Cheng Shi arrived at the world's edge.
Ti often ca here to deduce the world's trajectories and ceaselessly synchronize the "experintal ti" with the Real Universe.
On the way, Cheng Shi's mind kept replaying everything Ti had ever said to him. He was so lost in thought that by the ti he looked up, he realized there was indeed a figure in this stretch of Void — but it was decidedly not Ti. It was...
"Doctor?!"
Cheng Shi was startled. "What are you doing here?"
That's right — the figure was Wang Weijin!
He had his back to Cheng Shi, his fra noticeably tense. When he heard Cheng Shi's voice, he turned slowly. A remnant of shock still clung to his face, his entire body stiff as a board.
He seed to be holding sothing in his hands. As he turned, he instinctively hid it behind his back. Seeing this, Cheng Shi's heart lurched:
"What happened? Did you co for an audience with Ti? Where is He?"
The Doctor took a deep breath and shook his head.
"He..."
The Doctor hadn't even begun to explain. But inside Cheng Shi's skull, a detonation wiped everything to white.
His five senses went haywire. He lost the image before his eyes. His hearing dissolved into static. The Doctor's voice beca unreachable. In that mont, only a single sentence remained in his mind:
"I will leave — when you need ."
Cheng Shi's body shuddered. Even though he knew this mont was inevitable — even though he knew every "sacrifice" by the Fear Faction was for this world's sake — when it actually happened, the sensation was indistinguishable from betrayal.
They would all leave him in the end.
Without even a word of warning.
"He... left?" Cheng Shi fought down his grief. His voice was leaden.
The Doctor nodded. Face grave, he brought forward the hand he'd been hiding. In his palm lay sothing Cheng Shi would never have dread of.
"This is...?"
"A pointer." The Doctor held up the extraordinarily ordinary pointer, his expression complex, and said, "It looks more like an hour hand — a clock hand.
I don't know what it signifies. But I know it was never ant for . This is for you.
Praise be to Yu Xi."
"..."
'An hour hand?'
'Ti's parting gift to ... is a clock hand?'
'At this very hour — the mont I beca the Pact's Proxy with near-absolute dominion over the Universe — He finally acknowledged that fictitious title I once assud? Lord Hour Hand?'
For a mont, Cheng Shi was dumbfounded. A flicker of absurdity scattered his grief. He was silent for a beat, then asked again:
"Where did He go?"
"I don't know. Praise be to Yu Xi."
"...What exactly happened? And how did you end up here, Doctor?"
Cheng Shi was intensely curious. By all reason, the Doctor had absolutely no relationship with Ti — their only connection was that the Doctor frequently employed Ti's power in his experints. But was that enough for Ti to specifically summon him before departing?
Enough to give this farewell's sole opportunity to the Doctor rather than to Cheng Shi, the man upon whom the Universe's future depended?
No — that couldn't be right. Ti had silently guarded the world for countless ages. He would never waste effort at the most critical juncture. The Doctor's presence here had to carry profound significance — even a clue pointing to that answer.
With that thought, Cheng Shi's gaze grew solemn.
"Tell
everything you just experienced. Every last word, Doctor. This is critical."
As the number-one player on the Truth ladder and the apex of analytical minds — even if not quite on Wei Mu's level — Wang Weijin was the pinnacle representative of intelligence-type players in the Faith Ga. He naturally understood that everything he'd experienced was extraordinary. So, with utmost gravity, he recounted what he had witnessed — including what he had been doing before.
"Not long ago, I was in my laboratory replicating Selius's Divinity Germination Experint. You once said that faith is the only thread for deciphering the current state of divine power, so I wanted to experience firsthand the genesis of new divinity that Selius had once succeeded at.
That was when Ti summoned . No warning. No explanation.
Those eyes — as deep as black holes — opened directly above my head. He looked at
and said:
'Watch . Do not blink.'
I was stunned, baffled. But I did as He asked, because I knew Ti was not an enemy of Yu Xi. Praise be to Yu Xi.
And so we began a long, unbroken stare. For soone accustod to hours of unblinking observation during experints, the requirent wasn't onerous. Besides, I'd never had the chance to study a deity from this close. I beca absorbed, instinctively analyzing every piece of 'divine information' hidden within those eyes.
I had always assud a deity's eyes were simply a manifestation of will — an abstract expression. I was wrong. I discovered that Ti's eyes were physical entities. They literally were a pair of black holes!
Black holes should be unobservable. But the arcs of distorted, leaping ti around those eyes painted a picture of the black hole's wonder. This wasn't a traditional ultra-dense stellar body — it was more like a ceaselessly folded and compressed collection of shattered ti.
If I were to describe it in Death's fashion, I'd be inclined to call it a ti graveyard.
Academic circles have long held the view that a black hole's ultimate fate is the infinitely compressed singularity. But from my observation of Ti's eyes, I discovered sothing within those black holes: temporal rifts, flickering in and out of visibility, impossible to ignore.
Yes — the black hole seed to have cracked. Or, to put it in terms more fitting for the ga's logic: the infinite number of ti 'corpses' had caused the ti graveyard to overflow, forcing the ti that should have been buried to twist in an eruption-like manner. The explosive force even gave 'dead' ti a hair's-breadth, logic-defying possibility of resurrection — captured by the observer in the instant it attempted to escape, manifesting as temporal rifts.
This 'truth' I had never once encountered drew
in completely. I threw myself into it body and soul, wanting to explore more of Ti's essence.
Praise be to Yu Xi, for granting
such a wondrous opportunity.
But it was precisely then that I forgot His instruction. I blinked.
The next second...
He vanished.
All that remained in the Void were violent ripples of spaceti, right there—"
The Doctor pointed behind him. In the instant he turned to look, a gleam flickered in his eyes. "Just like the ti you vanished from the Mockery and Jeering.
I suspect He breached the spaceti barrier and departed for the Real Universe. But as for the aning of everything Ti did, I still have no clue. Including this hour hand.
From a Truth perspective, the most likely interpretation is that He was trying to convey so principle through the temporal escape inside His eyes. But there was too little ti. I haven't been able to work it out yet.
Do you have any leads?
Praise be to Yu Xi."
"..."
'I had so, actually. Then you rattled on and on, and now they're gone.'
Cheng Shi's solemn expression shifted. He had the nagging feeling the Doctor had over-complicated sothing, yet he couldn't dismiss the Doctor's analysis — after all, with Wei Mu gone, Wang Weijin now occupied the very top of the intelligence hierarchy among players.
He frowned slightly and asked: "You said you were replicating Selius's experint before coming here. Any results?"
The Doctor shook his head:
"None. Self-affird faith is too feeble. It requires massive emotional stimulation, and right now the devotion in my heart..."
He trailed off, glancing at Cheng Shi with a peculiar expression. "...makes it difficult to sustain peak emotional intensity for extended periods.
In deeper experints, devotion helps
focus and stay calm. But for this type of experint, devotion actually becos a hindrance.
Still, it wasn't entirely fruitless. I found more mutations in the slices trending toward 0221's will. Coincidentally, this ti the mutation was also in Experintal Subject 0221.
It seems they've never given up expressing their own will.
But that's all in the past. I have ways to handle it. Praise be to Yu Xi."
"..."
Cheng Shi closed his eyes.
'Please stop praising. My head hurts.'
...
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