Thump, thump, thump.
Ming’an could hear his own heartbeat racing in the pitch darkness, his ears full of resonance and whispering.
He scratched his arm, and the pain snapped him to clarity.
"—Hello, I am Yasa Acto."
Under the light, a white cat sitting on a swivel chair slowly turned around to look at Su Ming’an standing at the entrance of the basent, "Surprised to see ?"
"..."
Ming’an’s vision couldn’t focus.
"Hmm?" The white cat appeared slightly startled, "So surprised you can’t even respond?"
Ming’an wiped the blood dripping from the corner of his mouth.
It seed he had rewound to the mont in the basent when he first saw the white cat, before going upstairs to find Lin Guang in the hall, and before seeing the spring screening room for the middle-aged.
The impact of emotional resonance on a person’s thoughts, mories, and emotions. This rewind surely had issues; he hadn’t been in such bad shape before.
The white cat narrowed its eyes, "This terrible state of your spirit... The aftereffects of Little Beili’s emotional resonance affected you this much?"
Ming’an’s pupils quivered, gradually finding his voice again, "...No."
He pressed his temples, trying to shake off the resonance and whispers in his ears, only to see the white cat gracefully leap off the chair and lift its forelimbs to cradle his face.
The posture was indeed bizarre, a gigantic cat as tall as a man standing before him, its paws supporting his chin, white fur nearly brushing his eyelashes and cheeks.
"As you can see, I am Acto’s AI," the white cat said, "By now you must understand the Three-Dinsional Principle... However, the most important thing is to adjust your state now."
Ming’an blinked, his cheeks feeling a bit ticklish.
The white cat, holding his face, whispered softly, "Follow my lead, take a deep breath. Co on, pause for two seconds in the middle. Continue, exhale—inhale—"
Following the white cat’s instructions to breathe, after ten seconds, Ming’an actually felt the resonance by his ears had lessened a bit. The white cat, as Acto’s AI, really knew these little tricks to adjust his state.
"Do you need to hear the Three-Dinsional Principle again?" asked the white cat.
Of course, Ming’an wouldn’t listen to the white cat’s mockery of college students again, "No need, I understand."
"Do you have any questions for ?" the white cat asked.
"About Lin Guang. I want to know everything about him," said Su Ming’an.
"...Lin Guang," the white cat murmured the na softly, "Ming’an, let ask you a question."
"Go ahead."
"If you were a transmigrator, and you used your foreknowledge of the plot to acquire a safe ant for the protagonist, containing treasures, though you don’t know the safe’s password. However, in the original story, the protagonist, through sheer luck and misunderstanding, guessed a password and opened the safe," the white cat said, "What would you do in that situation?"
"Since it’s like this, I should put the safe back where it was. When the protagonist cos to take the treasure, I’ll hide and watch how the protagonist stumbles upon so password by mistake, which will open the safe," Su Ming’an said.
"Exactly." The white cat patted its soft paw pads in agreent, "So, how should a deity get the password to the Dawn System? You know the Dawn System uses a dynamic password, which can only be triggered by a specific administrator account, but the deity himself is not an administrator."
Su Ming’an’s eyes lit up.
The white cat had only given an example, but he suddenly understood a lot of information, piecing together scattered clues in his mind at this mont.
"So... the deity will simulate everything to look like the ’storyline’ from the beginning, waiting for —the administrator account—to trigger the password. anwhile, he hides sowhere I can’t see, silently watching trigger these passwords..." Su Ming’an paused then added, "No, even so, why hasn’t the deity succeeded in obtaining the complete Dawn Code to shut down the Dawn System, even after more than two thousand simulations of Caius Tower? I’m just one of these instances."
"Because..." The white cat grinned, "I can’t tell you. It’s my ace up the sleeve."
"Is there surveillance again?" Su Ming’an asked.
"Everywhere," the white cat replied.
Su Ming’an stood there, pondering.
He now understood why during the era of the Dawn War, the deity assisted him in commanding the war—it was to manipulate his actions so that each of his moves would be on the sa "frequency."
According to the principles of the Dawn Code, only an administrator acting within a specific frequency can trigger the "sa sequence" of the password.
