In the heart of this forbidden zone, time has lost all meaning, and your consciousness as the 'Core of Dimensional Order' spreads like a spider's web through countless planes. You slumber within the eternal statue and awaken in countless worlds. In the bustling 'Transit Star City' of Main God Space, a bloodied reincarnator, fresh from his novice trial, slumps beside a fountain. He watches his sanity plummet and the monsters closing in on him with despair.
Just as he closes his eyes to await death, the surrounding air freezes eerily — not a system pause, but a gentler, more advanced "overlay". The boy opens his eyes and sees a man (or perhaps just a fleeting image of one) in an old black trench coat crouching by a flowerbed. Perched on the man's shoulder is a bright orange cat, staring at the monsters with the scrutinising gaze of someone examining substandard data.
"This watch stopped." The man extends his left hand, which is wearing a fingerless glove, and gently flicking the digital watch on the boy's wrist, which displays the countdown to the mission, producing a click. Time resumed its flow and the once ferocious monster instantly disintegrated into harmless fireflies that vanished into the night sky.
'Who are you?' the boy asked, trembling. The man didn't answer, but simply pulled a bronze gear engraved with a dragon pattern from his trench coat pocket and tossed it into the boy's arms.
'Go tell those high and mighty "Observers",' the man said in a cold voice that held a hint of barely perceptible warmth. 'This machine has a bug called "humanity", and this bug intends to exist forever.' With that, the man and the cat disappeared into the folds of the void.
Deep within the Ruins of Return, you returned to that bench.
Shen Qing sits beside you. Her 'Chang Le Qin' no longer needs strings; a gentle breeze is enough to play a soothing melody. Jin Ling leaps off your shoulder and chases after the fragmented system code drifting in the void, occasionally turning back to call to you lazily.
You gaze into the distance at the countless stars, each composed of countless planes. You no longer try to control or destroy them; you simply act as an observer and a gatekeeper, guarding that sliver of reality in this infinite world.
Final State: Free Heaven – Watcher
Current mission: None
Current sanity: 100% (eternally stable)
You close your eyes and feel the dragon's heart beat for the last time before fading into utter stillness.
[The End – hooray!]
Postscript: All 'infinite flow' stories ultimately lead to some form of loneliness. Thankfully, though, Boss Zhang didn't lose his cat or his qin in the end. This is a story about 'resistance', and also a story about 'going home'.
Thank you for joining me on this journey. It has been an amazing journey. I hope that, in the real world, you can be like Mr Zhang and hold onto your values, even when surrounded by strange and unpredictable circumstances.