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Chapter 1545 Final Chapter - Guarding the Shore [31] - "The Savior replied, 'I'll take you home.'"

That was a story full of ups and downs.

The god An granted Su Liujin's request and chose to cross the sea to return to the zeroth generation of the Disciple Game to find the image of the Supreme Lord.

He transformed into the Demon Lord "Bai Qiu," learned that the God of Intelligence was the Dawn System of a ruined world that had chosen "reality" rather than "fairy tales," and obtained the authority to "observe" the dawn.

Amidst the increasingly stirring bugle calls, his adventurous steps continued bravely forward. He learned of "them'" existence—a group of ordinary people scattered across various civilizations, fortunate enough to be chosen by the "Lord of Dreams," able to observe and even traverse other civilizations through the "mirror." For example, there was Bai Qiu, who treated Rovasa as a love game, and Xiao Fuxing, who took over Hui Zi's body.

His adventures were bizarre and fantastical, seemingly far more exciting, heroic, glorious, and profound than those of Xianghou Shouan. So many truths were right before his eyes, and so many stories accompanied him.

His future path no longer only holds the conservative and tragic possibility of "transforming himself into a tree".

Yes, he has endless potential. He's incredibly grateful he chose to move forward; countless brighter futures await him. He still has the strength to save more people, many more. He even harbors a tiny, fervent hope that, if he tries hard enough, perhaps he too can survive in the future…

He even saw the Supreme Lord in his dream, an avatar of a sheep. The sheep showed him a book containing evaluations of various instances of the world game, like a designer reviewing their own game design. On the title page of the book was a line that read: "Return it to me promptly after reading—Chen Qingguang." Before the dream ended, he received a ruby ​​as a gift from the Supreme Lord. The Supreme Lord said, "This can grant you the power to transcend all."

Finally, in order to find the remaining two halves of the Supreme Being's form, he faced two paths.

The first path is to personally kill familiar teammates, civilians, and innocent people.

The second path, according to Bai Qiu's original plan, is to find the key to awaken the Demon Mother Goddess and resolve the Ash Rain. Once the Ash Rain is resolved, he can become the final victor of the Zeroth Disciple Game, meet the mastermind behind it all, and obtain the image of the Supreme Lord.

At that time, Shenming An was not yet Shenming An, and was not yet ruthless and indifferent. He could not immediately harden his heart and point the knife at the people he knew, so he chose the second path.

—The turning point happened here.

The exciting adventure story seemed to suddenly turn from the main road to a detour, and the golden leaves were suddenly covered with dust.

As the god An began searching for the key, Noel Agni immediately activated the End of Snow.

This was unexpected by everyone. Could it be that the god An's search for the key made Noel feel threatened, so he had to activate the End of the Snow ahead of schedule?

The premature snowfall caught everyone off guard.

Before the god An could find the complete image of the supreme ruler, he had to engage in a final battle with Noel. In the end, he, along with the ninth divine messenger Lu Shu, the spirit-knowing dream messenger Yue Yue, and the god of Cloud City, killed Noel and saw a cluster of bright red red spider lilies from Noel's memory.

“…!” Su Ming’an almost screamed.

He remembered clearly that he had bought the red spider lilies from the old lady at the flower shop; the wrapping paper was exactly the same.

But why would something I bought appear in the scenario suggested by the god An? Although it's possible that Noel also bought flowers from that flower shop, the probability is extremely low.

He had a vague idea of ​​the truth. But he still forced himself to keep watching, until the very end... a tragic conclusion.

If there were no sorrow, Shenming'an would not be Shenming'an.

After killing Noel, due to the settlement of the World Game bet, Boss Rabbit was to take God Ann. However, an unexpected turn of events occurred at that moment.

—Noel has reappeared.

He was certainly dead, yet he did something shocking that no one could have imagined.

This person is very good at applying what he has learned. He perfectly replicated a method that Su Ming'an almost used before - using his own body as poison to kill the enemy.

Noel's death was incredibly suspicious to begin with. He brought down the End Snow prematurely, and then he was killed by four people working together, as if it were all a farce. Sure enough, his death was a trap.

The authority of the seventh seat, Yuritilora, is "Eternity," or "Fairy Tale." After discussing it with her, Noel decided to sacrifice his physical body in exchange for retaining only Noel's soul, which would then be molded into "Eternity."

