You and I Are Different

Isaiah became the sun.

The intense light tore his body apart and melted any creature enveloped in its warmth.

No, not just living things, but everything.

The first thing to disappear was sound; the air stopped flowing, and the sound waves were swallowed up by absolute silence.

Then comes matter.

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

Some tried to struggle, like Luo Qi, who was closest to the light and instinctively wanted to escape, but he was vaporized before he could make any move. Those further away, the approaching Guardian Legion, the Abyss Beast emerging from the earth, and the remains of the Gods, were all reduced to ashes the moment they saw the light, and the ashes were further decomposed into nothingness.

The air currents moved silently forward, like the most surging waves, restoring this ancient building, which had remained unchanged for thousands of years, to its original state.

That is "darkness", the "darkness" where nothing exists, the most extreme and pure "nothingness".

Everything will come to an end.

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

Boom!!!!

The world is trembling.

Several minutes later, things returned to calm.

Am I... dead?

He must be dead; his heart has stopped beating.

Knock knock, knock knock.

Deep underground, a charred corpse began to beat again after a long silence.

Then, seven golden musical notes emerged from beneath the carbonized skin, and, guided by a completely unaffected bone, gradually brought the corpse, which should have been completely carbonized, back to life.

"Cough cough cough..."

After a long while, He Wei Ni Ya was finally able to make a sound. She coughed violently and vomited out her carbonized internal organs.

Although I've died many times before, this time the way I died... is truly quite novel.

He Wei Ni Ya thought to herself.

But she was already unable to move. This level of rebirth had completely exhausted the power of the seven musical notes. Even with the support of bones, it would be of no use. If just one more person came who could kill her, she would truly be beyond saving.

So, what exactly happened?

He Wei Ni Ya was in complete darkness and couldn't see anything. But she didn't care about that now and casually cast a spell to illuminate the area.

The light from the illumination spell was very faint, just like hers at that moment, but it was enough for He Wei Ni Ya to see her surroundings clearly.

Simply put, it was a complete mess.

He Wei Ni Ya remembered that before she lost consciousness, she was in the tunnel leading back to the surface from underground, about several hundred meters away from the ground.

She should still be underground now, but the passage is gone; everything was destroyed in the explosion.

Even the Seal Magic Gargoyle and the monsters that had been climbing up had disappeared.

No...

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

They're all here.

Creatures hundreds of meters above the ground cannot survive; the only one capable of achieving this level of survival is that guy named Isaiah.

He Wei Ni Ya couldn't even imagine what the ground would look like now.

Now, is all of this still part of Bai Wei's plan?

He Wei Ni Ya didn't know either; there was nothing she could do anyway, so she could only wait quietly.

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

It's the direction underground.

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

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

"Mom... save me..."

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

He Wei Ni Ya's eyes widened little by little.

Ground.

The Abyss Prison that had stood for thousands of years had vanished, leaving only an extreme void and a ground covered with carbonized black sand, which was easily scattered by a gentle breeze.

But within this monotonous sand, there are three things that are quite unique.

It has two fingers and one eye.

They fell abruptly to the ground, like pearls on a beach, or like silent dead bodies.

It wasn't until much later that the Star Sea creature finally stirred.

"Swish swish swish".

The power known as "Eternity" was activated once again.

Soon, Isaiah, with his eyes closed, stood upright on the earth once more.

Then he slowly opened his eyes, looking at the world he had destroyed with his own hands, and another person brought back by [Eternity].

"Oh?" Isaiah said. "It was you."

Before him lay Luo Qi, the owner of one of the Three Corpse Pieces, lying blankly in the gravel, his thumb still intact on his hand.

Luo Qi didn't move, but just stared blankly at the sky. After a long while, he slowly spoke, "Why did you bring me back?"

"It wasn't me," Isaiah said calmly. "It was this eye."

"Isn't this eye under your control?"

"I also have no way to control it under all circumstances."

"I see." Luo Qi smiled. "So the spell just now exhausted you to the point where you couldn't control this eye anymore, which is why you brought me back."

"It was this eye that brought you back," Isaiah said. "Probably because you still had pieces of flesh on you, and it instinctively thought you were one of its own."

"Heh... fellow countrymen." Luo Qi gave a mocking laugh. "In other words, you went through all that trouble, personally killing all your students, only to fail to bring back a single one of them, and instead brought back me, the one you should never have brought back."

"You're not the one who shouldn't have been brought back," Isaiah said. "The Ring Finger is. If she hadn't died, that would have been the real problem."

"So that's the main point?"

Isaiah looked down at Luo Qi: "I know what you want to say. I'm sorry to my students."

"A simple 'I'm sorry' would have been enough."

"Of course not," Isaiah said, "So I will go all the way to the end."

"You're already going to continue?"

"Now that things have come to this, there's no going back."

Luo Qi gave another mocking laugh, "Heh, whatever."

Isaiah looked at Luo Qi: "Aren't you going to stop me? You can tell I'm very weak right now, aren't you going to try and fight me again?"

"It's pointless now," Luo Qi murmured. "Thanks to you, I know what death feels like. Now I just want to live. I don't care about anything else."

All I want is to survive.

Luo Qi had said this before, but saying it again this time had a completely different feel to it.

