CHAPTER 1026: CHAPTER 1023: "THE RIDDLER STRIKES ME, EH!

When Shadow was killed by Su Wensheng, Chao Yan saw it.

Through the coast, she heard Shadow’s cry, yet she couldn’t break away from the intense battle. Until—Su Ming’an, who had already reset once, came and rescued her in time.

"It’s... you..." she said.

In the instant their gazes met, Su Ming’an shifted his eyes, a gesture of social anxiety when confronted with a stranger too close. As if unable to respond to her gaze in proximity.

...Yes, strangers.

If not for Su Wensheng killing Shadow, Su Ming’an himself wouldn’t even have come to the edge of the world. Yet, even facing a stranger, he still endured the burning pain to protect her.

Chao Yan bit into Su Ming’an’s shoulder, knowing well that Su Ming’an’s blood was useless; she just spitefully wanted to see—how he would react to the provocation of such a "stranger" as her.

"What are you doing!" Xiao Jingsan’s roar arose.

And Chao Yan met Su Ming’an’s—that calm, steady gaze, like a windless and waveless sea surface, which startled her with the realization that deep years seemed buried beneath those eyes.

"I understand." He simply said.

His voice was as light as the evening breeze by the ear.

This is the seventh day of the instance, the battle of becoming a god officially begins.

This is the best cycle; Su Ming’an seemingly prophetic announced the start of the battle of becoming a god before the deities issued their oracle, even able to utilize Zou Yuqing’s instant death rule to instantly suppress Qingniao and Mizushima Kawa Sora.

Temple, angel, follower, papyrus... all sorts of false stories crafted by Su Ming’an became the "real" mythology of the Old God in people’s eyes, like an ideal nation built out of thin air. He stood in front of the camera, eyes tranquil, speaking of these castles in the air with a mournful tone—as if at that moment, Chao Yan truly saw the revival of the Old God.

When Su Ming’an focused under the spotlight, she, in the shadows, quietly suppressed enemies that might pose a threat to Su Ming’an based on her nine cycles of experience. No one knew of these actions.

...

[Chao Yan’s Notes:]

[Game Days: The eighth day, morning.]

[Inner Note: This day, he started the game "Fate Simulator". This is also... the most critical day. Su Wensheng would lead him to the Prophecy Stone Wall.]

...

After waking in the church, Su Ming’an and Alice went to the seaside, encountering winds, lying on the beach.

Chao Yan watched them from a long distance without approaching. She vaguely felt that Su Ming’an seemed very exhausted—had he triggered many resets with Little Su?

Su Wensheng appeared on the beach, providing clues about Hei Que. Next, Su Ming’an would go to Huo Muli’er Nation.

"Huo Muli’er Nation... there shouldn’t be any threats. Su Ming’an won’t reach the Prophecy Stone Wall anytime soon, especially since Hei Que won’t trust him." Chao Yan thought silently: "This is the best cycle, many support the Old God, Su Ming’an’s strength steadily progresses. The action I should take now... is to raise his favorability, making him start trusting me."

Yet she hesitated, watching Alice closely accompany Su Ming’an.

She knew the connection between Alice and her—she had once seen herself in the mirror, with an overlapping shadow—her shadow bore Alice’s appearance. In some sense, Alice was like her "past life". If not for the timeline fusion brought by the tower, she wouldn’t have met Alice in this lifetime.

"Alice will inevitably become the Goddess, it’s a responsibility she can’t refuse. So I’ll wait another half-day for Alice to leave... that way, raising favorability could be smoother." Chao Yan withdrew silently.

—But what she did not expect,

is that during her half-day of keeping distance from Su Ming’an.

—He arrived at the Prophecy Stone Wall.

Because in her mind Hei Que, who couldn’t possibly trust Su Ming’an—was used by Su Ming’an with the Ruler’s Skill.

...

[Chao Yan’s Notes:]

[Game Days: The eighth day, afternoon.]

[Inner Note: No, no, no... no, no!!]

...

Among blazing flames, the youth’s sword danced fiercely like flames.

