The Possibility of Resurrection, A New Beginning

The figure inside the ice coffin was Na'er.

Lin Qingzhou scrambled up from the floor, pressing his hands against the surface of the ice coffin, only seeing clearly once he was close.

Her eyes were closed, a thin layer of frost clinging to her eyelashes, her silver hair fanned out within the ice like frozen flowing water.

Her skin was so pale it was nearly translucent, a final trace of color still lingering on her lips, as if she were merely asleep.

Yet there was no rise and fall to her chest, no breath to be found.

Beneath the ice, the edges of her body were blurred.

It was not from the freezing; her soul itself was incomplete. In some places, it looked as if it had been torn, and from the edges, a wisp of silver light would occasionally escape, extinguishing the moment it left the ice's surface.

"You mentioned residual homologous energy," Lin Qingzhou's voice was pressed deep in his throat, carrying a faint tremor, "what does that mean?"

Zero stood two steps behind him, her tone remaining that same flat, robotic cadence.

"When the sacrifice occurred, she stripped away her entire self and transferred it to you."

"Her soul was also within the scope of that stripping. But when the sacrifice was halfway through, the binding protocol of the Ruins of the Divine Realm within you was triggered, creating a spatial disturbance. Before her soul could be completely decomposed, a portion of it was intercepted by that disturbance."

She paused, as if organizing her phrasing.

"It is incomplete. I cannot calculate the specific degree of completeness because there is no reference sample. In its current state, you may understand it as an empty shell without consciousness. The main body of the soul has dissipated; what remains are the parts that did not have time to vanish."

"Is she still alive?" Lin Qingzhou asked.

"Not alive. Existing."

Zero corrected him with great earnestness, earnest to the point of being pedantic. "Vital signs are zero, consciousness activity is zero. But because the homologous energy has not completely dispersed, it is not total death either. It lies between the two; language is not well-defined for this."

Lin Qingzhou pressed his hand against the ice coffin. A bone-chilling cold burrowed in from his palm, shooting straight up to his elbow. He did not pull back, just left it there.

"What conditions are required?"

Zero's hexagonal pupils rotated twice, the speed of her light rings visibly increasing. She seemed not to have expected Lin Qingzhou to skip all intermediate steps and ask this directly; her processing rhythm was disrupted for a moment.

"What did you say?"

"You said she is still here. You wouldn't be able to keep her here if there wasn't a way."

Lin Qingzhou turned to look at Zero, the ring of silver-purple light in his eyes particularly distinct in the dimness. "How can I make her wake up?"

Zero fell silent.

It was not that she did not want to answer, but that she was searching.

The volume of data in her mind was too vast—the Divine Realm, the laws of the universe, soul energy—all churned together, requiring her to sift through them line by line.

After sifting for a long while, her tone remained flat when she spoke, but the interval between each word was shorter than before, as if her processing had accelerated.

"The God Throne of End. Once you inherit the God Throne of End and become the master of this Divine Realm, you can call upon the core permissions of the Divine Realm."

"This ice coffin was condensed using the last bit of complete divine power in the Divine Realm. It can maintain her remnant soul so it does not continue to dissipate, but it cannot repair it. Repairing requires more divine power, and divine power can only be called upon by the holder of the God Throne."

She paused, then added: "To put it bluntly, you are not qualified right now. But you can become qualified."

Lin Qingzhou stared at her for a long time, then suddenly laughed. It was not a happy laugh, but a bitter, astringent one. He sat down on the floor, his back against the ice coffin.

"Do you know that everything you told me before—about the Divine Realm, the God Kings, the God of End—I didn't take in a single word? At the time, I only thought of one thing: Na'er died and I lived; that was a hell of a bad deal."

"And now?"

Zero lowered her head to look at him, the rotation speed of her light rings returning to a normal rhythm.

"Now it's different."

Lin Qingzhou leaned the back of his head against the edge of the ice coffin and closed his eyes.

"As long as there is a way, that's enough. Even if you say I have to wait a hundred years, two hundred years, as long as there is a way, I will wait. This girl traded her life for mine to live; I can't just waste that."

Zero did not respond. She stood before Lin Qingzhou, just watching him, as if observing a math problem that had suddenly developed a new variable.

She was the management system of the End-of-All Divine Realm, a semi-sentient lifeform. From the moment she was born, there had been only one directive.

Protect the Divine Realm, extend the possibility of the Divine Realm's existence.

She did not understand why death caused humans pain, nor did she understand why someone who had no interest in a God Throne would suddenly reignite their fighting spirit just because of the possibility that a girl might still exist.

Her database contained a vast amount of descriptions regarding human emotions, but she could read the words without understanding the meaning.

It was like holding a map but being unable to read the place names; every road was clear, but the destination remained unknown.

Now, Lin Qingzhou sat before her, clutching his duck-patterned pajamas, his tone of voice shifting from the dead ash of moments ago to a certain sinking, resolute determination.

She had witnessed the entire process of this transformation, yet she could not calculate the logic behind it.

Thus, she began to compute. The light rings of her hexagonal pupils spun faster and faster, emitting a faint buzzing sound.

The rules of the physical world, the boundary conditions of universal laws, human psychological models—all sorts of data were pulled from her database and pieced together, attempting to assemble a formula that could reasonably explain all of this.

"Though, you do have to do me a favor. How do I deal with the Silver Dragon King aura on me? I can't exactly go wandering around with this bloodline, can I? The probability of me getting beaten to death would be pretty high."

Lin Qingzhou joked with a touch of helplessness. This was indeed a problem; no matter how one looked at it, Na'er's bloodline was within him. If he ran into Gu Yue out there, wouldn't that be the end of it?

