Eternal Night

Chapter 689 A Brilliant Smile

Wu Pifu drifted aimlessly in the darkness and chaos, his consciousness hazy and unclear, unaware of the past or present, and unable to distinguish east from west.

But for some reason, he felt strangely at ease, as if some long-standing burden or promise had been fulfilled.

Because of this sense of security, Wu Pifu adopted a peculiar curled posture in the darkness and chaos, as if it were an unborn baby, with its arms curled up around its legs, forming an irregular yet wonderfully harmonious circle.

Wu Pifu used the Heroic Race transformation twice, each time facing enemies at the Root level, and each time fighting his way out of a desperate situation. This kind of understanding gained in the face of life and death is the most profound, penetrating to the bone, soul, and instinct.

So now, when Wu Pifu felt at ease and safe, and his consciousness was in a hazy state, he instinctively made what he considered the most perfect pose, and at the same time, he instinctively repeated the various insights he had gained during the transformation of the Hero Clan.

Even when his consciousness was hazy and he was in a state between dreaming and waking, Wu Pifu's behavior still triggered his deepest instincts and thoughts to adjust and reflect.

True perfection is not a one-time breakthrough, but rather the continuous adjustment and change of one's own shortcomings, constant evolution and progress, and small breakthroughs one after another, eventually approaching perfection...

There is no absolute perfection, only relative perfection. As long as life continues to exist and continue, it will always tend towards perfection...

The so-called sublimation refers to the process of accumulating perfection in oneself, reaching a critical point, and finally integrating these perfected characteristics to form a more perfect self-circulating system, ultimately undergoing a qualitative change from the mundane and transforming into a sublimated entity...

However... Wu Pifu also had some questions at this point.

How can a mortal, transformed into an elevated being, possess perfect characteristics similar to those of a hero race?
With this thought in mind, his previously hazy consciousness began to fluctuate, filled with doubt. At the same time, he vaguely seemed to hear a great deal of noise, as if it were something like... deducting money, deducting funds, the money is gone, the money is gone, the money is gone...

Restlessness, unease, terror, fear...

At that moment, the bewildered Wu Pifu's mind was filled with thoughts of what to do if he had no money for food. Then, like a nightmare, many scenes flashed through his mind, such as under the overpass, in the sewers, and him and a few friends sitting on the street with a broken bowl...

This startled Wu Pifu awake. In the darkness and chaos, his essence began to rise, and finally, as if traversing an incredibly vast distance, he rose from the darkness into the light. The next moment, Wu Pifu opened his eyes.

"No money, but you can take my life... glug glug glug..."

Wu Pifu opened his mouth and shouted, then a mouthful of nutrient solution rushed into his mouth. When he opened his eyes, he saw the hatch of the medical repair pod. He was stunned for a moment, and after a long while, he realized with a wry smile that he had had a nightmare.

But the moment he came to his senses, he immediately woke up, activated the medical repair pod, and went to the outer room. Sure enough, it was the small medical base station he had on Gaia.

The medical system on the Gaia is divided into three levels, with the lowest being the medical base station, which stores the fewest nano-carbon units and has only carbon-based repair capabilities.

But this was also Wu Pifu's lifeline in the beginning.

At that time, there was no Land of Redemption. All the maintenance personnel and a small number of citizens were fighting alone. The entire ship of Gaia was under lockdown. Unless they were lucky enough to break through the surrounding small social areas and obtain food, they were basically trapped around the maintenance area and could only enter the dream world to beg for food and survive. For the dream world explorers at that time, the presence or absence of a medical base station was truly a life-or-death dividing line.

Wu Pifu looked around and then immediately looked at the two medical pods next to him. Sure enough, he saw Xu Shilan and Amadeus inside, and the vital signs displayed on the medical pods were stable, which made him breathe a sigh of relief.

Only then did he take a closer look at himself.

At this point, he had completely restored his physical body, and in terms of physical sensation and the degree of harmony between his mind and consciousness, everything was perfect, without any backlash, burden, or other distortions at the level of mind and consciousness. He had completely returned to the perfect state he was in before the Warhammer Dreamworld.

