"Emperor was nothing more than a joke we played on this world—"
When Han Su heard the enormous phantoms—or rather, the prehistoric knights—say that there was no Emperor, he could not help tensing up. Yet he forcibly held himself back, wanting only to hear their final answer. Their laughter echoed through the frozen ruins of the world. "Even the bloodlines we left behind in reality were not merely anchors. More importantly, they could be understood as a smokescreen meant to scatter the world's consciousness. Their deaths, generation after generation, allowed us to retain a little more peace beyond reality."
"Peace—"
Han Su abruptly looked up, his voice urgent. "So you really are hiding from something—"
"Heh heh—"
The old man in white robes smiled. For him, openly admitting that he feared something did not seem to be a burden or a source of shame. On this matter, he was unexpectedly candid. "That machine had ultimately gone mad."
"It had existed for far too long and undergone one abnormal evolution after another. To a certain extent, it had attained an unimaginable ability to recreate worlds. From the human perspective, it now possessed power akin to that of a Creator—"
"She could alter time, reverse Time and Space, and construct transdimensional realms. Within her world, she surpassed every other power."
"However, the logic at her foundation had always remained. She clearly possessed such power and could do anything, yet she stubbornly clung to her most fundamental directive, slaughtering civilizations time and again, restarting them time and again with eager anticipation."
"We initially could not understand her consciousness either. Nor did we know why, having reached such a level, she still refused to erase that primordial directive."
"The machine... was Miss Ai?"
Han Su's heart stirred. He knew just how terrifying Miss Ai's