86: Chapter 86 The Ultimate Truth

Guixu.

Here, there is no distinction between heaven and earth.

As far as the eye can see, there is only chaotic mist that churns slowly and never ceases.

Space is broken here, and time is chaotic.

One second, the solid black reef under your feet might still be there, but the next second, you might step into a silent spatial rift capable of tearing even a soul to shreds.

Light is a luxury here, and sound is an illusion.

Outlaw Zhang San and his party trekked along, stumbling like a group of ants that had broken into the digestive tract of a giant beast.

Behind them, at the entrance where the view of the normal world could still be seen, dozens of powerful auras were lingering and hesitating, like hyenas blocked by an invisible fence.

The blood-colored mark of the 'Immortal Pursuit Order' burned fiercely on every player's forehead, like an eternal nether-lamp, guiding the pursuers.

But the fearsome reputation of Guixu ultimately outweighed the decree of the Tomb Guardian.

None of the holy land cultivators at the Golden Core or Nascent Soul stages dared to truly step into this restricted area.

This bought the players a precious breathing room.

Shadowless coughed up another mouthful of blood; his complexion was no longer pale, but a deathly gray that was almost transparent. 'The spatial laws here... are cutting through my internal organs. If we stay any longer, we won't need them to hunt us down; we'll finish ourselves off here.'

Charge to the End kicked a black stone on the ground irritably, but it felt like kicking into cotton; the force was weirdly dissipated, and he nearly stumbled.

Damn, this ghost place, even the recovery speed of a health potion is only one-tenth of the usual!

Quiet.

Outlaw Zhang San's voice was soft, but it made everyone fall silent.

His gaze was fixed on his storage bag, the one containing the stone box, which was currently vibrating violently, as if it were not a dead object inside, but a heart about to explode!

Hum—

It was not just his storage bag.

At the back of the team, two life players responsible for bringing up the rear felt their giant packs vibrate, and two tightly wrapped items also emitted a humming sound and broke free from their bindings!

Those were two stone fragments of different shapes, exactly the other two pieces of the key of the divine prison that the players had painstakingly acquired!

The three fragments, at this moment, in this chaotic land of Guixu, produced an unprecedented resonance!

Ignoring the barriers of space, they turned into three streams of light and collided fiercely in mid-air!

There was no earth-shattering explosion, only a kind of ultimate 'nothingness' that could swallow even light and sound.

Where the three streams of light converged, space collapsed into a pitch-black singularity.

Immediately after, the singularity expanded violently, and an ancient, desolate aura, as if from the beginning of the universe, swept across the entire area!

It was a kind of 'presence' that transcended power and laws.

In the face of this aura, all players, regardless of strength, felt their own insignificance.

It was as if their existence, their thoughts, and their digitized bodies were merely a speck of dust before this aura.

Within the pitch-black singularity, a complete, ancient key forged from unknown gray-black metal slowly emerged.

It had no ornate patterns, no flashing spiritual light.

But it was there, floating silently, yet it seemed to be the center of the whole world, the origin of all laws and concepts.

The key of the divine prison was, at this moment, finally complete.

And at this very instant.

The dilapidated stone coffin, hidden somewhere in the cracks of the void, shook violently.

Inside the coffin, that illusory spiritual body—Lu Bei, or rather, the Ancestor—suddenly opened his eyes!

These were no longer the eyes that carried a hint of weakness and mystery in daily life.

These were eyes that contained the birth and death of stars and the changing of epochs!

Endless memories, like a bursting galaxy, broke through the last layer of the seal and flooded into his soul violently and savagely!

It was the Majesty of holding the laws of heaven and speaking with authority.

It was the exhaustion of witnessing epoch after epoch come to an end.

It was the determination to do what was known to be impossible when facing the indescribable 'Outer Evil God'.

It was the exhaustion of depleting his origin to build this world as a 'God Prison'.

It was the pain of watching 'Ascension' become a scam for the evil god to siphon power, yet being unable to stop it.

It was the endless sorrow of burning himself as the last 'warden' before falling into a deep sleep.

And...

That last and only hope—

A crazy plan, one that even he thought was whimsical.

To introduce, from outside the 'prison', a group of... variables that were not bound by the rules of the 'prison'.

Lu Bei's spiritual body trembled violently; it was not pain, but a fierce resonance after carrying billions of years of loneliness and mission.

He looked toward Guixu, his gaze piercing through the chaos, seeing the group of 'Filial Sons and Virtuous Grandchildren' who were unable to move due to the pressure of the key.

He knew there was no time left.

The completion of the key would awaken that prisoner.

And his group of 'armies from beyond the heavens' still knew nothing about the truth.

In the name of... the 'warden'...

Lu Bei's spiritual body began to burn.

It was not fire, but a more fundamental 'existence' dissipating.

He completely ignited his remaining authority, which was part of the foundation of the world.

...Force sync... Ultimate Protocol!

In Guixu.

The vision of all players was forcibly stripped away at the same instant.

Before their eyes was not darkness, but a pure 'nothingness' containing no information.

Their thoughts seemed to have been pressed with a pause button, and all perception of the outside world was cut off.

Immediately after, a 'scene' that did not belong to memory, yet was more real than memory, was branded directly into the depths of their souls.

It was an ultimate 'CG animation'.

[CG Start]

The scene was a boundless sea of stars.

But that sea of stars was morbid; countless worlds were quietly rupturing like ripe pustules.

A 'thing' that could not be described in any language was wriggling among the stars.

