The darkness receded.

Lin Yu woke up once again.

He was still in that pure white room, the pain and destruction he experienced last time seemed like a distant dream.

His body was still intact.

His movements were still free.

And as he stood up and reached out to touch the wall, the wall, just like last time, gradually dissolved into mist.

"You're awake?"

The voice in the void rang out again.

Lin Yu looked up sharply, seemingly wanting to find the source of the voice.

But all he saw was an expansive sky and the sun hanging high.

"Who... are you?"

"What exactly am I seeing...?"

"A dream, perhaps."

The voice said plainly:

"It's hard to explain to you in a language you can understand what exactly that is."

"But you can completely regard it as a dream—a dream we wove for you."

"...What's your purpose?"

Lin Yu glanced at the village in the distance, which had restored to the scale he first saw, his eyes flickering slightly.

He suddenly realized that the world he was in now was different from the world he had 'just' been to.

Here, no matter how far he looked, everything he saw was clear.

In that world, the distant scenery always seemed shrouded in a layer of hazy mist, only becoming clear when approached.

"You noticed?"

"You're very perceptive."

The voice above did not answer Lin Yu's question but continued:

"We could only go this far, after all, it is a nested world."

"To make it as real as the main world, we would need to consume a lot of computing power."

"This is neither necessary nor meaningful."

"So, we employed some cunning methods."

"But, you needn't worry too much."

"The existence of that world is just to allow you to experience and feel directly."

"Now that you've experienced it... when I explain it to you, you'll probably find it easier to understand, right?"

"...I completely cannot understand."

Lin Xu sat down on the soft grass, fragments of images and words constantly flashing through his mind.

Injured Beast.

Close his eyes.

Countdown.

What does it... actually mean?

"You got it wrong."

The voice rang out again.

"Not injured."

"It's entropy."

A word appeared before Lin Xu.

Now used to such phenomena, he just stared at the word with slight confusion and said:

"I've never seen this word before."

"I haven't learned it."

"Of course, you wouldn't learn it."

The voice slowly said:

"In fact, in this world—I mean the real world you originally belonged to, this word hasn't been used for a long time."

"Perhaps those merchants called the 'Ring Chamber of Commerce' might use the word."

"But they can't understand its true meaning either, because..."

"What is its true meaning?"

Lin Yu interrupted, speaking:

"Is it some kind of monster? Or a force?"

"No, it's... a rule."

The voice continued:

"For someone like you who has no basic knowledge of physics, I can't explain what this means in standard ways."

"But, you should remember, in that other world, everyone closed their eyes and counted down in their minds."

"I want to ask, at that time, did you have any other thoughts in your head?"

"...No."

Lin Yu slowly shook his head.

"I was consumed."

"Wrong, it wasn't you who was consumed, but the information."

"You shut down your senses, stopped receiving information, and stopped transmitting information outward."

"In this way... does that village still exist?"

At these words, there was a thud in Lin Yu's heart.

Before he could speak, the voice had already continued.

"Initially, I intended to let you experience all the following plot."

"But now I realize, your understanding is even better than I thought."

"This has nothing to do with the computing power we assigned to you but is due to your inherent way of thinking, which makes it easier for you to accept new things."

"So, we don't need to waste more computing power."

"Next, let me tell you a story."

Lin Yu slowly nodded.

The chaotic thoughts in his head were quickly cleared, and then, a story sounded in his ears.

"A long time ago, there was such a world."

"The people in this world, like those in all other worlds, quietly developed and built, achieving considerable feats."

"But suddenly, one day, an unknown disaster almost destroyed the entire world."

"In the ruins, the survivors gathered and established the village you saw."

"They thought they had survived, that the disaster was over."

"Decades passed in the blink of an eye, and they even saw the traces of their ancestors, almost ready to set foot on the upward path again."

"But at this time, disaster struck once more."

"No one knew what happened; they only knew that everything they painstakingly managed was destroyed again."

"But they were a resilient clan, never afraid to start over from scratch."

"So, after decades of hardship, they once again returned to where they should have started."

"But soon, disaster descended once more."

"Everything was destroyed, and their hopes evaporated in an instant."

"No one knew why."

"They only knew they were facing endless repetitions."

"Finally, one day, a hero, a sage, captured a glimpse of their enemy."

"It was a beast named 'entropy.'

"It fed on chaos and disorder, and this village was the most chaotic vortex in an already silent world."

"The chaotic waves it created shone like a beacon in the night sky, attracting enemies that no one knew where they came from or even if they existed."

"Thus, destruction after destruction occurred, and the survivors of this village finally touched the edge of the truth."

"They began to try returning chaos to order."

"As you saw, they tried many naive, basic, even laughable methods."

"But ultimately, these methods failed to free them from the beast's attacks, instead making the chaos even more chaotic."

"They could only try again and again."

"Until finally, they discovered the secret of chaos."

"They found the answer in ancient wisdom."

"The answer was called biophysics."

"A sage asked a question: Do people's actions make chaos happen faster, or do they make it happen more slowly?"

"No one knew the answer to this question."

"But this gave the people in despair a direction."

"They discussed day and night, and finally, all discussions converged into one question."

"Is so-called free will the result of accelerated entropy increase, or the cause of accelerated entropy increase?"

"To explain it in language you can understand, it would be..."

"Is the soul the result of chaos, or the cause of chaos?"

"And this question ultimately turned into an even more fundamental and plain question."

"Does the soul exist?"

"So, to verify this question, they conducted a grand experiment."

"They used magic to extract everyone's souls and trapped them in a small tomb."

"Here, the souls no longer affected the outside world, nor depended on the body for manifestation."

"If the soul truly exists, then chaos should gradually settle."

"If it doesn't exist, then they had no other way."

"But fortunately."

"They seemed to find the answer."

"Since the souls were imprisoned, the beast had not visited this village for a long time."

"They lived peacefully for hundreds of years."

"And this..."

"Wait."

Lin Yu suddenly interrupted the voice.

Then he spoke up:

"This village is Mountain City."

"Isn't it?"

"No."

The voice suddenly became low.

"Mountain City is just the tomb imprisoning the souls."

"This village is the entire human world!"

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