Chapter 451 - 448: The Storytelling Tree

Chapter 451: Chapter 448: The Storytelling Tree

"You understand completely. You’re more than qualified to join us."

The dog, as if it had found a kindred spirit, patted the trunk of the great tree with its paw again and again.

But as it kept patting, it grew dejected.

"But... how are we supposed to take you with us?"

The dog gazed at the immense tree, troubled. It looked to Mo Ling for help, but Mo Ling was also at a loss.

He could have the rabbit and the dog hold onto the glass sculpture’s legs, but he was truly powerless against the great tree.

Mo Ling couldn’t control the glass sculpture’s actions directly. He could only make it perform simple movements through the Little Elf.

And moving this great tree was clearly beyond the glass sculpture’s range of movement.

The Little Elf, for its part, couldn’t see the contents of this simulated world at all, so it couldn’t help him either.

Seeing that even the Outer God was helpless, the dog grew even more disheartened. It could only pat the great tree consolingly.

"I promise you, I will find a way to get you out of here. I won’t let you stay here all alone." The dog made a solemn vow to the great tree.

But the great tree remained motionless, giving no response.

"Let’s go, Outer God. Let’s continue to transcend—for you and me, and for these companions who can no longer move forward."

The dog’s tone was firm. It extended its paw and pressed it firmly against the tree trunk, as if making a handprint.

"Trust me... companion. I will carry on the will to transcend."

It gave the great tree a reluctant glance, then slowly hopped back to Mo Ling’s side and clung to his ankle.

’Sigh.’ Mo Ling sighed helplessly in his heart.

"Let’s keep moving," he said to the Little Elf.

Following Mo Ling’s instruction, the glass sculpture once again approached the mirror’s surface, about to enter the next space.

However, just then, Mo Ling heard the great tree begin to tell another story.

"There was a great tree that, from the moment it gained consciousness, lived inside a strange sphere."

"It was very lonely. It was the only one in the sphere. It occupied an entire world, yet it had no companions, no one to talk to."

"It could only tell itself stories every day, stories that came from knowledge it didn’t know the source of."

"But knowledge is finite, and so are stories. In a world that never changed, it could only repeat the same old stories over and over again, time after time."

"Finally, one day, a dog, a rabbit, and an Outer God came to this world. They brought new stories and invited it to be their companion."

"However, it couldn’t leave."

"A tree cannot move. It wanted to leave—it wanted to so, so badly. It tried to twitch its roots, tried to rustle its leaves, tried to respond to the dog’s pats, but it was all in vain. A tree cannot move. It just can’t."

"It could only watch helplessly as its companions left apologetically, believing that one day, they would return... and take it with them."

At this point, the great tree’s voice fell silent, and Mo Ling had already sunk into the mirror.

But, faintly, Mo Ling thought he heard the great tree start speaking again.

The great tree’s story, it seemed, wasn’t over yet...

But the glass sculpture had sunk completely into the mirror, and he could no longer clearly hear the trembling voice.

The resonance was disrupted. Mo Ling could only make out a few intermittent words:

"The Outer God sinks into the mirror, leaving this place..."

"...sees these words and laughs out loud."

"...is transcendence."

’What does that mean?’

Mo Ling strained to hear the rest of the great tree’s story, to make out those last few sentences, but he couldn’t hear clearly at all. The tree’s voice grew fainter and fainter until it vanished completely, leaving only a reverberating static...

...

’Where... is this?’

After crossing through the mirror again, Mo Ling found that he was not in a new mirror-space.

Instead, he was in a canyon filled with glass shards. Fragments of all shapes and sizes were piled into hills, and the broken mirror pieces glittered, blanketing the ground. Sunlight pierced through the gaps in the hills, making the ground shimmer brilliantly.

"We’ve come out through a crack in the mirrors. You should be out of the simulation now," the Little Elf’s voice slowly drifted over.

Hearing the Little Elf’s words, Mo Ling quickly checked his current state in the reflection of the shards.

Just as he’d thought, the glass sculpture was completely gone. The spot where he should have been was empty.

The rabbit and the dog had also vanished without a trace, as if it had all been a dream.

"I think I know where we were before," the Little Elf said faintly, looking at the mirror shards that covered the landscape.

’Where?’

"Inside these shards... Because there were no reference points, my field of view was shrunk down. I was actually using a microscopic perspective before. I’ve adjusted it now."

’Inside?’

Mo Ling took a closer look at the mirror fragments and realized their shapes were indeed very similar to the previous spaces.

Cubes, cylinders, triangular pyramids... and even spheres.

Normally, glass shouldn’t shatter into shapes like these. The fragments here looked as if they had been deliberately processed.

"They were ground into these shapes," the Little Elf explained, looking at the strange glass fragments.

"This is the garbage dump for the entire Sea of Creation. All the broken mirrors are brought here. They grind against each other, which is how they ended up looking like this..."

The glass on the ground glittered. These shards were once part of the Sea of Creation, but now they lay abandoned here.

And it was precisely because they were once part of the Sea of Creation that they could exhibit that special "superposition state."

They had once simulated many worlds, and the residual energies of those worlds were trapped within the mirrors. Even as fragments, they could still connect the real and the illusory.

’So that’s how it is.’

After hearing the Little Elf’s explanation, Mo Ling had a sudden realization.

Just as Mo Ling was marveling at the wonders of the Sea of Creation, the Little Elf suddenly locked its vision onto the sky in the distant canyon.

"Look over there. I’ve found them."

Mo Ling quickly looked over.

In the distance, the Lego Bird was carrying Li Luo, weaving through the canyon of shards.

The normally huge Lego Bird looked tiny in the vast canyon of shards. Compared to the towering hills of fragments, it was like a tiny black dot.

’We finally found them.’

In truth, Mo Ling and the Little Elf had been near the Lego Bird all along. It was just that their field of view had been shrunk so small that, while they could sense the Lego Bird’s position, they couldn’t see it.

Once their vision returned to its normal scale, the Lego Bird’s form naturally came into view.

After spotting the Lego Bird weaving through the canyon, the Little Elf quickly readjusted its vision and moved closer.

...

Meanwhile, in the sky, Li Luo was staring at the tall mountains of shards with a bewildered expression.

"Where is this?"

The Lego Bird didn’t answer right away, instead flapping its wings slowly as it circled within the canyon.

"This is a garbage dump. The garbage dump of the Sea of Creation."

The Lego Bird paused for a moment, then said with a hint of nostalgia:

"It is also the place where our kind was born..."