Chapter 818: The End of the Story

Layer upon layer of prayers echoed through the darkness, resonating together like a mighty river. Though neither Gawain nor Selina could see this river, they could clearly feel something surging against the very edges of their world—a force battering the fragile wall that separated reality from illusion.

Suddenly, a discordant ripple appeared within the current, throwing all the prayers into chaotic disarray.

Gawain instinctively exchanged a glance with Selina, just as a faint, distant voice drifted through the void:

“Mindstorm!!!”

A powerful interference erupted, shattering the layered prayers in an instant. Each voice that had once flowed together like a river retreated back into the depths of darkness.

“That sounds like Magnum’s voice…” Selina murmured, barely audible, when a faintly glowing rift suddenly spread before their eyes.

Tracing the web of darkness like veins, countless intersecting streaks of white light abruptly appeared, fracturing the black space like shattered glass. It seemed an attack from within had torn through the veil. The scene before Gawain and Selina instantly opened up—

Gawain snapped into full alert, ready for battle. Selina moved to his side and slightly behind, her lantern casting a warm, clear light.

A fresh, cool breeze swept through. Beyond the broken veil, an endless grassland bathed in starlight stretched out before Gawain’s eyes. The gently rolling earth extended beneath the stars, countless unknown flowers and grasses swaying softly in the wind. Ahead of them stood a hill, faintly familiar, facing the direction of the starlight.

At the base of the hill lay the shattered remains of a colossal black spider. Its massive body was cracked open, and from the fragmented carcass emerged a pure white spider, as if forged from light itself. Step by step, it climbed the slope, ascending toward the boundless stars above.

The shimmering glow and the starlight cascading from the heavens rippled across the white spider’s shell like flowing water.

The white spider seemed oblivious to Gawain and Selina’s presence on the grassland, steadfastly pursuing the stars above. Yet Gawain noticed countless shadowy, featureless human forms beginning to materialize around them.

The Upper Narrator’s assault had arrived.

A tide of hazy silhouettes surged toward Gawain and Selina. Gawain had intended to intercept the sacred white spider, but now he had no choice but to fend off these relentless phantoms. Flames of illusion flickered along his Pathfinder’s longsword as he swung it in wide arcs, shattering swaths of enemies into ephemeral fragments.

Selina, under Gawain’s cover, raised her lantern with one hand while tracing softly glowing runes in the air with the other. She transformed the surrounding spiderwebs and distant phantoms into awakening dreams, which dissolved like bubbles under the starlight.

Surprisingly, these black shadows were not particularly strong in combat; their greatest threat was sheer numbers.

Fighting their way forward, Gawain and Selina steadily thinned the enemy ranks, striving to reach the white spider chasing the stars.

Suddenly, a shadow stronger and more agile than the rest darted from the side. Gawain spun his longsword, pushing back the other foes, and slashed at the shadow. At the last moment, the shadow conjured a black spear to block the blade. The spear trembled as the shadow retreated slightly, then lunged forward—

The unexpected counterattack caught Gawain off guard, but it wasn’t enough to close the gap in strength. After several exchanges, the Pathfinder’s longsword shattered the spear and dispersed the shadow.

As the phantom dissolved, a flood of disjointed memories surged into Gawain’s mind. He suddenly knew the name of the shadow he had just destroyed—Delvov, a captain of the guard from the West Coast city-state. Stern in character, but secretly fond of collecting seashells…

From behind, a pair of sharp blades flashed. Their owner was defeated after a few rounds.

Her name was Nadé, from the Cloudflow Forest. She was the Emerald Court’s princess and a masterful elven blade dancer…

The hill drew nearer. The faint particles of light drifting from the white spider resembled fireflies dancing across the plain. Gawain could almost reach out and touch the divine aura radiating from the spider. A warm, clear light shone steadily from just behind him, dispelling the spiderwebs creeping from the void and the occasional black smoke, while replenishing his waning strength.

A particularly powerful swordsman blocked Gawain’s path.

Stronger than any other phantom yet more indistinct, his faceless head was fringed with trembling lines, his limbs rough and blurred. Yet his swordsmanship was astonishing. His black longsword, detailless and shifting, split into countless blades in the air, clashing fiercely against the Pathfinder’s sword.

Before this phantom vanished, Gawain learned his name—

Balmora, the “Slave King” of the desert city-state Nim Sandro, a remarkable and great ruler.

At the foot of the hill, Gawain and Selina came to a simultaneous halt.

