224: Chapter 225 The end is not the blade; even the defeated can be let go first.

[Can a person who only knows how to end things no longer be sent by the world to end everything?]

Gu Changye looked at this line of text and chuckled slightly.

That smile wasn't relaxed at all.

It was like a person finally waiting for the execution platform to ask him: "Can you also choose not to pick up the blade?"

Under the cold lights of the Abyss Processing Bureau, he slowly raised his right hand.

The black patterns of the Terminal Processor crawled from his knuckles to his wrist bones, resembling withered cracks.

[Gu Changye: Applying for Terminal Processor career transition evaluation]

[Current integrated functions: Abyss cleanup, failure line sealing, anomaly termination rights, disposal of unrepairable objects]

[System suggestion: Maintain current position]

[Reason: The current world contains a large number of failure lines, requiring the Terminal Processor to execute clearance]

"Clearance."

Gu Changye muttered these two words under his breath.

Behind him, the expressions of the students from the Old Containment School all changed.

Back when they were called failure samples, these two words were what they heard the most.

Clear contamination.

Clear anomalies.

Clear instability.

Clear mismatches.

Later, they found out that most of the time, what was cleared wasn't contamination.

It was people.

Lin Jin connected to the Abyss Processing Bureau channel.

"What do you want to transition into?"

Gu Changye did not answer immediately.

He lowered his head to look at his own hands.

"I don't know the name."

"I only know that I don't want to be required by the system to end things every time I see a failure."

The underlying system immediately popped up the old definition.

[Terminal Processor = Abyss profession responsible for terminating failure lines]

[If failure lines are not terminated, anomalies will spread]

[If the processor hesitates, it will be regarded as dereliction of duty]

Inspector Han Su said coldly in the Department of Education temporary channel:

"Dereliction of duty again."

Cheng Du's voice in the Mainframe was very deep:

"This definition isn't easy to chop away."

"Failure lines do indeed spread."

Gu Changye raised his eyes.

"That's why I didn't say I wouldn't handle it."

"I said not to resort to termination right off the bat."

Before his voice fell, an alarm suddenly sounded from the direction of the Dead Water Well.

Liang Yan had just finished sealing the invalidation of his professional page, and the remnant page on his chest was still stable, but the waste page mud beneath him suddenly churned up a black line.

That black line crawled out along the edge of the stretcher, forming a blurry lighthouse shadow.

[Beacon Life-Illuminator function missing]

[Rescue path marker broken]

[Judgment: Failure line generated]

[Suggestion: Immediate disposal by Terminal Processor]

Gu Changye's terminal patterns lit up instantly.

It wasn't that he wanted them to light up.

It was the profession summoning his hand.

A black blade phantom automatically materialized in his palm.

The blade's edge was not aimed at the waste page mud.

But at the remnant page on Liang Yan's chest.

Shi Nan blocked in front of the stretcher, his voice trembling.

"How dare you!"

Gu Changye stood in place, the veins on the back of his hands bulging.

He didn't look at Shi Nan.

He stared at his hand gripping the blade, like he was playing tug-of-war with a command that had been strapped onto him twenty years ago.

The system prompts grew increasingly severe.

[Failure line spread countdown: 30 seconds]

[Terminal Processor has not executed]

[Risk rising]

[Suggestion: Terminate failure source]

Liang Yan had just woken up a bit, and upon hearing the word "termination", his breathing instantly went into disarray.

Fang Ning said anxiously:

"His cardiac risk is still high, don't stimulate him!"

Gu Changye finally moved.

With a step, he entered the receiving point outside the Dead Water Well.

The black blade was raised.

Everyone's breath tightened.

The next second, he flipped the blade over.

Not the edge.

It was the back of the blade.

The back of the black blade pressed heavily in front of that failure line.

Boom!

The abyss aura exploded, but it did not slash towards Liang Yan.

That black line was pressed half a foot away from the stretcher, twisting wildly like a pinned snake.

Gu Changye gritted his teeth and said word by word:

"I see failure."

"But I won't kill people first."

The system vibrated violently.

[Terminal Processor has not executed standard termination]

[Failure line not cleared]

"Correct."

Blood seeped from the corner of Gu Changye's forehead.

"Not cleared."

"But isolated."

Lin Jin immediately caught this sentence and wrote on the work order:

[Terminal processing split: Discovering a failure line does not equal immediate termination.]

