Ten thousand I am across the heavens

Among the information Lanno secretly gleaned, this deadly move contained the memories of an extraterrestrial demon within its underlying structure. The reason he was able to confirm the opponent was an extraterrestrial demon was because this part of the memory contained a large amount of literature from Earth. Using these literary works, the Ghostly Demon Lord seemed to have constructed a very unique spiritual world.

Judging solely from external analysis, it's difficult to deduce what kind of world the other party has constructed. However, the general structure seems to resemble a series of smaller worlds, each with its own set of rules and types. Some appear to depict a group of people confined to a small space, periodically reassigned to different worlds; others seem to suggest a group of people initially placed in a relatively vast world. Many similar scenarios exist.

Lanno looked at this pattern and felt that it looked familiar. It seemed to be very similar to his past experiences, just like the scene when he was captured and taken to the God Space.

A group of people are imprisoned in a main god space. They are required to go out periodically to carry out dangerous missions, and also to fight to the death with people from other host spaces during the missions.

After enduring numerous hardships, warriors were finally trained who unlocked their genetic potential.

After analyzing and speculating from the outside, it seems that this is how the world inside is. It appears that the Soul Demon Lord stole some techniques and concepts from the Mountain and River Republic. Therefore, instead of simply killing to refine souls, he first chooses to polish the souls he captures.

Lanno, from his own perspective, could guess to some extent what the Ghost Demon Lord wanted to do. Fang, on some level, might have already transcended the framework of this world, recognizing something more fundamental.

Powerful combat strength and destructive force may belong to oneself in this world, but ultimately they are merely one's own shell. If one were to detach oneself from this world and retain only one's own consciousness, then this powerful body would still not be what one truly possesses.

From this perspective, wisdom itself is the most precious thing. The Ghostly Demon Lord seems to have realized this, and has begun consciously selecting powerful wisdom, attempting to utilize it.

"Could this madman be planning to devour all the selected high-level intelligence directly? Although his own consciousness strength is certainly not low, if he really cultivates multiple beings at the third-tier gene level, devouring a dozen or so will definitely cause mental problems. If he devours even more, his self-awareness will be overwhelmed and diluted. Even I might not be able to withstand it."

In this respect, the Ghostly Demon Lord actually has a slight advantage over other humans: its long lifespan allows it to witness a long history. Such a long lifespan means that it has had enough time to accumulate its own memories, making it less likely to be diluted by the memories and consciousness of others.

It's like this: for a person, the weight of three years of memories is definitely different from that of 30 years of memories. In most cases, the latter is more likely to shape a person's character. So, for an ordinary 30-year-old who suddenly has three years of unfamiliar memories, it might cause some changes. But in most cases, their inherent character won't change.

If one lives longer and experiences more of life's vicissitudes, then the likelihood of being changed and affected is smaller.

The Ghostly Demon Lord has accumulated at least 10 years of memories. Such a long period of memories is enough to absorb the consciousness of a large number of elites.

"No matter what, we must find a way to liberate these people's consciousness. Even the Ghostly Demon Lord has realized the importance of thought and wisdom itself. He will not easily waste or squander these people's souls. Everything they experience in this unfamiliar world could cause irreversible damage to their consciousness."

This is actually quite easy to understand. For example, if an ordinary person is subjected to torture beyond their capacity, they might go insane. Even disregarding such extreme cases, if they experience a mental upheaval, or are thrown into a world where survival depends on killing, and live there for too long, they will unknowingly become corrupted. Ultimately, they will become a form neither human nor ghost, and even if they return to their own body, they will never be able to return to their former life.

"This thing is impossible to break from the outside. I just don't know if it's possible to break it from the inside." Lanno only explored it a little before discovering this. It's almost impossible to break this formation from the outside. The main problem isn't that it's impossible to destroy it. As long as the output is sufficient, destroying the killing move and completely destroying its structure is easy. The problem is that after destruction, all the souls inside will perish instantly. The Ghost Demon Lord designed numerous safeguards. Their purpose wasn't to protect himself, but to annihilate all the souls immediately after the formation was destroyed.

Layer upon layer of safeguards ensure that if the ultimate move is at risk of failure, it will inevitably drag everyone down with it. This mutual destruction technique is clearly much easier to execute and is extremely difficult to crack.

To give a simple example, which is also an event that Lenno once experienced, that is, in the Trisolaran world, humans can use the Dark Forest Theory to threaten the Trisolarans.

The technological gap between the two sides is far greater than that between the Republic of Mountains and Rivers and the Demon Lord of the Ghosts. It can be said that the gap is not simply a matter of one or two eras.

The Trisolarans, however, could not easily break through humanity's deterrence. After all, mutual destruction could be achieved with the push of a button. The needs of both sides were inherently based on inequality, meaning that even with a significant technological gap, there was still no way to overcome it.

This time, it wasn't the Trisolarans who were intimidated, but the Republic of Shanhe. The Ghost Demon Lord can be said to have exploited the weakness of his opponent's excessively high moral standards to the extreme.

Even disregarding moral boundaries, the life and death of an entire continent's population is not something an ordinary person could easily decide to destroy. Even if this matter were entrusted to the Heavenly Court, they would still hesitate to act. Any responsible and normal organization would not allow such a thing to happen.

Upon receiving the news, the Republic of Shanhe immediately activated its emergency plan and began preparing a rescue strategy. No matter what, so many lives couldn't be ignored; even if rescuing them was difficult, they had to at least try to find a way. It was difficult to sabotage from the outside, making it very difficult to rescue people. This naturally led one to wonder if rescuing people from the inside would be easier. But in reality, it wouldn't be easier at all, and might even be more difficult.

