Oh no! I'm surrounded by female ghosts!

After Su Ming escaped the trap of desire.

He sat quietly on the ground with his head down.

The desire trap of meeting Wen Qi, though it didn't bring him any new knowledge, did blur his boundaries and advance his level.

The boundary blurring has officially reached level two.

He was putting all his energy into suppressing the primal urges stirring within him.

Knowledge is dangerous.

The higher the level of knowledge, the stronger the primal urges it generates.

His entire body was like a phantom, appearing and disappearing at times, extremely unstable.

This time, the primal urge is no longer "I want to go somewhere," but rather "There is an unknown place that is descending upon me."

At this moment, Su Ming was like a lighthouse standing in the endless deep sea, its faint light easily attracting the unknown lurking in the boundless darkness.

He must completely extinguish this light and shut down his own beacon effect, otherwise he will inevitably invite unpredictable disaster.

That is, Su Ming's figure shifted between reality and illusion.

The sky of the new world suddenly changed.

The sky alternated between light and darkness, creating an eerie scene that enveloped the entire world, causing countless people to stop and look up, gazing at this abnormal sky with bewilderment.

Chen Zhiwei led Zhou Zhengyang out of the command hall, looking at the turbulent sky with a solemn expression.

Zhou Zhengyang's mind rapidly retrieved his memory archives, instantly matching a long-forgotten scene.

One day in 1996, the sky suddenly darkened for a few seconds.

Seeing Chen Zhiwei looking at him, Zhou Zhengyang said softly, "It's different."

"The sky phenomenon in 1996 was an extreme darkness that lasted only a few seconds, a pure darkness without any impurities."

"But now, the sky is just dim and the light and shadow are fluctuating, which is not the same kind of phenomenon at all."

Chen Zhiwei remained silent until the sky returned to normal before turning around and returning to the command center.

During that time, she didn't say a word, only her brows were tightly furrowed and her eyes were filled with unyielding worry.

Zhou Zhengyang hesitated for a long time, but finally couldn't help asking, "Dr. Chen, what happened to the sky just now?"

Chen Zhiwei rolled her eyes at him and immediately retorted, "You're asking me? Who am I supposed to ask?"

"Anyway, it's nothing serious, why do you care?"

In the old world.

Su Ming slowly tilted his head back, let out a long breath, and finally suppressed the primal urges that had blurred boundaries.

It was at this moment that a cold and cruel truth was revealed.

Even if their knowledge is immune to contamination, its limit is only level two.

It's not that he can't advance his knowledge to the third level, but that he doesn't dare to.

Once a piece of knowledge reaches level three, even if Su Ming is unwilling, his primal impulse will push him back to His position.

This is an unsolvable dead end, a cruel truth that can crush the hopes of all living beings.

The limits that a tangible, physical living organism can withstand are only equivalent to those of a secondary pollution source.

The second-level pollution source, also known as the seventh level, corresponds to the seventh awakened being and the turbid god level.

This is a barrier that no life can overcome.

The only way to go further is to abandon the physical body, shed the essence of life, and transform into a formless and intangible higher-dimensional form.

But once you take that step, you are destined to become one of them.

He had previously been optimistic that if it weren't for the world's upper limit, Yu Mengnian might have been able to reach the eighth level of awakening.

Now think about it.

The day Yu Mengnian steps into the eighth level of awakening will be the moment she ascends to her position, severs the foundation of life, and completely breaks away from the life system.

Blue Star will lose one Yu Mengnian, but they will gain one more of their kind.

Therefore, the World Giant Infant is also at the level of a Turbid God. Even though it is incredibly terrifying, it is still trapped in the shackles of the Turbid God level.

The difference between the two levels of Turbid God is like the difference between clouds and mud.

With the amplification from the proliferation of flesh and blood, Su Ming's physical strength has now reached the threshold of the Turbid God level.

Yang Jian is also at the Turbid God level, but the strength he has shown is far, far greater than that of Su Ming.

However, the terrifying power displayed by the world's giant babies has long surpassed human understanding and imagination.

The seventh rank is the ultimate limit for all living beings.

Even if Yu Mengnian's dream of a being beyond the seventh rank is about to emerge, she must still abide by the underlying order of this universe.

Unless, an unparalleled being, surpassing even a Level 5 pollution source, emerges, directly shaking the most fundamental order of the universe with absolute power and forcibly rewriting the order that shackles life.

But in this case, there is absolutely no possibility.

They will nip this variable in the bud in the dream from its source.

This leads to a paradox.

The initial motivation for people to strive to become stronger is to defeat them.

But when they truly possess the power to contend with them, they have already abandoned their original nature as living beings and become like them.

Therefore, even becoming stronger seems ironic and powerless at this moment.

The general idea is that the stronger you are, the clearer you can see the true nature of despair.

Just as he was thinking this, Wen Qi's voice suddenly rang in his mind.

"The seventh rank is indeed the limit of life."

"But you forgot about anthropomorphism and theomorphism."

"These two special states can temporarily break through the seventh rank, allowing life to temporarily possess strength comparable to the eighth rank."

"The world's giant babies belong to this category."

Su Ming suddenly looked up, a hint of surprise and joy flashing in his eyes: "School beauty, you haven't left yet."

But Wen Qi's voice grew increasingly ethereal, as if it might vanish into thin air at any moment: "I'm leaving."

She was still somewhat uneasy about Su Ming's blurred boundaries and primal impulses.

