An era ended, an era began; the gods of the Fool's Game, the Gods' Foolish Game
[Deception] once said:
"... For the sake of the Clown's past trust in his Lord of Grace, I'll give you a choice."
First, the Clown continues to believe in his Lord of Grace, becoming the [Nothingness] Subgod all, Fool's Game, and then leaves this world with his Lord of Grace to save the True Universe.
Second, the Clown betrayed his Lord of Grace, choosing to stay and embrace his Predestination, then died with the world in the misfortune of [Destiny]...
"..."
At the time, Cheng Shi didn't see anything wrong with it, but now, looking back, the fact that one left and the other stayed perfectly mirrored his current predicament!
That's not all; [the Deception] also claims:
"... You will not die, but you cannot live either. You will be trapped in Nothingness, caught in an eternal choice, until you make your decision."
Of course, to preserve the integrity of the Sacrifice, I will not turn you into a puppet or a shell of Despair. I will retain your desires, hide your goodness, and bury your evil, until you make your choice, and then I will infuse these things back into you...
"..."
He never imagined that the [Deception] had truly hidden all the answers in that Despair, False Curtain Call.
Perhaps it is Despair that gives rise to hope.
Put aside your desires, hide your goodness, bury your evil, and wait until the outcome is clear before taking back everything that belongs to you... Isn't this precisely the question I'm pondering right now?
"... However, I need to remind you that time is not infinite..."
"..."
Indeed, whether it's [Origin] or "Origin," whether it's Cheng Shi or "Cheng Shi," their time is not infinite; there is no time limit for each Experiment...
"... You gave up hope of giving life to the True Universe, choosing instead to live a life of self-destruction, and naturally you must bear this sin and guilt..."
"..."
It turns out that He had already guessed at that time that He would choose to join the cycle of this Experiment and meet Him and them again!
But He still paved all the way, leaving the final answer for the world, and told Himself that if He chose to start the Experiment, He would have to bear the guilt and remorse for causing the world to lose its future!
"... For the sake of our past relationship as master and servant, this is the best I can do..."
"..."
Cheng Shi thought that when everyone left him, he would stop crying, but he was wrong.
At that moment, tears streamed down his face.
Our Lord of Grace has done the best He can.
He rebelled against the Origin God for an entire era because of the death of His Twin Gods, only to discover in the end that Predestination one He protected was the Origin God... How Despair and devastated He must have felt at that moment?
But He did not destroy all of this; He chose to continue to protect His Believer!
He clearly found a future for this world, a future that could escape the [Origin], yet He still embraced the choices of His Believer and reminded them at that time: You may suffer eternal guilt.
This guilt did not stem from [Deception], but from Cheng Shi himself.
He chose to start the next Experiment, plunging everyone back into endless Despair.
[The Deception] is right, He has done the best He can.
"My Lord of Grace..."
Cheng Shi was trembling all over. He cried for a long, long time, so long that he had to remind himself that there was no time in the Cosmos. Even if there was time in the world, there was no time in the [Time] outside the True Universe and in Hong Lin's world. Danger surrounded them.
Cheng Shi wiped the corners of his eyes, his gaze hardening once more.
"My Lord of Grace, you have underestimated the Clown's Greed."
I want the future of the world, and I want to reunite with you all.
Looking at the completed Experiment in his hand, Cheng Shi gradually clarified his thoughts. He connected everything and figured out where to hide his good, evil, desires, and emotions.
There is a place that few people approach, and even if they do, they will not discover its secrets. If any creature in Experiment happens to discover all of this, then let it remain silent forever.
This place is called...
Sea of Desire!
I will create an ocean of desires to conceal my own desires, then strip away my emotions and hide them at the bottom of the ocean of Sea of Desire, thus abandoning everything and becoming the "Origin," thus beginning the Experiment.
To ensure absolute safety, and to give Cosmos living beings the courage to defy the gods, I will draw away a portion of the Cosmos's fear and concentrate it into guardians of the Sea of Desire, dissuading those who inadvertently stumble upon the truth of the "Origin."