In the course of many simulations, the deity had already obtained several digits of the password and likely only one or two digits were still unknown. The deity needed to keep Su Ming’an’s actions within the sa sequence to trigger the remaining sa sequence of passwords.
The deity knew about the existence of the World ga, and the arrival of Su Ming’an, an outsider, was within his expectations. The deity perhaps used the ignorance of this "outsider" to devise this plan, creating an information asymtry—by the ti Su Ming’an had yet to collect all five digits of the password, the deity, following the simulation experience, might have already completed the sequence.
As for the words said to the deity in Lin Guang’s mory, "Don’t worry, I’ll do as the prior plot dictated," it could be to reset the "safe" back to the state where the "protagonist guesses the password," to prevent the "protagonist" from guessing a different password due to changes in the environnt, causing the password guessed by chance to disappear and the "safe" to remain unopenable.
This is a cunning plan that straddles ti, space, and dinsions. The deity had made counterasures, but Acto probably also had ways to counter these counterasures.
"You’re very perceptive, catching on with just a hint," the white cat said with a smile upon seeing Su Ming’an deep in thought, "I bet the audience in your live stream is totally confused."
Su Ming’an made no comnt; in this Ninth World, he often had the feeling that the "fourth wall" was being broken. Everyone seems to be all too familiar with the World ga and the live stream.
Seeing that the ti the deity would pursue him was almost upon him, he bid farewell to the white cat and quickly made his way to the top floor of the lobby according to the original process.
Passing by Noel, Su Ming’an instructed Noel to lead the people inside the building to evacuate first, to prevent the incident from the last loop where Noel fell from the building.
Since Su Ming’an was quick this ti, the deity hadn’t arrived yet, and only Lin Guang was in the lobby.
In the center of the hall, the young man with white hair hung his head low, his fra as thin as paper. The slightly oversized Hanfu on him hung like a rack of bones.
Crimson tubes gnawed at his back like a blooming flower. Lin Guang remained motionless, seemingly trapped in a hallucination once again, an all too common state for him.
This ti, Su Ming’an didn’t shoot at Lin Guang but instead approached him proactively.
"Lin Guang! Co to your senses!" Su Ming’an went straight to him and "smack" - slapped Lin Guang across the face, trying to awaken him from the hallucination.
The slap had a significant effect, as the confusion in Lin Guang’s eyes gradually cleared. He looked at Su Ming’an, who was extrely close, with so disbelief.
"Lewis, why would you approach ?" Lin Guang paused for a mont before speaking out in a wispy tone, his gaze like a scorching thorn.
...Why didn’t you run away?
...Every ti you saw , you acted as if you saw a disastrous flood or a ferocious beast, as if you wished you could kill quickly and get it over with. Why aren’t you running away this ti?
In that instant, looking into Lin Guang’s eyes, Su Ming’an suddenly felt that Lin Guang... seed to be anticipating his escape.
How could Lin Guang possibly think that way?
Could it be that Lin Guang always thought like that?
"I won’t run." Su Ming’an stated firmly, "I want to stay."
Lin Guang’s lips parted, barely making a sound, "Have you finally... agreed to beco my friend?"
In that mont, staring into Lin Guang’s eyes, Su Ming’an finally saw sothing... akin to joy, sothing as alive as a human being.
A wilting lily cradled in Lin Guang’s palm shimred within the overlapping hues of red and purple light, before a breathtakingly beautiful scene.
Faced with such a magnificent sight, Su Ming’an could only think of the previous cycle, where Lin Guang’s corpse lay like a dead dog in the city-state after a rain shower. Even the deities were shocked by Lin Guang’s arrangents—it must have been an extensively far-reaching, perfect trap.
None of Ya Sa’s companions truly betrayed one another.
Su Ming’an had thought before that Lin Guang might indeed be a good person. But to trust Lin Guang completely just for a fleeting possibility would be irresponsible to others.
He had realized long ago that Lin Guang’s behavior was always contradictory. Wishing to kill him, yet always letting him go. Like a machine malfunctioning, no matter how you calculated it, the correct answer could never be reached.
It’s like...
