Survival in the game world begins with Biochemical 2

Chapter 825 The Rules of the System?
"Kyle Crane?"

Upon hearing this answer, Li You showed no reaction, neither excited nor surprised.

“Of course I know that. What I’m asking is, are you ‘that’ Kyle Crane, or the Crane I know?”

The man who called himself the Bandaged Man of Kran, or rather, the Bandaged Night Demon, smiled again:
“There is no ‘that Kran.’ I am who I am, and there is only one me. There is only that monster who wanted to save Harlan, but in the end, he personally spread death and destruction to the whole world.”

Upon hearing this, Li You's eyes flickered slightly, and he turned around: "You..."

"—However," Crane suddenly added, "I also remember you, the world you created, the ending of the story you changed, and the people you saved."

"The world you went to was like a dream to me, showing me another possibility and a hopeful future."

Li You looked at him, his brows furrowed, unsure which question to ask first.

"...Are you Kyle Crane himself? Then what about the Crane I've met, the world I've been to? Is it really just a dream of yours, as you say?"

Are you trying to say that every world I've experienced was just someone's dream?

But Crane shook his head: "That's not the case, or rather, the me in front of you is more like a product of a dream."

"The city of Harlan that you visited was indeed more like a dream to me at first. I was looking for a way out, but I ended up in a vicious cycle and couldn't find a way out at all."

"I know how to do certain things, but in the cycle of dreams, I cannot change any key events or save the final outcome."

"That is my obsession, and the root of my suffering. I can only be trapped in the world of memories, enduring eternal torment."

Crane spoke with extreme heaviness, but his tone was flat, as if he had become accustomed to that despair.

"But then, things changed."

"I was living in a daze when one day I suddenly felt a certain power. That power merged with my despair and traveled through time and space, guiding everything back to its original state."

"My world has been changed, everything has gone back to the way it was at the beginning."

“In this timeline of starting over, there is even another ‘me’, a me who is exactly the same as me when I first entered Harlan, a me who is confused and lost.”

Crane looked at Li You: "I still don't understand where that power came from, but it reversed time and space and changed everything that happened, except... me."

"Although there is another me in the new world, I still exist, independent of that world. My despair becomes the foundation of the world, and I can only watch everything start all over again."

"I initially thought this was God's way of making me relive the pain of the past and witness my own foolishness, but I soon discovered something different... namely, you. Your arrival changed everything."

"The person you see is me too. He is intimately connected to me, and even in the deepest dreams, he can see my memories. But upon waking, he will forget everything."

"However, in return, I can see and remember everything he saw, and of course, everything you saw."

Crane looked at the blood-red city. "Although I am outside of that world, what I saw gave me hope. You helped Breken, you helped Jade, and you helped everyone in the tower."

"Of course, you also changed 'me,' turning me from a fool without any will of my own into a warrior capable of helping and saving others. I am very grateful to you, truly."

"After you left, everything started to go in a positive direction, which was completely different from the despair I faced at the time."

"Unfortunately, I am no longer a part of that world. There is nothing I can do but give you the strength I can spare before you leave, so that you can have a smoother journey ahead."

Li You realized something: "The core of the Living Night Demon's Lair, you gave it to me?"

Crane smiled. "Yes. I remember you saying you wanted weapons more. Hopefully you've changed your mind now."

Li You: "..."

He fell silent for a moment.

Now it's certain that the person standing before him is the same figure he had seen in his hallucinations more than once in the world of vanished light. According to him, he is also the foundation of that world.

Knowing this only made Li You more confused.

Is this the origin of the world of Dying Light? A world born from Crane's despair, where time has been reversed by the system?
If the worlds he visited originated from this, then in other worlds besides Harlan, is there also a "person" hidden behind the world?
“There’s something I need to remind you, so you don’t misunderstand.” Kran noticed Li You’s silence and continued, “Not all the worlds you’ve been to are like Haran. Some are large enough on their own that they don’t need a special person to support them, nor do they need to reverse time.”

"For example, when you leave Harlan and go to the next world, I can sense from the other end of the passage that the scale of that world is completely different. A world like ours is incomparable to it, and its form of existence should also be different from ours. In fact, according to my guess, the form of existence of each world may be different."

"So you don't need to worry too much. Maybe someone like me is already a rare case."

Li You looked at him and nodded after a while.

He thought for a moment, then asked, "Since I have already changed Harlan's future, why do you still exist in this form? And why did you come here?"

Kran replied, “As I said, my existence is independent of Harlan, which you have gone to. If it weren’t for this special circumstance, I would not be able to exert any influence on you.”

"As for why I got here, I don't really know either. I feel like I've encountered that time-reversing force again. It brought me here and left a will in my mind that tells me to fight you with all my might."

Li You: "..."

He fell silent again, but this time it was silence.

So the system exploited the original protagonist, Crane, and even after completing the game itself, it still wouldn't let him go?

