Humanity had always been optimistic about the existence of the World Core System. After all, the World Core System was far too powerful; no one could shake it.
In fact, the fact that no one could shake it was a good thing. After all, once the World Core System was controlled by someone, no one could imagine what this world would become.
Yet now, the impossible had happened—someone had actually done it.
At this very moment, Lu Qiao clearly realized that he was the only person left in this world.
The entire planet was utterly silent, with only his hurried breathing remaining.
He stood frozen for a moment before carefully laying Yan Qiu on the ground. He stared blankly at the man for a while, then leaned down to listen to the heartbeat in his chest…
Nothing.
He tried using his consciousness power to examine the man’s consciousness body…
Nothing.
There was nothing at all. The person before him had become nothing more than an empty shell.
Lu Qiao stared blankly, reaching out to cradle the man’s face as he softly called, “Yan Qiu? Yan Qiu?”
There was no response.
“……” Lu Qiao’s throat was dry. He felt like he was going to throw up, and the sweat covering his body had nearly soaked through his clothes.
He kept staring at Yan Qiu’s tightly closed eyes, his entire body still trembling uncontrollably.
After a while, he bent down and hugged Yan Qiu tightly.
The man’s body still had warmth, but Lu Qiao could no longer feel it. His entire head felt swollen, and he could not think about anything at all.
He closed his eyes. Sweat trickled down his cheeks. After a long while, he lifted his head, leaned over, and kissed Yan Qiu’s face, then his forehead, brows, nose, and lips.
After carefully kissing his way down, Lu Qiao clenched his fists and forced himself to stop trembling.
He took a deep breath, lifted Yan Qiu into his arms, and hurried back toward the night-market street.
The aircraft they had arrived in was still parked there.
He carefully placed Yan Qiu in the back seat, closed the cabin door, then ran around to the pilot’s seat. He pulled the pilot out and laid him on the ground before climbing in himself and starting the aircraft.
The universe had been silent since the moment of its birth, yet at this moment, the entire universe seemed even more like a dead world.
An aircraft traveled through it.
An hour later, Lu Qiao arrived at the C1 Star Region Administration Bureau and smoothly piloted the aircraft into the hangar.
After getting out, he walked around to the back seat and stared blankly at Yan Qiu for a while.
After a moment of silence, he leaned over and hugged Yan Qiu again, rubbing against him as he rasped, “Just sleep a little longer.”
With that, he closed the cabin door.
He did not turn off the air purification system or the air conditioning inside the aircraft, keeping the cabin at a comfortable temperature. Then he left the hangar alone and entered the research station.
Since his information had been entered into the research station’s system when he came yesterday, he passed through one door after another without difficulty and reached the core area.
There were forty floors in total. Along the way, he occasionally saw people lying motionless on the floor. At the very center of the research station floated a massive crystal. But now, unlike before, when unfamiliar characters would occasionally flash across its surface, it seemed to be filled with garbled code. Everything was in chaos.
Lu Qiao approached the glass window and saw a hovering vehicle suspended beside the crystal. Someone was lying inside, completely silent.
It was Luo Yu.
Lu Qiao extended a tendril of consciousness power and checked Luo Yu’s consciousness body from a distance. Sure enough, it had also become empty.
At this moment, perhaps every living being in the entire universe had “died”…
Except him, and perhaps Cheng Yi.
And was he still alive because his circumstances were special, or…
Lu Qiao focused his thoughts.
Come to think of it, where was Cheng Yi?
If he was no longer inside Luo Yu’s body, where could he be now?
Lu Qiao turned his gaze toward the enormous crystal once more.
He looked around and spent more than ten minutes finding the departure point for the hovering vehicles. Then he piloted one over himself.
Cheng Yi had clearly once had the same dream as him, which was why he had set his sights on the World Core System.
Yet while dreaming, consciousness power could easily plunge into the World Core System and glimpse the “Milky Way and gears.” But for one’s entire consciousness body to truly enter the World Core System and control it, one clearly needed to bridge an immeasurably vast distance.
