Cheng Shi had been in a daze throughout the entire ordeal.
After the Fun God had whisked him into the Void, he had witnessed the self-destruction of yet another true god — but [Truth]'s maneuver had been too swift. So swift that Cheng Shi couldn't even comprehend what had happened.
He had wanted to ask his Benefactor what [Truth]'s experint actually entailed, but the mont [Truth] self-destructed, the gods had been pulled away by the Convention, leaving only a group of mortals adrift in the Void, staring at each other while the world outside churned through endless cycles of reconstruction.
Galusha undoubtedly understood [Truth]. She imdiately sensed the torrents of restructuring power surging through the outside world — far more violent than even the Ritual of Truth — and her expression turned grave:
"Reconstruction... the entire world appears to be reconstructing itself..."
"World reconstruction?"
Cheng Shi froze for a mont. Although he had deduced that [Truth] had stolen [Ti]'s power to verify the truth of the universe, he still couldn't grasp what that had to do with reconstructing the entire world.
In his view, [Truth] could have reconstructed the world even without [Ti]'s power.
And what did reconstructing the current world have to do with exploring the unknown beyond it?
Cheng Shi looked to Galusha, hoping for an explanation.
Galusha was equally baffled. After all, this experint involved a true god and pointed directly at the universe's truth. She didn't know what [Truth] — who had always been obsessed with apotheosis experints — was truly pursuing, nor did she know that [Truth] had seized [Ti]'s power during this trial. Without that knowledge, she had no basis for inference.
Seeing her confusion, Cheng Shi thought for a mont. To make sense of everything, he vaguely told Galusha about the existence of another world beyond this one, adding that [Truth] was likely using [Ti]'s power to verify precisely that.
But Galusha only grew more puzzled.
"If even you, Mr. Prisoner — a re follower — already know about this, why would [Truth] still need to verify it?"
"..."
'How do I explain that? I can't exactly tell her that so gods don't know as much as I do.'
For a mont, Cheng Shi was at a loss for words.
But the glint that flashed through Galusha's eyes at his reaction was sharp and knowing. She nodded: "As I suspected — your identity is far more complex than I imagined. The fact that we survived [Truth]'s experint is undoubtedly thanks to you."
The way Galusha looked at him was sowhat unsettling. Cheng Shi's mind was a tangled ss, and he had no patience for explanations. Instead, he simply pointed at ng Youfang:
"It has nothing to do with . It's him.
Old ng was once a true god, but fell from his Divine Throne due to certain circumstances. This stint in the mortal world is to reclaim his throne. My Benefactor happens to be an old friend of his — so we owe our survival to him."
The mont those words left his mouth, the silence that followed extended far beyond Cheng Shi alone.
Chen Yi was still unconscious. The only awake outsider, Fang Yuan, stood at the far back, his gaze sweeping between the others before fixing on Cheng Shi.
After witnessing the gods' assembly and [Truth]'s self-destruction, Fang Yuan's mind had been thoroughly blown. But bewildered as he was, he could still tell that their survival was definitely because of Cheng Shi — not so delusional patient like ng Youfang.
ng Youfang's audacity in calling himself a god before the actual gods was admirable, sure — but Fang Yuan had seen how the gods reacted. They hadn't treated ng Youfang with any semblance of equality. They hadn't even acknowledged him.
But this Fate Weaver...
Every single god present had turned their gaze upon him!
The trembling Fang Yuan silently absorbed everything, but kept his mouth shut.
Because he knew — as long as he didn't say anything, as long as he quietly stayed close to the Fate Weaver, the biggest loophole in this ga was his to exploit.
As for the fact that Galusha had assud Wei Zhi's identity...
'None of my business.'
Whether Galusha was good or bad was debatable, but Wei Zhi — who had collaborated with the Erudition Presidium — absolutely deserved what he got.
After hearing Cheng Shi's words, ng Youfang didn't deny it. He simply furrowed his brow in contemplation, trying to understand why [Truth] — who had sought to steal his Divine Throne — had instead chosen self-destruction.
After much deliberation, he finally arrived at a conclusion:
'Truth acted on impulse. One wrong move — and after I saw through his plan, he died of guilt.'
When he shared this deduction aloud, Cheng Shi felt the world truly deserved to be destroyed.
'Where does this extre delusion even co from?'
'You're writing annotations on the world's tiline now, is that it?!'
'[Truth]'s dying words were wasted — his death-affirming testant sohow beca an apology letter to you?!'
Cheng Shi rolled his eyes and ignored ng Youfang. Galusha, too, lifted her chin and regarded Cheng Shi with a derisive hum — her expression clearly saying:
'You're telling
your Benefactor saved us for the sake of this guy?'
Knowing there was no washing this one clean, Cheng Shi stopped trying to explain and simply urged Galusha to analyze what impact this experint might have on the universe.
Galusha was not an unreasonable person — otherwise she could never have walked alongside a humorless scholar to begin with.
Originally, after obtaining her player identity, she had planned to approach Cheng Shi again with a few ulterior motives. But now, given the degree of importance the gods placed on Cheng Shi, she no longer dared harbor such thoughts.
Whatever Fang Yuan could see, she could see too — and then so.
She could read the absolute priority that [Deceit] and [Fate], the two masters of [Void], placed on this Mr. Prisoner. Naturally, she understood she couldn't sche against him — she could only draw close to him and strive to beco an ally within the sa faction.
So she set aside her probing of Cheng Shi's true identity and fell into quiet contemplation.
After a while, she spoke with a furrowed brow:
"The Departnt of Consciousness Faith once conducted a Faith Resonance Experint — an evolution built upon the foundation of slice technology.
By that ti, Grandfather Selius had already left the Tower of Logic, and the Life Extension Departnt's research findings were being applied across other departnts. But a persistent concern had always surrounded slice technology.
To confirm slice safety and prevent critical experintal data from leaking, the Departnt of Consciousness Faith began investigating the links between slices across different consciousnesses. That was how the Faith Resonance Experint was born.
The experint worked like this: different slices of the sa scholar were implanted with entirely different mories, then sealed in separate locations to conduct the sa specialized experint. This experint fell outside both mory sets' areas of expertise, and several critical steps had been deliberately obscured — requiring the experinters to discover the solutions on their own.
After extensive data collection, the results proved that even with altered and obscured mories, slices originating from the sa individual maintained a connection on so level of consciousness. During observation, they found that when one subject discovered a replacent solution, the other would frequently arrive at the sa answer shortly thereafter — even though their post-experint theoretical explanations were completely different.
The Grand Scholars of the Departnt of Consciousness Faith terd this the Delayed Theory of Slice Consciousness Entanglent. Based on these findings, they petitioned the Erudition Presidium to enact a Slice Protection Act, establishing that scholar slices were not disposable resources — that they held scientific value equal to the scholars themselves...
Mr. Prisoner, what you described about 'another world' is too vague. But I imagine that whatever could drive [Truth] to such obsessive pursuit is probably not so parallel tiline governed by the gods. So I'll premise that this other world also has its own [Truth].
If that's truly the case, then I believe [Truth]'s world-reconstruction experint isn't actually about reconstructing this world at all. He's probably using this approach to contact his counterpart — the other [Truth] in that other world."
The instant Galusha finished speaking, a streak of fla illuminated the universe and shattered the Void's "firmant."
Under everyone's horrified gazes, the sky collapsed.
...
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