Am I going to be controlled by the players too?

A beautiful angel was lying on a white coffin, singing softly. The gentle moonlight shone on her, bathing everything in a silvery hue.

The coffin was opened, and Li Xianyu rubbed her eyes and sat up, looking at Cheng Cheng: "Before... sometimes, Sylvia and Freya were actually you, right?"

"Mm." Cheng Cheng nodded.

"I knew it, why has her personality changed so much..."

Li Xianyu slowly walked forward, took Cheng Cheng's hands in her delicate and soft hands, tilted her head slightly, and revealed a slightly lifeless smile: "Then we're not strangers... Thank you for your help all this time, Cheng Cheng."

"May [Majesty] extinguish your wrath, and grant you the hand of [Destruction]."

As Li Xianyu dissipated, Serafina, who had been lying on the coffin, stood up and removed her white eye patch.

For the first time, Cheng Cheng saw her eyes clearly.

Those were soft, silvery eyes, like moonlight, gazing at him tenderly without flinching.

"This is also the first time I've seen Lord Cheng Cheng's face clearly, yet I haven't been rolling on the ground in pain," Serafina said. "I hope that when we meet again, we won't forget each other."

Yes, I will.

"Then, I'll be the last one."

Serafina spread her six wings and stepped forward to tightly embrace the two of them, letting her blessings flow into Cheng Cheng's ears:

"May the Kingdom dedicate itself to giving you wings of protection."

So, Cheng Cheng spread his nine-layered wings.

Those nine wings were incredibly large. When fully extended, the entire world was under his control. When they contracted, the fate of all living beings would be gently gathered by the feathers.

Cheng Cheng could see everything within the nine wings, as if they contained the truths of the world. Although they were nine independent wings, Cheng Cheng could see a blurry circle within them, encompassing death, entropy increase, and spacetime—all these insignificant forces.

The brain of "knowledge", the body of "abundance", the heart of "memory", the voice of "harmony", the gun of "hunting", the hand of "destruction", the eye of "order", the appearance of "purity", and the wings of "preservation".

Nine sources of essence, nine paths of destiny.

The whole is one, and one is the whole.

Cheng Cheng finally caught a glimmer of inspiration. He unfurled his nine wings and flew swiftly, the imagery transforming into streaks of light that followed closely behind, adorning his bloodline. His body grew brighter and brighter, until finally—

The blood of "immortality" is forged!

He finally arrived before that orange-gold pillar of light that was tearing the universe apart!

If he takes just one more step forward and touches that ray of light, he can embrace the supreme divinity, become an existence that transcends everything, the only savior who can resist nothingness and the end, the strongest and highest "immortal" star god in the universe!

He brings death to all things, and forges immortality into authority.

However, no matter what, he couldn't take that final step.

human nature.

Base humanity is insufficient to embrace supreme immortality; only pure divinity can be unique.

After absorbing nine layers of source matter and connecting twenty-two paths, his divinity surpassed everything, instantly crushing that insignificant humanity into dust, leaving no room for resistance.

but……

Humanity is like a dry, hard bread crumb. Although it is insignificant in the face of divinity, it can be crushed into crumbs by two fingers and slowly fall into the trash can.

But if it has already been crushed into powder, then even if the divinity tries to crush that powder again with several times the strength of the previous one, those bread crumbs called humanity will still not disappear—it can become 'one', but it can never be completely erased and become 'zero'.

Humanity displays astonishing tenacity in its final moments; it fights back. The powerful divinity cannot cleanse away even the last impurities. These impure things remain like dregs, preventing Cheng Cheng from becoming immortal!

But this didn't stump him.

Now, Cheng Cheng is only one step away from becoming the supreme god who can traverse the universe. With a change of heart, he thought of a way to completely eradicate humanity.

"Slaying the Three Corpses"

The next moment, he automatically learned this secret technique, stretched out his hand and made it into a blade, pointing it at himself.

"cut!"

An amber-colored figure was severed from His body; this was His "good corpse," His "superego," His obsession with saving the world, and His "anger."

He joined two fingers together to form a blade, then pointed it at himself again.

"cut!"

A dark figure was severed from His body; this was His "evil corpse," His "self," the evil that devoured everything, His "greed."

At this moment, He had severed the two corpses of good and evil, reaching the realm of Shenxiu, and it was said:

"The body is a Bodhi tree, the mind a bright mirror; constantly wipe it clean, lest it be covered with dust."

But humanity still remains.

So, taking a deep breath, He pointed to himself again.

This time, what He wants to sever is His "ego corpse," His "true self," all the life He experienced as "Cheng Cheng," His feelings for Er You and His lover, His embodiment of humanity, the protagonist of all the stories so far—

His "folly".

This is the most difficult of the three corpses to sever; it represents everything from one's past and the reason for being oneself.

Cutting it down is like a butterfly emerging from its cocoon.

Contrary to popular belief, the fully metamorphosed larva and adult are not actually the same individual. After spinning a cocoon, the larva melts itself into a pool of nutrients, which are then absorbed by undifferentiated stem cells within the larva to develop into its adult form.

How similar is the process of attaining immortality to this?

By slaying this sword, one will kill the past "Cheng Cheng," freeing oneself from that name, completely separating from that human body and that uninteresting past, becoming a pure, supreme divinity that has existed since the beginning of the world, reaching the realm of Huineng. This is called:

"There is no tree in Bodhi, the mirror is not a stage, and there is nothing in it, where can it cause dust."