Consciousness power—the most mysterious force in history—had evolved to its ultimate form. Although it could help humanity accomplish the most incredible things in this world, it still had limitations.
Humanity, standing before the world, was still at a disadvantage.
It was just that this disadvantage seemed to have been effortlessly overcome.
After arriving beside the crystal, Lu Qiao stood up and looked at the colossal object before him.
He closed his eyes and tried to touch it with his consciousness power, but all he could touch was the surface of the crystal. He could not cross into it.
Right. Cheng Yi had controlled Luo Yu by first shattering his own consciousness body. If he wanted to enter the World Core System and control it, he should have to do the same…
Lu Qiao’s heart began beating rapidly. He slowly took a deep breath, and countless figures flashed through his mind, including Yan Qiu.
Could he, like Cheng Yi, expel his consciousness body from his physical body? And once he shattered his consciousness body, would he still be able to restore it to its original form, perfectly intact?
…He didn’t know.
But he had to do it.
The instant he made up his mind, Lu Qiao held his breath. Relying on instinct, he gathered his consciousness power and fiercely shattered his own consciousness body!
“Bang!”
He suddenly felt himself sway. When he came back to his senses, his perception had completely changed.
Everything had become hazy. He could see in a full 360 degrees at once, as though he were floating in midair, like a ghost.
Lu Qiao steadied himself, then charged toward the crystal in one breath.
The scenery before his eyes suddenly changed!
When his consciousness body re-formed, he found himself in a black space.
It was like the universe. Countless galaxies stretched as far as the eye could see. The difference was that within every galaxy, there were also slowly turning gears.
And at this moment, Lu Qiao was standing beside one of the gears. Beneath his feet was a galaxy—a river formed from countless brilliant points of starlight.
—The moment he entered, a stream of information flowed into Lu Qiao’s mind. He understood that the World Core System was like a door. Within this door was the place where the world consciousness of all worlds resided, a space transcending the worlds themselves. Every galaxy and its corresponding gear here represented a world.
Yet while the other galaxies and gears in this space all seemed to be turning, half of the galaxy beneath his feet had stopped.
And on the other side of the gear, directly opposite him, stood a figure with his back turned.
The person turned around. Lu Qiao saw an unfamiliar face, but that did not stop him from recognizing him.
“…Cheng Yi.”
Cheng Yi’s appearance was very ordinary, as though he did not look threatening in the slightest.
Yet merely seeing the man smile faintly made Lu Qiao feel a sense of danger.
Cheng Yi said, “Lu Qiao, you really can do it.”
Lu Qiao stared at him. “What did you do? Do you know what the outside world has become?”
“Mm, of course I know.” Cheng Yi smiled. “I tried stopping half of the galaxy. After exploring it with my consciousness power, I found out that this is the part that controls the living beings of the world.”
His tone was utterly casual.
Lu Qiao gritted his teeth. “…What exactly are you trying to do?”
“You can’t figure it out?” Cheng Yi stretched out his arms. “I made it stop. As long as I can make it stop, then I can make it start again. I can even… make it turn according to my will.”
“You want to control the entire world?” Lu Qiao’s throat tightened.
“Mm. If it can be done, who wouldn’t want to?” Cheng Yi looked somewhat unconcerned. Then, with renewed interest, he said, “You didn’t disappoint me. You really are special. Lu Qiao, have you never wondered why you’re so special?”
Lu Qiao suddenly remembered what Luo Yu had said to him at that birthday banquet.
Sure enough, Luo Yu had already been controlled by Cheng Yi back then. He simply might not have been under complete control. Otherwise, Cheng Yi would not have needed to reunite with Luo Yu this time and then use his body to come to the C1 Star Region Administration Bureau.
There were details he could no longer be bothered to investigate now. Compared with what had already happened, stopping Cheng Yi from doing what came next was far more important.
