From the end of the world

Chapter 772 The "End of the Age of Gods" Plan 1
What Liu Shuying wants is "the next world," a world far more vibrant and exciting than the present one. As for who creates that world, he probably doesn't care. Creating it himself would be ideal, but having the Old Fist God create it is also perfectly acceptable.

From another perspective, the magical worlds created by others might be even more unknown and exciting. The world doesn't move forward according to its own will, and Liu Shuying won't be able to continue being a "prophet" in the next world. From the standpoint of interests and security, this is certainly not a good thing, but from the standpoint of adventure experience, it is a positive improvement.

Whether Liu Shuying truly thinks that way is not something I need to confirm with him. In a sense, he is another version of myself in this world. The only thing I can be absolutely certain about is his true thoughts.

If his role as the third gatekeeper, Da Wuchang, would hinder the completion of the next world, Liu Shuying would even be willing to retreat to the void or deep space of the universe, and return after the Old Fist God completes the worldview modification.

Tai Sui is extremely averse to the end of the world. Leaving aside myself, a manifestation-proving being capable of integrating into all worlds, he certainly wouldn't allow the reappearance of the Third Gate, the Great Impermanence, capable of spreading errors and distortions, after the world restarts. However, Willow Shadow and Old Fist God probably don't have such a fastidious nature. Even if the existence of the Third Gate, the Great Impermanence, would affect the completeness of the new world, Willow Shadow isn't that much of a perfectionist, and Old Fist God probably doesn't care about the new world itself, but rather the specific people and things he wants to find in that world.

However, Liu Shuying and Lao Quanshen may have different opinions on the subject of Shan Liangyi.

It's not that the mere appearance of the Third Gate Great Impermanence in a world will distort that world's worldview to a complete mess. In fact, this world currently has three Third Gate Great Impermanence: myself, Shan Liangyi, and Old Fist God. If we include the Willow Tree Shadow temporarily wandering in the void, that makes a total of four. Even with the biggest shadow of "doomsday progress" looming over it, it's enough to show that the existence of the Third Gate Great Impermanence itself doesn't pose a particularly significant problem for the world's survival.

However, among these, the Mountain Two Elements possess a particularly unique nature. It was only now that I slowly came to realize that although the Third Gate, Great Impermanence, would affect the original worldview, the Mountain Two Elements, which constantly reincarnates in the past and future and whose countless counterparts lurk in the same era, are extremely destructive to the history of the world they inhabit.

Even if Shan Liangyi doesn't intentionally create a new apocalypse, he can easily distort the new worldview. While I don't know how others feel, in my adventures so far, too many parts have been haunted by Shan Liangyi's immense shadow. The ancestors of the Zhu family, the naval master Xuanwu, Ying Lingyun, Meng Zhang, the lord of Taoyuan Township, Yanmo, the lord of the Gospel Academy… it seems everyone can be connected to him. Over time, it inevitably becomes monotonous and tedious.

Liu Shuying has spent far more time adventuring in the strange world than I have, and he has probably encountered similar phenomena more than once. In the middle and at the end of each adventure, he seems to invariably catch a glimpse of that figure who has left his mark and scent throughout history. His desire to settle things with Shan Liangyi before the birth of a new world is undoubtedly motivated by this sense of aversion.

"Success doesn't have to be achieved by me..." Xiao Wan murmured, "How could Willow Shadow have the same thoughts as Tai Sui, the Lord of the Divine Seal... Is it because they are master and disciple that they have such similarities in their thinking?"

“Little Bowl, I have a problem that I cannot overcome with my own wisdom alone,” I said. “The Grand Duke Jupiter told me that this world is terminally ill and must be overthrown and rebuilt in order to solve the problem of the end times.”

"I want to resolve the apocalypse, but I don't want to reset this world to the 'previous world,' because that would be tantamount to turning everything we've accumulated in this world into 'something that never happened.'"

"I can't stand by and watch such changes happen... but I can't deny the theory of Tai Sui either. Little Bowl, tell me, what should I do?"

I placed all my hopes on Xiaowan.

After listening to me, she climbed off me and paced back and forth on the floor, lost in deep thought.

After a moment, she asked seriously, "Brother Zhuang Cheng, I need to confirm something first. When you say 'everything accumulated,' do you mean the entire history of humankind in the past, or the accumulated result from the time since the Fan Tian Incident?"

