Fool's Library

"Dean Yin, have you ever heard the saying, 'Curiosity killed the cat'?"

"I've heard of it, but I'm a ferret, not a cat. What does the price of curiosity have to do with me... Okay, okay, I won't gossip anymore, please stop."

Although those ruby-like beast eyes gleamed with intense curiosity and a thirst for knowledge, Dean Yin's gossip radar had already sounded the alarm; it keenly sensed that there might be a huge juicy story here.

But faced with those mercury hands that lifted him by the back of the neck, Dean Yin ultimately chose to abandon his plan to continue questioning him.

"That's why I said you're not pure enough, little Ophelia. You're so good at seeing through other people's hearts... but when it comes to facing your own heart, you always choose to run away and can't face your feelings as openly as your sister."

Mercury's hand loosened its grip, freeing Silver Dean. It then quickly used its large, furry tail to scoop up a small dried fish from the warp storage and popped it into its mouth.

This Ophelia reminded Dean Silver of a word that Last had once spoken to it—

"High attack, low defense" makes it a pure glass cannon.

"There's nothing I can do about it; after all, I'm just a complicated person."

Ophelia peered through the isolation window in the corridor at the ward bathed in the warm afternoon sunlight.

"If I could be as pure as my sister, then the person sitting by his bedside, holding his hand tightly... would be myself."

After saying that, she fell silent and did not say anything more.

A long silence fell over both the ward and the corridor, leaving only the golden, beautiful moments that were slowly passing by with the ticking of the second hand of the alarm clock by the bedside.

As the sun outside the window gradually shifted westward, the originally clear sunlight became tinged with the blood red of the setting sun, and the hour hand on the alarm clock slowly pointed to six o'clock in the afternoon.

Inside the ward, Hiltina stood up, seemingly bidding a final farewell to the sleeping boy.

Just then, Ophelia suddenly spoke softly.

"Dean Yin, do you know anything about the person named 'Amys' who's with Brother Rust?"

"I do know a little bit, but why are you suddenly bringing this up?" Dean Yin asked, somewhat puzzled.

As a ferret who once accompanied Rust into the Echoes of History, Dean Silver witnessed Rust's conversation with the Angel of Fate, Gray, in the Watchtower, which served as the headquarters of the Shoreguard organization.

Therefore, it was naturally very clear about the weight that "Little Ai" held in Rust's heart.

"nothing."

Ophelia smiled silently and gently placed her hand on her chest.

She silently felt the burning, scorching emotions gradually filling her chest.

That feeling was like lava, heavy and crimson yet dazzlingly bright.

"But in the end, I was still a little unwilling to admit defeat."

Ophelia von Fresbergu lived her life like a mirror.

In order to meet the expectations of her parents, royal elders, and the outside world, she constantly changes herself, adapts, compromises, and tries to become the person they expect her to be.

Such a life is undoubtedly wrong and meaningless.

Beneath that flawless, exquisite princess exterior, behind that dazzling, ornate mirror, lies a girl named Ophelia whose heart is, in reality, utterly empty.

Since birth, she has lived by reflecting the light of others, and has never had anything that truly belongs to her.

But nowadays...

Ophelia, in this state, developed her own desires... not emotions reflected from others, but a yearning originating from her own heart.

For the first time, Ophelia had her own wishes and began to look forward to her future.

So even though she knew her rival was the Queen she had always admired, the "Grim Reaper" who held the Star Cup, it didn't matter—

She refused to give up so easily; instead, she was determined to fight with all her might for that first dream that had taken root in her heart.

In that case, it is essential to understand your potential competitors, as the saying goes, "Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will never be defeated."

Ophelia had extremely close contact with her own elder sister, as well as Akshia from the Starry University... and already knew them inside and out.

But only towards that person named "Amys"—

Aside from hearing the name once while watching a live stream of Nightworld, Ophelia knew nothing else about it.

But before escaping the night world, before escaping the mental landscape of Raste.

When the boy mentioned the other person, the emotions in his words were so heavy that Ophelia, who was standing nearby, felt a sinking feeling in her heart just by hearing it.

She had a vague feeling that the person called "Little Ai" might hold a place in Last's heart no less important than her own sister.

