CHAPTER 812: CHAPTER 810·“TE·REBIRTH OF ALL THINGS (5)”

Su Ming’an turned off the world broadcast.

"Dawn, let’s go." He gazed at the city-state’s night scene, quickly averting his gaze.

Just then, he suddenly felt a wave of dizziness, the image before him shattered like glass, countless voices flooded his ears.

"..."

He gasped heavily, what he saw was no longer the city-state bathed in night, but a battlefield adorned with swords and banners, many corpses stood up and turned to look at him.

These skeletons varied by age and gender. Some were shot in the head by snipers, others had blades pierce their hearts, and more were charred bones, like those burned by artillery fire.

"We died because of you."

Someone’s voice rang in his ear:

"Because of your decisions, we couldn’t win, our civilization lost to the invaders, it’s all your fault."

"You bear the remains of the entire civilization, struggling on alone. When you’ve waited eons for the human civilization to restart, upon seeing those completely unfamiliar faces—will you ever have a moment to recall ours?"

The voice pierced into Su Ming’an’s brain, he realized this was another instance of Acto’s empathy. This eerie connection had existed since the start of the instance, for unknown reasons.

After he declared the Ruined World’s defeat, a near-mad deluge of hallucinations and illusions surged upon him, crazily occupying his suddenly relaxed mind, like swelling waves instantly capsizing his ship of thought.

In the blurred vision, the stacked skeletons on the battlefield stood slowly, holding swords, approaching him step by step. Barren lands and dim stars lay behind them, and further back, a forest of gravestones stood.

Once, people revered Acto so much. But in Catastrophe Year 1, so many angrily rushed to Acto’s villa, destroying it with artillery fire.

—Only allowed to win, not to lose.

Indifferent to 90% malevolence, sacrificing like moths to 10% goodwill.

People around him kept leaving and arriving, he watched helplessly, always born under the sway of the masses.

This is Yasa Acto.

This is also Su Ming’an.

At the moment of announcing the Ruined World’s defeat to the world, Su Ming’an’s mental defenses relaxed for an instant, countless pains crushed his rationality, surrounded by deranged illusions.

Turned out, Acto’s "You haven’t noticed the aftermath" was a warning before the storm. He had stretched himself too tight, a slight relaxation, and his mind instantly fell.

"..."

"Doctor."

"Doctor! Wake up!!"

The voice of the Dawn System pierced through, Su Ming’an felt a pain in his arm, an injection was pushed into his arm, the hallucination slowly dissipating before his eyes.

He gazed blankly at the now-normal vision, the feeling just now was excruciating, like sinking into a nightmare illusion of White Sand Paradise.

He had known his mental state was nearing a critical point, yet he hadn’t expected the outbreak to come so suddenly. If not for the Dawn System beside him, timely injecting him with a Mentality Stability Elixir, he didn’t even know if he could awaken from the hallucination.

If the Number One Player suddenly went mad here, it would be a drama for humanity.

Su Ming’an looked at the Dawn System.

"Dawn, why am I so much like Acto?"

In every aspect, too similar. Even his empathy with Acto reached an unbelievable harmony, nearly one hundred percent coordination.

Previously, his compatibility with possessed characters, like Eliwen, like Qin Wang, like Su Rin, was only in the realm of "quite similar," but in this Ninth World, he was almost identical to Acto, upon reflection, it was chilling.

The Dawn System was silent for a while: "It’s coincidence, Doctor."

The chair behind Su Ming’an beeped twice, automatically activating, carrying Su Ming’an out of the broadcast room.

"Doctor, I’ll take you to rest," the Dawn System said: "All matters henceforth leave to me, I assure you, when you open your eyes next time, we will have safely arrived in Zero-Dimensional. Humanity’s defeat is inevitable... it’s not your fault."

"..." Su Ming’an said nothing.

The wheelchair passed the glass walkway, incandescent lamps flashed before Su Ming’an’s eyes.