Lu Qiao glanced at the half of the galaxy that had stopped moving. After hesitating for a moment, he tried extending his consciousness power…
But the instant he activated it, his power was restrained and rendered completely immobile.
Immediately afterward, he heard Cheng Yi chuckle.
“Don’t bother. Do you know why, after discovering how special you were, I didn’t kill you on the spot?”
Lu Qiao froze.
Cheng Yi smiled. “Because you’re far weaker than I am. You can’t stop me, so there’s no harm in keeping you alive.”
Lu Qiao’s heart tightened.
He thought of something.
He didn’t know when Cheng Yi had experienced the same dream he had last night, but it must have happened before Cheng Yi entered the Galactic Empire. If Cheng Yi could extend his consciousness power all the way to the World Core System from tens, hundreds, or even tens of thousands of light-years away, then there was indeed still a huge gap between the two of them.
How high was Cheng Yi’s consciousness threshold? Could it be higher than Yan Qiu’s?
No.
If it were really that high, Cheng Yi wouldn’t have needed to go through so much trouble to successfully approach the World Core System. Moreover, using consciousness power to launch large-scale attacks would also have a significant impact on the consciousness manipulator’s own body.
Therefore, although Cheng Yi was powerful, his strength still had limitations.
It was just that he was indeed far stronger than Lu Qiao.
Lu Qiao tensed his body. “Then why do you insist on keeping me alive?”
Lu Qiao knew that he had caught Cheng Yi’s interest from the moment they encountered each other on the mountain.
After that encounter, Cheng Yi had begun approaching him through Luo Yu, testing him.
But why had he erased the consciousness of every living being in the world and left only him alive?
“Because you’re special.” Cheng Yi spread his hands. “You’re the only person in this world who’s the same as me. I’ve wondered why, too, but we must have something in common. Perhaps—”
He stared at Lu Qiao.
“Perhaps the world created you so that, in the end, you would be with me, so I wouldn’t be lonely. That’s why I left only your little star behind.”
Within the half of the galaxy that had stopped moving, there was only one point of light still trembling and slowly turning.
Lu Qiao was stunned. Then he said firmly, “I’m not like you!”
“And yet you’re standing right in front of me.” Cheng Yi smiled.
“Even if you and I possess the same power, I’m still not like you!” Lu Qiao insisted.
“Oh? Why not?” Cheng Yi scoffed dismissively. “Perhaps that’s simply your misunderstanding of yourself.”
Lu Qiao paused, then said each word distinctly.
“Yan Qiu said so.”
He had doubted himself before, too.
But Yan Qiu had told him that he was completely different from Cheng Yi.
And now, he firmly believed it as well.
He and Cheng Yi were different.
Even if he possessed the power to control the consciousness of the world, he would never do something like control the entire world.
At the mention of Yan Qiu’s name, Cheng Yi’s smile disappeared.
Lu Qiao pressed his lips together and said quietly, “Do you still hate Marshal Yan’s father? Why are you doing this—trying to control the world? Is it to resurrect your father? …But what meaning would a world like that have? You know it’s all fake!”
“How could it be fake?” Cheng Yi stared coldly at Lu Qiao. “As long as this world has been born, it’s real.”
“A world that becomes whatever you want it to be—how is that any different from a toy?” Lu Qiao’s words came faster. “None of the creatures living in this world would have their own will. They could only obey your commands. You’d basically be performing a one-man show!”
Cheng Yi suddenly laughed.
“Lu Qiao, think about it. I can resurrect the loved ones who have died. Isn’t that good? I can make all the wars in this world disappear. The two words ‘war’ can be erased from the minds of every living creature in the universe. Then no one would have to sacrifice themselves, and the world would be at peace. Wouldn’t a peaceful world be wonderful? You want to become a soldier. Isn’t it because you want to create a world like that, too?”
Lu Qiao’s eyes widened. He wanted to speak, but for a moment, he was speechless.
