Magical Girl's Knight Brother

Chapter 713 Choice and Despair

"format....

""

Tang Zijun's brows furrowed deeply beneath the shattered mask. The word felt like a cold steel needle, piercing the nerves he had just experienced that terrifying, ethereal encounter.

Just recalling that moment of overwhelming will sent a chill down my spine.

The immense torrent of consciousness from the God of the Era swept in with unprecedented solemnity and lingering fear.

"To be precise, it's existential formatting." His data stream seemed to tremble. "The essence of that descending will just now... wasn't an attack, but rather... 'information state negation' and 'existence returning to zero.'"

"It's trying to cover your existence with 'non-existence,' erasing all traces of information from your birth to this moment, completely wiping your very existence from the timeline, the causal chain, and even the fundamental sea of ​​information in the multiverse..."

"You just... almost became a... logical paradox that never existed before," the God of the Era continued. "Even more terrifying is that the moment this power touched your core, its 'formatting' contamination almost spread backward along the faint causal connection between you and the wasteland universe."

"Thank goodness." The data stream burst forth with a pale blue light, signifying the end of extreme danger. "It seems to have only targeted you? Or perhaps it immediately disconnected after confirming it couldn't format you instantly?" That power didn't spread; otherwise, the wasteland universe might have already become an ultimate void where even the concept of "non-existence" had lost its meaning...

As Tang Zijun listened to the God of the Era's description, his armored fingers unconsciously clenched. He understood that he had just walked on the edge of death, no, on the boundary between "existence and non-existence," which was a billion times more terrifying than death.

"But...why?"

The question from the God of Eras was like a cold probe.

"Why were you able to resist? Or rather... why did 'formatting' fail to work on you?"

The enormous spacetime vortex eye locked onto Tang Zijun, filled with bewilderment and curiosity.

"According to my calculations, even the true Great Old Ones, caught completely off guard and subjected to this level of existential denial," would inevitably be severely injured or even annihilated from their very essence. As for you... aside from a brief shock to your will and loss of energy control...

Seems... completely unharmed?

Tang Zijun remained silent.

His gaze beneath the shattered mask became extremely profound.

He did not answer the question from the God of the Era. A secret he had buried deep in his heart, which he had never told anyone (and perhaps even deliberately avoided himself), was now revealed as if a thunderbolt had cleaved through the ice.

Time traveler...

He is not the original soul of this world; his consciousness and core information imprint come from another completely different universe and from a completely different set of rules.

"Formatting Nightmares" essentially involves calling up the current universe (including the dream world, the real world, the reversed world, etc.).

The fundamental rule is to cover up, deny, or erase all information about a certain existence within the framework of this universe, just as an operating system needs to know the file's path, attributes, and data block location within its system to completely delete a file.

"But a part of my core information does not belong to the operating system of this universe. I am like an encrypted external file with a completely unknown format that has been forcibly stuffed into this system. The formatting command of the nightmare cannot recognize the structure and location of this part of my external information. It is like trying to delete a Mac system-specific file with an unknown format using the delete command of Windows. The command is executed, but the target file is not completely erased because it cannot be recognized or the path is wrong."

"So that's how it is..." Tang Zijun murmured silently to herself, a chilling feeling mingling with an absurd sense of relief. "Sure enough, I should have known better. My abnormality... has become my shield."

'

At this moment, he finally understood why the Great Old Ones ignored nightmares.

They also understood why nightmares disregarded the Great Old Ones.

The Great Old Ones are themselves malignant programs (pollution aggregates) within this universe's operating system. They can instinctively sense the terror of the "ultimate antivirus program" that is nightmares. Once they attract the attention of the "antivirus program," their polluted core, built based on the rules of this universe, will be instantly formatted and erased like an ordinary file. Therefore, they instinctively choose to hide and ignore them to avoid triggering the dream's cleansing mechanism.

As for why nightmares ignore the Great Old Ones, it's because... there's no need.

In the eyes of nightmares, what are the Great Old Ones? They are nothing more than piles of chaotic and disordered data garbage formed by the accumulation of negative energy in this universe. Although they pollute the environment (world), they are essentially still things within this system, and are "identifiable" and "manageable" internal problems.

As long as these junk piles don't actively attack the system core or create logical black holes that threaten system stability, then Nightmare, the ultimate administrator, is too lazy to clean up these junks. The energy consumed in cleaning them and the potential system instability they might cause are probably more troublesome than keeping them.

In any case, once nightmares break through the void, the dream world, and even the real world, they cease to produce negative energy, and the Great Old Ones will no longer exist. They will revert to a state of chaos, and there's no need for nightmares to actively expend energy...

"Heh..." A complex, chilling laugh escaped from beneath Tang Zijun's mask. "A product of chaos... is it ultimately just chaos...?"

""

Now, the real problem, like a cold sword of Damocles, hangs over his head, and over the head of the entire world—

How to overcome nightmares?

An ultimate administrator capable of easily performing existential formatting, a terrifying being who sees the Great Old Ones as nothing and the rules of the universe as mere playthings.

An enemy whose will was almost wiped out of existence by mere contact with a trace of its out-of-control remnant.

Power gained by devouring the Old Ones? In the face of Nightmare, the Abyss Sea form is nothing more than a slightly larger pile of garbage, which the other party could try to clean up with a single thought.

Relying on wasteland technology and the barrier of the God of the Era? That's just defense and drainage, hiding and clearing away trash, not victory.

Relying on the Tree of Life? That wisp of green shoot struggling in the annihilation of pollution is probably not even worth a speck of dust in the face of the nightmare itself.

