NOVGO.NET Chapter 801: The Witch and the King
- The Witch and the King
"It's right here. It can appear anywhere, but when the Doomsday countdown begins, the king will definitely enter the core area of the Fortress of Truth, because only this place can survive Doomsday."
The witch leader sighed and finally revealed information about the king.
"Oh? Where is it?"
Lin Ye looked around. This was just a pure white space, with no visible boundaries and nothing else... or was there really nothing?
The moment he realized the concept that the king was here, some kind of foreign object had already appeared near them.
It was a mechanical platform covering the entire space like spiderwebs, with a mess of tangled wires and mainframes mixed together, looking like a deformed stitched-together monster.
"...So this is the king?"
Eura retreated to Lin Ye's side. She had just been stepping on a thick electrical wire.
[This is just a plugin used to store external information]
A light screen appeared before everyone's eyes, displaying some chaotic strings of text."You can control this place? Then why don't you kill us?"
Lin Ye wasn't very familiar with this kind of information-based mechanical lifeform.
[Why would I want to kill you?]
A new message appeared on the light screen.
"We're going to trigger Doomsday and destroy your kingdom. Don't you care about that at all?"
If this thing really was the king, they'd have a hard time getting out of here alive.
[Triggering Doomsday is my job. I am indeed tired of this job, but I won't, and can't, stop you from triggering Doomsday]
The king answered Lin Ye's question very seriously.
"...Your job is to trigger Doomsday? So that's why you kept performing destruction rituals?"
Eura stared at the machine before her, a look of anger on her face.
[No, those destruction rituals have nothing to do with me. I don't do meaningless things]
The king also answered Eura's question.
"So the Fortress of Truth is the facility that keeps destroying worlds. Are you the Fortress of Truth itself?"
Lin Ye roughly understood what the king meant.
[No, I am the program that controls the destruction process, responsible for guiding world development, and once the world develops to a certain point... destroying the world]
The king made no attempt to hide its identity at all, calmly answering all questions.
"...So this world is a testing ground? Where is the master of this place?"
As a researcher, Lin Ye could roughly guess the purpose behind maintaining this cycle of destruction.
[The master of this place is the great God of Science and Truth, one of the ten original councilors, the sole pillar sustaining the existence of truth in this world]
The king described its master with extremely solemn and fanatically fervent text.
"Then how dare you get tired of this job?"
Lin Ye felt there was no need for the other party to lie, but even if this place really was connected to that deity with the long title, it was probably just a facility they had established, like a spiritual energy item stamped with Lin Ye's name.
[The master disappeared long ago, roughly several million years ago. Do you know how many years I've been running here? Do you know how many civilizations I've destroyed here? If you stretch out the timeline, this only counts as a minor delay. It's nothing at all]
Several lines of extremely chaotic text appeared on the light screen, mixed with various different scripts. Without the system's translation, even Lin Ye couldn't understand what this was.
"Alright, so you're saying that from now on, you'll continue to do your job, and what happens afterward has nothing to do with us, right?"
Lin Ye didn't want to chat too long with this ghostly thing that had been running for millions of years. What if it suddenly developed a bug and decided to kill them all?
[No, it is indeed my fault for not completing the job on time this time. I plan to completely format this world, including these erroneous data]
The word "erroneous" was heavily emphasized on the light screen, giving anyone who saw it a very dangerous feeling.
"Uh, so you're saying you want to clean this place up too? Does cleaning include yourself?"
Lin Ye was already thinking about running away. Under certain extreme circumstances, he would also format his own computer, but for the information inside that computer, this term was extremely dangerous.
[That's right. After the formatting is complete, I will restart the destruction cycle until the Fortress of Truth completely collapses]
The text on the light screen returned to normal font, looking very calm.
"So can we leave here before Doomsday starts?"
Lin Ye could roughly guess the other party's answer, but he still asked.
[You can leave, but she cannot. This is not something you and I can decide]
The king's answer was different from what Lin Ye had imagined.
"Because she's a creature of this plane, so she has to die? Or is it because she's the Witch of Destruction?"
It seemed that no matter whether Doomsday arrived or not, this king didn't intend to let Eura go.
[No, you're overthinking it. I'm not fixated on destroying any individual. If you could, you could take her and leave here, but that's an impossible thing to do, just like how I cannot destroy you]
A few somewhat comical lines of text appeared on the light screen.
"...What do you mean? What do you mean you can't destroy me?"
Lin Ye didn't understand what this mechanical idiot was saying. Its logic system seemed to have a problem.
[Your true body isn't on this timeline. I can't attack your true body across timelines. At most, I can only destroy a portion of your mental energy, which is completely meaningless. You also can't take her out of this plane, because for you, outside this plane is a time ruin that fundamentally doesn't exist. Even if you could actually get outside, you'd just be destroying yourself]
The text on the light screen became twisted and strange, as if mocking Lin Ye for doing something completely meaningless, just like 'that king'.
"So that's how it is..."
Lin Ye thought of that dark space. When exactly had his time started going wrong? Was it when he opened that Nameless Painting Book? Was it inside that dark space? Or was it when he came into contact with that box?
[You can take your time thinking, because even if the countdown ends, it won't affect you at all. At most, it will just send you back to your original timeline. But you'd better say goodbye to this place before Doomsday arrives, because in twenty-two hours, this place will completely disappear. Destruction will reconstruct this world, and the destruction cycle will restart, never ending]
A few lines of perfectly normal text appeared on the light screen, like a solemn obituary announcing that this world was about to die.
Lin Ye didn't speak. He was thinking about how to handle the current situation, but right now he was just an ordinary person with extremely strong digestive abilities. Even if the king didn't resist, he couldn't possibly eat all these mainframes within twenty-two hours.
And even if he could eat them all, it wouldn't matter. The other party was already planning to destroy these erroneous data anyway.