The Envoy of Abundance from Onphalus

　The older Bai E's voice carried a hint of pride, but also a barely perceptible tremor.

　Four hundred million?!

　Bai E gasped in astonishment, almost unable to comprehend the immense power that was at play; each Titan was like an insurmountable god.

　Wouldn't it be terrifying to possess the power of over 400 million Titans?

　"Then your strength...isn't it...?"

　"Extremely powerful?"

　The older Bai Er gave a bitter laugh. "Hmph, even so, I still couldn't beat the teacher. The moment the mask was removed, the moment the teacher truly recognized me..."

　His voice suddenly choked up, filled with an unbelievable warmth, "I've imagined countless times what my teacher would do to me when he finds out I'm the executioner stained with the blood of my classmates, and who even killed him time and time again?"

　"Will you kill me immediately out of hatred, or will you utterly despise me and disown me as your student?"

　He paused for a long time before speaking in an almost dreamlike voice, "But...no. In his eyes...there was no hatred, no disgust...only heartache. It was the kind of heartache...that you only feel when looking at your own wounded child, lost in the darkness."

　"In the teacher's eyes, I will always be that clumsy, immature child."

　Bai E's heart was dealt a heavy blow.

　"It was at that moment that I truly understood,"

　The voice of the elderly Bai E was filled with power, as if he had been reborn: "My more than 30 million lifetimes of painful reincarnation have not been in vain!"

　“At least, the teacher is still here! He has always been with us! Just when the teacher was about to overturn Lycus’s chessboard… that bastard intervened and forcibly expelled the teacher from Onpharos!”

　His tone was full of anger and resentment.

　"But before leaving..."

　The elderly Bai E unconsciously pressed his hand to his left chest, his eyes filled with indescribable gratitude. "Teacher, he gave me his own heart..."

　This world's white calamity looked at him in shock.

　"It is this heart,"

　The elderly Bai E's voice was gentle yet firm, "It helped me rediscover human emotions and the perceptions of a normal person."

　"Otherwise, the person sitting in front of you right now would only be a monster dressed in black, wearing a mask, coldly and ruthlessly carrying out his mission, an executioner who just killed Xi Lian with his own hands."

　He looked at Xi Lian's grave, his eyes filled with lingering fear and relief.

　"I'm saying all this just to tell you,"

　The elder Bai'e stood up, walked to the present Bai'e, and said with piercing eyes, "We are the saviors, destined to fight to bear the fate of the world."

　“But you are not alone. The eternal Titan wall that now stands across the land of Onpharos, and the enduring nation of Soteria, are both legacies left by our teacher. He still protects Onpharos.”

　He gazed into the distance as if he could pierce through time and space: "According to the timeline, the Secret Pavilion of Elegance may have already been destroyed. But because of that constant wall constructed of abundant power, the main force of the Black Tide was firmly blocked outside, and only some sporadic, insignificant threats could infiltrate."

　"The situation is better than in any of our past lives! This is a gift left to us by our teacher."

　He turned around abruptly and reached out his hand to the slumped-on-the-ground Cishi Bai'e. His palm was broad and calloused, yet full of power: "Teacher and we have shed the blood of over thirty million lifetimes for Onpharos."

　"We were groping in the endless darkness, almost giving up. But now, the teacher has brought hope back! So stand up! Me in this life! Summon your courage!"

　The voice of the elder Bai'er, like a booming bell, echoed through the golden forest: "Come with me through this thorny path! For the sake of Onphalus's tomorrow, let this hope that is about to be realized be firmly passed on! Until the light comes!"

　"Shatter the arrogant prisoner's illusions. Lead everyone to survival as a savior."

　His words were like a thunderclap, cleaving through the gloom in Bai E's heart.

　Looking at the hand that was outstretched towards me, representing inheritance and hope, and at the burning light in the other person's eyes that had endured vicissitudes, a long-lost strength welled up from the bottom of my heart.

　He took a deep breath and grabbed that hand! Using the leverage, he stood up abruptly, his eyes becoming more determined than ever before.

　"Ok!"

　He nodded vigorously, his voice firm and powerful, “To bring dawn to Onphalus, that is the very meaning of our existence as the Savior!”

　"very good!"

　The elder Bai'er's eyes were full of approval. "Then, the plan is as follows: I will be stationed at the Eternal Titan Wall, and you need not be distracted by the threat of the Black Tide. Your task is to carry the banner of this generation's savior!"

