Chapter 592 - 589: The Library

Before Ladi could react, the writhing void suddenly began to expand. From a place where nothing had existed, countless menacing, straw-like appendages shot out. A twisted spider, waving its straw-like limbs, bored its way out and crawled onto the invisible web.

Seeing the Ever-Thirsty appear once more, Ladi immediately manipulated his scalpel to slice open space. Two overlapping rifts tore the straw-spider apart.

However, the void writhed again not far away, and after a short while, another straw-spider crawled out.

Ladi slashed at the spider again, quickly destroying it.

However, the spiders seemed endless, crawling out from all directions, and Ladi could only destroy them one by one.

But Ladi's strength was not infinite. Under the strain of this battle of attrition, the light radiating from his body grew dimmer and dimmer, and the blade's aura on the scalpel began to lose its solid form.

'These aren't the true bodies of the Ever-Thirsty. They've hidden themselves. These are just weapons they've created...'

But these weapons alone were enough to wear Ladi out.

Just as Mo Ling was about to step in and help, Ladi grabbed his arm.

"We have to find their true bodies... We can only rely on this scalpel."

He clapped Mo Ling on the shoulder. "In a moment, I'm going to use the scalpel to cut open a passage to their true bodies. You jump right in and find them!"

Before Mo Ling could ask anything, Ladi erupted with a dazzling light. The scalpel trembled slightly and sliced open a distorted passage nearby.

"Quick! Jump in! That's the source of the illness! The deepest root of the pathology! Don't hesitate! Show no mercy!"

With a hard push from Ladi, Mo Ling tumbled toward the passage.

Before he could even react, the distorted passage healed shut in an instant. The sounds from behind him vanished, and his surroundings fell completely silent.

The scenery inside the passage shifted. Carried by his momentum, Mo Ling passed straight through and stumbled, grabbing onto a railing to steady himself.

'Wait, a railing?' Mo Ling looked at the object in his hand, completely bewildered.

It was indeed a wooden railing. He was standing at the top of a staircase, his hand clutching the railing, with a clean wooden floor beneath his feet.

'Where is this?'

Mo Ling looked up in confusion, only to see an unimaginable sight.

This place appeared to be a circular library, surrounded by a ring of bookshelves. The most terrifying part was that these shelves stretched endlessly upward. Densely packed books were stacked on them, their multi-colored spines like a dizzying array of pixels.

'Just how many books are here?'

The bookshelves seemed to have no end, stretching into unknown territory. A spiral staircase, like a colossal python devouring the world, coiled up into the unseen distance.

With just a single glance, Mo Ling felt a terrifying aura emanating from the bookshelves. For a moment, it felt as if all the shelves were toppling down upon him, about to engulf him completely.

Mo Ling quickly lowered his head, forcing himself to look away from the densely packed books.

He looked elsewhere, only to find himself in a spacious and rustic hall. In the center stood a massive reading table, surrounded by bizarrely shaped wooden chairs. All sorts of strange, vivid creatures were carved into them.

And at the reading table, two readers were already seated.

They sat at opposite ends of the table, with piles of books in front of them, seemingly conversing in low voices.

But it was these two readers that shocked Mo Ling even more.

They were, unbelievably, a doctor and a writhing straw.

Unable to contain his curiosity, Mo Ling walked over, pulled out a chair, and sat down in the middle of the reading table.

The two readers seemed completely unconcerned by Mo Ling's arrival, continuing their conversation as if he weren't there:

"Can it be cured?" the straw asked in a raspy voice, like the sound of tearing paper, full of chaos and madness.

The doctor across from it looked at the book before him, his finger tapping incessantly on the ancient pages as if deep in thought.

"It can be cured."

The straw creature instantly went rigid. "If you can cure me, then do it! I can't take this anymore. It's unbearable. I don't want to go on like this."

"Why?" the doctor asked. "Do you not enjoy the process of acquiring knowledge?"

"Of course I enjoy it... But knowledge is infinite, and so are the questions. One question leads to another, one state of confusion to the next. Desire has no end."

"To acquire knowledge, I can only invade, conquer, destroy, and devour... endlessly. While I'm acquiring knowledge, I've also become a slave to desire." The straw creature seemed full of self-reproach, its words tinged with dejection.

The doctor paused, tapping the book in front of him. "But aren't all living beings slaves to their desires? Driven by hunger to seek food, by lust to reproduce, by the will to conquer to expand, and by the urge to survive to struggle. Your thirst for knowledge is merely a bit stronger than that of other beings. It isn't a disease, just a characteristic."

The doctor pushed a book in front of the straw creature.

"What is this?" the straw creature inquired.

"*A Study of the Taotie.* It's a creature whose appetite can never be sated. And this one..." The doctor pushed another book in front of it.

"*The Evolution of Succubi*?"

"Correct. A creature whose lust can never be satisfied. You see, there are so many beings like you, and they don't consider themselves sick. Why do you?"

The straw creature extended a thin, straw-like tentacle and earnestly flipped through the books before it.

"These are all fictional creatures made up by humans. Don't try to fool me..." The straw creature snapped both books shut.

"What does it matter if they're fictional? I'm just trying to say that an intense desire isn't a disease. Living beings exist because of desire. It is the desire *for life* that makes them *living* beings. If desire itself is a flaw, then every living thing is flawed."

Hearing the doctor's explanation, the straw creature fell silent for a moment.

"Binge eating disorder is a sickness, correct?"

"Correct," the doctor answered affirmatively.

"Then how is an intense desire not considered a sickness?" the straw creature retorted.

"Your example isn't quite fitting. Binge eating disorder refers to a deviation in desire among individuals of a species. But your thirst for knowledge isn't an individual deviation. All of the Ever-Thirsty have the same intense thirst for knowledge. This is a species-wide trait, not a disease. It's like how dragons love shiny things," the doctor argued.

"Dragons? That's another human fiction, isn't it? Why are you so fond of humans?" the straw creature said with a sense of resignation.

"Because humans, like us, love to read."