“Stop, stop, stop!”
“Don't talk nonsense anymore!”
“Using nonsense to divert attention—that trick doesn't work on me.”
Yue Shi interrupted the Tree of Truth's erratic behavior.
The Tree of Truth's red lips curled slightly as she picked up the previous topic, her voice crisp and pleasant.
“Old Dream's legacy belongs to you.”
“I can assist you in accommodating his authority.”
Yue Shi's expression was cold, his eyes still filled with deep scrutiny.
“Why exactly are you doing this?”
“Have you poisoned Old Dream's authority? Or installed some kind of backdoor?”
The Tree of Truth looked troubled. “Why are you so unwilling to believe in the goodwill of others?”
“Unprovoked kindness only makes one feel uneasy,” Yue Shi replied.
“Fine.” The Tree of Truth shrugged.
“If you insist on an explanation, I can make one up for you.”
“The main reason is that ‘Truth’ does not need other authorities; those authorities are merely burdens to me.”
“But I need you.”
Yue Shi raised an eyebrow. “Need me for what?”
“Do you know what the celestial body known as the Moon itself represents?” the Tree of Truth asked in return.
Yue Shi nodded. “Are you coveting my beautiful physical body?”
The Tree of Truth: “...”
Honestly, can anyone understand how annoying it is to talk to an idiot?
“Do you only have a brain when you're doing bad things? Are you a total moron the rest of the time?”
Yue Shi immediately shot back, “You're the moron. I don't even know you well; isn't it normal to be on guard?”
The Tree of Truth thought for a moment. “You have a point. I have no grounds to demand your trust.”
“I can see ‘Truth,’ and this world is very wrong.”
“I travel all over the world to uncover certain truths. Unfortunately, people always misunderstand me, thinking I'm some kind of evil god.”
“It's hard to explain in a few words; I can give you a detailed explanation later.”
“Anyway, Old Dream's legacy is right there. I won't touch it. You can handle it however you like.”
“If you feel it's unsafe, then just throw it away.”
“Or you can collect all these authorities and wait to accommodate them later, once you're sure there's no risk.”
The Tree of Truth gave very sincere advice, all of which favored Yue Shi, and didn't seem like she was digging a pit for him.
However, as a great villain himself, Yue Shi's attitude was just as sincere when he was digging pits for others.
“You need to make a choice quickly,” the Tree of Truth said.
“Mad as Old Dream may be, he is not entirely without the power to resist.”
“The highest manager in the Temple should be something like a man-machine puppet.”
“Though he is subject to many restrictions, he can think and can even invoke a portion of Old Dream's power.”
“Once he realizes what's happening, it will certainly be difficult for you to take Old Dream's authority.”
Yue Shi nodded, an infinity symbol flashing deep in his eyes.
“Will there be any trouble in accommodating Old Dream's authority?”
He wasn't so naive as to think that devouring a mad existence who once called himself the Lord God would be as simple as eating candy.
“Good question.”
The Tree of Truth's red lips turned up. Though there was still a hint of laziness in her eyes, her tone became much more serious.
“Even in this state of madness, Old Dream still possesses four core authorities that are most deeply bound to his original existence.”
“These four authorities are firmly guarded by his remaining instincts, sunk into the deepest part of this consciousness ruins, and are the source of all his mad shrieks.”
She picked up the ballpoint pen, twirling it in her hand as her tone became meaningful.
“If you want to obtain these authorities, you must first resist the residual will of Old Dream himself.”
“It's like jumping into a madman's dream and trying to steal the treasures he's hidden there without being affected by his madness.”
“Secondly, the four authorities themselves—especially ‘Ghost’—are not exactly gentle little lambs.”
“‘Ghost’ concerns post-death obsession, the supernatural, the underworld, and the entanglement with the living.”
“It is the extreme manifestation of a specific concept. It is inherently active, prone to losing control, and may even backfire on its master.”
“Forcing an accommodation could lead to being contaminated by the concepts within the authority, turning you into a different form of existence.”
At this point, the Tree of Truth tilted her head slightly and looked at Yue Shi.
“You should know better than I do the consequences of forcibly accommodating certain authorities.”
“Isn't that how that dragon was tricked to death by you?”
Just as she finished speaking, a heart-stoppingly faint tremor suddenly came from the surroundings.
