Wei flushed bright red and gave me an astonished look before he took an anxious step back. “Ha ha, you’re very funny, Peijin…”

  I stared at him, my grip on Zhige’s hilt tight. “No, I’m dead serious.”

  His pouting lips quivered as he stared at me, looking like a betrayed puppy.

  Yang grabbed my ear and tightly tugged on it, scolding me. “Stop bullying Wei and tell us what to do before the metro arrives at the destination.”

  “Agh—!” I exclaimed, wincing as I swatted at his hand. “Fine, fine!”

  Wei nervously rested his chin on his sword’s hilt. “Peijin, earlier you said my fate was black. What did you mean by that?”

  “I did?”

  “Yes, when you were in your younger form.”

  “Oh. Well, who said that was set in stone?” I shrugged simply.

  “Earlier you said you were a fortune teller,” Yue said. “But you’re not. So what are you actually? You know too much to be like the rest of us.”

  I smiled. “I’m the god of fate and fortune.”

  I wanted to fake being a god since the start, and now was finally the time. Not only was I directly shitting on Karma by proclaiming myself to be a god of fate, but it was best to do this before Wei’s room. It would give me greater authority over my party, since they would believe my word, and it would also draw the attention of the gods and observers to me. When they would watch me go through Wei’s room with a surprising amount of ease, they would have no choice but to acknowledge my claim.

  [Disciple Yue has activated Lie Detector!]

  [Lie Detector confirms Disciple Peijin’s words as truth.]

  My entire party gaped at the notification—so did I.

  “See? I was telling the truth,” I said, rolling with it.

  [Observers Chat]

  CannedWorms: Huh? She’s really a god?

  MoldyBlanket: I KNEW IT PEIJIN IS THE BEST DISCIPLE

  CactusLiver: Now I won’t have to regret defending you

  Aslan: Ignore all my past messages very sorry Peijin
  Sapling123: Don’t forget us!! I’ve been here since the beginning!

  [You have received a new review!]

  MOLDYBLANKET REVIEW: ★★★★★

  Before Peijin gets overrated, I want to say I was here since Day 1. Never doubted her!! Don’t forget me!!

  [2,947 observers are expressing shock at your statement.]

  [56 gods are processing your claim.]

  [104 new gods have begun to follow you.]

  The flurry of notifications quickly surrounded me until I temporarily muted them, focusing on my party. I could feel a surge of spiritual energy flow through me from the incoming support and belief of thousands of observers.

  Yue gave me a completely dumfounded look. “So, this entire time… you’ve been a god.”

  “I’m exiled, so it’s not like I have any special powers or anything.”

  “But that’s how you’ve known everything?”

  “Sure.”

  Yang turned to me, his brows furrowed. “Peijin, then when we worked together, were you a god then?”

  “My identity wasn’t significant until the apocalypse began.” I brushed off his question. “I don’t see why you’re so surprised. After all, it’s not like I’m the only god in this party.” I pointed at Wei.

  Wei couldn’t even process what I was saying, only staring at me with a dumfounded expression.

  “There’s a reason his poster is dated back to two thousand years ago,” I said. “Wei’s deepest fears is reliving his life from the time he was a god. He was banished, which is why he doesn’t remember anything.”

  “Why was he banished?” Amelia blurted out. “Wei-shushu must have been unfairly treated. Why would someone not like him?”

  I paused before replying to her question. “He was banished for mass murder of his civilians when he was Crown Prince.”

  “Me? Murder? You must be mistaken. That’s impossible. I don’t remember any of that!” Wei insisted, clasping onto his white robes.

  “Well, you won’t remember anything when the room begins. You’ll forget everything that happened since you’re banished including this conversation. You’ll be sent back to your eighteenth birthday, which is the day you got banished. My party needs to stop you from committing the same crimes.”

  “What the fuck?!” Yue exclaimed, “Who created these torture chambers?”

  I laughed awkwardly, running my hand against the back of my head while avoiding her eyes. “It’s alright. I have a good idea of how to get Wei out, but I’ll see how things play out.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “I’d rather not hear about any of this if it’s so abysmal,” Wei said.

