From the end of the world

Chapter 184 The Mission of the Incarnation of Dreams

The deathly aura emanating from the demon hunter is not a physiological change, but a facial expression.

I have seen this in the past immortals and shadow-changers. When they realized they were doomed, the look of despair that appeared on their faces was very similar to that of the demon hunter at this moment. The latter's death intention was many times stronger than the former two.

One could even feel his breathing gradually slowing down and his heart slowly stopping beating.

He was dying.

The girl Lu Chan said calmly: "Wait, don't die yet."

The demon hunter paused for a moment, and actually stopped trying to die, then asked, "Is there anything else you want me to do?"

"Lu Chan, what's going on?" I asked, "He seems to remember what happened before the restart, and he's going to die?"

"Consciousness is something that inherently has the property of transcending time and space, but humans are bound by the common sense of the material world and cannot express it at will. The reason why divination can collect information about the past and the future is actually because it utilizes the transcendental property of consciousness." The young girl Lu Chan patiently explained, "Although Dr. Silver Mask has restarted this base countless times, countless pains and deaths have long been accumulated in the souls of all the experimental subjects here. When accumulated to a certain limit, it will easily produce a sense of déjà vu, or even overflowing memories of the past.

"He didn't really remember the past, he just had some self-awareness. At the same time, because he realized that he had died many times, his soul couldn't bear the truth and was about to self-destruct."

"That's what happened..." The demon hunter asked bitterly, "Lu Chan, why did you wake me up?"

The young girl Lu Chan answered frankly: "We have to operate covertly for the time being, and we don't plan to increase the number of people involved. But if we neither release you nor let you recover your memory, what will we do if you make a fuss?"

"So... you don't actually have anything for me to do?" asked the witcher.

"Not really. We will have to find a way to destroy this base later, and maybe we can use you there." The young girl Lu Chan said coldly, "So don't rush to die, because after you die this time, you will be restarted and resurrected, and then continue to suffer, die, and restart.

"Instead of doing that, why don't you wait and await my instructions. As long as we succeed, you can truly rest in peace this time."

"...Okay, I'll trust you again."

The demon hunter closed his eyes tiredly, but for the time being he no longer had any thoughts of death in his mind.

The guards outside had already passed our necessary route, and there was no need for us to continue hiding in this cell for the time being, so we went back to the corridor and continued forward.

I turned around and glanced in the direction of the cell, then asked, "You just said rest in peace... Aren't you going to rescue all the demon hunters here?"

"They are hopeless."

The girl Lu Chan didn't even turn her head. I walked beside her and could see a hint of melancholy on her face.

She put away her sentimentality and continued, "Vegetables can live without a heart, and people will die without a heart. The power of Dr. Silver Mask to restart time can allow them to be resurrected over and over again, and forget the fact of their own death; and as long as they have not yet remembered their own death, their souls can remain intact.

"However, this convenient situation is only limited to the time they live in before they die. Once they return to the normal flow of time in the outside world, death will immediately befall them.

"Now they are both living people and earthbound undead in this secret base of the Humanitarian Department."

The demon hunter's desperate expression and the young researcher's attitude towards his own sins flashed through my mind.

Then, I looked at the girl Lu Chan again.

"So...what about you?" I asked. "If I destroy this place, will you die too?"

"Yes, I will die too." She said calmly, "I have said before that I am the 'incarnation of dreams' which cannot exist under normal circumstances. Although this is probably not a dream, I have a feeling that I am an extra-legal existence that can only exist here. If this place is destroyed, I will also be destroyed."

After saying that, she turned her head and looked at me, smiling slightly: "Why, you can't bear it?"

As she spoke, she raised her right hand, as if she wanted to touch the top of my head. Halfway through, she realized something was wrong and pulled her hand back in embarrassment.

After all, I look twelve years old now, while the girl in front of me, Lu Chan, is fourteen or fifteen years old. Compared with my real age, she is a "younger sister", but standing in front of me now, she looks like an "older sister" (who would have thought that she should actually be a man). Although I really want to complain that others treat me like a child now, it is a normal reaction, and I won't really get angry.

"I'm sorry, I seem to have been led astray by the original body and was forced to inherit some strange settings." She said defensively.

"What setting?" I was curious.

"That Lu Chan outside likes young people of the opposite sex. His most common fantasy about the opposite sex is to have a loli treat him like a child and be gentle to him." She said seriously, as if she was talking about other people's business.

