Free Web NovelChapter 612: Chapter 229: The End of Distortion
Every thing has two sides, even those that in philosophical or mathematical terms are considered to have only one side... can seem incomplete due to human perception.
Alpha is that inerasable other side.
Heart of the World and Rule Binding, Bai Wu was still unclear where they were stronger than Immortal, but now he had figured out some things.
In fact, the entire distortion... was a "sickness" of the World Will.
The Well is what was left after the sickness.
Everything in this world can be controlled by rules. There are objective laws, which is why in Bai Wu’s past life... someone could be hit by an apple and still comprehend the beauty and rigor of physics.
The entire history of human development is a process of gradually overcoming "subjectivity" to follow the objective.
But not human hearts, not emotions.
That is a realm even gods cannot measure, since ancient times, human hearts have been exempt from any rule control.
After the distortion arrived, what kind of world would it be?
Bai Wu had come to understand now.
What Alpha pursued was an absolutely subjective world.
A world that changes constantly with the human heart. All objective rules completely collapsed.
Such a person, you could say he was a true madman, but the more insane, the more terrifying the obsession with survival.
To conduct a verbal education on Alpha? There was hardly any possibility.
After thinking for a while, Bai Wu looked at the two masses of ink shadows: "Can you create rules?"
"Yes, I can define rules at will."
"And I can create matter at will, our existence, is a contempt for all conservation laws... We are the distortion itself."
Heart of the World and Rule Binding answered Bai Wu’s questions one after another.
Bai Wu said:
"Combining the two of your abilities, in a sense, could you be considered true creators?"
"You could say that, I like this description." Heart of the World puffed up like a child being praised.
Bai Wu frowned:
"I have experienced many scenes of stripping Sequence, stripping entries... I have even encountered the Decomposition of All Things, directly taking away each other’s abilities."
"And the Sequence 6 I hold, Law of Order, allows me to learn others’ Sequences, to disturb their Sequences..."
"It’s like when I entered the fifth layer, you directly suppressed Prayle’s Eye, couldn’t you use the same method to suppress..."
Before Bai Wu could finish, a voice came from the mass of ink shadow representing Heart of the World:
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, you want to take a shortcut right from the beginning, but unfortunately, some Sequences can be suppressed because their binding methods with the users are flawed."
"But some Sequences are different, they require the user to pay a certain price. And once the user has indeed paid the price, then they are bound to each other."
"The Alpha you speak of, it is Immortality itself. Of course... there’s another reason, only those Sequences ranked below Laosi... can possibly be suppressed."
Bai Wu roughly understood, Sequence 4 Rule Binding, Sequence 6, Law of Order.
One is absolute elimination, the other is an attempt to grasp the laws of the power of order.
But they have one thing in common—they only work against lower-ranked Sequences.
In other words, Immortal cannot be eliminated.
And furthermore, Immortal and Rule Binding, these two Sequences, are very likely like Sequence one and Sequence two...
It had autonomous consciousness.
"Is Alpha essentially immortal itself?"
"Yes, his will almost perfectly matches that of the third. He is immortal itself, so trying to strip it away is impossible, and we can’t do it either."
The one answering Bai Wu was the heart of rules.
Bai Wu furrowed his brows even deeper:
"So why is immortality third, and you precede it?"
"Is he mocking us? He is, isn’t he? Isn’t he? Tsk tsk tsk, ignorance in the extreme... Okay, your eyes are special, but let’s choose another word, an impudent brat who thinks nothing of others, we are capable of doing much more than you can imagine."
Embodied by a shadow ink-like figure, the World Will clearly preferred to mock others rather than to be mocked, a double standard of the Sequence. Bai Wu’s comment displeased it.
"Immortality means eternal existence, and not even twisting the rules of life and death can erase it. Your so-called Alpha is indeed quite compatible with the Twisted, and beyond immortality, he has mastered many powerful forces. Over the years, only the boy favored by Laosi has been able to contend with him."
"So he really is a very troublesome lad. In another world, he could single-handedly spread the Twisted, inversely affecting the Well World."
"But no matter how powerful he is, in my domain, he cannot contend with us."
"It’s just a pity that he cannot come to the fifth layer; otherwise, I would play with him... if I felt like playing with him, that is."