Hundreds of planes cut across the sky outside the glass walkway like cold ravens, black mist chasing after their fuselages like falcons hunting white doves.

City-state flames scorched the sky bright, everywhere, people sat quietly. They wore their finest clothes, sat by the firelight, like a ceremony welcoming doom. At times like this, people seemed liberated from their nature, doing the things they’d never done in their lives.

Su Ming’an saw someone toss aside their uniform and at a street corner, clutch a microphone and sing hoarsely.

Dozens took out secretly stashed canvases from home, painting with nearly dried paint.

A group tugged colorful balloons, dressed in quasi-anime attire, loudly shouting and running through the blocks, their eyes only lighting up at such moments.

Emotion and art are humans’ inevitable need.

But in the City of Measurement, people are assessed for persona from birth. More than cultivating a diligent populace, it’s akin to crafting a series of cold standardized mechanical components.

After "Measurement" vanished, never before seen, humanity’s vibrancy and emotion burst out like overturned paint pans, utterly moving.

—Despite nearing death, they seem to truly begin living.

Su Ming’an felt weighed down, like the entirety of civilization was collapsing upon him.

He seemed to see "humanity" walking a long, long distance, finally reaching the end.

The wheelchair’s wheels rolled, his view obscured by solid walls, unable to see the crowds outside the glass walkway any longer. The wheelchair steered him along into a lightless corridor, the lights behind him growing ever distant.

"Crack—"

The Dawn System followed him a long way, traversed many layers of invisible membrane, arriving deep underground. Finally, the elevator doors opened, exposing a room of icy white, where a coffin-like hibernation capsule slid its lid aside, releasing copious amounts of white gas like frozen nitrogen.

A mechanical man gently lifted Su Ming’an’s shoulder, placing him inside. Before lying down, Su Ming’an said: "Dawn, maybe we still have a final chance to turn the tables."

But if he lay down, there truly wouldn’t be.

"Doctor, I saw your expression earlier," the Dawn System referred to Su Ming’an watching those people:

"...In fact, even before the City of Measurement was established, people lived like that."

Su Ming’an murmured "Hmm?"

He heard the wistfulness in its tone.

"At that time, people were colorful... the sky wasn’t sullen, there wasn’t a vast class divide between them, the workspace hadn’t been capped yet, everyone had the right to climb higher." Dawn gradually said:

"Later, the rapidly advancing technology and the swiftly perfected persona system extended the lifespan of the city-state, yet widened the gap between them. Joy, sorrow, anger... these intense emotions that lead to emotional overload were erased from the dictionary."

"Relationships between people became cold; they gradually got used to solving problems with the internet and keyboards, and satisfying themselves with virtual images and stories. As for those deemed useless art, those mental sustenance, those beautiful sceneries, they were gone."

"Doctor, I miss the time when the city-state system had not yet been established."

Su Ming’an’s gaze met the Dawn System’s pale-colored eyes.

"Back then, you weren’t the god of the city-state either," Su Ming’an said.

"But back then, everyone was warm," the Dawn System said.

Su Ming’an heard a trace of trembling in its words.

"...Just like now, like the original human," the Dawn System’s eyes seemed to flash with an indefinable emotion:

"Sleep."

"In the next new century, I believe our Ship of Theseus will encounter light, Doctor."

The Dawn System suddenly made the Mechanical Man push, and Su Ming’an’s body leaned back. Before he could sit up again, the hibernation capsule’s door closed with a "click."

Su Ming’an lay in the hibernation capsule, feeling a sense of security, like lying in a coffin. He looked through the transparent glass at the Dawn System outside the capsule as the glass began to blur with white mist.

[Preparing to initiate hibernation.]

[Current internal temperature: 20°]

...

"I thought you would have some other plan until the very last moment," Su Ming’an shook his head: "...turns out you really don’t."

"Regarding this, I wouldn’t lie to you, Doctor," the Dawn System said.

"...Since my inception, my sole mission has been to safeguard this civilization."

