Chapter 560: When the Nightmare Ends

Yu Sheng stood in the chaotic space, staring fixedly at that tiny figure—this delicate doll standing by the campfire, who was she now?

Was it the remaining consciousness of the blonde Erin? Another fragment of the Nemesis? A projection of the mind left behind after the two merged and became stranded in the Boundary Bridge? Or, like before, an "incomplete mind" formed from the scattered consciousness of the little doll?

Yu Sheng couldn't tell at once—the way the Goddess of Nemesis existed and the corruption she had undergone over the past thirty-seven hundred years were entirely beyond his understanding. He had originally thought that the blonde Erin, after merging with this alien god back then, had taken away most of the latter's "essence" and obsession. But now it seemed that what a "deity" left behind after shattering was far beyond human imagination, and the blonde Erin's fusion with the Nemesis had never been that thorough.

Perhaps it was because Erin was already at the end of her strength when she merged with the Nemesis, or perhaps… the Alice doll alone still wasn't enough to fully carry a being as vast as the Goddess of Nemesis.

He cautiously approached the tiny figure that combined many features, looking at the face so similar to the black-haired, red-eyed Erin he knew, and hesitantly spoke, "Are you the Nemesis, or Erin?"

"I don't know…" The little doll shook her head, as if trying hard to curl herself into the gap between the light and shadow of the campfire. "I, I don't remember anything. Everyone told me to come over, to come here to find… find someone to help, but the bridge suddenly collapsed. I only remember wanting to fix it. I've been fixing it, but I can never connect it…"

Yu Sheng frowned.

The connection established through blood was rapidly strengthening. He could feel himself beginning to "assimilate" this astonishing dimensional megastructure from both "ends" of the Boundary Bridge—his blood flowed within this massive shell, and as the process continued, he finally began to understand what had happened here.

"You… don't understand what 'death' is, do you?" he asked carefully.

The tiny "doll" looked up, staring at Yu Sheng's eyes in confusion.

"So the Boundary Bridge doesn't understand it either, right?" Yu Sheng thought for a moment and simply sat down in the darkness. "You think the Boundary Bridge can be repaired, and the Boundary Bridge thinks… it can 'repair' you—you think it's just damaged, and it thinks you're just asleep."

The little doll still looked at him in confusion.

Yu Sheng pressed his lips together, looking up at the chaos around him.

Massive ancient mechanisms operated in the shadows; pulses of light from energy glands shot through the darkness time and again, illuminating the skeletal structure of the Boundary Bridge hidden in the spacetime fissures—structures of seemingly incompatible styles had been forcibly mixed together, forming an astonishing… living being.

According to the definition of the Borderlands, the "Boundary Bridge" itself was a Twilight Angel, an "artificial angel" created by the Twilight Angels.

An artificial angel without a complete mind could not understand the concept of death.

And surprisingly, the young Goddess of Nemesis seemed unable to grasp it either. Although she had even experienced an apocalypse, it was clear that her followers had somehow removed the concept of death from their deity.

This might have been part of their "Sanctuary Project" back then—in the plan, the Goddess of Nemesis was to become the "sun" of the new world, and a sun with the concept of death removed would obviously last a bit longer.

No one had expected that one day this would turn into a deadly infinite loop.

Perhaps the blonde Erin from thirty-seven hundred years ago had also noticed this. After realizing she couldn't kill the out-of-control alien god before her, she was forced to choose the stalling tactic of "fusion." And because neither the Boundary Bridge nor the Goddess of Nemesis could understand each other's death, Erin's fusion had left behind that constantly decaying but never completely dissipating "god corpse."

The Goddess of Nemesis futilely tried to repair the Boundary Bridge; the Boundary Bridge futilely tried to awaken its only passenger. This deadlock had lasted over three thousand years, until now, when the accumulated errors had reached their limit, and the two completely fused remains finally restarted the interrupted connection task on their own—and coincidentally, Luo, who had "picked up" the fragments of the Boundary Bridge at this critical moment, became the first unlucky victim of the whole process.

"What is death?" the little doll suddenly asked.

Yu Sheng opened his mouth, but hesitated just before the answer came.

He himself couldn't quite sort out his own life-and-death issues.

But after a moment's hesitation, he finally spoke.

"In most cases, for the individual who dies, 'death' is the end of everything."

"End?"

"Yes, the end. Losing all sensation and self, no longer thinking, no longer moving. Individual consciousness and all memories vanish from this world. All glories and debts no longer concern the deceased. There are no unfinished tasks or wishes. The only connection between the deceased and the world remains the remembrance of the living and the natural cycle of the material realm. There's actually a more complicated philosophical explanation, but I don't think that's the answer you need."