"Hehehe, little Tina's sister, it seems you've rekindled your fighting spirit."

"That's how it should be; girls should protect their own relationships."

Dean Yin perched on Ophelia's shoulder, letting out a wicked laugh that seemed to thrive on chaos.

As a magical creature of the "Moon" sequence that feeds on human emotions and shining souls, Dean Yin is not only the biggest gossip reporter in the world, but he also actively stirs up trouble and fuels the flames.

"When that guy Rust wakes up, he'll definitely thank me for everything I'm doing for him now."

……

A bleak mental world.

“Then I’ll head back now, Rust.”

I will come to visit you again next week.

In my ears, Hiltina's voice, along with the footsteps and the soft sound of the door closing, gradually faded and disappeared into the distance.

The warmth that emanated from the fingertips vanished quickly, disappearing soon after, replaced by cold.

In the end, all that remained before Last's eyes was a dark and oppressive world.

The whole world was silent, devoid of any extra color, leaving only the darkness and nothingness that swallowed up the light.

This is what it feels like to be a person in a vegetative state whose body has ceased to exist, but whose soul still remains... Trapped in a world that feels like a black hole, like a prisoner in a cage, facing monotonous and unchanging darkness day and night.

When Hiltina visited each week, the warmth conveyed through skin-to-skin contact was merely a fleeting glimmer of light—

It's like someone in a prison cell, without a candlestick, peeking through a crack in the wall to get some light.

And this eternal silence is the scene that Last has faced day after day during his two years of slumber.

For ordinary people, even just spending a few days in such a dark and empty world would be enough to cause them to have a mental breakdown and their will to crumble... After all, being locked in a small dark room for a few days in a real prison is already the most severe punishment in the eyes of prisoners, and it can even drive people insane.

But for Rust, such silence meant nothing.

Once you've witnessed hell firsthand and returned from it with your own hands, nothing can frighten you anymore.

Last gently reached out his hand, feeling the thin veil of night that lingered between his fingers.

Although Hiltina and Ophelia had left the ward, the fragment of the Epoch Stone they brought with them was still placed in the ward.

With the help of the Epoch Stone, this ward was transformed into a miniature entrance to the Night World.

Because the atmosphere of the Night World is too weak, the entrance to this Night World has an extremely high threshold, and only those night travelers who are highly compatible with the Night World can enter.

However, for Rast, who had spent countless years in the Night World, spanning an entire era and surviving from the end of the Sixth Era to the present day of the Seventh Era, this was naturally not a problem—he was perhaps the Night Traveler with the highest compatibility with the entire Western Continent and the Night World.

If he so desires, even if his body remains unconscious, Rast's soul can still enter the Night World at any time through the fragments of the Epoch Stone.

"Since my body is still missing the final step and cannot fully recover in the short term."

"Then, in the meantime, let's get that thing done first."

Last slowly closed his eyes.

The night, as thin as a veil, suddenly surged, enveloping the figure of the black-haired boy.

He felt the pull of the night world, just as he had repeatedly experienced as a night traveler before he fell asleep—the feeling of entering the echoes of history.

If we let this pull from the night world take hold, allowing our hearts to drift with it—

So, just like when he entered the Echoes of an Era before, Rast will likely be matched by the rules of the Night World and enter a random era, a random world background, and a historical echo that matches his current rank.

However, the purpose of Last's entry into the Night World this time was...

However, it was not for the simple reasons of the past, such as clearing Echoes of the Past to resolve the Twilight Calamity or obtaining the rewards from the Night World quests.

In Raste's mental world, a coordinate system constructed of complex numbers, symbolizing spatial dimensions, rapidly rises up.

Then, the pure data and information flow gradually become clear and three-dimensional, transforming into the precise location of the corresponding spatial dimensions.

For an ordinary night traveler, upon entering the Night World, one can only follow the laws of the Night World and be matched accordingly, going with the flow... Which echo among the myriad historical echoes recorded in the Night World will he enter depends entirely on the rules of the Night World itself.

However, at this moment, although his physical body in the real world is still in a state of annihilation and has not yet awakened, his soul, spirit, and mind have truly reached the legendary level, surpassing ordinary night travelers.

