Ending (I)
Xu Wei could no longer recall the details of the battle. He only remembered that in the end even the dim light in the broadcasting room went out.
She couldn't hear or see, so she could only walk in the direction of her companions by feeling. The huge tentacles of the giant creature waved in the air, stirring up a whistling wind around her.
She could feel the burning body temperatures of her teammates and the overwhelming coldness. Some warm and wet liquid splashed on her body, but she couldn't tell whose blood it was.
Xu Wei tried desperately to find someone, but in his confusion he stepped on something and fell to the ground.
She frantically reached over there and felt a broken limb. The man's fingers were slender and delicate, and he was wearing a beautiful platycodon bracelet on his wrist. Xu Wei remembered that this was what Zhang Yuan gave to Shaya when they had hot pot.
Later, she picked up Fu Fenglou's knife. The knife, which had always been clean and shiny, was covered with a slippery liquid and was so slippery that she had to hold it with her arm to prevent it from falling.
She didn't know how long she had been walking, perhaps a moment, or perhaps a long time, when she came across several cold corpses.
Then there was the shock of a huge building collapsing, but the darkness did not fade away, and some of Sari's seaweed-like hair fell on her face.
Afterwards, the Dream also completely stopped "fleshing" and let out an unwilling wail before dying.
The howl was extremely angry and used up all its strength. Then, the howl briefly tore through the darkness. The oppressive black clouds collapsed under the impact, and light penetrated through the gaps.
The sudden bright light made Xu Wei squint involuntarily, and then she saw with her own eyes the broken limbs and wounds all around her, and the huge mountain in front of her.
Unaffected by the skill at all, the three huge tentacles slapped over with clear targets.
Her tears had long since dried up, and her soul had almost dissipated with each incident. When the dark clouds finally started to attack her, she actually felt a little relieved.
It can finally be over.
She also held Fu Fenglou's knife horizontally and rushed towards it.
One is tiny, the other is huge. Two shadows with extremely obvious contrast quickly crashed into each other.
At that moment.
A small crack appeared in time and space subtly, like a clear spring breaking through a long-blocked dry channel. Her five senses were unblocked at this moment, allowing her consciousness to temporarily transcend herself, fly away from the surface, break through the atmosphere at an infinitely fast speed, and reach the boundless universe.
She was suspended above the starry sky, and saw with her own eyes the universe where the Earth was located. The huge body of the dark cloud had broken through the last line of defense set by the system, and was wantonly devouring the creatures on Earth.
She heard cries all over the blue planet and the sorrows from other civilizations all over the universe.
Humans failed. They failed too.
This is the first and last battlefield between all cosmic creatures and dark clouds. From today on, cosmic civilization will begin an era of escape until there is nowhere left to go.
There will be no more hereafter, neither past, present nor future, and time will no longer exist.
Blood dripped from the knife and mixed with the blood puddle on the ground.
Xu Wei's consciousness split off, separated from his still running body, and floated in the air.
She saw the dark clouds approaching.
Because of this, he failed to see Lu Fanye who was hitting him from the side.
His body was knocked flying, and Xu Wei regained consciousness instantly, hearing a teeth-grinding slapping sound coming from behind him.
Lu Fanye was crushed into pieces by the three tentacles. It was unknown how much of him fell on the boat and how much fell into the sea.
Xu Wei crashed into the collapsed pillar, suffering a severe blow to the head, with blood flowing and blurring his eyes.
She was also crying in her heart, just like every living thing in the universe at this moment.
She lost.
She is no different, even though many people have said to her, you are different, you can make us win.
Humanity is going extinct.
Xu Wei's hand could no longer hold Fu Fenglou's knife and let it return to the backpack.
She slid down the pillar and collapsed on the body of the Dream. The other eye that was not covered with blood stared at the giant tentacles coming from the dark clouds, and above her head was a black cloud that was about to fall.
The last second of the end of the world.
She kept her eyes open.
Then, from the horizon that seemed very close and yet very far away, a loud and clear phoenix cry was heard.
The cry was so loud that it briefly parted the clouds.
Phoenix?
Her mind had been so confused by the reality that it kept jumping around and bizarre thoughts popped up one after another.
Ye Yan is here.
She brought with her a flame that burned everything, dyeing the entire sky into surging red and black colors.
She was accompanied by Fang Yi and many people behind her.
