When we parted for the last time, my brother's figure gradually twisted in the black slime...

"So..." Ma Tuan's voice trembled, "those weren't dreams?"

The tentacles brushed his cheeks gently, carrying the salty, acrid scent of the deep sea. The voice in his mind sighed:

I gave you human memories, human warmth... but time has come, cub.

Nansong suddenly gasped: "Ma Tuan! Look at your hands!"

Ma Tuan looked down and found that his skin was gradually becoming transparent, with nebula-like light flowing inside.

Memories came flooding back like a tide - he was not a human being at all, but a strand of consciousness separated from this ancient existence, shaped into a human form and living until now.

"I see..." Ma Tuan looked at Nan Song with a wry smile, "No wonder I always feel like... I don't belong anywhere..."

Nansong's eyes flashed with complex emotions, but eventually turned into determination: "So what? Let's escape together!"

But Ma Tuan's body began to glow faintly, and memories washed over his consciousness like a bursting dam.

He raised his hand tremblingly and looked at the starlight flowing under his translucent skin - that was not human blood, but the fragments of ancient gods awakening.

"So...that's how it is..." He muttered to himself, his voice trembling with sudden realization.

The broken memory is finally complete:

In that earth-shattering war between gods, the ranger Broll sealed the fighting "Shibadanmaru" and Severus at the cost of his own life.

But before falling into slumber, a small portion of the ancient god's power broke free and escaped in the form of starlight.

The starlight rotated in the cycle of reincarnation and finally condensed into the current glutinous rice ball.

"I'm not human..." Ma Tuan whispered, watching his fingertips gradually turn into stardust, "I never have been..."

Nansong clutched his arm tightly, his knuckles turning white. "Ma Tuan! Look at me! No matter who you are, you are mine..."

"Friends." Ma Tuan continued, giving him a bitter smile. "I know. In this life, the last, and every life."

The glacier collapsed around them, revealing a bottomless void. In the falling light dust, Ma Tuan saw countless images of reincarnation flash by:

- In ancient times, he was a fragment of a god, and Nansong was the priest who guarded the temple.

- In the Middle Ages, he was a wandering astrologer and Nansong was the saint who accompanied him.

- In the previous life, they were comrades fighting side by side

-The best, the best...a lifetime...

- And in this life... they finally remembered their original cause and effect

"Broll...Bai Di..." Ma Tuan suddenly chuckled, "No wonder we felt so familiar the first time we met. The four of us have always been..."

The giant sea otter let out a long cry, and the sound was filled with the joy and sadness of reunion.

Ma Tuan felt a strange pulling sensation - his consciousness was reconnecting with his body.

"Nansong," he said suddenly eagerly, "go find Broll and Bai Di! Tell them... it's time to 'return the core to its place.'"

A trace of panic flashed in Nansong's eyes: "What do you mean? You want to..."

"I won't disappear." Ma Tuan's body had begun to disintegrate into points of light, but his smile became clearer and clearer. "I'm just... coming back. We'll be back soon..."

Before he finished speaking, his figure completely transformed into a stream of light and headed towards the awakening god in the distance.

The teardrop-shaped gem fell into Nansong's palm and suddenly burst into dazzling light.

At the same time, in a distant secret realm, Blore suddenly looked up; in a corner of the city, the star stone in Bai Di's hand suddenly shattered.

They all felt it—the gears of fate had finally begun to turn.

Deep within the glacier, the fully awakened K'se sea otter slowly stretched its body. And in its central eye, Ma Tuan's gentle smile could still be clearly seen.

The giant sea otter whimpered, and the entire glacier began to collapse.

At this moment, Ma Tuan was floating in the long river of empty memories, and suddenly he remembered more - about Nan Song's true identity.

He saw a huge jellyfish floating in the deep sea, its transparent umbrella like a blooming peach blossom, emitting a soft fluorescence in the dark seabed.

It was one of the followers that Shibadanmaru accidentally created while sleeping - a jellyfish that yearned for land and rivers.

"Do you want to go see the river?" the young Ma Tuan (at that time he was just a wandering fragment of divinity) once asked her.

The jellyfish's tentacles swayed gently, as if nodding.

So, on the day Ma Tuan separated from his original body and entered the cycle of reincarnation, he also took with him a tentacle of the jellyfish, which yearned for a different landscape. They each transformed, reincarnated as humans, and walked different paths, but they would eventually meet again under the guidance of fate.

"So that's how it is..." Ma Tuan whispered in the depths of his consciousness, "No wonder Nansong always has an unusual affinity for water..."

He remembered Nan Song's slightly shining eyes when she stood by the river, and how she always unconsciously stirred the water in the cup with her fingers. Even in her sleep, her hair would occasionally move without wind, like tentacles floating in the water.

"We will meet again." Ma Tuan thought firmly as his consciousness gradually faded.

He was no longer the ignorant fragment of divinity he once was, but a "ball" who had experienced reincarnation and possessed an independent soul. Even if the original body wanted to take him back now, the bond between them would not be severed.

The river is continuous and the sea is surging.

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