But Zero did not even need to think before she provided the answer.

"You don't need to worry about that. The End-of-All Divine Realm is the best concealment you could ask for. On the Douluo Continent, the highest-ranking entity is merely the Silver Dragon King, who was once a First-Class God."

"But her strength is greatly compromised now; she is nowhere near her peak. Although the End-of-All Divine Realm is dilapidated, it was once a divine realm that nearly reached the God Star level. Masking her perception is still quite simple."

After saying this, Zero paused. The crackling sound of electricity echoed throughout the Holy Temple, and it was a long while before she spoke again.

"After a secondary scan, it has been discovered that the Douluo plane possesses two Second-Class Gods, one First-Class God, and one divine sense at the God King level. The specific God King rank is unknown; contact is required for further investigation."

Lin Qingzhou felt his heart settle after hearing Zero's words. As for the several god-level powerhouses Zero mentioned, Lin Qingzhou naturally knew who they were. He did not ask further, instead sitting in silence.

"What is this state of yours called in human language?" she suddenly asked.

Lin Qingzhou opened one eye: "What state?"

"After seeing hope, you switched from a state of stagnation to a state of action. What is the logic behind this switch?"

Lin Qingzhou paused. He even began to wonder if this artificial intelligence named Zero was as much of a "digital idiot" as the AI on Blue Star.

But since his future and Na'er's resurrection were both in her hands, Lin Qingzhou thought about it, only to find he couldn't come up with any profound explanation.

"There's no logic. When she's gone, I don't want to do anything; when she's still here, I want to do everything. It's that simple."

Zero was still calculating, her halo spinning faster.

She frowned slightly. This expression was something she had downloaded from a human database, but she didn't quite know how to use it yet; the timing and intensity of the frown were slightly off.

Lin Qingzhou interrupted her: "Alright, stop calculating. I have serious matters to ask you."

"Ask."

"I can't go back to Proud Arrival City. Di Tian must still be looking for me, and I can't get past Gu Yue either. This is the Sun Moon Federation's territory; I can't hide my identity here. I need to go somewhere else."

Zero stored the data she hadn't finished calculating, paused her analysis program, and asked where he intended to go.

"The original Douluo Continent landmass," Lin Qingzhou said.

"Somewhere in the Star Luo Empire or the Heaven Dou Empire. That area is close to the Star Dou Forest and close to Gu Yue. But sometimes, the closer you are to the enemy, the safer you are. Besides, I'm familiar with the terrain there, and the Soul Master factions aren't as concentrated as they are in the Sun Moon Federation, making it easier to hide."

"I've just absorbed Na'er's bloodline and my foundation is unstable; any random Soul Saint could crush me. I need to find a place to develop safely first."

Zero indicated she did not understand the term "develop."

"It means cultivation."

Lin Qingzhou spoke casually, using internet slang from his previous life without bothering to change it. "I have a Martial Soul now, Innate Soul Power, and the Silver Dragon King's bloodline. But I don't even know how to use them. Before I figure that out, I don't want to run into Di Tian again."

"A rational survival strategy," Zero gave a mechanical but pertinent evaluation.

Lin Qingzhou leaned against the ice coffin, his mind already beginning to map out a route.

To the east of Proud Arrival City is the sea; he would need a ship to cross to the original Douluo Continent landmass.

He didn't have a ship. But since Zero had casually torn open a spatial rift to save him from Di Tian earlier, that level of spatial teleportation ability should be able to cross the sea.

He asked Zero if she could teleport him into the territory of the Star Luo Empire.

"Cross-continental precision teleportation requires the consumption of a large amount of divine power," Zero said.

"The current divine power reserves of the Divine Realm are only enough to maintain basic operations and cannot be squandered. However, I can assist you with short-distance, low-precision teleportation to get you to a safe location. You will have to find your own way for the rest of the journey."

"That works."

Lin Qingzhou did not haggle. His impression of Zero now was that she was straightforward; if she could do something, she said so, and if she couldn't, she provided the reason directly, leaving no room for guesswork.

He was very comfortable with this style of communication; it even felt somewhat intimate.

Zero glanced at him again, her halo spinning twice more.

She was still trying to understand this human. A moment ago, he had been slumped on the ground like a machine with a power failure, yet now he was already planning an escape route.

The trigger for this change was only one thing.

He knew that Na'er's remnant soul still had a chance to be repaired. Just that one condition was enough to reassemble a person on the verge of collapse.

To her, this was inconceivable. A godhood was the highest authority in the universe; countless deities had seen their entire divine realms fall for the sake of one.

But Lin Qingzhou had absolutely no interest in godhood itself; he was only willing to pursue it once he learned it could save Na'er.

He wasn't seeking godhood for himself, but for another person. This logic had no corresponding equation in her database.

She had intended to ask, "Will you always be like this?" but after running a calculation, she deemed the question to have no practical value for the moment and did not speak.

"Preparing for teleportation." Zero raised her right hand and tapped her fingertip in the air. Space split open silently like paper being cut. On the other side of the rift, a grayish-white coastline and heavy fog over the sea were vaguely visible.

Lin Qingzhou stood up, folded Na'er's little duck pajamas, and tucked them into his chest.

The warhammer was wedged on his back, the magazine pouch hung at his waist, and the alloy medicine box was kept close to his body.

He took one last look at the ice coffin; those closed eyes remained closed, and the frost on her eyelashes had yet to melt.

He said nothing, turned, and walked into the rift. Zero followed behind him, her steps as precise as ever, each footfall landing on the exact same line.

The rift closed, and the temple returned to silence. The faint silver light within the ice coffin pulsed slowly, flickering in and out like the heartbeat of someone in hibernation.