Furthermore, Rust had lived in the Night World and the Echoes of History for an extremely long time, so he was extremely familiar with both the Night World's affinity for it and its rules.

Therefore, Rast was even able to briefly resist the pull of the rules of the night world and actively adjust himself to choose the historical echoes he was about to enter.

The night world exists in a very unique form, and can be described as vast and boundless.

Within a tiny temporal divergence, there may be hundreds or even thousands of folded historical echoes. To pinpoint a specific historical echo from among them is as difficult as finding a needle in a haystack.

However, at this very moment, lines of complex and intricate formulas were generated in Raste's mental ocean, and then disappeared.

Repeatedly, in an endless cycle.

Through this cyclical calculation, the possibility of each error and each deviation is gradually eliminated.

Then--

Step by step, the final result of the coordinate calculation is led to the only correct answer.

finally.

In the increasingly dense night sky, mixed with dazzling starlight, only the latitude coordinates remained, becoming clearer and more distinct.

Rust no longer resisted the pull from the night world, but instead completely emptied his body and mind, letting his spirit and soul be swallowed up by the night and completely hidden behind the curtain.

Two years ago, in that dream called Canaan, the girl and the boy made a pinky promise, vowing that the boy would definitely come to save her.

At this moment, the Night World that Rast is located in is the coordinate that Amys told him personally.

It is also the place where that angel of judgment sealed himself in the night world.

That's right.

At this very moment, the blonde girl with sky-blue eyes—

During the years of self-imposed seclusion, he quietly awaited the arrival of Raste.

Chapter 251 I Don't Want to Shoot Her a Second Time

The night, like a thin veil, gradually faded from Last's sight.

With his current status, he naturally wouldn't experience the dizzying, mesmerizing feeling he had when he first became a Night Traveler, every time he entered the Echoes of History.

In fact, quite the opposite, with his mental power, Rast was even able to briefly trace his journey from the mortal world to the night world, and even the operating principles of the echoes of history.

That was a temporal divergence solidified by the power of the "Eternal Night Stele," hidden within the long river of time... To the true history, the night world is like a reflection in a mirror.

Just like the name "Night World"—day and night alternate, yet they never intersect.

……

As the pale night completely dissipated, what came into view for Last was a clear and spacious cityscape.

The wide streets were teeming with people, and skyscrapers rose up on both sides of the road. The giant screens on the buildings reflected neon lights, and the contrails of aircraft could be faintly seen in the azure sky...

A hint of disorientation flashed in Last's eyes.

The scene before him made it seem as if he were not in the historical echoes of the night world, but had returned to the modern city before his time travel.

However, Rust soon noticed something unusual about the cityscape before him—in the distance, in the heart of the city, a magnificent steel building rose from the ground.

It looked somewhat like an elevator, but it was tens of thousands of times larger than a typical civilian elevator... Steel tracks soared into the sky, reaching the end of the firmament, with cargo-carrying discs rising and falling along the tracks at the boundary between the sky and the earth.

Last recognized the colossal, futuristic-looking building—

A "space elevator," also known as an orbital elevator, is a technological invention that transports goods or people from the surface of a planet to space at low cost.

Whether in his past life before Last traveled through time or in the present world of the Western Continent, the "space elevator" was a science fiction concept that only existed in fantasy works... The mechanics, led by Dean Agatha of Star University, had discussed the feasibility of the orbital elevator many times, but until Last fell asleep, the project remained at the design blueprint stage, with construction far from being completed, let alone being officially put into use.

So, the place where Xiao Ai sealed herself away and slumbered was actually a near-future science fiction world? Just like the Sixth Epoch Historical Echoes that she entered last time?

Last waited for a moment, but the usual mission prompt from the Night World did not appear in his mind.

This did not surprise him, since he had bypassed the rules of the Echoes of History when he entered the Night World this time. The Night World did not match him with the corresponding mission echoes; he chose his destination on his own initiative.

Just like the illusion called Canaan that I would visit every time I cleared the Night World—not all Night Worlds are standard Echoes of the Past instances; there are also some special places. The plane where Xiao Ai sealed herself is most likely such a special place.