[Step 1: Confirm whether the target is a human.]

[Step 2: Isolate the spread.]

[Step 3: Seek non-termination disposal solutions.]

[Step 4: Transfer to medical, maintenance, witnessing, settlement, or load-reduction procedures.]

[Step 5: Discuss termination only when it is irreversible, unisolable, continuously causing immediate casualties, and confirmed by multiple parties.]

Ye Guizhou stamped it.

[Failure line received]

[Termination suspended]

Luo Wensheng recorded:

[Gu Changye's personal statement: Termination will no longer be treated as the default primary action.]

He Zhibai added:

[The isolation costs incurred by delayed termination shall be borne publicly; efficiency must not be used to force individuals back into wielding the blade.]

That failure line, pressed by the back of the blade, still struggled.

The system asked coldly in retort:

[If the failure line spreads, who bears the responsibility?]

Gu Changye raised his eyes.

"Write down isolation responsibility."

"Don't write that Gu Changye must kill."

Zhong Minglin immediately said:

"Wuye City deploys outer-ring security."

Fang Ning said:

"Nanling provides medical monitoring."

Zhou Heng said:

"Thunder Spear cuts off external summons without touching people."

Shen Tingxue glanced at her Ice Phoenix pattern.

She no longer undertook public residency duties, but she could still volunteer to act.

"I will provide a low-temperature boundary for ten minutes."

Lin Jin added:

"Jiang City maintenance crew investigates the cause of the failure line."

Chen Ye thrust his shield beside the stretcher.

"I'll withstand the spread impact."

Shisan said coldly:

"I'll see if it's faking failure to trick the blade."

A new isolation array was established around the stretcher.

It wasn't pretty.

It wasn't sacred.

A circle of wooden signs, a circle of dry cloth, a lightning wire, a small ice ring, three Record pages, and a terminal blade pressing down on its own back.

Yet the failure line didn't continue to crawl outward.

It stopped.

The system fell silent for three seconds.

[Non-termination isolation established]

Gu Changye's hand finally loosened a bit.

But his professional patterns instantly backlashed, black lines piercing from his wrist bones straight into his heart.

[Terminal Processor deviates from professional definition]

[Self-damage increased]

Lin Jin's eyes sank.

"Bring up the definition."

The old definition surfaced.

[If the Terminal Processor discovers a terminal target, they must execute termination.]

[Those who fail to execute termination will have the terminal backlash flow back into themselves.]

Gu Changye smiled slightly, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.

"Did you see that?"

"If I don't kill it, it kills me."

Teacher Xu Wenzhou raised 002.

"This line can be chopped."

Cheng Du, however, said anxiously:

"Slow down!"

"If the terminal backlash is completely severed, the failure line might spin out of control."

Gu Changye raised his hand to stop him.

"Don't chop it completely."

He looked at Lin Jin.

"Modify it."

"I can bear the isolation pressure."

"But you cannot default to assuming I'm guilty just because I don't kill."

Lin Jin understood.

The new tool clamped onto the middle section of that definition.

[Failure to execute termination = Dereliction of duty]

Teacher Xu Wenzhou's blade fell.

Clack!

New grayish-white characters squeezed out:

[When confirming that non-termination procedures are effective, the Terminal Processor may transition into isolation, witnessing, transfer, and waiting states.]

[This state does not constitute dereliction of duty.]

[Terminal backlash is retained solely as a risk alert and shall not be converted into punishment.]

The black lines on Gu Changye's chest suddenly relaxed.

He knelt on one knee, propping himself up with the back of the blade, panting as if he had just surfaced from deep water.

Beside Liang Yan's stretcher, that failure line gradually shrank.

Lin Jin squatted down to inspect.

"It's not Liang Yan himself who failed."

"After the Beacon Life-Illuminator professional page failed, the old system couldn't find an alternative path, judging 'no one to light the way' as a failure."

Fang Ning immediately said:

"Then supply an alternative path."

Wuye City's Listen-Water Team provided pipeline routes.

The South Bank settlement hammered out low-level passages.

Hai City's logistics team marked out rescue vehicle routes.

Qinghe County students drew temporary ground directional maps.

Zhou Heng used the Thunder Spear to light up non-professional beacons.

Liang Yan did not recover his Beacon Life-Illuminator status.