As it spoke, the shadow ink-like figure contorted into a humanoid shape.
Bai Wu looked sharply at it, and the shape it assumed was very similar to another figure wrapped in yellow sand not far from him.
Wu Jiu.
"Be it living beings or inanimate objects, the objective material that supports this world, I can create it all. I have reached a forbidden zone inaccessible even to gods."
The World Will was planning to continue its bravado, intending to have the "Wu Jiu" it had created face off against Bai Wu.
But the next second, it was instantly ground away by the heart of rules.
"Hey, hey, hey, what are you doing! I was demonstrating my divine powers!"
"We need him to achieve balance, and you, do not create what should not be created. This was our agreement beforehand."
The "Wu Jiu" it had created disappeared.
Bai Wu’s expression soured, his gaze sharper than Wu Jiu’s knife.
The voice of the heart of rules was clear—"If you wanted to show off your capabilities, why did you create him? What’s the reason for that?"
The World Will immediately calmed down. It seemed to remember that this Little Dwarf was crucial to the candidate before it.
This was also part of their prior agreement: to test Bai Wu’s will, but to keep Bai Wu’s companions intact.
Although somewhat displeased in his heart, Bai Wu could still sense the terror of this Sequence.
Every living thing could be destroyed or created in an instant.
There shouldn’t be a Baichuan City on the fifth layer of the Well World.
Nor was it possible to have places like the Ninth Psychiatric Hospital, Violet Manor, or zoos, areas deeply twisted.
He also shouldn’t have met with Yan Jiu, Dandelion, Hong Yin, and the others.
But the World Will could create all of these in an instant. Even the world it created was more difficult to deal with than the one he had actually experienced.
And after creation, Sequence Two could also instantly annihilate everything. No matter how powerful a single being was, even if it had already surpassed human limits and become as powerful as the captain... in front of such immense power, it was no different from a grain of sand.
Compared to the universe itself, the vast differences between rivers and oceans... were insignificant, as if nothing at all.
This was the true power of creation.
To acquire such power, naturally, one would pay a great price.
Bai Wu could feel one thing: both the World Will and the heart of rules needed something from him.
"What do you mean by balance?" he asked directly to the point.
"Immortality is a fearsome Sequence, endowed with tremendous potential for growth," the Heart of Rules answered Bai Wu’s question:
"It is the Sequence composed of the combined will of all beings in the world and their instinctual desire for survival."
"The original intention of this Sequence represents undying life. You should understand clearly that its power has a significant gap compared to us."
"Both the World Heart and I can easily suppress it. Ranking is not absolute, the strength of many Sequences depends on their users."
"However, in a certain sense, the ranking of some Sequences does have its reasons."
"We originally should not have anything to worry about. But ever since Alpha was sent out from the High Tower, when I used the creation of rules to peek into the future world... I saw absolute distortion, a world completely different from what we anticipated."
"The objective world is being incessantly eroded by the subjective distortions of beings, and while the objective and subjective aspects of this world should complement each other, in the end, everything can be obliterated, everything can change according to the subjective will of beings..."
"But only immortality remains immutable, indestructible. Hence, it becomes the sole objective entity in a twisted world."
"And this point... broke a kind of balance. It could cause some unimaginably great catastrophe."
What the Heart of Rules talked about was actually very... abstract and esoteric.
It was as if an old man was expounding on some extremely obscure philosophical concepts.
But Bai Wu understood.
The distortion is not of the world, but of the beings’ inner definition of the world.
It is things like the human heart, thoughts, and soul, these abstract things.
The so-called arrival of distortion represents an objective, material world becoming an absolutely subjective, idealistic world.
Just like Violet, who could, through her own obsession, forcibly twist others into becoming her parents. Objectively, those people are just passersby. But subjectively, in Violet’s view: whoever I want them to be, they will be."
Or like Dandelion, who feels guilty about cannibalism while yearning for friendship; so he subjectively believes that by eating someone, he can obtain a bond with them.
For Sequence one and Sequence two, or for the Well, such a world isn’t frightening.
But a world like this... if it keeps warping the ratio between subjectivity and objectivity, can also become very terrifying.
If Alpha keeps intensifying this process, then distortion will consume distortion, and a world so subjective that "the Well" cannot control it will emerge.
