You and I Are Different

Isaiah became the sun.

The fiercest light tore through his body and melted every living thing touched by its glow.

No, not just living things, but everything.

Sound vanished first. The air stopped flowing, and sound waves were swallowed by absolute silence.

Then came matter.

Humans, monsters, buildings—everything was equal beneath this light and heat. They were equally annihilated, equally reduced to the most ancient void.

Some tried to struggle. Luo Qi, closest to the light, instinctively tried to flee, but before he could make a single move, he vaporized into gas. Those farther away—the Guardian Legion rushing over, the Abyss Beasts surging up from underground, the remains of the Gods—all turned to ash the instant they saw the light, and that ash was further broken down into nothingness.

The shockwave advanced soundlessly, like the most raging tide, restoring this ancient structure, unchanged for a thousand years, to its original state.

That was "darkness"—the "darkness" where nothing existed, the purest and most absolute "void."

Everything would end.

It seemed like a long time had passed before the enormous roar finally arrived.

BOOM!!!!

The world trembled.

Several minutes later, it fell quiet once more.

Am I... dead?

I should be dead, right? My heart has already stopped beating.

Thump. Thump.

Underground, the heart of a charred corpse that had been still for a long time began to beat again.

Then, seven golden notes emerged from beneath the carbonized skin. Guided by a bone that had remained completely unaffected, they gradually revived the corpse that should have been reduced entirely to charcoal.

"Cough, cough, cough..."

Only after a long while could He Wei Ni Ya finally make a sound. She coughed violently, vomiting her carbonized organs out through her mouth.

She had died many times before, but this way of dying... was certainly novel enough.

That was what He Wei Ni Ya thought.

But she could no longer move. Rebirth on this level had completely drained the power of the seven notes. Even with the bone's support, it was useless now. If anyone capable of killing her came along, she truly would be beyond saving.

So what exactly had happened?

He Wei Ni Ya was surrounded by darkness and could not see a thing. But she had no time to worry about that. She casually cast an illumination spell.

The spell's light was faint, just like her at that moment, but it was enough for He Wei Ni Ya to see her surroundings clearly.

Put simply, it was a complete mess.

He Wei Ni Ya remembered that before she lost consciousness, she had been in the passage leading from underground back to the surface, perhaps several hundred meters below ground.

She should still be underground now, but the passage was gone. Everything had been destroyed in the explosion just now.

Even the Seal Magic Gargoyles and the monsters that had been climbing upward earlier had vanished without a trace.

No...

He Wei Ni Ya grabbed a handful of rubble and watched it slowly slip through her fingers.

They were all here.

Even creatures hundreds of meters beneath the surface could not survive. The only one capable of doing something like this was probably that man called Isaiah.

He Wei Ni Ya could not imagine what the surface looked like now.

At this point, was all of this still within Bai Wei's plan?

He Wei Ni Ya did not know. In any case, there was nothing she could do anymore. She could only wait quietly.

But just then, a rustling sound came from the darkness.

It came from deeper underground.

He Wei Ni Ya immediately became alert, but before she could react, she heard faint sobbing.

"It hurts... It hurts so much..."

"Mom... save me..."

"I... don't want to die..."

He Wei Ni Ya's eyes slowly widened.

The surface.

The Abyss Prison, which had stood for a thousand years, had vanished. All that remained was the most absolute void and black, carbonized grit covering the ground, scattered by the slightest breeze.

And amid that monotonous grit lay three things that stood apart.

Two fingers and an eye.

They lay abruptly upon the ground, like pearls on a beach, like silent corpses.

Only after a long while did that eye, as vast as the Star Sea, finally stir.

"Swish, swish, swish."

The power called Eternity activated once more.

Very soon, Isaiah, his eyes still closed, stood upon the earth again.

Then he slowly opened his eyes and looked at the world he had destroyed with his own hands, as well as the other person brought back by Eternity.

"Oh?" Isaiah said. "So it's you."

Before him, Luo Qi, the owner of one of the Three Corpse Pieces, lay blankly amid the grit. His thumb was still attached to his hand.

Luo Qi did not move. He merely stared blankly at the sky, only speaking after a long while. "Why did you bring me back?"

"Not me." Isaiah said calmly. "This eye did."

"Isn't this eye under your control?"

"I can't control it under every circumstance either."

"I see." Luo Qi smiled. "So that spell just now drained you to the point where you couldn't even control this eye anymore. That's why you brought me back."

"It was this eye that brought you back," Isaiah said. "Probably because you still had a Corpse Piece on you. It instinctively saw you as one of its own."

"Heh... one of its own." Luo Qi wore a mocking smile. "So after going to all that trouble and personally killing every one of your students, not only did you fail to bring back even one of them, you brought back the one person who should never have returned."

"You aren't the one who should never have returned," Isaiah said. "Ring Finger is. If she hadn't died, that would have been the real trouble."

"So that was the point?"

Isaiah looked down at Luo Qi. "I know what you want to say. I wronged my students."

"One apology is enough, then?"

"Of course not," Isaiah said. "That's why I'll see this through to the end."

"You still want to continue after all this?"

"Precisely because things have come this far, I can no longer turn back."

Luo Qi revealed another mocking smile. "Heh, do as you please."

Isaiah looked at Luo Qi. "You aren't planning to stop me? You should be able to tell that I'm weak right now. Aren't you going to try fighting me again?"

"There's no point." Luo Qi murmured, "Thanks to you, I now know what death feels like. All I want now is to stay alive. Nothing else matters."

