Collapse Iron: I just transmigrated! You want me to save the Black Tower?!

At first, it was just a very subtle abnormality.

After saying a name, she paused subconsciously, as if to confirm whether she had said it correctly.

She stopped halfway through a story, looked at the crystal in her hand with a blank expression for a moment, then smiled and skipped over to the next one.

She mentioned what her father said, but then she couldn't remember what he had said.

The pauses became more and more frequent, so frequent that even Jiang Jiu, who was usually slow to notice, realized that something seemed off...

Jiang Jiu's gaze fell on the ice-blue crystal that she had initially held in her arms, which she had placed beside her. The crystal that belonged to her had been covered with a very faint gray layer at some point.

And the girl's own figure, illuminated by the faint light of the crystal, seemed to have a hint of...

transparent?

"you......"

Jiang Jiu was about to speak when the girl suddenly stopped and turned to look at him.

"By the way, what's your name again?" she asked with a smile.

Jiang Jiu paused for two seconds before saying, "...Jiang Jiu, as I just said."

"Oh." The girl nodded, then smiled. "Sorry, I don't think I have a very good memory."

She turned around to remove the next crystal, but suddenly stopped.

She stood by the wall, her hand suspended in mid-air, staring motionlessly at the crystals embedded in the wall.

After a few seconds, she slowly lowered her hand.

"...Which one was I thinking of taking?" she said softly.

Jiang Jiu: "..."

The girl stood there, her back to him, her small figure outlined in a blurry silhouette by the icy blue light.

"I think..." Her voice was very soft, so soft it was as if she were asking herself, "Huh? What was I just saying?"

The room was silent for a few seconds.

Then she slowly turned around and looked at Jiang Jiu.

"...Oh, sorry, let me think about it."

What is she thinking?

What is she thinking?

What was she saying just now?

Jiang Jiu looked at her, at her still clear eyes, at the expression on her face as she tried to think, at her features... which seemed to be getting more and more blurred.

Is it not my imagination...?

Suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind like lightning.

nothingness.

He subconsciously sensed his surroundings; it wasn't the void he had actively released, and he hadn't mobilized any of his destiny's power.

But it seems that just him standing there, with his ethereal aura... is making her forget herself little by little.

Jiang Jiu's pupils suddenly contracted.

After he came into this world, the people he encountered were either travelers of destiny, messengers, or star gods...

They all possess enough power, more or less, to resist the erosion of nothingness, and no one will be harmed by getting close to them.

He had never thought about this question.

He never realized...

The little girl moved.

Seeing her take a step towards him, Jiang Jiu almost instinctively took a step back.

"Don't come near me!"

His voice came out faster than he expected, and he was... panicked.

When that idea came to his head, he was stunned for a moment.

Panic.

He's panicking.

The girl stopped and didn't move.

She simply stood there, looking at him, her eyes showing no sign of being frightened.

"Are you angry?" she asked.

".....No."

"Then why did you tell me not to come near?"

Jiang Jiu's body stiffened. Having been in this world for so long, it seemed to be the first time he realized that even just getting close to nothingness could taint one.

He wanted to get closer, he wanted to do something, he wanted to—

But he dared not.

He dared not move.

He feared that if he took another step forward, she would dissipate even faster.

The girl waited a few seconds, but received no answer. She looked down at her hands.

The outlines of those hands seemed somewhat blurry.

She looked at it for a while, then looked up and gave a faint smile.

“It’s okay,” she said. “You don’t need to be afraid.”

Jiang Jiu was stunned.

Don't be afraid?

Did she know she was disappearing? Did she know she was being killed? Did she know the person who was killing her was standing right in front of her?

She knows!

She must know...

But she just stood there, smiled at him, and said: It's okay, you don't need to be afraid.

“I know,” the girl’s voice was soft. “You’re not the gravedigger, and you’re not someone who’s come back. You…you’re from outside, aren’t you?”

She pointed at Jiang Jiu.

“There’s something unfamiliar about you, you’re not from here. I know everything here, but you… I don’t know you.”

Jiang Jiu remained silent.

“But it’s okay,” she repeated, “I’m already very happy that you’ve listened to me for so long.”

She turned around, walked to the corner, and picked up the ice-blue crystal.

The gray color on that crystal had spread to more than half of it.

The crystals on the wall, I don't know when it started, began to dim one by one.

The icy blue glow was slowly fading as the girl held the crystal and looked down at it.

“I have a little crystal myself,” she said softly, “but Dad said that gravediggers don’t need to store their own memories, so I stored a little bit of the feeling of sunlight.”

Her fingers gently rubbed the surface of the crystal.

"It's that warm and cozy feeling... um, warm and cozy..."

She stopped.

This pause was longer than any before.

"...What does it feel like to feel warm and cozy?"

After a pause, she looked up at Jiang Jiu, her eyes no longer filled with confusion.

There was only a very light, calm laugh.

It was as if he had calmly accepted his death.

Jiang Jiu stood there, his whole body stiff.

He looked into those eyes, into the crystal in her arms that was now mostly swallowed by gray, and into her increasingly blurry figure...

There's nothing he can do.

Chapter 206 The Pain Disappeared

His hands hung at his sides, clenching and unclenching repeatedly. He wanted to say something, but his throat felt blocked by something, and he couldn't make a sound.

He thought about many things.

He remembered the Black Tower standing casually beside him, proudly proclaiming himself the Envoy of Wisdom... he remembered...

The memories in my mind are a jumbled mess, a tangled mess...

He had never thought about this question.

No one ever told him that.

From the moment he arrived in this world, it seemed that almost everyone he came into contact with was a destiny walker, a messenger, or even a star god...

They stood beside him, talked to him, and interacted with him without any apparent conflict.

He naturally assumed that this was the norm.

He thought that as long as he didn't actively release nothingness, there wouldn't be any problems.

But he didn't know.

He didn't realize that for ordinary people who hadn't yet embarked on their destiny, he was an incurable poison.

He doesn't even need to take action; ordinary people could fall into the abyss simply by coming into contact with, getting close to, or being tainted by the void...