How could I be lonely?
I am the only one who escaped the Azure World. I view the people of the Three Cities World as mere swine, beneath my notice...
But I have never felt loneliness!
Never!
Yet, at the same time, another voice seemed to ring in Azure's ear.
Stop lying to yourself, Azure.
Think about it. Why are you saying so much nonsense just to convince this Anomaly?
Look, the Azure World is long gone, completely vanished into the black hole.
You are the only one left, a solitary survivor.
Why do you call yourself 'Azure'? That was the name of your world, wasn't it?
Is it because you're afraid that without those two words, there would be nothing left to prove you ever existed, nothing left to keep you company?
Do you remember? When you first arrived in this Three Cities World, you spoke and preached to those ignorant natives.
Pretending to be an omnipotent god, surrounded and admired by others... didn't that feel good?
Wasn't it much more comfortable than drifting alone in the void?
Do you remember? That child from the Holy City you raised.
You spoke to him so much that his way of speaking became just like yours—mystical and cryptic.
Even the wish he made was to become someone like you, to protect the Holy City.
What a pity. He died not long ago.
Even if he really has a spirit in the afterlife, he'd probably find it disgusting to even look at you now, wouldn't he?
And then? Who did you talk to after that?
Oh, I forgot. You became a part of the Three Cities World's 'Heavenly Way,' bound tightly by the world's rules, unable to act of your own accord.
For these past thirty years, you haven't been all alone, drifting in the sky of this world, have you?
Tsk, tsk, tsk. That sounds truly pathetic.
After that, who was the first person to speak to you?
Ah, it was the Xin King, the one who carried the hope of this city on his shoulders.
So young, carrying the weight of a city, respected by all, gentle yet firm.
He must have been a great person to talk to, right?
But where is he now?
And the people of Xin City—even if you didn't know many of them, they were at least an audience who could hear your words...
Where are they now?
Ah... I remember.
It seems you treated them all as 'nourishment' and ate them up.
Now, you really are the only one left.
Azure suddenly snapped back to his senses, his eyes lifting in a panic, and happened to meet Ren Yi's gaze.
Unbeknownst to him, Ren Yi had already stood up, having broken free from some of the flesh tentacles. He stood there in the rain, watching him quietly from a distance.
There was no mockery in his eyes, no triumph—only a reflection of the exact same... loneliness Azure felt at this moment.
No, how can he stand up? Am I not pressing down on him with everything I have?
Splat!
A dull thud suddenly rang out, breaking the deathly silence of the rooftop, like something soft falling from a height.
Azure looked down belatedly, his pupils shrinking as he realized the flesh tentacles wrapped around the outside of the building were slowly melting in the rain.
They turned into a crimson liquid, dripping continuously onto the ground with a rhythmic "splat, splat."
"What did you do?" he murmured in confusion.
Ren Yi didn't answer him. He just stood quietly in the rain, letting the droplets soak through his entire body.
Indeed, as Azure had suspected, his final ammunition was exhausted.
The last ability seed used on Azure had vanished along with those two crushed eyeballs.
In Azure's theory, he should be no different from an ordinary human right now.
But, in this place, there was still one illusion seed he had planted long ago but never used.
It existed within Ren Yi himself.
At the very beginning of this operation, in that watermelon patch belonging to the 【Lu Family Courtyard】.
To test whether the positive emotions from the broadcast could be absorbed, Ren Yi had consumed one piece of ammunition on himself.
That illusion seed had remained formless and hidden within his body, dormant until now.
Because Azure was talking so much, Ren Yi had guessed his "loneliness" based on his experiences...
And so, Ren Yi let that seed take root and sprout.
Indeed, a simple illusion that only affected vision was like a short video clip.
Unless the content was "spectacular" or poignant enough, it wouldn't be able to stir emotions at all.
But as it happened, Ren Yi had seen such a "clip," one so "spectacular" that it made him feel loneliness and pain, nearly giving him post-traumatic stress disorder.
It was called the "Professional Allocation Test," or rather, the "damned Awakening Ceremony."
It came from a high-level Anomaly whose abilities were also related to illusions—Heart Fiend, Lin Xinyan.
The news had said that Heart Fiend was a master of the "Emotion Guidance Method," his illusions capable of precisely triggering the most hidden emotions in a person's heart.
And now, Ren Yi used his own ability to "broadcast" Lin Xinyan's illusion onto himself.
Combined with his lack of resistance and active immersion, he finally placed himself within that scene, truly recalling that bone-deep loneliness and despair.
In his eyes, a massive crack pierced the sun, and a black waterfall cascaded down.
Within the illusion, Ren Yi looked around him, his gaze slowly turning hollow.
He had successfully become "lonely."
It was this moment of empathy that allowed the Participants "Mo Ming" and "Azure" to feel the same kind of pain.
The Calamity Rule triggered instantly.
Azure didn't get an answer from Ren Yi. His legs had already dissolved into an eerie crimson liquid under the erosion of the Calamity Rain, flowing slowly down the mountain of flesh.
His upper body lost its support and fell stiffly into the pool of blood he had become, his expression filled with resentment and disbelief.
"Splat," "splat." From all directions, the sound of falling flesh continued to ring out.
The mountain of flesh beneath them dissolved and crumbled under the wash of the Calamity Rain, and those dense clusters of eyeballs burst, turning into crimson juice.
Collapsing into the red "pigment," Azure's head made one final struggle, his voice as weak as a flickering candle in the wind.
"You... will die too."
After saying those words, his head became like a piece of dried paint, washed away by the cold rain.
The moment he vanished, something bright seemed to drop from his head, flashing briefly in the rain.
Ren Yi watched all of this, listening to the continuous sound of falling flesh, but he remained silent and still.
At this moment, he was struggling to suppress the emotions in his heart.
I won't die.
He told himself over and over in his mind.
Anomalies don't die. Death is not the end.
But... even so, what of it?
...I will be left here, left in the Three Cities World.
Azure is dead, and he fixed Mo Ming's skin onto me.
The Alliance's perception is blocked; no one knows he is still trapped here.
He is just a Participant marked as "Mo Ming." The Alliance cannot sense his soul, let alone find his location.
Soon, he will be the only one left here.
When the Three Cities World is completely dissolved by the Calamity, when this land is entirely swallowed by the void, he will be drifting alone in this cold abyss.
With nothing to lean on, no one to care for, no direction, and no end.
For thousands, tens of thousands of years, until by some stroke of luck, he happens to land in some strange world.
But by then, will I still be me?
Azure only drifted alone for thirty years, and he became like this.
I won't be able to hold on.
Then let it end here.
Dissolve here, and vanish completely along with this world.
Don't go and face that kind of future.
Ren Yi felt a bone-deep exhaustion, and he wanted to close his eyes.
Just then, he heard a very soft call.
"Xiao Yi?"
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