After speaking, Yu Sheng looked at the tiny figure before him.

She listened very seriously. It was unclear whether she could truly understand the concept from words alone, but she suddenly smiled, seeming very happy.

"Okay."

And then the almost-transparent little campfire went out.

Strands of red mist seeped into this chaotic space, intertwining and gathering around Yu Sheng, then settling in the darkness as if condensing into a patch of crimson, velvet-like carpet. The little doll fell fast asleep on that "velvet carpet," a faint smile on her face.

She seemed to have had a good dream, a good dream where she could finally rest.

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, then came to the little "doll's" side, gently patting her back, and then slowly stroking her hair.

Crimson suddenly spread behind him. The blood mist seemed to expand infinitely, instantly penetrating and dyeing the entire chaotic space, then continuing to spread into all the superstring structures of this dimensional megastructure. Then it gradually dissipated, and everything returned to chaos.

…

In the Borderlands, everyone within the Mist Defense Line heard an odd rumbling from the sky. Cracks covered the surface of that broken black tower, and it was now gradually retracting from the gap in the Great Barrier. The starlight refracted from distant spacetime into the Borderlands had somehow dissipated. Even the massive space station that had been pierced by the Boundary Bridge and projected over Boundary City was slowly being sent back to its original position.

The shadows that had dripped into Boundary City dissipated completely. The depth of the entire Borderlands was rapidly returning to normal.

Minutes later, the Boundary Bridge vanished from the sky, and the last spacetime fissure closed. The damaged Great Barrier began to repair itself.

The floating glow on the surface of the Council Tower gradually calmed. The "Requiem" system, however, was not shut down yet, cautiously continuing to maintain mental interference over the entire region's residents…

Inside the Special Operations Bureau headquarters, "Bai Liqing's" figure sat behind the desk, while Song Cheng looked out the window. After staring at the Great Barrier, which had entered its repair process, for a long time, he finally couldn't help turning around. "What's the situation now? Has the 'Angel Fallen'? What about Yu Sheng…"

"Don't ask. I can't contact my sister," "Bai Liqing" sighed. "It's hard to say whether it's fallen yet. Probably… 'Angel Hovering'?"

Song Cheng opened his mouth, then turned back to look out the window with a serious expression.

At the edge of the Old City, as the diffusion device ran out of fuel and stopped, the blood mist around it completely dissipated. The Bone-Eating Immortal finally let out a breath, and regardless of appearances, she sat down on the road.

She looked up and saw the girl with the exaggerated blonde hair not far away, sitting on a stone post by the roadside, still gripping the golden war scythe woven from her own hair, maintaining a posture that allowed for a brief rest but could stand up and fight at any moment.

The other members of "Fairy Tale" around her were the same. They were clearly only about teenage in appearance, with no cultivation at all, yet they were as seasoned as battle-hardened warriors—and during the previous battle, they had displayed all kinds of terrifying and uncanny abilities, incomprehensible even to watch.

Forget it, forget it. This is just a cursed place. No wonder people always say the Borderlands produce extraordinary people. After seeing it today, there's some truth to it after all—never coming here again.

Still, the Demon-Suppression Tower was better. There, everyone had been beaten together. When not on yard time, they cursed; during yard time, they fought. Life was simple.

Just wondering why the snake demon who lived in the cell next to her was here, and she seemed to have turned into a weapon… had she also been captured by that True Lord Yu Sheng?

It seemed everyone had their own troubles…

…

It felt like a long time had passed, but also like only a few seconds of daze—in this chaotic spacetime "inside" the Boundary Bridge, time seemed to be a very vague concept.

Yu Sheng sat cross-legged in place. He had been keeping the little "doll" company all along, while thinking about many things related to the Boundary Bridge, the Nemesis, and the Twilight Angels.

He felt the body under his hand shift slightly.

Yu Sheng looked down and saw the doll's eyelids trembling.

The shadow covering the doll's body had turned into a familiar black dress.

Her jet-black hair spread out.

The doll opened her eyes, scarlet and crystalline.

"Woke up?" Yu Sheng smiled, reaching out to ruffle Erin's head.

The little doll grunted softly in response, as usual climbing into Yu Sheng's arms with hands and feet, finding a comfortable position to nestle in, and staying silent for a few seconds.

She was rarely this quiet.

"Death is bad. Living is better," she suddenly muttered.

Yu Sheng nodded. "Yeah, so live."

"It felt like a nightmare," Erin muttered again. "When I woke up, there were so many things in my head."

Yu Sheng ruffled her head again. "It's good that you're awake."

Erin blinked. "…Go home?"

"Okay, but we have to pick up Huli and the others first—your body is also 'outside.'"

"Okay!"