The Possibility of Resurrection, A New Beginning (3K)

The figure in the ice coffin was Na'er.

Lin Qingzhou got to his feet and braced both hands against the coffin. Only up close could he make her out clearly.

Her eyes were closed, a thin layer of frost clinging to her lashes. Her silver hair fanned out in the ice, like a stream frozen in place.

Her skin was so pale it was nearly translucent. A last trace of color remained on her lips, making her look as though she were only asleep.

But her chest did not rise. She was not breathing.

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

Not blurred by the frost. Her soul itself was incomplete. Some parts looked as though they had been torn away, and wisps of silver light occasionally drifted from the ragged edges, extinguishing the moment they left the ice.

"You said there was residual energy of the same origin..."

Lin Qingzhou's voice caught in his throat, trembling faintly. "What does that mean?"

Zero stood two steps behind him, her voice as flat as ever.

"When the sacrifice occurred, she stripped away everything she had and transferred it to you."

"Her soul was included. But halfway through the sacrifice, the binding protocol of the Ruins of the Divine Realm inside your body was triggered, causing a spatial disturbance. Before her soul could be fully broken down, the disturbance intercepted a portion of it."

She paused, as if arranging her words.

"It is incomplete. I cannot estimate how much remains, as I have no reference sample. In its current state, you can think of it as an empty shell with no consciousness. The main body of the soul has dissipated. What remains is what had not yet vanished."

"Is she still alive?" Lin Qingzhou asked.

"Not alive. Existing."

Zero corrected him very seriously, with a stubbornness that bordered on pedantry. "Her vital signs are zero. Her consciousness activity is zero. But the energy of the same origin has not completely dispersed, so she is not entirely dead, either. She is somewhere between the two. It is difficult to define in words."

Lin Qingzhou pressed his hand against the ice coffin. The bone-piercing cold seeped into his palm and crawled all the way to his elbow. He did not pull away. He left his hand there.

"What does it take?"

The hexagonal pupils in Zero's eyes spun twice, and the light ring around them sped up noticeably. She had not expected Lin Qingzhou to skip every intermediate question and ask this directly. Her train of calculations faltered for a moment.

"What did you say?"

"You said she's still here. You couldn't have put her here without there being a way."

Lin Qingzhou turned to look at Zero. The silver-purple light in his eyes stood out sharply in the gloom. "How can we wake her up?"

Zero fell silent.

It was not that she did not want to answer. She was searching.

The data stored in her mind was vast: the Divine Realm, the laws of the universe, soul energy. It was all tangled together, and she had to sift through it piece by piece.

After a long while, she spoke. Her voice was still flat, but the pauses between her words were shorter than before, as if her calculations had sped up.

"The God Throne of End. Once you inherit the God Throne of the God of End and become the master of this Divine Realm, you will be able to call upon the Divine Realm's core permissions."

"I condensed this ice coffin using the last bit of intact divine power in the Divine Realm. It can keep her remnant soul from dissipating further, but it cannot repair it. Repairing her will require more divine power, and only the holder of a god throne can call upon that."

She paused, then added, "Put simply, you're not qualified right now. But you can become qualified."

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

"You know, when you were telling me all that stuff earlier about the Divine Realm, the God Kings, and the God of End, I didn't hear a single word. At the time, I could only think of one thing: Na'er died and I lived. That was a rotten bargain."

"And now?"

Zero looked down at him. The ring of light resumed its normal pace.

"Now it's different."

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

"Having a way is enough. Even if you said it would take a hundred years, two hundred years, as long as there's a way, I'll wait. That girl traded her life for mine. I can't let it all go to waste."

Zero did not reply. She stood in front of Lin Qingzhou, watching him like a math problem with a new variable that had appeared out of nowhere.

She was the management system of the End-of-All Divine Realm, a semi-intelligent life-form. From the moment she was born, she had only one directive.

Protect the Divine Realm. Preserve the possibility of its continued existence.

She did not understand why death caused humans pain. She did not understand why someone who had no interest in a god throne would find his fighting spirit again just because there was a chance a girl might still exist.

Her database contained countless descriptions of human emotions, but she could read the words without understanding their meaning.

It was like holding a map without being able to read the place names. Every road was clear, but the destination remained unknown.

Now Lin Qingzhou sat before her, clutching a duck-print pajama top. The hopelessness in his voice had shifted into a sort of deep-rooted resolve.

She had witnessed the entire change, but she could not calculate its logic.

So she began running calculations. The rings of light in her hexagonal pupils spun faster and faster, making a faint buzzing sound.

Rules of the physical world, boundary conditions of the laws of the universe, models of human psychology—she pulled all sorts of data from her database and pieced them together, trying to assemble a formula that could reasonably explain everything.

"Still, there is something I need your help with. How do I deal with the Silver Dragon King's aura on me? I can't go wandering around with this bloodline all over me. There's a good chance I'll get beaten to death."

Lin Qingzhou's teasing carried a hint of helplessness. It was a real problem. No matter how you looked at it, Na'er's bloodline was inside him. If he ran into Gu Yue out there, he'd be done for.

But Zero answered without even pausing to think.

"You don't need to worry about that. The End-of-All Divine Realm is the best cover for you. On Douluo Continent, the highest-ranked being was once the First-Level God, the Silver Dragon King."