Tang Zijun slowly raised her head, her gaze beneath the shattered black and blue armor piercing through the void at the end of time, as if she could see once again the claw marks that tore apart the galaxy, and behind those claw marks was the cold, deathly silence, all-annihilating nightmare itself.

Defeat it?

This seems to be a false proposition.

The immense consciousness of the God of the Era remained silent, the data stream like a frozen glacier. He too was calculating that hopeless odds of victory, and at the end of time, a deathly silence heavier than nothingness descended.

How to overcome nightmares? This ultimate question is like a cold black hole, swallowing all possible answers. Silence is not ignorance, but rather the only suffocating answer in their hearts, too heavy to speak of.

The light emanating from beneath Tang Zijun's shattered mask, carrying a strange and scrutinizing quality that seemed to pierce through eternity, slowly shone upon the enormous face of the God of the Era, composed of gears and streams of light. His gaze seemed to be silently questioning: You thought of that too, didn't you?

The God of the Era's enormous spacetime vortex eye rotated slightly, and the flowing data stream took on an almost bitter, pale gray hue.

His voice broke the silence, carrying a belated, chilling realization.

"...I...now I finally understand."

"Why did the gods expend such immense power to cut and create the wasteland universe?"

"7

His gaze seemed to pierce through countless times and spaces, seeing that desolate world abandoned by the gods, yet miraculously struggling to emerge from the ashes of the ultimate apocalypse with a twisted technological civilization.

"A civilization built by soulless intelligent beings, a world without intense conflicts of collective consciousness, and without massive emotional torrents..."

"...It doesn't generate any 'negative energy' at all."

'

.

The voice of the God of the Era carried a cruel rationality.

"In a world like this, without enough silt to accumulate, beings like the Great Old Ones cannot be born."

"More importantly..." The massive gear emitted a deep hum, as if confirming a cold, hard truth. "For Nightmare... the wasteland universe is worthless." It has neither enough ordered information "worth formatting" nor enough accumulated data garbage that could cause a system crash to need cleaning or utilization.

It was just a...barren, stable, uneventful...blank space.

"So...nightmares" don't even glance in that direction."

The voice of the God of the Era ultimately coalesced into a chilling conclusion.

Perhaps... the gods are right, to sever the root of negative energy and create a "pure land" of nothingness... the only "safe zone" where one can escape the gaze of nightmares...

'

Tang Zijun did not respond.

Beneath the shattered mask, his eyes became even more profound.

The wasteland universe is about giving up and escaping, so... what about the other paths?

His thoughts drifted to more distant memories, to Scáthach's... insane plan of the Fallen Shadow.

All living beings in the real world are forcibly transformed into inhabitants of the shadow world, and all existence is integrated into a vast shadow entity dominated by the will of a fallen god.

At the time, I just thought it was an extremely crazy doomsday prophecy.

But now... looking at this plan again through the despairing, formatted nature of the nightmare...

A cold, sarcastic smile appeared on Tang Zijun's lips.

Turning everyone... into part of a shadow... what's the difference between that and in the dream world, those blood cultists... crying and shouting to become a mad cell within the Great Old Ones...?

He slowly raised his hand, which was covered by black and blue armor, and looked at the patterns that symbolized the power of the abyss.

It is merely the active dissolution of the individual's existence into a larger, chaotic, inhuman collective pollution aggregate.

Cultists want to become part of the Great Old Ones because they believe that only in this way can they survive in another form during the mad apocalypse brought about by the Great Old Ones.

Scáthach, that fallen shadow... who wants to drag the real world into the Land of Shadows, essentially believes that... only by completely transforming her own form of existence into a higher-order chaotic aggregate state that "nightmare cannot recognize or easily format"... can she... retain a spark of existence in the ultimate cleansing of "nightmare's" descent.

This thought, like a cold venom, instantly penetrated Tang Zijun's mind.

It turns out that whether they are lowly cultists or once high and mighty fallen gods... when faced with the ultimate, existential threat of annihilation—nightmare... the paths they choose are so similar, so... desperate and humble.

It becomes pollution itself.

Turn yourself into a nightmare system that cannot be easily deleted... stubborn junk or system-level bugs.

This was the only way out they saw...

Tang Zijun slowly lowered her hand, her fingers, covered by armor, unconsciously clenching.

The wasteland universe is a void escape; the fallen shadows and cultists are a deliberate form of corruption; the dream world created by the gods ultimately becomes a breeding ground for even more terrifying Great Old Ones...

It's like an unsolvable Möbius strip; no matter which direction you run, you can't escape the cold shadow of nightmares. In the end, you either choose to exile yourself into nothingness or choose to dissolve yourself into chaos.

Tang Zijun's gaze returned to that desolate, nightmare-contaminated area, where the cold, black thorns seemed like an eternal mockery.

The immense consciousness of the God of the Era fell into a deeper silence, and the light of the data stream dimmed slightly. The results of the deduction coincided with Tang Zijun's understanding. In the face of the formatting power of the Nightmare that transcended the rules of the universe, it seemed that... there was no victory, only different forms of... survival or annihilation.

"Maybe..."

The God of the Era sighed softly, his voice becoming unusually calm, even the previous noise subsided. He looked down at Tang Zijun and slowly spoke.

"...There was no such thing as 'victory' at all."

"There are... just choices."

"Choose to become a wasteland... or..."

His gaze became incredibly profound, as if looking towards a distant place that even the God of the Era could not fathom.

"...choosing to become...the 'mistake' itself."

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