Why is my journey to the world of anime a strange tale of rules?

What should I do now?

Is there anything I can do before I die...?

When was the last time I felt despair?

Was it during the month and a half they were trapped in the cave?

No, it was still quite different. What I experienced back then was hope gradually turning into despair, and the pain of my mind being gradually worn down during a long wait.

Now, what I feel is a truly and utterly powerless despair, a despair where I can't even think of anything else I can do, and can only watch helplessly as the situation marches toward destruction.

If everything truly changes according to the power of the Blood Flower, regardless of what state he and Maki become, Gao Hai is certain they will no longer be the same. The power of the Blood Flower will completely reshape the original individual from the life form, from the origin of the soul, and from the personality. Although He sees this as love, to Gao Hai it is merely killing the original person and using the corpse to create a new one.

He had resisted with all his might until now, unwilling to accept this hopeless ending. But he truly didn't know what else to do; even with his desperate efforts, he couldn't come up with a new way to break the deadlock.

At this moment, there was no Maki by his side to walk alongside him, no Chika to come up with new ideas, no Miko to always observe the unexpected, no steady and reliable Hayasaka and Kaguya, no Ichiri to carefully follow him. Everyone was gone; only himself remained, only this bound self, who could only watch the end of the world arrive.

What can I still do now?

What else can I do?

I……

I……

{Backtracking}

A trembling voice echoed in my mind.

Gao Hai, whose mind was becoming increasingly confused due to his inability to think of a solution, paused for a moment and did not respond to the voice immediately.

Since becoming a god was the wrong choice, then find the right path. This instance is not a dead end, Mr. Gao. In any case, do not succumb to despair until the very end!

{Try to rewind time. Mr. Gao is currently in a divine state. If you are determined to face death, He shouldn't be able to completely restrain you!}

{Death, then rewind, let everything go backwards! Even the Blood Flower, it was sealed by the Mountain God. Even if its power is almost unaffected by the rewind, it can at least slightly slow down its devouring of the instance! Then, Mr. Gao, before it devours the instance again, come up with a real solution! That's what you should be doing!!!}

It's as if you can see that red-haired girl shouting at you at all costs.

The energetic girl who had always been hidden in his soul and had followed him through the timeline, shouted at him with all her might at this moment.

Backtracking, yes, I should backtrack.

Since we've already hit a dead end, let's find a way to start over.

My previous suicide attempt failed because I was still human then, and the power of the blood flower forcibly stopped me. But now I have transcended the human state, and if I were to choose suicide now, the blood flower might not be able to stop me.

So, black watch, kill me! Activate self-annihilation! Now!!!

puff--

Twisted, blood-red vines pierced Gao Hai's soul.

Having realized what Gao Hai was about to do, Blood Flower unleashed an overwhelming power once more. However, this time, Gao Hai could not be easily stopped by it, and the power exerted by the black watch was equally unstoppable. Thus, Gao Hai's soul was gradually absorbed into the watch, and under this power that was no less than that of Blood Flower, he gradually walked towards death.

Hmm... it seems this is the best I can do...

However, Gao Hai couldn't stop it, but others could be stopped.

Little by little, Kita Ikuyo's soul was separated from Takami's consciousness, torn from his soul.

Having attained her "essence," Takami couldn't be truly held back by the blood flowers, but Kita Ikuyo's essence was still human. Therefore, under the cover of the spreading blood vines, she and Takami gradually separated. This process was both incredibly swift and incredibly long. Long enough for Takami to clearly see the forced, apologetic smile on her face, and the fear that she desperately tried to conceal within that smile.

Please, Mr. Gao, you must—

The overwhelming crimson color absorbed Kita's soul, and her last voice was cut off.

Gao Hai, who struggled to reach out and try to grab the other person, only grasped at nothingness before being completely sucked into the black watch and losing consciousness.

Click!

The hands of the black watch hanging on a vine moved slowly at this moment, pointing to the interval [7].

The next moment, the blood vines, which had transformed into sharp spikes, came hurtling towards the watch face, but they couldn't leave any damage on the face or move the thing even an inch.

Then, time began to rewind. The blood blossoms heading towards the real world were slowly reversed amidst silent shrieks, and the entire instance's timeline was rewound to the very beginning. The instance world and the real world regained their separation, and their time flows became independent once more.