The seemingly endless phantoms had vanished without warning. Only the breeze stirred the grass beneath the night sky. The white spider had stopped halfway up the slope, turning its head. Where its eyes should have been, there was nothing but soft light shining upon Gawain and Selina.

Suddenly, an unrelated thought flickered through Gawain’s mind—

So the Upper Narrator’s “divinity”… has no eyes?

A gentle, familiar voice echoed inside Gawain’s mind: “Duvalet… has he disappeared…”

It was Narithil’s voice. Gawain was not surprised.

“Give it up, Narithil—or should I say, Upper Narrator?” Gawain shook his head. “I know. I know you long for the outside world. But by now, you must realize you don’t belong there. A god like you forcibly descending into reality can only bring millions of deaths—and you yourself will hardly survive. You are a reflection of dreams, but those who prayed to you in the dream no longer exist.”

The white spider was silent for several seconds before speaking again: “They are all here…”

Its massive limbs shifted aside, revealing several pure white cocoons tightly guarded on its thorax and abdomen.

Throughout its climb toward the stars, it had carefully carried and protected these cocoons.

Seeing them, Gawain suddenly understood much.

“So that’s what Duvalet meant…” Selina’s voice was tinged with complexity. “We always wondered where the virtual personalities in Sandbox One had gone. So…”

“I want to bring them outside,” the white spider whispered. “Because they all want to go outside, so do I…”

“No wonder… no wonder the Upper Narrator went mad, fractured, and died…” Selina’s voice dropped to a low murmur, as if speaking to herself. “We all focused on the three thousand testers who entered the network, but… there are millions of virtual personalities in the sandbox world. To you, they are ‘real’ too…”

The white spider said nothing—neither denying nor confirming.

As an archbishop deeply versed in the mysteries of the sandbox system and the soul, Selina finally pieced together the part of the truth that had eluded her.

Beside her, Gawain, who had dealt extensively with divine knowledge and inherited much from the rebels, thought further: “It’s because the Upper Narrator realized that the vast majority of the world’s ‘people’ were illusions created by the sandbox that he went mad and died. This death and fracturing split him into two beings—his human and divine parts. And through this death and division, you broke free from the original ‘Upper Narrator faith’ that bound you, allowing you to consume the world’s collective mind without destroying yourself, placing them all into these cocoons… Am I right?”

The white spider gently shifted a long leg, emitting a low, pleasant sound: “You know many things…”

“Do you really think this will succeed?” Gawain frowned. “Even if you bring them into the real world, what then? No bodies, no physical foundation, not even the conditions to become spirits. They were born in the sandbox and can only survive there. You are a god, but they are not. These cocoons will vanish the moment they enter reality. Have you thought about that?”

“…I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Narithil said softly. “They want out, and so do I. That is everything…”

Beneath the seemingly gentle and calm words, the enormous white spider slowly raised its upper body. A chilling hostility radiated from this powerful divine being.

But Gawain only shook his head with regret—there was no room for compromise.

“Narithil,” he said, facing the hill and looking at the young god, “you will die. There will be no more fracturing, no resurrection.

“You know how Duvalet disappeared, and you should know I have already established contact with you through him.

“I have the power to utterly dismantle you.”

“I know,” Narithil whispered. “Maybe that’s for the best…”

Between Gawain and Narithil, an endless torrent of light suddenly surged forth, sweeping across the plain, washing over the last patch of this false world.

…

The violent shaking roused Orandel before dawn. Countless residents awoke from dreamless sleep, gazing anxiously toward the land said to be cursed, toward the throat of Orandel.

They heard a low, rumbling howl from the collapsed valley, the echo of countless voices calling out across the plains beyond. It seemed a tremendous power was stirring within Orandel’s Throat, beginning to beat like a heart in the final moments before dawn.

A sliver of dawn light appeared on the distant horizon. The grand crown of the sun seemed poised to rise there. Amid the faint, thinning glow and the lingering starlight, some saw a spider-like phantom giant climbing the ridge at the edge of Orandel’s Throat…

The final moment had come. Archbishop Semler instinctively gripped his battle staff tighter.

The entire underground chamber echoed with an unsettling howling. The transparent, ethereal limbs that Magnum had mentioned finally solidified enough for all the ordinary priests to see clearly. They watched as the enormous, ghostly spider weaved between the earth and stone walls. Every time one of its massive translucent legs swept across the hall, a ripple of hushed gasps spread through the crowd.

