Chapter 137: Playing in the Human World

Adonis continued his conversation. "You can have everything you want here, more real than reality itself. This is also your brain's protective mechanism for your own body, because under the current circumstances, we cannot cure your physical condition, though the possibility of waking up remains. Staying in your own dream, in my opinion, is the best choice."

"However, this Miss Qin Mo should have talked to you about taking you to what she calls the real world. You should know that all living beings have a desire for survival; after all, no one wants to die. Yet, this desire can be suppressed at certain times, which is why people do not live in constant fear of death every moment, and can willingly march to their deaths for certain beliefs. The will that counters this desire for survival, I call rationality. During the time you fell into a coma, your subconscious fear of death continuously expanded, and correspondingly, the rationality countering this fear also grew stronger. For a normal person, this balance would always be maintained at a controllable level, but for you, without the regulation of bodily consciousness, both impulses have respectively manifested as entities within your dream. To put it simply, I am your desire to stay alive, while she is the rationality that hopes you will break free from the coma and choose the real world."

"This dream is the battlefield between her and me. She is very clever, manifesting herself as the appearance you like, whereas I can only materialize my exterior as the look of the doctor you saw before you fell into a coma. Well, having said this much, you must surely understand my purpose here. There are two paths before you: sit on her side, break away from this dream, and go to embrace the cruel and uncertain real world—I believe you can make a better choice. Or sit on my side, and I will seal away all memories of encountering her after this. You can still live happily in the world you desire without any worries, until the day comes when you can be successfully awakened."

Adonis looked at Qin Mo. Although he said nothing, the binding restraint vanished into thin air. Only then did Qin Mo speak, "Everything he said is a lie. Remember what I told you before? This dream was created by him; it is a falsehood created to let people escape reality."

Ji Ning was wavering, because he lacked the ability to distinguish the truth. No matter how absurd the claims made by both sides sounded, he could not perceive it. Although sensorily he leaned toward Qin Mo, with whom he shared his days, everything he had experienced over the past few days forced him to lean rationally toward Adonis.

Adonis spoke once more. "Her appearance to you was like a shooting star streaking across the sky; although fleeting, it left behind a brief eternity. Choosing to leave her will certainly make you feel regret, but Ji Ning, sadness is a forest of time, and people always walk out of it, sooner or later."

Qin Mo opened her mouth as if to say something, but she could not think of what to say. Everything had already been told to him. Faced with this crossroads, Qin Mo could only choose to trust Ji Ning, just like the countless times in the past when trust needed no words.

Ji Ning finally made up his mind. He walked toward Qin Mo, but it was precisely this action that caused Qin Mo's heart to sink abruptly, because she saw a desolation on Ji Ning's face that she had never witnessed before.

"You said you used to be my girlfriend, but you don't even know what food I like to eat. You said that in that world I loved you very much, but why is everything about you so unfamiliar to me? You said we were going to Ulaanbaatar, but you know nothing about it, as if it were just a random place name you pointed to, and you didn't even plan to actually go there—you just wanted to take me away from here. I have spent a long seventeen years of my life here, and you tell me everything is a dream and that I must leave with you, yet you never told me why we need to leave. The world here bears no malice toward me, and I know nothing of the real world you describe. I'm sorry."

Qin Mo clenched her fists, biting her silver teeth until they ached. "I never lied to you."

Ji Ning felt deeply sorrowful. With his head bowed, he moved step by slow step toward Adonis.

Adonis clapped his hands, seemingly anticipating Ji Ning's choice long ago. He put on his sunglasses, and a gate of space slowly opened beside him.

Although Qin Mo knew she had already lost, she had never verbally conceded. She was never someone who could be easily bullied or cowed; the Lu Academy had not taught her to accept fate passively. No matter the circumstances, a contingency plan always existed in the mind of every Lu Academy cadet.

Qin Mo suddenly surged forward. The moment Adonis appeared, she had already begun communicating with the authority ring on her hand. At the cost of undoing one of the six seals, she obtained the ring's temporary acquiescence, becoming its provisional master. Originally planning to thoroughly familiarize herself with the ring before making a move, she could no longer hold back—no one could take Ji Ning away from her.