Fragmented words gradually emerged on the Prophecy Stone Wall—the Prophecy Stone Wall had already foreseen all the actions Su Ming’an would take this cycle.

Su Ming’an remained still before the shattered Prophecy Stone Wall, suddenly comprehending many things in a moment.

"Beep, beep, beep beep—"

The bomb within him echoed, as he looked at the deity holding an umbrella amidst the flames, for a moment—he seemed to recall the deity from the Ninth Cycle—also with such a bright red umbrella, and such calm and unwavering eyes.

The umbrella remained the original umbrella, the world remained the original world, but time was no longer the original time.

"—I’ll wait for you at sea," the deity said softly.

The bomb’s explosion couldn’t be prevented, Su Ming’an would inevitably trigger a reset.

"—Alright, I’ll wait for you," Su Ming’an said with a smile.

His smile was not fierce, for he knew if the explosion trigger wasn’t his own reset, he’d be stuck by the deity waiting at the previous reset point.

He watched the deity’s back, slowly sat down, gently pressing his fingers against the bomb at his abdomen, awaiting the end of life.

For a moment, he felt lost.

Since the Tenth World began, he seemed always adrift in the torrent of destiny, constantly pulled by countless threads. Some were of goodwill, some of malice. Even now, he felt suffocated, like an infinite looping nightmare. The flames scorched the air thin, stalling his breathing.

Even if he resets again, what can he do?

Even if time rewinds, where can he go?

To pass this instance perfectly, he must break the Prophecy Stone Wall according to the main quest, but breaking it inevitably leads to a world reset, everything starts anew. Like walking an endless Mobius Ring. Unless he abandons the main quest hint and stubbornly finds a new path by himself.

A new... path.

Oh, how lost, how difficult.

He raised his hands, slowly covering his face. He still couldn’t see the live broadcast room’s comments in the upper right corner, like unclear snowflakes.

People outside the instance must be anxious, watching his repeats over and over, unable to remind him of anything. If today was many days after the instance activation, some might have already cleared the instance, as they won’t defy the deities. Like Eni, Bei Wang, Luna, Bonnie... they should have already ended the instance, even if the instance’s ending is hard to accept.

Separated by an untouchable screen, seeing himself like this, what emotions must they feel?

The long-term pressure made him feel suffocated; in this enclosed environment, he could only reveal a moment of his fragility.

"Sorry..." he said lowly.

Perhaps he wasn’t sharp enough.

Perhaps he hadn’t thought enough.

Perhaps he wasn’t strong enough.

But if he has to listen to the deities from now on, to walk a simple path, without uncovering the deepest secrets of this world—humans?

"..."

He slowly loosened his grip, looking at the overwhelming firelight. The flames gradually spread onto him, decorating his sleeves, yet he remained motionless.

At this moment,

At this moment, as he awaited the judgment of fate—

The other protagonist finally walked up to him.

"Tap, tap, tap."

As if it were a fateful reunion in the camera lens of a movie. The male protagonist, leaning against the stone wall, trapped in desperation, and the female protagonist with her three thousand strands of hair flying amidst the raging flames.

Su Ming’an surprisingly felt that this scene was also like an absurd drama.

The girl’s cheeks appeared overly pale in the crimson view, even her arms revealing blue veins, like translucent streams in the sunlight. Her gaze was not sharp, yet it made one think of the flowing streams under the hills or butterflies about to wither on the roses. When she looked at him, that gaze always carried a hint of despair and sorrow.

She wore white clothes, like a fine snow falling in the midst of the fierce flames.

Her body carried not much obsession or madness, only calmness. It was a kind of—an end set, not worth searching back, calmness.

The world was quiet, the flames isolated everything outside, for a moment, it seemed as if only her footsteps remained here.

The two protagonists gathered here—the perspective of the movie finally reversed, as if the junction of light and shadow.

"Chao Yan, we’ve met before, haven’t we? Before the reset."

Su Ming’an finally asked this question.

She looked at him with a complex expression, her gaze carefully lingering over him. At the moment she saw the broken Prophecy Stone Wall—she knew she had failed again. Clearly, it was the best time, the most perfect time.

