I don't want to conquer witches anymore.

Duke yawned and walked into the bustling streets of the floating city.

After listening to Annie's account, he suggested they split up and observe this world of memories separately to see whose memories it truly was. Duke's suggestion was agreed upon by both Monica and Annie—Annie was going to command the Bone Legion in battle, and she was terrified of her former guardian; even with Duke present, she didn't want to spend much time with Monica.

Monica felt the same way. Confined in the Shadow Lab for decades, she also longed for freedom of movement. Even a floating city devoid of people, filled only with bones and candy, was an invaluable moment for her.

So, they parted ways for the time being.

Apart from the little black cat that was dozing on his head, Duke had a long-awaited opportunity to move freely again. He walked through the never-ending streets of the floating city, looking at the bones and candies fighting everywhere, his gaze filled with a touch of nostalgia.

"Back in the day, I was the dignified commander of the Bone Legion. Later, I went to the banquet alone, stormed into Candy Castle, and only by beheading Saint Megan was I able to complete the game."

Duke nudged Little Black and said smugly.

Little Black lazily rolled over halfway, letting the shadow on its belly bask directly in the warm sun, and said perfunctorily, "Meow...you're really amazing, meow."

"Thank you for the compliment."

Duke nodded with a grin.

But at that moment, all the noise in the world seemed to suddenly disappear. Duke and Xiao Hei were slightly taken aback and looked in a certain direction at the same time.

Faint cries of grief could be heard coming from there.

……

Annie, who was quickly weaving through the alley, stopped in her tracks, frowned, looked at the person blocking her way, and asked calmly:

"Ms. Monica, what's wrong?"

All the fear and awe she had shown in front of Duke before had vanished, leaving only rationality and calmness on her face.

Monica nodded in satisfaction; only now did Annie seem like her adopted child.

“Good, this is the Annie I know. That infatuated girl in front of Duke disgusts me.”

“I don’t find it disgusting. I don’t think you have the right to criticize me, Ms. Monica.” To everyone’s surprise, Anne went from one extreme to the other. Not only was she no longer afraid of Monica, but she also lost all respect for her. She said with a hint of mockery, “Ms. Monica, I thought that after being imprisoned here for decades, you would have become a little more worldly-wise. I didn’t expect that decades of prison life would have made you even more rigid.”

Monica frowned.

The Annie who was once raised by Monica, whose relationships with others were almost entirely severed by Monica, leaving her only to focus on necromancy research, has unknowingly grown up... and gone astray. If it were the Annie of yesteryear, she would naturally have been subservient to Monica, but the Annie of today is different. After their initial unexpected reunion, Annie has never shown any further awe or respect for Monica.

“I am no longer the Anne I used to be. How many years has it been since you left me and the floating city, Ms. Monica? Time can change everything.”

"Are you going to rebel against me?"

“I’m not rebelling against you, but I no longer belong to you. I’ve come this far, and Ms. Monica, you seem to still be clinging to the past.” Anne said, a cold smile appearing on her face. “Of course, being locked up in this godforsaken place, you really have no present or future to speak of, and I can understand your thoughts.”

"Annie!"

Monica's eyes widened in anger as a massive shadowy figure materialized behind her. But Anne, who possessed the Bone Legion, was not afraid of the legendary witch's power. Moreover, Monica had an incurable black hole in her chest and had been imprisoned here for decades, making her far too weak to be a normal legendary figure.

"Stop bluffing and trying to use your past tactics on me. That won't work on me." Annie snapped her fingers, and a bone sword appeared out of nowhere, pressed against Monica's throat. "Tell me, what do you want?"

Monica is a very rational and pragmatic person.

Realizing she couldn't control Annie, she immediately accepted this new situation and nodded, saying sincerely:

“I just want to know what you’re trying to do. I don’t think what you’ve told me before is the whole truth.”

"What is your true purpose? Is your cooperation with Norton really just to leave here? What exactly are you planning?"

Chapter 263 When in doubt, quantum mechanics

The once bustling streets of the floating city, filled with the chaos of the war between the Bone Legion and the Candy Legion, suddenly vanished. The skeletal skeletons and candy biscuits that had been fighting disappeared. For a moment, only Duke and Little Black remained on the entire street, and all they could hear were faint cries of anguish.

