Chapter 787 - 786: The Origin

Chapter 787: Chapter 786: The Origin

Upon hearing the Captain’s words, Yu Sheng merely raised his hand to scratch his head.

The story the Captain told him felt surreal; about the Old World, the god symbolizing death, the burial that took place in another timeline—he had no recollection, no concept of such events even if they happened, as they seemed to have happened to someone else entirely.

But he knew the story must be true; after all, a "creator" who forged a new world wouldn’t mock him with something so significant.

Yu Sheng turned around and decisively sat on the pile of dug-up dirt, looking up at the edge of the wilderness.

"Then who do you think I should be?" he said casually, "Maybe some sort of hybrid? Like half of the Bartok you mentioned, and the other half, the World Bridge that fell back then..."

As he spoke, Yu Sheng waved casually through the air, and small doors opened in front of him, revealing the deck of the Lost Home, the small town on the main drive sequence, the counter beside the Antique Shop, and the living room of No. 66 Wutong Road.

These doors opened one after another and closed just the same.

The Captain’s gaze deepened as he watched this scene, suddenly speaking softly, "...Is this the power of that bridge?"

"I don’t know," Yu Sheng said slowly, "One day I walked out the door and found myself from a familiar home to an odd large city. I died in that city, and upon opening my eyes, I returned to life. I pushed open a large door, only to find the other side was another corner of the world...

"No one can tell me what’s going on, nor explain what’s strange about me. Gradually, I began to doubt many things—who am I exactly? Where did I come from? Did those things existing in my memory ever really exist?"

Yu Sheng explained, a bit agitated as he waved his hand.

He thought, if he were at home, there would surely be a fluffy big tail extending next to him, and the fox girl would nuzzle her head against his chest, rubbing back and forth—she always did this when he was in a bad mood.

But here, there was only the cold, icy wind, the entire world quiet as a cemetery.

"Familiar home..." remarked the Captain, frowning slightly as he keenly noticed a detail in Yu Sheng’s words, "So you have a ’home’ in your memory? What does it look like?"

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, again sketching from the somewhat blurred memories that seaside small city—

"It’s a small city with a red sky. At dusk, sunlight would flow through the city like blood... That small city lies by the sea, serene and tranquil..."

"...Wait a minute, I want to confirm," interrupted the Captain, frowning suddenly mid-sentence, "The red sky and sunlight like blood you mentioned, are you describing or being literal?"

Yu Sheng was stunned, looking into the Captain’s eyes: "Of course, it’s real. When the sunlight flows down from the sky there, it felt particularly textured, drizzling, warm upon touch, yet thin like fog."

The Captain’s eyes slowly widened. Honestly, Yu Sheng hadn’t expected to see such an expression on the man’s face—the "creator" reacted as if he’d seen a ghost: "...Isn’t that the final phase of the Great Annihilation, when the collapse of underlying laws causes the disintegration of the material world?!"

Yu Sheng: "...?"

"And you just mentioned the sky is red?" continued the Captain, "Recall carefully, is the base color of the sky itself red, or is there a massive red light covering the whole sky?"

"Does it make a difference? Isn’t it just all red? I can’t tell..."

The Captain still stared fixedly until Yu Sheng started feeling awkward and then spoke with widened eyes: "You also said you aren’t Bartok, but you’ve recalled the last scene of the reality world collapsing during the Great Annihilation as a warm old home memory—how can you not be him?"

Yu Sheng: "I never said I wasn’t... It was you who said I wasn’t just now."

"...Oh right, I did say that."

"..."

Yu Sheng’s emotions abruptly became disjointed again, not knowing what to say, he simply shrugged, and then he thought of something else: "Speaking of which, I have another question—the name of my hometown in memory is also Boundary City, how could it be the same as the name of the city in Boundary Land? Moreover, many regions in the real-world Boundary City are somewhat resembling yet not the same as my memories... If the Boundary City in my memory is truly the hometown in Bartok’s recollection, then what’s the situation with the Boundary Land in the real universe?"

"Boundary Land... yes, Boundary Land is another issue, which is exactly what I was about to tell you," the Captain commented as he paced on the ground beside Yu Sheng, then suddenly his gaze fell on Yu Sheng, "You know, actually, there wasn’t this so-called ’Boundary Land’ in my initial blueprint."

Yu Sheng: "...What?!"

"No Boundary Land, I didn’t even plan any material entity in the corresponding area," the Captain said quickly, "It’s an ancient data void located at the observably universe’s center. The Rift of the Old World and the Benchmark of the New World were placed there, not to mention below is where your grave is sealed—thinking about it, the place couldn’t possibly be planned as a ’residential area’."

Yu Sheng was bewildered upon hearing this: "Wait a minute, uh... Alright, what you said makes sense, but what happened to the current Boundary Land? Where did it pop up from?"

