Chapter 1329: Chapter 1329: Altered mory (Super Long Chapter Asking for Monthly Tickets)
“Liu Nan…”
He Ao lowered his head, pressing his hand on the notebook, gazing at the na written in it.
The na wasn’t written neatly, sowhat hastily, but it was indeed his handwriting, suggesting he had written it while standing.
The notebook contained many nas, with similar handwriting, all written under similar circumstances.
He Ao rembered the ‘purpose’ of this notebook.
Within this notebook were those he had ‘helped’ before he turned eighteen, most were people he assisted while apprehending fugitives.
He disliked owing favors to others and didn’t like to hold them over people, so he normally directly asked those he helped to ‘repay’ him with a al.
Whether a feast or a bag of instant noodles, he accepted them all.
But ever since he entered the Extraordinary World, he hadn’t used this notebook anymore.
He Ao’s gaze swept over the checkmarks after each na.
The people he encountered were quite well-behaved, none of them reneged on this al.
In this notebook, there was a checkmark next to Liu Nan’s na, indicating that Liu Nan had also treated him to a al.
Simultaneously, Liu Nan was the last person recorded in this notebook.
This ant before entering the extraordinary, he had had ‘contact’ with Liu Nan.
But in his mind, there was no ‘mory’ related to Liu Nan.
He Ao raised his hand, closing the notebook entirely.
In fact, upon realizing Liu Zhengyun’s cognition gap and receiving Liu Zhengyun’s ‘reminder’, He Ao had vaguely suspected Liu Zhengyun had a ‘mory’ issue.
Because in his ‘cognition’, Liu Zhengyun did not have any conspicuous personality issues; Liu Zhengyun’s abilities did not present scenarios akin to ‘substitute’, which might lead to personality splits.
On the contrary, Liu Zhengyun’s abilities leaned more towards balance and stability.
Even though Liu Zhengyun accumulated many madness factors during his crude promotion process, he shouldn’t have lost control so easily.
Initially, He Ao suspected the pollution from the ‘Eye of the World Fragnt’ caused the loss of control but later ruled out the possibility of pollution-induced loss of control, and upon realizing the Eye of the World Fragnt possessed the power to awaken ‘self’, he vaguely guessed Liu Zhengyun’s ‘loss of control’ likely stemd from another Higher Being.
That Higher Being even altered his ‘cognition’, without him noticing.
Yet under such circumstances, he contacted the Eye of the World Fragnt, which awakened a deeper ‘self’.
But the capabilities of the Eye of the World Fragnt were insufficient to clear away the forged ‘cognition’, and even inadequate to broadly awaken his self, leading to his cognition conflict, subsequently veering towards madness and loss of control.
This too explained why Liu Zhengyun took away the Eye of the World Fragnt, which was essentially an attempt at so ‘self-rescue’.
However, this ‘self-rescue’ behavior further accelerated his cognition gap, leading him to complete loss of control.
And this ability to alter cognition naturally led He Ao to associate it with the mory-modifying and fate-altering ‘sealed item 005: Fate Spinning Wheel’.
Certainly, when He Ao initially ford this hypothesis, he genuinely couldn’t be sure.
He couldn’t determine if his mory was modified, nor whether this modification genuinely ca from ‘005’.
After all, according to the data he viewed in Research Institute 196, 005 could only influence the target through mystical connections if the target is aware of it, even knows of its existence.
So he returned ho, found this old notebook.
He neither had friends nor social engagents, nor did he have the habit of keeping a diary, thus this notebook essentially recorded all his social interactions.
If this notebook contained no information inconsistent with his mory, He Ao would have to seek written records left by the Research Institute or Xidu, or attempt other thods.
Indeed He Ao found discrepancies with his mories, particularly regarding ‘Liu Nan’.
His mory had issues, yet he hadn’t noticed at all.
He looked up, glancing at the pitch-black car window outside, where a fictional eye embedded within an inverted triangle appeared behind him, scanning his soul.
With the power of the Eye of Truth akin to a blade, cutting through the soul with imnse pain, it pierced into his body, peeling away the surface of his soul, ‘seeing’ the depths of his soul’s landscape.