“Actually, I don’t hate Yan Qiu’s father that much anymore,” Cheng Yi said slowly. “I’ve thought it through. He really can’t be blamed. If anyone should be blamed, it’s war itself. Without war, there would never be pointless killing or death. You keep saying that a world controlled by me is fake. Fine. But the real world is full of wars. What’s so good about that? Lu Qiao, do you love a world like that?”
Lu Qiao clenched his teeth.
No.
He didn’t love war.
“You see?” Cheng Yi smiled. “Your dream, your ultimate goal, is the same as mine.”
—But he loved Yan Qiu.
He loved the curator and all the companions at the training center. He loved Yan Qiu’s parents and the other elders. He loved his mother, father, and grandmother, who had once lived in this world and eventually left it one after another.
Everything he loved was something that had once truly existed.
Lu Qiao slowly shook his head. The smile on Cheng Yi’s face disappeared again as he said, “You wouldn’t love a world you created with your own hands, either.”
“I would.” Cheng Yi’s expression was emotionless.
“Would you love the toys you played with as a child?” Lu Qiao pointed at the stopped galaxy beneath their feet. “From the moment you made it stop, you stopped treating it as a ‘world.’ You and I are humans, living beings born within this world. But the existence beyond the world itself, capable of controlling the entire world, is a god. Yet is there really a god in this world?”
Lu Qiao also spread his arms.
Surrounding them were countless galaxies and gears. They were countless parallel worlds, and within this vast expanse, only the two of them existed here.
“—No. You and I should never have appeared in this place!”
Cheng Yi suddenly stepped forward and planted one foot on a turning gear, forcibly bringing it to a halt.
Lu Qiao’s pupils contracted sharply.
Cheng Yi raised his chin and said coldly, “Even if I exist here, what can this place do to me?”
He stomped heavily on the gear beneath his foot and sneered.
“Can it erase me? No. All it can do is be crushed beneath my feet, one step at a time! Even if it’s reduced to dust, it still can’t do a thing to me!”
Lu Qiao stepped forward as well, grabbed Cheng Yi by the collar, and shoved him backward.
“Get your foot off it!”
Cheng Yi narrowed his eyes. “Lu Qiao, don’t forget. The only reason you’re able to be here right now is because I allowed you to enter.”
“Then if you have the ability, erase my will, too!” Lu Qiao exploded, unable to stop himself from shouting. “Take my soul away and make me just like all those people who died in the universe. Then create your world all by yourself and live there alone!”
For an instant, Cheng Yi’s expression twisted.
The next second, Lu Qiao was sent flying.
He slammed into the other end of the gear and struggled to get up, only to be pinned there by an invisible force.
“I want you to watch,” Cheng Yi said, laughing in fury. “Lu Qiao, recognize your situation. You can only listen to me! If I want you alive, you’ll live. If I want everyone else dead, they’ll die. I can even make Yan Qiu’s body disappear right in front of you, so you won’t even be able to see him!”
Lu Qiao struggled desperately, panting as he shouted, “Even if you resurrect your father, as long as he still has even the slightest bit of his own will, he would never want you to do something like this!”
“He would.” Cheng Yi’s expression became dazed. “My father devoted everything to the Empire, to the Alliance. In the end, he was ruthlessly abandoned like this. Even his best friend refused to turn back and save his life. He must have been heartbroken, too. I not only resurrected him, I also made war disappear from this world. He would definitely be happy.”
After attacking Marshal Yan and fleeing the military, when Cheng Yi wandered alone through the universe, he had gone three entire months without sleeping properly.
Over and over, he imagined how desperate his father must have been when he was trapped on the battlefield, unable to receive reinforcements; how much torture he must have endured after being captured; how much pain he must have suffered; and how desolate he must have felt when he realized that no one was coming to save him.
His father—his father, who had been loyal to the Empire. After his mother abandoned their family, he had been Cheng Yi’s only, and most important, family.
And just like that, he had died.
How could Cheng Yi possibly accept that?
Day after day, night after night, Cheng Yi thought about it, and all that surged through his chest was bone-deep hatred.
He hated Marshal Yan. He hated the Empire. He hated the Alliance forces.