Then, the roots under the legs of the Tree of Truth's ancient wooden desk, which were plunged into the void, suddenly grew wildly as if stimulated.
More fine roots branched out, digging deep into the darkness, their surfaces glowing with a layer of emerald fluorescence.
The Tree of Truth lightly tapped the desktop with her index finger.
Thud.
A soft sound.
As if a switch had been pressed.
The anomaly vanished.
The wildly growing roots also returned to a state of calm, though the fluorescence had not faded and continued to pulse slowly.
Yue Shi took in the entire scene.
He seemed to have been convinced by the Tree of Truth, setting aside all his doubts for the moment.
Turning around, he walked toward the depths of the void, in the direction where the scent of the dessert was strongest.
The Tree of Truth lifted her skirt, the dark green long dress rippling with her movements.
She didn't speak, following a few steps behind Yue Shi with light footfalls.
Yue Shi's pace was not fast.
The surrounding space began to change with his movements.
The darkness was diluted, and a gray mist rose.
From deep within the mist, the shrieks mixed with pain, madness, and obsession became clearer and clearer.
Soon, he saw them.
In the center of the gray mist, four masses of things were entangled with each other.
They were not physical entities but the manifestation of certain concepts, forms condensed from the rules themselves, transcending mundane understanding.
One was a collection of constantly shifting twisted light and shadow and noisy whispers.
It had no fixed shape, sometimes appearing as a silhouette of a chaotic horror story, other times turning into the silhouettes of countless eerily smiling human faces.
It was accompanied by a persistent, indistinct whispering that made one's skin crawl.
The second was an abstract torrent of symbols that constantly self-replicated, mutated, and spread.
It was composed of countless pieces of information with unknown meanings, and this information collided and combined crazily, attempting to imprint its own existence onto everything around it.
Just looking at it made it feel as if countless messy, absurd thoughts were trying to force their way into one's mind.
The third was a shimmering iridescent nebula of shifting colors, with countless scenes being born and dying within it.
Fairylands, demon realms, ordinary daily life, being chased by a dog but unable to run—anything was possible, yet everything was fleeting, filled with ultimate possibility and an unfathomable sense of unreality.
The fourth authority was tightly intertwined with the other three, emitting a cold, terrifying aura and presenting a clear humanoid outline.
It was a blurred gray-white humanoid silhouette. It had no facial features, maintaining only the most basic human form. It carried a continuous stream of resentment and a longing for life.
The four authorities were so tightly entwined that they were hard to separate, forming a slowly rotating conceptual whirlpool.
Together, they formed the core foundation of Old Dream's existence.
Yue Shi stopped before the whirlpool.
The Tree of Truth stood quietly behind him to the side, her seductive eyes watching the whirlpool of authorities before glancing at Yue Shi's back, a faint glint flashing deep in her eyes.
Yue Shi observed for a moment and seemed to have made a decision.
He slowly raised his right hand, his goal clear, reaching toward the humanoid silhouette.
That was ‘Ghost’.
The smile on the Tree of Truth's lips became vivid and playful, her red lips curling into a more obvious arc, as if everything was within her grasp.
Just as Yue Shi's fingers were about to touch the gray-white figure, and he could even feel that bone-chilling cold...
His movement suddenly stopped.
His fingers were only two centimeters away from the authority.
Under the Tree of Truth's gaze, Yue Shi slowly turned his head to look at her.
“By the way, you just said you could see ‘Truth’ and that this world is very wrong.”
“Can you reveal a bit of information? What exactly is wrong with it? I'd like to have some idea.”
“Otherwise, my intuition just won't settle.”
Yue Shi's voice was exceptionally clear, his expression thoughtful and his tone flat.
The smile on the Tree of Truth's face froze for a single frame.
It was very brief.
Her expression management was perfect, and the smile quickly began to flow again, her demeanor natural and soft.
“Since you insist on asking, fine. I can tell you one oddity I've observed.”
She tilted her chin slightly, her voice taking on a strange tone.
“I have calculated every digit of Pi.”
Yue Shi's eyes instantly widened, his beautiful pupils struck by a sense of absurdity.
The Tree of Truth turned her gaze back to him and said word for word:
“The Pi of this world is a finite decimal.”
...
The black ocean swept everywhere, a classic scene of a flood apocalypse.
