I, the final BOSS of the beta test server!

However, before he learned mental suggestion and was able to organize the memory fragments in the attic of his mind in an orderly manner... some memories had already been forgotten by him.

Or rather, they are not completely forgotten, they are just lost in the corner deep in the memory attic, and can no longer be found. Only in some inadvertent moment can one perceive a slight sense of familiarity.

Just like my experience before entering Deep Blue Harbor.

For example, this border town called Canaan, and the blonde girl in front of you named Amis.

Chapter 31: An isolated utopia

As far as Last's memory still retained an impression, the first time he saw this border town was after he entered Deep Blue Port and was trapped in the time loop.

At the time, his mental state was extremely poor. He wanted to stop the evil god's arrival and break the hopeless cycle. He tried various methods, but failed again and again...

Finally, he fell into the abyss of despair.

During that time, Rast began to give up on himself and resorted to self-harm to give up on himself.

He used to lie in bed all day and all night, numbly feeling the sun rise and set, until the cult's advent ceremony was completed and the evil god's majesty destroyed everything.

He had also tried various ways of dying, such as jumping from a tall building, being eaten by the Iron Cross, and falling into the furnace of a steel mill... After death brought a restart, the cycle continued over and over again, repeating between life and death hundreds or thousands of times.

Deep Blue Harbor's loop restart mechanism prevents Last from truly dying. At most, he can only be in the state just before death. However, as a human being, Last seems to be already dead, waiting for a long time to weather and decay his soul until it is completely annihilated, leaving only a breathing and heartbeating body.

It was at that time, in the gap between the two time cycles of Deep Blue Harbor, that Rast came to Canaan and met Amis.

It was the blonde girl in front of him who accompanied him when he was like a vegetable. In the peaceful border town of Canaan, she gradually helped Last regain his sense of reality as a human being.

It was also Amys who repeatedly and tirelessly reminded and urged... to supervise Last to stop self-harm and suicide.

Don't randomly seek out the opposite sex to vent your desires.

Don't try hallucinogens, as once you become addicted, you may never be able to turn back.

It allowed him to slowly transform from a confused and numb ghost into a human being again.

After that, Last also tried to study the existence principles and emergence mechanisms of the world before him.

He discovered that this border town called Canaan was somewhat similar to the little prompt theater that would appear after hitting badend multiple times in the love game he played in his previous life.

One can only enter it when one dies in Deep Blue Harbor...at the end of the previous cycle and before the next cycle begins.

Moreover, Canaan's appearance is not fixed. He will only appear when his mental state is extremely unstable, he has a tendency to self-destruct, and he is on the verge of collapse.

In a sense, this world called Canaan was like his own inhibitor, ensuring that his spirit would not completely collapse...

This is just Last's own guess, and there is no way to verify it.

However, it was precisely by using this conjecture that Rast found a way to actively enter Canaan—

He set up a hypnotic suggestion for himself. As long as the suggestion was activated, he could directly simulate the state of being on the verge of mental collapse, and then come to Canaan in the gap between the two restarts of the night world.

After that, Rast would return to Canaan regularly, and he never felt desperate and confused like before, nor had nightmares again.

Because no matter how stormy the situation was in Deep Blue Harbor, or how desperate the difficulties he encountered, Last had found his own secluded utopia, a haven for his soul...

And the blonde girl named Amis was waiting for him there quietly.

"...Last...Last?"

The girl's call brought Last back from his memories.

He saw that the dinner dishes had been placed on the table, and the owner of the sky-blue eyes had a worried look on her pretty face as she looked at him with some concern.

"Sorry, Xiao Ai, I was a little distracted just now."

Luster smiled and began to eat the dishes on the table in front of him with relish.

Compared to some of the high-end meals he had eaten in the high-end restaurants in Deep Blue Port, the dishes on the table in front of him could only be described as homely and simple.

However, compared to enjoying those gorgeous and exquisite dishes, everything in front of him made Rast feel the reality of life more.

