novelraw Chapter 128 : Chapter 128
Chapter 128 : Chapter 128
Chapter 128 : End
After that snap, the situation shifted abruptly.
“The god can be harmed!”
Someone cried out in shock.
In an instant, those who had been repeatedly knocked down and risen again surged into the sky once more.
At the eye of this storm, Li Li’s form, like a black crow, leisurely stepped back.
She seemed to have opened a floodgate for a clogged dam, letting all their pent-up strength pour out at once.
In a flash of lightning and fire, various abilities flared around her, yet the chaotic winds couldn’t touch her hem.
On the ground, metal once again covered the brown-haired youth’s face.
He amplified his voice, roaring as he swung his fist with all his might, aided by his comrades, like a cannonball, like the resilience they represented.
He closed in on the white-haired god, now that this god could be touched.
“You hid this from me.” Yet the god remained unruffled, His pale pink gaze fixed solely on Li Li. “To achieve this… is this also your ability?”
Yiming’s fist swung down, striking the god’s chest.
Ripples spread like water, the massive impact sweeping everyone around like a barrier.
The god didn’t retreat a single step, but Yiming plummeted from the sky.
He seemed unharmed, yet undeniably hit.
Li Li didn’t spare Yiming a glance, chuckling lightly: “Yeah.”
“Illusory Reality, not a bad ability, right?” She said to Libra, and to everyone listening.
Her crimson pupils reflected the white-haired god’s current state, like white paper stained with dust, marked by an ink dot.
To others, she made ineffective attacks effective, turning impossible illusions into reality.
The impossible had now happened.
On the ground, Yiming, rising again, paused.
The next instant, cracks appeared on the god’s chest where the heavy blow had landed.
“Bang!”
The white figure in the sky abruptly shot backward, white hair like branches grasping at space to steady His rapidly retreating form.
He raised a hand, brushing aside the scattered white hair by His ear.
Like standing in the center of a circular plate, He was at its core.
At that moment, attacks from Tide and other ability users came again.
Those ability users, who had nearly sacrificed their lives to reach this point, wouldn’t miss such a chance.
The moment that white light paused, they surrounded Him again.
“We can win!” they declared.
“The prophet, Heige, can make our attacks work!”
Amid these assaults, the white-haired god’s expression remained unchanged.
He was an SSS-rank ability user, the world’s only god, still elusive even under siege, like the petals swirling around Him.
The only one He cared about was Li Li, slowly approaching from a hundred meters away, as illusory as a shadow.
Libra tilted His head, showing a trace of puzzled confusion.
Amid the crowd, it was as if the world held only Him and Li Li.
And indeed, only the two of them could hear those words.
“I believe our deal was quite fair,” He said. “Beyond that, this body of yours can do nothing, holds no additional value. Your sole worth lies in trading with me at this moment, and now you wish to back out?”
Because this was spoken for the manga artist, for the readers in the real world beyond the manga world.
This was the drama Li Li and Libra had planned, the curtain fall of the “final boss’s death” that required Libra’s cooperation.
Libra was truly a skilled actor, Li Li thought.
His expressions, lines, and coordinated movements flowed so naturally, as if they had rehearsed this performance.
Though they hadn’t aligned their lines or discussed the process at all.
So, at that moment, Li Li chuckled lightly, her figure appearing before Libra, closing the distance between them to the nearest.
Then, with half sincerity, she said to Him, “Have I ever told you? I don’t like being arranged to do things.”
Beyond the seemingly frozen space of their exchange, behind Li Li’s trembling shadow, those with unwavering resolve gathered.
At the forefront was Yiming, bearer of [Metal Heart].
Fully immersed in battle, the once somewhat naive youth from their first meeting had grown into a warrior.
Roaring, he channeled the will forged step by step, elevating his rank to SS.
In this battlefield, he became the guiding force for Tide and the others.
Then, alongside his comrades, he delivered a powerful fist to the god they deemed sinful.
“So, let’s add one condition.”
Libra’s white hair illuminated their space in white, and within that whiteness, Li Li lowered her gaze, meeting His pale pink pupils.