And as for who will serve as this guard, I think... I now have a choice.
Cheng Shi remained silent for a moment, then took out the Lucky Tree twig given to him by [Prosperity] and silently planted it in the Land of Depravity of the New Isle of Hope.
At some point in Experiment future, the woman named Lele'er, the embodiment of [Prosperity], will be propelled into the Sea of Desire by an unnamed force, giving birth to the Fear Mother Tree.
He absorbed the fear of the Cosmos, giving courage to all living beings, but died at the right time, returning the fear to itself, allowing the Fear Faction to grow and continue.
Desire will attract, Filth and Decay will gather, and the Sea of Desire will gradually take shape. Then, all my hopes hidden here will be transformed under the pull of Faith into Tria, who pursues good; Drachirko, who pursues evil; and... Afros, who seeks but cannot obtain yet constantly strives for the best of both worlds...
This is the sea of Sea of Desire that people avoid at all costs, and also the graveyard where my humanity is buried.
Everything is going according to plan, everything is within the script.
But that's not all!
I also need to ensure that all Experiment proceed in the expected direction. To do this, I need to make those who turn away from me wholeheartedly distance themselves from my Divine Throne, and those who draw near to me devoted to my worship. Thus, the [Nothingness] will is formed.
That's not enough!
Although the general direction of the times has been set, there are too many Change in it, and no one can guarantee that every "Cheng Shi" will be able to reach the end smoothly. In order to reduce too many redundant branches and to make the Experiment process closer to the "result", I need to add an insurance for this Experiment.
Old Jia...
No matter how strange the Cosmos, no matter how bizarre it is, I never want him to get involved.
He has departed, finally freed from the pain of reality and enjoying the An Ning of death. He should not be entangled by his son's obsession, entering one painful cycle after another. Therefore, I will not allow him to appear in the next era!
However, in order for "I" to still be myself, "Cheng Shi" needs a father.
Then let me do it, I'll play him...
I cannot be so stingy as to deprive Cheng Shi of all the beautiful memories he has of his father. I will present these memories to him in their entirety, but in this remembrance of his father, there is no real "father."
Perhaps the father I saw was a fake, but I am certain that Cheng Jia was real.
He taught me to be honest; he would never lie to me...
I have become "cruel," so naturally I need to atone for this "cruelty."
I will fill Old Jia's writing with reminders about his love for him, telling him what I have been through.
The Old Gods cannot corrupt the will of the "Origin." No one could so openly reveal the answer to oneself. So the matter is simple: the Memory in the [Memory] Memory Archive may not have been replaced by any god. It was always like this, never erased. If it was, it could only be from before the time.
For example, right now.
So I changed the time in the script, rewriting 220 as 221.
I will not change anything or anyone related to Old Jia, and I don't know if the "The Fated" he encountered were foreshadowings that [Origin] left for me, but I am certain that the "The Fated" that Old Jia of "Cheng Shi" encountered were foreshadowings that I left for him.
My greatest regret towards him is that his Faith, which is far removed from Fear Faction, supports him.
Ha, so in that case, there should be six "true" The Fated, not five, but all of that is meaningless at this moment.
Everything is ready.
The two "Origin" exchanged a final glance; if the plan went smoothly, this would be their final farewell.
[Destiny] "Origin" looked solemn, while [Deception] "Origin" sighed deeply.
They reflected on the entire game, no, the entire era, and suddenly realized that in this absurd [Nothingness] age:
[Birth] completed Birth, [Prosperity] blessed prosperity, [Death] embraced death, [Filth and Decay] contained desire, [Decay] was always Decay, [Annihilation] sought Annihilation, [Order] reshaped Order, [Truth] sought Truth, [War] launched war, [Chaos] created chaos, [Folly] witnessed Folly, [Silence] guarded silence, [Memory] collected Memory, [Time] corrected time, [Deception] staged Deception, [Destiny] continued Destiny...
Those who fear overcome fear, those who turn away achieve turning away, and those who draw closer achieve drawing closer...