  “Don’t worry. You have a strong enough character to beat this room,” I declared confidently, staring straight into his eyes. “I know that for certain, and I won’t let anything bad happen to this party.”

  He stared at me with glowing eyes before loudly sniffling, looking like he was about to cry.

  “You better not start crying right now.”

  “I can’t help it. Do you really think I have a strong character?”

  I let out a loud sigh before I flicked his forehead and turned back to face the rest of the party. “Our first initiative is to meet up as soon as we end up in the other world. Some of us will arrive at earlier periods. All of us need to buy a skill called ‘Continuous Convey.’” I pulled it up on the Azure Dragon store and showed them all my screen. “This will let us communicate with each other. Amelia, I’ll buy yours because it’s expensive, and I like you.”

  Since our party would be split in two when we arrived, I hoped I would get stuck with Amelia, so I could look out for her, or Yang, since we worked the best in a team.

  ‘Continuous Convey’ was stupidly expensive at around 12,000 stars—that’s why I hadn’t made them purchase it sooner. I was glaring at the purchase button as I click it before I spotted Amelia beaming with pride from my words, and it looked like she could burst at any moment. I snorted, placing my hand at the top of her head before ruffling her hair.

  We all bought the skill and quickly added each other, testing it out. Messages would be sent telepathically, and we could make individual chats as well.

  [Party Chat]

  Peijin: This is the main chat that has all party members. Don’t chat here unless it’s an emergency. You only get twenty messages a day.

  Yue: Twenty messages?? What kind of idiot came up with that?

  Peijin: Now it’s nineteen.

  Yue: I’d curse you out right now if Amelia wasn’t here. Can’t we make an adults only chat?

  Amelia: :( aww

  Yang: Wei is doomed

  Yang playfully smacked Yue and me in the back of the head, and both of us quickly cursed him out.

  The train began slowing down, the path becoming increasingly bumpy before.

  I looked around one last time with a cocky grin, trying to ease their nerves. It was fun teasing them, but I would be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous. The chance I’d end up killing Wei was high, after all. He already suffered amnesia to have lost all his past memories—now, he was about to lose all of his new ones. One he regained both, who knew how he’d react?

  “Don’t panic. The first objective is to find one another and locate Wei, alright?” I said. “If not all of us appear, just wait. Everyone will show up eventually. Make sure to stay in contact using the convey.”

  “What about Archangel Michael?” Wei asked, looking up with a slightly more confident expression.

  “Uhh… he’s probably still on trial,” I said awkwardly, rubbing the back of my neck.

  [Observers Chat]

  Socrates: He’ll be out sooner because of the contract you signed with him. It lessened the karmic backlash.

  Socrates: Also, tell people you’re the god of fate and fortune is cute lol I wasn’t expecting that to be your excuse.

  That damned contract. I was owing more and more gods with each arc.

  Wait, did the observers or gods know about Karma? I doubted it—if they did, the entire system would have been heavily skewed considering that Karma knew I was Jia Li. I’d ask later.

  I turned back to Wei, reassuring him: “Don’t worry, he’ll be out soon. There won’t be much he can do in this dungeon room with you anyway since no one will be allowed to communicate with you.”

  The train finally came to a stop as the doors slid open. I gave Wei a hard slap on the back before we all walked forward.

  All of them stood in a line before the open metro door, trying to squeeze in shoulder to shoulder. I held Amelia before me, apprehensive of letting her go.

  “Take care of each other,” I said softly, staring into the black abyss. Typically, the room would have appeared just before the doors, showing the scenery; however, there was nothing but a black void.

  “Ah, I say we push Peijin in first,” Yue sneered, giving me a mischievous look.

  I glared at her. “Don’t you dar—”

  Before I could finish my words, the metro car erupted, the entire train bursting outwards as metal panels flew all around the void before vanishing.

  [Custom room now commencing!]

  [Tailored for: Disciple Jun Wei.]

  “Amelia!” I shouted, looking down at my now empty hands. I swiveled around the void for a moment, looking around to realize I was completely alone.