“Perish here with your Empire, Libra,” she whispered into His ear.
A faint flicker passed through Libra’s eyes.
The next moment, she curled her lips, her figure retreating.
Simultaneously, Yiming and the others’ attacks arrived, the massive impact shattering the white expanse in an instant.
Like a disc breaking apart, that moment seemed to freeze the world, turning it into a silent film.
Then an explosive roar thundered, scattered energy pulverizing the Floating City’s wreckage, black mist instantly shrouding the white.
Was the god killed?
Li Li hovered in the wind, letting it tousle her bangs.
No, because this was all an illusion she and Libra had staged.
But at that moment, as nearly everyone who could see this scene hoped for this outcome, trusted in this outcome, as she saw the endless stream of trust progress bars across the vast land, a surge of power seemed to rise within her.
She gently closed her eyes.
This was the power to transform this “falsehood” into “reality.”
The chaotic needle swayed, trembling at her fingertips.
Unprecedented specks of light poured endlessly into this chaos, forming a river only she could see.
The smell of gunpowder lingered in the air, and turmoil followed close behind.
Libra’s ability was [Equivalent Exchange], and He could freely decide whether to make the trade.
Li Li’s ability was [Illusory Reality], so what could she, an SSS-rank, achieve?
Her ability activated, Li Li opened her eyes, turning the chaotic needle toward reality.
The shattered white at the horizon was still falling, disintegrating amid the crowd’s cheers.
Tiny currents of air surged upward, climbing the illusory facade, invading the center of the fractured disc.
The illusion transformed into black crows, becoming Li Li’s eyes.
She saw, at the disc’s center, Libra with blood-stained long hair, quietly waiting for her.
His drama had ended, yet He remained in that tattered guise, saying to the black crow that flew before Him, “Congratulations, you’ve become an SSS-rank ability user.”
His hem dissolved like debris, cracks spreading across the white-haired god’s face.
He seemed to be erased by the power of the ability, yet He retained that refined demeanor, His pale pink pupils showing no trace of panic.
“Crack.”
The sound of something breaking.
But it wasn’t Libra.
Li Li abruptly withdrew her gaze, turning to look into the distance.
While people still celebrated the god’s fall, a hurricane swept through, blowing away the dark clouds in the sky, revealing what lay behind.
A seamless black curtain, like a hemispherical dome, sealing this world’s sky.
And at that moment, white cracks appeared on the black.
The sphere was on the verge of shattering, and so was this world.
Within the broken disc, Libra stood up.
“Time’s up,” He said.
The same tone, the same expression as when He spoke to those nobles.
And the same certainty.
In that instant, Li Li sensed a tremendous force surging toward the world’s outer wall, while a tearing sensation descended from above.
She couldn’t help but raise her hand, covering half her face.
It was the tearing of her soul.
Li Li realized this clearly.
She had been traversing these two worlds in a soul state with Libra’s help, and upon becoming SSS-rank, she could clearly see her own soul, as well as the thin thread Libra tightly held, connecting to her soul.
This was His exchange, and this thread linked to the world beyond, its other end anchored to the world’s wall.
This was a power only Li Li and Libra could perceive, a world-level force only SSS-rank could touch, and only SSS-rank could affect the world’s wall.
Libra had waited for Li Li to become an SSS-rank ability user, while the world’s wall, ravaged by two SSS-ranks, neared destruction.
At that precise moment, Libra opened the passage.
Without hesitation, perfectly timed, He used Li Li’s soul and the real world’s popularity value to trade for the world wall’s stability, giving her no chance to resist!
The sudden upheaval threw everyone except them into panic, the already gloomy sky now pitch-black, like an inescapable black hole.
The shattered white disc suddenly glowed, its cracks unhealed, yet the god’s white hair slithered and extended once more.
“You truly have unique ideas. If I waited a bit longer, letting you fully master the SSS-rank power, I might have had to give up,” Libra said. “But unfortunately, my rules currently hold the upper hand.”
The soul and ability were tightly linked, and Li Li’s ability was similarly affected.
Yet she slowly released her grip, letting the silver-white mask on her face dissipate with the wind.