Moreover, unlike his expectation that his physical body would need to be reforged, his physical body was indestructible, the accumulation of the Immortal Martial Arts, the vast Immortal Martial Internal Force in his Dantian, or the Tiger Demon Art's Sleepless Spiritual Light that was in harmony with his physical body, the three remaining tigers that were reduced to mere fragments, or the Spiritual Jade that had already dimmed, all of these were also present and stable.

Most importantly, the negative thoughts in his mind were in a stable and inert state, without the slightest tendency to surge back.

It can be said that he was in incredibly good condition at this moment, even better than his strongest condition when he was in the Warhammer Dreamworld. Just like a tired person who has had a good night's sleep, he was full of energy and spirit, and his condition was naturally at its best.

"...So, it's a success?"

Wu Pifu reached out and clenched his fist. He himself couldn't believe that time travel had actually succeeded.
Recalling the final battle against the Endermen, he once again used the Heroic Race transformation and anchored himself to a hero named Terpsicori. He then used the perfect traits of this Heroic Race to break through the gap between the Endermen's reality and illusion, and finally destroyed the Endermen's platform at the crucial moment.

Looking back now, the so-called final producer platform was actually a super-enhanced version of the super brain assistant. This was already a consensus, but Wu Pifu only now realized that the function of the so-called super brain assistant was to strengthen and break through larger resonance channels, so that the super brain and the root corpse of its life resonance could produce a more stable and greater resonance. In this way, not only were the characteristics of the super brain enhanced, but even the consumption and burden were reduced and lighter.

The Platform of the End Producer is the masterpiece of the Taotie, which eroded the root of the End Producer. Its purpose is to open a stable and huge resonance channel, so that its power can be completely invested into the End Producer through the Platform of the End Producer, and then completely devour the entire human civilization through its root domain, turning it into an illusion in its belly. Once the Platform of the End Producer is destroyed, the End Producer and the Taotie will naturally be expelled into the imaginary space.

This is the truth behind the war of the final producers.

At that time, Wu Pifu was already exhausted. He used the power of the Hero Clan's sublimated body to slash the Taotie, but he was no longer able to make any further moves. Fortunately, he had Xu Wanfang and Zhi by his side, as well as the remaining hundred warships, which finally allowed him to destroy the Ender Platform and completely resolve the spacetime paradox.

As I said before, he was already at his last gasp, his physical body was about to die completely, and his mental transformation had already begun.

But this was exactly the outcome he had anticipated.

Dao Ming faced death just as he had thought and acted.

It's nothing more than going to one's death!

But who knew that after dealing with the final producers, he didn't even need to return to the Time Wheel. The faction mission was completed directly, and according to the mainframe's judgment, it seemed to be perfectly completed. Then he immediately arrived on Gaia, but he couldn't distinguish between time and space, let alone the cause and effect of events. At that time, he was almost out of consciousness.

Driven by some kind of instinct, and with the main brain seemingly contributing as well, along with a sense of closed-loop spacetime, Wu Pifu instinctively pounced on Xu Shilan and Amadei's broken bodies. At that time, his physical body had already turned into a pool of fluid, but he used his last strength to forcefully stimulate the last bit of life in Xu Shilan and Amadei, and even cleaned up the remaining extraordinary power of the Sound-Aware Body within them.

Back then, being weak, he naturally didn't notice any of this. But now, Wu Pifu is incredibly powerful. Even if his consciousness begins to cloud and his physical body is collapsing, he can resolve everything with just a slight touch, and even preserve the last remaining life force of these two bodies.

But this had already reached Wu Pifu's limit. At that moment, before he could do anything else, he fell into a coma.

He didn't even know how he got into the repair pod, or how he saved Xu Shilan and Amadei's lives, let alone how his own body was completely restored.

"...Master, show me all the judgments made during my coma."

After thinking for a moment, Wu Pifu spoke first.

This would have been impossible in the past, because the mainframe was designed for all of humanity, and countless people would request various judgments from the mainframe at the same time, so there was no such thing as displaying past judgments.

