The surrounding scene quickly became blurred and indistinct, even Jiaoshu in front of me was hard to make out, it felt as though the world was soaked in water, and everything seemed to be viewed through a shimmering surface.

The distorted and fluctuating Jiaoshu let out a surprised voice: "Is this... a reboot?"

Not only did the visual imagery, but even Jiaoshu's voice became dull and twisted, as if you were underwater listening to people speaking on the shore.

This was the reboot phenomenon I had vaguely heard of before.

Jiaoshu seemed not only surprised but also exhilarated. The reboot phenomenon not only resets the deceased but also resets everyone's spatial positions. I guess she thought she didn't have to continue facing me, a "victim" who has been hiding his true identity, and felt a huge sense of relief. I had started to look forward to seeing the expression on her face when she realizes the harsh truth.

Just three seconds later, the scene and sounds around became extremely blurred and distorted. The world that was once like a vivid painting now had all its colors lose order, thoroughly mashing into one. When the colorful art pigments overlap, what color would it reveal? Anyone with some experience would think that it would ultimately be an extremely muddy black.

If "chaos" had a color, it might be this kind of color. My vision was occupied by a dizzying black. Because it wasn't purely black, I could discern that this darkness was squirming as if alive. Another three seconds passed, the darkness seemed to decompose slowly, and the colors of the pigments seemed to finally unravel from their mixed state, gradually separating and trying to return to their original order.

The "painting" of the "subway platform" reappeared in my vision.

However, unlike before, the "painting" lacked some elements it should have. The black ashes left by the Taoyuan Village Cultivator after being affected by Xuanming and cremated disappeared, and the Jiaoshu who was right in front of me just now also vanished. Yet, the mountains of bodies and seas of blood everywhere remained in place, Xuanming did not destroy them in passing before.

As I had speculated before, the reboot phenomenon does not affect my spatial position. After all, calling it a reboot phenomenon is somewhat incorrect, it sounds like the time rewind power once demonstrated by Dr. Silver Mask at a secret Human Bureau location. In fact, this should be a reorganization of an ultra-large scope of spacetime.

I found a city map in the subway station, confirmed my current coordinates in the western part of this city, and then emerged onto the street surface.

At first glance, the scenery outside did not differ from before, the sky still inverted with Xuanming's endless blazing fire sea. It's just that intuition told me that in those few seconds just now, the entire Southern City, with an area of over 6,000 square kilometers, was decomposed and reconstructed anew.

Merely breakdown is one thing, but to reconstruct so accurately in such a short time... this field is not what I know Impermanence can reach. Although Xuanming previously said the city center is where the range of the "Outer World Wall" is, I'm afraid the area outside the Outer World Wall and within the city barrier is gradually turning into a universe of "Paradise".

Jiaoshu thought the reboot phenomenon was the Fatian Xiangdi of Taoyuan Village Master Meng Zhang, while in truth, this should be the "Fatian Xiangdi" of "Paradise". Ordinarily, the resistance within the city presents more closely as the mana fluctuations of Taoyuan Village Master Meng Zhang, hence by doing something even the Taoyuan Village Master Meng Zhang couldn't, I was able to sense the difference therein.

Because this is a place where "Paradise," an ultimate existence, might be birthed — just for this reason, it became a realm of alternate reality that could be recreated countless times anew.

Countless consciousnesses compose "Paradise", most from people disappointed or even despairing of reality. Desiring to go to a better place, wanting different lives, wanting to start over — now that the reboot phenomenon occurs, could it be those kinds of thoughts at play?

Thinking of Taoyuan Village Master Meng Zhang now creating a new universe, it seems improbable that such an event would occur within modern human civilization, a civilization yet to leave its home planet. Especially when other Impermanence are still fighting to the death over the Doomsday events on this planet, it makes it seem as if Taoyuan Village Master Meng Zhang is on a different stage from the others.

Although what he's doing is "letting all of humanity indulge in dreams," a goal that sounds lacking in ambition, the actual outcome is absurd beyond compare.

Thinking about it, I took a step toward the distance, moving to the edge of the city center in one step.

Now there was no need to play the role of a weak survivor boy in front of Jiaoshu, and naturally, I didn't hesitate to use such small skills.

I somewhat understood why my spatial position wasn't altered, and why the initial "Firefly" was left alone in the fast-food restaurant, it was because Impermanence possesses a certain extent of high-dimensional entity nature independent of time and space.

Whether it was my current body present here, or the initial "Firefly," since they are small in current mass, once incidental damage is suffered, the "Paradise" might conveniently reorganize them during a reboot, no harder than reorganizing an ordinary demon hunter by the roadside. The effect of resetting spatial positions is merely incidental. Once reorganized, our nature of ignoring time and space would emerge, and the spatial position reset effect wouldn't be added smoothly.

With the power of "Paradise", forcefully adding it might be possible, but perhaps it's deemed unnecessary.

While drawing this conclusion, I witnessed the current state of the city center.

The city center area now was shrouded in darkness.

It was like a huge black bowl was inverted over this expansive area, completely obscuring the view inside the city center, making one wonder if the entire inside had fallen into darkness. Moreover, this darkness was similar to the murky darkness I had experienced before, reminiscent of numerous filthy black insects mixed together, writhing continuously. Even a brief gaze seemed to cause dizziness and nausea.

Is this the "Outer World Wall" mentioned by Xuanming?

I tried extending my left hand to touch this chaotic darkness.

But I failed.

It wasn't that my hand couldn't enter the chaotic darkness, I didn't even reach the target. Judging by physical distance, there were only forty or fifty centimeters between me and the target, while my arm from shoulder to fingertip was at least sixty centimeters, yet my outstretched arm extended forward and still left a tiny unbridgeable gap between my fingertips and the chaotic darkness.

Subsequently, I tried several methods, including but not limited to continuing to move forward and using a fireball to attack the chaotic darkness, but all ended in failure. No means could reach the target.

Based on my observation, it wasn't a simple matter of space being stretched. If space were stretched, I naturally had the capability to overcome it. If the reason could be identified, I would find a way to solve it. Even if a "cannot be touched" result were forcibly set on a causality level, it would be an easily solvable problem for me. The problem was that no reason could be found—it's an unreasonable "cannot be touched".

Such a helpless experience is truly rare. No wonder Xuanming was at a loss against this "Outer World Wall". As the name suggests, it's truly a wall that seems to be from a world different from one's own.

If it were a mysticism master like Weichi, or a mad scientist like Ying Lingyun, they might be inspired by this "Outer World Wall" to an enthusiastic pursuit of research, but I wasn't inclined towards that. I wasn't particularly interested in either an insurmountable high wall or easily kickable pebbles. After confirming that none of my means could approach the "Outer World Wall," I shifted my attention elsewhere.

First, I checked whether I could still hear the faint voice that called me into the city.

I could still hear it, and it seemed that, likely due to gaining the understanding that "this is the voice that led me to the city," the perception was even clearer.

It's similar to how Little Bowl's Power of Righteous Heavenly and Earthly became more effective after realizing its true nature; the difference between knowing and not knowing can sometimes cause power to change dramatically.

Unfortunately, the resistance within the city limits makes sensing anything more intricate challenging. Even so, since I managed to sense the location of the thermal energy marker I placed on Jiaoshu, it wasn't difficult to accomplish while both she and I were inside.

Roughly five or six kilometers from the original subway station, in the dim and vague image, a faintly discernible voice asked with a mix of emotions in Jiaoshu's voice, "That boy... why did Xuanming talk to him like that... could it be..."

She clearly harbored the thought that the boy was potentially someone important or significant.

"""