Xu Wei had seen them at the player night market. Those big guys, who had completed 6-7 dungeons per person, loved to haggle with buyers at the stalls, laughing and joking like a jerk.
They followed Fang Yi down from Ye Yan's Fire Phoenix, silently stood in front of them, covering Xu Wei tightly.
Just facing the dark clouds means enduring the highest level of pollution. Some people in the front row couldn't hold on and fell down, but no one stepped back.
Amid their skills, props and lighting effects, Fang Yi put a bracelet on Xu Wei's hand.
"Where is the button I gave you?" he asked eagerly.
Xu Wei looked into the deep sea.
As soon as the new bracelet was put on, it was like some mechanism was activated and it disappeared in an instant. Xu Wei's red bracelet began to emit blue light.
[Ding——The bracelet holder——Chu Xunxi is transferring the authority. The highest authority of the trial system has been transferred successfully, and the current holder is——Xu Wei. 】
The mechanical sound of the system sounded in my mind.
The pollution from the dark clouds was so severe that Fang Yi gasped for breath and trembled as he grabbed her wrist. Xu Wei then realized that his entire body was shaking.
"Authority, I have completed the task assigned to us by the Lord of Judgment City." He held Xu Wei tightly, enduring the pain of contamination.
Then, with hope in his eyes, he cautiously pressed a certain bulge on her red bracelet.
Amid the sudden fluctuations in space, he forced a smile and encouraged, "Xu Wei, you must win."
*
After a moment of dizziness, a figure appeared in the devastated City Hall of Judgment City.
Even though all the injuries on his body disappeared the moment he crossed over, the pain and numbness still attacked his mind. Xu Wei covered his forehead and endured the dizziness, and almost lost his balance.
The Judgment City was surrounded by black air and no one could be seen. The previously bustling and exquisitely decorated buildings were now in ruins. If one had to describe the scene at this moment, the most appropriate description would be a pile of broken walls and ruins.
Xu Wei looked around, then looked at the bracelet, his tired expression showing a hint of confusion.
The front door of the City Hall was badly damaged, and the facilities behind it were buried in the ruins. The black air was quite attracted to this place and was more intense than in other buildings.
"Mao Cheng?" Xu Wei shouted.
No response.
She walked forward, climbed over the collapsed gate, and pushed aside the rubble to go deeper.
It seemed that there had been no living creatures here for a long time. As soon as the black air saw her, they rushed over and tried their best to drill into her body. Xu Wei could feel their slight corrosion on her body, but the impact was not great.
The pollution from the dark clouds had less and less impact on her.
Even when she was facing the dark clouds on the top of the Dream, she did not feel any discomfort.
She began to dig at the accumulated rubble, moving faster and faster, moving stones frantically, from day to night.
Getting closer.
The closer she got to the center of the ruins, the more noticeably the heat the bracelet got. Finally, she felt a piece of hard glass on the ground covered with rubble and gravel.
[Authorization being granted——Unlocked successfully. 】
Almost as soon as Xu Wei came into contact, the system sound rang automatically, and the glass hatch lifted up a large piece of stone, raising dust, and opened wide.
Purification cabin.
The thing she is most familiar with is also the medium she often uses to have "out-of-system conversations" with Mao Cheng.
Tears suddenly welled up in Xu Wei's eyes.
She didn't cry when the mission failed, and she didn't cry when she screwed up the survival of mankind and the entire universe. But for some reason, in such a chaotic, confused, and hopeless moment, in such a dilapidated scene, she saw the familiar purification cabin standing intact, and the emotions that should have been numb poured out again.
She lay down in the purification cabin, her vision blurred by tears, and her body began to tremble uncontrollably, from suppressed sobs to uncontrollable wails.
The clean room door slowly closed, isolating the black gas that tried to get in. This place was as clean and bright as ever, the light strip was turned off, and the vision fell into darkness again, giving people the illusion of returning to the past.
She even vaguely thought that after this purification, everything would return to the way it was before, the companions of 7865 were still there, Lu Fanye did not fall into the deep sea, the Earth civilization and the interstellar civilization were still trying to join forces to fight against the dark clouds. Even though the chances were slim, there was still hope.
There has never been a moment when she wished she could sleep forever as she did now.
"Xu Wei."
In the darkness and silence, Mao Cheng's voice did not appear abrupt, but instead seemed particularly gentle and soothing.
