The Envoy of Abundance from Onphalus

　As the heavy fabric was draped over his shoulders, a long-lost warmth flowed through his body. It was as if his old companions were still gathered around him, their voices calling for the savior forming an invisible radiance that bathed him.

　He closed his eyes. The powerful beating in his chest was clear and steady. It was no longer the violent, burning pain of a wildfire, but a resilient, peaceful rhythm—the rich heart of his teacher was beating within him.

　The initial, soul-wrenching pain of fusion had subsided. This heart from the Envoy of Abundance, like the most intricate engine core, actively regulated and harmonized the fiery power flowing within him, taming it.

　Just as the heart pumps blood to every part of the body. His original heart? It had long been burned to ashes by the out-of-control flames, leaving only a broken shell to bear the flames, a reflection of his past.

　This restart of the cycle was unusually abrupt. Lai Gushi's forced separation of Russell triggered a catastrophic collapse, directly resetting the world's programming. Bai E didn't even need to fight or struggle as usual; a new cycle had already begun.

　He stood in the void, at the boundary between chaos and rebirth. Before him, the heroic phantom, once his spiritual pillar and constructed from his thoughts, was slowly changing in shape, finally coalescing into the clear image of Russell—his expression kind and compassionate, gazing at him with pity.

　"noob."

　The phantom spoke, its voice gentle yet carrying an undeniable power, resounding directly in Bai E's consciousness, "Guard the node of creation, don't let the mastermind behind it succeed. Wait for me to return."

　The phantom's gaze seemed to pierce through time and space: "When I return, I will give my all to bring Onpharos a true rebirth, free from the constraints of time."

　Bai E instinctively placed his hand on his chest. Beneath his fingertips, the rich heart beat steadily. An unprecedented sense of certainty filled his heart. His teacher had never left.

　This heart offers far more than just physical healing. It's like a balm for the soul.

　He clearly realized that the cruel chain of fate—the curse that required killing his past self to inherit the flame and continue the cycle of reincarnation—may have been broken. He now had another possibility.

　Without further hesitation, Bai E turned around and faced the entrance to the cycle of reincarnation that devoured all light.

　Just as his figure was about to be swallowed by the chaos, he suddenly stopped and looked back at Russell's phantom.

　He straightened his back, placed his right hand on his chest, and performed the oldest and highest salute of Onphalus to a guide, his voice firm as the clash of metal: "Teacher, I will continue on this path. I will follow the path you have shown me, to become an eternal Titan... the savior of all."

　A sudden warmth welled up in my eyes, blurring my vision. Was it a program error? No. It was tears, streaming uncontrollably down my face.

　The heart entrusted to him by his teacher not only gave him strength but also thawed his frozen emotions. The fleeting laughter in the cycle of reincarnation, the pure beauty in distant memories... like a frozen river touched by the spring breeze, began to revive and flow.

　He was no longer the cold machine who had to bear the sin of killing his companions in order to save the world.

　Now, with only the power within him harmonized by the Heart of Abundance, he can safely bind his former comrades and take over the torch without the need for further bloodshed.

　For the first time, the path to redemption no longer has to be paved with blood.

　Shen Bai'e wiped away the moisture from the corner of his eye, his gaze regaining its sharp, razor-like edge. Bearing the title and expectations of a savior, he stepped into a new cycle of reincarnation.

　From that moment on, the Fire-Stealing Walker perished completely, vanishing into the river of time.

　……

　This time, Bai'er chose the perspective of an observer. Like a ghost, he walked across the revived land of Onpharos, coldly watching the world line advance.

　His core mission remains unchanged: to block the node of re-creation. But this time, he can tell Xi Lian: hope is not just a vague legend from beyond the heavens.

　Their teacher Russell will eventually return and smash the chessboard of the ancient sculptors.

　As he reached the border of Onphalus, he was astonished to find that he and his teacher Bertrand Russell had built the Wall of Abundance together, and that they had a profound connection.

　It was no longer a cold barrier, but an extension of his limbs, echoing every beat of the rich heart within his chest.

　"I see……"

　Bai Er whispered. The teacher's heart resides within himself, and this Wall of Abundance, as the teacher's creation, will naturally respond to him.

　This discovery is crucial. After Russell was forcibly stripped away, the Wall of Plenty lost the will and control of a specific master, becoming mechanical and sluggish.

　This gave Lai Gushi an opportunity. His newly created Black Tide program was no longer content with assimilating ordinary people, but was specifically designed to corrupt and dismantle this Wall of Abundance that had lost its soul's protection.

　Bai E's eyes suddenly turned icy cold, and his figure flashed, instantly appearing at the highest point of the Wall of Abundance.

　The gale tore at the hem of his Savior War robe, making it flutter loudly. He could clearly sense the faint mournful cries coming from deep within the walls—the new Black Tide program, like a maggot clinging to a bone, was frantically eroding its foundation.

　"Don't think about it!"