I replied, "If I had to say, it would be the latter. If given the chance, I would also like to preserve the former. Although the former was originally something summoned by Willow Shadow's wish, it is also true history for us living in this world."

“But you have also tried to use the power of reversion to correct the mistakes in human history, haven’t you? Isn’t this kind of reckoning essentially turning it into something that ‘never happened’?” Xiaowan asked seriously.

I replied seriously: "I am not so naive as to think that I can end the battle without shedding a single drop of blood, nor am I so perfectionistic as to be unable to accept any loss. Sometimes, in order to treat serious diseases, it is necessary to cut off a part of decaying flesh. Of course, such behavior does go against my nature to some extent, so I cannot use the power of return for a particularly long time."

“For us living in the present, it’s acceptable to settle some of the history of failures, but what about those people from the distant past who have passed away? That might be all they have left,” Xiaowan asked. “Just as you said, they are gone,” I said. “I would prioritize protecting the present.”

To be honest, my judgment on the question of "what should be protected" is largely based not on principles and logic, but on feelings and stances.

I am actually the same as Tai Sui.

The reason why Tai Sui so desperately wants to restart the "previous world" is because he cares deeply about "everything accumulated in the previous world." Whether it's his own life experience or the lives of others, they are all incredibly important to him, to the point that he's willing to risk his own life for them.

No matter how vibrant the world is now, it is still unfamiliar to him, and he cannot feel a sense of belonging here.

In my eyes, even knowing that the "previous world" holds valuable accumulations, and that I have the opportunity to redeem them all, and even knowing that I might have had my own identity and life in the "previous world," and perhaps even interpersonal relationships and feelings that I am unaware of now, I still don't want to take them back. Because I have no feelings for that place now.

The same applies to our treatment of the distant past. The reason I can accept addressing historical inaccuracies for the sake of the present is because I have an emotional connection to the present, but not to those who lived in history and are now gone. This could certainly be considered a double standard, and I've never tried to hide it. I am simply someone who distinguishes between close and distant relationships.

“Then, Brother Zhuang Cheng, what you need to do is very simple,” Xiao Wan said. “Use the power of return to save this world.”

"The power of return?" I asked, puzzled. "I've already tried that, but with my current strength, I can't possibly accomplish this task."

“Of course, we won’t use the power of rebirth directly, but rather the power of the divine seal,” Xiaowan said. “The divine seal has the power to grant any wish, so using this power to enhance the effect of the power of rebirth is a given. Since we don’t want to use the divine seal to summon the old world or create a new world, the only option is to use the power of rebirth to save the current world.”

“But if we all have the divine seal, why do we have to use the power of return instead of directly making a wish to the divine seal and asking it to correct the history of our world to a healthy state?” I asked.

"Because we don't know what a healthy form of history looks like," Xiaowan said. "If we're not careful and submit the wrong answer sheet to the divine seal, we'll create another wrong history. And the probability of this is almost 100%. No one can imagine how complex a system hundreds of thousands of years of human history is."

"I'm afraid even a diviner who has experienced almost the entirety of human history wouldn't be able to provide this answer, because he only experienced a flawed version of human history. And he wasn't monitoring and recording the changes around the world every moment."

Simply removing witchers, strange creatures, and other mysterious elements from human history is probably not the best approach. Even in the 'previous world,' there existed ancient civilizations, the afterlife, souls, and other such elements. Perhaps the Tai Sui itself was unaware of it. In fact, similar characters to witchers and strange creatures existed in the dark side of that world. A world consisting only of common sense may not be able to support a truly healthy human history.

"We also cannot entrust the answer sheet of 'correct human history' to the divine seal to fill in automatically. To be precise, we cannot give the divine seal any room to maneuver. You must know that this flawed world was created by the power of the divine seal in a way that exceeded Liu Shuying's expectations. Even if we add a lot of restrictions when we make a wish, it is difficult to guarantee that there will still be some oversights, which could lead to an even more irreparable disaster than the current apocalypse."

It was just a simple question, but Xiaowan had already considered so many possibilities. And then, I noticed a new problem.

“But directly using the power of reversion to save the world…wouldn’t that just regress the world back to the ‘previous world’?” I asked.

(End of this chapter)