciousness to sleep made for a very strange scene.

Sometimes, even An Ruo wondered whether Ulysses truly worshiped him as an evil god or was actually treating him like a hatchling that needed to be cherished.

But Ulysses took coaxing him to sleep very seriously. He would even read him bedtime stories—stories about a Male Zerg recruit and his instructor, a military academy student and the male school heartthrob... They were all unfamiliar, yet carried an incredibly strong sense of familiarity, so familiar that they felt like something An Ruo himself would have written.

An Ruo listened intently. Far from becoming sleepy, he only wanted Ulysses to tell him more.

Seeing how active his Psychic Power had become, however, Ulysses refused to continue.

After that, the bedtime stories were replaced with one about an orphanage director and a hatchling.

Ulysses told this story in an extremely fragmented manner, one detail here and another there. It was far less cohesive than the previous stories, yet somehow it felt extraordinarily real, as vivid as though An Ruo were experiencing it himself.

Every day, Ulysses would tell him another little part of the story. Clearly, the orphanage tale contained an abundance of events—enough, it seemed, to keep him talking for years.

An Ruo wasn't bored in the slightest. He would gladly listen for years, or even longer, witnessing the growth of a Female Zerg hatchling through the hatchling's own perspective.

An Ruo wasn't actually a little hatchling, so he wouldn't remain bright-eyed and energetic after hearing one story and cling to an adult/Zerg, begging for another one.

Thus, the rule became that every night, once Ulysses finished telling him one little story, An Ruo would obediently go to sleep.

The only problem was that Ulysses's choice of sleepwear was simply far too daring.

They were all long night robes that looked conservative at first glance but were actually anything but. Black lace, silk, semi-transparent fabric, plunging V-necks—enough to make even An Ruo, a mere consciousness, feel his face heating up.

And Ulysses never properly covered himself with the blanket, frequently leaving his generous figure exposed.

As a psychic entity, An Ruo couldn't exactly say anything about it. He couldn't very well accuse Ulysses of sexually harassing an incorporeal psychic entity.

All he could do was wait until Ulysses fell asleep, quietly condense his Psychic Power, materialize the tip of one tentacle, pull the blanket higher over him, and tuck him in so he wouldn't catch cold.

After doing this repeatedly, An Ruo's psychic form also began to grow restless, developing something akin to an appetite for Ulysses.

Perhaps he truly was an evil god who needed to feed.

"How long are you going to wait before partaking of me?"

Ulysses asked him this on the night before the spacecraft reached the Zerg Federation.

An Ruo's psychic tentacles flailed wildly in fright and nearly tied themselves into knots.

Indeed, he could feel his desire for Ulysses growing stronger and stronger. Perhaps he truly did need to feed and absorb energy through some special method.

But he still had his own moral standards and felt that doing such a thing wasn't right.

It was just that Ulysses's attraction to him was far too powerful, leaving those moral standards increasingly precarious.

Instead, Ulysses reassured him.

"You can start with my Psychic Domain."

As an evil god composed of psychic consciousness, surely he could absorb energy from a Psychic Domain as well?

In the end, newly minted evil god An Ruo's precarious moral standards failed to hold, and he extended his sinful tentacles toward Ulysses's Psychic Domain.

Though he hadn't actually done it with the intention of feeding.

He had simply suddenly thought that perhaps Ulysses needed Psychic Soothing.

The moment the powerful psychic tentacles forced their way into the Psychic Domain, both of them shuddered. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ

Stars revolved throughout Ulysses's Psychic Domain, making it difficult for An Ruo to advance.

Those planets orbited his psychic tentacles, grinding across the vast surfaces of the tentacles. Every collision brought an overwhelming surge of stimulation.

Meanwhile, the planets shrouded in black mist gradually shed their accumulated afflictions with every contact against the psychic tentacles, becoming pristine and renewed.

An Ruo carefully observed Ulysses's reactions as he cautiously performed the Psychic Soothing.

Psychic Soothing truly brought Female Zergs extremely intense stimulation. Ulysses appeared to still be sitting steadily, but An Ruo could sense the subtle tremors beneath his clothing, mirroring the violent surging of the sea of stars within his Psychic Domain.

An Ruo also found the sensation extraordinarily novel. This was clearly his first attempt at Psychic Soothing, yet it felt as though he had already done it countless times. He was so familiar with this place that everything came naturally.

Yet he was certain that none of those nonexistent previous times could possibly have felt this intense, as though even their souls were merging together.

He dragged one planet after another through the psychic sea of stars, continuously exploring the depths of the universe until he reached the very end of everything. His immense Psychic Power seemed ready to stir the entire place into collapse and shatter it apart, yet what it ultimately brought was healing and new life.

Everything within the Psychic Domain was faithfully reflected in the Female Zerg's body.

When An Ruo finally withdrew after finishing the Psychic Soothing, he felt pleasantly satisfied, refreshed, and full of accomplishment. But the moment he saw Ulysses collapsed on the bed, pheromones overflowing from him, An Ruo immediately panicked, becoming so guilty and flustered that he had no idea what to do.

Although he knew Psychic Soothing could have a fairly powerful effect on Female Zergs, wasn't this reaction a little too intense?

He felt both guilty and remorseful, and he was also afraid that Ulysses would come after him once he recovered.

But he had clearly underestimated Ulysses's faith in the evil god.

After regaining his senses, Ulysses merely fell silent for a moment as he looked down at himself. Then he got up and went into the bathroom, quickly cleaning himself up.

An Ruo couldn't tell whether he was angry or not and waited anxiously outside.

When Ulysses emerged, clean and neatly dressed, his expression had returned to normal. In fact, he even seemed to be in a rather good mood.

First, he thanked An Ruo for the blessing he had bestowed upon him, then asked whether it had also left An Ruo satiated, as though An Ruo's experience was what mattered most.

Only then did An Ruo realize that, to Ulysses, he was the evil god Ulysses worshiped.

To a believer, naturally, the will of their god came above everything else.

That was why he harbored no resentment whatsoever.

He even looked as though he would willingly offer himself as a breeding ground and bear offspring for his evil god.