He also hated the cowardly version of himself who, afraid of death, had hesitated to join the military and ultimately missed the chance to compete for his father’s adjutant position.
He hated war, which erupted everywhere like a virus.
He hated this world.
During those years of wandering, he felt as though he was dying.
He was alone, homeless. He didn’t know what meaning there was to his existence in this world. He didn’t understand why heaven had bestowed him with such groundbreaking power.
So what if his consciousness threshold had skyrocketed after his genes went berserk?
So what if his consciousness power had become silent and imperceptible?
—
He lived like a dog, fleeing everywhere without any purpose. His increasingly powerful abilities meant nothing beyond allowing him to kill people.
And what would killing everyone accomplish?
—Until he had that dream.
He dreamed of the World Core System.
He saw the countless galaxies and gears and realized that his power could become even stronger.
Yet was it consciousness power that made him strong, or did he make consciousness power strong?
Cheng Yi had once been confused by this question.
Now, he could be certain.
It was the latter.
Because in this world, he had been the first person to break through the limits of consciousness power.
And now, he was also the only person capable of changing the world.
His father would be proud of him.
His once-cowardly son had finally become the most powerful person in this world.
Yet the next second, Lu Qiao spoke.
“As long as your father was a true soldier,” Lu Qiao said through gritted teeth, “he would never love the world you’ve created!”
Because the world they wanted to protect was a world where countless people could live happily, a world where all beautiful things could exist.
Not a pool of lifeless things that could be manipulated at will.
Cheng Yi looked coldly at Lu Qiao without saying a word.
Lu Qiao soon felt a strange force gathering within this space.
The next second, the gears before him began rotating backward, while the galaxy beneath his feet began to change.
Lu Qiao’s eyes were bloodshot. In a hoarse voice, he said, “You’ll regret this.”
Cheng Yi acted as though he hadn’t heard him.
Lu Qiao could even hear a sound, like old machinery beginning to turn.
He didn’t dare look at what the world beneath his feet had become under Cheng Yi’s control, or what the people he loved had become.
Lu Qiao closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, and continued struggling desperately, but he could not move.
Why did he possess the same power as Cheng Yi?
Why had the world allowed him to meet Cheng Yi, only for him to be unable to do anything, forced to watch helplessly as Cheng Yi destroyed everything?
No.
It shouldn’t be like this.
Lu Qiao panted as he remembered that day, when Yan Qiu had held him in his arms and told him:
“If you really want to know why you and he became the only two special people, then it can only be because, in that instant, you and he stood at opposite extremes.”
Early in the morning five years ago, Cheng Yi’s genes had gone berserk in a fit of rage over his father, shattering Marshal Yan’s consciousness body.
And early in the morning five years ago, Lu Qiao had a dream.
He dreamed of a morning many years earlier, when Uncle Gavin had knocked on the door of their home, carrying one of his father’s military uniforms. With red-rimmed eyes, he told Lu Qiao and his grandmother that his father had died in battle.
Lu Qiao thought he had heard wrong.
Or perhaps he was dreaming.
He rubbed his eyes blankly, thinking that maybe he should run back to bed and go on sleeping. As long as he slept and woke up, everything would be fine.
Yet his grandmother was trembling slightly, her eyes red. When she lowered her gaze to look at him, tears fell.
Those tears seemed to crash directly into Lu Qiao’s heart.
Then he heard restrained sobbing.
When he turned around again, he saw Uncle Gavin crying too, wiping his face with the back of his hand and repeatedly choking out, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t protect your father. It’s all my fault. We clearly promised we’d live and die together…”
In the dream, Lu Qiao stood between the two adults, their crying filling his ears.
He stood there blankly for a while before stepping forward and taking his father’s military uniform from Uncle Gavin’s hands.
He stroked it again and again.
Again and again.
Then he looked up and asked, “I’ll never see Dad again?”
His grandmother pulled him into her arms, while Uncle Gavin fell directly to his knees.