The Captain gently took a breath, a subtle expression on his face: "It crashed in."

Yu Sheng: "...?"

"Ahem, that was something from the early days of the Universe’s birth," the Captain lightly coughed twice, slowly beginning to speak, "At that time, the real Universe had just finished its construction, the time flow of the new world had not yet started, and everything had not fully entered order — it was at that moment, a massive data structure as large as the Endless Sea of that era suddenly appeared near the World Barrier...

"Frankly speaking, I was inexperienced at the time, and my observations and understanding of the entire ruin world group were very superficial. Coupled with the fragile barrier of the new world’s birth, all these factors summed up, eventually led to an irreversible collision."

Yu Sheng listened, dumbfounded, staring with wide eyes at the Captain, while the Captain across from him returned his gaze expressionlessly.

The two of them just looked at each other like that, neither of them speaking for a while.

After a few seconds, Yu Sheng finally couldn’t hold it anymore: "So, it just crashed?"

"Yes."

"...And then what?" Yu Sheng stared with wide eyes, "Did the Boundary Land from outside the world just settle down in the real Universe like that? Shouldn’t this kind of outside world’s invasion body..."

He suddenly stopped halfway through speaking, then quickly turned his head, looking at the open grave beside him.

"...What the hell."

"I checked at that time, the collision did not puncture your... tomb," the Captain said with a strange expression, "but it was clear that the collision itself still led to some kind of connection being established between the Boundary Land and you — do you remember what I just said? The demise of a world is also part of the world’s cycle, or in other words, ’death’... is the passage to birth."

Yu Sheng: "..."

"Now it seems the impact is mutual, the subsequent disturbances caused by that collision at the outset of the Universe’s birth are even more profound than I imagined," the Captain gently exhaled, speaking slowly.

Yu Sheng didn’t open his mouth, he was still furrowing his brow in deep thought, feeling that certain key issues were still entangled in his mind, and these issues still ultimately revolved around his initial question —

Why does the small seaside town in his memory have so many seemingly similar mapping relations with the real Boundary City?

To be honest, right after hearing the Captain mention that "collision," Yu Sheng instinctively thought that the Boundary Land "mapped" information related to Boundary City into his memory, but he immediately realized that wasn’t right — the process was reversed.

The Boundary Land wasn’t originally like this! Baili Qing mentioned that before the epoch change event occurred, the Boundary Land had a history of dragons and magic, heroes and giants... Back then the Boundary Land seemed to be a shattered land, only scattered city-states were distributed on the land, and unstable scorched earth and ruins pervaded between the city-states.

So when did this complete Boundary Land and the prosperous Boundary City appear?

years ago, the World Bridge fell, the epoch changed, the times alternated...

"What are you thinking about?" The Captain immediately noticed the change in Yu Sheng’s expression.

"I think I understand what’s going on," Yu Sheng stood up, speaking rapidly, "I know how the epoch change of the Boundary Land happened, and what connection the image of my hometown in my memory has with the real Boundary City...

"It should be like this, the World Bridge first punctured the Boundary Land 3700 years ago, destroying its previous era, then immediately punctured my... well, punctured my grave, and this process led to my ’memory’, possibly a dream, or something else, in any case, there was an overflow... Next is the process you mentioned, with death as the cycle, information from one world is transmitted to the next... The previously destroyed old version of the Boundary Land was directly regenerated once again according to my memory...

"Yes, it explains everything, this makes many things explainable..."

Yu Sheng said this while pacing quickly beside the pile of dirt, looking inexplicably excited, as if clearing away a long-standing fog, solving a puzzle that had puzzled him for a long time, or getting an answer he had sought for a long time.

But as he walked, his steps slowly came to a halt, a trace of bewilderment and confusion crossing his face.

"So... so what exactly am I now..."

Yu Sheng muttered, looking down at his own hands, slowly opening them, then tightening them again bit by bit.

Yu Sheng thought, he should be that deity from the Old World, but that Death God was long dead, buried by the creator’s own hands, and now it seems there is only a bit of memory of his hometown world left, along with some peculiar abilities.

He might also be that World Bridge from 3700 years ago, but that World Bridge had long since disintegrated, leaving behind only a small portion of its power, and even then, only that power remains.

He might even be a small part of the Boundary Land that crashed into the new world at its birth — that was another group of Annihilation refugees who built a sanctuary after the apocalypse, another "Endless Sea," crashing towards flames rising in the cold wilderness, like a moth to a flame, now it had successfully become part of the flame, but was burned away from its original form.

Yu Sheng slowly sat back down beside the pile of open dirt, bowing his head deep in thought.

After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly clapped his hands.

"Damn it, why do I feel like I might be a car crash scene..."