Earlier, the brain-servants’ prayer resonance had been successfully blocked by Magnum, but this seemed only to delay the arrival of the Higher Narrator. It stubbornly pressed into the real world, as if refusing to relent until the very last moment.

“This is the final moment…” Yuri muttered softly. “We’ve done everything we can…”

Wendy took a quiet breath and moved toward a corner of the hall. “I’ll tend to the wounded.”

“His Holiness the Pope just sent the last message,” Semler said gravely. “The sandbox system and the psychic network have both reached their limits. From here on, he will use all his strength to resist the shock of the Higher Narrator’s arrival. If his soul’s response fades… then we will face death in peace.”

Yuri stared calmly ahead. “Hope…”

Suddenly, a howl more soul-shaking than before reverberated through the entire chamber. Along with it came a violent tremor that shook the building, cutting off Yuri’s unfinished words.

Instinctively, he looked up—and saw Semler the Archbishop, equally bewildered.

…

Nameless grasses and flowers turned to ash. Earth and stone crumbled into dust, black smoke billowing upward to blot out the sky, dimming the stars to a dull glow.

The power that had sustained this false world in its final moments finally collapsed. The entire sandbox began its irreversible descent into oblivion.

The once-unnamed grasslands started to crumble, collapsing rapidly from the edges toward the center. The sacred white spider tumbled down from the hill, carrying with it the cocoons she had desperately tried to protect, both falling to the earth below.

In that last instant, she wove layer upon layer of silk, binding and securing the cocoons once more, shielding them from any harm—as if it were her very nature to do so.

Warm, bright light spread out, dispelling the rising smoke and creeping flames. Gawain approached the now powerless white spider, gazing at the pure light where her head once was.

Before he could speak, Narithil’s voice echoed in both his and Selina’s minds.

“In the earliest days, they thrived here on this very grassland… back then, it wasn’t a desert, and Nim Sandro didn’t exist…”

Only now did Selina recognize the terrain, understanding the faint familiarity she’d felt. She instinctively scanned the surroundings, identifying the land sinking slowly into darkness.

“This is… no wonder it feels so familiar…”

This land had originally been “written” into existence by her and Megor III.

But that was long ago—so long she had forgotten what it once looked like.

“Duvalet once asked me if, should everyone be content with this land, none would have to face this apocalypse… that all beings could live peacefully and joyfully at the center of the stage, as long as they never touched the boundaries, this world would be real to them…

“Poets could freely imagine the realms beyond the sea, the worlds between the stars; sailors could always reap abundant harvests near the shore, never worrying about the strange and bizarre edges of the ocean… If curiosity stayed low, this world would remain forever beautiful…

“I never had an answer for him—I’m too foolish… But I believe the creators who made all this must know more…

“O creators… you made this world, and you made us. What is it all for? What do you want us to do? Can you tell me?”

Narithil’s voice was soft and gentle. Faced with such a simple question, Selina fell into a long silence.

After much thought, she finally lifted her gaze, staring at the Higher Narrator’s aimless face.

“This is just an experiment. Nothing more… just an experiment…”

Each word seemed to drain her strength.

Two seconds later, the pure white sacred spider sighed softly.

“Ah, thank you… I have finally heard the answer from the creators’ own mouths.”

“Narithil,” Gawain stepped forward, unable to hold back, “actually, I can still—”

“Could you give me some time?” The Higher Narrator’s voice came gently. “I want to… look at the stars.”

“The stars?” Gawain looked up in surprise, but all he saw was a dark, chaotic sky, utterly starless.

When he looked back down, the white spider deity and the cocoons she had protected until the end were already dissolving into specks of light.

…

The howling in the valley ceased, and the trembling earth stilled.

The people of Orandel emerged from their homes, uneasy and fearful, gathering in the streets, asking each other what had happened. Yet all of them instinctively turned their gaze toward the Throat of Orandel.

In the dim, hazy dawn, children cried out in wonder.

Outlined by the rising sun was a nearly transparent giant spider, slowly climbing the nearby rocky slopes, reaching the high ground at the valley’s edge. There, it paused quietly, carefully pushing what looked like cocoons forward.

The last glimmers of starlight shimmered on the spider’s increasingly ethereal form. Facing the final star of the day, it seemed to emit a faint, almost imperceptible sigh of admiration. Many heard a ghostly voice in their minds, though none could understand its meaning—

“This is where the story ends…”

Then the sun rose, its brilliant light bathing the earth. Everything faded like a dream, leaving only a vast, glowing horizon.

(The End of This Chapter)