The small spotlight next to the bulkhead projected a small image. Mao Cheng was sitting next to the equipment in the office, wearing a white coat, holding his glasses and smiling.
"I'm glad you're alive."
He seemed very happy: "Just kidding. I'm glad you're back. This proves... although the dark clouds have come to an end, our plan has succeeded. No, it's three quarters completed. I've been waiting for a long time, but the teacher didn't want to use this version of the plan. Finally, it was completed under their noses."
Xu Wei wiped her tears and said, "Mao Ting, I'm sorry, I messed up something, what should I do?"
Mao Ting did not respond to her: "What I am going to tell you next is our final plan."
He continued at his own pace: "You now have the highest authority in Judgment City. It's not easy to take that authority away from me. I have to find a reason to get the teacher's approval. But luckily there's Xiaoxi... I mean, Chu Xunxi, she's very good. At that time, my body could no longer bear such a heavy task, so the teacher agreed to let her temporarily take over as the city lord as a player."
"I know you have a lot of questions, and I don't have time to explain so much, but I think you will understand soon," he paused and said with a smile, "But there is one thing I guarantee you will not have guessed."
He was a little proud.
“I am the system.”
Xu Wei's eyes widened.
"It's normal that you can't guess. Even the past me couldn't imagine my current state. When I decided to connect my consciousness to the Judgment System, I didn't expect that I would gradually become a part of it. After that, I couldn't tell the difference."
He tilted his head slightly, as if recalling a memory: "This helped me a lot. I didn't have such a large computing power to find a possible winning result before. After trillions of calculations, I thought the chances were slim, but Xu Wei, the 1% possibility I found among countless failures was you. There was no higher possibility than this. Until that moment, I finally understood that all this was the choice of time."
"Should I convince the teacher to give up struggling and escape deeper into the universe, until we still cannot escape the fate of extermination?" He said, "I can't go back anymore, so I might as well give it a try."
"Speaking of this," he suddenly pointed at the center of the screen calmly, as if interacting with Xu Wei, "The second one is something you will never guess - there are only two interstellar civilization creatures in Judgment City, and the others are simulated projections."
"Besides me, the other one... you still can't guess. Think about it, after staying in Judgment City for so long, have you ever come into contact with people from other interstellar civilizations?"
Xu Wei: "Yes, the NPC at the sales office, the receptionist at the city hall, and..."
Mao Chuang: "It's touch. Besides me and other players, who have you touched directly with your body parts?"
touch.
Xu Wei frowned.
I thought it was a common occurrence, but when I thought about it carefully, I found that in my memory, there seemed to be no physical contact with the NPCs of Judgment City. Even the receptionists at the city hall would deliberately keep a distance from the players.
Suddenly she had an idea: "Spherical man!"
The spherical person in the Judgment Hotel, with a yellow spherical head. When Xu Wei first encountered Wuyun, he extorted his first pot of gold from her! During the negotiation, Xu Wei patted her shoulder.
"She's from the Judgment Hotel... I remember you called her the yellow spherical person? Her name is Fusi, and she came here to look for her sister," Mao Ting said with a sigh, "You've seen her sister before in your novice copy. She was still conscious at that time and helped you."
White spherical man.
Xu Wei's long-forgotten memories were awakened.
"Interstellar creatures are not like humans. They can resist the pollution of dark clouds by strengthening their willpower. Even with a purification cabin, the source of pollution cannot be completely eradicated. In other words, even if I live in a purification cabin, I will always have 1% pollution on my body, and the source of pollution will continue to grow over time. Therefore, Fusi and I came to Earth with the determination to die."
"This is a fight to the death, you should have known that."
Xu Wei knew about the spherical man, Taoist Jiang, the little witch in the amusement park... Her marker mission only recorded a very small part of the countless warriors who were buried here.
"After I merged with the system, I gained an extremely large computing power, but it became more difficult to purify. Pollution had already invaded the system, which is why you sometimes feel that the dungeon and the system are separated, sometimes helping players, and sometimes maliciously laying traps to kill them. I'm sorry, but that was the result of my best efforts."
He regained his suddenly heavy expression and said in a serious tone, "To make a long story short, the body I showed you is just a simulated clone. Don't get me wrong - it's just for the convenience of communicating with you. After all, my entity is not so...acceptable to everyone."
"Next, I need you to help me do three things."
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