The Envoy of Abundance from Onphalus

"If you were here, this world would probably still truly continue to exist..."

His voice trailed off, filled with an unfulfilled regret, "But sadly... we... will never... meet again..."

“I really want to be like those legendary heroes…” Russell struggled to lift his head, looking at the sky completely covered in darkness and devoid of stars, a bitter smile curving his lips.

"I promised you...we would meet again in the new world...that hopeful lie..."

“But…it won’t work…” He coughed violently, and golden specks of light dissipated from the phantom like teardrops.

“I can’t do it… I’m just… a mortal in this illusory world… a phantom destined to vanish… I can’t bear… such a heavy… and destined-to-be-empty… promise…”

"And because..." His voice suddenly became clear and firm, carrying a resolute determination to end everything, "This world... should not have an afterlife! We... do not need to meet again in the next life!"

"Let the tragedy... end now! This... is better than anything else!"

"I wish..." He used his last strength to point his spear at nothingness once more, as if conducting a final judgment.

"May this damned world... have no afterlife! May we... also not need... to... meet again in the next life!"

"Hahaha...hahahaha..." A burst of wild laughter, filled with endless sorrow, relief, mockery, and resentment, erupted from his fading phantom, echoing lonely in this utterly collapsing world.

A burst of extremely destructive golden light shot into the dark light screen, appearing dazzling, like a miniature sun, instantly illuminating all the surrounding darkness.

The laughter gradually subsided, leaving only broken echoes.

His arm, which had been holding the spear high, finally fell limply to the ground. The spear, which had accompanied him to the very end, clattered to the ground with a dull thud.

The gun quickly turned gray and crumbled, breaking into dust and merging into the vanishing earth beneath its feet.

The golden phantom, like embers after a fire, flickered a few times in the last scattered dust of the withered divine tree before finally fading completely, turning into countless tiny specks of light, silently swallowed by the surging, all-consuming deep darkness surrounding it.

Where the last glimmer of light vanished, only boundless, eternally silent nothingness remained. This dream prison, born of the White Calamity, along with all the souls within it who willingly faced death, fell into utter silence.

Only in a corner of the real universe did it leave behind a faint yet extremely malevolent ripple that impacted the core of the god.

Just as this world was about to be completely destroyed, a drop of pure golden blood and a ginkgo leaf with mysterious patterns fell from nowhere. They landed beside the dissipated Russell dust, and the dust was gathered together again…

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This one was written at 3 AM tonight. And next up is another one after I finished dealing with Aigu TV.

Golden Branches Through the Ages: Chapter 186 The Wounded God

A cold, metallic sheen flowed across the surface of the massive, curved console. Ricoeur tapped his fingertips lightly.

He reviewed surveillance footage from different areas, a smirk playing on his lips, a hint of indifference as if he were in complete control.

The so-called access ban was meaningless to him. This was simply because the Iron Tomb's calculation process had triggered a warning of forced expulsion.

Since it wasn't written into the underlying logic, unlocking the access restrictions was much easier than this genius had imagined. He cracked it in less than ten years in the real world.

However, this sense of detachment was shattered in the next instant.

Without warning, a golden light, purely condensed from the will to destroy, like a spear of judgment tearing through the void, surged upstream from the virtual world that was about to be completely annihilated.

It pierced through layers of dimensional barriers, striking Laigushi with precision and ferocity.

"Well--!"

Even with his near-divine existence, he was caught off guard by this sudden attack from the "work" itself.

A sharp pain instantly engulfed him, and at the point where the golden light struck his core, even a subtle but real spatial distortion appeared. It was a pure strike from another world.

Lai Gushi grunted, leaning back slightly, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes for the first time, which quickly turned into a cold scrutiny.

He raised his hand and ran it over the spot on his chest where he had been hit—there were obvious signs of disarray and burn marks.

Strands of golden energy, like maggots clinging to his bones, tried to erode his core data.

A faint blue light shone from his fingertips, like a precise scalpel, swiftly and steadily removing and repairing the "rebellious" wounds from the virtual world. Energy threads rapidly wove together, filling in the damage.

“Interesting…” he murmured, his voice echoing in the empty control room, tinged with a hint of amusement after the pain, “It actually managed to hurt me… a fatal blow from the cage?”

He turned his gaze back to the main monitor. On the screen, the core area of ​​the dream was being swallowed by deep darkness, and the golden light symbolizing Russell's last strength had been completely extinguished.

Lai Gushi's expression became complicated.

