The whole truth lay before Xi Yan, impossible to ignore any longer.
Xi Yan had to confront his own heart.
His memories of his previous life, Paradox Interactive, Stellaris, and the thousands of hours he remembered spending on the game had never existed. This undoubtedly invalidated what Xi Yan had held fast to for years. Everything he had believed about his origins was false.
The truth was that this game knowledge had been deliberately packaged this way to help him understand and remember the universe's knowledge and rules.
With that knowledge, Xi Yan had mastered a universe fraught with danger.
"But what about the Shroud, and the End of the Cycle..." Xi Yan thought of the things within the Shroud.
"The Shroud is a refuge for all sacred possessions."
The Time Worm spoke the same words. They were a line from the Poison Saint ending text for Crisis Carrier in his fabricated memories of the past.
"The material world corresponds to reality, and the spiritual world corresponds to the Shroud," the Time Worm said slowly.
"It is a natural treasure vault created by the universe. All our consciousness originates in the Shroud. Souls come from the Shroud and return to it after death. Without the Shroud, civilization as we know it would not exist. The source of consciousness resides there."
"The same idea as Subspace?"
"You mean Warhammer 40K? That's a fictional setting we generated for entertainment based on the history of a parallel world. But yes, the Shroud is similar to Subspace."
"The Shroud is a refuge for all sacred legacies," the Poison Saint said.
The consciousness of intelligent beings was the most wondrous thing. When a life was born, a portion of the Shroud's power split off, forming consciousness within that living being.
After it died, the fragments