Chapter 451: Chapter 451 Death World

As if a magnificent and massive green dome, branches entwined with mysterious runes stretched out for hundreds of kilometers. No matter what kind of heroic emperors faced it, they all had to bow their heads in reverence, marvelling at their insignificance. This place was the source of all things, the hub of life, the birthplace of history and future–the World Management Terminal Interface 1.0 Edition, albeit a silly one, which Dingdang upgraded with her two months of bonuses. Sometimes, it was also called the World Tree.

Despite Dingdang’s efforts to limit its growth, the arrogant temple still continued to grow to perfect the management system, especially to strengthen the control over this increasingly important world. Over the past few months, the World Tree had grown several rings larger. The original Shadow City could no longer accommodate this massive plant–even though half of our city’s sky was already covered by that green dazzling canopy. To resolve this, Dingdang had to use her divine power to create a new space in the Shadow Space and released part of the World Tree into that rift.

In other words, this super gigantic plant of hundreds of kilometers in radius that you see before you is only a partial projection of the real World Tree in the Shadow Space.

As the management god of the world, Dingdang’s dwelling was outrageously luxurious.

Well, although that little thing’s favorite sleeping spot is still inside the lampshade by my bed–at night, if I occasionally turn on the light, I can hear a tiny gasp coming from inside. The pet attribute of Little One absolutely reaches a historic nine plusses at that moment.

I digress, though.

I, Qianqian, Big Sister, Lilina, Lin Xue, as well as Alaya, who had practically become a certain daddy’s bonded equipment, were the team we finally agreed on to enter the World Fragment. Pandora and Visca, the violent sisters, were immediately excluded due to the great uncertainty. Either of them could easily destroy the fragile World Fragment, which would bring catastrophic disturbances to the real world. Lin Xue purely pestered her way into the team. Considering her bug-level abilities, I had no choice but to agree to let her come along–provided this girl doesn’t make trouble along the way.

Sandora, who usually accompanied us, did not join this time. Her mind control and military abilities weren’t much use in this kind of mission, and for things like exploration, which only interests little girls (shot at Qianqian), she lacked enthusiasm. She stayed outside to help monitor anomalies in the real world. This was supposed to be Dingdang’s job, but our Lord God is an idiot… well, to ensure long-term peace for the world, I still think it’s better to have a reliable Queen helping the foolish Goddess.

Our current location was at the base of the World Tree. Even if we tried not to look up at the treetop, which could instantly shock the faint-hearted into a collapse, as it had transformed into another sky, the trunk alone in front of us already brought endless awe. Under its unprecedented radius, the World Tree’s trunk lost its curvature, turning into a brown wall with a faint metallic texture before us. Beneath our feet, the black ground was like the surface of water, continuously spreading ripples outward from the center of the World Tree’s trunk. Upon closer observation, you would notice that these silver-white ripples were entirely made up of the most profound arcane runes, continuously rearranging themselves into various spells containing ultimate secrets as they spread, looking particularly mysterious.

“This is Dingdang’s own custom theme pack~~~ Usually, the ‘World Garden’ in standby mode won’t have moving circles like this!”

Pointing at the mysterious silver-white rune halo on the ground, Dingdang proudly declared so.

Please allow me to express solemn condolences for the beautiful mythological fantasy that just died on me. May that fantasy continue to survive in some other YY novel.

“Dingdang has prepared the pathway now. If you walk forward from here, you can enter the World Fragment.”

Dingdang agilely flew through the air, using the green light spots from her wings to draw a large ring of several meters wide on the trunk of the World Tree. Inside the ring, a colorful teleportation gate immediately formed.

Again, I must express extreme envy, jealousy, and resentment for the various unfathomable talents of the Divine Race.

Ever since that strange “Dawn Dusk” appeared, four days had passed. In these few days, Dingdang had created this safe teleportation channel connecting two worlds, and the encroachment on the real world had also gradually slowed under her efforts. Currently, other than the two hours of twilight sky each morning, no significant mutations had occurred. Our next mission was to investigate the mysterious World Fragment and find a way to separate it from the real world–an unprecedented attempt, but according to Lin Xue, this really needed our intervention.

“Are you not coming over?”

Before stepping into the seven trillion miles, I curiously looked at Dingdang outside and asked.

“Dingdang must stay outside to maintain the stability of the two worlds,” he cautioned. “You guys should also be careful not to make too much noise. That world fragment is quite fragile; you could destroy it by accident, and that would surely cause problems in the real world outside!”

“Understood,” I waved my hand and got into the car, “A gentle approach, right? So long as we can separate from that fragment and then destroy it, there shouldn’t be any problem, right?”

