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

"Aha, all I remember is taking you to see a huge fireworks display, bang—! It exploded all over the sky, it was so beautiful!"

Jiang Jiu didn't reply, but just looked at Him for a while.

Aha spun around twice, then stopped, and brought the mask close to his face.

"So, little madman, did you see the new life?" Aha asked, his voice tinged with curiosity. "And what do you think? Is it beautiful?"

Jiang Jiu thought for a moment, then shook her head: "It doesn't look good."

"Not good-looking?" Aha tilted his head. "Why isn't it good-looking?"

"If everything disappears, even if the universe is reshaped, will the world still be the same world?"

"Is that really a freshman?"

Jiang Jiu's voice was calmer than he had expected.

"Is this destruction or rebirth? Is everything dying once, and then sprouting anew from the corpse...? Is this really rebirth? Does rebirth... necessarily require dying once?"

Aha's mask transformed into a sad, crying face: "Aha thinks you're right. Aha is so sad. Aha wants to tell you a joke."

"...What joke?"

Have you ever wondered why new students have to die once before they can even be admitted to university?

Jiang Jiu was silent for two seconds: "..."

Aha didn't wait for his reply, but simply floated away and started telling his own jokes with a grin.

"Aha once saw a seed that desperately wanted to sprout. So it tried hard to absorb water, desperately absorbed sunlight, and absorbed nutrients from the soil, but it just couldn't sprout."

It asked Aha: Why can't I sprout?

“Aha said: Because you are still a seed. For a seed to sprout, it must die first.”

"The seed thought for a moment, then buried itself in the soil and never came out again."

"Then Aha waited for a very, very long time, so long that it almost forgot about the seed, so long that Aha itself was about to sprout, but it never saw the seed again."

"Then one day, a new sprout grew from the ground. Aha didn't recognize the sprout, but Aha's seed died."

"Isn't that seed stupid? In order to make the world sprout, it ended up dying itself, and it didn't even know if the world had sprouted at all."

After Aha finished speaking, he looked at Jiang Jiu with a grin.

"Is it funny?"

“...It’s not funny,” Jiang Jiu said.

"You little madman actually didn't find Aha's jokes funny? Aha is so sad!" Aha said sadly, but the smile on his mask stretched all the way to his ears. "Aha is going to punish you by making you copy Aha's joke collection a hundred times! Hahahahaha!!!"

"..."

Ahha's joke is more of a parable than a joke.

It's really not funny.

But he was thinking about something else.

Back in the previous timeline, a Pleasure Envoy whose name he didn't know had inexplicably told him about the meaning of pleasure.

At that time, he didn't know what she was talking about, or why she was saying those things.

But now he seems to know.

Looking at the smiling mask before him, he subconsciously recalled that heartbeat, that new world born from death...

For new life to sprout, its seed must be dead...

Must new life always be new life? Must death always lead to the end?

Can it move into the future?

"When death no longer means death, what does it mean? Is it crossing the threshold of death to move into the future, or returning to the past like I have?"

"When death no longer means death..."

Jiang Jiu's thoughts came to an abrupt halt.

He stiffly touched his face and realized he was actually smiling.

He is laughing.

"what......"

Aha was still floating in front of him, Nuo's smile stretched to his ears, as if he were seriously telling a joke, or as if he was deliberately hiding something important under the joke, waiting for him to find it himself.

“Aha,” he said.

"Hmm?" The masked figure leaned closer, its eyes curving into two crescent moons.

"The seed in your joke..." He paused, then asked with a smile, "did it eventually die?"

Aha blinked, as if he hadn't expected him to ask that.

“Dead,” He said, his voice light and airy. “Dead completely, not even a trace remains.”

"Was the sprout that grew later that it?"

Aha did not answer immediately.

He floated up to Jiang Jiu, hanging upside down, the smile on his mask revealing neither joy nor sorrow.

"Guess?" He still loves to have fun.

Jiang Jiu didn't guess.

He just stood there, thinking about the seed, about the sprout that grew from the embers.

Thinking of that singularity that collapsed and was reborn, thinking of that heartbeat, thinking of that brief resonance.

“Aha,” he called again.

"Ok?"

"I think I know what to do."

“Aha was just telling a joke,” He said. “It’s just a joke. It’s your problem to overthink it. What does it have to do with Aha?”

Jiang Jiu looked at Him and suddenly smiled.

“Yes, it was my fault,” he said. “Thank you, Aha.”

"Thanks?" Aha tilted his head. "Thanks for what? Aha didn't do anything! Aha was just having fun! Don't you understand what having fun means?!"

His voice suddenly rose in pitch.

"Aha doesn't need your thanks! Aha wants fun! Fun! You owe Aha a laugh! Got it!"

Jiang Jiu nodded.

"remember."

Ahha chuckled contentedly twice, the smile on his mask spreading back to his ears. He floated away, circled Jiang Jiu three times, and then stopped in mid-air, as if looking at something interesting.

“Little madman,” He suddenly said.

"Ok?"

"Did you just say that freshmen have to die once first?"

Jiang Jiu remained silent.

"Aha doesn't think so."

His voice suddenly softened, becoming as soft as if he were talking to himself.

"Some things can sprout without dying, they just grow a little slower, a little slower, and a little uglier, but that's okay. There's so much time in the world, and the universe is so vast, what's wrong with waiting?"

After he finished speaking, he suddenly burst into laughter, and the sound of his laughter made the surrounding pebbles tremble.

"Hahahaha! Aha's actually trying to reason! When did Aha become such a boring guy! This isn't fun at all! Aha's leaving! Going to find new fun! Going to find fun that's a million times more interesting than you!"

His laughter grew fainter and fainter until it finally dissipated into the starry sky.

The mask was still in Jiang Jiu's hands. The cracks on the Nuo mask had disappeared at some point, and it had become a complete mask again.

Jiang Jiu stared at the mask for a long time with his eyes lowered, then looked up at a star in the distance.

"Without destruction, there can be no construction; without death, there can be no life..."

Chapter 260 Only the Star Gods can resolve matters between them.

Jiang Jiu's figure appeared next to the star not far away in the next moment.

This is a dead star.

The masks scattered in the air. Jiang Jiu confirmed that there was no sign of life on the planet, then slowly raised his hand.

Centered on him, the void began to spread until it enveloped the entire planet.

If the end of destruction is the beginning of new life.

What about nothingness?

What is the end of nothingness?

Jiang Jiu had an answer in his heart, and what he wanted to do now was simply to verify his answer.

The power of nothingness has always been extremely domineering.

It is almost inevitable that it will dissipate upon contact.

Under the influence of nothingness, the planet gradually became transparent, disappearing bit by bit from its edges.

Jiang Jiu watched quietly for a while, then suddenly stepped into the planet that was now unrecognizable due to the erosion of nothingness.

Jiang Jiu himself will not be swallowed by nothingness because of his own "existence".

Therefore, he is not afraid of stepping into nothingness.

It's no exaggeration to say that even if the Void Star God were here, he would dare to go in.

That's the authority of "existence".

The outer shell of the dead star had largely dissipated. He approached, walking step by step to the center of the planet, and then slowly raised his hand to grasp a small core.