With its technological level, whether through its advanced bionic technology or the preservation of all human knowledge and culture, in theory, it could prolong human civilization.

From a rational perspective, entering the Zero-Dimensional realm is a very correct decision because there will ultimately be a sliver of hope, a sliver of fireseed preserved—the wisest person in the entire world, holding the last information and resources of this world, waiting with stored power, making the odds of a counterattack surely greater than one in a billion.

But this choice is cold, so cold that it suffocates.

In Su Ming’an’s blurry vision, the Dawn System turned and left.

Due to low energy consumption, the interior fell into a freezing state, and Su Ming’an felt a slight pain in the back of his neck, as though he received an injection with hypnotic potion.

In his blurry senses, he gradually lost consciousness.

In the room, an invisible film seemed to slowly drop down, covering the structure located underground, as if everything fell into eternal sleep. The youth in the hibernation capsule closed his eyes, as if going into a long, unending slumber.

Ten minutes later.

"Sizzle—sizzle—"

In a place where no one could see, from Su Ming’an’s body, a transparent soul slowly floated out. Around the soul, invisible puppet threads pulled the soul out of Su Ming’an’s body.

Red Level equipment [Hand of Redemption] skill copy—[Puppet Threads].

Noel’s skill seemed most useful in its ability to pull tangible objects. But Su Ming’an knew its most powerful feature—was its ability to pull souls.

Back when Noel used this skill to escape the red-eyed state, he utilized the ability of [Puppet Threads] to individually manipulate souls, dividing the body and soul into two halves for focused control.

Su Ming’an replicated Noel’s ability—for such a moment.

The smartest player is keen at finding the breaking points intentionally left in the World Game.

With a bit of thought, it’s clear that players are not smarter than the people of the Ruined World, nor stronger than them, in fact, players are quite cowardly, timid, scared of death, with only one advantage—their skills.

If the Ruined World is destined to perish, what advantage does the summoned ten thousand players have, compared to the countless billions and billions of humans from the Ruined World, to save the world in just twenty days?

Such reasoning, the answer is already evident.

Players’ advantage lies solely in their being "players."

—Only the abilities of players, which are entirely different from those of the technological side of the world, exist above the "World Rules."

Even the Dawn System monitoring everything couldn’t possibly discover that there would be a soul controlled by player skills in the air. Because the concept of "soul and magic" doesn’t exist, temporarily, in Ruined World.

This is the difference in the "world system," also a situation Su Ming’an had noticed early when copying Noel’s skill—the Ruined World has no adoptable restriction methods regarding "souls." Because the world systems are incompatible.

In other words—actually much earlier, right at the moment Su Ming’an started and stepped into the Ruined World, a system hint by his ear reminded him of this.

...

[Ninth World is a "specific development instance," with substantial bonuses for firearms specialization and scientific side strength. Certain weakening for other side abilities.]

...

The initial seemingly inconspicuous system hint was, in fact, already reminding everyone—your breaking point is here.

Su Ming’an looked down and saw his body sleeping in the hibernation capsule. This feeling of a soul floating in the air is wonderful, like shedding all burdens and embracing the long-lost breeze.

He wanted to see the color of his soul, but found he couldn’t, the soul extracted in this way seemed only transparent.

His preliminary plan was to first leave here and find a way to connect with Noel and the others.

But just then,

Floating in the air, Su Ming’an unexpectedly discovered that beside him, there was another’s soul also floating.

—There are no other players here, why would there be another’s soul?

—Judging by the condition of the soul, it seems to have been following Su Ming’an for a very long time.

"Who are you?" Su Ming’an asked cautiously. If he hadn’t himself extracted his soul, he might have never noticed there’s another soul following him.

This soul’s appearance couldn’t be discerned, unclear if male or female, resembling a slender white dumpling.

"Finally meeting you." The soul reached out to him, seemingly excited, the entire soul trembling crazily like a gluten rabbit:

"Nice to meet you, I’m Mu Team."

"I missed you very much."