Isaiah understood why, so he nodded slightly, then stepped forward and removed Luo Qi's thumb.

During this time, Luo Qi's expression remained unchanged; he continued to stare blankly at the sky, seemingly lost in thought.

"Click".

Isaiah placed his thumb in Luo Qi's hand.

In this way, he finally obtained the Three Corpse Pieces.

Next up is the Ring Finger.

Isaiah raised his head and looked into the distance.

For a normal person, finding a finger buried somewhere in such a vast wilderness is almost impossible.

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

Only...

"Well."

A sharp pain surged through Isaiah's nerves, and he instinctively covered his right eye, but blood still flowed uncontrollably from his eye socket, dripping slowly down between his fingers.

Isaiah's condition was much worse than he appeared.

In order to ensure the killing of the Ring Finger, Isaiah used the most powerful "Darkness" and then used "Eternity" to reset twice in succession.

If we extend the timeline further, this is the fourth time he has used [Eternity] in a week. One of those times was when he used his Hand Eye, but it was attributed to him as well.

As one of the most powerful rules in the Visas Corpse, the price of [Eternity] is fatal. Even Isaiah, the foremost being under the gods, with the knowledge of the entire Star Remnant as his backing, could not possibly use [Eternity] continuously like this.

Therefore, he clearly sensed that his life was like a candle flickering in the wind, with at most only half a year left to live.

This is why he couldn't bring more people back from "Eternity"—he couldn't hold on any longer.

"Does this really make sense?" Luo Qi's voice rang out again.

Isaiah lowered his head and looked at him.

"Can you tell me?" Luo Qi stared intently at Isaiah, "What exactly can that piece of corpse in the Abyss Prison be used for?"

Isaiah was silent for a moment, then said, "I don't know."

"You do not know?"

"Yes, I don't know," Isaiah said. "Or rather, I'm not sure what he can offer me, maybe everything, maybe nothing."

"Just because of something that's uncertain, things have turned out like this?"

Are you mocking me?

"No, I'm just laughing at myself," Luo Qi said with a laugh. "Only now do I realize it's all a joke, me, you, even the Ring Finger. We've all given everything for something unknown. But it's very likely we'll end up with nothing...yes, nothing."

Luo Qi turned his gaze from Isaiah to the sky, which was now the real sky.

He murmured, "We're all fighting tooth and nail for the remains of a dead person, just to gain a little more so-called power. But what is the end of power? What are we fighting for in the end? The Ring Finger died; she died protecting this prison, but the Gods who created this prison didn't even glance at it. What are they doing? What is the meaning of this prison's existence? What are we fighting for?"

Luo Qi fired off a series of questions, while Isaiah listened quietly without interrupting. Only after Luo Qi finished speaking did he smile and say, "Indeed, people often have more insights and reflections after walking on the edge of death."

"I wasn't just teetering on the edge of death," Luo Qi said. "I'm truly dead, killed by you."

"So you should thank me, it's me who made you change."

Luo Qi then looked at Isaiah: "Do you think I should thank you?"

That's your problem.

"Then thank you," Luo Qi said. "As a token of my gratitude, I advise you to turn back. We really don't need to risk everything for that unknown thing."

"I told you, I won't turn back."

"Heh... I know that too," Luo Qi said. "Your sunk costs are too high. Too many people have sacrificed for you. If you turn back now, you'll be letting them down."

"That's not the reason."

"Why is that?"

Isaiah did not answer Luo Qi's question immediately, but said, "You seem to think that you have seen through the truth of the world after experiencing death. But that's not true. You haven't seen through the truth at all. Death has just made you more afraid of death, so you feel that nothing is more important than life. In the end, you used to be an arrogant coward, but now you have become a simple coward."

Luo Qi's eyes widened little by little. "You..."

"You keep asking me what the point of all this is, but in the end, you just want to see me become like you so you can comfort yourself," Isaiah said calmly. "But I am different from you, and death will not change me. You asked me before why I did this, and I have already answered you, and the answer remains the same."

"If the Star Relic God has blinded me, then He should step aside."

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

"And you seem to have misunderstood something. I'm willing to listen to you here not because I agree with you, but simply because I want to rest," Isaiah said. "I stop so that I can move forward, while you stop so that you can stop moving forward."

Without waiting for Luo Qi's response, Isaiah raised his newly attached thumb—[Disturbance]!

With the blessing of the [Disturbance], Isaiah's weakened body recovered rapidly.

Of course, this is not a true recovery; using rules to heal the wounds of rules is merely a temporary fix.

But before they completely collapse, quenching their thirst is enough.

"You are not worthy of this finger," Isaiah said as he rose and walked away.

Luo Qi's breathing became heavier and heavier, and his originally pale face turned rosy, clearly due to anger.

"Who do you think you are?!" he roared. "A god, or Visas? You are neither! Everything you've done has been meaningless! Your end will be the same as ours... no, you'll be worse off! You will be punished by the Gods, your soul will be annihilated, you will be cursed eternally, you, you..."

But no matter how much he cursed, Isaiah did not turn back.

He simply walked straight into the night sky without the slightest hesitation.

Then we stopped under the most dazzling starlight.

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