Glorious God Throne

[AFK mode disabled.]

[The Nightmare Fragment instance time has accelerated to five years later, your character’s growth path has undergone major changes.]

[You now stand at a crucial destiny node.]

Under the starlight shining upon the deep sea, Bai Yi opened his eyes amidst the familiar feeling of suffocation, seeing the system’s narration appearing before him.

The boundless dark sky poured down, enveloping everything in the darkness of night, while an intense bloody smell wafted through the air.

In Bai Yi’s view was a strange wizard tower collapsed amidst fire and thick fog, along with wizard apprentice corpses scattered everywhere. He stood bewildered among the bodies, first looking down at his own black wizard robe—wizard apprentices generally wore gray robes, only formal wizards would choose black or white robes based on their school and organization. This was the simplest way to distinguish between wizards and apprentices.

Five years had passed, and as a veteran who had reset nearly a thousand times, it wasn’t surprising for this character to become a formal wizard.

But the question was, where was he now? What was he doing? The moment he took over the game character after AFK mode ended, he was faced with the scene of an entire wizard organization being slaughtered – wasn’t this too intense?

Could this be the legendary protagonist treatment, where the entire sect is wiped out leaving only one survivor at the start? Truly worthy of being called a crucial destiny node.

At this moment, his thoughts couldn’t help but scatter in various directions.

Gululu…

While Bai Yi was deep in thought, a slight rolling sound rang by his ear, sounding particularly clear in the quiet night.

He moved his gaze, stepped forward, and bent down to pick up something that had just rolled off a wizard apprentice’s body. He discovered it was a round badge with a “Black Eye” carved in magic runes that continuously emitted rays in all directions.

“This is… the symbol of the ‘Black Flame’ organization?”

The time spent browsing the wizard world encyclopedia in the library hadn’t been wasted after all, as he recognized the badge’s origin at a glance.

Bai Yi suddenly looked toward the collapsed wizard tower in the distance, and indeed saw the shattered “Black Eye” stone carving among the vast ruins, with unextinguished magical energy still rippling through the broken patterns.

He finally showed a look of realization on his face, slapping his left hand with his right. “So, it’s this Black Flame organization that was wiped out, not related to my White Tower Academy?”

Then came the question – why was he here?

Instead of staying at White Tower Academy to continue his studies and improve his strength in preparation for avoiding the Return to the Void, why had he inexplicably appeared in an organization thousands of miles away that had been slaughtered, while the mastermind behind Black Flame’s destruction might still be watching from the shadows, thus exposing himself to their view…

Bai Yi was full of questions: What happened to just wanting to survive?

As a character whose survival instinct was so strong he could exploit bugs to “reset” even in nightmare instances through constant refreshing, appearing on such an obviously dangerous map in the dead of night where he might be silenced – wasn’t this courting death?

However, considering this character’s qualities and ability to reset nearly a thousand times, his actions must have had purpose. He wouldn’t leave White Tower Academy and waste precious time on meaningless things without reason…

So, perhaps his reset self knew there were “items” here he needed to help achieve his survival goals, so he deliberately came to scavenge during this timing when Black Flame was destroyed?

If that was the case, it would make sense.

Bai Yi, whose soul essence was long since not human, thought far faster than ordinary people, these seemingly chaotic thoughts flashing through his mind in an instant. He actively cast a detection spell, releasing it outward with himself at the center.

In any case, better scout the surroundings first.

Even if there really was a terrifyingly powerful dark wizard hidden nearby, not only did this character’s level seem quite high now, but players weren’t afraid of death anyway.

Bodies, bodies, bodies.

Walking along, besides collapsed buildings, there were lifeless corpses everywhere, mostly wizard apprentices but quite a few formal wizards too. The moaning night wind brushed past the dead’s robes, making it seem like a silent graveyard under the cover of night.

Moreover, wizards’ essence was already extraordinary, and after death, special waves still continuously emanated from their energy cores, gathering together with the thick death qi and resentment, as if wraiths might be born at any moment. Such a place of death, compared to Blue Star, was almost equivalent to a nuclear leak site – get too close and you’d be contaminated by radiation.

Suddenly, Bai Yi’s footsteps stopped beside a corpse. His passive talent Rhythm of All Things told him there was still a weak life force here. Within a thousand meters around him, this was probably the only living person left.

“There’s actually a survivor?” Bai Yi blurted out, but quickly realized his words were problematic.

What did he mean by survivor? He wasn’t some heartless mastermind villain, cough, let’s start over—

Pretending nothing had happened, he stepped back twice, then walked forward again, and just as he came to that corpse, his footsteps paused as if sensing something, letting out a surprised light exclamation. “I’ve actually found a new guide NPC?!”

…Could this be why his character appeared here? The reset survivor using foreknowledge to save an important tool character who could help him…that was a common plot after all.

Thinking this, Bai Yi was about to cast a healing spell, when suddenly the corpse below moved. A blood-covered hand seemed to use all its strength to shift the corpse pressing down on top, creating a gap, and the person trapped underneath used their last strength to call for help. “Help

But this voice sounded as faint as a mosquito’s buzz to Bai Yi’s ears. In his sensing, the person’s life flame was like a tiny light on a pile of kindling, about to go out at any moment.