"But her strength has suffered greatly. She is nowhere near her peak. Although the End-of-All Divine Realm has fallen into ruin, it once nearly reached the level of a God Star. Hiding you from her perception will be easy."

After saying this, Zero paused. Crackling static echoed through the entire Holy Temple. Only after a long while did she slowly speak again.

"After a second search, I found that the Douluo Plane has two Second-Level Gods, one First-Level God, and a divine sense at the God King level. The specific rank of the God King is unknown. I will need to make contact to investigate."

After hearing Zero's words, Lin Qingzhou let out a breath he had been holding. He knew who the several god-level powerhouses she mentioned were, but he did not ask. He simply sat there in silence.

"What do you call this state, in human language?" she suddenly asked.

Lin Qingzhou opened one eye. "What state?"

"After seeing hope, you switched from being at a standstill to taking action. What is the logic behind that switch?"

Lin Qingzhou paused. He even wondered if this artificial intelligence called Zero was a complete idiot, like the bean-paste buns on Blue Star.

But his future, and Na'er's resurrection, were both in her hands. He thought it over anyway, only to find he had no profound explanation to offer.

"There's no logic to it. When she was gone, I didn't want to do anything. Now that she's still here, I want to do everything. It's that simple."

Zero kept calculating, the rings of light spinning faster.

Her brows furrowed slightly. She had downloaded this expression from her human database, but had not quite learned how to use it. The timing and degree of the frown were a little off.

Lin Qingzhou interrupted her. "All right, stop calculating. I have something important to ask you."

"Ask."

"I can't go back to Aolai City. Di Tian is definitely still looking for me, and I can't get around Gu Yue, either. This place is Sun Moon Federation territory, and I can't hide with this identity. I need to go somewhere else."

Zero saved the data she had not finished calculating and paused the analysis program. Then she asked where he planned to go.

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

"Either the Star Luo Empire or the Heaven Dou Empire. Those places are close to the Star Dou Forest, and close to Gu Yue, too. But sometimes, being close to your enemy is safer. Besides, I know the terrain there, and the Soul Master factions aren't as concentrated as they are in the Sun Moon Federation. It'll be easier to hide."

"I've only just absorbed Na'er's bloodline, and my foundation is unstable. Any Soul Saint could crush me. I need to find somewhere safe and build myself up first."

Zero said she did not understand the word "build myself up."

"It means cultivate."

Lin Qingzhou spoke casually, with a bit of internet slang from his previous life mixed into his words. He could not be bothered to change it. "I have a Martial Soul now, and Innate Soul Power. I have the Silver Dragon King Bloodline, too. But I don't even know how to use any of it. Until I do, I don't want to run into Di Tian again."

"A reasonable survival strategy," Zero gave a mechanical but fair assessment.

Leaning against the ice coffin, Lin Qingzhou had already begun planning his route.

East of Aolai City was the sea. To reach the original Douluo Continent landmass, he would need a ship.

He did not have one. But Zero had casually torn open a spatial rift and rescued him from right under Di Tian's nose. With spatial teleportation of that level, she should be able to cross the sea.

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

"Precise intercontinental teleportation would consume a large amount of divine power," Zero said.

"The Divine Realm's current reserves of divine power are only enough to maintain basic operations. They cannot be squandered. But I can help you with a short-range, low-precision teleportation to a safe location. You'll have to figure out the rest of the journey yourself."

"That works, too."

Lin Qingzhou did not haggle. His impression of Zero was that she spoke plainly. If she could do something, she said so; if she could not, she gave him the reason. He did not have to guess.

He was very comfortable with that kind of communication. It even felt a little familiar.

Zero looked at him again. The rings of light spun twice more.

She was still trying to understand this human. Just a moment ago, he had been sprawled on the ground like his power had been cut. Now he was already planning an escape route.

There had been only one trigger for this change.

He had learned that Na'er's remnant soul still had a chance to be repaired. That one thing had put a man on the verge of collapse back together.

To her, it was incomprehensible. A god throne was the highest authority in the universe. Countless gods had sacrificed their entire Divine Realm for one.

But Lin Qingzhou had no interest in the god throne itself. He was willing to claim it only after learning it could save Na'er.

He was not claiming the god throne for himself, but for someone else. There was no corresponding equation for this logic in her database.

She had meant to ask, "Will you always be like this?" But after running the calculations, she decided the question had no practical value for now, and said nothing.

"Prepare for teleportation." Zero raised her right hand and tapped the air with her fingertip. Space silently split open like a sheet of paper being cut. Through the rift, a gray-white coastline and heavy fog over the sea were faintly visible.

Lin Qingzhou stood up, folded Na'er's duck-print pajama top, and tucked it against his chest.

The warhammer was strapped to his back, the magazine pouch hung at his waist, and he secured the alloy medicine box close to his body.

He took one last look back at the ice coffin. Those closed eyes were still closed, and the frost on her lashes had not melted.

He said nothing. Turning away, he stepped through the rift. Zero followed, her steps as precise as ever, each one landing on the same straight line.

The rift closed, and the Divine Hall fell silent again. The faint silver light in the ice coffin flickered slowly, brightening and dimming like the heartbeat of something hibernating through winter.