It was densely packed purple spots, uniformly dispersed within He Ao’s soul, nearly completely integrated with He Ao’s soul, and if not for He Ao’s close scrutiny, he wouldn’t have been able to detect their existence.
He attempted to touch these spots, but response was fierce soul-rending agony, these spots had already fused with his soul.
To see what these spots concealed, he would have to tear through them one by one, until the soul was utterly torn apart.
In the previous City of Rong Guang, He Ao was able to see Ruoke En’s mory before it was altered because Ruoke En was close to death, and his soul was already fractured, giving him the chance to glimpse into Ruoke En’s true mories and understanding from those fragnted souls.
He Ao could also endure the intense pain to tear open so spots, peeking into the true mories beneath them.
He could vaguely glean so information from them.
But these spots were densely scattered, like the stars in the sky.
Each spot signified a ‘modified’ mory and understanding.
To fully explore the modified parts, he might need to tear apart his soul for years.
Of course, a more likely outco was that his soul would disintegrate before he even tore through half of it.
In fact, if 005 directly modified He Ao’s mory, it wouldn’t be this troubleso for He Ao to handle.
Moreover, any action by 005 would surely be detected by the Eye of Truth.
Both being at the Angel Tier, although 005 had bizarre abilities, He Ao didn’t think its direct actions could evade the Eye of Truth’s scrutiny.
So 005 took another ‘thod’; it perfectly utilized the ‘derivative effect’ of its own abilities.
In the docunts of Research Institute 196, it was ntioned that after 005 modifies a person’s mory, it not only alters the individual’s understanding but also synchronously alters the mories of other people related to them.
For instance, if 005 makes a person who had bread for breakfast believe they ate an orange, then simultaneously, everyone who knew this person had bread for breakfast would also ‘rember’ them having an orange.
005 wouldn’t alter the actual truth, but it would modify the ‘facts’ within a group’s collective understanding by changing soone’s mory.
It looks like it only modified one person’s mory, but it actually modified the mories of everyone associated with that mory.
This is the derivative effect of 005’s ability.
Obviously, because no direct target was chosen, this derivative effect is lighter and harder to detect compared to 005’s main ability.
He Ao actually realized that by effectively using this derivative effect, 005 could alter a target’s mory by changing the mories of the people around them without directly modifying the target’s mory.
And these ‘spots’ in He Ao’s soul were clearly the results of these ‘derivative changes.’
Each spot might indicate a change in soone’s mory leading to a corresponding change in He Ao’s mory.
It even used a kind of ‘saturated group tactic’ to make He Ao have so many modified parts that he couldn’t attempt to remove them.
After all, with one or two spots, He Ao could endure the pain, and the Eye of Truth could force them open.
And among these modified ‘mories,’ most were actually ineffective modifications, perhaps rely changes in so passerby’s casual remarks, such as changing “what a nice day” to “today’s weather is good.”
The essential aning of these ‘ineffective modifications’ was to disgust He Ao, making it difficult for him to find the truly modified critical mories even if he was willing to pay the price after discovering the truth.
These ‘modifications’ were so ‘subtle’ that He Ao didn’t notice anything amiss.
To evade the perception of the Eye of Truth, it might not even be a one-ti large-scale change, but a gradual modification over ti.
If it weren’t for Liu Zhengyun’s sudden loss of control, He Ao might not have realized his mory had been altered.
If he were a true angel, he might have been able to sense the influence of such a subtle derivative effect, but clearly, he was not.
Even though he possessed angel-tier items and could even manipulate so that were beyond angel-tier, his body and soul remained that of a mortal.
As a sealed item, 005’s control and application of its abilities, as well as its cunning, surpassed all the enemies He Ao had previously encountered.
It might even have ford so sort of collaboration with the ‘Starlight Silhouette’ above the angel from the ruins, and the forces behind it.
Such as how He Ao still didn’t know how 005 established mysticism connections with Liu Zhengyun, Wu Ganglie, and so many ordinary people whose mories had been modified without anyone knowing about it.
With his hand on the notebook, He Ao took a deep breath.
He still couldn’t recall what kind of dealings he had with Liu Nan; he tried to peel back so spots, but all he got were irrelevant mories.