But after this rewind, everything returned to the beginning at Little Black Mountain, leaving only absolute silence.

Chapter 150: The Lonely Man's Empty World and His Renewed Determination

A blood-red city, deserted and devoid of people.

A blood-red city surrounded by absolute silence, where only Gao Hai exists.

Nobody's here.

Miko, Maki, Kaguya, Ichiri, Kita... Several girls who should have appeared in the Crimson City during the rollback have now disappeared.

Gao Hai sat silently on the ground, looking around as if searching for something, or perhaps just swaying unconsciously for a few moments before lowering his head to stare blankly at the ground in the square for a long while.

No sound.

Apart from Gao Hai's own breathing and heartbeat, no other sounds could be heard.

The howling from the sea of ​​fire, burning with an inextinguishable flame, could only be heard when Gao Hai was a certain distance away from it. It was unclear whether this was a humanitarian measure by the black watch to prevent the resurrection process from being too eerie and affecting Gao Hai's mental state. In any case, without moving, Gao Hai, sitting in the deserted city square, could not hear any sound from anyone other than himself.

"By absorbing the power of [essence], one can become a god."

Then, Gao Hai suddenly started talking to himself, and with a relaxed expression, he raised his head and stretched.

"Obtaining the power of a god allows one to far surpass one's original life form, easily destroying the entire surface of the earth and reaching the level of destroying a continent. Moreover, this is under the premise that I have only initially absorbed the [essence] and have not yet been able to truly unleash its power, which means that I have not actually been able to truly unleash the power of the [essence]."

He muttered to himself as he stood up, lifting his foot as if to move in a certain direction, but then briefly lost his bearings, unsure of which way to go. So he put his foot down again, simply standing there and continuing to talk.

"The essence is something that the remaining gods researched in the last moments of their lives. Although they never found a way to allow any life form to steadily advance to the god level, the essence, which can be safely absorbed as long as one's strength reaches a certain level, can already be called a miracle."

"If I gradually adapt to the power of the [essence] through continuous rewinding, and completely absorb it, thereby unleashing true divine power, then crushing the Earth would be no problem at all. This power even surpasses the power possessed by the old gods on this planet. It can be said that they have finally achieved self-transcendence, which is a remarkable thing."

"Then things are clear. The upper limit of [Essence] is roughly the level of a Star-level powerhouse. Although this level is only considered a small fry in the Woof Bar debate, for [Sacrifice Game], this level of strength is undoubtedly enough for me to tear all the dungeons to shreds. And if I were to face Blood Flower head-on with this power, my chances of winning are... zero."

After analyzing the situation at length, Gao Hai let out a soft breath.

"..."

He remained silent, standing there expressionless, wanting to speak several times, but then closing his mouth again.

After standing there for almost an hour, Gao Hai finally let out a soft sigh.

"This road is blocked."

"Trying to defeat Blood Flower by force is a dead end. Unless Bubble's true form descends from the heavens, I still can't win with just a relic given to me by a god on a planet, even if I strengthen it a hundredfold. Besides, Blood Flower is just an incarnation. If I were to win, the real form would likely descend, and I would still be doomed in the end."

"So if we want to solve all this, we have to find other paths."

Slowly, Gao Hai sat down on the ground again and gently patted his head.

"Do you have any new ideas, Chika?"

He suddenly spoke up and asked.

"You always have so many novel ideas, don't you? Including deciphering the hidden information in the name of the dungeon, 'Infant Crying Village,' you often come up with many perspectives I haven't considered. Can you help me think of something else? Although the 'Infant Crying Village' dungeon is quite unusual, the fact that 'Sacrifice Game' dared to release it means there's a solution, right? Tell me your ideas, share your thoughts, okay?"

He asked softly, tilting his head slightly, as if he were truly waiting for a girl to give him an answer, even though no one would actually speak to reply to his words.

"Zhenfei, what about you? You should also say something. I really can't think of anything else I can do. The foundation of the dungeon has already been devoured by the Blood Flower once. Even if we reload and start over, it will definitely escape at a speed far exceeding that of the fourth playthrough. My time will only become less and less. We have to do something, right? You've always been with me. Every time we act together, you're always silently by my side. This time, can you help me think of something too?"