Selflessness, forgetting oneself, primordial unity.

This is immortality.

Just as the divine blade was about to fall and his own corpse was about to be severed, a pure white and warm right arm slowly stretched out from the void behind him and gently pressed down on his movements.

"???"

Cheng Cheng was greatly shocked and suddenly turned around.

Behind him stood a kind-faced girl with clear, bright eyes.

His eyes were lowered, devoid of sorrow or joy, free from delusion or falsehood, and surrounded by a compassionate light that could save all beings. A trace of pity curved his lips.

Then, beneath the narrow passage of fate, within the Asdna system, atop Mount Sumeru.

At that moment, all the heavenly beings, monks, bodhisattvas, and Buddhas, and even billions upon billions of heartbeats, simultaneously resounded, chanting a hymn of praise:

"Universal harmony, stars shining brightly, boundless merit praises the Buddha! All people are of one mind, all things share the same root, the winds of blessing sweep across the earth—"

"The Tathagata, the World Honored One"—Buddha, Dhammarajiva!

…………

…………

(Sylvia Faded)

Chapter 175, Memory is the opening of a dream

"World Honored One!!!"

An explosive roar erupted from the depths of Cheng Cheng's soul, echoing throughout the deathly silent Narrow Path of Fate!

The eternally silent void suddenly trembled violently. Nine wings, encompassing all truths, abruptly unfurled and trembled wildly. Terrifying power of destiny surged and boiled, converging entirely in his right hand, transforming into a crimson-gold divine blade that slashed straight at Buddha Tuomoling!

The ultimate powers of the nine destinies merge and unite, coalescing into a force powerful enough to tear apart the universe and sever cause and effect...

"Watch closely—"

That'll be a really cool cut!

The longsword slashed out, planets shifted, and the sun erupted with a flare. At that moment, the Asdna system was plunged into darkness, as recorded by a historian:

"In the 3157th year of the Amber Calendar, a celestial dog ate the sun, and the daytime was darkened again, an ominous sign."

The blade's light illuminated the starry sky, revealing both reality and illusion. In the end, the blade's momentum froze in mid-air, halting before the World Honored One's face.

Cheng Cheng frowned as he looked at the clear and compassionate girl before him, and finally a question arose from the bottom of his heart:

"Who are you?"

Why would the divine provide such a frantic warning, only to find itself injured by this strike?

"I am you, and you are me."

The Buddha, Dhammapala, stood with his eyes lowered, devoid of power, anger, sorrow, or joy, his warm palm gently pressing against the blade. He exuded no trace of murderous intent, only the compassion to deliver all beings. Yet, beneath this compassion lay a desolate and heavy understanding of the cycle of reincarnation.

"You...don't you understand yet?"

The next moment, a phantom river suddenly appeared beneath the Buddha's feet. It flowed from an unknown source, laden with the past, but abruptly cut through Cheng Cheng, splitting into numerous tributaries. These tributaries, too, continued to differentiate, and the river itself became a maze of narrow passages of destiny!

The River of Reincarnation!

The tributaries represent countless futures, and the more distant future is the afterlife.

From the rushing, dark river, figures emerged one after another. Among them was a band guitarist dressed in a red and black suit and wearing a mask, behind whom appeared nine golden Buddha statues: some pointing to the sky and touching the earth, some smiling with flowers in hand gestures, and some forming mudras that illuminate the entire world. Suddenly, they overlapped and merged, transforming into a single golden body filling the heavens and earth, seemingly compassionate yet blissful, solemn yet humorous, pure yet free. Its head bore a Buddha-like topknot, displaying the thirty-two major marks and eighty minor marks of a Buddha. Besides this, there was nothing else; everything was an illusion—the golden body of the Tathagata!

Those are Mu Zimi's past lives!

The killing move that Kasyapa Ruomu used to seize Mu Zimi's body, and all the past events!

Now that Mu Zimi has completely merged into Cheng Cheng's soul, it is only natural that Jia Ye Ruo Mu, as her past life, is also Cheng Cheng's past life karma.

Once struck by these past incarnations, his soul will be completely assimilated and devoured, becoming a part of Him, and ultimately turning into Buddha-Dhamma Ling Himself!

In just a moment, Cheng Cheng understood the reason and shook his head:

"This is impossible."

Kasyapa Ruomu has been annihilated by his own words, "I will not ask about the past in this life," and "all the past has vanished like smoke." He can never become "himself" again!

However, Buddha Tuomaling above the starry sea smiled slightly, as if he had everything under control!

"Have you seen this clearly... Cheng Cheng, can you sever ties with the past, but can you escape the future?"

At this moment, in the distance of the River of Reincarnation, figures flew out one after another. There was Cheng Cheng, who became a hunter of destiny after being spotted by Lan during a high jump on the school playground; there was Cheng Cheng, who fell into demonic ways and abandoned Yuan Shen while playing Ming Chao; there was Cheng Cheng, who starved to death from not drinking rice and oil since childhood; there was Cheng Cheng, the magician who won the Holy Grail War; there was Cheng Cheng, the King of Konoma who had a harem...

Further away, there are beauties as red as the moon, a great demon devouring the sky, a Buddha sitting on a lotus throne, a celestial being high above chaos, many ordinary people, and an eerie man with black and white penguins in his eyes.