Noel Agni used herself as "poison," and after Su Ming'an devoured her with "devouring," Noel's immortal "eternal" soul took root in Su Ming'an's mind, clashing with Su Ming'an's power of "devouring."

It is unknown how Noel persuaded Yuritilora. In order to be on par with the power of the "devouring" authority, Yuritilora also separated most of her own soul, which was devoured along with Noel's soul. The two consciousnesses fought against Su Ming'an together.

"Eternity" means life and immortality.

"Devour" means death and destruction.

Firstly, if Noel wins this battle of souls, he will seize Su Ming'an's physical body and simultaneously gain the three great powers of "devouring," "faith," and a portion of "eternity," thus achieving a complete victory.

Secondly, Eurydilora can use this opportunity to fulfill her desire to escape the World Game. Once Noel takes over Suming's body, Eurydilora can leave the body and reunite with his soul, achieving complete freedom.

The danger of this plan lies in the fact that if Su Ming'an simply kills Noel without using the "devouring" authority to consume Noel, Noel's cunning schemes will be rendered useless.

However, this person knew him too well, knowing that Su Ming'an would not give up any opportunity to strengthen himself in order to save more people, and that Noel carried a lot of energy given by the Lord of the End of All Things and the Seventh Seat.

This person has always been adept at gambling with his own life.

Back in Praia, he was willing to take Su Ming'an to the gas field based on a mere guess.

Even in the ruined world, knowing that impersonating someone else would put his life at risk, he was able to input the Dawn Code for Su Ming'an.

He risked his life to help Su Ming'an so many times.

And now, he is still gambling with his life, one last time, vowing to plot a global conspiracy.

Good can be good to the extreme, and evil can be evil to the extreme. How wisdom is used depends solely on one's perspective.

Su Ming'an almost poisoned Noel with his own body. This time, it was Noel who poisoned Su Ming'an with his own body.

To patch up the final loophole, Noel had previously met with the God of Chaos, obtaining ten blue roses and requesting the God of Chaos to rewrite her memories. This was to prevent Su Ming'an from killing Noel and then using "Soul Ferry" to learn of Noel's conspiracy with Eurydilora.

In addition, there is one person to be wary of—the Cloud City deity who holds the authority of the "soul," who is the most likely person to help Su Ming'an out of his predicament.

The strength of the Cloud City God is roughly between a second-level god and a first-level god. Yuritilola, on the other hand, is a high-dimensional being whose direct combat power is not very high. She is confident that she can hide the poisoning from the Cloud City God at the beginning, but as the poison penetrates deeper, Noel's consciousness begins to exert its power, and Su Ming'an's soul begins to change color, at which point the Cloud City God will definitely be able to detect it.

However, that's all for the future.

—And so, while the divine being was still unaware of the dangers of this "poison," time continued to pass.

After Norl's death, the god An used the authority of "devouring" to consume the World Tree that had willingly sacrificed itself, thus completing the ruler's task of "killing the World Tree." This was His last ruler's task, and His ruler's authority was finally raised to the highest level, granting Him the qualification to stand shoulder to shoulder with Boss Rabbit.

He still couldn't escape the "rules" of the bet and was taken away by the World Game, but the small world and Eden had already set sail safely, and he had no regrets.

Before He was taken away, Lu Shu and the Cloud City God were too late to catch up with the small world. At their strong request, they returned to the world game with the god An.

Shenming An became the thirteenth seat.

Because of the supreme authority, the other organizers were not qualified to share in His spoils, and the traps they dug were all avoided by the God.

Over the long years, the god An attempted to destroy the World Game more than once, and He gradually discovered that Noel's soul had taken root within Him.

They began to converse frequently, vying for each other's right to know.

"Noel, is this your choice?"

"Yes, I think it's great. This is one of the few endings where we can have the best of both worlds. You saved the vast majority of people on Zhai Xing, and after I take over your body, I will end your suffering, live in your place, and find a way to reach the universe... That's good enough."

Indeed, this is a very good development.

"Su Ming'an, you're exhausted. Leave your body to me. I'll take care of the rest."

"No, I must take root in the World Game and remotely protect Zhai Xing to prevent the World Game from finding Zhai Xing again."