This was still just what he had detected, mories modified with objective evidence.
More that he hadn’t detected left him with no impression at all.
No matter how he tried to recall, his mory seed so complete, as if there was not a single issue.
Sotis, living in a dream might be a good thing.
The old-fashioned train erged from the void, a hint of bright light shining through the windows, He Ao sighed softly and stood up slowly.
He held a phone in his hand, dialed a number, but all that greeted him was an endless busy tone.
This was the third ti he had dialed this number today.
With the last busy tone before the call disconnected, He Ao held his phone and stepped out of the open car door.
This phone number was linked to the leader of Daybreak, and the phone had been left for ‘Hu Wen’ to contact him in ergencies.
But clearly, this ergency contact wasn’t working.
The last ti He Ao spoke with this ‘leader’ was during the Newland City-State incident. After Feiya’s death, He Ao had beco the ‘second in command’ of Daybreak.
Taking a deep breath, He Ao tucked the phone into his pocket, stepped onto the ground, and looked at the tightly shut office door in front of him. He reached out his hand and pushed open the door.
······
“Another new one…”
Yan Yue, who was sitting behind the desk, looked up, seeing the office door being pushed open. Almost as soon as He Ao entered, the exhaustion on her face vanished, replaced by delight, “Minister He?”
“Are the ‘ritual’ events in the Western Lands frequent?”
He Ao walked briskly into the office and got straight to the point.
“A lot,” Yan Yue’s brows furrowed at once, and she handed a thick stack of docunts to He Ao, “I don’t know where so many people are coming from; even so Transcendents from the World Tree are involved. The manpower in the Western Lands was already stretched thin, and dealing with these people conducting rituals is likely sothing they won’t be able to handle for much longer.”
“This is probably just the first wave.”
He Ao quickly skimd the materials on the desk.
The majority of these people conducting rituals are likely those whose mories have been altered by 005. Judging by the number of ‘mory’ spots altered in He Ao, the ones appearing now are only a small portion of those affected.
However, it seems the number of people affected in the Western Lands is far greater than in Central Earth and the Tia Empire.
“Ah?” Hearing He Ao’s words, Yan Yue’s eyes widened, and her finely shaped brows nearly wrinkled into a character for “river,” “We can’t handle this already, and if more co, we’ll really be overwheld.”
“How are things on the side of the Church Knights?”
He Ao looked at her and asked directly.
“Well,” Yan Yue was taken aback, then she lifted her head, looked at He Ao, and after a brief pause, she slowly picked up another docunt next to her, “The communication runes for the Knights have been completed. Chichi and the others tested it, and it works well; they can directly complete the ‘Sacrifice—Grace’ process and arm themselves.”
“That fast?”
He Ao took the docunt and opened it.
A dense rune centered on ‘K’ appeared in He Ao’s field of view.
The patterns wound intricately together, vaguely resembling a magnificent city.
Previously, He Ao had roughly given Lin Chichi and the others a simple rune combining ‘K’ and the rune pointing to the City of Rong Guang, asking them to try to find a more complete communication pattern.
Simply put, he had them find a few with high inspiration to test and correct the drawings based on their intuition.
Since He Ao himself lacked knowledge in this area, he could only exhaustively test different options. He hadn’t expected them to co up with sothing so quickly.
He Ao quickly tested it to confirm the rune was effective, and although his original draft rune was effective, this improved version was a bit more efficient.
If Lin Chichi hadn’t managed to create it, he would have used the draft rune.
“Minister He,” at this mont, Yan Yue, standing beside He Ao, spoke softly, “Do we really have to borrow ‘K’s’ power? That ‘K’ himself…”
He Ao lifted his head, gazed at the woman in front of him, handed the docunt back to her, and gently asked, “Would you be willing to trust ?”
Hearing this, Yan Yue was slightly stunned. Then she looked up, seeing He Ao’s calm and composed face. After a brief pause, she accepted the docunt from He Ao’s hands, nodding heavily.
“Then don’t consider anything else, activate the Church Knights.”
He Ao withdrew his hand and spoke softly.
“Yes!”
