Chapter 702
“What would you like to talk about?” Once Xia Er had settled at the table, the pure white knight looked at him and asked.
“Some things about the Tower and the origins of the Otherworld,” Xia Er replied.
At that moment, Lei Mei Dai Si was still expressionless, inching closer to Xiao Zuo. Xiao Zuo wanted to escape but was reluctant to leave Xia Er’s side, so he could only back away while trembling.
However, upon hearing Xia Er mention the “Tower,” Lei Mei Dai Si halted her advance on Xiao Zuo, turned her head toward Xia Er, and perked up her ears to listen.
“Please, go on.” This topic piqued the pure white knight’s interest as well; she was eager to clarify these matters with Xia Er.
“What do you think, how was the Otherworld formed?” Xia Er asked, looking at the pure white armor. “I’d like to hear your thoughts.”
At this moment, the only one present who truly understood the origins of the Otherworld was likely Lei Mei Dai Si...
Yet, she was in a semi-mad state, her mind in disarray.
Forcing her to recall these matters might plunge her already fragile psyche into a deeper abyss, leading to an even longer period of dormancy.
Meanwhile, the pure white knight, hearing Xia Er’s question, fell into a brief contemplation.
The last time Xia Er visited the Otherworld, he had been to the underground laboratory and discussed the Tower and the Great Cataclysm with her.
Coupled with the knowledge she had gleaned from analyzing the green brain, she had a certain understanding of the world before the Otherworld came into being.
But deep down, she had always held one answer.
The Time Binder...
“Your Excellency.”
A plume of white steam erupted from the gaps in the pure white armor, and a ghostly metallic voice emerged from within.
“The Otherworld... wasn’t it created by your own hands?”
The pure white knight tentatively posed the question.
“Hmm...” Xia Er pondered for a moment before gently nodding. “I’ve considered that possibility.”
The pure white knight was taken aback by Xia Er’s straightforward response, momentarily lost in thought. But soon, she couldn’t help but press further:
“Why would you do such a thing?”
The pure white knight—no, not just her, but any being in the Otherworld who had faced its collapse—would not find joy in this place.
It was an indescribable prison, where countless terrifying creatures were “imprisoned,” left to go mad, collapse, and slaughter one another.
In such an environment, the blood and bones of the dead birthed countless horrors like Xiao Zuo, creatures entirely born of the Otherworld.
There was no civilization to speak of, and it was unsuitable for any being’s survival; maintaining sanity was merely a distant dream.
Thus, many beings in the Otherworld sought ways to influence reality, to peek into the real world...
The pure white knight could not comprehend the intention behind the Time Binder’s creation of this place.
“You know about the Great Cataclysm, right?” Xia Er looked at the pure white knight and briefly explained the cataclysm that ended the Old Era.
Listening to Xia Er’s explanation, the pure white knight fell into deep thought.
“You mean... a deity born in the future influenced the past?” The pure white knight pieced together the logic. “Was it a deliberate act to create the Great Cataclysm?”
“Exactly,” Xia Er nodded. “I speculate that the Otherworld is merely a necessary means... It created a unique space unaffected by the chaos of time and space, but it seems that due to its prolonged existence, its development has strayed from the original design...”
This was Xia Er’s initial hypothesis, and now, he voiced it within the Otherworld.
If there was a place that the deity of existence could not influence, it could only be the Otherworld.
As Xia Er spoke, the pure white knight fell into a long silence, and after a while, Xia Er waited quietly.
The pure white knight’s mind was still in a whirlwind.
Concepts like time and world lines were somewhat novel to her, and she needed time to grasp them.
But soon, she sorted through everything in her mind.
Starting from the “Tower Era” as mentioned by the Time Binder, countless world lines existed, each corresponding to numerous different futures.
However, for the Time Binder, aside from the world line she inhabited being “reality,” all other worlds could only be deemed “virtual.”
In one of those “virtual” worlds, a symbiote who grasped the path of “existence” triggered a Great Cataclysm, and from the future that followed the cataclysm, the “deity of existence” emerged.
The “deity of existence,” born in the future, realized that he was not born in “reality,” so he used his own abilities to influence past existences, causing both “reality” and “virtual” worlds to fall under the cataclysm’s impact.
All of this was merely to ensure that the “deity of existence” could be born smoothly in reality...
“What would the world look like without the Otherworld’s existence after the Great Cataclysm...?” The pure white knight turned to Xia Er and asked.
“The current real world, without the Otherworld, should be the world he desires,” Xia Er replied, looking at the pure white knight. “All ascenders, symbiotes, and ‘seeds’ would be erased, leaving only him as the sole deity.”
The Otherworld was not a prison... but a protective “containment”?
After a long silence, the pure white knight finally accepted the existence of the Otherworld.
As an entity independent of all world lines, the Otherworld had maintained a normal flow of time amidst the endless cycles of conflict between the Time Binder and the deity of existence.
It was understandable that the Otherworld had become so polluted...
“If nothing unexpected happens, all the beings in the Otherworld are likely the original ascenders who were contained before the Great Cataclysm.”
Xia Er spoke slowly, recalling the abilities granted to her by the pocket watch and the path it represented. “This should be something I can accomplish...”
“But... if you really could do it, it shouldn’t be like this.”
The pure white knight thought of Lei Mei Dai Si’s sudden change outside the castle and said, “Every cycle, you should be able to update the existences within the Otherworld, just like he does.”
As she spoke, the pure white knight pointed at Lei Mei Dai Si’s face. Previously, in the Otherworld, Lei Mei Dai Si had always acted in the form of a dark worm, but Xia Er had restored part of her original appearance.
“Unless...” The pure white knight hesitated for a moment before proposing a hypothesis. “At that time, you weren’t very familiar with your abilities. To cope with the sudden cataclysm, you forcibly reversed time and created the Otherworld...”
“That would make sense...”
The pure white knight’s words caused Xia Er to pause for a moment.
Since discovering the “deity of existence” and realizing the connection between her abilities and the Otherworld, Xia Er had always regarded her past self as an existence on par with the “deity of existence,” a god-like being.
But perhaps, her past self had not truly reached the level of a “deity”? Was her former self also on a path of exploration?
This reminded Xia Er of a movie she had seen in the “modern” world called Doctor Strange.
In Doctor Strange, the antagonist had the power to destroy the protagonist countless times, but the protagonist could repeatedly return to the past using the Time Stone, renegotiating with that “deity” so that he could never invade Earth.
Her past self might have faced a similar situation.
“There is indeed a possibility,” Xia Er nodded.
Discussing these matters with different people could indeed broaden Xia Er’s perspective, as everyone’s thought processes were unique.
However...
Even if this hypothesis were true, it wouldn’t significantly help Xia Er with the current situation.
“Right now, I want to capture or kill a minion to see if I can learn something from them,” Xia Er stated, revealing her recent goal. “It’s the simplest way.”
“If I can obtain a fragment of ‘uniqueness,’ or a ‘seed’ from them, it might directly hinder the birth of the ‘deity of existence.’”
Xia Er’s words made the pure white knight nod slightly, but soon, she raised a new question.
“But... after merging one of the fragments, will the deity of existence really not be born?”
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