They waited silently until Su Ming suppressed his primal urges, and then they began to disappear.

Before disappearing, she didn't forget to answer Su Ming's questions and comfort him.

This time, Wen Qi has truly disappeared.

Just as she said, she came to see Su Ming one last time, mainly to give him some final words of advice.

After giving her instructions, she was to relinquish her ego, become the pure being, and then activate the cleansing mechanism.

"The ability to personify and anthropomorphize has temporarily reached the eighth level."

Su Ming murmured softly, then shook his head.

"But it's still not enough."

Even at level eight, it is only comparable to a level three pollution source.

Above the level 3 pollution sources, there are level 4 and even level 5 pollution sources.

The so-called resistance and victory now seem absurd to the point of being laughable.

He suddenly remembered a metaphor that Chen Zhiwei had used long ago, and now, thinking about it, every word seemed to pierce his heart.

She said at the time.

"It's like someone walking past a colony of ants."

"His casually raised foot cast a huge shadow on the ground."

"For ants, darkness has fallen, eternal night has descended, and this is an irresistible apocalyptic catastrophe."

"But they will never understand that it was just a human foot."

"Their cognition is limited to two dimensions; they cannot understand, or even imagine, the structure of the three-dimensional world."

"Dr. Ant will use all his knowledge to deduce this natural disaster."

"The powerful ants will fight back and do everything in their power to hold up the descending shadow."

"They believe that this will allow them to overcome natural disasters."

At the time, Su Ming only listened to it as a story and did not delve into it.

But the more truth he came into contact with, the more he understood their horror, and finally he understood Chen Zhiwei's deep-seated pessimism.

She once likened the anomalies on Earth to a higher-dimensional being passing through the area, whose mere leak of aura overturned the entire human world.

But the truth was far more suffocating than her guess.

I wasn't just passing by.

Instead, someone was actively observing the ant nest, preparing to completely clean it up and wipe it out.

Su Ming also understood Chen Zhiwei's extremely poignant words: "This kind of lucidity is itself a form of torture."

The ant's desperate resistance may have only been a lucky escape from a sliver of light or a spark refracted through a human magnifying glass.

They then thought they had broken free from fate and defied the might of heaven, and proudly declared that humanity was nothing more than this.

This struggle is insignificant, humble, and even somewhat ridiculous.

How can a lower-dimensional being comprehend a higher-dimensional being?

Even if a lower-dimensional being manages to reach a higher dimension, any remaining old friendships will eventually be washed away by the rules of that higher dimension.

Just like an ordinary person climbing to the top of a mountain, even if they still cherish old feelings, they can never return to their original pure state.

What's even more terrifying is that higher-dimensional beings, who rise from humble beginnings, know best all the weaknesses and obsessions of beings at the bottom.

Once they begin to eliminate, their methods are far more ruthless and decisive than those of naturally higher-dimensional beings.

Thinking of this, Su Ming subconsciously touched his neck.

At the same time, another female voice appeared in my mind.

It was Xu Qinghe's voice.

"Brother, the true meaning is to have the courage to choose to go for it even when you know that things may not turn out as you wish."

"We never persist because we see hope."

"It is through perseverance that we have the hope to ignite hope."

"Whether the outcome is as we wish or not, we will always be here for you."

Hearing Xu Qinghe's voice, Su Ming smiled.

These were the words Wen Qi had once said to himself.

Xu Qinghe has always silently borne all his thoughts and silently shared the heavy burden that no one knows about.

This burden is perhaps heavier than that of Wen Qi and Chen Zhiwei.

Shen Wanyu knew best that Su Ming's heart was never as calm as it appeared on the surface.

His inner world is filled with countless turbulent thoughts, which others can never glimpse based on appearances alone.

"Okay, I understand."

Su Ming nodded.

At the same moment, the gray mist overhead suddenly churned, and a sword light descended from the sky.

Yu Mengnian has returned.

Besides her, there was also a swirling, blood-red fog, exuding a terrifying aura.

Cheng Yao from the old world arrived with her.

Before the person even appeared, an astonishing killing intent permeated the surrounding area, and even a faint smell of blood could be detected in the air.

The blood mist dissipated as it landed, and Cheng Yao, dressed in red, slowly stepped out.

She has changed so much.

Like a peerless witch who has fallen into darkness, crimson waves of energy swept around her, her overwhelming killing intent was chilling and bone-piercing, and her eyes, stained with scarlet blood, were fixed on Su Ming in front of her.

"Oh~"

Cheng Yao licked her red lips, her voice lazy yet with a hint of dangerous playfulness: "Yu Mengnian told me everything on the way."

"I was originally curious, who exactly would this so-called forced affection make me fall for?"

"If they don't meet my standards, I'll just kill them."

Her gaze shifted slightly, the murderous intent in her eyes slowly fading, replaced by a hint of satisfaction.

"But now it seems..."

"I quite like you now, and I'm not as averse to you as I used to be."

The murderous aura that filled the sky dissipated.

Su Ming had to admit that it was no wonder that when he arrived in 2020, Xu Qinghe made him run into Cheng Yao first.

Without the prior setup, given Cheng Yao's temperament in the old world, she would most likely have killed him immediately once she learned about the forced favorability rating.

After all, Cheng Yao had not yet been forcibly bound to a favorability rating, nor did she have those memory fragments, and she had not yet had any contact with Wen Qi.

Having previously experienced an outburst of malice and a doomsday war, and then survived in this place for sixteen years, one's temperament must be extremely resolute and cruel.