Chapter 147 Hope

Jin Buhuan is a profiteer.

Every bit of his enthusiastic help has his own set of value calculations operating behind the scenes. The divine-fate-assisting backup he proactively offered served as a reminder to Lan Yi, and indeed proved useful. At the very least, after undergoing two or three artificial divine realm trials, before heading to the artificial divine realm where [Luo Qian] resided, Old Devil Lan would not be caught unprepared for sudden emergencies.

With his final value squeezed dry, it was time for Ghost Face to die.

To be precise, that portion of the forced-landing entity's consciousness—which Lan Yi had lured with souls and dragged into the depths of his own consciousness, possessing its own ability to stir the emotional field of this world—became the guiding medicine for Lan Yi's refinement. It effectively helped Lan Yi absorb the ownerless power of mind and spirit within the emotional field.

Naturally, Lan Yi did not consume everything indiscriminately. All that filthy garbage was discarded with fastidious pickiness, and Ghost Face had even very kindly helped him filter out the impurities. What a truly good person.

What Old Devil Lan fed upon was that portion of heroic and fearless mental and spiritual power of the human beings, exerted at the very last moment to sever the cycle within the emotional field. This light-filled and noble intent was resonated and aggregated by Lan Yi, and now it was quite willing to become his nourishment rather than dissipating with the wind once everything ended.

For the sake of hope, anything is worthwhile.

They had experienced far too much despair. Through countless cycles of perseverance, what they always gained was even greater despair. But Lan Yi had brought hope, so those who died for the Yellow River naturally harbored no complaints or regrets, letting their final afterglow offer a little more help to the liberator of this world.

So immense was this power of mind and spirit that the moment Lan Yi absorbed it, he fell into a deep slumber. Yet his slumber did not affect this world as it continued to roll forward.

When the battle of liberation came to an end, for Artificial Divine Realm 2055, it truly meant that everything was over.

The first to vanish were the ghosts.

The origin of the ghosts was the accumulation of emotions from an unknown number of tens of thousands of cycles, formed by combining dense and free psionic energy. Once the cycle was severed, the initial ghosts were slain, and Ghost Face was also integrated with the Dao, the ghosts—having lost the basis of their existence—automatically annihilated without even needing to be purged.

The scene of their departure was breathtakingly beautiful.

The entire world seemed to plunge into an ethereal, beautiful galaxy, with countless starlight drifting up toward the highest heavens under the gaze of the surviving, wounded humans. Not until their final traces dissipated did the world heave a heavy sigh of relief. With that sigh expelled, the next to vanish were human beings.

The disappearance of human beings was a sudden collapse. Their flesh and blood crumbled as if piled from wood ash.

When that breath summoned forth for the sake of hope had been forcibly aroused and finally achieved its purpose to satisfaction, it naturally dispersed.

The humans of this world had originally been separated from ghosts by only a hair's breadth. Having cycled through countless times, where could any normal humans still exist? Moreover, this final struggle of burning oneself completely burned the human component down to ashes; how could souls long ago crushed and pulverized by the millstone of reincarnation continue to act as human beings?

Therefore, Ghost Face's rational proposal to demand a small batch of humans as startup capital for the world's development was an extremely correct choice. Without humans, the high-dimensional computer of this realm would simply have to wait for the emergence of the next intelligent species—and that duration was both an unknown number and an astronomical figure.

Thus, in an instant, this world grew quiet as well.

There were neither humans nor ghosts.

Only that planet, spinning unceasingly since the archaic era, operated indifferently to the existence of Yao or the tyranny of Jie. It rolled slowly and ruthlessly forward, seemingly grinding the cause-and-effect grievances of humans and ghosts completely into dust, leaving not a single trace behind as it rolled onward to greet a bright and hopeful future.

Not all humans in Artificial Divine Realm 2055 perished completely.

Life finds a way.

Amidst the cycles, there were always an extremely small number of individuals—either relatively lucky or possessing portions of true nature that had not been eroded—who did not collapse on the spot after the cycle was severed, but instead struggled tenaciously to maintain their ego. Such survivors appeared perhaps only once in every few hundred million people, and even after struggling to maintain their ego, their minds had suffered varying degrees of damage.

Aside from this fraction of survivors, there was also a batch of survivors on the moon.

The number of adjusted humans was around several dozen.

Regarding this, Juno no longer knew what to say.

With humanity suddenly reduced to less than a thousand surviving individuals, they had indeed liberated the suffering of the human race in this world and severed the reincarnation cycle of the ghosts, but... after all, it came far too late. And such lateness was the norm within artificial divine realms.

While this world attained redemption, humans in countless other worlds might still be struggling bitterly in suffering, thirsting for hope and liberation. Or perhaps in even more worlds, the human race had abandoned their struggle amidst despair, ushering in a future of complete extinction. Humanity was simply so irredeemable, yet surrounded by formidable enemies.

Hope!

It was never cheap.

Psionic cultivators would never become numb.

The establishment of the Two Realms Mountain was not the establishment of the primary world's hegemony; it was always meant for salvation. To save more artificial divine realms—ones like Artificial Divine Realm 2055, or perhaps even more tragic and desperate—was a visible hope that conquest spaces could never provide.

The three psionic cultivators escorting the descending adjusted humans expressed their deep emotions one after another.

"Even Old Devil Lan was moved, let alone the likes of us." Wang Aojia looked at the world beneath his feet, deeply moved by the magnificent post-calamity grandeur of this realm.

It was a greatness that required no elaboration; the human race would inevitably rise once again in this world.

Hardships make a nation prosper.

As long as the humans of this world did not forget, relying on their unique and privileged environment, they would sooner or later catch up with the pace of the primary world and become part of human civilization.

"This battle saved the world, and yet Lan Yi..." Li Yang's expression was somewhat complex. Destined to be enemies, this feeling at the moment was far from pleasant.

Old Devil Lan perfectly fit the image of the first-generation psionic cultivators.

Yet the more he fit that image, the more incomprehensible his apocalyptic madness appeared. Why must he destroy the world and ruin everything when everything was thriving and the glory and greatness of humanity were at their peak?

In this lifetime,

are you going to do it again?

If you still destroy the world this time, how should the rest of us choose?

"I really don't want to make an enemy of Lan Yi. However, as long as it's for the sake of hope, someone has to step up to stop him, right?" Just as Lin Cheng finished speaking, he noticed the other two staring at him as if they had seen a ghost.

Could a frequent visitor to the top three of the wanted list actually utter such normal words?

"What kind of looks are those? I am a warrior of love and justice, after all. Your return this time means you intend to move against Old Devil Lan, right? Although I have no intention of helping you, I am also stopping him from destroying the world in my own way, oh." Lin Cheng spouted nonsense with open eyes.

This seemingly normal madman.

Was probably wishing for Lan Yi to start a massacre so he could pick up scraps in the wake, and even if the slaughter reached him, he would cheer that dying was well worth the price of admission!

Yet Lin Cheng had gotten one thing right.

After the second artificial divine realm trial, the psionic cultivators and reincarnators, each having gained their respective harvests, would launch an attack on Lan Yi that was far more ruthless and fatal than the wave led by Golden Lion.

Between him and Lan Yi, there existed a blood feud deep as the ocean.