Externally, the opponent might at least fear the threat of force, requiring a suicidal approach as a deterrent. But internally, it's essentially a data world, and the opponent is its administrator. Within this data world, they are practically God, able to do whatever they want, achieving whatever they desire. Perhaps this is one reason why this deadly move is called "Wish Fulfillment."

In an environment where the enemy can do whatever they want, breaking through from within is theoretically much more difficult. It's like a game character on a computer screen; they can almost never threaten the player sitting in front of the screen. Even a fly landing on the screen is beyond the capabilities of a powerful character in the game.

After observing the surroundings from his concealed position, Lano realized with dismay that he was powerless to do anything for the time being. He couldn't rescue anyone, nor did he dare to directly disrupt the killing move itself. He could only act as a node for information transmission, continuously sending the information he had scouted back to the rear, while waiting for feedback on solutions. There was a massive computing center in the rear. Perhaps he could rely on its immense computing power there to deduce a possible solution to the problem.

Shortly after, another voice of his own came through his communication channel: "Calling West Wind, prepare to attempt a connection. 'Deadly Move, Wish Fulfillment,' establish contact. We're preparing to try and find a possible way to rescue the people inside."

The plan was quickly sent over. He gradually understood the feasible plan and the underlying principles. The Republic of Mountains and Rivers was prepared to mobilize its vast domestic resources to replicate this killer move. They would then implement the "Wish Fulfillment" killer move domestically with essentially the same effect. Although it couldn't be exactly the same due to the unique nature of the Immortal Gu, achieving a similar functional effect was still achievable.

The significance of this is that the Republic of Mountains and Rivers attempted to use technology to build another server. In this way, the world that originally had only one server now has two, and each belongs to a different faction.

If we could connect two servers together, it would be like two computers playing online. To use a game analogy, it would be like two people playing together online; there's more than one player, which gives us more room for maneuver.

The human souls trapped within the server are like characters in a game, while the players in front of the screen are like game administrators who can adjust parameters at will. If the only game administrator is the Ghost Demon Lord, then sending any number of people into the system is suicidal. The Demon Lord only needs a word, a thought, to easily annihilate any powerful being. Even if Lanno personally sends his consciousness there, it's still suicide.

This difference in dimensionality cannot be bridged by willpower and ability. The two are not on the same narrative level, much like the relationship between an author and their characters. Only when there is more than one author can the characters have room to maneuver.

The plan itself wasn't particularly ingenious. What was truly astonishing was their technological prowess; the ability to replicate the Ghost Demon Lord in such a short time, a weapon that had taken an enormous amount of time to develop, was truly extraordinary.

How to establish a connection, and how to ensure that the other party cannot easily disconnect after the connection is established, will require some time to explore. As for now, those human souls trapped in the mental world have already begun their journey.

Mo Chengzi was still unaware of what had happened. In his memory, he had just finished teleporting and found himself in this strange place. He could no longer sense his Gu worms here. His immortal cultivation had also vanished completely. In its place was a relatively robust body. He seemed to be able to wield some simple extraordinary spells, but their power was extremely weak. They probably couldn't even penetrate leather armor. This feeling of suddenly becoming countless times weaker was rather uncomfortable for him, but not unbearable. It was the bizarre and wondrous world before him that filled him with wonder.

In his memory, this continent, located on the western frontier, should have been a vast world where oases and deserts interspersed. The vegetation inside the continent shouldn't have been very abundant. But when he awoke after being teleported, he found himself lying in a primeval jungle. The lush plants and towering trees indicated that this place was very far from his true destination, so far that it spanned the distance between reality and illusion.

Of course, he himself is unaware of this yet. The white-bearded old man beside him and the group of people of varying heights and builds, many of whom didn't appear to be ordinary humans, might be able to tell him about his current predicament.

Faced with his bewildered question, the white-bearded old man was quite surprised, but still introduced himself as Gandalf. He hadn't expected Mo Chengzi to have amnesia. The old man was very kind and patiently explained the world to him, saying it was called Middle-earth. And they were currently on a difficult mission: to escort the One Ring to the volcano and destroy it.

He was completely bewildered by this jumbled mess of information, vaguely recalling a fantasy novel called The Lord of the Rings that circulated in the Republic of Mountains and Rivers. These settings seemed somewhat similar to that work, yet also different. After all, the version he had read was a localized and modified version.

What he was experiencing now was a version pieced together from memories extracted from the mind of the extraterrestrial demon. Furthermore, his own understanding of that work was limited to hearsay; he hadn't actually read it himself. Therefore, he was still in shock. Could it be that the teleportation had malfunctioned, failing to transport him to his destination and instead sending him directly to another world?
He wasn't the only one facing a similar situation. Whether they were local residents or agents of the Shanhe Republic who had been teleported in at the exact moment the killing move was unleashed, they all found themselves in unfamiliar environments and worlds. Some found themselves staring blankly at a yellow car that could transform into a robot on a modern Earth. Others saw a group of people around them enthusiastically attempting to pull up a hammer that had fallen to the ground, but no one could manage it.

Some people inexplicably found themselves transported to a strangely decorated Japanese-style room, sitting on tatami mats, watching a news report on TV that another gas explosion had occurred in Higashiki City that day.

In an instant, these people, influenced by the information explosion brought about by technological diffusion, subconsciously acted just like modern people on Earth. A far-fetched thought arose in their minds: "Could it be that I've traveled through time?"

[To be continued]

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