No longer just eating to provide nutrients for the body, but truly living in this town as a resident.

"How does it taste?" Amys asked softly.

Rust nodded. "Very good."

"That's good." Amys breathed a sigh of relief.

"Laster, did you remember something just now?"

Amys looked at Luster with a look of hesitation, and after a moment's hesitation, she spoke: "The mountain behind the mountain we went to this afternoon. We often went there to play when we were very young."

"Once I was lost in the mountains. The whole town was called out to look for me, but we couldn't find me..."

"In the end, it was you, Rust, who found me in the cave in the heavy rain."

As she spoke, she seemed to recall something, and the corners of her mouth curved slightly. "However, at that time, heavy rain triggered a flash flood, which cut off the way up the mountain. We were trapped in the cave and couldn't get down. The adults couldn't get up either."

"Finally, we stayed in the cave all night until dawn, when the adults came up the mountain to look for us."

Luster put his hand to his forehead.

Heavy rain, muddy mountain roads, dark and cold caves...

There was also a little girl curled up in a dark corner of the cave, her eyes full of fear and vigilance, like a kitten with its fur standing on end... It was not until the two people's eyes met that the vigilance in the little girl's eyes slowly dissipated, as if she had woken up from a nightmare and recognized the people in reality.

And on that cold night with heavy rain, he wrapped the two of them in his only coat, using each other's body temperature to keep warm and get through that difficult night.

That was indeed his own experience. He had really been to that dark cave and snuggled with the girl in front of him in the corner, warming each other.

But when Last wanted to recall more deeply and search for the whole picture of the past, the picture in his mind began to fragment and turned into blurred colors that kept fading away, and waves of stabbing pain came from his mind.

"I'm sorry, Luster."

"I shouldn't have told you this even though I knew you had forgotten some of your memories."

Amys spoke anxiously. She looked at Last who was covering his forehead. She wanted to reach out and touch him, but was afraid that it would affect Last. Finally, the white hand stopped in mid-air, and her sky-blue eyes were full of regret.

Luster shook his head, trying to banish those fragmented images from his mind. "Sorry, I have some vague impressions, but I can't remember them clearly."

He put a piece of black bread in his hand into his mouth: "But I really want to recall everything that happened in the past."

Laster had no idea what the Canaan before him was. Was it the real world? The echo of the night world? Or was it a dream, a memory, or an illusion?

However, if he wanted to explore his past, enter Deep Blue Harbor, and be trapped in the past before that infinite loop... Canaan was Rast's only clue.

According to Amis, and according to Rast's inexplicable familiarity with Canaan, this is the hometown where he grew up.

However, no one knew what kind of accident had occurred that led him to appear in Deep Blue Harbor, and Canaan became a very distant world, like a dream.

He thought for a moment and then asked softly, "Xiao Ai."

"Have you ever heard of the term... 'The Fool's Library'?"

Chapter 32: Go and see for me the vast mountains and rivers of another world

"A fool's library?"

Amys was slightly stunned, and the movement of putting the pudding on the fork into her mouth stopped in mid-air.

She frowned and pondered carefully, her eyes flashing with memories: "It seems... this word sounds a little familiar."

"Ah, I remembered it."

After a long moment, Amys clapped her hands gently and said, "I remember Sister Shore Keeper mentioned it before."

"Shore guard?"

Last repeated the name silently, feeling strangely familiar.

He glanced at the blond girl in front of him, who seemed to be hesitant to speak, and couldn't help but smile: "I'm fine, Xiao Ai, just tell me directly."

"Some things, some mysteries must be clarified...even if the final truth is not what I want, it doesn't matter."

"Yeah." Amys nodded slightly.

She cleared the remaining dishes on the dining table and then opened the curtains not far away.

Outside the window, the moon is bright in the sky.

The entire Canaan was shrouded in a quiet night, with the occasional light of a kerosene lamp lighting up, like a lonely lighthouse on the vast ocean.

