Chapter 150: The King is Tricked
Orion merely looked at it indifferently. "Oh? You didn't stipulate that I couldn't make this wish."
"I... I..." The monkey's paw began to babble incoherently, twisting madly as if engaged in a fierce internal struggle. It couldn't refuse the wish, but it also couldn't execute it without negating its own existence.
It had once been a containment object at the Herta Space Station. After finally escaping, it never expected to encounter someone like this. It now wished it had never left.
"No... no..." the paw's tone became increasingly distorted. "I am... a magical item... I must... but I cannot... but the rules..." It was like a malfunctioning machine, its logical circuits completely chaotic. Fine cracks began to appear on its surface.
"Meaning of existence... denied... self-contradiction... unable..."
Boom!
Suddenly, the monkey's paw exploded! The resulting powder scattered in the air and vanished without a trace.
Silence fell.
"It... it's just gone?" March 7th looked at Orion's empty palm in surprise.
"It self-destructed," Dan Heng said thoughtfully. "Orion used a logical paradox. It's like asking someone who can only lie to say 'I am lying'."
"Although I don't quite understand," March 7th sincerely praised, "Orion is amazing! He made such a strange thing collapse with just a few words!"
Bronya looked at Orion with admiration. "Did you plan this from the beginning?"
Orion withdrew his hand. "It's just a small trick. The true danger of the monkey's paw lies in its ability to stir up greed. Once you truly wish upon it, you've already lost."
At this moment, Bronya's voice drew everyone's attention back. "But what about that big dice?"
Everyone remembered the huge dice still lying in the square.
"If it can produce dangerous things like the monkey's paw, keeping it is not a wise move," Orion nodded.
"So what do we do?" March 7th asked.
Orion pondered, then suddenly walked towards Stelle. "May I borrow your item for a moment?"
"Wh-what item?" For some reason, Stelle felt an inexplicable fear.
"Your baseball bat," Orion pointed to the weapon in her hand.
"Oh..." she breathed a sigh of relief and handed it over.
Orion took the bat, weighed it, and then, under everyone's gaze, walked towards the dice. He stopped, gripped the bat with both hands, and took a standard batting stance.
"Wait, you're not trying to..." March 7th's eyes widened.
The next moment—Orion let out a low growl, and the bat, with a whoosh, slammed into the dice!
BANG—!!!
A deafening crash echoed throughout Belobog. Then, to everyone's astonishment, the giant dice was sent flying like a baseball! It flew higher and higher, farther and farther, finally disappearing into the clouds.
Orion easily returned the bat to the still-stunned Stelle. "Done."
The scene fell silent. Then, someone blurted out, "Wh-what kind of monstrous strength is that?! That dice must weigh several tons!"
Meanwhile, in the void far beyond Jarilo-VI, a figure stood amidst the sea of stars. Asat Pramad. He had seen everything. That young man named Orion had used a simple logical paradox to make the "little toy" he had thrown self-destruct.
"Truly surprising," Asat Pramad murmured softly. It had been a long time since he had felt such surging emotions. It wasn't anger or humiliation. Being played by a seed that had not yet grown up actually made him feel… fresh. It was like an audience member finding a stunning actor improvising in the corner.
"Orion..." Asat Pramad savored the name, his gaze piercing through the void. Even while walking the path of destruction, the young man maintained a sense of composure, an arrogance that treated everything as a chessboard.
Asat Pramad suddenly laughed. This universe was too boring. But now...
"It seems you won't let me be bored." Anticipation rose in his heart. An interesting opponent, an interesting game. "Let me see..." His figure began to fade. "How far you can go. Will you become our colleague, or... fall here?"
His figure completely disappeared. In the square in Belobog, Orion suddenly looked up at the sky.
"What's wrong?" Bronya asked.
"Nothing," Orion's gaze shifted from the sky. "I just feel... the sky is about to change."
[Inorin Note:
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