I Will Teach You How to Hunt Gods

Chapter 757 - 38: The Shifting Shackles

"You absolutely have already fulfilled the responsibility of a ’mother.’"

"Mother... responsibility..."

Hearing these two words from the Master of All Changes, the deliberate casualness on Deng’s face vanished, even the motion of chewing candy stopped, and a trace of complicated light flickered in her eyes.

She lowered her lids slightly, her tail also stopped twining around the lollipop, and began unconsciously patting the soft couch lightly as she let out a soft sigh.

"Honestly, Ah Bian."

Deng’s voice dropped, her gaze unfocused, as if it pierced through the chessboard in front of her and looked toward a more distant, more blurred past.

"Before... I never truly fulfilled the responsibility of a ’mother.’"

"The reason I made you all call me ’mother’..."

Deng’s gaze swept past the God of Balance standing by, past Fanny who was arranging books, past the frowning owl Nan Jia, and finally returned to rest on the Master of All Changes.

"That was nothing more than some twisted little fun of mine."

She seemed to be recalling, yet also dissecting herself.

"To create a being, grant it power, watch it grow, struggle, break through or stagnate... this process in itself, to me, was just an experiment observing the evolution of variables. The title ’mother’ was nothing but a convenient label on the experiment log, a codename tinged with a sense of control and mockery. I never really understood, nor did I ever intend to shoulder those... trivial and troublesome responsibilities implied behind that title."

Deng’s gaze finally fell on her own open palm, as though examining something, and a hint of wavering slipped into her voice—so faint that even she herself hadn’t noticed.

"But... ever since I met Little Youyou... something seems... different."

She raised her head and looked at the Master of All Changes again. In those eyes that could see the birth and death of stars, there was at this moment a rare... almost clumsy confusion.

"I feel like I really might need to change."

"At least, in front of her, I should try... to fulfill some responsibilities, right?"

As these words fell, the Maid Chief, who was holding a chessman ready to play it, froze with her fingers in midair. On that face that was always full of smiles, for the first time appeared an unconcealable astonishment.

She raised her head and stared blankly at Deng, as if she were only now truly getting to know this "mother" she had served for endless ages.

The Stargazer who had once been famed among the three Death God sages for her absolute rationality and near-cold-blooded heartlessness, that existence who regarded all things as experimental samples, had actually spoken the word "responsibility" herself?

This was truly unbelievable.

But very quickly, the Master of All Changes understood.

Of course... Yun You is special.

Over the Stargazer’s long life, she had created and adopted countless offspring, but only Yun You—this girl who carried the blood of both her and the Monarch—was truly unique.

Without realizing it, Yun You had chiseled through the shell of Deng’s heart constructed from icy logic, truly touching her heart and becoming someone Deng regarded as family.

This change, though somewhat clumsy, was so very real.

"Mother, you lost again~"

Thinking of this, the Master of All Changes’ voice regained its usual elegance and slyness. With a light flick of her wrist, the chessman slipped into a key node on the board.

In an instant, the entire game was completely overturned, and the chessmen representing Deng’s side rapidly collapsed.

As her words fell, a small pink glowing slip of paper with the word "Lose" written on it appeared and stuck to Deng’s hair.

Only then did Deng seem to come back to herself. Seeing her own army crushed on the board, she clicked her tongue in mild annoyance.

She subconsciously raised her hand to scratch her head, and as her silver-gray hair was brushed aside, it revealed dozens of the same "Lose" slips of paper hidden among the strands.

Clearly, during that earlier stretch of time when her mind was elsewhere, Deng had already been slaughtered dozens of times on the chessboard by the Master of All Changes.

Her heart was definitely not as calm as she appeared.

Seeing this, the Master of All Changes’ eyes curved with deeper amusement, but she knew very well that continuing to dig into the topic of "responsibility" right now would only make this awkward mother even more uncomfortable.

So she changed the subject, resetting the chessboard as she spoke.

"Mother, the Stargazing Division just sent back the latest update. In the real world, the Monarch’s leaked aura has surpassed the critical threshold. His will has already formed an irreversible pollution field throughout the world. The Human Alliance led by Chen Zaikun and the remnant forces of the Equality Association have been defeated."

"The overall situation is decided."

"The last few large human settlements are being swallowed and erased one by one by the Monarch. The physical laws of the real world are also collapsing at an accelerating rate. Complete annihilation... should only be a matter of time now."

She paused, her voice taking on a slightly heavier tone, her gaze skimming over Deng as if unintentionally.

"And in the final images we observed... that guy Zhu Xing, while covering the retreat of the remaining fleets, was swallowed by spatial turbulence formed from the Monarch’s power. His life fluctuations completely vanished."

"He died in battle."

"..."

The air solidified.

Deng had been reaching up to tear the slip from her forehead, but her movement halted when the Master of All Changes spoke the words "Zhu Xing died in battle."

Her fingers lingered on the edge of that pink slip...

Then, as if burned, she suddenly tore the paper from her forehead with a sharp, almost violent motion.

Immediately after, as though she wanted to get rid of every eyesore around her, she reached both hands into her hair and clawed at all the "Lose" slips hidden there, ripping them off one by one and crushing them as if venting her emotions.

"Hmph..."

A deliberately suppressed snort squeezed from Deng’s tightly pressed lips. She kept her head down, silver-gray strands hanging in disarray and obscuring most of her face, making it impossible to see her expression. Only her voice came out, cold as polar ice, carrying a deliberate detachment and nonchalance.

"I already ’saw’ it. His ending."

"That idiot... he knew perfectly well he didn’t amount to much, that his Talent had already hit a ceiling... and yet he just had to run out there and play the hero, to throw his life away..."

She finally tore off the last slip of paper and casually tossed the crumpled ball aside. It silently decomposed and scattered in the nebula.

She raised her head; her face had already returned to that lazy, indifferent look, and she even pulled the corner of her lips into a mocking curve.

"No one could have saved him. He chose his own path; he bears the consequences himself. He... isn’t worth me paying him any particular attention."

Deng’s words were firm and absolute. It seemed that, in her mind, Zhu Xing’s fall was nothing more than the loss of a person of no importance.

However, standing opposite her, the Master of All Changes could clearly see certain things.

She had seen the faint trembling of Deng’s fingertips when she ripped the slips... seen that fleeting ripple in Deng’s eyes when she lowered her head.

She had also heard, in that deliberately emphasized tone, a bitterness so subtle it was almost imperceptible.

At this, the Master of All Changes understood, though her expression remained unchanged. She only bowed with elegant composure.

"Mother is right. Ah Bian spoke out of turn."

She knew this "mother" far too well—this Stargazer, ah... she had always been like this.

The more she cared, the more something stirred her heart, the colder, sharper, and more detached her attitude became, wrapping it all up like a hedgehog bristling with spines, terrified that anyone might see through that clumsy little softness inside.

Tsundere.

That word was perhaps the most fitting way to describe Deng at this moment.

Only, behind this tsundere façade, the ripples stirred by Zhu Xing’s death—ripples she herself had yet to fully understand or acknowledge—were, in the end, undeniably real.

Like a pebble dropped into the sea, small though it was, it foretold that something heavier was starting to loosen, deep at the floor of this Stargazer’s hardened ocean of a heart.

That was a shackle called emotion.

"Enough, I don’t care about that guy."

Deng shook her head and muttered to herself, "I still have to celebrate Little Youyou’s birthday. Forget him... forget that kind of trivial stuff!"

"Fanny, go wake Little Youyou, would you? She seems to still be sleeping."