Belial's eyelids twitched slightly, and the tendrils of Gravity Manipulation stirred back and forth as if confirming something. Shards of dark domain Shard were dragged into the energy field to be torn apart and devoured, but their nature was now completely different from before. He could not detect anything anymore, as if whatever power remained had vanished without a trace, leaving only ordinary gathered Dark Power.
"Is it gone? No, where did it go? I was staring right at it just now, how did it suddenly…"
He swept the area repeatedly and probed farther out, but no matter what he did, he could not detect any trace of the previous activity. The thing he had just beaten also seemed to have no soul aura at all, and Belial could not find it for the moment. It was far too strange for something that big to vanish right under his eyes without any sign.
"Could it have been blasted to death… no, what I caused just now felt like a wound, and even that energy mark vanished. It really ran away, using some method I have never seen."
He was sure he had hit its true body and left a wound and mark, so for even his own energy fluctuations to disappear meant something was wrong. If it were dead, there would be traces left behind, but with nothing at all, it clearly fled. It was weaker than him, yet exceptionally good at escaping, the kind of opponent Belial had always disliked.
While he was still unwillingly searching everywhere, Ham in the Observation Station let out a sigh as well.
"As expected, it still did not work. Catching it like that was wishful thinking."
"It ran away? How did it manage that?"
Bella did not bother probing, partly because the earlier detectors had already been destroyed by area damage, and partly because if Belial could not find it, she certainly would not. She wisely chose to ask Ham directly, and Ham spread his hands and began to explain.
"First, you need to understand why it cannot be killed. It is essentially a phenomenon of the World's self-repair mechanism that happened to produce a vague conscious entity."
"A phenomenon can be intensified under the control of that consciousness, forming the vortex you saw. But if the consciousness relocates, or chooses not to trigger the phenomenon here, then it naturally disappears, you get it?"
"What we saw was not an individual lifeform or god, but a phenomenon, like a volcanic eruption, an earthquake, or a tsunami. It is not even some abstract concept, just a manifestation, like the insignificant hair and nail clippings that keep growing on a human body."
Ham sighed again, feeling that expectations had dropped to White Tier. If they could have directly captured that consciousness, there would have been no need to worry about what came next. But now it had backed off from Belial and immediately run away, making future variables unavoidable.
Ham was not entirely sure what that consciousness intended to do, whether it was to reclaim the sun, merge back into one, or something else. But it was certain that none of it would end well for the World. The sun, or rather the God of Light, was far too important, since this broken World depended on it to function, and losing it would mean the foundation was gone.
At that point, no matter how powerful the top lane was, it would be useless. It would be like losing the crystal and instantly losing the game, and this time they would not find a second refuge.
"So that thing will keep causing trouble? Based on your past, can you guess what it wants to do?"
Bella leaned in as well, having gained a clearer understanding of the importance of God of Light through recent research. God of Light itself was not a completely independent existence, but more like a server controlled by three aspect gods as administrators. It was not just an important role, but the very foundation of victory or defeat.
From what she had pried out of Ham about the nature of God of Light, Bella finally resolved a major doubt. How did this World, gnawed into ruin by Crimson God, still manage to operate? Countless concepts and rules had been torn apart and devoured by Crimson God, and even ordinary programs would crash if missing key code, let alone the far stricter World.
To put it simply, if you randomly removed one of the four fundamental forces of physics, what do you think would happen? Removing even a single law or basic rule would drastically change the face of the World, not just create bugs but cause a collapse of core logic. Yet in Bella's view, most phenomena in this World still functioned normally, even if many physical laws were no longer expressed.
Apples still fell downward, fire was hot, and water was cold, showing that these core logics were still similar to the intact World she remembered. She could not make sense of it, since when she was first unearthed, she had already tested many rules. Some no longer worked, yet while traveling with Lilith, their manifestations could still be found in this World.
It was as if something was forcibly maintaining the World according to its former intact state, preventing it from collapsing despite constant bugs. Bella felt like she understood something. The Authority of the three aspect gods, Twilight, infinite Stagnation, Dawn, the return to the starting point, and the thing that froze all existence into eternal stillness, Daylight.
When she reached this conclusion, she froze for a moment. This World was truly a bit insane.
"I was wondering why I could not find any records about the so-called Ancient Era. If this is the case, then it explains a lot."
"So Sun was actually made near the end of that great war? After my time? I really do not remember it."
Bella finally understood why, after wandering around The Continent for so many years, she had barely seen any memories tied to the ancient age, or any surviving ruins. By all logic, Nanometal should last almost forever as long as it still had energy, able to replicate nearby matter to regenerate itself. Even without stored reserves, normal earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, or simple exposure on the surface to absorb Sun energy should all count as ways to recharge.
Yet after searching for so long, she had found only leftover Nanometal with almost no activity and no extra stored information. They retained only basic metallic properties and were nowhere near the activated state she herself had. The massive industrial clusters and megastructures that should have existed were also nowhere to be seen.
No matter how much time had passed, it should not have all vanished without a trace, so now the explanation finally made sense. If the entire World had already been torn apart beyond repair shortly after she was destroyed, then of course no ruins could survive. What remained unclear was why she herself, and a few other parts, had become exceptions.
"Uh… that is true, but also not quite."
Ham scratched her head, not too bothered that the truth had been guessed. Anyone who thought it through or deliberately investigated could figure it out, especially since Safas back then was far too good at running around. To keep him from discovering the truth and spreading it, they had Chloe, who was still a Chosen Hero at the time, beat him into behaving himself.
She had told Bella all this mainly out of fear that Bella might remember something else. Seeing that no other memories seemed to surface, Ham finally relaxed. At least for now, it seemed safe.
"So the current World is actually made from the remnants of World Laws, shaped by the Authority of the God of Light?"
Ham nodded, because that was exactly the truth. World was only a shadow of the past reflected in the light, a broken structure leaking from every side. This was not something that could be casually shared, but at this level, hiding it was pointless.
And once it was said, aside from the shock, life still went on. You could not exactly smash this broken shelter just because you knew the truth. In the end, it was still the only place to live.
"So in other words, World is just a giant shelter, and you and Dawn used to be its administrators?"
"In reality, we managed the System itself and fixed bugs. We ran errands, shoveled debris, and did maintenance everywhere, so you cannot expect us to have much combat power, right?"
Where there is light, there is shadow, and that was why Abyss differed from ordinary isolated Void. That deep crimson Void was filled with shattered Shard Laws, resentment, and Dark Power, all of which were the ashes of the old World. Meanwhile, World itself was like light, a replay of past fragments laid over a brutal reality, like two sides of a mirror.
That also explained why there was nothing inside. The rules had been torn apart so badly that normal matter could not even keep basic particle structure, so expecting anything else was unrealistic. That place was Abyss, and it was also what World once had been.