"Kaguya, your words would definitely be a sincere encouragement to me, right? After all, you always do things with a very serious attitude, even if you sometimes make a fool of yourself because of your lack of common sense, you still won't change your sincere attitude towards the world. Sometimes I actually envy your attitude, it would be great if you could be more honest in your feelings. No, it doesn't have to be like that, I actually like it a little bit awkward, I wonder what you think?"

He asked again in a soft voice, asking the empty air.

He still didn't get an answer, even though he knew he couldn't possibly get one.

He continued to ask questions, engaging in foolish acts he himself didn't understand the meaning of, thus wasting time in the meaningless, stagnant, blood-red city.

“Kimi, have you seen anything new? Tell me if you have any new clues? You’ve always been able to bring in a lot of clues, haven’t you? Don’t be afraid, I’m right here beside you. If there’s any danger, I’ll protect you. So tell me, tell me what you’ve felt, what you’ve seen, please tell me.”

"Ai, I'm counting on you for this mission too. You're always so reliable, aren't you? If we work together, we're sure to achieve good results, right? And I'm sorry, if I had communicated with you properly earlier, maybe the rift between us wouldn't have lasted so long. I know you're a crybaby and timid by nature, but I couldn't break through your facade. I'm really sorry."

"Yili, thank you. You're always silently protecting everyone. When I was anxious and torn between speeding up the operation and ensuring the team's safety, you used your power to take care of multiple teams in different directions at the same time. You've been silently protecting everyone, and I've seen and know all of this. I'm truly, truly grateful. So, from now on..."

"Yes, and Kita too. I'm sorry you witnessed so much of my frivolous behavior, but I just couldn't help it after returning to the real world. If I hadn't done those things, I think I might have been swallowed up by the emptiness. I had to go through the painful death with you, and even in the end, you had to help me see what I should do. I'm really sorry. I was clearly the strongest in the team, but in the end, I acted so shamefully. I'm so sorry. And thank you. Without you, I might have already succumbed to the blood flower..."

Gao Hai spoke softly, one sentence at a time, as if the girl he was talking about was right in front of him, smiling and watching him, listening quietly to him.

His voice grew softer and softer until he could no longer hear himself saying anything, until everything returned to silence.

Alone, Gao Hai sat in the empty square, and there was no sound from him.

"Who will talk to me?"

He suddenly chuckled and then spoke casually.

"I don't want to go back to the dungeon yet, it's too grueling. Anyone want to talk to me? I'll just waste a little time, I'm getting quite bored by myself."

Standing up again, Gao Hai waved to his surroundings, as if searching for someone, and then shielded his forehead with his hand, gazing into the distance.

"There can't really be no one here, can there? I'm getting really bored, I really feel... so bored..."

In the end, he just lowered his head in frustration and sat down on the ground again.

What am I doing? Am I pretending to be crazy?

Gao Hai reached up and pressed his hand against his head, scratching hard until his scalp was torn and blood slowly flowed down his forehead.

Would it be better if I could really go crazy?

Gao Hai was stunned for a moment by his subconscious thought, and then laughed again.

Yeah, if I really went crazy, maybe I'd feel better.

But this is impossible.

Even though the desperate situation and the disappearance of his companions had brought him immense pressure, Gao Hai could feel that his heart was still beating firmly and powerfully, and that he could still control his emotions steadily.

He won't go crazy.

Even if you pulled out all the nails from his ten fingers, even if you scraped off pieces of flesh from his body to torture him to death, even if you used every kind of torture in the world on him hundreds or thousands of times, he still wouldn't go insane.

Even if he were given decades or centuries of happiness and love, and then cruelly taken it away, or made to watch his beloved die again and again, or even forced to kill his lover himself, he still wouldn't go insane.

Even if he is in great pain, to the point of mental breakdown, to the point of almost going crazy, he will still not go crazy. He will still be able to quickly regain his rationality and normal cognitive and thinking abilities after everything is over.

It was this powerful spiritual talent that gave Gao Hai the strength to overcome hardships, but now, he suddenly doesn't want this power anymore.