But now Wu Pifu also knows that he is different.

Although the mastermind is not an intelligent program, it also has internal underlying programs and authority judgments belonging to the mastermind. For example, depending on the citizen's rank, the mastermind will not only use different tones, but also different levels of attention and the amount of judgment it can make.

Although Wu Pifu is still a Level 1 citizen, based on his contributions to the main brain and human civilization, his strength, his status as a superbrain holder, and his numerous achievements, his hidden access level in the main brain is definitely not low. It is estimated that he is second only to Chu Minghao. The main brain will open many functions that others do not have to him.

Sure enough, the main system responded immediately.

"Judgment in progress... Judgment complete. Begin displaying all judgments made during citizen Wu Pifu's coma."

"You are in arrears. 1,000 points will be deducted."

"You are in arrears. 1,000 points will be deducted."

"You are in arrears. 1,000 points will be deducted."

...A dense barrage of voices and texts about outstanding debts began flooding the screen, making Wu Pifu dizzy and disoriented. He recalled the terrifying nightmares he had had before.

"Stop! Stop all 'outstanding payment, deduct 1,000 points' checks!"

Wu Pifu felt a chill run down his spine and immediately roared.

The mainframe's voice paused for a moment before resuming, projecting itself onto Wu Pifu's retina in text form.

"Perfect time reversal has been achieved. The absolute time anchoring protocol can be used twice more. In judgment... Judgment complete. In view of the perfect deception state of the Hyperspace Wheel, we are now entering the shortest stasis period. The next use will be in 770 days."

"Achieving multiple perfect spacetime loops to accumulate the total consumption of perfect spacetime reversal in the absolute spacetime view, judgment in progress... judgment complete, the main brain will take over Wu Pifu's physical actions to achieve the perfect spacetime reversal effect."

"Information on the original physical body in the dream world's active state has been extracted, and the physical body is being reshaped using a nano-carbon-based repair device."

Upon hearing this, Wu Pifu frowned, realizing that after he had completely lost consciousness, it was actually the main brain that had controlled his body, and another question he had been wondering about was also answered.

At the end of the three faction missions, on the battlefield of the End Producers, he encountered his former self, who was still in cryogenic hibernation, on Europa. At that time, he had the idea of ​​extracting the cells from that body, cloning it, and then converting it into a new body.

However, firstly, he himself did not have the ability to possess or change bodies; secondly, he was facing the final battle against the Progenitor at the time, and his strength would definitely decrease significantly after changing bodies, since his strength came almost entirely from his physical body; and thirdly, the main brain remained silent throughout the process and did not react at all, and he himself had some instinctive premonitions, so he did not touch his sleeping self.

Now he realized that his physical body after opening the dream world was vastly different from his physical body before opening the dream world, and that he couldn't possibly reshape his physical body as he was at the time of the final battle.

The mainframe's voice continued to ring out.

"Judgment in progress... Judgment complete. In view of the perfect time-space reversal effect and the current state of citizen Wu Pifu, the mainframe has initiated the time-space closed loop action on its behalf. It is now beginning to hide Wu Pifu, Xu Shilan, and Amadei in the repair pod, and to create physical clones of Xu Shilan and Amadei. This hiding effect is a time-space closed loop effect. Unless the time-space closed loop is completed, it will not be perceptible to the outside world."

"Judgment in progress... Judgment complete. Xu Shilan and Amadei's physical bodies have reached the critical point of death, and their souls have entered the realm of death..."

"Judgment in progress... Judgment complete. Perfect time-space reversal achieved. Xu Shilan and Amadei's souls are drawn by the absolute time-space concept and will return completely on the day the time-space loop is completed."

"Judgment in progress... Judgment complete. The hidden cost of the absolute spacetime concept closed-loop effect will be extracted from Wu Pifu's points."

"Start drawing points..."

After reading through the massive list of mainframe judgments, Wu Pifu finally understood where those densely packed "debts owed, 1,000 points deducted" messages came from.

This is charged by the hour, damn it!