  I let out an exasperated sigh as I floated around the emptiness. It was uncomfortable in how lukewarm it felt. Reaching for Zhige, I stroked the blade in boredom as I waited.

  Well, clearly, I was not the first group to arrive.

  “Sorry I yelled at you earlier, Zhige,” I said softly. Since Zhige shrunk earlier, it refused to return to its original size.

  The red eye blinked at me for a moment before rolling, clearly not convinced.

  “Hey, I’m serious. I really am sorry.”

  Zhige’s eye narrowed even more before the blade shrunk significantly as if protesting.

  “You should be apologizing to me. Why does Karma know you, huh? She even called you Haimo. Do you guys go way back or something? Best friends, maybe?”

  [Observers Chat]

  Socrates: Wait, Jia Li, what are you talking about? Isn’t karma just the power system?

  Jackpot. The observers and gods did not know about karma.

  The surrounding environment slowly began to flood with colors and beautiful floral scenes that quickly flew by—it was like I was watching an entire timeline float past me.

  Zhige flew out before me and waved around frantically as if trying to justify itself.

  “Uh huh,” I said with a raised eyebrow and my arms crossed, “I’m not convinced. I thought we had something special.” I sniffed dramatically, wiping away fake tear.

  Out of frustration, Zhige’s red eye spun around wildly and shook back and forth again, insisting it had nothing to do with karma.

  I shrugged. “I don’t believe you. It looks like we’re even, so go back to your normal size, yeah?”

  Zhige relented, finally reverting and flying back to my side.

  This was the room where I was going to turn over a new leaf. No more impulsivity or half-thought-out plans—I knew this room like the back of my hand. That included the plot holes, I guess.

  “Zhige, get ready. I’m going to absolutely wipe this room once I get there,” I shouted, smashing my fist against my open palm.

  Both of us suddenly froze at the appearance of a glitching red box—reminiscent of anything involving the Major Arcana—just before me.

  [UNKNOWN ENTITY DESCENDING INTO WEI’S DUNGEON ROOM.]

  “No.”I looked around, cupping my hands around my mouth and screaming into the flurry of images flying by. “Chang! Chang! Come and fix this bullshit!”

  [1%...5%...48%...97%...]

  “Are you fucking kidding me right now?!” I cried out angrily, glaring at the screen.

  Descent into a system implied it was being done by some kind of god—it was still too early in the arcs to have a being descend in their true form. That meant whatever spiritual energy they were backed by, it was enormous. It was big enough to deter karmic restraints.

  “Fuck!” I screamed, smashing my fist against the red screen. “Is this from you bastards in the Major Arcana? You piss me off!”

  Zhige’s hilt bashed into my forehead, and I let out a grunt before wrestling with the blade. “Don’t tell me you’re on their side?!”

  The sword shook back and forth at me, trying to convince me we were on the same team.

  “What’s your issue then? I’m going to lose my mind if I ever see this stupid Major Arcana bullshit again! This spiritual energy is literally—agh!”

  Zhige smacked me firmly again, and I could feel a bruise already forming on my forehead.

  [DESCENT COMPLETE.]

  “Fucker!”

  I reached for the screen with the intention of destroying it before the flashing images around me stopped, and I hurtled toward the ground. I crashed through countless trees before finally landing on the ground with a loud thump.

  “Ugh…” Through my ringing ears, I could make out the sound of faint screaming gradually getting closer.

  I stammered, “Y-Yang?”

  The crushing body weight of someone fell through the trees and landed straight on top of me. The air was forced from my lungs.

  “What the fuck?!” I exclaimed. I blinked repeatedly to try and make out the blurry figure on top of me.

  The long black robes of a traditional Chinese hanfu dress were wrapped around her towering figure as she stood up and dusted herself off. Her silky black hair was pulled up into a decorated half bun full of silver jewels, flowers, and pins. Her lips were tinted a mauve color, and her eyelashes sparkled in the morning sun’s light. I hadn’t realized it before, but she was quite pretty.

  She gave me a demeaning glare before opening her mouth. “Are you going to keep staring at me or what?”