　He patted this worldly white e's shoulder hard: "Use your identity and your power to persuade the city-state to unite with all forces that can be united."

　"Whether they are future enemies or hesitant allies! Let all the forces of Onphalus who yearn for freedom and resist fate unite as one! Let us, the people of Onphalus, roar our loudest fury at those who hold the chess pieces high above and regard us as pawns!"

　"how about you?"

　In this world, Bai E hurriedly asked, "You..."

　"I?"

　The elder Bai'er smiled slightly, "I have taken over the support of the constant Titan left by my teacher, to create this breathing space for Onpharos, and to protect this hard-won spark of hope."

　"Until... in the next life when it's your turn to take on this responsibility."

　His gaze drifted into the distance as if he could see the end of time.

　"Understood!"

　Bai E straightened his spine. "I will do everything in my power to persuade everyone to unite! This is a promise we must keep to the world we love!"

　"Take this."

　The older Bai Er took out a badge from his pocket. It was made of a strange, dark gold metal, with a vibrant green gemstone set in the center that seemed to contain life.

　The edges are entwined with thorns and star patterns—the highest symbol of the enduring nation of Soteria, representing the will of the eternal Titan.

　He solemnly placed the badge in the hands of this worldly white calamity. The badge was warm to the touch, as if it contained a vast amount of life energy, pulsating slightly, like a second heart.

　“Take it with you to Soteria. It will prove your identity and grant you the authority to command the warriors of Soteria.”

　Then, the older Bai E extended his index finger and gently touched the space between the eyebrows of the present-day Bai E.

　In an instant, a vast torrent of knowledge flooded into young Bai E's mind—the structure of city-states, the entanglements of power, the understanding of human nature, negotiation skills... countless pieces of information were precisely imprinted deep within his consciousness.

　"This knowledge should be enough for you to get started."

　The older Bai E withdrew his finger, but his eyes remained bright. "The rest of the road... how to walk it, how to unite, how to ignite the flames of resistance... that's up to you alone."

　"The final battle with the chess player... I entrust it to you, the savior of this life. Perhaps you will say these words to your next life as well."

　"But that's alright, isn't it? Because this is a path fraught with blood and thorns. How could it possibly be smooth sailing? Right?"

　The onslaught of information made Bai E slightly dizzy, but he quickly regained his composure.

　The fragmented pieces of knowledge in his mind quickly settled, integrated, and transformed into clear thoughts and strategies. He gripped the scorching hot Soteria badge in his hand; its heat seemed to burn his skin, yet it also gave him boundless strength.

　He took one last look at Xi Lian's small grave, covered with golden fallen leaves.

　There was no more hesitation in his eyes, only unwavering determination.

　"I understand."

　He spoke in a low voice, which was not loud but unusually firm.

　Having said that, he turned abruptly without pausing. The golden sunset cast a long shadow of him as he strode off, his feet crunching over the thick layer of fallen leaves, heading towards the city-state of Soteria without looking back.

　The badge in his hand was pressed tightly against his palm, continuously radiating a scorching and unwavering light, like a star guiding his way.

　……

　Chapter Ninety-Seven: The Forced Halt to the Leap.

　Behind the scenes of Onphalus.

　Lai Gushi sat upright on the invisible throne of data, his once arrogant expression of looking down on everything long gone.

　His cold, logical core is now being bombarded by unprecedented alarm signals—the wall of abundance left by Russell is spiraling out of control.

　That barrier, constructed from pure abundance, has long transcended a mere physical barrier.

　It is like a living giant tree rooted in the bottom layer of the world of Onpharos, its roots spreading wildly and eroding the basic program code that makes up this world.

　The most obvious consequence was that unresolved gibberish began appearing throughout the system. Even more alarming to Lai Gushi was that this gibberish wasn't meaningless junk data, but rather… bioelectrical signals!

　"White Calamity..."

　"Legus whispered coldly. Ever since the consciousness of that savior actively merged into the core of the Wall of Abundance, the wall seemed to have been endowed with some kind of eerie vitality."

　It is no longer merely a defensive fortification, but rather an attempt to... revitalize the scepter that carries Onpharos! This is an anomaly that has never occurred before the fusion.

　Killing the All-Knowing One and breaking the knowable prison He has woven for the entire universe—this is the ultimate plan that the Ancients cannot afford to fail in.

　However, the trouble at this moment even made this administrator, who considered himself a cosmic genius, feel helpless.

