This Life, I Will Be the Protagonist-Chapter 1269: Tail Sever Mode
With the warning, "BS Adjudicator has arrived," the ship hovered above Verdant. The cow-cat at the helm, guided by Verdant players, carefully positioned the ship behind the battlefield.
Before stepping down to make cookies, Maple Syrup glanced back at BS Rita, who was clearly in an unusual state. Rita stood on the deck with her eyes tightly shut, protected by a restored Nivalis. The dragon wrapped its tail and body around her like a living shield, guarding her as if she were a treasure.
Maple Syrup continued toward the battlefield, but a voice rang from behind.
"If taking more cookies can make a difference, would you still ask me whether it has meaning?"
Maple Syrup didn’t turn to see BS Rita’s expression. Her attention was drawn to all the Verdant players on the battlefield. She didn’t know whether they had heard the words, but every player near death had a spark of light in their eyes.
[King of Cookies BS Rita invites you. Would you like to become a cookie and join her kingdom, away from war and conflict?]
This was the message every Verdant player received. In their minds, they immediately considered the pros and cons of becoming a cookie, along with the limits on quantity.
There were also two rules currently in effect: only players who had contributed to Verdant, as judged by Verdant, could join, and the main races of Verdant must share cookie slots evenly.
Under the relentless attacks of Winter Sea Frenzied Shark, Verdant Verdant Whisper · Windrush and Verdant Mojie shouted together: "Agreed! Everyone who can, come with her!"
If there was still a hint of warmth in the Starsea wars, it was this: as long as players from the fighting worlds were willing to surrender and the number of beings in the defeated world didn’t exceed the winner’s capacity, the victors generally would not exterminate the survivors.
One by one, players disappeared from the battlefield. Once transformed into cookies, they fell from above Cat’s Ideal, landing in a cookie house designed in Verdant style. They slipped into the chimney as if dropping coins into a slot.
Maple Syrup’s eyes lingered on Verdant Verdant Whisper · Windrush and Verdant Mojie, watching the surprise and relief on their faces. After a long moment, she looked at BS Rita and asked, "Is there a limit on the number?"
BS Rita’s smile softened slightly at the corners of her eyes. She replied to the oak-owl: "One hundred million."
Maple Syrup laughed at the answer. Verdant’s population was at least five billion. Ultimately, fewer than five hundred million could be taken to Winter Sea. She didn’t make any sarcastic comment, but simply turned and jumped off the ship: "Then add thirty million more."
As the fire feathers danced again across the battlefield, Maple Syrup suddenly received a notification, or rather, a question from Divine Game:
[A Divine Instructioner wishes to ask you a question. If the player chooses to answer, they will receive a Golden Tree Fruit.]
There was no doubt who it was.
Maple Syrup’s expression didn’t change. She closed her eyes and continued baking cookies, calmly throwing out a single word: "Ask."
[Back then, when I looked at Forest Sea, it was like you looking at Verdant now. Everything was too late. Giving up was the best choice. Do you still think I am arrogant?]
Maple Syrup’s answer was firm: "Then you’re nothing compared to BS Rita.
"She came later than anyone else, yet she never makes choices for anyone. She only creates new choices...
"I kept asking her if what she was doing made any sense, because to a world with tens of billions of beings, tens of millions of cookies are laughably few. Even adding another hundred million wouldn’t change the outcome.
"But Captain, I almost forgot how much of a real joke you are. Compared to you... what she’s doing feels like a fairy tale."
Maple Syrup opened her eyes. The soul fire between her brows surged upward a notch. She overlooked the battlefield, the cookies collected and carried away, and the uninterrupted rain of cookies falling from the sky above the ship.
BS Rita could not change any of it. She had no power to do so, yet she was precisely the one who wanted to change everything the most.
Was it because of her Divine talent word, Sovereign? Or the feelings she had when pulling BS out of the invasion sequence? Or the experiences of writing those World Sighs, or the duels she had witnessed on Dustfire’s old dining table?
No one could pinpoint the exact dreamlike moment that had birthed BS Rita. She came later than everyone else, yet witnessed countless stories across worlds.
Fairy tales are about maintaining childish fantasies beneath cruelty and reality. A meager rescue, yet she knew that across all of Starsea, every world silently permitted and even expected the arrival of BS Rita and herself.
Maple Syrup closed her eyes, letting the soul fire in her brow blossom. Finally, she said: "Stop asking these useless questions. You know it—I am like you, self-righteous, never admitting mistakes."
The captain once made choices for Forest Sea. She herself had once made choices for those oak-owls who wished to survive...
One cookie house filled up. Rita shrank the Verdant-style cookie castle and hung it beside Cat’s Head. She didn’t rush to set more kingly rules, planning instead to create another cookie house to shelter more Verdant players.
"Each cookie house can bake only 100 million cookies per day," she reminded herself. But there was no rule saying she could make only one cookie house per day.
Unfortunately, the skill failed, preventing her from creating another cookie house in Verdant. She wasn’t certain whether it was a Starsea skill limitation or the maximum set by Unordered Starsea and the Divine players.
She didn’t waste time. After a brief exchange with Maple Syrup, she immediately left Verdant for the previous world, where the war had not yet ended. There was still time to bake more cookies. One hundred million more beings could survive.
Rita piloted her ship, rushing across worlds with her dragon and cats.
The tiny, thumb-sized cookie castles hanging from her coat grew steadily in number.
When her soul fire container was filled once more, a notification rang across all of Starsea:
[■■ The Pendulum will enter Starsea in three Starsea days. Players and worlds, please prepare.]
[This Bell will trigger Tail Sever Mode. When more than half of a world’s leaders agree, that world may voluntarily disconnect from other worlds’ invasion sequences.]
[When sharing world skills with other worlds, the effect of the skill will decrease according to the number of worlds shared. Each additional shared world reduces effectiveness by 20%.]
[Reminder: During this Pendulum impact, world skills below four-star rank are invalid.]
After the Starsea notification, the universe went silent for a few seconds. Then the world channel erupted:
[Dawn Cicada]: BS Rita!
[Tiger Ear Quex]: BS Rita!
[Sakura Orange White]: BS Rita!
[Yet Orange Pomango]: BS Rita!
