It was like a towering green dome, with mysterious runes floating on its branches that extended hundreds of kilometers away. No matter what kind of hero or emperor they were, they would have to bow their heads respectfully and sigh at how insignificant they were. This was the source of all things, the hub of life, the place where history and the future converged. This was the World Management Terminal that Jingle had spent two months of her bonus to upgrade. Yep, it was sometimes called the World Tree.
This arrogant temple was still growing. Even though Jingle had restricted its growth, in order to perfect the management system and strengthen its control over this world that was gradually becoming more important, the World Tree had grown several times over the past few months. The original shadow city was no longer able to contain this gigantic plant — even though half of the sky in our city was already covered by the dazzling green canopy of the tree. In order to solve this problem, Jingle had no choice but to use her divine power to open up a spatial crevice in the shadow realm and release a portion of the World Tree into this crevice.
In other words, this gigantic plant that has a radius of over a hundred kilometers in front of you is actually just a projection of the real World Tree in the shadow realm.
As the God of World Management, the place that Jingle lived in was truly extravagant to the point of making one's hair stand on end.
Well, even though the little one's usual sleeping spot was inside the lampshade at my bedside — at night, as long as I occasionally turned on the lights, I would definitely hear a soft cry of surprise coming from inside the lampshade. The little one's pet stats would definitely reach a historical record of nine plus signs at that moment.
I've definitely gone off topic.
Me, Shallow Shallow, Big Sis, Liliana, Lin Xue, and Alaya, who had basically become a certain healer's bound equipment, were the team that we finally agreed on to enter the world fragment. The violent sisters Pandora and Visca were the first to be excluded due to their great uncertainty. Either one of them could easily destroy the fragile world fragment, and if that happened, the turmoil that would occur in the real world would be catastrophic. Meanwhile, Lin Xue had joined this team purely through coaxing and pestering. Considering how bug-like her abilities were, I could only agree to let her tag along — of course, the prerequisite was that she didn't cause any more trouble along the way.
Sandora, who had always tagged along with us, didn't tag along this time. Her mind control and military abilities weren't very useful in this kind of mission. She also lacked enthusiasm for things like adventuring that only little girls would be interested in (Shallow Shallow got shot). She wanted to stay outside and help monitor the changes in the real world. Logically speaking, this should be Jingle's job, but our Goddess is an idiot … Er, at any rate, for the sake of the world's long-term peace, I felt that it would be better to have a reliable Queen to help the idiot Goddess.
We were currently at the roots of the World Tree. Even if we tried our best not to look up at the crown of the tree that had transformed into another sky, this tree trunk that seemed to connect the heavens and the earth was enough to shock anyone. In an unprecedented radius, the World Tree's trunk lost its curvature in front of us and turned into a slightly metallic brown wall. Beneath our feet, the black ground was like water, constantly spreading out layers of ripples with the World Tree's trunk as the center. If you looked closely, you would discover that these silver-white ripples were formed by the most difficult to understand arcane characters. As they spread, they constantly changed into various spells that contained the ultimate mysteries, making them look especially mysterious.
"This is a theme pack that Jingle made herself … Normally, 'Garden of the World' wouldn't have moving circles when it's in standby mode!"
Jingle said proudly as she pointed at the mysterious silver-white rune halo on the ground.
Please allow me to express my deepest condolences to another beautiful fantasy about a myth that I had just lost. I hope that fantasy can continue to exist in another YY novel …
"Jingle has already prepared a portal. If you walk forward from here, you will be able to enter the world fragment."
Jingle nimbly flew in the air and used the green light from her wings to draw a large circle that was more than ten meters wide on the World Tree's trunk. The circle immediately formed a colorful teleportation portal.
Once again, I expressed extreme envy and jealousy towards the Protoss's various foul talents.
It had been four days since that strange "dusk morning" appeared. In these few days, Jingle had created this teleportation portal that could safely connect the two worlds. Under her efforts, the invasion of the real world had gradually slowed down. Currently, other than the two hours of dusk sky every morning, there were no other major changes. Our next mission was to investigate the mysterious world fragment and find a way to separate it from the real world. This was something that no one had tried before, but according to Lin Xue, we really needed to solve this problem.
"Aren't you coming along?"
I asked curiously as I looked at Jingle before I entered the 700 billion kilometer range.
"Jingle has to stay outside to maintain the stability of the two worlds. Yup, you guys have to be careful and don't cause too much of a commotion. That world fragment is quite fragile. If you aren't careful, you might accidentally destroy it. When that happens, there will definitely be problems in the real world outside!"
"Understood." I waved my hand and entered the car. "You want to act calmly? Speaking of which, as long as we can separate that fragment and destroy it, there won't be any problems, right? "
"In theory, yes!" Jingle placed her hands on her hips proudly. The palm-sized goddess was filled with confidence.