　Bai E let out a low shout, slamming his hands down onto the cold wall. His will and the abundant energy within him resonated instantly with the colossal wall that stretched across the heavens and earth beneath his feet!

　Om-!

　A torrent of emerald-gold energy surged from his palm and poured into the wall like a burst dam!

　The previously flickering and weak protective light suddenly stabilized and burst forth with an unprecedentedly brilliant radiance!

　The tiny cracks on the wall, caused by the corrosion and impact of the black tide, are healing and reinforcing rapidly at a speed visible to the naked eye.

　Countless tenacious vines, shimmering with abundant divine light, grew wildly from the surface of the wall. Like living emerald chains, they fiercely entwined and whipped the dark, monstrous creatures that climbed up, crushing them into scattered dust!

　The Wall of Abundance has come back to life! It is no longer a passive, inanimate object that is being attacked, but has transformed into an angry, emerald-gold guardian beast, raising its head and roaring, using its surging life force to firmly resist the impact of the black tide.

　The vines are its fangs and claws, the emerald light is its roar, and it declares with its entire body: This road is blocked!

　Bai E stood atop the wall like a pillar of strength. The Savior's warrior tumbled and swirled in the energy storm.

　He is no longer a pawn manipulated on the chessboard of reincarnation, but a true guardian. His task is to protect everyone from further harm.

　He combined his teacher's will with his own strength to forge an absolute bulwark to protect his homeland. At this moment, he was willing to bear the weight of the world on his shoulders.

　He silently watched the churning darkness outside the wall, awaiting the moment he had to face personally—to go to the Sorrowful Secret Pavilion and confront Bai E and Xi Lian in this life.

　Before that, he will remain steadfastly at the core of this wall's strongest will.

　Just as his will merged perfectly with the giant wall, an indescribable gaze seemed to pierce through layers of time and space and landed on him.

　That gaze was both fervent and warm, carrying an unparalleled will to protect. Though it vanished in an instant, like an illusion.

　But Bai E clearly felt a vast power instantly flow into his body, as if every cell was cheering and jumping for joy, and his bodily functions were strengthened to an incredible level.

　He clenched his fist, feeling the unprecedented power surging within him, and his gaze into the deep space became even more profound.

　This power… comes from the teacher? Or… from Onphalus himself? In any case, his determination to stay here has never been stronger.

　……

　No one can pinpoint the exact time of the creation of the Constant Titans. However, according to ancient historical records, this wall of permanence, built by the Constant Titans, already existed during the Golden Age or even earlier.

　He is a very mysterious Titan. Very little is known about Him. No one can even clearly define His specific powers.

　[His power is presumed to be permanence. It is said that the permanent nation of Soteria was also a gift from this eternal Titan to all the Onphalus people.]

　[However, it is certain that the reason the black tide from outside the boundary did not invade Onpharos was entirely due to the wall of existence forged by the eternal Titans.]

　He has provided protection for Onphalus for millennia, standing firm and unyielding. He is a Titan worthy of respect.

　—The Chronicle of Onphalus, The Constant Titans

　……

　Chapter Seventy: Happy Birthday, Ah Jin.

　Laigushi stared at the enormous, bizarre star map before him—it was the underlying simulation program of the Onpharos world.

　At this moment, it was like a piece of fine porcelain riddled with cracks, barely managing to keep functioning. The cost of expelling Russell, the messenger of abundance, far exceeded his expectations.

　"The price... ha."

　A sense of unease churned within the cold, hard data stream of the Legus. Forcibly stripping away a variable deeply intertwined with the underlying rules triggered a catastrophic chain reaction of collapses.

　The program is largely missing, and the core framework is as if an arm has been forcibly cut off, making the running logic awkward and clumsy at every turn.

　The most direct consequence was that this time, the cycle of reincarnation didn't even have time for Bai E to seize the fire and stop the re-creation of the world before it was forced to restart because the program was overwhelmed.

　Worse still, even the most basic cycle startup program was incomplete. When compiling regular instructions, glaring error codes kept popping up like a virus, forcing him to spend a lot of effort manually filling in and fixing them.

　The two stubborn "spots of light" are like shrapnel embedded in flesh and blood. They are marked by the system as the highest level of "high-risk vulnerabilities" and flash a dazzling red light, but they cannot be erased at the program level at all.

　One is the Wall of Abundance, built by Russell himself, a golden bulwark of life flowing across Onphalus.

　The other is the miracle created by the people who benefited from Russell's grace—Soteria, a refuge that tenaciously exists based on the belief in preservation.

　They have long since broken free from the program's preset framework and become alien entities rooted in this simulated world itself.

　Should we try a more radical approach of physical erasure? The cold, logical deduction of the idiom provides a cruel answer: forcibly annihilating them would instantly cause the integrity of the simulation program to plummet below the critical 85% threshold.

　Once the data falls below this threshold, the entire system will determine that it is irreversibly contaminated and trigger the highest-level cleanup protocol—starting from the data from the first simulation of this project. All data will be completely formatted and discarded as hazardous waste.