“In theory, that’s correct!” Dingdang struck a confident pose, the palm-sized Little Goddess brimming with confidence.

Had you been assimilated by Taville?

With this internal critique, seventy billion slowly glided into the colorful corridor ahead, the last sound I heard being Dingdang’s exclamation: “Ah! Wait! Dingdang has discovered…”

Unfortunately, I didn’t hear the rest; the car had already entered the tunnel.

“Phew… is this the legendary world fragment?” I looked around at the perfectly normal street and asked with a smack of my lips, a hint of doubt in my voice.

“It looks just like a normal city, and there are lots of pedestrians too. Hey, Ah Jun, Ah Jun, why are they all looking at us?”

Sitting in the passenger seat, Qianqian curiously looked around, continuously announcing discoveries that excited her.

“… Maybe it’s because our car has too many patches.”

I was silent for a while, then watched through the windshield as the engine hood of seventy billion, which was covered in patches atop patches, and tears streamed down my face.

Who else would mount two Cannon Cannulas on the front of their car, damn it!

With Dingdang’s assistance, we entered this world, dead for who knows how many years, through the roots of the World Tree. Strictly speaking, it’s a world fragment, but to everyone’s surprise, instead of a hellish landscape with lava spewing and fractured skies, what greeted us was a thriving modern city that looked completely normal.

I almost doubted whether Dingdang had messed up opening the gate… I mean, the World Tree’s pathway doesn’t require manually switching tracks, right?

Despite previously considering that this world fragment, since it could erode our real world, likely originated from a parallel space extremely close to Earth, how to put it… such a common, densely populated modern city, has it really been destroyed? Can it maintain such an appearance after the apocalypse? Maybe the city is still enveloped by a tear-inducing phenomenon like a Heaven-defying Level AT field?

“Is this really a destroyed world?” Big Sister said skeptically, “It even looks more normal than the real world outside right now… Hmm, maybe there’s still something a bit off.”

In fact, I too had started to notice the abnormalities.

Because we never anticipated that the already demolished world fragment would look like this, seventy billion had not activated any disguise feature. We appeared directly on the street, just like that. Imagine, on a busy street, suddenly a colorful space passage splits open in mid-air, and then a… well, a silver car covered in patches comes running out. What would be the consequence of that?

Not to say it would cause a sensation throughout the city, but at the very least, we should be mercilessly gawked at by now.

But the current situation was, although the septillion’s unique shape had drawn quite a few curious gazes, these glances merely swept over here quickly and moved on, with no one showing the shock that such an unusual descent from the sky should have caused.

Moreover, as time passed, even those momentarily curious looks started to vanish rapidly, and the expressions of the pedestrians passing by became increasingly wooden. They ignored the uniqueness of the septillion and even if cars blocked their way, they simply mechanically sidestepped around them, as if we had become air.

“Ah Jun! Can you hear me? This is Dingdang!”

While I was slowly driving, full of confusion, a sudden call from Dingdang came through the spiritual connection, carrying a twelvefold anxiety.

“I can hear you. It just so happens I’ve noticed some oddities here too… Uh, you go first.”

I suddenly remembered the startled shout from Dingdang that had been cut off midway, so I let her speak first.

“Ah Jun, I’ve detected life fluctuations inside that world fragment! It’s so strange, a world that has been destroyed for who knows how many years, and yet there is still life inside its fragments!”

“Well, our discovery is related to that.” I simply pulled the car over to the side of the road. Now, the slight attention our recent appearance had caused had also disappeared; pedestrians passing by didn’t even glance at the car that appeared out of nowhere, as if they treated us like we were air.

In the following few minutes, I detailed the unusual scenery inside the world fragment to Dingdang, and after a few seconds of silence, she ventured a guess.

“It might be the World Memory effect~~”

“When a world is destroyed, the information it once held usually doesn’t disappear immediately. If not devoured by the Void and under the right conditions, this information can be preserved indefinitely. The life responses that Dingdang observed earlier, and everything you have seen, it might just be remnants of those infos, you could also say they are ghosts of the world– you are now walking in the memories of the world.”

Why does this little thing sound so creepy?

“So, these people around us… are they dead or alive?”

After hesitating for a moment, I still decided to describe those ‘memory bodies’ of the world as ‘people’, even though according to Dingdang, they were phantoms that had perished along with the world. But their level of simulation was excessively high.

“They are alive,” Dingdang’s answer completely surprised me, “in Dingdang’s view, they are still a form of life, though perhaps it would be more fitting to regard them as ghosts… um, Dingdang skipped class when this part was taught, so I’m not very clear on it.”