　He was too arrogant, forgetting that when he sat high on his divine throne, a god born from the firewood of the mortal world stood on the opposite side of his game of chess...

　The abundant power left by Russell is sacred, gentle, and possesses almost limitless healing and transformative properties.

　The barriers they formed were indestructible; even when Laigushi adjusted the erosion factor parameters of the simulated Kuroshio to their theoretical maximum value, he could not penetrate them even slightly.

　What's even more frightening is that this power is still growing and spreading.

　As the administrator, Lycus is not omnipotent. He is strictly limited by the underlying logic of the scepter and cannot excessively interfere with the world's progress.

　The last time he forcibly removed Russell's data stream and expelled him from Onfaros, his administrator privileges were marked with a scarlet high-risk symbol, greatly reducing his operational space.

　According to the scepter's own logic, if Lygus had not forcibly interfered and damaged the core data, the program would not be so fragile, nor would it have been so easily eroded by the power of abundance.

　As for why this brilliant administrator would risk so much to expel Russell, that's outside the scope of the scepter's underlying logic.

　Violating basic logic and creating high-risk situations is the responsibility of the administrator who is being irresponsible.

　Now, Lycus's daily routine has become a tedious and arduous chore: he must repair the broken and missing logic code that has been eroded by the power of abundance day after day, while also building temporary firewalls in an attempt to slow down the pervasive erosion of abundance.

　Each project was so massive that it could overload and crash the computing cores of an ordinary civilization. But for him, it was at most a waste of a little extra time.

　He had long since lost the leisure to toy with those Golden Descendants in their cycle of salvation. He needed to accelerate, to complete the final calculations as soon as possible.

　However, when he attempted to invoke the time flow acceleration permission, a chilling feedback pierced the core of his consciousness:

　[Permission access failed: Core logic missing...]

　[Reason for failure: Unknown interference source locked onto time anchor point...]

　The interference source information was retrieved, and two unusually bright coordinate points were clearly visible—the Wall of Fertility and Soteria.

　These two places, like two giant rivets, firmly jammed the time gears of the Onpharos world, forcibly blocking any possibility of acceleration.

　Time can only flow at its current slow pace. Although the current speed is not slow at all, for this genius it is tantamount to slowing down a meaningless data creation process.

　"Russell..."

　A rare hint of tangible anger seeped through Lai Gushi's cold, electronic tone.

　This is definitely a gift left by that man before he left—he casually smashed the world's transmission!

　However, his anger was quickly suppressed by absolute rationality. As a genius, he had plenty of patience.

　The protective shell is strong enough that, as long as the core plan remains undisturbed, the ultimate goal will be achieved. All the waiting is merely a necessary price to pay on the road to success.

　He composed himself and once again threw himself into the endless battle against the boundless, ever-growing emerald green gibberish.

　Unbeknownst to him, on the land of Onphalus, beyond his sight, a flame called Unity was quietly spreading from Soteria, growing ever stronger.

　One day, these flames will burn the heavens to ashes, dragging the gods who sit atop the throne of data down to the mortal realm. The corpses of these gods will pave the way to a new world.

　……

　The observation carriage of the Starry Sky Train.

　"Ouch!"

　An exaggerated cry of pain accompanied by a dull thud rang out. March 7th landed sprawled on the floor, rubbing his badly injured bottom, his little face scrunched up in pain.

　"It hurts so much! Why did the Star Train suddenly brake like that?!"

　She grimaced and complained, then turned to her companion, whose posture was also rather unseemly, "Hey! Ah Xing! Are you alright?"

　Xing shakily got up from the floor, her movements like a mech soldier who had just learned to walk. She shook her head, which was still a little dazed from the bump, and tried to focus her eyes: "N-nothing...it just feels like...the floor...has gotten harder?"

　She touched her still slightly numb forehead. Was the leap-without-falling challenge really this difficult? Damn it!

　"puff……"

　Dan Heng, who witnessed the whole thing, couldn't help but chuckle, then shook his head helplessly. He had already firmly gripped the handrail next to him, clearly unsurprised that his two companions had failed the "leap-standing challenge without falling" again.

　"I warned you long ago that the changes in inertia at the end of a jump are difficult to predict. It's safer to hold onto something for support."

　Russell and Jin stood a little further away, and they only swayed slightly before regaining their balance.

　They seemed to adapt to changes in space more than ordinary people. Russell even observed with great interest the starry sky outside the window that had suddenly stopped flowing.