Relying on his familiarity with the structure of the Supernatural Game Show and the skills he had honed from hiding for so long, the Faceless Man narrowly escaped death.
He was currently hiding in the wreckage of an abandoned instance, his heart trembling with fear.
Only when the nearby ocean currents slowed slightly did he dare to cautiously extend his perception from his hiding place.
The sight before him turned his heart cold.
In the void, the bubbles that originally represented countless game instances were now bursting and vanishing in large patches.
Some nearby bubbles were instantly dimmed and ruptured when swallowed by the seawater.
The scenes and NPC residents inside the bubbles vanished along with them, leaving not a single trace behind.
The Players, however, were thrown out, cast into this dark void.
But they only lived for a little while longer; most met an equally tragic end.
The vast majority of Players hadn't even realized what was happening when they left their instances, falling straight into the seawater and vanishing without a trace.
Only a few quick-witted Players managed to barely cling to life.
They looked around blankly; with darkness and seawater everywhere, they had no idea where to go or where the path to life lay.
The Faceless Man had no time to mourn for these Players; his own situation was also precarious.
Just as he was feeling despair, the entire Supernatural Game Show suddenly began to collapse!
It was as if the very foundation maintaining this space had been uprooted, and irregular pitch-black rifts began to tear open everywhere.
Looking through these rifts...
Shocked, the Faceless Man turned toward the rift closest to him.
He saw it!
The other side of the rift was not endless darkness or some other nonsensical place.
It was light.
The lights of a city at night!
The blurred outlines of buildings in the distance, cars on the streets—everywhere was the atmosphere of life belonging to the real world.
Though it was only a glimpse, there was no mistaking that feeling!
That was the real world!
The home he had been away from for who knows how many years, the place of his dreams!
A surge of wild joy instantly shattered all of the Faceless Man's reason and caution.
He didn't know what had happened or what Yue Shi had done.
He only knew one thing now: this was his chance!
The chance to escape this cage, the chance to return to the real world!
“Run, run now! It's now or never!”
“Dead legs, move!” this thought screamed in his consciousness.
It wasn't just him.
In the Supernatural Game Show, all the surviving Players, normal managers, and renegade managers had discovered these rifts and seen the familiar real world on the other side.
Escape!
Escape toward the light!
Return to the real world!
The instinct for survival and the longing to go home overrode everything.
Countless figures rushed recklessly toward the rifts leading to the real world.
Even if they might be swallowed by the seawater, they did not hesitate.
Because staying here meant being swallowed by the ever-expanding ocean or vanishing along with this space.
Without hesitation, the Faceless Man sped toward the nearest relatively stable rift.
The closer he got to the rift, the more clearly he could feel the reality of the world on the other side.
It truly was the real world he had been yearning for.
At the same time, he also noticed something strange.
The power within him was weakening.
At first, he thought it was just a normal phenomenon of overexertion.
He gritted his teeth, ignoring the increasingly obvious sense of weakness, and pushed his speed to the limit, plunging into the rift.
Poof.
It was like passing through a thick, cold watery membrane.
The next moment, he tumbled onto the dirty ground.
The sound of passing vehicles and the smell of food stalls reached his ears.
He looked up; before him was the night of the real world.
The air was filled with the scent of life and the taste of freedom.
“I'm back?”
“I finally escaped from that place!”
A massive wave of joy, like a tsunami, crashed against his nerves.
He wanted to laugh out loud, to scream at the sky, to touch everything in the real world.
But then, a bucket of ice water was poured over him.
The joy instantly froze.
He felt his face undergoing a strange change.
His facial features seemed to be returning.
He tried to invoke his power to check his condition.
It was completely empty.
It wasn't the kind of emptiness from overexertion; it was a more fundamental and thorough emptiness.
He couldn't feel even a single trace of supernatural power flowing within him.
Nor could he feel any of his supernatural abilities.
They were all gone.
As if they had never existed.
“How could this be?”
When he first became a Player, he had also been an ordinary person. He had only gradually become a transcendent by clearing game instances.
He had long since adapted to his identity as a transcendent. Now, he was being turned back into an ordinary person?
The Faceless Man stood dazed in the cold night of the real world, looking up at the sky.
Was the price of returning to the real world the stripping away of the supernatural abilities gained from the game instances?
Was this... worth it?
Rate on N.U.