Lu Qiao’s eyes widened. He slowly shook his head.
In the dream, he was about to faint, but he still forced himself to hold on and murmured, “It’s not Uncle Gavin’s fault.”
His father didn’t need anyone’s protection.
He certainly didn’t need Uncle Gavin to take a bullet for him.
His father had joined the military to protect others, to protect this world.
Even if he died in battle, the ones who deserved hatred were the enemy forces that had started the war, not the people he wanted to protect, and certainly not the world he wanted to protect.
The world itself was not at fault.
Power itself was not at fault.
What was at fault was the evil that arose within human hearts.
And evil could never disappear from the world forever.
Therefore, wherever there were people, there would be war.
Eliminating war and creating world peace was absolutely not something one person could accomplish.
—Nor was it something the world itself could accomplish.
The world had a consciousness. The fact that it could draw information streams from parallel worlds meant that it was consciously changing this world.
It made flowers float around people who were in a bad mood.
It turned men harboring evil thoughts into the very people their evil thoughts were directed toward—women—and only after they eliminated those evil thoughts could they return to their original forms.
It allowed soldiers wounded in war to spend every night with the people they had fallen for, using love to heal their hearts.
There must have been many, many more…
Every change the world made, though clumsy, must have been intended to make everything better.
And the reason it could not eliminate war or resurrect the dead must have been because these were things it simply could not do.
—Because among countless parallel worlds, not a single one possessed such an ability!
And what would happen if someone forcibly changed the world, attempting to turn it into something it was fundamentally incapable of becoming?
Cheng Yi suddenly froze.
The enormous gears began to shatter.
The galaxies began to collapse.
The world was falling apart.
A shrill sound rang in their ears, as though the world itself were crying out and moaning in agony.
Cheng Yi murmured, “What’s happening? What’s going on?”
He ran into the middle of the galaxies, trying to stop everything from collapsing.
“Why are they all falling apart?! What are you trying to do? What are you trying to do?!”
He frantically used his body to block the fragments, using his consciousness power to catch them.
But his power was no longer enough.
Everything was collapsing beyond his ability to stop it.
The sudden change caused his consciousness power itself to become unstable.
Lu Qiao stared fixedly at everything happening before him.
These were the fragments of a world.
And were those fragmented information streams from the parallel worlds formed in the same way?
No matter how much beauty existed, it could not stop the evil in human hearts. It could not stop the birth of people like Cheng Yi.
And the ultimate result was that the world itself desperately tried to save everything, while humanity destroyed the world.
How many times had the World Core System been invaded by “viruses”?
How many worlds had sent fragmented information streams into their world?
And how many worlds had already been destroyed in this way?
Lu Qiao closed his eyes, feeling as though he could barely breathe, his thoughts wavering.
Was everything really going to be destroyed like this?
Just a few hours ago, he and Yan Qiu had still been together. They had done the sweetest thing in the world.
And now, in the blink of an eye, everything was about to vanish without a trace?
—How could this happen?
—He had just promised Yan Qiu that he only needed to sleep a little longer.
“I always believed that one day my father would wake up, so to me, on that night five years ago, my father had simply fallen asleep.”
It would be a very long sleep, but there would definitely come a day when he woke up.
The man’s voice echoed through Lu Qiao’s mind.
Then, in the next second, Lu Qiao sensed something change around him.
He suddenly opened his eyes and was stunned to discover that he was somehow at the bottom of the sea.
As far as he could see, seawater swayed around him, suffused with hazy light.
And within that light, a figure was swimming toward him.
Lu Qiao forced his eyes wide open and slowly made out the figure…
It was Yan Qiu?!
The man reached out his hand.
Lu Qiao reached out as well.
The instant their hands touched, Yan Qiu pulled him toward himself!
Lu Qiao plunged into Yan Qiu’s arms, staring at him in disbelief.
Where were they now?
How could Yan Qiu be here?
After embracing him, Yan Qiu kissed him.