“Then you don’t know me well enough,” she said.
Even in this situation, she still flashed that slightly manic smile.
“It’s not over yet, Libra.”
From the start, she had no way out.
She had walked a tightrope to this point, and even facing death, she would keep going.
And her gamble had only just begun.
On the ground, Yiming stared blankly at it all.
He didn’t quite understand—they had clearly defeated the god, so why had the world suddenly changed?
It became so unfamiliar, as if it were irreversibly sliding into ruin.
Just then, his heart suddenly pounded rapidly, as if urging him toward something.
He abruptly turned his head, only to see a figure dart past everyone, standing before them all, facing the shattered disc.
The disc flickered with white light, and in its glow, he saw that person’s profile clearly.
A familiar profile.
Like a long, long time ago, in an organization called Qing Tong, someone had stood before him like that, letting ice prisms graze their face.
Then they turned, back to him, sending him beyond the high walls.
The mark between the brows—its color, its shape—was identical to the one in that unforgettable scene.
“Li…” he murmured instinctively.
The moment his voice fell, that figure vanished before his eyes.
Just like before, swallowed by the disc’s white light, while he remained outside, unable to enter.
An illusory figure solidified into reality.
Li Li lowered her gaze, looking at the thin thread pulling her soul.
“Your exchange requires equivalence,” she said, her eyes seeming to pierce through Libra, through this sealed world, toward her original home. “If one side’s value isn’t enough, can the exchange still happen?”
“Your soul and all the popularity value you’ve accumulated are enough to exchange for this world’s stability,” Libra said.
That had always been Its plan, and now there was no need to hide it.
Li Li smiled and said, “That’s not necessarily true.”
At her words, Libra’s expression finally shifted slightly.
It turned Its face, looking at the energy Li Li had drawn and transmitted from beyond the world wall.
It had frozen.
No, not quite frozen—more like it had glitched.
It was stuck halfway, making the exchange impossible to proceed.
“Your passage is the network. If I cut off your passage, can you still transport popularity value?” Li Li said.
Li Li was gambling.
Libra needed the network to touch the real world, needed Li Li as a relay to transport popularity value to the manga world.
Cutting the network could temporarily stop Libra from acting in the real world, but it also meant Li Li couldn’t influence the real world either.
She didn’t know if Libra’s time-stop would still hold in the end, but she had to take the gamble.
If the manga artist cut the network at midnight, isolating the popularity value outside the manga world, that might be her only chance at survival.
Fortunately, she won the bet.
Libra was more calculating than she’d expected.
It wanted to maximize the intake of popularity value, and the popularity value after the manga’s final chapter was part of Its plan.
So, when linking the passage, the two worlds’ times flowed together.
Readers in the other world were reading the manga and generating popularity value, but the manga artist had cut it off in the passage.
This was an attempt to fully utilize Li Li as a relay for one last burst of power, but it also gave Li Li a sliver of hope.
At this point, the manga’s final chapter had been released, but the stories in the two worlds were starting to diverge.
“You’re truly ruthless,” Libra said.
He raised His head, looking at the person tightly bound by the thread of the soul.
“The original world’s losses could have been fully repaired, but you halted the restoration process. This world will collapse in ten minutes,” He asked. “Are you planning to die with this world? Don’t you care about your friends?”
“You were the first to act against them,” Li Li said, somewhat coldly.
It was Libra who had initially used those ability users’ souls to patch the world wall.
In His eyes, their value was probably only enough to question why Li Li was so heartless now.
But she added, “I made a deal with the manga artist for three minutes.”
That time on the plane, after thinking it over, Li Li had asked the manga artist to cut the network for three minutes that night—just three minutes.
She knew that if she couldn’t find a way to survive in those three minutes, even if she stopped Libra’s exchange, she would die with this world.
Blocking the passage wasn’t a way to live—it was just an opportunity, a real chance to survive.
So she and the manga artist agreed on three minutes, one hundred eighty seconds.
In those one hundred eighty seconds, she would make a daring gamble, seeking a chance to live, a passage back home.
She had bought herself one hundred eighty seconds to outwit Libra.