Yan Yue straightened her body.
She gazed ahead as an old-fashioned train erged from the void, carrying the other’s figure away.
······
Edge of the city
The morning sunlight passed through the bright window, illuminating the girl’s cheeks.
She wore simple light-colored jeans and a white top, leaning against a long sword box, looking at the paintings on the stained glass of the hall, and stretched lazily.
Woo—
With the sound of the old train’s whistle, the old carriage erged from the void, blending into the light-filled hall.
Clack—
The train door opened, and the gentle young man stood inside the carriage, lifted his head to look at the girl, and extended his hand, “I need your help with sothing.”
The girl looked up at the train rged into the light and the silhouette inside the train, smiled, and said, “Sure.”
She reached behind for the sword box and leapt forward, grasping the young man’s hand.
Then with a firm pull, the young man pulled her into the carriage.
Clack—
The train door closed, and the old train once more delved into the void.
“Sir, who is this?”
Lin Chichi, following behind He Ao, looked at Ye Ying, who was curiously peeking, and before Ye Ying could react, she asked with a smile, “Is it a junior sister?”
“Sort of.”
He Ao glanced at Ye Ying and nodded lightly.
Ye Ying, who had been in another carriage alone, felt a bit dizzy from the transfer just now.
“Huh,” Ye Ying looked at He Ao, then at Lin Chichi. Her muddled mind seed to clear up a bit, and she placed her hands before her, sowhat awkwardly bowing, “Hello, senior sister, my na is Ye Ying.”
“Hey, hey, don’t call that,” Lin Chichi quickly waved her hand, laughing, “I’m Lin Chichi, just call Chichi,”
As she spoke, she winked her left eye at Ye Ying, “I’m still just a kid too.”
“Okay, okay,” Ye Ying clearly hadn’t experienced such a scene before. She instinctively glanced at He Ao beside her, feeling a bit at a loss.
“Alright,” He Ao raised his hand to interrupt the conversation between the two and handed a piece of paper to Lin Chichi, “Chichi, I need your help with this.”
Lin Chichi took the paper, looked at the content, then closed it with a smile, “Sure.”
“If you fail, you might die.”
He Ao glanced at her, speaking softly.
“Everyone dies eventually, right?”
The girl replied with a smile.
Looking at the girl before him, He Ao was montarily reminded of the ‘Slaughter Ga’ involving the Velora. Also on this train, he had asked the girl in front of him to ‘walk into death,’ to which she had unhesitatingly agreed.
His movents paused, and he asked gently, “Now that ‘K’ has such a bad reputation, aren’t you afraid I’m asking you to do sothing terribly wrong?”
“I can’t distinguish those things,” the girl continued to wear a faint smile, her eyes curving like willow leaf-shaped crescents. She stood there like a slender willow branch swaying in the wind, “I only know that in this world, besides my parents, only Brother Hao Yi, sir, and ‘K’ are nice to .”
He Ao stared at the girl in front of him, and after a brief pause, he gently ruffled Lin Chichi’s hair, “Take care of yourself and survive.”
“Okay, sir.”
The girl’s face still bore a sweet smile, and she seed to recall sothing, asking softly, “Sir, it seems everyone is not too ‘kind’ towards ‘K’ now, thinking ‘K’ is an Evil God. Are we now enemies with the whole world?”
“Are you afraid?”
He Ao asked with a smile, looking at Lin Chichi in front.
“I’m not afraid,” the girl shook her head, her sweet cheeks showing so excitent, “It just feels thrilling.”
“I’m not afraid either,” Ye Ying, beside them, also puffed up her chest and stood by Lin Chichi, her voice slightly lackluster in confidence, but she still seriously looked at He Ao and said, “Teacher, I’m not afraid either.”
“Don’t worry,” He Ao looked at the two with a hint of helplessness, laughing, “It’s not yet to the point where the whole world is our enemy.”
His gaze shifted to look at the deep darkness outside the train window, his gaze seemingly traversing the pervasive void and endless universe, through the gray-white dwarf planets, and past the sky-reaching tower,
“Even if soone truly wants to push us into a deadly corner, they must first see if they have the capability.”
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