The Star Eater and the Hundred-Year-Old Newborn

What I got from the sect event was a tile. And not just any tile — a special eight-slot tile usable only at Hwanga-gongdong's base.

Considering that even a Wonder took up four to six slots, this thing was absurdly massive. Though I had to wonder whether it was really worth killing a friendly NPC over.

It had five lines of options, sure, but one of them was a dud and the locked ones were a mystery, so the actual usable options boiled down to two lines — and those were just raw stat corrections!

Still, just in case, I pulled out the old book.

The options looked simple, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠but the effects were completely unhinged. What the hell? Even for a mod, what kind of correction values were these? Did this just mean that since I was currently level 320, all my stats had gone up by 320?

Thinking about it, I was only now truly grasping how deranged the event difficulty had been. Fighting a Transcendent species at late Nascent Soul that hit like a Deity Transformation cultivator? Are you kidding me? The difficulty was that insane and this was the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reward?

I'd only gotten through it because Elder Togo had flipped over to friendly NPC status. Originally, I would've needed to hit late Nascent Soul just to even scratch that fight — a completely deranged difficulty curve!

But Elder Togo had just handed it over free of charge! Sure, saving him had slapped an [Incomplete] tag on the transmission and locked me out of the story, but still.

"...Story?"

This absolute garbage dump of a game had a story? Don't make me laugh! It was probably just some event-map lore slapped onto the Xianxia mod! Ugh!

My past-life humanities jabbed at my conscience, insisting I not skip it so carelessly. But come on! I couldn't even view the story because my realm was too low! That basically meant it was content locked behind the Eternal Realm!

Fine! Fine, I get it! I'll look at it later without skipping!

I gritted my teeth and shuddered as the humanities that still didn't trust me brandished my conscience like a threat. You evil little mortals!

When my conscience snidely asked whether a cultivator who treated people worse than the worst stereotypes had any right to talk, the critical hit landed so hard it hurt like hell, and I just squeezed my eyes shut.

"Elder Togo?"

"Ah, my baby. I was just looking over your vow for a moment."

He meant the transformation skill? I'd thought I'd finished it when I raised the tower, but Elder Togo had been up top making small adjustments. The kind of refinements you only learned through long ages and a vast range of experience.

I watched the curious sight of a tower I'd thrown together with pure talent and raw efficiency gradually becoming less efficient in places — and somehow growing more efficient overall — before I left my Mental World and opened my eyes.

"I have something that can hold your Nascent Soul, Elder!"

I had decorative pieces from both the [Sci-Fi Mod] and the [Mythology Mod].

From the Sci-Fi Mod's mythic-grade decorations: space warships including the Thanatos-class vessel Russell's Teapot, plus planet-cracking superweapons like the Colossus and the Juggernaut.

From the Mythology Mod's mythic-grade decorations: statues of the three chief gods of Olympus and other ancient deities, statues representing the three gods of Norse myth, and the mythic-grade tiles Olympus and Valhalla. Those were all the mythic-grade decorations I owned.

Of course, in the mod they were nothing more than decorative pieces the modders had painstakingly carved out! No interaction! Just background! Literally set dressing!

But powered by the terrifying force of the Reality Patch, every single one of those decorations had gained mythic-grade power.

And every last one of them had been slapped with a level restriction and locked as unusable...

Goddamn Reality Patch!

Still, maybe one of them could hold a Nascent Soul that had once reached Deity Transformation? With that thought, I went to the base decoration warehouse where the uninstalled pieces were stored and called Elder Togo out of my Mental World.

The decoration Elder Togo declared had the best wavelength match with him — and cheerfully climbed into to make his new body — was one of the Sci-Fi Mod's cosmic superweapons: the [Star Eater]Devouring Worm.

Just look at that description. Terrifying.

It had been a colossal decoration that ate four tiles just to install at the base, but the moment Elder Togo's Nascent Soul entered it, the whole thing shrank in an instant to a round mechanical device only a little larger than me.

Then, above that device, Elder Togo's form appeared naturally like a hologram, a full smile spreading across his face.

"After I was defeated by the heir and sealed away, I thought the endless ages of decline — waiting only for death — were nothing but hollow days. But it seems they were all so that I might meet my baby."

"How do you feel, Elder Togo? Are you all right?"

"It holds my Nascent Soul with room to spare. I can feel deep history and long ages in this puppet. For whatever short time remains until my Nascent Soul is spent, I shall be able to stay with my baby."

"Is your lifespan really that short? If you raise your realm, your lifespan—"

"I have any lifespan left at all only because I once surpassed Deity Transformation. Even if I restored my realm, unless I break past Deity Transformation again, I would have... less than eight hundred years."

...?

At Elder Togo's genuinely regretful words, spoken with a sad face, I floated a whole swarm of red question marks in blocky text above my head.

And whether he recognized the characters or the Korean patch was doing its work, Elder Togo understood what they meant. His voice trembled as he finally asked me:

"Perhaps... how old is my baby?"

"Roughly over a hundred years!"

"Not a baby — a newborn...!"

What the hell, is there such a thing as a hundred-year-old infant? Uh, Elder Togo? Elder? Eek—!

The hologram wrapped around me. It wasn't a simple projection — it was a mythic-grade machine projecting spiritual energy from a Nascent Soul core, so it had actual physical force, and it crushed me like a steel vise!

A friendly NPC is attacking me! Aaaaah!

The problem was that a mythic-grade decoration was simply too powerful. That, and for a Golden Core cultivator, my durability and defense were embarrassingly low.

Normally the Prisoner Mod would have chopped the threat down in one stroke and dropped it, but the Prisoner Mod had apparently overloaded from taking a cultivator who'd fallen from Deity Transformation all the way to Nascent Soul as a prisoner — Nascent Soul only, sure, but still — and it wasn't working at all!

I'm being crushed to death by a spiritual-energy hologram! Dying from the interaction [Hug]!

I thrashed and struggled to get free, and only then did I manage to calm down as Elder Togo chuckled softly and kept holding me, stroking my head.

Huh. Wait. Why is Elder Togo so good at this petting thing? My whole body feels like it's melting, slow and heavy—

As the little newborn melted into a soft, pliant heap and leaned completely into him without a scrap of guard left, Togo felt a swell of ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠affection for this utterly defenseless infant.

As a cultivator, she was abnormally powerful for her realm. Just looking at her Mental World, a toxic sea of slaughter energy surged there — more than enough to hold a Nascent Soul, enough even to affect a Deity Transformation cultivator.

But that powerful cultivator was a newborn who had trained for barely a hundred years. And no matter that he had only shown a little fondness at first, she clung to him without a shred of wariness — a child so full of affection it was almost absurd.

Completely unaware that inside Yu Hee, the humanities had been mashing [Rest] and forcibly ejecting her into dreamland, Togo kept stroking her for a long while. At last he raised a holographic hand and lightly stirred the empty air.