Chapter 193: You Are the Most Special One
“…I had a feeling.”
Xu Zhi’s voice was low. In her mind, she quietly pondered the Narrator’s words, connecting what it said now with the fragments it had revealed before.
She wasn’t particularly surprised that the things within Midnight also came from the outside world. After all, what the little cat’s original form had once said didn’t sound like something uttered by someone ignorant of the truth.
[I can’t remember much of what happened back then. Aside from It, all of us have gaps in our memory. I can’t even recall what the outside world looked like.]
The Narrator’s voice carried a trace of melancholy.
[So I can’t tell you what to do once you leave. You’ll have to be even more careful on your own.]
Those words sounded wrong to Xu Zhi somehow. Half-joking, she said, “You sound like you’re saying your last words.”
The Narrator seemed to let out a soft laugh.
[Last words? That’s an interesting way to put it. But no, I’m not giving my final words—just saying what needs to be said.]
[I don’t remember what the outside was like, but I do know one thing: back then, every living transcendent creature that came from the outside died and was sealed within Midnight.]
[I’m not a living being. I have no life. In fact, before I met you, I had no consciousness at all. That’s why I wasn’t within Midnight.]
“…Then what are you?”
Xu Zhi couldn’t hide her curiosity. What exactly was the game console? That question had haunted her since the beginning, and now it seemed the Narrator was finally going to answer it.
She had guessed many times before—just moments ago, she’d even formed a few new theories—but hadn’t spoken them aloud.
[The original me, if you could call it that, should be fragments of the transcendent beings of the Light attribute who died after the Federation’s founding—scattered shards of extraordinary essence, or perhaps remnants of their dissipated souls.]
[The rules of this world are incomplete—tampered with. Midnight is, naturally, no exception.]
[The aura of Light clashes the most with Cup, so many fragments of Light drifted outside Midnight, never accepted by it.]
[But since the Federation no longer had any transcendent energy, those fragments fell silent. When the extraordinary revived, if it hadn’t been for you, those fragments would’ve simply dissolved into pure Light-attribute energy.]
[That’s why I possess so much knowledge—but at first, I was merely a vessel of energy holding that knowledge, without self-awareness. That’s why the game console felt so mechanical at the beginning.]
“…Because of me?” Xu Zhi murmured.
[Yes. Because of you, I—or we—were drawn to you.]
“But why? What’s so special about me?” Her voice carried a stubborn note. She recalled everything the Narrator had ever told her—to do, to wait for, to reclaim what she had once abandoned. The idea that was beginning to take shape in her heart terrified her.
If that were truly the case… what should she do?
Could she do it?
Must she do it?
A part of her rebelled against the thought, but beneath that resistance lay a deep, unspoken sorrow—because she already knew that if things were as she feared, she would still follow the Narrator’s plan.
[You don’t know?]
[You’re very special. If you ask me, compared to It, I think you’re the real protagonist of this world.]
[This world wasn’t created to imprison It—it exists for your birth.]
[You are the most special one.]
Even Xu Zhi couldn’t help feeling flustered hearing those words. But before she could say anything in response, a crushing pressure from above made her expression change. She tore her attention from the conversation and looked up. The sky above her had turned completely black; even the half-collapsed skyscraper beside her was already being devoured by the sun.
Somehow, the distance between them had vanished.
[Prepare yourself to meet it.]
First came a faint tremor—like an earthquake. But far worse, the shaking intensified as the “sun” descended. The crust split apart; the land fractured into countless pieces. The black sun seemed to generate a gravitational pull, drawing everything on the surface upward—cars, buildings, trees, stones… even the people abandoned outside the ritual array.
The falling sun and the rising land compressed the remaining space between them. And with it came a suffocating surge of [Cup]-attribute energy.
It wasn’t mental pollution, but the sheer potency of it could throw even an unguarded transcendent into attribute conflict.
Then—silence.
Even the thunder in the sky ceased, as if swallowed whole. The black sun devoured not only matter but sound itself.
As it drew closer, the invisible weight crushed both the land and Xu Zhi herself. It wasn’t an attack—it was simply the natural consequence of energy so vast that its very presence distorted the world around it.
[When it strikes you, absorb all the cores in the warehouse.]
Xu Zhi’s eyes widened in shock—but she still nodded inwardly. She would follow the Narrator’s advice.
Ordinarily, doing that would mean certain death—your body would literally burst apart, overwhelmed by energy too massive to contain. Or worse, you’d die from conflicting attributes tearing your mind apart.
But this time, there would be no attribute conflict to fear—only the risk of too much.
The world around her had gone utterly silent. The black sun consumed everything it touched. Its swollen body trembled on the verge of collapse, waiting for the final moment to strike—the blow that would end this world.
Xu Zhi held the little mutant creature tightly in her arms and waited quietly for death’s descent.
Maybe it only seemed to fall slowly because of its immense size. In truth, it was descending faster than anything imaginable.
In an instant, the sun swallowed her—along with the ground beneath her feet.
It was as if her vision were a TV screen—and someone had suddenly switched it off.
Xu Zhi’s consciousness cut out for a second. Everything stopped. Even her sense of self vanished; she couldn’t feel her own body, couldn’t tell where she was.
Her soul drifted in a numb, weightless void—until, suddenly, a [Lamp] appeared before her.
Then, the numbness began to ease.
She still couldn’t open her eyes or move her lips. Her body felt like it was floating through space—no gravity, no sound. Yet even so, Xu Zhi instinctively reached for the warehouse cores. When her fingers brushed against the game console in her pocket, it was as if the console became a conduit—connecting her directly to the warehouse.
An enormous surge of energy poured into her body like a flood.