Looking at this densely packed "fee slip," heaven knows how long he's been asleep.

Wu Pifu felt a little flustered and immediately asked, "Master computer, show me my current points."

"Citizen Wu Pifu currently has 923 points."

"grass!"

Wu Pifu roared, "So I woke up because I didn't have enough points for you to deduct, right?"

Mastermind: “…”

After grumbling and cursing for a while, Wu Pifu finally asked, "What time is it now? Have we reached the date of achieving the spacetime loop?"

"Judgment in progress... Judgment complete. About eight minutes ago, citizen Wu Pifu of this time and space initiated time rewind and entered the time nodes of the Absolute Time and Space View. The time and space loop has now been completed."

Wu Pifu breathed a sigh of relief, and then he immediately understood everything.

Just minutes before, around the same time he awoke, he had just completed the Warhammer Dreamworld, the version of himself that had just killed four Roots. Due to the collapse and mutation of his physical body, his mental consciousness was also rapidly mutating, which would lead to a backlash from the superbrain, resulting in complete death or becoming something indescribable.

Thanks to the Emperor's final gift from the Warhammer Dreamworld, he was able to borrow the Primarch's body created by the Emperor, thus avoiding an immediate death.

However, he also found himself in a desperate situation, so he chose to use the absolute spacetime anchoring protocol to perform spacetime rewind. The spacetime rewind node he chose was the moment when Xu Shilan and Amadei died.

A few minutes ago, while in the Warhammer Dreamworld, he stepped into the Absolute Time-Space Perspective. At the same time, he retraced back to the point in time when he fought the Soundcraft, and with the bodies of Xu Shilan and Amadeus he had rescued, he had been hiding in this nearby medical base station. Due to the closed time-space loop, he had been in a deep sleep, and at this moment, he also awoke...

"The choice of Steins;Gate?"

This is an animation that Wu Pifu once watched. It also depicts a story of time travel, and judging from the story, its time and space structure is an absolute time and space view, rather than a relative time and space view like that of parallel worlds.

In that story, the protagonist witnesses the death of someone close to him, and then in the subsequent time travel, his future self deceives his past self, thus achieving a time loop, but in reality, the person close to him did not die.

Wu Pifu calmed himself down and immediately looked at Xu Shilan and Amadei in the hibernation pod.

Their vital signs were very stable. During this period of slumber, all the wounds on their bodies had been repaired. Although their souls had entered the realm of death for a short time, they had returned to their bodies due to the pull of the absolute spacetime concept.

They... came back to life!
Wu Pifu's hands trembled slightly as he reached out and opened the two repair pods. Slowly, the two men's eyelids began to tremble, and after a short while, they woke up and sat up in the repair pods.

For a moment, the two were somewhat bewildered. After a long pause, Amadeus suddenly burst into laughter: "Ha, you survived! You're really amazing, buddy! You actually killed that giant monster. How did you do that?"

Unlike Amadeus's nonchalant attitude, Xu Shilan looked puzzled. She touched her face and then the repair pod, and immediately asked, "Wait, didn't I die?"

As Amadeus rolled out of the repair pod, he asked in confusion, "Did you fall asleep? You can still talk even if you're dead?"

Xu Shilan shook her head, touched her forehead again, and looked at Wu Pifu, saying, "Didn't I... return death to you? I... am indeed dead, right?"

Wu Pifu's eyes stung slightly. He didn't answer for a moment, but just looked up at the ceiling. After a while, he looked down at his two companions and then revealed a bright smile.

"Welcome back, I've saved you!"

Amadeus was still a little stunned. He scratched his head in confusion, but he knew for a moment that something was wrong, so he didn't ask any questions.

On the contrary, Xu Shilan showed an expression of understanding and surprise. She stared intently at Wu Pifu and also showed a bright smile.

"Yes, we're back... So it's been a long time since that battle? And how did Brother Wu manage to rescue us?"

Wu Pifu had a smile on his face; he was in an extremely good mood.

"Come out first, let's go get some food, and then I'll tell you everything..."

"That's a very, very long story..."

(End of this chapter)