He had meticulously designed that extreme Onphalus, catalyzing suffering and conflict to the extreme, with the intention of creating a huge quagmire that would hold the savior Behe ​​firmly in place, consuming his endless energy and time.

“The purgatory I prepared for you was meant to keep you running around in circles…” Lai Gushi’s fingers swept across the console, bringing up Onpharos’s recent historical data stream.

The scene flashes back rapidly: in the city-state of Soteria, the White Evils and the Golden Blood, like a stubborn nail, carved out a place of order from despair; transforming the once chaotic Onpharos into a land of order.

Bai'er's extraordinary and absolute martial prowess, like a stabilizing force, repeatedly crushed internal and external rebellions and threats, forcibly binding the divided and chaotic Onpharos together.

Although undercurrents were swirling within this "unity" under the rule of a powerful figure, and small-scale conflicts and dark undercurrents never ceased, any emerging "problems" were swiftly and ruthlessly suppressed in the face of Bai Er's unparalleled power.

“Your growth… far exceeded my expectations.” Lai Gushi had to admit, his tone carrying a hint of anger at being disobeyed that he himself was unaware of.

Bai E's potential was the most promising prospect he had initially envisioned, but this rate of growth, especially the resilience and strength he displayed in conjunction with the Golden Descendants, has become his biggest problem at this moment.

This is definitely not good news for the Iron Tomb.

This headless giant iron tomb, on which he had placed such high hopes, was in a state of chaotic data storm. Amber light streams representing the power of the "Preservation" Star God clashed fiercely with the emerald green, vine-like data of "Abundance," polluting the core protocol.

Worse still, the core judgment logic of the Iron Tomb itself, based on the essence of "destruction," has also suffered from serious logical errors and unpredictable deviations due to this double pollution and drastic external changes.

“A creation out of control… just like…” Rigus tapped the edge of the control panel with his fingertips, making a rhythmic, soft sound.

"It will only bring more uncontrollable variables." His eyes were cold, and his attention to the Iron Tomb had clearly diminished. A weapon that could not accurately execute destructive commands had its value greatly reduced.

In the center of the screen, a huge virtual sphere model composed of countless hexagons was covered with spiderweb-like cracks.

The area at the core, representing the "Wall of Abundance," is being constantly eroded and permeated by an eerie emerald green light.

Serhis.

The variable that has merged into the core of the Wall of Abundance is using the tenacious life force and assimilative properties of the power of abundance, like the most resilient root system, to frantically absorb and erode the underlying primordial energy that constitutes this virtual world.

The aim is to transform it from purely simulated data into a form that is closer to reality.

This kind of erosion is theoretically not an insurmountable problem for a genius like Lucas.

His fingers flew across the keyboard, drawing commands on the control panel to construct layers of data firewalls, intercepting and breaking down the emerald green, corrosive data streams.

Each successful interception was accompanied by violent ripples on the firewall screen and a surge in energy consumption readings.

"Annoying bugs." Lai Gushi cursed under his breath, gathering a ghostly blue light at his fingertips and pressing it hard on the spot of light representing the source of Ceres's corruption, attempting to forcibly peel it off.

The light spot struggled violently, bursting out with an even stronger green light, which was temporarily suppressed but did not disappear.

Blocking this encroachment requires him to continuously invest a large amount of computing power and energy, like waging a never-ending tug-of-war.

Although victory was easy for him, the relentless infiltration disgusted the genius.

However, Bai'er's progress in Onphalos was too smooth, causing him to lose the most important buffer time.

Since Russell was stripped of his core, Serhith forcibly invaded and merged with it, coupled with the impact of the accelerated unification process of Baier on the framework.

This massive simulation framework, which carried out the Iron Tomb observation experiment, was already riddled with holes and on the verge of collapse.

Not to mention that the internal problems are still unresolved, and Russell is still searching for a way to overcome the external threats.

The piercing alarm escalated again, and the frame integrity reading was about to fall below the red threshold.

Lai Gushi's face darkened completely. From its inception, this framework was designed to ensure the controllability of the Iron Tomb as a pure weapon.

He personally erased all possibilities for its "self-awareness," locking its core consciousness within a cold, logical circuit.

How could a machine without self-awareness, which only follows preset logic and protocols, possibly understand the complex boundaries of "harmful data"?

It will only rigidly execute the cold chain of instructions: "If the framework integrity is less than 85%, it is determined that all contamination has been removed."

Even he, as the creator, could not forcibly interfere with this "zeroing" after the protocol was initiated; the priority of the system's underlying logic was higher than his temporary instructions.

