The Zhen Xin before him had an extraordinarily hoarse voice, and her complexion was alarmingly pale. Though she was working hard to conceal sothing, Cheng Shi could see it clearly — the yellow fog dripping steadily from her back was not overflowing [Chaos] power. It looked more like... blood, disguised as fog.
"You're injured?"
Cheng Shi's pupils contracted sharply. He couldn't believe it. Who could wound a divine being to this degree?
The chaos-fog Zhen Xin smiled and shook her head.
"No. You're seeing things — it's my [Chaos] power spilling out and polluting you, giving you an illusion.
Perhaps you're curious why I would have [Chaos] power... Hm? You're not curious at all. You knew about the [Chaos] Authority being inherited?"
At those words, the yellow fog before Cheng Shi began to boil again. The smile on Zhen Xin's face vanished in an instant. Her eyes flashed first with shock, then urgency. She stepped forward, wanting to grab Cheng Shi and say sothing — but afraid her own aura would contaminate him. She could only force down the emotion surging inside her and say with utter gravity:
"So she's inherited [Chaos]'s authority too. Then you're very close to us now.
But this is not a good thing.
Rember every word I say next: do not touch [Origin]'s power. Do not use [Origin]'s power. Do not retain [Origin]'s power.
It is not sweet honey that can be consud safely — it is poison that kills.
No matter where your future leads, discard it. All of it.
Because once you make contact with it — no matter how brilliant the future you envision looks — that is not a path forward. It is a trap.
[Origin]'s power should not belong to any world. It can do anything, yes — but it has never represented new life. Only destruction.
We only understood this after failure — only realized, with hindsight, that when the first thread of [Origin]'s power entered our world, that world had already entered a countdown to destruction.
The pathetic irony is that we still treated that power as our final backup — deluding ourselves that we could use it to reset the world one more ti when all else failed.
There is no second chance. [It] does not leave much ti for any world. Unless...
No. We never walked that road. So we cannot give you guidance on it.
Cheng Shi — you only need to rember: whatever your plan is, let go of [Origin]'s power. Otherwise, everything will continue to lie under the Creator's shadow. Just as... we do."
As she spoke, the chaos-fog behind Zhen Xin began churning once more. The sight of it being steadily torn apart reappeared before Cheng Shi.
Zhen Xin glanced back at it with self-deprecating resignation. "You see that? True void is devouring everything. When the chaos has been fully consud — the spaceti storm will arrive. That is the destruction of the old experint, and the beginning of the new..."
Spaceti storm!
The mont he heard those words, Cheng Shi's mind went directly to that pitch-black storm — and the long bridge that could carry life to wherever the will pointed. So its appearance actually signified one world's destruction and another world's birth?
Then the spaceti storm he had once experienced — which world had silently ceased to exist at that mont?
Cheng Shi was shaken deeply, but what shook him more was the revelation that [Origin]'s power was actually killing poison.
Then why had the Fun God gone through the trouble of the false Curtain Call to lure a thread of [Origin]'s power?
Breaking the pot because it was already cracked? Giving up?
No — the Fear Faction was still alive. They had to still be finding a way.
Cheng Shi steadied himself, forcing down the turbulence of shock and suspicion. Facing a divine being, he had no way to judge whether her words were true or false — but out of respect for the Jokers and trust in Zhen Xin, he chose to believe.
He drew a deep breath and said once more: "Thank you, Zhen Xin."
The chaos-fog Zhen Xin visibly blinked — clearly not expecting him to address her that way. The gaze she turned on Cheng Shi carried a thread of longing. She smiled faintly.
"Just the obsession of soone about to die. It may have frightened you — but Cheng Shi, don't doubt yourself. You must believe in yourself.
I have a rough idea of why we're eting like this. You need a spaceti storm to get to the Real Universe?"
"..."
At those words, Cheng Shi's expression shifted. He didn't dare keep engaging. The fact that she could ask this question ant she had the ability to "create" a spaceti storm at any ti. But storms like this only appeared at a world's destruction. Zhen Xin was a living being within that world — even having inherited a divine throne and beco a god, could she represent the entire world?
She could. She absolutely could.
On the condition that she was all that remained of that world. Then her destruction would be the world's destruction.
"They..."
Zhen Xin was quiet for a long ti. She lowered her head. "They still wanted to try. But the more they tried, the fewer of them remained. Until at last there was truly no road left.
The reason I've survived until now isn't that I was waiting for you. I was waiting to see if there might still be a chance to see her... any version of her would have done.
But it seems all of that was wishful thinking after all.
If my death lets you move one step further than we did — then doesn't that an I beat all of them?
Heh. I'm the last winner. They were just so bad at this."
Then the chaos-fog went completely and utterly still.
Cheng Shi's heart clenched. He reached out instinctively to hold her back. But it was already too late.
That lone, resolute defiance had finally found its true freedom — and at the sa ti, put the final period on the last line of that world struggling desperately to survive.
The Magician within the chaos-fog completed her curtain call through a scattering. She left the only audience mber before her with an unimaginably terrifying spaceti storm.
Watching restless, disordered orbs of pitch-black light flood his entire field of vision, Cheng Shi held his breath, expression blank.
He was sowhat numb to everything before him now.
Every world had its wrong turns. Who could be certain their own path forward wasn't also a wrong turn?
No one could. No one.
All there was to do was grit your teeth and keep walking.
Darkness descended. Ti collapsed. Space fell. The silent spaceti storm swallowed the flash of a black-hemd dress vanishing through the crack of [Existence].
A pity she never got to see it after all.
...
The storm in [Existence]'s cracks proved different from the Real Universe's. This ti, Cheng Shi didn't enter any dark space and wasn't swept into an unfamiliar world. He was thrown directly into the Real Universe — deposited onto the Spaceti Dolphin Bridge in the storm's wake.
Watching the enormous Void-Whiskered Swallowing Dolphins swallow darkness and exhale light, sothing in Cheng Shi's chest stirred with a strange sense of "as if it were just yesterday." For real this ti. He had seen these massive creatures so recently — how did it feel as though an enormous amount of ti had already passed?
Cheng Shi shook his head and cleared his mind. He knew ti waited for no one, and he didn't have much to waste here. From this mont on, he had to accomplish the purpose of coming to the Real Universe quickly.
And the first step was to find a fellow traveler on the Dolphin Bridge.
He hadn't forgotten — only when two lives with the sa destination t each other would the bridge below them anchor toward a target world. A single person alone could not use the spaceti bridge's power to move.
He had tried using his shadow. Perhaps the "split" wasn't thorough enough — he had failed.
But Cheng Shi wasn't in a rush. He knew how to find another person's presence on the bridge. Even not knowing who he would encounter — he was certain that sowhere in the Real Universe would be soone like that.
So with a thought, Cheng Shi disappeared from where he stood.
When he opened his eyes again, a figure had indeed appeared at the far end of the long bridge — but the identity of that figure was far beyond anything Cheng Shi had expected.
How could it be—
"Big Cat?!"
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