Lu Qiao hugged the man tightly in return, and he soon felt something flowing into his body…
Wait.
It was consciousness power!
Surging consciousness power was pouring into his body!
Besides Yan Qiu’s, other streams of consciousness power were also surging toward him from deeper within the sea, rushing in from all directions and flooding into Lu Qiao’s body.
Lu Qiao opened his eyes and stared at Yan Qiu in astonishment. He could also vaguely see countless figures surrounding them.
What was happening?!
Yan Qiu was giving him his consciousness power.
And so were countless other people.
Hadn’t their consciousness bodies been erased by Cheng Yi?
How could—
Or perhaps their consciousness bodies had all been transferred before Cheng Yi acted?
By whom?
…Had the World Consciousness transferred them?!
Was the World Consciousness making these people help him?
And although they were ordinary people, under the World Consciousness’s guidance, they were able to independently manipulate their consciousness power and send it outward from their own bodies!
Yan Qiu suddenly looked downward.
Lu Qiao looked down as well.
The seawater grew darker the deeper it went.
Within the darkness, images of galaxies and gears swayed.
Lu Qiao was somewhat dazed.
He suddenly realized that this was probably what the world itself had looked like countless years ago.
He and Yan Qiu stayed close together as they watched the gears slowly turn.
At one moment, a corner of a gear suddenly shattered, and an image flashed before them.
It was the moment when life was first born in the universe.
Over the long period that followed, living beings fought for the first time, evolved their first racial abilities, broke through the atmosphere for the first time and entered space, encountered life from other planets for the first time…
Everything had begun with the accidental, spontaneous breaking of a gear.
From the moment this accident occurred and living beings were born, the subsequent chain reaction became unstoppable.
Living beings created one event after another.
Every event caused further damage to the gears, while the galaxies gradually underwent subtle changes.
The damage was slight, but little by little, it made the gears become sluggish and worn.
Then, one day, a huge section of a gear suddenly broke away.
This was the moment when Cheng Yi’s genes went berserk and his consciousness power broke through its limits.
The galaxy underwent a significant change, and consciousness manipulators throughout the world began awakening one after another.
At the same time, as though to maintain balance, the corresponding side of the gear opposite the damaged section also broke automatically.
That was the instant when Lu Qiao’s resolve became firm in his dream.
It was when the world chose him, placing him on the opposite side of Cheng Yi.
At the same moment, he and Cheng Yi experienced similar things.
Yet the choices they made were completely different.
And why exactly had Cheng Yi broken through the limits of consciousness power at that moment?
—Perhaps it was simply proof that the world was gradually becoming unable to restrain humanity.
The world could no longer prevent humans from possessing the power to overturn it.
The accidental event it had caused in the beginning had given birth to destructive living beings.
Those beings grew stronger day by day, and eventually, they would completely destroy it.
In fact, even after suffering this much damage, the world’s gears remained balanced and could still continue turning.
Yet Cheng Yi—the human who had caused the most serious damage to the world’s gears—had ultimately taken the one step he never should have taken.
Lu Qiao and Yan Qiu looked at each other.
But the fact that the World Consciousness had shown them all this and summoned countless people to give their consciousness power to Lu Qiao meant that the world itself still did not want to be destroyed.
There was still hope.
Yan Qiu lowered his head again until his forehead touched Lu Qiao’s.
Just sleep a little longer.
Lu Qiao silently repeated the words in his heart.
The next second, all the images disappeared.
Lu Qiao returned to the galaxies and gears.
Cheng Yi was still frenzied, and the world was still collapsing.
Lu Qiao took a deep breath and mobilized the powerful, abundant consciousness power within his body.
In an instant, he broke free of the force Cheng Yi had used to restrain him.
Cheng Yi immediately sensed that something was wrong and attacked him.
But Lu Qiao’s consciousness power blocked the attack and sent it back.
The force was immense.
It struck Cheng Yi and sent his entire body flying!
Lu Qiao’s consciousness power still did not possess pure offensive power, just like when he had fought the berserk, enraged rabbit on the mountain.