Bai Yi’s eyes lit up. This could very well be an important tool character related to completing the quest – how could he casually let them die?

“Coming, coming, don’t give up on being saved!” He kicked away the corpse covering them, while simultaneously grabbing the outstretched hand.

Mental power sketched out the healing spell formula, as elemental law forces gathered toward him.

An intentionally strengthened healing spell was ready to cast.

The person whose hand he grabbed had finally seen daylight again and struggled to open their eyes. But before the joy of surviving disaster and gratitude for being rescued could bloom in their gaze, it had already frozen.

“Aaagh—”

As if seeing something more terrifying than anything in their life, intense fear and horror suddenly burst forth in that person’s frozen gaze. The hand Bai Yi held struggled desperately, their whole body struggling and trembling. But at this moment they were extremely weak, their struggles so feeble as to be negligible, and as they gradually realized this, their gaze slowly filled with despair.

As if their soul had been grabbed by a devil from hell.

“What’s wrong?” The person’s struggles, though weak, had interrupted Bai Yi’s rhythm as he was about to cast the healing spell.

The young man who bent down holding their hand looked confused, only slowly revealing a smile at the corner of his lips, saying in a light tone:

“Don’t worry, with me here you definitely…” won’t die!

“Ugh—!”

Under his smile, the despair in that person’s pupils grew deeper and deeper, their body constantly shaking, and in the next second their life force was cut off.

The already weak life force was actually scared to death in a moment of extreme terror.

Bai Yi: “…”

He straightened up, seeing through everything from the other’s reaction, his expression gradually becoming solemn. “An unexpected path has appeared – the great villain turns out to be myself?”

He had thought he was an innocent bystander who might be silenced, but never imagined the mastermind was himself!

“So, I don’t need to hurry away now? Or rather, should I be worried about truly innocent bystanders who might appear here and righteous heroes pursuing the villain?”

To ensure the safety of innocent bystanders, Bai Yi specially sensed around once through Rhythm of All Things, confirming no new life forces had appeared within sensing range, before casually choosing a piece of wizard tower ruins to sit on and opening his game panel.

[AFK mode activated, character destiny simulation in progress.]

[Game character “Palmer” inherently possesses traits: [Obsessive] [Strong Survival Instinct] [Fear of Death] [Survival First] [999 Reset Complete Spell Mastery Experience], and under the player’s nurturing and influence, has added [Studious] [Thinking Pattern Different from Normal People] [Research Fanatic] [Special Knowledge Not of This World] [New Understanding of Spells] [New Applications of Mental Power and Soul Energy] [Extreme Self-Confidence] and other personality traits.]

[Your character “Palmer” with “Survival First” as his goal, combined with extreme obsession, this world’s ceiling of spell accumulation, and knowledge from another world, is unmatched in talent, innovative thinking, and drive to action.]

[In the first year of being left to develop, your character “Palmer” started over from wizard apprentice, breaking through to become a formal wizard with overwhelming momentum, showing talent potential that shocked White Tower.]

[In the second year of being left to develop, your character “Palmer” relearned many spells, constantly regaining strength from before resets. Outwardly this manifested as mastering any spell upon first learning it, absorbing truth knowledge far faster than normal people, as if having perfect memory.]

[Your character “Palmer” became recognized as a genius by the academy, unlocking browsing rights to more areas of the library.]

[But having reset 999 times, “Palmer” no longer needed to study known knowledge in the academy. For your character “Palmer”, only knowledge from another world was completely new knowledge, and thinking patterns from another world also greatly inspired him.]

[In the third year of being left to develop, your character “Palmer” gradually began combining this world’s truth knowledge with another world’s truth knowledge, modifying many spells from his original memories, viewing this world from a completely new perspective, constantly creating new spells in this process. He published some to the academy, solidifying his genius persona while gaining wizard rank promotions, and took the chance to apply for a personal laboratory.]

[In the fourth year of being left to develop, your character “Palmer” proposed a new system within the Life School’s original system, causing widespread controversy, with both supporters and opponents.]

[But many Life School spells were indeed improved and innovated to become stronger by your character “Palmer”. Regardless of whether they agreed with his research direction, no one questioned his talent and strength. Your character “Palmer” was viewed by the Life School as the next “Truth” to cultivate, and received a void crystal as reward for his contributions to the Life School.]

[Note: “Truth” refers to the highest existence among wizards in this world. Each “Truth” wizard has created at least one new system, whether dark wizard or white wizard. They are thus crowned with the title of “Truth”.]

[Void crystal is a special material of spatial attributes, extremely precious and essential material for constructing wizard tower cores.]

[In the fifth year of being left to develop, your character “Palmer” had secretly regained all his strength, returning to the pinnacle of this world, while continuing to advance deeply on the path of research.]

[Combining 999 resets of failure experience, plus your gifted otherworld knowledge and thinking inspiration, your character “Palmer” long since had a clear goal.]