It’s complex, let’s use a simple example.
God granted a person the absolute freedom of thought, God endowed this person with the ability to turn thoughts into reality, and this person’s thoughts keep breaking boundaries, with reality becoming increasingly abstract.
Eventually, this person entertains a bold notion: God did not create me; rather, I created God.
And so the Origin is also twisted and inverted, and the carefree gods become slaves.
In a world without objectivity, it means there is no matter, and the fundamental structure of the world collapses.
But Alpha, possessing immortality, will not collapse, for it is something eternal and undying.
This ironically becomes the sole objective... and so it becomes the world itself.
Therefore, it can destroy everything and ultimately become the creature that survives after destroying everything.
This is the personalized Sequences one and two, through special powers, peering into the future — the ultimate form of the world many years after the arrival of distortion.
This is much like the battle between Alpha and the High Tower Master back then.
The High Tower Master was more powerful than Alpha, he defeated Alpha, but the one who laughed last was the immortal Alpha.
Sequences one and two foresaw that, at some future point in time, they would face the same situation.
Thus, they need a person... to balance it all out.
Having sorted all this out, Bai Wu asked another question: frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓
"So, about how long will it take for the scene you’ve foreseen to arrive?"
"After Alpha kills your companion, he will obtain Sequence 10 and Sequence 12, and at that time, with his astonishing insight into the Twisted, he will comprehend the true laws of Twisting."
No wonder Alpha was collecting Sequence 10 and Sequence 12 for himself...
It seems that Alpha is also assembling the puzzle, silently penetrating the rules of twisting during the countless years he was confined in the High Tower.
Even with the Rule Binding and the assault from the Reverse Dimension, he still managed to grasp a fair amount by relying on his absolute affinity with the twisted.
And the final piece of the puzzle for Alpha... is Sequence 10 and Sequence 12.
"He truly is a genius at perceiving the Twisted, just like you are," said the Heart of the Rules.
"But the gap between him and me is not small."
Bai Wu and the Tyrant joined forces and couldn’t even defeat one of Alpha’s avatars.
Even Jing Yi, who had undergone ’divinization,’ was extremely difficult to deal with.
And Bai Wu was very clear that he had already reached the "pinnacle."
In the real world, there were almost no opponents.
Even in the fifth layer of the Well World, a world severely distorted, he would almost not be at a disadvantage in a real fight.
But even so, there was an insurmountable gap between him and Alpha.
"So it seems I am the only hope?"
The situation was in Bai Wu’s favor, but Bai Wu... couldn’t be happy about it.
"Yes, you are the only hope. You can either be the penultimate person to enter the fifth layer of the Well World, or the last one."
"If you’re not the last one, then Alpha will be, and by then, he will live up to his name and become the genuine Twisted Master, the source of all Twisting."
The yellow sand began to fall off bit by bit.
This world of the absolutely still sand table seemed to be shedding its yellow layer.
Baichuan City was gradually revealing its true face; not long ago, it seemed to have been swept by a sandstorm.
But now, everything seemed to be rewinding.
Time seemed to be moving backward.
Time wasn’t truly reversing; Bai Wu was very clear that it was time to make a decision.
"So what you mean is... Alpha can be defeated now, but he just can’t be killed? Do I need to redo what the High Tower Master did back then?"
"No... What you must do is what Qian Yixin set out to do originally,"
"Exile him to a world without Twisting, suppress him forever while he still can be suppressed."
Of course, Bai Wu understood the meaning of the Heart of the Rules:
"He has already become too powerful. To defeat him, I’ll have to borrow your power? But this power... surely comes with a hefty price, right?"
Sequence 1 and Sequence 2 could possibly bring Bai Wu a power close to that of Qian Yixin.
Perhaps even surpass it?
But Bai Wu was very clear about the fate of Qian Yixin; it was not a power any being could possess.
In a sense, the Immortal of Sequence 3 was the limit of power that a creature could attain.
The two inky shadows also fell silent for a while:
"Yes, all of this comes at a cost. To acquire great power, one must pay a price. I suppose the not-so-tall human companion of yours understands this point the best. People lament his good luck, but the hardship he has endured is also beyond what ordinary people can bear."
"And the power you are to obtain... is even vaster."