"Yeah, I know, he seemed to have mentioned it?" Actually, I'm not too sure, I just have a vague impression.

"Ah? He mentioned it?" She was stunned.

"But doesn't he despise women? Why would he have such fantasies?" I asked.

"The reason why he despises the opposite sex in real life is because he has an ideal model of the opposite sex in his mind, even though it is very unrealistic. This applies not only to his concept of the opposite sex, but also to many other things." She said embarrassedly, "So, well, how should I put it... Let me make it clear in advance, I'm not a pervert, it's just that Lu Chan outside is a hopeless lolita control, so I here may..."

"Okay, I understand. You don't have to say anything." I immediately changed the subject. "By the way, you are now considered a loli, right? Could it be that you have been influenced by that aspect to become what you are now?"

She looked puzzled and said, "Huh? You said I'm a loli? The age of this body seems to be over fourteen years old, which means I'm already an old woman."

"what?"

I always feel like I'm trying to peek into Lu Youxun's inner darkness in some other sense, but I'd better stop here.

"Compared to this, Lu Chan, are you really okay?" I asked, "It doesn't matter if you and this base disappear together?"

"Well, it doesn't matter. For me, there are more important missions to accomplish than continuing to live."

The expression on her face when she said this was not one of a fearless determination to face death, but rather an optimism that was not like that of a human.

At this moment, I suddenly realized that she was not a human being, but a supernatural being whose view of life and death was completely different from that of humans.

"I hope that 'I' can recall the dignity of fighting for the weak in the past, and the courage to challenge the seemingly hopeless future..." She said, "To do this, I must return myself - 'Lu Chan's dream' to him."

Lu Chan’s dream is to “become a hero”.

In this world that is about to fall into chaos, save the people from danger and save the country from collapse.

Even for him in his prime, that was an unrealistic wish.

It would probably be wise for Lu Youxun to let go of such delusions.

"...However, I cannot accomplish this mission by myself." The girl Lu Chan looked at me, "So I ask you to help me."

"What do you want me to do? You will disappear when the stronghold is destroyed, and I will not be able to bring you to Lu Youxun at all, right?" I asked.

"I don't know either, but there must be a way."

She smiled first, then said, "...The me outside will never want to return to my original self, because that would not only make him accept the things he least wants to accept, but would also be equivalent to killing his existing spirit. By then, he will definitely cry and shout 'no', so you must not show mercy."

"I'll consider it." I said noncommittally, "But it's still unclear whether we can destroy this base, so let's solve this problem first."

I have carefully considered what the girl Lu Chan said before, that is, the method of using force to break the situation without killing Doctor Silver Mask.

Although she thinks that I can't expand the range of my "Broken Void" to the entire stronghold, but in theory, as long as I spread hundreds of "fireflies" evenly throughout this stronghold, and then make them release magical powers beyond their levels at the same time, I should be able to expand the range of "Broken Void" to the entire stronghold.

If I want to control so many "fireflies" at the same time, I must first enter the fire elemental form; and once I enter the active fire elemental form, I will inevitably be logged out of this base before I can make the next move. This is a dead end.

"You mentioned before that there was another old method that was rejected, and asked me to listen to it for reference... What was that method?" I asked.

"This is a method based on the assumption that 'this base is a dream'. Although it is basically impossible to achieve, I got some noteworthy feedback when I practiced it in the past, so I will tell you first." The young girl Lu Chan said, "This method, in a nutshell, is to kill everyone in this base."

"Will this destroy this independent reality?" I was puzzled and suddenly realized, "...Is it to kill all the 'dreamers'?"

"Yes, assuming this is a dream, the 'dreamer' is an indispensable element. All the people participating in this dream actually meet the requirements, and we are all dreaming." She said, "This can also explain why you can distort the objects here with your own cognition - because while participating in the dream, you are also unconsciously adding bricks and tiles to it, and you are an unconscious constructor.

“During the second jailbreak, after I discovered that this base had no exit, I had the demon hunters kill a large number of guards and researchers, thinking that by doing so, changes would occur in the base.

"At first, no changes occurred. However, after the demon hunters paid almost all the sacrifices to kill Chen Long, who was still a master at that time, a violent earthquake suddenly occurred in the base, and the space began to become blurred."

(End of this chapter)