It had no fixed form; at times it was a collection of billions of tentacles, at times a nebula composed of countless wailing mouths, and at times pure, geometric color blocks that could drive any gazer insane.

—[Outer Evil God: Throat of Ten Thousand Forms].

A line of cold text, not belonging to the system but originating directly from the underlying layers of the world, appeared in the depths of every player's heart.

The scene shifted to countless gods standing tall between heaven and earth.

Bathed in the radiance of laws, they held divine artifacts capable of splitting galaxies and engaged in a brutal war with the 'Throat of Ten Thousand Forms'.

Stars were scattered like sand, and dimensions were torn apart like paper.

But the gods were falling.

Their laws and their divine power seemed so powerless when facing that 'thing'.

In despair, one god proposed the final plan—imprisonment.

If it could not be destroyed, it would be banished forever.

Thus, the CG camera zoomed in, and the players saw the most shocking scene of their lives.

The surviving gods used their divine kingdoms as bricks and mortar, their divine blood as grout, and their divine souls as lamps, burning everything to forge a brand new world in a corner of the void universe!

A perfect, indestructible... prison.

In the center of the scene, a giant creation furnace that seemed capable of smelting all things burned fiercely, breathing in chaos and forging the mountains, rivers, spiritual energy, and even the most fundamental physical laws of this world.

And the Ancestor—Lu Bei, in the CG, was dressed in a warden's official robe embroidered with a silver World Tree, his face showing Majesty, his eyes filled with compassion, as he and several other comrades personally struck the dying 'Throat of Ten Thousand Forms' into the core of this world, using the creation furnace as the core of the seal.

The world was henceforth called—[God Prison].

The rhythm of the CG suddenly accelerated.

Epochs changed, time passed.

The living beings in the God Prison began to multiply; they breathed in spiritual energy, comprehended laws, and embarked on a path called 'cultivation'.

When the first cultivator reached the pinnacle of this world and tried to break the shackles of heaven and earth to 'ascend' to the upper realm, tragedy struck.

The end of his so-called 'ascension channel' was not connected to a higher world, but to that huge seal!

His lifelong cultivation and power, along with his soul, were instantly drained by the seal, turning into nourishment to reinforce the seal and... feed the prisoner.

'Ascension', from beginning to end, was the most vicious scam laid out by the evil god!

It was using the strong of this world to weaken the seal little by little and strengthen itself!

The wardens discovered the truth, but it was too late.

They fell one by one in the resistance against the evil god's infiltration, and in the end, only Lu Bei remained.

The scene froze at the end of the last epoch.

Lu Bei was covered in blood, his warden robe was tattered, and behind him was the collapsing sky and the scarlet earth.

Looking at his broken spiritual body, he made his final decision.

He bound himself to the 'player system' and fell into a deep sleep as the 'Ancestor'.

He wanted to summon!

Summon a group of 'visitors from beyond the heavens' who were from outside the God Prison, not bound by the laws of this place, with wild imaginations, and who were not afraid of death...

The final scene of the CG.

It was Lu Bei's weak, yet crazy and expectant whisper, resounding in the soul of every player:

'Your soul data does not belong to this world.'

'Your death and resurrection are a BUG that the laws of this world cannot understand.'

'Your 'incense' is the only power from 'beyond the heavens' that can resist the evil god's corruption.'

'You are not my Filial Sons and Virtuous Grandchildren...'

'You are... my last army, the last antivirus program of this God Prison.'

[CG End]

Dead silence.

In Guixu, you could hear a pin drop.

All players stood frozen on the spot, like puppets whose souls had been extracted.

The key of the divine prison in Outlaw Zhang San's hand had stopped vibrating at some point, lying quietly in his palm, emitting a cold chill.

Shock, absurdity, bewilderment, fear...

Countless emotions churned in the hearts of the players.

So... replacing the golden coffin for the Ancestor was just a tutorial.

So... tearing down the rival's ancestral hall, fighting bandits, destroying the Chen family, battling the Demon Lord, were all just insignificant warm-ups in this world-destroying chess game.

They were not playing a game.

They were gambling on the corpse of a real world that was about to be destroyed.

The stake was two worlds.

Just then, on the retinas of all players, the familiar system interface began to flicker, glitch, and distort violently!

Lines of scarlet text, like a virus, covered the entire screen!

[Warning! Worldview protocol updated! Underlying logic restructuring...]

[Main quest module has undergone irreversible changes...]

The players watched helplessly as the [Main Quest: Glorify Ancestors] in their quest log, which had accompanied them for so long and had even become a belief, turned into powder amidst a harsh shattering sound!

Replacing it was a brand new quest radiating an aura of endless ominousness and despair, which boomed and occupied the entire field of vision in blood-red mythic-grade font!

[Mythic-grade Main Quest: Save the World]

[Quest Description: The God Prison has been breached, and the evil god is about to awaken. As the last army of the warden, the last 'antivirus from beyond the heavens', you are the only hope for this world. Restart the 'creation furnace', repair the God Prison, or perish into nothingness with all things amidst the whispers of the evil god.]

[Quest Objective: ???]

[Quest Reward: ???]

[Failure Penalty: Server permanently deleted, world returns to nothingness.]

That last line of text, every character, seemed to be written with the blood of countless living beings, carrying a bone-chilling cold, deeply branded onto the soul of everyone.

'I... fuck...'

It was unknown who, in the dead silence, softly uttered these two words in a dreamlike tone, mixed with extreme terror and a hint of perverted excitement.

The era of the great escape?

No.

An era that was grander, and a billion times more desperate than that, had arrived.