"I know, Rust, that you have spent so many years in that world called Deep Blue Harbor that you have forgotten a lot of things."

"So... you probably don't remember the fire in Canaan ten years ago."

Amys stood by the window, looking at the town in the night, the candlelight on the table blazing, lighting up her eyes.

"It was so long ago that I can't quite remember the exact cause... but it was a massive fire. I heard from the elders in town that it was probably the worst disaster Canaan had ever experienced, and it nearly reduced the entire Canaan to ruins."

"That's when Sister Shore Keeper appeared."

"No one knows her real name, nor does anyone know her origins. All we know is that she calls herself the Shore Keeper."

"Sister Shorekeeper saved many people from the fire and helped us rebuild the entire Canaan town after the disaster."

"It's strange to say, even though the fire was so severe, Canaan was rebuilt in just a few months. It's exactly the same as before the fire. It's like magic in a storybook."

Amys narrated in a pleasant voice, her sky-blue eyes suddenly moving slightly. "Right, last, you pushed me out of the fire first, and you were buried by the collapsed house."

"I was kneeling on the burning ruins, trying to dig through the bricks and rubble, but I was completely powerless..."

"In the end, it was Sister Shorekeeper who rescued you from the rubble."

She smiled as if recalling something. "Perhaps it was because of that incident that you, Rust, admired the shore keeper so much back then. I think you even said you wanted to be a shore keeper when you grew up."

"The Fool's Library. I remember it was Sister Guardian who mentioned it when she was chatting with us."

"However, Sister Shorekeeper didn't stay in Canaan for long. She left after the town was rebuilt."

Amys paused for a moment. "By the way, it seems that since Sister Guardian left, you, Last, have started to become sleepy more often..."

"Including the dream called Deep Blue Harbor, it probably started from this time."

The stabbing pain in my head became more intense.

Collapsed walls, falling floor slabs, hot winds carrying smoke and dust, metal pipes twisted and deformed in the high temperature... and the sky burned black and red by thick smoke and fire.

And the woman who smiled heartily after discovering herself still alive in the burning ruins.

In the fragmented memories, the woman's face has become blurred, but Last still remembers that smile——

That was perhaps the most beautiful smile he had ever seen in his life.

But it's still the same as before.

When Last tried to delve deeper into his memory, the scenes shattered again and fell into the darkness of nothingness.

"I'm sorry, Xiao Ai. I asked you to talk so much, but I still can't remember it."

"It's okay, Rusty, you don't have to apologize."

Amys shook her head slightly. She stared at the flickering lights outside the window with her sky-blue eyes. "It doesn't matter even if you can't remember it, Rust."

"If the past could never be traced back..."

"Then, all we need to do is create new memories together and fill that void with new colors."

"Okay, let's not talk about those annoying things, let's talk about something happy."

As if to divert Rust's attention, the blonde girl clapped her hands lightly.

"According to Miss Hiltina, the Deep Blue Harbor where you were trapped, Last, is actually a recurring echo of history in the Night World, constantly looping and restarting?"

"And this time, you successfully cleared the historical echoes of Deep Blue Harbor."

"Does this mean, Last, you've been liberated from Deep Blue Harbor? After that, you can go to the real world where Miss Hiltina is?"

"Ah."

Rust nodded. "According to Hiltyna, that's right."

"But all I know about that so-called real world is limited to the fragments of information that Hiltina shared. I have no idea what kind of place it is."

"is it?"

Amys tilted her head. "If that's the case, then I hope that world will have a golden, endless grassland."

"Huh? Why?" asked Luster.

"Because whether in Canaan or Deep Blue Harbor, you'll never have the chance to see scenery like that... No matter how beautiful the harbor scenery is, you'll get tired of it after seeing it a hundred or a thousand times, right?"

"I also saw it in a travelogue I borrowed from the mayor's grandfather's house. That travelogue said there are many places in this world that you must visit once in your lifetime."