Yet the path had still been marked out.

That failure line finally lost its basis, slowly fading to gray.

The system wrote back:

[Failure line disposal result: Non-termination completed]

[Target Liang Yan: Surviving]

[Original professional function: Not recovered]

[Alternative path: Jointly established by multiple people, multiple locations, and non-professional beacons]

Outside the Dead Water Well, Shi Nan looked at that line of text, his shoulders suddenly slumping.

"Turns out there can still be a path even without using him to light lamps."

Gu Changye stood up, propping himself on his blade.

"Turns out failures can be handled without killing."

When he spoke these words, even he seemed to believe them for the first time.

The underlying system popped up the transition evaluation results.

[Gu Changye: First stage of Terminal Processor career transition evaluation established]

[Original default action: Discover failure line — Termination]

[New workflow: Discover failure line — Confirm person/object/Record — Isolate — Transfer — Repair/Settle/Wait — Final termination deliberation]

[Termination authority: Frozen as a last resort]

[Terminal backlash: Changed from punishment to risk warning]

[Temporary professional transition name: Terminal Witness]

Gu Changye looked at that name, remaining silent for a long time.

"Terminal Witness?"

He seemed to find it a bit unfamiliar.

Tang Qi's voice came from The Rejector channel.

"Better than Processor."

"At least it doesn't sound like you're going to send people away the moment you meet them."

Gu Changye chuckled softly.

"Nor does it sound very majestic."

Lin Jin said:

"If you want to be majestic, you can make up your own nickname."

Chen Ye immediately chimed in:

"The-End-Does-Not-Chop Brother?"

Shisan looked at him.

"Shut up."

Gu Changye actually chuckled slightly.

This time, there was no blade in his smile.

He raised his hand and wrote on the transition page:

[Gu Changye accepts temporary transition: Terminal Witness]

[Retain ability to isolate failure lines]

[Freeze default termination authority]

[Each termination deliberation requires external witnessing, alternative plan failure Records, and immediate casualty risk confirmation]

[Self may refuse to wield the blade alone]

The system stamped down a grayish-white confirmation.

Yet almost simultaneously, within the global high-risk profession retirement queues, hundreds of thousands of job definitions stating "must terminate", "must clear", and "must suppress" began to flicker.

[Anomaly Cleaner applies for transition]

[Pollution Incinerator applies for transition]

[Failure Sample Disposal Specialist applies to withdraw]

[Abyss Isolation Soldier applies for suspension]

They all saw that back of Gu Changye's blade.

It turned out a blade could choose not to drop its edge first.

A new annotation lit up on the fourth page of the proposal book.

[Safe exit baseline case two: Transition of default-termination classes of professions]

[Principles: Termination is not the primary action; isolation is not punishment; waiting is not dereliction of duty; losers are not waste.]

Inside the Old Awakening Hall, Inspector Han Su had been silent all along.

Until Gu Changye's transition page stabilized, he lowered his head to look at his own Job-Slayer blade.

That blade had been vibrating ever since just now.

It wasn't excitement.

It was something trying to come out from within the blade.

The next second, a review window popped up in front of Inspector Han Su.

[Inspector Han Su: Job-Slayer career suspension review]

[Historical blade-wielding Records opened]

[Prompt: The Job-Slayer has previously executed a massive number of professional deprivations, professional freezes, professional invalidations, and professional re-trials]

[Whether to review the legitimacy of historical blade-wielding?]

Inspector Han Su did not hesitate.

"Review."

The screen instantly unfurled a sea of blood-red lists.

The first batch was none other than...

They were all students who had been invalidated, demoted, and frozen by the Department of Education system back then.

The list continued to scroll down.

Suddenly, a familiar name stopped at the very top.

[Lin Jin]

[Eighteen years old, College Entrance Examination Awakening Day]

[Original judgment: F-Class Repairman]

[Additional disposal suggestion: Retain at low value, prohibit resource allocation, execute and strip anomalous maintenance permissions when necessary]

Inspector Han Su's Job-Slayer blade automatically slid out of its scabbard by half an inch.

The blade's edge pointed straight at Lin Jin.

The temperature inside the Old Awakening Hall plummeted sharply.

Inspector Han Su firmly pressed down on the hilt, raising his eyes to look at him.

"Lin Jin."

"This time, it's my turn to review the blade in my hand."