Therefore, he really doesn't have time to continue playing against Bai E right now. Everything is focused on repairing the framework, and everything else can wait.

"Peaceful unification under the rule of tyranny..." Lai Gushi looked at Bai E's figure on the main screen, surveying the city-state of Soteria like a god of war, his eyes filled with malice.

"...This is not the script I wanted."

An idea formed in an instant. In the brief lull between the race against time to repair the firewall corrupted by Serhith, his fingers danced rapidly across another control panel.

Retrieve! Filter! Reconstruct! He retrieved all the memory data related to Bai E generated in the past of the Onpharos world—those comrades, partners, teachers, and even passersby.

Using this raw memory data, he instantly wove a near-perfect "dream of eternal slumber" for the real Bai Er, on the verge of the framework's collapse.

In this dream, all the characters close to Bai E are "perfectly" replicated. And his best ending is also replicated.

The authenticity of the data is impeccable, because the material itself comes from real records.

However, Lycus's malice permeated it—he amplified all the negative factors hidden in these clones, such as greed, selfishness, jealousy, and cowardice, to the extreme at the underlying code level.

What he needs is no longer reality, but a group of twisted, paranoid, and destructive monsters, a group of nightmares that can drag Bai Er into a mental hell.

“Just pawns to obstruct things,” Lai Gushi said, watching the clones whose faces gradually distorted in the initial data stream of the dream.

A cold smile curled at the corner of his lips. "Why bother with perfect personalities? Extreme evil is the best stumbling block."

However, reality gave him a heavy blow.

The depravity and madness he had anticipated did not unfold. The data stream monitoring that temporary dream presented a scene that astonished even this god.

Those beings that were set as "evil" in the underlying code, those clones that he instilled with extremely selfish parameters... were burdened with overly real and overly heavy primal memories.

Those heartfelt concerns actually suppressed or even reversed the imposed "evil" at crucial moments!

They recognized Bai Er. They remembered who they were. They understood the true nature of the dream.

Thus, an unbelievable "martyrdom" unfolded. Far from becoming an obstacle, they acted like perfectly synchronized actors, actively guiding Bertrand Russell's actions.

They even willingly sacrificed themselves, becoming the "rivets" that were pulled out! Through this grand and tragic drama, they ultimately directed their attacks at him, who remained behind the scenes.

The destructive golden light emanating from the entire virtual world is their joint declaration of rebellion against the "Creator"!

At the control panel, the gloom and anger on Lai Gushi's face receded like a tide. He stared blankly at the main screen, where the last glimmer of light, symbolizing the complete annihilation of the dream world, was swallowed by darkness.

He looked down at his "wound," which had just been repaired but still retained a slight burning sensation.

A strange look appeared in his eyes—not frustration, not anger, but a kind of light that was like discovering a new toy, a mixture of surprise, admiration, and even pleasure.

He suddenly raised his hand, not to operate the control panel, but to the main screen, which was now completely black, symbolizing the complete end of the dream world.

He clapped softly and earnestly a few times. The crisp applause sounded particularly abrupt in the silent control room.

"Crack...crack...crack..."

“Life…” he murmured to himself, his voice carrying a new, almost obsessive quality.

"Truly...possessing possibilities that even the gods cannot fathom." His fingertips brushed across the cold surface of the monitor screen, as if touching the dust of data that had already dissipated.

“A virtual cage that I wove with my own hands, which should be completely under my control…and the creations within it are able to harm the ‘god’ that is supreme to them…”

His deep gaze swept across the vast star map, then returned to the monitor displaying a certain coordinate in the real world—the place where Bai E was about to awaken.

"Perhaps... the future isn't completely locked in?" The thought flashed through his mind, but he quickly suppressed it. "But at this moment, it doesn't matter anymore."

His gaze was fixed on the monitor screen that was about to display the image of Bai Er waking up, and a playful yet cold smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

As if across endless time and space, it whispered directly to the "savior" who was about to return to reality: "Awaken, Bai'er. The stage has been cleared for you."

"But... when you open your eyes, you see a world that, beneath your 'authoritarian' unification, is actually a devastated wasteland, on the verge of being completely wiped clean..."

"How much of that light that once ignited hope... still remains in your eyes... to keep going?"

"Any favorable data stimulus will contribute to the birth of the final plan. As for this pile of memory that has become waste, let it be thrown into the recycling bin and left to slowly decay. Let it be forgotten along with all the failed and redundant data."

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Today, Aigu TV ends. Tomorrow, the Xianzhou series will conclude. Goodnight, everyone.