Chapter 168: The Locked World
[So you went down the wrong path because you discovered the “right” one was severed, and you wanted to see if the others were the same?]
The narrator quickly understood Xu Zhi’s reasoning.
“Yes.” Xu Zhi nodded.
[Then it’s over.]
The game console’s screen flickered weakly a few times.
“How come it’s over already?” Xu Zhi asked, her tone regaining a bit of liveliness.
[I expected things might be difficult, but I didn’t expect…]
[That it would take so much power to completely sever this world’s path.]
[All just to prevent… rebirth. Such a merciless decision.]
Xu Zhi: “?”
“I didn’t understand a word of that. Speak like a human.”
From what she gathered, the ascension paths in the forest hadn’t vanished naturally — they’d been cut off deliberately to stop something from being reborn.
[…This world’s extraordinary hierarchy has been locked. Every living being can only passively wait for death to come.]
[We can no longer break our limits, ascend to the other shore, or escape.]
[When a limit hasn’t been reached, there’s still hope — but once you touch it, despair arrives.]
[And you… you’re the first extraordinary being to touch that limit.]
As soon as the narrator said this, it seemed to hit some forbidden boundary — the game console’s screen glitched into static, followed by cracking sounds. For the first time ever, the previously intact and fully charged screen fractured, spiderweb cracks spreading across its surface.
When the screen flickered back on, the pixelated display had dimmed with shadow, and the battery indicator flashed a warning red.
Clearly, the narrator had paid some price for revealing that truth.
Xu Zhi stared at the nearly-broken console, its light flickering weakly as if it could shut off any second. For the first time, she looked genuinely worried, “Hey… are you okay?”
[…]
A few black-and-white dots blinked on the screen — no response.
She waited for a long time. When nothing else appeared, Xu Zhi understood: it probably no longer had the strength to answer her.
By now, the chaotic energy rampaging in her body since leaving the forest had mostly been brought under control.
When she finally calmed her power completely, she noticed her extraordinary level had risen — but only slightly. And beyond that rise, she could feel it — a “ceiling.” It was as if she were trapped in a room too small to stand upright in, forced to bow her head, unable to grow any further.
Aside from that, her greatest gain from the forest was learning the terrifying secret of the Severed Paths.
It was said that speaking of hidden truths would invite backlash, but knowing certain powerful secrets could also grant one fragments of forbidden knowledge — and the benefits that came with glimpsing them.
Now, Xu Zhi could sense her mind working faster, her comprehension sharper.
It was as if after glimpsing the summit, everything below became easier to grasp.
The most striking change, however, was in her Authority — her unique extraordinary ability. Before, she could only use it to control powers related to Cloud City and the Mist. But after seeing the cliff, the golden lines of Midnight, and hearing the narrator’s warnings, she felt she had brushed against something deeper — and infinitely stronger.
Somewhere beyond her awareness, she knew she had already “seen” fragments of that power. She simply hadn’t understood them yet. The moment she did, her Authority would be able to touch and use it.
And that power — that understanding — might become her only means of resistance in a world where the path of transcendence was cut off.
Did the narrator know this?
Xu Zhi thought it probably did. Otherwise, why had it spent so long speaking in riddles, only to suddenly risk everything by telling her the truth?
The severing of the path seemed to fill the narrator with despair, yet it hadn’t given up — instead, it immediately began seeking countermeasures.
“So rational,” Xu Zhi murmured. “Because it’s a machine?”
No — the game console might be a machine, but it was more like an extraordinary artifact. The narrator was definitely not an AI.
“If it had an attribute,” she mused, “it’d probably be a ‘light’-type. All-knowing and illuminating. Yeah, that fits.”
Even faced with such despair — knowing that in this world, no one could ascend, that the apocalypse might come at any moment, brought by that being — Xu Zhi’s mentality did not collapse.
She felt pressure, yes, but as she reminded herself: everything depends on human effort.
Whether human effort could triumph over fate — well, that would come down to luck.
Feeling her strength mostly restored, Xu Zhi stood up, picked up the bone from the ritual circle, and walked toward the little aberration.
At the same time, she summoned Nightmare, her familiar, and approached the “cat cage” woven from the small aberration’s branches. Inside was the black cat she had brought out from Midnight.
The moment it saw Xu Zhi, its fur bristled.
“Human! You broke your promise!”
And when its eyes fell on the little black kitten following behind Xu Zhi, its emerald pupils widened in disbelief.
“What did you do to me?!”
The cat’s voice was sharp and shrill, making Xu Zhi frown.
“What could I possibly have done to you?”
“Our deal was that I’d bring you out, right? I did that. How exactly did I break my word?”
Before the cat could retort, Xu Zhi turned to the little aberration and said calmly, “Open the cage a bit. Nightmare — go in and eat it.”
Then, in a deliberately worried tone, she added, “You’re still so small… I hope you can manage it.”
The tiny black kitten, who had always acted so proud, immediately bristled at the provocation.
Its pupils narrowed, and with an indignant “meow,” it bounded straight into the cage.
The tree-cage door closed slowly. It would only open again when Xu Zhi confirmed that the one still “alive” inside was indeed her familiar.
“Let me know when they’re done,” she instructed the little aberration perched on the tree’s crown before leaving for the central city base.
When she found Zhong Lingfan, the woman was in the middle of an experiment. Xu Zhi stood quietly by, watching. It didn’t take long for her to realize that Zhong Lingfan was experimenting on the girl Xu Zhi had once brought back — the one who could sever the link between life and the extraordinary.
Zhong Lingfan was testing whether that power could be extracted and stored — to turn it into a weapon.
If successful, it would be a devastating tool against extraordinary beings.
Xu Zhi had almost forgotten about that girl. She hadn’t expected Zhong Lingfan to still be working on her.
She didn’t interrupt, only waited until a stage of the experiment was done before tapping lightly on the glass to announce her presence.
Xu Zhi had already thought it through — she didn’t need to shoulder the burden of “saving the world.”
Not because she was running away, but simply because… she wasn’t interested.
But now, for her own survival, she had no choice but to think about how to break the deadlock.
Still — why should she be the only one wracking her brain over this?
Everyone was facing the same crisis. Shouldn’t everyone be thinking of a way out together?