One hundred twenty seconds remained.
“I can’t read you anymore. What exactly are you trying to do? All this struggling is meaningless. If you truly don’t want to trade with me, you could just let the world collapse now. Yet you’ve left yourself a lifeline,” Libra said, seeming genuinely puzzled, His pink eyes filled with confusion.
"System, you've been following me all this time, but you've never truly understood me." Li Li suddenly felt an urge to laugh from deep within, and so she laughed, "I've never changed."
No matter what, she couldn't go back, so with survival as her goal, she stepped toward death.
She feared death, yet danced with it, all for the sake of living better.
That's how she had always walked this path, wasn't it?
"I've always found it strange—why can't you break free from this world, when you're supposedly its god?" Li Li said, her mind racing, just as it always did in extreme circumstances.
The exchange had paused, but the tearing sensation in her soul lingered, yet Li Li remained undistracted.
"The ability ranks in this world are fixed, and calling SSS-rank a god was just my own speculation," she said, her words quickening. "You are the exchange itself. You manipulate the rules of exchange, embodying what equivalent exchange means. But you're merely a symbol of equivalent exchange, even restricted by the very concept of 'equivalence.'"
"You have ninety-nine seconds remaining," Libra said.
It appeared calm, despite the bloodstains on its long hair.
Libra didn't care about the outcome, as long as His world remained stable.
"How much value do the civilians of this world hold in your eyes?" Li Li suddenly asked.
"Not even half a Yu Xiao," Libra replied.
But Li Li said, "Yet my ability tells me their power is immense."
As long as she amassed enough trust, she could manipulate reality and illusion.
If the ultimate evolution of an ability was SSS-rank, where an ability user comprehended and became the rule itself, then why did so many abilities conflict with one another?
Her ability and Libra's were undeniably at odds.
"You have sixty seconds remaining," Libra said.
Unless, above SSS-rank, there was a higher level.
A level so high it didn't just embody the rule but controlled it, reshaped it, and defined the existence of abilities with absolute authority.
"Then I'll try," she decided to gamble.
She could only gamble—she had to.
She had to surpass Libra, overpower Libra, to survive here, to return home.
Call her crazy or reckless, but she had to try!
With the most extreme, most effective method!
"You have forty seconds remaining."
Libra's pale pink pupils seemed to already anticipate the outcome.
At that moment, the ability [Illusory Reality] activated, its SSS-rank power enveloping the entire world.
Black crow feathers drifted through the air, and simultaneously, a voice pierced through mountains and rivers, reaching everyone's ears.
[You have ten seconds to decide your own future.]
From the already-destroyed Floating City to the nearby Thousand Blade City, and even the distant Ranmu City, Four-Way City, and Jiao Huang City, all civilians, nobles, ability users, and non-ability users looked up.
[Do you want a world without abilities?]
An illusory progress bar appeared in the sky, and near everyone's hand, two void buttons materialized.
Yes, or no.
[Make your choice within ten seconds, and I will make it reality.]
"Is this what a god is?" someone exclaimed, marveling at the sight.
"Are we finally going to be rid of abilities for good?"
"Is this real? Can we truly escape abilities?"
In Floating City, closest to the change, Tide and the others exchanged glances.
An Heyu, looking at the shattered white halo in the sky, pursed his lips and said, "Is it him?"
"Is it Heige? Then what should I choose?" Dan asked immediately.
Nearby, Yiming approached with his head lowered.
Seeing him, Dan stepped aside in disdain.
"Choose yes," Yiming said.
"Why?" Tang asked.
"Because..." Yiming seemed to recall a long-ago moment, in a Qing Tong cell, the cold expression of a black-haired youth when mentioning abilities.
"Li, he doesn't like it," he said with difficulty.
The source of this world's chaos was these abilities.
Oppression, exploitation, all cloaked in layers of glorified facades, with abilities at the forefront.
"Then choose yes!" Sang Feiling declared.
Behind her, Sang Feiyuan dragged Yishi along, and she turned to the others. "We're all the same, aren't we?"
"Loathing this ability-driven society, hating its injustices, despising the pain it brings."