It seems like no one is at fault, but no one actually wins.
The Cosmos has ultimately faded into Nothingness, and the era has sadly come to an end.
It's time to end this absurdity...
The two "Origin" nodded simultaneously. After discovering the pattern of Divinity dripping from the "Origin" Vessel, they informed the [Time] outside the world of the precise time through a pointer.
The dazzling [Prosperity] that once again unfolded in the True Universe, and just as the entire world was shaken by it, the "Origin" Divinity fell precisely at the last second!
In that extremely convoluted moment, known as 221, "Origin" made its move, the Experiment was initiated, and the Cosmos was stripped apart.
The "Origin" Divine Throne burst forth with dazzling light of will, and the fifteen New God wills representing the approach to the "Origin" were like threads, weaving together a new Stage of Faith.
On the other side...
A new Faith drove out the old gods, and a lonely world embarked on a journey called "the future."
Thus, an era has come to an end; thus, a new era has begun.
This is the Fool's Game of the gods, and the Fool's Game of the gods themselves!
(The book... is not finished yet, there's still some to go...)
"The True Universe", the "Origin" Land.
When Cheng Shi concentrated the [Birth] will in his hand, gradually placed it into the Experiment, and said to countless "Slice Universe" "This is [Birth], the prelude to life, the origin of all things," he knew that everything would start anew, and everything would be repeated.
But "Origin" is different from [Origin]. He is not [Origin], at least he is not so ruthless!
Although he abandoned his emotions and desires for the sake of the Experiment, he had left himself a backup plan before the Experiment. He knew that he was Cheng Shi first and "Origin" second. Therefore, he could not let go of the innocent lives that died in Despair during his Experiment.
They were not wrong; they were the ones who were wrong.
To remedy all of this, before the Experiment began, Cheng Shi added a new rule to this Creator's Experiment:
Whenever any living being dies as a result of Experiment, its body is transformed into recycled material, but its Memory are "copied" and stored in the "Origin."
If Experiment have a future, if cycles can be broken, if this can truly be considered compensation... then on the day the real future arrives, he will reassemble all the Memory, letting these beings who died in his Experiment know how much unbearable Despair and fear they endured for the future of the world.
He will apologize and is willing to bear the infamy for it.
Because he is Cheng Shi, not some heartless "Origin".
At that very moment, the assembled Covenant of the Gods Mask returned to his finger as a ring. "Origin" looked down and saw that the ring's twisted and looped shape resembled that of the Eternal Prisoner of Time —no, it seemed to be the Eternal Prisoner of Time, only with something more. After the [The Prisoner of Time's Self-Awakening] and the [The Self-Awakened's Cry], he saw the [The Crier's Lament]:
[The Crier's Lament]: You finally see the answer, but you are also forever imprisoned by it.
[Time] has already provided His answer.
Cheng Shi showed no sorrow or joy. He took back the ring, and also took back the seed that had transformed into the [Prosperity] Crown. He sat silently alone, beginning his Eternal Prisoner of Time.
But he firmly believes that the future will eventually come.
The True Universe, the [Origin] land.
Upon discovering that one of the countless Slice Universe had suddenly disappeared, the figure sitting there remained unperturbed and immediately began a new Experiment.
The world is being rebuilt, a new era is dawning, and the Space-Time Storm arrives as scheduled, but everything is proceeding steadily and orderly.
Behind that figure, the starlight was dazzling, like distant, unreachable stars to any being who had stepped into the True Universe.
Only when you get close can you discover that those dazzling stars are not luminous celestial bodies, but rows and columns of once-vivid Memory.
The Faith disputes of the Mortal World are a projection of the will of the gods. The reason why the past can be known to the future is because there are always devout recorders who remember it.
Unknown times, Unknown Land.
The unbearable darkness continued to gather, countless moments of time stopped there and fell silent, until a glimmer of light burst forth from that unobservable blackness, as if the stacked time had twisted, collapsed, and spread out cracks.
The crack is widening.
How many questions is this?
(The End)