Isn't this a bit too capitalist?
Crane said he remembered Li You, and it seemed he wasn't lying. He immediately saw through Li You's thoughts and said, "You don't need to worry about me. As I said, you saved Harlan, and you saved me too." "Remember the hand-folded flower you found in the building? That's something I received in another world you visited, something I didn't receive as thanks back then."

“Based on his memory, I made a copy of this gift and placed it in my old room. I also decorated the tower to resemble the Harlan you experienced.”

“Looking at this flower and this tower, I feel a sense of satisfaction in another version of myself, and that is more than enough. After all, I know that Harlan’s future has been changed.”

Li You took out the flower: "Are you satisfied with just this? I did save Harlan, but I forgot about you, this..."

Crane interrupted him: “I told you, you don’t need to worry. What I just described was the situation before you came here, but things are different now. You have saved me, and this flower, which represents gratitude, is proof of that.”

"If you don't find this flower, you will never see me, thus missing a crucial node to the upper realm."

"And you found the flower and defeated me, which is exactly what I wanted."

"Being defeated by you doesn't mean I've failed. In fact, my victory is only possible if you can find me and defeat me. Otherwise, we'll both be trapped in this merged city forever."

Suddenly, tiny lights appeared, seemingly coming from nowhere.

They gradually merged into Crane's body, not only healing his severed arms but also reversing his Night Demon form, gradually turning him back into a human.

"Now, I've finished what I needed to do." Crane looked at Li You and gave him a familiar smile.

"Thanks to you again, I am now able to become one with my other self. In the new future you have created, everyone can live with hope. That is what you have brought to us."

He took the flower from Li You's hand: "I still keep the red flower that the children gave me, so I don't need this fake one anymore, but it can still help you."

Crane touched the flower, gathering the last bit of power belonging to his Night Demon body into it, and then handed it to Li You.

"Take it. As long as you carry this flower, all the Night Demons in this city will obey your commands."

"Also, after you leave Valhalla with it, it will help you one last time, so don't throw it away just because you think it's useless."

Crane smiled and said, "After a while, my memories and will will be gradually remembered and accepted by another me through dreams. He and I will become one, inseparable—maybe this is how we were meant to be."

"When you feel the time is right, write me a letter. I know your mailbox can send messages across the world. Then I will express my gratitude to you."

As he spoke, Crane had fully reverted to his human form, and his figure gradually faded, as if he were about to disappear from this world.

Li You simply looked at him and said, "Don't worry, I'll write to confirm in a while."

Crane nodded; that was all he had to say.

But just before he disappeared, he seemed to remember something and hurriedly said, "By the way, the 'Saint Mary' you saw earlier, I didn't do it, but I passed on most of my experience to her. You can ask her when you get out..."

Before he could finish speaking, he vanished completely into thin air.

And what followed immediately was the city in front of Li You, which was formed from mountains of corpses and seas of blood, which collapsed instantly!
The building collapsed, the ground shattered, and the space itself was destroyed.

As everything dissipated amidst the tremors, another crimson light flashed. When Li You opened his eyes again, he was back in the tower, standing at the exit of the passageway on the roof.

Meanwhile, dawn was breaking in the distance, and the next day was about to begin.

Li You didn't move, but stood there thinking for a long time.

Besides the matter of Crane and the Extinction World, he was also wondering what kind of trial level Valhalla and the system had conspired to create.

In the game, Kratos takes Mimir through Valhalla time and time again, not to pursue power, but to hone his past skills and seek reconciliation with painful memories of the past.

Each time Kratos reaches the top of Valhalla, each time he defeats Tyr using different weapons, and finally arrives at that gate, even during his adventures, he sees memories of his past.

The sins he committed as the Greek god of war tormented him, preventing him from letting go of his past and accepting Freya's invitation to become the new god of war in Norse mythology.

In other words, for Kratos, clearing Valhalla was more of a process of reconciling with his past self than of increasing his power.

But clearly, Li You has no unresolved issues; he doesn't need to challenge himself in this way.

Therefore, he originally thought that Valhalla deliberately turned his companions and past base into trial sites to target him because they found that he had no psychological trauma.

But this is actually meaningless. Li You's willpower has been trained to be extremely strong, not to mention that he knows the rules of the Hall of Heroes very well and will not be affected by such petty tricks.

If this is all there is to Valhalla, then Li You must be disappointed.

However, Li You was genuinely surprised when he saw Bandaged Kraken again.

What exactly is Valhalla and its system planning in this level design?
Could it be that the system not only wants to promote itself to godhood, but also wants to tell him some of its own rules?

Li You doesn't know the answer yet, but it seems that as long as he continues to push forward, he should be able to get more clues.

He let out a long breath as the dim morning sun rose.

"In that case, let me overcome each obstacle one by one. I want to see what exactly is hidden in Tracer's headquarters building."

(End of this chapter)