[Vol. 6] Chapter 154: mory and Reality
Shangguan Hong’s already furrowed brows deepened even further.
“I don’t understand. Why are you asking this, Miss Violet?”
Ah… well, the answer is already clear.
Violet shook her head with a touch of helplessness.
“What I’m about to say may seem strange to you, but no matter what, please stay quiet and let finish explaining. Understood?”
Taking so ti, Violet briefly explained the events in the tomb regarding the [Naless Demon Sovereign] and his ability to strip away [Existence]. She kept the explanation concise, avoiding unnecessary details, as the people before her were not close confidants. Her goal was simply to convey the key points.
By the end of her explanation, Shangguan Hong and the others had serious expressions, clearly deep in thought.
“So what you’re saying is… I had a sister who, like , was a disciple of the [Shocking God Sect]. Our group originally consisted of eight mbers when we entered the tomb, but during an encounter with the [Naless Demon Sovereign], three of us, including my sister, had their [Existence] stripped away and were forgotten by us?”
“That’s my theory. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
Violet’s gaze swept over the mbers of the [Shocking God Sect] again.
The group, excluding their instructor, originally consisted of eight mbers—four n and four won—a balanced and well-rounded composition. But now, only four male disciples and one female disciple remained, with the other three having vanished without a trace.
If Violet’s mory was correct, the missing individuals were:
1) A cold, aloof girl nad Shangguan Yao, who had faced Hen in the second sparring match.
2) A plain-looking girl with pigtails, whose eyes had held a curious spark.
3) A strikingly beautiful girl with light blue-green hair and a pure, gentle deanor, the most notable of the group.
Shangguan Hong’s brows furrowed tightly, his confusion and concern deepening as he struggled to process this revelation.
“…Could you tell more about them?”
“I don’t know much in detail,” Violet admitted, “but your sister’s na was Shangguan Yao. Does that ring any bell at all?”
“…”
The double-pupiled young man remained silent, his expression torn between deep thought and confusion.
“It is strange,” he eventually muttered. “Now that you ntion it, the fight between Miss Hen and Liu Quan wasn’t that loud. Why would it have drawn the [Black Scaled Army] from miles away? Even stranger, I never even questioned it before. It always just seed… reasonable.”
Watching Shangguan Hong and the others grapple with their thoughts, Violet began piecing together the true nature of the “deprivation of existence” phenonon.
It seed the process didn’t entirely erase a person’s existence from reality at its core. After all, relationships and events are intertwined like an intricate web. If one node in that web were suddenly and completely removed, it would cause massive disruptions and potentially collapse the entire structure.
What actually disappeared were the [traces], not the [reality] itself.
For example, if Shangguan Yao had never existed in the first place, then the fight between her and Hen, which had drawn the [Black Scaled Army]’s attention, wouldn’t have occurred. The events that followed would have taken a completely different path.
However, those events *did* happen, even if the mories and records of them had been hidden or obscured by so kind of [causal correction force]. This correction worked to erase traces of the person from all perceptions and evidence, creating the illusion that they never existed.
Interestingly, this [correction force] seed unable to affect beings beyond causality, those referred to as gods.
‘Huh. Being a god sure has its perks,’ Violet thought to herself, her mind wandering.
Not only does her [Information Detection] always malfunction when it cos across fake or tampered data, but gods are conveniently immune to a bunch of large-scale negative effects too. No wonder everyone’s so desperate to beco one.
Smirking at her own thoughts, Violet retrieved a small vial from her bag. Opening it, she released a luminous orb of light that floated out slowly, glowing as brightly as a burning fla.
With a flash of light, three figures suddenly appeared before Violet.
Even when he saw them, Shangguan Hong didn’t seem to recall anything about them. However, through reasoning and the prior conversations, he seed to piece together part of the truth.
“This is…”
“Rember, you owe one,” Violet said with a sly smile.
Long before she finalized her agreent with Wen Zhengyang and began sealing the tomb, Violet had already realized what had likely happened to these people. She had conducted a quiet search in the vicinity.
At the ti, the three girls’ physical bodies had been standing nearby, side by side. Like the [Black Scaled] soldiers they had found earlier in the sealed chamber, the three had remained eerily frozen in various unnatural postures. Strangely, none of the passersby, not the soldiers, the [Shocking God Sect] mbers, or even Murong Yun, had noticed them. It was as if the three figures were nothing more than large rocks in the area.
Violet hadn’t revealed this imdiately. Instead, she quietly stored the three girls, whose [Existence] had been stripped away, leaving them reclassified as [Objects] by the laws of reality, in her bag and brought them here.
Now, the luminous orbs of [Existence] were drawn to their respective bodies. The light divided in mid-air into three parts: two smaller clusters and one significantly larger one. Each floated gently toward a body, rging back into the empty shells that, despite still being alive, had seed frozen in ti.
“…!”
In that mont, everyone except Violet trembled slightly, as if they’d just awakened from a long dream. Their expressions shifted subtly, filled with shock and confusion.
“How is this possible?!”
“I… I didn’t even realize until just now…”
“Xiao Yao…”
Though Xiao Kong wasn’t particularly close to the three girls, her expression grew complex as she shook her head with a bitter smile.
“The correction force of causality is as imperceptible as ever. Even I find it hard to sense… Thank goodness you were here.”
The silver-haired girl, who seed to have anticipated this outco, added calmly, her tone as composed as her expression.
“In the grand sche of things, all living beings in this world are but insignificant specks of dust compared to what lies beyond. That’s why people go to such desperate lengths to break through the insurmountable divide and seize control of their fate… how tragic.”
Having regained their [Existence], Shangguan Yao, Yanzi, and the other girl slowly woke up, their gazes wandering in confusion as they tried to comprehend what had happened.
Violet, however, had no intention of explaining the situation to them again. How the [Shocking God Sect] chose to handle this matter was none of her concern. Her intervention was rely to validate her theories and, incidentally, build goodwill to possibly gain more information about the [Endless Wasteland Sea].
While the [Shocking God Sect] mbers were busy discussing the events among themselves, Violet and her group, being unaffiliated with them, found a spot to sit and rest. They planned to wait until the others had cald down before discussing the next steps.
Unexpectedly, one of the girls detached herself from the group and approached them.
“Hm?”
“Hello. My na is Yanzi… you’re Miss Violet, right? Thank you for saving my life.”
The girl, dressed in the uniform of the [Shocking God Sect], had her hair styled in an unusual swallowtail braid. Though her appearance was modestly pretty rather than striking, she carried herself with a sincerity that showed in her polite bow as she addressed Violet.
Violet raised an eyebrow, observing the girl with an unassuming presence but a hair color curiously similar to her own and Xiao Kong’s. She shook her head lightly and replied in a calm tone.
“…It’s nothing. I didn’t go out of my way to save you. If you really want to thank , show it through your actions instead.”
Yanzi smiled faintly, seemingly unaffected by the fear and strangeness of her recent ordeal. Instead, she exuded a newfound hope, her excitent barely concealed. After glancing back at her companions, she turned her gaze to Violet’s group of four who were also looking at her.
“Miss Violet, I’d like to have a private conversation with you, if that’s alright. Is now a good ti?”
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