Chapter 1 A Snowy Night

It was a snowy night.

The ancient and sturdy fortress of Frostwind City stood in the snowstorm as it had for millennia, like a proud guard at the first outpost before the Gorgon Abyss. Its layered, petal-like walls faced the biting wind, blocking the blizzard from the plains outside. Yet, the howling of the wind as it swept across the plains still penetrated the fortress city through the gaps in the walls. The sound, distorted by the city walls and magical barriers, became a low, persistent wail echoing through the outermost streets of the fortress city, like the weeping of the earth itself.

Strangers would find it hard to sleep soundly on such a night. Even the hardy Northerners could not help but feel irritable listening to the cries swirling outside the city. Northern tradition considered these ominous sounds circling the snowfields as harbingers of doom. So, the taverns on the outermost streets of the fortress city lit their brightest lamps one by one, and barrels of strong liquor were brought to the tables, melting into courage and warmth in the veins.

The people staying in Frostwind City talked and laughed loudly in the taverns, using human voices to dispel the ominous sounds from the plains. They discussed the battles on the front lines, the mindless Black Swordsmen, and the relatively calm state of the Gorgon Abyss. Some also talked about the "delegation" that had entered the city during the day.

Whatever they talked about, the point was to heat up the atmosphere. Only in this way could they withstand the blizzard sweeping across the entire snowfield.

But almost all the noise was at the foot of the mountain. The higher up in the city you went, the sparser the voices became. And in the area where the Lord's Castle was located, one could hear almost only the howling of the wind and snow.

The cold wind, carrying snowflakes, passed through the courtyard of the courier station, tearing the flags in the courtyard with a loud flapping sound. In the dim lamplight, one could occasionally see figures flashing near the gate of the courier station. These were legion soldiers braving the wind and snow to check the city's defenses. The outside world was gradually being frozen – which made the warm room seem like an isolated paradise.

Lily had been watching the snowstorm from the window for a long time and finally reluctantly turned her gaze away. "Woof... such a big blizzard; even I don't really want to go out..."

Vivian, who was adding firewood to the fireplace, rolled her eyes at her. "You've been agonizing over whether to go out for a walk in this kind of weather for ages. Are you sick or something?"

"Don't make it difficult for her. The transportation industry king of the Arctic Circle is forced to stay indoors and watch the snow outside. The fact that she hasn't torn down the house yet is a miracle of education, okay?" Hao Ren waved his hand and turned to Leah. "How about it? Do you have any clues about the Tumen Empire and the 'source point' of the world's collapse?"

After finishing the exploration of the Gorgon Abyss, he had gathered Lily, Vivian, and Leah in the room to discuss the clues found by the three probes. The one most likely to provide reference information was naturally the Goddess of Creation herself, who had been sleeping in the dark realm for ten thousand years.

Unfortunately, just like with the terms Black Pine Forest, Khersonia, Gorgon, and Tiamat, Leah knew nothing about the so-called Tumen Empire either.

"Never heard of the former, and can't figure out the latter," Leah shook her head, swinging her legs back and forth while sitting in the high-backed chair. This was not a sign of a good mood, but rather a slightly irritable expression. "But although I can't figure it out, I have made some bad discoveries about the changes in this world."

"Bad discoveries?" Hao Ren frowned, sensing a hint of foreboding from Leah's simple sentence. "What's going on?"

Leah looked up. "Do you remember the connection between the Gorgon Abyss and the Black Pine Forest?"

Hao Ren nodded. "Of course, that's why we took a shortcut and went directly from the Black Pine Forest to the Northern Border."

"Then you should also remember that I said something at the time, roughly meaning that the Black Pine Forest and the Gorgon Abyss are essentially no different, they are both 'fragments of the world's depths', and they are now showing a connected state in the real world because they are 'rising'," Leah stopped shaking her legs, and her expression became serious. "Just now, I confirmed two things."

Hao Ren and Vivian looked at each other and said in unison, "What two things?"

"First, 'rising' is absolutely true. I have always kept a little mental power on the connection point between the Gorgon Abyss and the Black Pine Forest. Now I can confirm that the connection point is becoming more and more stable, and new connection points are being established. This shows that the 'world line remnants' in the depths of this world are indeed rising and have already begun to affect the structure of the real world," Leah said slowly. "Second... I found that as those things rise, the stability of the entire Laerlian is decreasing, and the rate and intensity of the decrease far exceed the rate at which those world line remnants rise."

Hao Ren frowned slightly and pinched his chin with his hand. "What does that mean in layman's terms?"

