HI Chapter 195 [End of Main Story]

Yan Mingguang released Yan Wei.

The notification sound appeared; the instance had been cleared, and it was now time to make a choice again.

Regarding this choice, they had already discovered the trap during their last Ascension—if one chose to leave the Tower, the Tower would do everything in its power to prevent that Player from leaving, such as formatting or forcibly sending them into another instance. Choosing this would be tantamount to seeking death.

He had warned Lin Qing and the others about this beforehand, so there was no need to worry about them making such a choice.

As for Yan Wei himself, he didn’t hesitate to use his Points to exchange for an item from the shop. Without even looking, he spent almost all the Points he had earned this time to exchange for another Pandora’s Box.

A pitch-black box appeared before him, slowly descending into his open palm. With his other hand, Yan Wei lightly touched the Black Ring, and another small black box appeared, lying peacefully beside the newly exchanged Pandora’s Box in his hand.

He said, “Although you are a Player, you are ultimately a subsidiary consciousness of the Tower. Out of fairness, the Tower won’t allow you to exchange for a Pandora’s Box.”

“Mm.”

“I’m thinking…” Yan Wei raised his gaze again, locking eyes with Yan Mingguang, and said word by word, “The Tower is a supernatural entity formed over countless years from the collective emotions of all people. Even if I were to wish for its destruction now, wouldn’t a new Tower emerge again after some years, fueled by the emotions of countless people? And… if I wished for the Tower’s destruction, it might not even work. You, who were born from the Tower, still cannot transcend its rules. Isn’t Pandora’s Box also its creation?”

Within the instance, heavy snow fell like goose feathers, soon piling up on Yan Wei’s palm, leaving a thin layer of white on the two cold boxes.

When Yan Wei first reached the top, he made that bet with Yan Mingguang to choose again together, partly because there was no other way, and partly because he had already vaguely formed this idea in his heart.

Yan Mingguang simply said, “I’ll stay with you.”

Regardless of life or death.

Yan Wei curled his lips, his eyes slightly curved as he smiled at Yan Mingguang.

He said, “When Lin Qing was on the brink of death, I saw a coin and somehow thought of placing Lin Qing’s soul into Lin Zhen’s body, allowing them to coexist in the same body while keeping their consciousnesses separate. Later, when I retrieved the last fragment of memory from the coin, I realized that I hadn’t just thought of it then. In fact, I had considered it before—what if I were to merge you with the Tower?”

Just like keeping Lin Zhen and Lin Qing’s consciousnesses separate, if he could keep the good and evil intentions apart and let Yan Mingguang take full control, merging with the Tower…

Wouldn’t Yan Mingguang then become the one who sets the rules of this world?

If they could change the rules, what would it matter if the Tower was destroyed or not? At that point, Yan Mingguang could simply establish a rule allowing free passage between the Tower and the outside world, and this confined space would no longer be their prison.

But back then, when the consciousness was still in its infancy, he had split it, giving birth to Yan Mingguang. Over the years, the residual consciousness of the Tower had been continuously absorbing malevolent thoughts, while Yan Mingguang existed within it as a Player, maintaining a balance with the malevolence, neither side able to truly overcome the other.

But if he were to use the Moon Wheel to merge Yan Mingguang back into the Tower, Yan Mingguang might not have enough time to absorb the benevolent thoughts lingering in the Tower World before the malevolence took advantage and devoured him.

So he needed to ensure that Yan Mingguang wouldn’t be harmed, giving him enough time to gradually close the gap with the malevolence, absorb the positive emotions, completely crush the malevolence, and devour its energy, fully merging with the Tower.

Only then could he achieve what he wanted—Yan Mingguang would become the Tower, and the Tower would become Yan Mingguang.

Yan Mingguang looked at him, his deep, pool-like black eyes hiding a myriad of emotions. It seemed he had much to say, but in the end, what came out was still that same sentence: “Whatever you want to do, I’ll stay with you.”