"...We have." She could finally no longer deny it.

"But why do you remember?" the young man asked.

—Even now, Su Ming’an still couldn’t understand her.

Chao Yan just smiled.

—Even now, she remained futile.

The end of the story had already come to an end here, yet the young man seemed to have just walked to the beginning of the story. On the screen, the heroine had done everything she could, and only then did the audience realize her existence.

—It turned out there was always a heroine in the shadows of this movie. But why, until the final credits, did her name never appear in the cast list?

Chao Yan reached out, wiping the vague tears on her face, then her fingers started to tremble unnaturally, then her whole body began to tremble—fear that everything she did would return to the origin, fear that their intersecting gazes would ultimately fall into emptiness. Resetting is the most terrifying power, it erases all efforts, persistence, and beliefs, turning one into a madman in the repetitive nothingness.

"Why do you..." Su Ming’an slowly spoke, the countdown timer inside his body becoming increasingly loud:

"... look like you’re about to cry?"

Her smile blossomed, like a flower wilting in the fire, tears falling to the ground.

"It’s so hateful." She murmured to herself, in a voice only she could hear.

—Because I love your passion, cherish your persistence.

"It’s so hateful, you still don’t remember me." Her voice was gentle, like a searing breeze in the fire.

—I am sad, but I understand the fault doesn’t lie with you.

"Go die, please die, don’t make me start over again."

—But I’ll still persist, until the day of the perfect ending. I still hope you... survive.

They watched each other through the surging flames, yet it was as if separated by nine thin layers of time. As she stepped closer to him, first one, then the second, then the third... Each layer of this thin time was shattered by her relentlessly until the ninth layer.

Crash—crash—crash—

She shattered these restraints of time layer by layer, leaping over the witch’s chants and the flames of war, across the ignorant believers and deceitful politicians, skimming over the distant Ark and the tower’s bells, over the free winds and the high-flying birds—the protagonist finally broke through all the temporal barriers, standing in front of him.

Crash—crash—crash—

Su Ming’an reached out, as if that night the late-night train sped through the storm, the warm halo dissipating lazily between the window panes, and the girl gently embraced him in the cold rain of tall buildings, whispering in his ear:

[Ninth time, you finally called my name.]

"..." Su Ming’an looked at her.

Cheeks bore the marks of flames’ scorching—this was what she left behind on the seventh day, pits of purple and black, destroying her clear features.

A shallow knife scar on her neck—this was from when she almost had her neck severed while suppressing those politicians.

Deep dark circles under her eyes—these were from taking mental drugs multiple times to stay awake.

Several cuts coral made on her calf—these were the marks when she pulled the unconscious Alice and Su Ming’an up to the water’s surface, born in the seawater.

The most glaring was her arms and hands, full of burns, like dense stitches on an old doll, healed only to be wounded again, scars not yet recovered, then destroyed again, over and over—these were just the wounds of this cycle, merely eight days endured. And those buried in time’s other cycles... uncountable.

"Beep beep beep—beep beep beep—" The countdown grew more pressing.

"Be...cause...I..." Her voice halted there, she shook her head, only to once more bloom a smile.

The bomb was about to explode, so many things, so many missed chances, so much despair... I can no longer have time to tell you. What you see is just a strange girl full of scars, not the protagonist subduing the shadows for you.

Suddenly, she charged forward with all her might to leap toward him.

"You—" Su Ming’an didn’t have time to push her away.

Could only see her final, burning, smiling, teary, complex gaze. Even though he remembered nothing, he could feel—this unfamiliar—no, this seemingly familiar girl—

"The star’s... promise..." His voice faded away.

The melted candy fell on Su Ming’an’s leg, scorching a wound.

"Beep beep beep—boom—!!!"

The bomb exploded.

Killed with him was the girl who actively leaped in front of him.

Flesh exploded, their clothing and scattered flesh mixed together, neither could tell each other apart.

Only an eyeball of Su Ming’an’s fell to the ground, as if eternally staring.

...

The sea breeze lifted Su Ming’an’s hair.