[“–World destruction is inevitable destiny. The only way to save oneself is when Return to the Void descends, taking advantage of the world’s laws being sealed, to pass through the cracked world barrier, leave this world of certain death, then traverse the endless void, seeking other worlds that may exist with hope of life in the void.”]

[Having witnessed countless world destructions, your character “Palmer” deeply knew that to accomplish all this, he needed a “ship” solid enough to protect himself, resist Return to the Void’s erosion to enter the void, and still withstand void storms’ baptism.]

[And such a “ship” needed special energy to drive it.]

[When Return to the Void descends, world laws will be eroded, all energy composed of world laws becomes unstable. In 999 resets and research, your character “Palmer” realized that the energy with best resistance effect against Return to the Void’s erosion is a kind of force suddenly born in the instant of a living being’s death.]

[That is a force opposite to death, destruction, ending… of extremely high essence.]

[He named it “Force of Life”, “Source”.]

[Your character Palmer thus began soul experiments.]

[Your character “Palmer” deeply researched soul spells. In 999 resets, he had walked this path before, having rich experience researching soul spells, but after adding more otherworld knowledge, this had become a completely new path.]

[Your character “Palmer” began secretly hunting dark wizards, buying death row inmates from mortal kingdoms, hunting various oddities… researching different beings’ souls and life force.]

[Using humans as materials is dark wizard behavior, researching human souls is even more taboo among wizards.]

[Three months after your character “Palmer” secretly began soul research, he was accidentally discovered by White Tower Academy.]

[Your character “Palmer” revealed Truth level strength, escaped from the academy’s supervision, becoming a dark wizard.]

[After a period of observation and research, your character “Palmer” decided to start with the dark wizard organization “Black Flame”, occupy “Black Flame’s” territory to restart research, collect “Black Flame’s” life force, condensing the life crystal he envisioned.]

Whoosh!

Under Bai Yi’s watching gaze, rune after rune suddenly lit up on the ground, forming a huge array pattern.

Points of soul light rose from each corpse, continuously flowing along transparent array patterns in mid-air, like water flowing into pipes, constantly gathering toward the center.

Countless lights in mid-air entangled, overlapped, gathered, compressed, like an illusory sun, the radiance emanating from within making Bai Yi’s soul instinctively feel intimate and comfortable.

“So this is ‘Force of Life’? Or rather, ‘Source’?”

Bai Yi curiously sensed that continuously compressing energy ball.

Though this ritual looked quite simple and crude, very much like those evil cult ceremonies harvesting souls or flesh.

But in reality, although the energy gathering in the array was connected to every dead person, this energy didn’t actually come from themselves, but more like using their state from life to death in that instant, using the array to leverage force from the world.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

Activating his own Principle of All Things, Bai Yi observed carefully.

In this world, laws had high and low, extraordinary powers had strong and weak, but even the strongest wizard couldn’t create intelligent life. Human life came from the world’s bestowal, was a miracle created by the world. Therefore, every life created by the world had invisible connections with this world.

And these connections were easiest to capture only in the instant when a living being died, the moment when the soul returned to the world.

–The principle of this array was probably just that.

In the instant of a living being’s death, following that point of connection between the living being and the world, robbing that bit of miracle power bestowed by the world that let them be born, that is, “life force”.

–This was power from the world’s source.

Having seen through everything, Bai Yi praised without reservation:

“Impressive, worthy of being a man who reset 999 times!”

Speaking of this, he expressed confusion at the system choosing to stop idling at this time node. “Isn’t Palmer doing very well? Why not just let him continue like this?”

He had thought ending idle mode would directly reach the simulation endpoint, maybe even directly complete the quest objective, but the system only simulated to this so-called crucial destiny node before ending?

–It couldn’t be wanting him to choose for the character to return from straying, undo the dark history, return to the white wizard camp?

Bai Yi felt the system must have some misunderstanding about him?

No, should say did the system’s original creator have some misunderstanding about him? Was the first Bai Yi this kind?

Lost in random thoughts, the light ball in mid-air slowly contracted.

Bai Yi’s gaze was immediately attracted over.

“Under normal circumstances, large-scale harvesting of Source would definitely damage the world’s source, harming the entire world, but this world is about to be gone anyway, so destroying the world doesn’t matter. Even if I don’t destroy it, it will be destroyed by Return to the Void…”

He took over Palmer’s work, quietly waiting for the crystal in mid-air to finish condensing, then collected it.

“Great! The next goal is to continue researching, collecting ‘Source’, then build the ‘ship’…” Bai Yi sensed this crystal’s energy while starting to plan for the next instance, “Oh right, Palmer’s methods gave me inspiration. The same level force that can resist Return to the Void’s erosion is only the world’s Source, but Source is not only life force…”

The Principle of All Things that made virtual into real, in that moment of virtual-real transformation, didn’t it leverage the world’s Source power? It’s just that he had never tried to capture this power before.

There was also “Destiny”…this was a fundamental rule existing in countless worlds that allowed him this “savior” to be born.

If he could collect destiny force, then could the power born from changing countless people’s destinies create miracles?