Boom!
Evans felt as if something had exploded inside his brain.
He stared intently at the Sword-man in front of him, instantly shifting onto a wartime footing.
Half of his body began to melt in an instant, and a thick black liquid spread out from beneath his feet like a tide, forming a defensive pool around him.
His instincts screamed in frantic warning.
The Sword-man was extremely dangerous right now.
But Evans did not retreat.
He stared at the sword in the Sword-man's hand, which floated quietly above his palm, slowly rotating.
“Did he... succeed?”
Evans asked tentatively, the black liquid spreading slowly beneath his feet as he prepared to strike at any moment.
Upon hearing this question, the grotesque smile on the Sword-man's face vanished inch by inch.
“I don't know,” he said, his voice flat with a hint of despair.
Evans fell silent for a moment.
After a brief pause, he finally spoke, his voice sounding exceptionally clear in the dead silence.
“That person,” Evans asked, “was it you?”
However, the Sword-man shook his head.
“No, I am the sword.”
His expression turned slightly twisted, and he spat out each word through clenched teeth:
“The sword... refined with essence blood, sharing life and death, aiding and abetting his tyranny, unable to betray him!”
Evans's mind raced.
At the same time, text kept flashing at the edge of his vision. It was Ren Yi communicating with him through a one-way encrypted channel.
Ren Yi was in a rush, sending one message after another.
A story was just a story, and even real history was ultimately just a story.
What mattered was how those stories connected to the present world.
There were some things Evans could not comprehend at all from his perspective, but Ren Yi could roughly bridge the gaps.
Thus, while brainstorming, Ren Yi was rapidly syncing information with Evans.
“You mean...”
Evans's eyes darted as he digested the incoming information from Ren Yi while continuing his conversation with the Sword-man.
“The reason you want to destroy S-003 and S-001 is because those things are that person's remains?”
“Remains?” The Sword-man chewed on the word, his lips curling into a grimace that looked worse than crying.
“Regrettably, I wish they were just remains.”
He paused, lowering his gaze to the sword in his hand.
“But now, they can only be called his body... because he isn't dead yet.”
Evans's heart skipped a beat.
Hidden in the shadows, Ren Yi's heart also tightened.
Ren Yi recalled a line that had been constantly emphasized in Mission 3.
“Alive, we must see him; dead, we must see his corpse...”
Things seemed to be hurtling toward a worst-case scenario.
“How can you be sure he isn't dead?”
Evans continued to ask, following the prompts Ren Yi provided.
“Didn't you say you don't know if he succeeded?”
The Sword-man gently caressed the sword in his hand.
“I don't know what the final outcome was,” he replied, his emotions seemingly stabilizing as his voice grew calm.
“By then, he had already begun to erase my consciousness.”
“To be honest, I am very surprised I was even able to wake up again.”
The Sword-man sneered, his smile filled with mockery and schadenfreude.
“But since I still exist, I suppose he must have suffered a miserable defeat.”
“It is just a pity I could not witness that scene with my own eyes.”
His finger lightly slid along the spine of the blade, eliciting a faint hum that sounded like a sigh.
“But he is indeed not dead yet.”
“Because I cannot leave this place, and we cannot leave this world.”
“As long as our blood pact remains, we cannot have our freedom.”
Evans swallowed hard and tried to rephrase his question.
“So, you and Pops want to destroy S-003 and S-001 because you want to use this method to 'kill' him?”
“Ah... no, that is merely an attempt.”
“That body does indeed look dead, so it is merely one of the things 'related' to him.”
The sword let out a sharp, soft chime, its lingering vibration sounding like the final note of an oath.
“We must try every single thing in this world that could possibly be related to him.”
“And now, there are only those few things left that we haven't tried.”
His voice suddenly grew very soft, as if he were talking to himself.
“Did you know?”
“Even though the eras are not connected, the calendar system of this world strangely persists.”
“It is as if someone has completely recorded everything that happened.”
The Sword-man looked up, his gaze passing through Evans to look into the deeper darkness behind him.
“The First Era.”
“According to the current calendar, it was roughly from Year 0 to Year 137.”
“At that time, this world already had mountains and rivers, but it was still a barren wasteland.”
“After I woke up, I traveled across the entire world, splitting mountains, parting waters, and scouring the entire surface... but I found nothing.”
His tone was as flat as if he were reading a lab report.
“Until one day, the moon shattered, and you fell from the sky.”
Evans frowned slightly. This was the "First Fall," of which he had no memory.
“But before I could react, a world reset suddenly occurred, and I lost consciousness once again.”
“The Second Era. From the end of the First Era to Year 456.”
“All kinds of living creatures appeared in this world.”
“After I woke up, I was surprised to find myself revered as a divine object, used in battles.”
He curled his lips in self-mockery.
“Following the energy fluctuations from the previous reset, I searched around, found the Deep Abyss, and met Pops.”
“He didn't go by that name back then. I always felt like he was taking advantage of me... whatever, let's not talk about that.”
“But by then, the things were no longer here.”
“He and I found the City of the Sky Lake, but we were suppressed by S-003. We suffered a crushing defeat and were contained under supervision.”
“And then, the familiar event occurred.”
The Sword-man spread his hands.
“The black tide fell, and this time, it even directly struck the City of the Sky Lake... resetting the world once more.”
“The Third Era.”
“Roughly from Year 457 to Year 1012.”
“We realized we stood no chance relying solely on ourselves.”
“No matter how powerful we were, it was useless under the suppression of the blood pact bound to that body.”
“We began searching for 'compatriots' who, like us, retained their consciousness, and then we waited for you.”
“However, some unexpected things happened that time.”
“We discovered you too late. You had already been shaped with a human will.”
“During that era, you placed absolute trust in the Lord of the Sky Lake, calling him 'Father'.”
“Unsurprisingly, the reset happened once more, and it went even more smoothly than the previous two times.”
“And then, from that point until now, this era.”
“Learning from our past mistakes, we launched a preemptive strike on their headquarters. Only then did we finally find our chance.”
The sword floated up, its tip pointing directly at Evans.
“But before that, Evans, I still have one question.”
The Sword-man's voice suddenly grew very deep.
“First, why does an existence like you exist in this world? Why are you the only special one?”
“Second, since that person's body is already dead, where exactly is the 'living' part of him?”
“To solve this second mystery, I slashed through almost everything suspicious in this world during the first three eras.”
“There aren't many doubtful things left.”
The Sword-man took a step forward.
“Evans.”
The Sword-man stopped, the green light on the sword rippling outward like waves in water.
“Could you... be him?”
Rate on N.U.