Forget it, I knew I shouldn’t have placed any faith in this little thing.

I disconnected the spiritual connection with Dingdang and restarted the car, driving along the major street. The septillion, which Pandora had transformed into a mobile command center, automatically opened its trunk, continuously releasing some small things that seemed like floating fuzz. These buoyant pathfinders, although limited in function, were easy to deploy and had counterattack capabilities — although I’m not sure what kind of tormented military expert would bother to install a Ghost Energy Shield and Plasma Ejector on such a disposable probe, but indeed, these devices possessed good combat capabilities — and these probes were the most useful things for monitoring information changes, much cheaper than the cumbersome information scanning devices, and although their detection range wasn’t wide, their vast numbers greatly compensated for the lack in quality.

Countless probes floated away like willow catkins in the wind, spreading in all directions, beginning to draw us a three-dimensional map of the city.

The pedestrians around me passed by indifferently, not sparing an extra glance at this peculiar car.

They were remnants of a dead world, a rigid collection of information. These ghosts could neither generate new information nor respond to it. When we appeared just moments ago, the new data we brought to this World Fragment evaporated like droplets on parched soil, leaving behind only a moment of dampness. Now, we seemed like shadows floating in illusion, unable to stir the slightest ripple in this dead pool.

Separating a World Fragment that was gradually merging with the real world was no easy task. Any minor error could cause irreversible damage to our real world. Our first task was to acquire the “city’s” map. If something was indeed pushing this fragment towards integration with the real world, it must have left some traces of its influence. Of course, the above insights weren’t my own invention but rather from a book Dingdang retrieved from her Personal Space, titled “133rd Generation World Management System Common Skills 100 Q&A,” copyright protected; copying prosecutable.

Relying on a textbook exercise to save the world, the pressure was immense! Dingdang, could you afford to make me feel more foolish? At least don’t bail on me during such critical lessons concerning our world’s survival, damn it!

“Here, mark it out.”

Big Sister suddenly broke the silence, also drawing my attention away from my rant about that foolish goddess. The places she pointed out, near the city center, seemed abnormally bright against the dim background.

On this model, increased brightness was a sign of high information activity, meaning that at least recently, new information had clustered around those buildings. In a World Fragment that could no longer produce new information, the only possibility for new information to occur was–

“Found it.”

Big Sister’s lips curved into a pleased smile as she whispered.

Seven billion emitted a deep roar and then vanished into twisted beams of light, disappearing from the indifferent gazes of the surrounding pedestrians.

“It’s right here.”

Using a short-range Space Transmission, we directly arrived at our destination. I first retracted the overly flashy seven billion into my Personal Space, then looked ahead and said,

A school–what sort of anime-like plot twist was this? Was a school some type of cursed item that Big Sister had set her sights on? Why did I feel a surge of tearful emotion when I saw that the focal point of these bizarre events was ultimately a school?

The school building in front of us looked ordinary, unremarkable except for its large size. Its name might be written on a sign by the gate, but the characters were now covered with layers of paint. Apart from vaguely making out a part of a Chinese character, it was impossible to decipher any more information.

Well, Chinese characters, it seemed this really was a parallel plane similar to our world that had been destroyed.

Now walking casually into the campus, several guards on duty inside the gatehouse were sitting stiffly. One of them was focused on a TV in front of him, which displayed only abstract geometrical figures and static noise. Still, the guard seemed to be enjoying it, occasionally nodding or shaking his head as if critiquing the TV program. The looks were eerily out of place, and not one of them glanced our way as we passed, confirming Big Sister’s earlier analysis:

The World Fragment was like a damaged hard drive that could no longer have outside data written to it. It could still read and reorganize its internal data, but regarding external information, it could no longer react.

Of course, this analogy isn’t quite accurate, but generally speaking, the internal situation of the World Fragment was like a closed-off informational prison.

We weren’t professional researchers, detectives, or secret agents. In such a bizarre world, we couldn’t analyze much, even with Big Sister leveraging her advantage of being meticulous to spot some clues. However, that didn’t mean we couldn’t gather more information. Utilizing Dingdang’s power, we managed to communicate instantly with the outside world without accelerating the merger of the World Fragment and the real world. The information we collected was sent to Shadow City, where Bubbles and her child army processed it. In this process, we gathered a lot of valuable research data. While we didn’t understand the use of these data, we believed Taville would love this gift. As a workaholic researcher, Taville’s greatest agony was usually the lack of enough new data to research and enhance our missing technology. A destroyed yet intact World Fragment was obviously a rare research material–and whoever used this fragment to attack our world, at least from this aspect, we had them to thank.