A piece of white paper sared with stains.
"I will be with you. Whatever you want to do, I will join you," said Su Ming’an.
Lin Guang’s mouth twitched slightly, and he suddenly reached out, seizing Su Ming’an’s hand, "Lewis, let’s escape this place."
Escape? Where could they escape to?
The path before them was imrsed in darkness.
There was no light, only the color of the cold, rainy night.
"Follow ."
Lin Guang led him on a frantic run, bursting through the darkness, his white hair scattering like powdered frost in the biting wind. They dashed through shattered windows, leaping upwards.
Lin Guang seed to have activated sothing, and when Su Ming’an looked back, the entire central governnt building began to collapse.
One circle, two circles, three circles, azure lightning snaked around the squared-off building, followed by a dazzling display of sparks.
As if an order had been upended, the iconic skyscraper, which had stood for over forty years in Doomsday City, started to crumble amidst the explosions on every floor. Nurous figures flickered in the night, seemingly people fleeing the building. Noel must be organizing soldiers and players to leave.
Crowds stread out of windows and doors, pouring into the streets like dark, ashy rivers, quickly filling the boulevards.
Watching this unfold, Su Ming’an’s heart raced. He felt like he was standing on the tiline of history, resonating with the fate of the entire world.
"Lin Guang, did you blow up the central governnt building?" Su Ming’an asked, "Why?"
He had a premonition.
The story had developed to its end and was finally drawing to a close.
"The Dawn System is divided into two. One part is within , and the other is in the valley of Beili Sier. The deities once conquered the valley of Beili Sier and preserved that part of the Dawn System in this building," Lin Guang explained. "If the building is destroyed, then only the part within remains."
"What’s the point?" asked Su Ming’an.
They stepped onto the rooftop as the lower floors of the building collapsed. Due to the severe tremors, Su Ming’an’s vision blurred as if the world was toppling and being reborn amidst destruction.
And in front of him, the white-haired youth turned around, his face expressing extraordinary freedom. His white hair lifted, like the wings of a dove.
Facing Su Ming’an, he curled his lips, smiling faintly.
It was a smile that had never appeared on his face before, one that nearly resembled a normal person’s smile after countless practices.
"It has aning," Lin Guang stated. "The deity’s target will beco the Dawn System within . He will definitely co after ."
Su Ming’an recalled how, in the last cycle, Lin Guang’s body had been left without a heart, as if it had been brutally extracted by a deity. Clearly, the deity’s goal at that ti was to obtain the Dawn System inside Lin Guang.
Now, by blowing up the building, Lin Guang accelerated this process, and the deity would certainly co after him in desperate haste.
If Su Ming’an hadn’t said those words to provoke Lin Guang in the last cycle, perhaps Lin Guang wouldn’t have gone mad, trapped in the illusion of chasing butterflies, nor would he have died from the deity’s ambush.
Things should have been just like they are now.
Maybe what Su Ming’an was about to witness was what Lin Guang originally intended to do—the plan prepared over two thousand three hundred simulations.
"What are you preparing to do?" Su Ming’an said softly.
"Woo—!" Lin Guang whistled.
A speck of brilliant red appeared in the sky.
A gigantic crimson butterfly erged from the night, flitting towards them. With a lift of its wings, it caught Su Ming’an and Lin Guang, their wing scales gleaming brilliantly, as if they ford a bridge across the galaxy.
The scarlet butterfly soared into the heights, with Su Ming’an standing on its wings. His black hair billowed in the wind, intertwining with Lin Guang’s white hair in mid-air, like two butterflies, one black, one white.
Su Ming’an looked back to see the skyscraper gradually collapsing.
"Boom—Boom—Boom!!"
The building crumbled downwards, brick by brick, grain by grain, all dissolving into dust swept up in the air, like a sandcastle blown over by an invisible hand amidst the wind. This landmark of Doomsday City, which had witnessed the long years of war, was eting its endpoint today.
For so reason, Su Ming’an felt a solemn sense of an era coming to a close.
It was as if... the building had already collapsed many, many tis before, humanity had resisted countless tis, and he was finally witnessing the conclusion.
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