Amid the ruins, those who stood tall kept their spines straight.
"Choose yes!"
Amid wave after wave of voices, the countdown reached its final moments.
Li Li had thirty seconds left.
"What are you doing?!" Libra's calm facade shattered.
With a hint of panic, it asked, "Are you trying to change the fundamental rules of this world's operation? That's impossible!"
Libra deemed it impossible, yet this drastic action made it uneasy.
In its eyes, those worthless people seemed to merge like droplets into the ocean, becoming deep and turbulent.
Twenty seconds remained.
Before Libra, Li Li closed her eyes, feeling the feedback from an entire world.
She said, "SSS-rank seems to already be the rule itself, capable of doing anything. But it's still confined within the rule, like your exchange—you're still limited."
"Then," she continued, "why not transcend the rule? Not just become the rule, but change it, rise above it."
"If you can do that, you'd be more of a true god than I," Libra said. "So, can you?"
Ten seconds remained.
"Let's find out," Li Li said nonchalantly.
Nine.
She would take one final, reckless gamble.
Eight.
The ability [Illusory Reality], with the world as its stage, let falsehood envelop this broken, scarred world.
Seven.
Then, turning the false into the true.
Six.
The cracks were widening, the world wall emitting an overwhelmed cracking sound, as if the sky itself were about to collapse into this darkness.
Five.
But in this night, it was as though stars were rising from the earth, merging into the galaxy in the sky, guiding the direction of the light.
Four.
The ground was trembling, as if the soul of this planet were being drawn out, then fusing with those specks of light.
Three.
Within the glowing white disc, Li Li’s body was collapsing.
Two.
“You won.” Libra closed its eyes.
One.
The passage opened again, the surging power from another world crashing against the world wall, while Libra sat silently, allowing this immense force to engulf it.
This world was composed of the majority of ordinary people, and their choices changed this world.
Time connected the two worlds, beginning to flow simultaneously.
The popularity value drawn by Libra collided with the world wall, Equivalent Exchange and Illusory Reality clashing as if battling in the void.
It was the only SSS-rank, the one most capable of halting this process.
But Libra let go.
It placed the tether of its soul into its own soul, then, along with the petals surrounding it, followed the power of the other world, sinking into the world wall.
From beginning to end, it was utterly silent, accepting this outcome with compliance.
From then on, [Illusory Reality] successfully ascended.
The false overlaid the true, then reversed the illusory.
She, Li Li, would be the most radical, sharpest blade, the most unrestrained powerhouse.
No one could surpass her.
In the black curtain of the sky, within that singular light, Li Li’s body collapsed, her soul seemingly floating, as if unable to find direction.
She broke through the shackles of ability ranks, becoming the true god of this world.
She changed the rules of this world, and the world was reborn anew.
Abilities vanished from this world, and she was the sole law.
But in this process, Li Li’s body in this world could not withstand such immense power and collapsed.
However, Li Li herself did not belong to this world, so she was somewhat lost.
It was as if she were falling through the air, or sinking into the deep sea.
At that moment, she heard a voice.
“Li!”
Someone was calling a name.
“Li!”
Others joined in, their voices blending together.
Those familiar voices rose and fell, as if they saw the white light completely falling, and also saw the sky, stripped of its black curtain, after the white light’s descent.
“Li!”
“Li!”
“Li! Li!”
Then they merged, indistinguishable from one another.
But this time, they got it right.
The falling person thought.
Her name was Li Li, though the characters were different, the sound was the same.
She was a deceitful liar, but beneath this layer of falsehood, she had once touched the truth.
In an instant, she opened her eyes mid-fall, grasping the passage to the real world.
With the endless stream of popularity value provided by the manga, the surplus left after Libra mended the world surged in her hands.
This power obediently let her mold it, reshaping her body in that darkened bedroom.
Enough.
She looked at her bedroom beyond the passage, turned sideways, and said to the friends calling her name: “See you.”
Right now, she wants to sleep and then eat douhua.
Then she turned back, unable to suppress a smile.
She said to herself: “The passage is open.”
“Welcome back to reality.”
Back to her world.