【Three Cities World】 Inferences

"This is 'salvation,'" Azure corrected him with a solemn expression. "They haven't disappeared; they are simply sleeping within my body, coexisting with me."

"In this way, we have become a single individual, sharing the same body and the same soul."

"Only through this method could I bring them safely through this Calamity."

Ren Yi understood his meaning.

Through his 'soul fusion,' Azure had turned every person in Xin City into a single entity.

This way, they were no longer 'multiple individuals,' and naturally, they wouldn't trigger the 'together' part of the 'Do not feel pain together with others' rule.

Ren Yi felt his face stiffen slightly.

After all, back in the Anomaly Instances, the method the Anomaly seniors used to avoid triggering rules was merely to have the Participants separate and take on different tasks.

It turned out their imagination was still too limited.

Compared to Azure's maneuver, their efforts were like comparing a gutter to an ocean.

"Why do such a thing?" Ren Yi asked.

"I don't see any motive for you to do this. You've clearly never cared about the people of this world, let alone 'saving' them."

Azure's eyes flickered, but he didn't look away. He raised a finger and pointed at his own face, his tone carrying a hint of complexity.

"I promised him."

"This child, the original Xin King of this city."

"Back then, I successfully fused with the world's will, but I also miscalculated." Azure's voice took on a trace of helplessness.

"The world's will has its own established operating rules—cold and rigid. I cannot violate them at all; I can only do insignificant things within the boundaries it has drawn."

"For example, making small adjustments to the time and location where Participants are teleported."

"If things continued like this, my only end would be to be killed by your world, and this fragment would dissipate along with me."

"Fortunately, not long ago, the Xin King successfully cleared the final Instance and faced the world's will directly, coming to me to seek a method of salvation."

"I took the opportunity to guide him, letting him offer up his own body. In exchange, I promised him that I would save his city."

"Our transaction is bound by the world's rules; I must fulfill it."

"But it doesn't matter." Azure's gaze became fervent. "This is good—even better than my original plan."

"A fragment of the world's will, plus the soul power of an entire city—I will grant all of this to you."

"Fuse with us. As long as you agree, you will become more powerful than ever before."

"I heard about your Anomaly grades from your friend."

"Whether it's A-rank, S-rank, or even Calamity—after fusion, all of these will be within your easy reach."

"You will never have to fear the powerful Anomalies of your world again, and you will never suffer any more oppression."

"From now on, you will either replace those high-and-mighty oppressors, or you will become one of them yourself."

Fear? Oppressors?

Ren Yi listened with a bewildered expression. What on earth was this guy talking about?

But regardless, he finally understood the gist of it.

After all that talk and such a convoluted scheme, the essence of it was still the same old story.

"All this talk, making it so complicated..." He twitched the corner of his mouth, his tone filled with exasperation.

"When it comes down to it, aren't you just afraid of the Calamity? You're afraid of being killed by the Alliance, so you want to use me as a scapegoat and borrow my identity to survive?"

...

Azure's words were a bit garbled and backwards, but after Ren Yi straightened them out a bit, he finally understood the man's mental journey.

To summarize it in one sentence: the Old Pope really had a keen eye for character.

How did that line go again? "That goddamn deserter from another world, that son of a bitch spineless coward, that disgusting and lowly schemer"?

Every word was a gem.

Ren Yi sorted it out in his mind.

Fact: Azure came from a world that had previously been destroyed by the Alliance.

But clearly, Azure was only a part of their world, a Participant—perhaps even just a minor figure.

He didn't understand the truth behind the descent of Anomalies, nor did he understand the game between world rules and the world's will. This laid the groundwork for his later suicidal overreaching.

Of course, Azure did have some ambition; he wasn't just thinking about running away, but began looking for ways to grow stronger.

However, since he had already left his own world, his power system was like duckweed without roots. He believed he had no way to grow stronger on his own.

So, he set his sights on the world's will of the Three Cities World.

In his previous world, the world's will was an existence far beyond his reach.

But the Three Cities World was a relatively weak, low-magic world. Before Azure's arrival, there wasn't even a superpower system in place, which gave Azure an opportunity.

After Azure arrived in the Three Cities World, the "soul experiments" he tricked the nations here into conducting were never about simple soul fusion; the ultimate goal was to fuse human souls with the world's will.

But again, no matter how weak a world's will was, it was still a world's will.

A complete world's will was too perfect and powerful for an individual, a system unto itself.

Azure directly attempting to fuse with it was no different from a pebble trying to merge with the ocean.

To this end, Azure came up with a few ideas.

After all, the world's will was closely linked to the world itself.

Since it was too strong, wouldn't it be enough to make the world suffer, bleed, and become incredibly weak?

The existence of the world's will was an external defense mechanism, but toward the interior of the world, it was like a sword in a human's hand that couldn't deal with the viruses inside the body—it lacked the ability to intervene directly.

Therefore, he deliberately caused the soul experiments to spiral out of control, resulting in terrifying soul radiation that affected the entire world.

At the same time, he used the "Instance key" he had obtained from his own world to trigger the descent of Instances.

When the world suffered a heavy blow and the "immunity" of the world's will dropped to its lowest point, he sat on the sidelines to reap the benefits, taking the opportunity to tear off a small piece of the world's will and fuse it with himself.

This was also why he could teleport himself over and then forcibly assign Ren Yi the Participant identity of Mo Ming.

With that, the first phase of Azure's plan was complete.

And this was where things became absurd.

The reason Azure wanted to become stronger so recklessly wasn't to escape better, nor was it to seek revenge against the Alliance.

Instead, he wanted to become stronger and then join the Alliance as an Anomaly?

To do this, he needed to find an Anomaly to fuse with.

From his previous snippets of conversation, it was clear that in Azure's imagination, the world of Anomalies must be a scorched wasteland where the strong preyed on the weak.

Weak Anomalies could only rely on themselves from birth, constantly at risk of becoming fodder for Great Anomalies.

Among the powerful Anomalies, factions were established, kings ruled over territories, and they fought each other for land.

Further up, the supreme Calamities looked down on everything in silence, treating thousands of worlds as their Pastures.

Low-level Anomalies were merely their ghostly servants, driven into those thousands of worlds.

Those who brought back food could narrowly survive; those who didn't would become food themselves.

And he, Azure, intended to take this cheat of a world's will fragment and carve out a path of blood on this "scorched earth."

Slaying S-ranks, becoming a Calamity, and reaching the pinnacle of Anomaly life...