It was activated for the sake of defense and protection.
And this time, with the power of countless people gathered together, he managed to suppress Cheng Yi.
At the same time, Lu Qiao rapidly extended countless tendrils of his consciousness body in every direction.
They surged outward, capturing all the fragments of the world that had already scattered into the void.
Piece by piece, he quickly gathered them back and fused them together.
Just as he had repaired his shattered consciousness body, he rapidly repaired this collapsing world!
The galaxies were slowly restored.
The gears gradually became whole again.
Little by little, they returned to the state they had been in before Cheng Yi destroyed them.
Cheng Yi crawled up from the void and began laughing hysterically.
“It’s restored! It’s restored! Lu Qiao, where did you get that power?!”
Lu Qiao stared at him.
“Do you still want to control the world?”
Cheng Yi panted and tilted his head, as though he had heard an amusing question.
“Huh?”
Consciousness power could not be stolen, but it could be voluntarily transferred by its user.
Lu Qiao lowered his eyes and tried transferring part of his consciousness power to the gear.
Cheng Yi had clearly been driven insane by what had just happened. He did not even bother investigating where Lu Qiao’s sudden power had come from.
Instead, with bloodshot eyes, he sneered.
“I just made a mistake. Don’t tell me you think I’m afraid now? After everything I’ve done over these five years, what is there left for me to fear? Watch closely. This time, I definitely—”
Before he could finish speaking, something suddenly dragged him away.
He was slammed violently into the gear.
The force was far beyond his own power, and in an instant, his entire body was shattered to pieces!
Lu Qiao closed his eyes and frowned deeply.
Silence.
In the silence, a buzzing sound rang faintly in Lu Qiao’s ears.
He vaguely remembered Cheng Yi’s father, Marshal Cheng.
He had once been a hero as spirited and ambitious as Marshal Yan.
And that hero’s child—the child who might once have been weak and cowardly, but ultimately overcame his fear, put on a military uniform, and became a soldier—had somehow lost his way.
At this moment, he had completely vanished from the world.
Lu Qiao had always felt that Cheng Yi had misunderstood his father.
Or perhaps… he had already lost the time, and the ability, to find his original reason for becoming a soldier, as well as his father’s reason for becoming one.
In any case, Lu Qiao couldn’t describe what he was feeling.
His chest simply felt unbearably heavy.
Suddenly, he felt that portion of power return to his body.
Lu Qiao froze.
He pressed his lips together, gently touched the gear before him, then dispersed the abundant power within his body, allowing it to return to its original owners.
Finally, he felt himself being gently expelled from this space.
Time reversed.
At the same time, another stream of information entered his mind, like words spoken to him by the world itself.
—Although it was impossible to resurrect the dead, and impossible to truly return the entire world to the past, humans entering the place where the World Consciousness resided should never have happened in the first place.
Therefore, everything that had happened during this period would be erased.
Aside from Lu Qiao, no one would remember what had happened during this brief span of time.
And Cheng Yi would never return to the present world.
On a fourth-tier planet, in an alley to the right of the night-market street.
“Yan Qiu, can the World Core System be controlled by someone?”
Hearing Lu Qiao’s question, Yan Qiu froze, about to answer, but suddenly stopped.
He didn’t know why he had paused.
When he came back to his senses, the young man before him had already turned around abruptly and was looking at him nervously.
“……” Yan Qiu frowned slightly and said, “Do you think Cheng Yi can even control the World Consciousness?”
But Lu Qiao did not answer his question.
He stared fixedly at Yan Qiu for a moment, then slowly let out a huge sigh of relief, as though something terrible had just happened.
Yan Qiu was somewhat confused.
But in the next second, Lu Qiao suddenly threw himself into his arms and hugged him!
Yan Qiu wrapped his arms around Lu Qiao, concerned.
“What happened?”
“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Lu Qiao clung tightly to Yan Qiu, choking back a sob.
“It’s all over. Everything’s okay.”