"So you're going to protect them forever, live alone forever, until the end of the universe? Never resting, forever burdened with responsibility, immortality is the harshest shackle... And humanity, they think you're dead, that you've been devoured by the organizers, and they even have a memorial day to commemorate you every year... Haha, you've truly become a statue, a symbol that can only be commemorated, a god who exists in human history."

"I don't care about that."

"And then? So many, many years have passed, countless years have gone by. It's possible that Yamada and the others have grown old and died. Now, who are you protecting? People you don't even know?"

“They, their children, their children’s children… countless, countless people.”

"..."

"Be quiet, Noel."

"...What if I protect them in your place?"

"Ok?"

“I said, I will protect them in your place. You are very tired, aren’t you? I can see that the moment the world game ended, your heart died, and every day after that was torture. So, leave this tiring thing to me, I will protect them from afar in your place.”

"You're deceiving me again, Noel Agni. You just want to trick me into giving up my body so you can conspire with Eurydilola to send you to space and never look back."

"Heh... Fine, you don't believe me... Then let's continue this standoff, forever."

"Please."

"Su Ming'an."

"..."

"Actually, what I said just now was from the bottom of my heart."

……

Time is immeasurable.

Another period of time passed, and the god An found the location of Praia and bid farewell to the god of Cloud City who was temporarily residing in the World Game—no, he should now be called Su Lin.

During the struggle for consciousness with Noel, the god An often asked Su Lin for help, and Su Lin gradually regained his humanity over a long period of time.

“…I can see that your soul has changed color,” Su Lin said.

"Is it obvious?"

"Black, the color representing death, is gradually expanding, and your humanity and desires are being slowly replaced by death. Meanwhile, the gold and red are becoming more and more abundant, which is Noel's consciousness."

"..."

"Do you need me to help you end...the pain?"

"No, I will win."

"Okay. Then I...I'm leaving."

Su Lin had tried every possible method but failed to get rid of Noel, and now it was time for him to get off the bus.

He was ultimately a traveler who could only stay for a while; he couldn't be imprisoned in the world game forever for Su Ming'an's sake. He also had a hometown he had to protect.

The kite lingered for a while, but then it had to fly away.

Shenming An wrote a thank-you letter to Su Lin before seeing him off.

—Congratulations on finally coming home, engineer from Soochow University.

Goodbye, never to be seen again. May you find eternal freedom and happiness in your homeland.

Now, all that remains by his side are Lü Shu, Yue Yue, and the ever-present, haunting Nuo Er.

"You should leave, Lü Shu."

"I'll stay with you."

"There is nothing here but eternal loneliness, repetition, and suffering. This is a prison."

"So, I have to stay. I can't help you with anything, but at least my presence will make you remember that you are Su Ming'an. I'm not interested in the vast universe; I just want to share your loneliness and be your anchor. That's the meaning of my following you."

"But if one day, I am no longer Su Ming'an..."

"I can become your second, or I can disappear with you."

Lu Shu's words were extremely resolute.

Time stretched out infinitely in a hazy perception.

The deity An had forgotten how much time had passed. One day, He learned of the twelfth seat, Yueyue. She dreamed that someone in the small world had broken through to a higher dimension, found the original location of Zhai Xing, and built a hidden barrier. For a very long time, she would not have to worry about her safety, which could be counted in tens of thousands of years.

The god knew that his responsibility had ended. Ten thousand years was more than enough time for that blue planet to completely protect itself.

That planet no longer needs Him.

His consciousness grew increasingly hazy, while the voice of Norl in his mind became clearer and clearer.

“Logically speaking, my consciousness cannot surpass yours. You are special; you can resist the erosion of most higher dimensions, so the Lord of the End of All Things has never tried to invade you,” Noel said. “However, your will to survive is getting weaker and weaker… Your ideal has been achieved, hasn’t it?”

Yes.

I am complete, Noel.

I have no regrets.

What keeps me going, besides Yueyue, is Lu Shu, who is not yet a high-dimensional being. I must protect them.

“Swish—”

When did it start?

In the "little space" He created for rest, all the leaves have turned yellow. He loves spring, so He kept the "little space" in springtime, but now, the leaves are beginning to fall uncontrollably.

...Having lost his comrades-in-arms who had fought for so long, lost his companions who had traveled with him all the way, and bid farewell to his homeland, he, riddled with wounds, finally began to wither away.

Everything settled on that day.