No one.

Adonis remained as calm as still water as he watched the menacing Qin Mo. He did not even raise a hand; with merely a glance, he extinguished the energy fluctuations within this space. The previous contest of spiritual power between the authority ring and Adonis had been unequal from the start—one side went all out, while the other acted offhandedly. Across the tens of millions of dreams in London, Adonis had left behind a fraction of his spiritual power to sustain their operation, which meant the authority ring was merely fighting a ten-millionth of Adonis's spiritual power. Even though the Adonis standing here was not his true body, but merely a slightly higher-tier spiritual avatar, this did not mean the authority ring—its sealed abilities barely functioning—could rival him.

Adonis had stepped into the realm of demigods, even if only at the weakest first tier. The path of the Ascension to Divinity was not something anyone could tread. In the Foundation's records, from the Big Bang to the present, only a handful of living beings had ever peeked into this domain. The Great Old Ones who once ruled Earth were merely demigods; only the Great Gods who drove them away could claim divine names. The last fellow who used a mortal vessel to ascend the end of the long stairs and attain supreme divine nature was named Yann, and for thousands of years since then, no human had ascended this long stair.

Qin Mo had never thought of defeating Adonis here, because that would be akin to trying to drown a fish in water. In the realm of dreams, Adonis's essence was that of a creator god. She only wanted to take Ji Ning away. The authority ring could temporarily free Qin Mo from the dream's shackles; although it could not reach the real world, it was still far better than standing by and watching Ji Ning be taken away by Adonis.

Adonis allowed Qin Mo to take Ji Ning's hand, and with a wave of his hand, the gate of space closed once more.

"I've changed my mind. Even if I take Ji Ning away, you will still find him. I hate trouble that clings like a shadow. Ji Ning, I believe we should kill her. Only in this way can we completely be rid of her and return to the life you want."

"No..." Before Ji Ning could finish his sentence, Adonis had already raised a hand, a beam of light grazing past his face.

The hand that had been tightly grasping hers instantly loosened. Ji Ning stiffened and turned around. Qin Mo collapsed to the ground in agony, her left hand wearing the authority ring pressed against her lower abdomen, dazzlingly bright blood continuously seeping out from between her fingers.

Adonis's expression did not change in the slightest. He said indirection, "I knew it might be difficult for you to make a move yourself, so I decided to lend you a small hand."

Ji Ning's world spun upside down, plunging into pitch darkness within his field of view. It was like a silent film where the pause button had been pressed; everything froze, leaving only the injured girl before him. Then, a burst of light stung his eyes, and the Ji Ning of the past returned in an instant.

He was no longer the student who daydreamed in class waiting for class to end, the poor kid who saved breakfast money to go to an internet café, the high schooler yearning for a sweet romance... These trivial shells were shaken off by his suddenly expanding inner self. With every breath, his returning senses expanded.

A person who learns to swim never forgets how to stay afloat; a person who learns to ride a bicycle never loses the knack for keeping their balance. And a youth who had once learned the art of slaying dragons would never lose the technique carved deep into his mind.

Following the deep-seated imprint in his subconscious, his memories broke through Adonis's restraints. He remembered—he remembered what the girl before him truly meant to him.

A furious Ji Ning roared in a hoarse, unrecognizable voice, like a wounded lone wolf on the barren plains.

"655!"

"Present."

A massive terror and despair gripped Ji Ning's heart like a demonic hand.

His body roared like an enraged beast, the blood in his vessels surging crazily. Countless images and memories slammed into his mind like an out-of-control runaway train. SCP-CN-655, dormant for so long, was not isolated from Ji Ning within the sea of consciousness; they manifested in an extraordinarily fused posture. Perhaps SCP-CN-655 was right—their relationship was far more than mere symbiosis.

The flashing glare before him had receded, but Ji Ning could now only see a patch of distorted colors dancing wildly. Enraged, Ji Ning did not lose his mind; he gently laid down the pale girl in his arms who had lost too much blood, and azure-blue liquid streamed out to envelop her entirely.