All he wanted was to stay alive.

Luo Qi had said those words before, but saying them now carried an entirely different feeling.

Isaiah understood why. He gave a slight nod, then stepped forward and removed Luo Qi's thumb.

Throughout it all, Luo Qi's expression did not change. He continued staring blankly at the sky, and no one knew what he was thinking.

Crack.

Before Luo Qi's eyes, Isaiah attached the thumb to his own hand.

This way, he had finally obtained the third Corpse Piece.

Next would be that Ring Finger.

Isaiah raised his head and looked into the distance.

For an ordinary person, finding a finger buried somewhere amid such vast desolation would be nearly impossible.

But Isaiah was different. His right eye could see very, very far.

Only...

"Urgh."

A fierce stab of pain surged through Isaiah's nerves. He instinctively covered his right eye, but blood still spilled uncontrollably from the socket, trickling down through the gaps between his fingers.

Isaiah's condition was far worse than he appeared.

To ensure Ring Finger's death, Isaiah had used "Darkness" at maximum power, then used Eternal Reset twice in succession.

And if the timeline were extended further, this was already the fourth time he had used Eternity within a week. One of those uses had been by Hand Eye, but it still counted against him.

As one of the most powerful rules among Visas's Corpse Pieces, Eternity's price was fatal. Even Isaiah, the strongest beneath the Gods, backed by all the knowledge of the Star Relic, could not use Eternity consecutively like this.

He could clearly feel that his life was now like a candle in the wind. At most, he had only half a year left.

That was also why he could not bring more people back through Eternity. He could not endure it any longer.

"Does this really have any meaning?" Luo Qi's voice rang out again.

Isaiah lowered his head and looked at him.

"Can you tell me?" Luo Qi stared directly at Isaiah. "What exactly can that Corpse Piece in the Abyss Prison do?"

Isaiah fell silent for a moment before saying, "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"Yes, I don't know," Isaiah said. "Or rather, I'm not sure what it can bring me. Perhaps everything. Perhaps nothing."

"You turned things into this over something you can't even be sure of?"

"Are you mocking me?"

"No, I'm only mocking myself." Luo Qi smiled. "Only now do I realize that all of this was a joke. Me, you, even Ring Finger. We all gave everything for something unknown. But in the end, it's entirely possible that we'll get nothing... Yes, nothing at all."

Luo Qi shifted his gaze from Isaiah to the sky. This was the real sky now.

He murmured softly, "We've all been fighting desperately over the remains of a dead person, just to get one or two more so-called powers. But what lies at the end of power? What are we even walking toward in the end? Ring Finger died. She died protecting this prison, yet the Gods who created it never even glanced this way. What are They doing? What is the meaning of this prison's existence? What are we even fighting over?"

Luo Qi threw out a string of questions. Isaiah simply listened quietly without interrupting. Only after Luo Qi finished did he smile. "As expected, people often gain more insight and thoughts after walking along the edge of death."

"I didn't walk along the edge of death," Luo Qi said. "I truly died. You killed me."

"Then you should thank me. I'm the reason you changed."

Luo Qi looked at Isaiah again. "Do you think I should thank you?"

"That's up to you."

"Then I'll thank you." Luo Qi said, "And as thanks, I advise you to turn back. We truly don't need to stake everything on that unknown thing."

"I said I won't turn back."

"Heh... I know," Luo Qi said. "Your sunk cost is too great. Too many people sacrificed themselves for you. Turning back now would mean letting them down."

"That isn't the reason."

"Then what is?"

Isaiah did not immediately answer Luo Qi's question. Instead, he said, "You seem to think that after experiencing death, you've seen through the truth of this world. But that isn't it. You haven't seen through the truth at all. Death merely made you fear death more deeply, which is why you think nothing is more important than life. In the end, you used to be an arrogant coward, but now you've simply become a coward."

Luo Qi's eyes gradually widened. "You..."

"You keep asking me what meaning all this has because, in the end, you only want to see me become someone like you. Only then can you comfort yourself." Isaiah said calmly, "But I am different from you. Death will not change me. You asked me before why I was doing this. I already answered you, and my answer has not changed."

"If the Star Relic God covers my eyes, then It should step aside."

"I came for this, and I may die for this, but I will not change or retreat because of it."

"And you seem to have misunderstood something. I'm willing to stand here and listen to you not because I agree with you, but simply because I wanted to rest for a while." Isaiah said. "I stop so that I can keep moving forward. You stop so that you no longer have to move forward."

With that, Isaiah did not wait for Luo Qi's response. He raised the thumb he had just attached—Disturbance!

Empowered by Disturbance, Isaiah's weakened body rapidly recovered.

Of course, this was not true recovery. Using rules to heal wounds inflicted by rules was nothing more than drinking poison to quench thirst.

But before he collapsed completely, quenching his thirst was enough.

"You don't deserve this finger." Isaiah left behind those final words before rising and walking forward.

Luo Qi's breathing gradually grew heavier, and his pale face flushed red with rage.

"Who do you think you are?!" he roared. "A god? Or Visas? You're neither! Nothing you do has any meaning! Your end will be the same as ours... No, you'll have it even worse! You'll receive the Gods' punishment! Your soul will be annihilated! You'll suffer Eternity's curse! You, you..."

But no matter how Luo Qi cursed, Isaiah never turned back.

He merely walked straight toward the night sky without a shred of hesitation.

Then he stopped beneath the most brilliant starlight.

"It's time for the next one," he said calmly.