He wasn’t without thoughts or opinions.

It was just that his eyes were fixed solely on Yan Wei.

Yan Wei raised his hand and slowly opened the first Pandora’s Box.

The box emitted a dark light, its interior seemingly small yet containing endless abysses, unfathomable and boundless.

Yan Wei’s Adam’s apple moved slightly as he spoke solemnly, “I wish… for the Tower to complete my One-Half Immortality skill.”

Yan Mingguang listened attentively, as if he had already guessed what Yan Wei was planning. His eyes flickered, but he said nothing, only gently lowering his head to kiss the corner of Yan Wei’s lips.

Yan Wei immediately wrapped his arms around Yan Mingguang’s neck.

His lips, chilled by the snow, met Yan Mingguang’s equally cold lips.

It felt like a fleeting moment, yet also like an eternity. Yan Wei closed his eyes, thinking in this seemingly immortal moment that this skill of his was ultimately bestowed by the Tower. Back then, before he had discovered that nascent consciousness, had it unknowingly seen him and, in silence, given him a talisman to ensure his safe passage?

The gift from that naive consciousness so many years ago had now, in this moment, been returned to the consciousness itself.

At this moment, the wish from Pandora’s Box was fulfilled. The One-Half Immortality skill was completed, transforming from a severely restricted half into a full, complete immortality.

As they parted, Yan Wei opened the second Pandora’s Box. He said, “I wish… to give this immortality skill to the person before me.”

The Moon Wheel floated into the air, and the sensation of immortality was stripped from Yan Wei, surging into Yan Mingguang’s body.

At this moment, the entire instance began to tremble—he had used up the Pandora’s Boxes and made his final choice for the Ascension.

The Moon Wheel spun faster and faster. Yan Wei and Yan Mingguang were practically face to face, holding each other, both ready for what was to come.

“You won’t die now. No matter how strong the malevolence or the Tower itself is, they can’t harm you. You can take your time. I’m merging you with the Tower now, but the path ahead is something I can’t help you with. But the countless benevolence you’ll need will surely include a part of me.”

He would continuously, endlessly enter instances, sending his own benevolence and positive emotions into them, offering them to Yan Mingguang, who needed to absorb countless benevolent thoughts.

Even if his emotions, among the countless Players, might be insignificant.

“Yan Mingguang,” he whispered, “I’ll stay with you. I’ll wait for you to succeed, for you to come and get me, in one instance after another.”

Yan Mingguang chuckled softly in his ear.

“Alright,” he said, his voice no longer cold and detached, but warm, like a spring breeze.

The Moon Wheel emitted a brilliant light, and the instance began to shatter. Yan Mingguang disappeared from Yan Wei’s sight.

Yan Mingguang, now with the complete immortality skill, had gone to face his solitary battlefield.

And Yan Wei would stay in the instances, accompanying him in another way.

Yan Wei could now freely enter any instance above the 90th floor or return to the Tower World to rest temporarily. But he didn’t choose to return to the Tower World. He wouldn’t waste a single second, directly entering a 90+ floor instance the moment the top instance shattered.

He didn’t even choose a multiplayer instance but opted for a solo one—the more people there were, the more cumbersome and slower the process would be.

What he needed was to continuously provide his benevolence and positive emotions in these instances for Yan Mingguang, who had already merged with the Tower, to absorb.

This time, he didn’t want to choose either of the two options.

He only wanted to accompany Yan Mingguang, ascending the Tower to see the sun, standing by the sea to gaze at the moon.

Outside the instance.

Countless Players watched as all this unfolded.

They not only saw the end of the top instance but also witnessed the entire chain of causality surrounding Yan Mingguang and Yan Wei’s final choice.

It was a grand, profound benevolence that many would never see in their lifetimes, and it was also the endpoint that many longed for. They floated in this constrained world, no longer caring how they had entered or how long they had been there, only thinking of surviving at any cost.