"I won't leave." Like some sort of incantation, the moment Ji Ning uttered these words, blood stopped seeping from Qin Mo's lower abdomen as it had before, though the previous massive blood loss still caused her to slip into unconsciousness.

This was his dream; everything here was constructed from his spiritual power. Adonis was merely a designer, but the true master of this place was Ji Ning. As long as he believed it, whatever he imagined was bound to happen.

Adonis had remained a bystander to Ji Ning's transformation throughout. The pride of stepping onto the stair of godhood allowed him to stand there in silence. Although his gaze was calm, it still radiated peerless confidence.

"Try killing me."

This was the only message Ji Ning read from Adonis. By now, Ji Ning had recovered his sealed memories, and apart from self-blame, his heart held nothing but endless fury.

The azure-blue radiance was like a drop of ink falling into clear water. The asphalt road beneath Ji Ning's feet was assimilated at a ferocious speed, the blue barrier expanding continuously. Whether plant or stone, every substance that came into contact with that trace of blue was dyed by the hue in an instant. Soon, nothing remained uncolored in the bleak, cold world except the spot where Adonis stood.

The entire world seemed to have undergone a storm, all matter transforming toward an ultra-frozen state. It was a transformation reaction so violent that not even the alchemists of a millennium ago, who sought to turn stone into gold, had ever witnessed such a scene.

The moment SCP-CN-655 awakened, it sensed the massive energy aggregate existing nearby. Upon seeing Adonis, it had no doubt that this was the greatest crisis it had ever faced. The purity of that energy and the near-zero energy dissipation around his body all pointed to one fact: this fellow's manipulation of energy had touched the absolute limit, and taking one more step would completely step into the realm of deities.

SCP-CN-655 did not exchange pleasantries with Ji Ning after their long separation; it went straight to the point. "I cannot kill him. The best outcome is expulsion."

Although this outcome was not what Ji Ning desired most, he knew SCP-CN-655 never lied. Facing Adonis the demigod, this was already SCP-CN-655's limit.

Adonis had been waiting for Ji Ning to attack, partly because he possessed the capital of pride, and partly because he did not want matters to end this way. His original intention in creating dreams was to help people escape the cruel reality, not to farm them like livestock. What he did was akin to a god, yet he did not view them as mere ants.

The reason SCP-CN-655 had the confidence to judge that Adonis could be expelled lay precisely in this: Adonis was a creator god-like existence within the dream, but he had not firmly gripped control of these worlds. Upon creating each dream world, he had handed over the authority of governing the world to the dreamers without their conscious awareness. Thus, dream worlds followed the dreamers' every whim; in essence, they were the true masters of this world.

As the saying goes, the bystanders see clear while the participants are lost. Naturally, Ji Ning could not spot this loophole, but the SCP-CN-655 within him quickly discovered the connection between him and this world. Those spiderweb-like threads of destiny were all tangled around Ji Ning. In this world, he was truly the Child of Destiny and the Chosen Protagonist.

The origin of the world was clearly presented before SCP-CN-655. Every bit of spiritual fluctuation and every wisp of energy dissipation was permitted by the laws to be manipulated by it. SCP-CN-655 made a decision in an instant: assimilate this world.

In the real world, the energy consumed by such an assimilation process would be astronomical, because in that process, one would have to fight the will of the world while also facing unavoidable energy dissipation—a cost not even gods could bear. Yet within the dream world, SCP-CN-655 could achieve this process at a relatively minimal cost. Because the entire dream world belonged to Ji Ning; although Adonis had created it, the one holding the authority was Ji Ning, and everything here was naturally aligned with him.

The process of assimilation occurred almost in a flash, which also meant Ji Ning completely mastered this world. It was not merely the possession of the foundational law's imprint; all surface matter and energy within this world could be commanded at SCP-CN-655's discretion.

If Ji Ning previously only held nominal ownership of the dream world, then the dream world now was like a lump of clay in his hands.