　If it really comes to that, it means that his tens of thousands of years of hard work will be in vain.

　Looking at the glaring 88% completion rate at the top of the simulation program interface, Lai Gushi forcibly suppressed the anger churning within his data core.

　"Stay calm...we must stay calm..."

　He concentrated all his computing power on the long and tedious process of weaving code and fixing vulnerabilities.

　On the screen, the data stream representing his will flowed like countless silver snakes, frantically patching up the program's numerous flaws. He closed Bai E's real-time observation window, out of sight, out of mind.

　Anyway, Bai E won't break down without going through hundreds or thousands of times. Looking at this boring and repetitive data is pointless.

　However, the unwillingness to accept defeat never disappeared. In order to put pressure on the variables of the new world, the collection of data was accelerated.

　During the repair intervals, he forcibly upgraded the Kuroshio. The new Kuroshio factors were given a bizarre and deceptive quality.

　It can simulate the life fluctuations that originate from the same source as the Fulfilled Fate, attempting to make the Fulfilled Wall, which has lost its master, mistake it for an ally, thereby crossing the barrier and reenacting the destructive script of Onphalus.

　After all, if the Black Tide can't even get over the wall, how can it force out the extreme struggle he wants?

　This strategy relies on the premise that the Wall of Fertility is unclaimed and mechanically defended. If Russell were still alive, this clumsy imitation would never have worked.

　Just as the new Black Tide Factor completed its deployment and surged towards the Wall of Abundance like ink, about to successfully cross it—

　A figure, clad in golden and white armor, descended like a divine warrior, landing steadily at the highest point of the Wall of Abundance!

　It's Bai E! He's here!

　Lai Gushi's data core suddenly froze, as if struck by an invisible hammer.

　On the screen, the bar representing the deployment progress of the Black Tide instantly dropped to zero, and a piercing failure notification sound rang out.

　The painstakingly crafted upgrade program became a colossal joke in the face of Bai'e, who possessed the Heart of Abundance and could resonate with the Wall of Abundance.

　A chilling rage roared from the depths of the data abyss. Lai Gushi acted almost without hesitation; he no longer wanted to play along with these virtual factors.

　With a destructive paranoia, he forcibly embedded a new ironclad rule into the underlying rules of Onphalus:

　[Countdown begins: The world of Onpharos will be completely annihilated and restarted after Light Era 5000. If the pursuit of fire fails, this process will repeat.]

　Once the setup was complete, he no longer glanced at the land that had led to his defeat, and poured all his energy back into the vast, chaotic, tangled code framework, continuing his futile efforts to patch the vulnerabilities.

　At this moment, Russell, that detestable factor, resurfaced in Lucas's logical circuits. If it weren't for him, everything would have gone much more smoothly.

　But it was this one redundant factor that destroyed everything in Laikushi...

　……

　Inside the observatory of the Abundance Shenzhou, soft artificial starlight bathed the room, creating a tranquil atmosphere. Russell, carrying an exquisitely crafted cake adorned with edible stardust, approached Jin, who was polishing his two emerald green revolvers.

　“Ah Jin,”

　Russell's voice carried a gentle smile, "Today is a special day."

　Jin raised his head. His golden pupils held a familiar blankness, as if veiled by a thin mist.

　He put down his gun and looked at the small cake in Russell's hand, on which was a conspicuous "30" candle.

　"A special day?"

　"It's your birthday, little one."

　Russell placed the cake on the small alloy table beside him, the emerald gold glow flowing between his fingertips as he lit the candles.

　"Birthday?"

　Jin frowned slightly, trying to dig deep into his blank memory. "Sir... is today really my birthday? I... don't remember."

　His tone carried a hint of barely perceptible confusion and disappointment.

　Russell chuckled and patted him on the shoulder naturally: "Does it matter? I've designated the day I took you away from those ruins as your day of rebirth."

　"Since you can't remember the past, let's redefine your time starting from this day."

　He pulled up a chair and sat down, gesturing for Jin to sit down as well. "Never mind all that, the birthday person is the most important, make a wish first! Of course, if you want to make a wish to me, I have no objection."

　The projection of the ship's spirit appeared at the right moment, bowing slightly with polite manners, like a well-trained butler, silently adding to the atmosphere of the ceremony.

　Russell had promised him the day before that he would dress up as a polite butler on his birthday and receive a hundred Pleasure Candies afterward.

　Although the candy was scarce for the ship's soul, it was incredibly delicious. It was sweeter, more flavorful, and brought him happiness than any food he had ever tasted.

　So he didn’t hesitate to betray his integrity and obey the respected Lord Huaixiu.

　Jin looked at the flickering candlelight and then at Russell's encouraging smile, and obediently sat down.

　He stared at the number "30" and couldn't help but ask, "Sir, am I really that...old, 30?"

　He seemed to be carefully choosing his words, "I feel... I've always been like this."