Leah glared at him, but still explained, "Laerlian is wrapped in my divine power barrier, so it can be regarded as a closed 'small world', and the information cycle of this small world presents a self-consistent and stable state like a mini-universe. But since there is stability, there will naturally be times of instability—at this moment, Laerlian's stability as an information structure is decreasing—translated into a normal world, that is, the entropy value is exploding, and the universe is heading towards collapse! And its rate of stability decline far exceeds the rate at which those world line remnants rise, which means that something else is accelerating the process of plunging the entire world into chaos!"

Hao Ren listened blankly, finally realizing the seriousness of the situation. "Are you saying... Laerlian is gradually collapsing?!"

Leah nodded silently.

For some reason, Hao Ren suddenly thought of the inexplicable civil war being waged by the Dragon Empire.

Originally, he thought this was just a routine conflict within an indigenous civilization, but clues gradually emerged in his mind, making him vaguely feel that he had grasped something—

The unknown energy reaction in the earth's core, the mysterious signal connection between the earth's core and the Dragon Imperial Capital, the secret of the Cursed Knights' freedom of movement in the Black Pine Forest, the connection between the Black Pine Forest and the Gorgon Abyss, the connection between Princess Constance and the Gorgon Abyss...

He listed all the things that had happened so far, and the connections between them, whether obvious or hidden, became more apparent:

The Black Swordsmen, bound to the Dragon Soul Emperor, collectively exhibited "symptoms" of being contaminated and corrupted. At the same time, Princess Constance, as if she had been preparing for a long time, suddenly raised the banner to declare war on the Black Swordsmen, while the six provinces of the Northern Border responded instantly, and the Gorgon Abyss also weakened its activity intensity at the same time—and while this series of events was happening, even deeper changes were occurring in this world.

Those "fragments of collapsed world lines" began to rise from the bottom of the world, and the stability of the entire Laerlian quickly declined.

Clearly, every event could be said to be a "sudden situation," but when all the things were added together, they gave people the feeling that they had been rehearsed countless times and cooperated seamlessly.

At this time, Lily couldn't help but become serious. She withdrew her gaze from the snowstorm outside the window, turned her head, and asked, "Could it be related to the lingering influence of the Mad Lord?"

"I still haven't sensed the Mad Lord's power fluctuations," Leah rubbed her brow with her fingers, her tone frustrated. "This world gives me a very bad feeling—it's like a machine running according to a set program, and everyone is operating inside this machine as if they were destined to do so."

"If Laerlian's stability continues to decline, how long can its real world be maintained?" Hao Ren asked the most critical question.

"Two years, at most two years," Leah said with certainty. "And in this process, 'world line remnants' like the Black Pine Forest and the Gorgon Abyss will completely rise to the surface. A large part of this planet will be replaced, and more than 70% of the population will be swallowed; then, the remaining 'safe havens' will also lose order, the physical rules will become chaotic, and the material world will disintegrate; finally, the entire world will decompose into basic information elements. Nothing will be born again, and nothing will perish. That will be the last day of the world."

Hao Ren opened his mouth and tapped the shell of the data terminal with his finger. "Does this... exceed the scope of my work?"

"Damn it, since the day you signed the contract, how many of the things you've done haven't exceeded the scope?" The data terminal bounced on Hao Ren's shoulder. "But it's okay. Now we have a big family in the Dream Plane, and we can still put together an immigrant fleet. If this planet really can't be saved, it's no problem to take the people away. Then Leah can use her power to pack up half an ecosystem..."

Hao Ren breathed a sigh of relief. "That's okay then; I shouldn't have to write a self-criticism. But those are last resorts; we can't just sit and watch this weird 'end of the world' develop like this. How can a good world collapse just like that? And it's still being protected by Leah's divine power. In this situation, how can it still be inexplicably dying?"

No one could answer his question. Even Leah could only shake her head with a wry smile, while Lily once again turned her gaze to the snowstorm outside the window.

"The snow is so heavy..." the husky girl mumbled. "I have a feeling that something is going to happen tonight..."

Vivian glanced at her. "Don't talk nonsense. What comes out of a dog's mouth..."

Before she could finish her sentence, a sudden feeling of palpitation made everyone in the room stand up from their chairs.

Leah jumped directly to the ground. Her face became extremely gloomy. In a flash, she came to the window and pushed it open.

The wind and snow outside immediately roared towards the opening, but before touching Leah's body, all the wind and snow suddenly stopped and then retreated to the sides in fear.

Leah looked to the south.

The sky in that direction had become incomparably dark—even though it was indeed night, the sky was still darker than imaginable, as if an incomparably huge dark vortex was hanging upside down there, absorbing all the light in the world.

"The Mad Lord..." Leah said through gritted teeth.