Have you been assimilated by Tawil?
As I ridiculed her in my mind, the 700 billion kilometer slowly entered the colorful tunnel in front of us. The last sound I heard was Jingle's exclamation, "Ah! Wait! Jingle discovered … "
Unfortunately, I didn't hear the second half of her sentence. The car had already entered the tunnel.
"Whew … Speaking of which, is this the legendary world fragment?" I asked suspiciously as I looked around at the extremely normal streets around me.
"Does this look like a normal city? There are so many pedestrians too. Eh, Ah Jun, Ah Jun, why are they all looking at us?"
Sitting in the front passenger seat, Shallow Shallow looked around curiously as she continuously announced new discoveries that excited her.
"… It's probably because there are too many patches on our car."
I was silent for a moment. Then, I looked through the glass of the front window at the engine cover of the 700 billion covered in patches. Tears flowed down my cheeks.
Who would install two Canola cannons in front of their car, you bastard!
With Jingle's help, we entered this world that had been dead for countless years through the roots of the World Tree. Yep, strictly speaking, it was a fragment of the world. But contrary to everyone's expectations, what welcomed us wasn't a hell on earth with lava spewing everywhere and the sky shattering. Instead, it was a modern city that looked normal and was full of vitality.
I almost suspected that something went wrong when Jingle opened the door … Speaking of which, the passage to the World Tree didn't require a manual switch, right?
Even though I had considered that since this world fragment was able to corrode our real world, it was most likely from a parallel dimension that was extremely close to Earth, but how should I put it? Was such an ordinary modern city that was densely populated with people really destroyed? To be able to maintain such a scene even after the end of the world, could there still be a layer of heaven-defying AT field or something that would make one cry?
"Is this really a destroyed world?" The big sister asked doubtfully. "It looks more normal than the real world outside … Yep, perhaps there's still something wrong."
In fact, I also noticed the abnormality of the situation.
Because I didn't expect the destroyed world fragment to look like this. The 700 billion didn't even activate any camouflage function. We appeared directly on the street. Think about it, on a crowded street, a colorful spatial passage suddenly appeared in mid-air, and then a … yep, a silver-gray private car that was covered in patches ran out from it. What would the consequences be?
Even if the entire city wouldn't be in an uproar, we would at least be surrounded by inhumane onlookers.
But the current situation was that although the 700 billion's strange appearance attracted a lot of attention, these gazes only glanced at us before quickly turning away. Not a single person expressed the shock that should have been due to such an abnormality descending from the sky.
And as time passed, even that split second of curious gazes quickly disappeared. The passersby by the roadside had more and more blank expressions on their faces. They didn't seem to care about the strange 700 billion. Even when the road was blocked by the car, they would only tilt their bodies mechanically to avoid it, as though we had become air.
"Ah Jun! Can you hear me? This is Jingle! "
Just as I was slowly driving forward with a mind full of confusion, I suddenly heard Jingle's anxious voice in our mental connection.
"I heard you. It just so happens that I also noticed something strange here … Err, you go first."
I suddenly recalled Jingle's exclamation when she was cut off in the middle, so I let her speak first.
"Ah Jun, I discovered signs of life in that world fragment! That's so strange. A world that has been destroyed for who knows how many years still has life in its fragment! "
"Alright, our discovery has something to do with it." I stopped the car by the roadside. Now, the little bit of attention that we had just attracted had disappeared. The passersby didn't even glance at the car that had appeared out of nowhere, as though we were air.
In the next few minutes, I told Jingle about the abnormal scene in this world fragment in detail. After a few seconds of silence, Jingle told me her own guess.
"It might be the effect of the world's memory …"
"When a world is destroyed, the information that it once possessed usually won't disappear immediately. If it isn't devoured by the void and the conditions are right, this information can even be preserved forever. The signs of life that Jingle observed earlier, as well as everything that you have seen, might be the remnants of that information. You can also say that they are the world's ghosts. Right now, you are walking in the world's memory."
Why does this little one's words sound so scary?
"Then, the … people around us now, are they dead or alive?"
After hesitating for a moment, I decided to use the word "people" to describe the world's "memory". Even though according to Jingle, they were phantoms that had been destroyed along with the world long ago, the degree of simulation of them was a little too high.
"They are alive." Jingle's reply was completely out of my expectations. "From Jingle's perspective, they are still a kind of life, but it would be more appropriate to treat them as ghosts … Err, Jingle skipped this part of the class in the past, so I'm not very clear about it."
Forget it, I knew that I shouldn't have placed my confidence in this little one.