Duke, with Little Black on his head, strode towards the direction of the wailing, but after walking for a long time, he still saw nothing. The street in front of him remained deserted. Not only could he not see any trace of any living creature, but he could not even see the traces left by the White Bone Legion and the Candy Legion that had been fighting so fiercely earlier.

It was as if they had traveled through time and space to another floating city where the Candy Castle Replica Event had not occurred and where no humans lived.

With the cheat item and Soul Requiem as his trump cards, Duke remained calm and quickened his pace. He was an agile and nimble wanderer, and at full speed, he traversed three or four streets in just a dozen breaths. However, the crying sound did not change with the change of space; it still faintly echoed in Duke's ears, lingering neither too close nor too far away.

Xiao Hei also heard the crying, so Duke was certain that it wasn't a hallucination... but he couldn't jump to conclusions, since it was also possible that he and Xiao Hei had entered the same hallucination at the same time.

In a world of swords and magic, anything is possible, not to mention that this is a witch's game where the bizarre and the miraculous coexist.

"But is this really a floating city?"

However, as Duke moved quickly through the streets of the floating city, his attention shifted from the faint, elusive sound of crying to the street itself.

Duke sensed a strange sense of unease.

After arriving in this world of memories, they quickly confirmed that this was a floating city, because the streets they saw were all familiar sights, and the buildings were all iconic features of a floating city... However, when the skeleton legion and the candy legion that occupied the city disappeared at the same time, Duke finally realized that this place was vastly different from the real floating city.

Every street and every building is real, but they are combined in a bizarre way. Two streets that might be completely opposite in reality are connected here. Even the same iconic street or the same magnificent building can appear multiple times.

Even the recurring streets have subtle differences, such as the age of the buildings and the renovation of the shops. There are so many differences in these details, but Duke only truly realized these obvious characteristics when the world quieted down.

This "floating city" seems to have been crudely formed from many floating cities. It is much larger than real floating cities, and the structure of its streets is also much more complex.

Why didn't he notice such an obvious problem before?

No, there was absolutely no problem just now!

Because of the "amnesia" he experienced in the previous memory world, Duke was extremely sensitive to his soul and memories. He quickly checked his memories and soul state. Unless a legendary spellcaster had tampered with his memories (note, tampered, not erased out of thin air. Even Talia couldn't do that!), Duke was certain that before the world quieted down, this city appeared exactly the same as the floating city he was familiar with! He didn't feel the slightest sense of incongruity.

Could it be the observer effect?

When I observed the floating city, its possibilities collapsed, and it became the floating city I was familiar with. But at this moment, for some reason, my observation of the floating city failed, and it naturally became Schrödinger's cat, a quantum superposition state in which multiple possibilities were entangled.

As the saying goes, when in doubt, consult quantum mechanics.

This explanation seems to make sense... except for one problem.

Besides Duke, there are other observers here. Won't their observations affect the results?

"Little Black, don't you think this floating city is a bit strange?"

"You think so too, meow?" Little Black raised its paw. Ever since Guangbao put it on its head once, it had become obsessed with that spot. It was still lying on Duke's head, waving its paw and pointing to the street in front of them. "I remember that place, meow. It seems like that big guy was still there more than ten years ago, meow."

After escaping from Monica's Shadow Lab, Xiao Hei acquired the body of a cat. Having wandered the shadowy streets of the floating city for decades, its intelligence gradually developed over those years… In other words, it was also a long-time resident of the floating city, naturally intimately familiar with its street changes.

The "big guy" it referred to was a bulky-looking building, which looked like a restaurant or something. Duke passed by the street it was on every day, but he had never seen the restaurant before. Only after Xiao Hei spoke did Duke realize that this was how it looked more than ten years ago.

Floating cities from the past, present, and even the future converge here, forming this distorted city.

Duke narrowed his eyes.

This world of memories is full of mysteries, and even now, they haven't figured out the most basic question: "Whose world of memories is this?"

Duke, Monica, and Xiao Hei don't think this is their world of memories, so... is it possible that this is neither the world of any of their memories, nor the world of any of their memories?

Perhaps this is a world of memories created by mixing everyone's memories together?

The city is formed by everyone's preconceived notions about the floating city and the memories that exist within it.

“Perhaps this is it.” Duke murmured to himself, looking at the big guy that Xiao Hei had mentioned. “The core of this game may be hidden in this world of memories… This is the end of this turtle soup game.”