But in this world, there were always those who were different.

There were always those who walked ahead.

Xu Miaomiao rubbed her nose, about to speak, when she heard Ding Xiao beside her say, “Little girl, shall we enter an instance?”

She smiled. “Sister Ding knows me well.”

She raised her hand, chose a 90th-floor instance that was about to begin, and without hesitation, signed her name.

Elsewhere, Xiang Ying thought to himself—”If he were in this instance, he wouldn’t have let Song Cheng’an sacrifice himself like that. No one is more suited for this than him, someone so familiar with Buddhism and Taoism.” As soon as this thought emerged, he immediately corrected himself—”Since when did I become the kind of person who thinks like this?”

He sighed. “I finally understand why so many people followed him back then.”

Many people didn’t aspire to grand benevolence, not because they didn’t want to, but because they didn’t dare or lacked the strength. Some were filled with malevolence but still had a sliver of benevolence, while others were simply ordinary people with only a faint trace of grand benevolence in their hearts.

But when someone was already walking ahead, that faint trace was no longer just a faint trace.

He said to Xue Wan, who was already feeling a mix of emotions, “Kid, it’s clear that I’ve won this bet. But I don’t want your life. Why don’t you accompany me into an instance and contribute some benevolence? But if you have more malevolence, you’d better stay in the Tower World.”

In response, Xue Wan threw him an invitation letter.

In the distance, Ning Yi still wore a cold expression, expressionlessly signing a new invitation letter.

At the edge of the Tower World, Gao Ming carefully and meticulously wrote his name on an invitation letter.

…

One by one, invitation letters rose, and one by one, names were signed.

The instances that were usually avoided at all costs, delayed, or schemed to escape from were now being opened one after another.

Yan Wei didn’t know how many instances he had already completed.

He roamed through instances above the 90th floor, tirelessly entering one after another, never returning to the Tower World to rest. The less he rested, the more time he could spend in the instances, the more instances he could complete.

He never even chose multiplayer instances.

He needed to maintain his benevolence in the instances, continuously sending out positive emotions, trying to complete as many instances as possible in the shortest time to provide support for Yan Mingguang. More people would only slow him down. He never stopped, nor did he ever encounter other Players.

Was the world in Yan Mingguang’s eyes like this too? Never seeing the beauty outside, with everything before him being dull and uninteresting.

Even though he was alone, Yan Wei didn’t find it boring. As long as he treated the worlds within the instances as real worlds, the NPCs before him also became living people. After going through so many solo instances, he gradually found them more interesting than the instances filled with Players’ schemes and deceit.

Yan Wei continued like this, entering one instance and immediately entering the next the moment he left, repeating this cycle over and over.

This time, the instance was by a lake as vast as the sea. The people living nearby said there was a water ghost here, one that didn’t appear at night but emerged at sunrise. To quickly resolve the instance and move on to the next, Yan Wei sat by the shore early in the morning, leisurely waiting.

As dawn broke, the warm sun slowly rose from the east, its radiant light nearly parallel as it spilled over the sparkling water from the mountain peaks, creating ripples of gold.

Yan Wei’s Perception spread out, already sensing a disturbance in the water as something unclean was about to emerge.

Suddenly—

The seagulls flying over the lake froze mid-flight, their wings spread but unmoving. The gently rippling water surface solidified, even the water patterns frozen in place. The water ghost about to emerge likely didn’t know that it had been firmly pressed beneath the water by the figure descending from above, leaving it no chance to disrupt the serene scenery.

Yan Wei listened to the footsteps behind him, feeling someone sit down beside him in this moment where time and space had frozen, defying all rules.

He smiled. “Faster than I expected.”

“I’ve come to get you.”

He turned to look, the morning sun outlining Yan Mingguang’s profile, casting a warm golden glow around him.

—Bright as day.

-End of Main Story-