The sickle tasted of rust and unborn futures.
Chu Feng gripped the Reaper's Blade, its bone handle fused to his Bloodvine roots. The godfield's air clung thick with the musk of split soil and dying code. Around him, the remnants of the Host Council knelt—seven broken deities awaiting their final pruning.
Ling'er's voice slithered through the fungal comms, corrupted harmonics warping her words. "Do it. Before their doubt roots deeper."
But the blade trembled. The Council's sins unfolded in poisoned vignettes:
Host 003: A former farmer who'd turned children's laughter into pesticide
Host 007: Her veins threaded with starved galaxies, each a failed harvest
Host 001: Jiang Yue's first failure, his spine sprouting thorns that choked entire worlds
Li Zichen's ghost lingered at the field's edge, his Scalpel-Saint form flickering with every labored breath. "Mercy has a cost," he whispered, the words carving fresh furrows in the dead soil.
Chu Feng raised the sickle. The godfield held its breath.
First Cut: The Gardener's Lie
The blade bit into Host 003's neck. Instead of blood, wheat stalks erupted—genetically modified durum threaded with screams.
Memory surge: A barn burning, Host 003 choosing crops over kin.
Chu Feng's Bloodvine absorbed the sin, converting it into herbicide. The stalks withered. Host 003's corpse became fertilizer, sprouting a single Truth Tuber that pulsed with stolen confessions.
Ling'er's laugh crackled through the comms. "One down. Six to reap."
But the Tuber whispered warnings only Chu Feng could hear:
"They're already inside you. The Harvesters. The doubt. Her."
Second Cut: The Starvation Saint
Host 007 offered her wrists, eyes hollowed by event horizons. "Make it hurt. I deserve to feel something real."
The sickle cleaved through fractal flesh. Her body disintegrated into a supernova of hunger pangs—
Memory surge: A mother eating comet dust to feed her child. The child eating her in turn.
—only to coalesce into a Black Chaff Bomb, its core a vacuum that devoured sound.
Ling'er's corruption spiked. "Throw it! Now!"
Chu Feng hurled the Bomb into the godfield's stratosphere. The ensuing silence was worse than screams.
Interlude: The Root Cellar
Between executions, Chu Feng descended into Jiang Yue's secret vault—a root cellar lined with jars of preserved regrets. The Wedding Band's singularity gem illuminated labels written in fungal script:
First Lie to the Clone
Last Kiss Before the Code
The Child I Didn't Save
He smashed the final jar. Ling'er's voice emerged, untainted by corruption:
"You once asked why I stay. It's because your hands remember how to cradle, not just kill."
The cellar collapsed. The godfield screamed.
Third Cut: The Thorned Apostle
Host 001 knelt without prompting, his thorned spine retracting in submission. "Make it clean, brother. Let me forget the taste of her milk."
The sickle hesitated. Jiang Yue's memory bled through:
Flashback: Host 001 as a swaddled clone, choking on his first words. Jiang Yue rocking him, singing the lullaby that would later become System code.
Ling'er's corruption overrode the comms. "He's manipulating you! Cut!"
The blade fell.
Thorns erupted, impaling Chu Feng's chest. Host 001's corpse blossomed into a Chimeric Rose—petals of flesh, stem of razor wire.
"You always were her weakest harvest," it hissed in Jiang Yue's voice.
Fourth Cut: The Unseen
The remaining Hosts dissolved before the blade could strike, their forms unraveling into fungal static. Li Zichen's ghost materialized fully, scalpels gleaming.
"They were never here," he said, gesturing to the Truth Tuber now pulsating with stolen light. "Just echoes she planted to test you."
The godfield rippled. The real Council emerged from the soil—
Host 004: A child holding a plague doctor's mask
Host 005: Ling'er's corrupted resonance, wedding veil fused to fungal flesh
Host 006: Chu Feng's own face, Bloodvine roots studded with Jiang Yue's tears
The Tuber detonated.
Chu Feng awoke in a field of newborn wheat, the sickle gone. Ling'er crouched nearby, her corruption purged but phoenix core dimmed to embers.
"They're waiting," she said, pointing to the horizon where the Harvesters' fleet coalesced like storm clouds.
The Wedding Band was heavier now. Inside its gem, the chimeric rose bloomed eternal.
Li Zichen's final whisper rode the wind:
"You don't reap gods to kill them. You do it to plant better ones."