Ren Yi opened his mouth, his thoughts a tangled mess. For a moment, he couldn't quite grasp what Dr. Lin meant.
"...Blew up?" he murmured, his tone thick with bewilderment.
We're talking about an entire world here, right?
"What exactly blew up?"
"The world's will," Dr. Lin said, closing his eyes and delivering the answer bluntly.
However, his expression remained one of profound embarrassment.
If it involved the world's will, shouldn't it be something incredibly serious?
Ren Yi's mind raced, and he immediately thought of another possibility. His tone became grave once more.
"So, that world had an exceptionally powerful will."
"To resist the Alliance, the world's will chose a path of mutual destruction, leading to the current situation?"
"Uh, not exactly," Dr. Lin countered again, his eyes darting away as if he couldn't bear to meet Ren Yi's gaze.
"Alright, alright, enough with the dilly-dallying. I'll say it!" Dr. Zhao finally snapped, pushing aside the Dr. Lin who was blocking him.
His tone carried a hint of resignation, like someone who had decided to just get the embarrassment over with.
"None of us can escape the shame of losing face in front of a junior."
Pausing for a moment, he straightened his expression and began to speak slowly. "Originally, the Alliance planned to cultivate the Tiangan World as a new Pasture world."
"So, the plan was quite steady and cautious; we didn't want to be too aggressive."
"We essentially deployed nearly a full quota of Instances at once, launching large-scale Instance missions across that world."
"The primary goal was to slowly infiltrate and gradually take control of that world."
"It's worth mentioning that the world's will of that world was extremely proactive."
"It's said that not long after the Instances began, it appeared of its own accord and directly made contact with several Participants within the Instances."
"After roughly three to five rounds of Instances, the accident happened."
"A group of powerful natives actually managed to obtain the complete world's will."
"The complete world's will?" Ren Yi asked in shock.
The Azure he had encountered before only had a single fragment of a world's will, yet it already possessed partial authority over the Instance.
With the complete world's will, wouldn't they basically be using cheats? How terrifyingly powerful would they be?
But before he could dwell on it, Dr. Zhao spoke again, his tone tinged with helplessness, interrupting Ren Yi's train of thought.
"As you know, a world's will doesn't actually have very strong suppressive power over the interior of its own world."
"So, strictly speaking, it wasn't that they obtained it—it was that they kidnapped the complete world's will."
"Huh?" Ren Yi couldn't help but let out a sound of confusion.
"The world's will... kidnapped?"
Wasn't this getting a bit weird?
This was a world's will—the core of an entire world. Shouldn't it have an aura of supreme majesty?
How could it be kidnapped by the natives?
That was just too absurd!
"Yes." Dr. Zhao covered his face and nodded, his tone suggesting the story was far too complicated to tell easily.
"We don't know what the world's will was thinking. Maybe it had a brain fart."
"Basically, it granted too much authority directly to the Participants and didn't have any defenses against them."
"As a result, it was counter-controlled by the Participants. And thus, they obtained the complete world's will."
At this point, the waiter couldn't resist chiming in. For a moment, the scene felt like a crowded debate.
"Actually, it's not that rare for the complete world's will to condense into a single Child of the World."
"As long as the Alliance doesn't have an overwhelming advantage and the world's will still has the ability to shed its tail to survive, the probability of it condensing into a single living being is actually quite high."
Ren Yi immediately turned to the waiter, his eyes searching.
"Then this Child of the World must have been very strong."
"Probably," the waiter replied uncertainly.
However, a look of pity appeared on his face.
"But when a world's will sheds its tail to escape, external resistance naturally vanishes."
"So, usually, by the time the world's will lands in front of this Child of the World, they're still dazed. The next second, they have to face a Calamity in a one-on-one fight."
That did sound quite pitiful.
"Don't interrupt!" Dr. Lin reclaimed his right to speak.
"This world that blew up couldn't possibly have a Child of the World. And the point isn't the Child of the World anyway—it's the ending of the Tiangan World!"
"In the Tiangan World, after the Participants obtained the world's will, external resistance naturally vanished, and a Calamity descended immediately."
"At the critical moment when the Calamity descended, internal strife actually broke out among those Participants who had obtained the world's will."
"It was like a group of people fighting over a rag doll."
"In the process of their fighting and tugging, no one would let go. They literally forced the world's will to explode. Naturally, no Child of the World was born."
Dr. Lin threw up his hands, his tone full of helplessness. "If it blew up, it blew up. At most, we just wouldn't get any harvest."
"But who could have guessed that when the world's will exploded, the entire Tiangan World would go with it?"
"Then, all the Anomalies who were running Instances and executing missions in that world at the time were caught in it... Their ends weren't very pretty."
Ren Yi didn't know what kind of expression to make for a moment.
Logically, he should offer a moment of silence for those Anomalies.
While they wouldn't die, the experience of being blown up by a world's will probably wasn't very pleasant.
But at this moment, what he felt most was the urge to criticize the natives of the Tiangan World.
So, the Alliance basically had nothing to do with it? The whole disaster was caused by the natives messing around themselves?
From the Alliance's perspective, it must have looked like this: after the Calamity let the other Anomalies into the Tiangan World, it stayed behind to hold the line.
Then, while holding the line, it suddenly realized the world's will barrier blocking it had vanished.
Before the Calamity could even settle in, it rushed in to hunt down the world's will.
But the moment it entered, it got a bomb shoved right in its face.
The Calamity itself was powerful, so it was probably fine.
But that world's will, along with the Anomalies the Alliance had sent in, were likely all vaporized by the explosion.
How should he put it... it was just too tragic.
Ren Yi was stunned, finding that he actually felt a strange trace of pity for that Calamity who got a bomb to the face.
At the same time, he stole a glance at Ren Man out of the corner of his eye.
Ren Man had no reaction; he was listening with interest, a faint smile playing on his lips.
It seemed that the unlucky Calamity who got hit by the bomb wasn't his brother.
Confirming this, Ren Yi instantly breathed a sigh of relief, the weight lifting from his chest.
True, Dr. Zhao had said earlier that the Tiangan World was intended to be converted into a Pasture world.
Based on his brother's previous performance, he was likely responsible for harvesting; their primary business was different.
As for who that unlucky Calamity actually was...
Well, that was hard to guess.
After his silent reflection, he pulled his attention back to the matter at hand.
The origins of the Tiangan World were now clear, but the most crucial issue—the matter of the Battle-Damaged Guy—remained unresolved.
"So, the Battle-Damaged Guy is a lucky survivor who escaped after his world exploded?"
"Yes, that's roughly it," Dr. Lin nodded, his tone certain.
"Because the Tiangan World's will was so proactive and granted so much authority to Participants, many natives with top-tier talents were born back then."
"A group of Participants who didn't join the infighting and reacted quickly sensed the danger ahead of time and managed to escape by pure luck."
The waiter crossed his arms, adding in a serious tone:
"Therefore, whenever humans from the Tiangan World are discovered, they are essentially subject to 'special processing.'"
"In other words, they basically all fall under my work category."
Rate on N.U.