After ending the mental connection with Jingle, I started the car again and drove along the street. The 700 billion car that Pandora had modified into a mobile command center automatically opened the trunk and continuously released some small objects that looked like flying catkins. Although these light probes had limited functions, they were easy to deploy and had the ability to counterattack. Even though I wasn't sure what kind of stupid military experts would have the time to design a psionic shield and plasma ejector on these single-use probes, these things did indeed have decent combat power. Furthermore, these probes were the best thing to use to monitor changes in information. They were countless times cheaper than the cumbersome information scanning devices. Although the detection range wasn't large, their large numbers made up for the lack of quality.
Countless probes were like willow catkins fluttering in the wind as they spread out in all directions and began to draw a three-dimensional map of the city for us.
The passersby turned a blind eye to the strange car and walked past it, unwilling to look at it more than once.
They were the memories left behind by a dead world, a collection of information that had become rigid. These ghosts couldn't produce new information and couldn't respond to new information from the outside. The new information that we brought to this world the moment we appeared was like a drop of water dripping on dry land. It only left a moment of moisture before it evaporated. Now, we were like shadows floating in the void, unable to cause any ripples in this pool of stagnant water.
It wasn't an easy task to separate the world that was gradually assimilating with the real world. Any small mistake could cause irreversible damage to the real world that we lived in. Right now, what we needed to do was to obtain a picture of this "city". If there really was something that was pushing this world to merge with the real world, then it would definitely leave behind traces of its own actions. Of course, I wasn't able to come up with all these things based on my experience. For the specific situation, you should refer to the book Jingle had dug out from her personal dimensional pocket, [100 Questions on Common Techniques for the 133rd Generation World Management System]. All rights reserved.
Speaking of which, it was quite stressful for me to rely on a certain after-class exercise from a textbook to save the world! Jingle, do you dare to be even more idiotic? At the very least, when it comes to this kind of lesson that sounds like it's closely related to the survival of the world, don't you dare to skip it, you bastard!
"Here, mark it out."
My elder sister suddenly broke the silence, drawing my attention away from my ridicule towards a certain idiotic Goddess. My elder sister pointed out a location near the center of the city. There were a few buildings there that seemed abnormally bright against the dim background.
In this model, the increase in brightness was a sign of high information activity. In other words, at least recently, there had been new information gathering around those buildings. In a world fragment that couldn't possibly produce new information, the only possibility of new information being produced was —
"Found it."
My elder sister's lips curled up into a delighted smile as she spoke in a low voice.
The 700 billion let out a low rumble before instantly transforming into a distorted ray of light, disappearing from the stupefied gazes of the passersby.
"It's here."
I used a short-distance teleportation to directly arrive at the destination. I first kept the overly eye-catching 700 billion back into my personal dimensional pocket, then looked into the distance as I spoke.
A school — speaking of which, what kind of anime was this development? Could it be that something like a school was some kind of cursed object that my elder sister had her eyes on? Why did I feel tears streaming down my cheeks when I saw that the focus of such an abnormal event was finally concentrated on a school?
The school in front of me was a very ordinary building, unremarkable. Apart from its large size, there was nothing special about it. The signboard at the entrance might have written the name of the school, but the words were now covered in layers of paint. Other than the indistinct side of a Chinese character, there was no way to analyze it.
Yep, a Chinese character. It seemed that a parallel plane that was extremely similar to our world had really been destroyed.
Now that I strolled into the school, a few guards on duty were sitting inside in a daze. One of them had his eyes focused on the television in front of him. Even though the television only showed a bunch of abstract geometric objects and rustling noises, the guard sitting in front of him seemed to be enjoying it, occasionally nodding and shaking his head as though he was judging the television program. It looked extremely strange. Not a single guard paid any attention to us as we passed by. This series of phenomena continuously verified my elder sister's previous analysis:
The world fragment was like a damaged hard disk that could no longer store external data. Although it could still be read and the internal data could still be reorganized, it could no longer react to external information.
Of course, this analogy wasn't too accurate. But overall, the situation inside the world fragment was a kind of information cage that was sealed from the inside.
We weren't professional researchers, nor were we detectives or secret agents. In such a strange world, it was impossible for us to analyze too many things. Even my elder sister could only rely on her advantage of attentiveness to discover some of the situation. However, this didn't mean that we couldn't obtain more information. Through Jingle's power, we could achieve instant communication with the outside world without accelerating the speed of the fusion between the world fragment and the real world. The collected information would be summarized and sent to the shadow city, and then handed over to Bubble and her army of children to analyze and process. In this process, we collected a lot of valuable research information. Although we didn't understand the use of the information, we believed that Tawil would definitely like this gift. As a workaholic researcher, the thing that Tawil most often suffered from was the lack of new information for the Empire's technology to improve and perfect our missing technology. A world fragment that was still intact after its destruction was obviously a research material that could only be found by chance. No matter who the enemy who used this fragment to attack our world was, at least in this aspect, we had to thank him.
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