"Meow?" Little Black tilted its head, not understanding what it was talking about. But at that moment, it sensed something before Duke could, and then melted into a puddle of shadow at top speed, enveloping Duke's body and rolling him to the side. "Meow!"

At the same time, the city returned to its usual hustle and bustle, and the faint weeping stopped abruptly.

The complex streets returned to "normal," and the "floating city" returned to the floating city they knew.

The ground where Duke was standing was pierced by a biscuit spear.

The candy girl, her attack missing its mark, shook her head regretfully, drew her spear, and aimed it again at Duke and Little Black, who were tumbling away. She tilted her head and said in a voice as sweet as honey:

"it's a pity."

Chapter 264 The Driving Force

"it's a pity."

The candy girl tilted her head and spoke words that sent chills down one's spine in a voice as sweet as honey. She looked at Duke with her candy-colored pupils without lingering. With a slight tap of her toes, her fluffy cake dress made of marshmallows rose into mist along with her body and the spear in her hand.

The sweet aroma of candy filled the air, while the hard tip of the cookie gun, strong enough to pierce the ground, was aimed at Duke's location.

Duke didn't think Candy Girl's attacks were that strong.

His standards are now extremely high. After directly confronting a top legend like Talia, warriors of Candy Girl's caliber are no longer worthy of Duke's attention—whether he can defeat them is another matter, after all, his high aspirations and low abilities have been a long-standing problem.

However, another fact made Duke stare in astonishment!

The Candy Girl's face is almost identical to that of the Cake Princess Grete, who hasn't appeared in a long time. If it weren't for the fact that her face and body are made of various candies, Duke would even think that Grete had actually come to this witch game!

Her subsequent swift and decisive attack left Duke completely astonished.

How could his pampered princess, who never leaves the house, possibly carry a spear and stab someone like that?

"What the heck is this candy Gretel? Is it a fake Megan made?"

Duke sidestepped half a body, dodging Candy Gretel's attack. His right eye, which remained blood-red, dripped burning tears of blood that fell to the ground, scalding a crater of molten lava.

The scorching lava was also a deadly attack for the melting candy, forcing the candy girl to change her attack route. But just then, a shadow monster formed from shadows appeared behind her.

"Meow!"

Little Black leaped gracefully, and the shadow monster, connected to Little Black as if it were part of its body, raised its claws and slapped at the Candy Girl at its will.

It's similar to the shadow monster used by Monica, but its appearance is slightly different. Monica's shadow monster looks like a small Titan, while the shadow monster summoned by Xiao Hei looks like a large feline. However, Xiao Hei's shadow magic is not only no less imposing than that of the legendary spellcaster Monica, but its level of completion is even slightly higher than that of the shadow monster summoned by Monica.

Xiao Hei has always been quite strong. It was only taken in as a pet by Duke because the person who beat it up was the drunk Guang Bao. Later, the despicable Duke bribed it with demonic wood catnip. If it could maintain its human form, it would have no problem getting a witch title from Carol. Its combat power is equivalent to that of a level 12 or 13 spellcaster.

But what's more noteworthy about Xiao Hei is its potential.

It is the sole survivor of the Shadow Lab, and perhaps the only successful experiment.

They hadn't explored the "Shadow Lab" in the memory world for very long, and they only cleared it by skipping class. So Duke didn't know the full story of the Shadow Lab incident, only bits and pieces he'd heard from Monica... For example, Monica's own experimental goal hadn't succeeded; for example, Xiao Hei's cat form and dark-skinned loli catgirl form were byproducts of the experiment; for example, Xiao Hei had escaped from the lab, and perhaps her experimental goal had succeeded in it.

What was the ultimate goal of the Monica experiment?

The higher-dimensional nature of shadow creatures grants them the ability to freely enter and exit higher-dimensional spaces.

This is undoubtedly a legendary, destiny-level ability!

If Little Black truly possesses this potential, it's safe to say it's fully capable of securing a legendary seat.

Of course, those future prospects are still far off, and Duke quickly refocused his attention on the battle at hand.

Forced by the shadowy cat, the candy girl changed direction. Her cotton candy-like cake dress suddenly swelled up and floated into the air. Holding the spear in her hand, she pointed the tip at Duke and whispered, "Biscuit Tree!"

With that, the biscuit spear in her hand transformed into a giant tree trunk, with intricate branches multiplying and turning into an inverted, towering tree that crashed down onto the ground where Duke and Little Black were.

But it didn't actually hit Duke and Black.