Chapter 84#
The Gears of Fate: End#
The top level.
Through the burnt-through crevices, the view downward was clear.
Yu Feichen watched everything happening below from his elevated position. He saw Bai Song squeeze his eyes shut, muttering incantations as he dragged Anphiel out through the gate. The speed was such that even Chen Tong at full sprint couldn’t match it.
Though too distant to see Vincent’s facial features, his rigid posture suggested his face had turned green.
Vincent, whose face had indeed turned green, took a deep breath and arranged everyone to leave through the gate in sequence. After the others departed, Vincent looked back at the entire fortress, then toward the direction Anphiel had disappeared. After deliberation, he also left through the gate.
Yu Feichen watched them leave.
If he were Vincent, he wouldn’t have chosen to go. But Vincent cared too much about Anphiel.
He returned to the core steam engine. He did nothing, merely watched it rotate cycle after cycle. Gear transmission was the only way this world operated and evolved. The initial gear was the origin of everything. So forward rotation meant continuation, backward rotation meant reversal—like a tape that could be played forward and backward.
Rewinding infinitely like this, perhaps someday it would return to its primordial state. And he could witness how a world evolved and developed.
Vincent said a world had no will like humans did, only survival instinct. But since it absorbed power from outside, used that power to strengthen itself, and designed various structures and trials, Yu Feichen felt it couldn’t be called a blank slate. Perhaps while he watched the rewind scenario, this world’s will was also observing him from above.
The gear’s rotation speed accelerated.
Time passed like this for a very long period. So long that Yu Feichen lost patience calculating how many cycles had passed. So long that the fortress’s structure and arrangement shifted considerably compared to before, its scale also considerably diminished.
The fortress had forgotten its original products. It had spent an entire history lesson making them understand its loneliness. Perhaps it would soon recover its original purpose.
But Yu Feichen extended his hand and lightly moved the lever to the stop position.
By then he was nearly out of power. His vision gradually blurred. He consumed a chunk of the blood-salt heart to restore energy.
The gear remained still for a long time. Yu Feichen adjusted again, making it rotate forward. After rotating for a considerable time, he adjusted again—backward.
He went back and forth, seemingly playing with it. The fortress’s core, held in his hand, could only change direction with his actions, like a sandbag being mercilessly kneaded and squashed.
Finally, Yu Feichen pressed stop. He felt he’d played with it long enough. If someone did this to him, he wouldn’t want them alive.
Yet after toying with the fortress for so long, he still hadn’t been killed. Only two possibilities: first, he hadn’t violated the rules, so the fortress couldn’t kill him; second, it didn’t mind being treated this way.
Yu Feichen turned and left the top level, moving through the mechanical forest toward the history classroom. All other lessons had strict testing standards. Only history had everyone submitting a pile of notes. This was special, and special things usually carried unusual significance.
He’d thought then—could something that thinks be behind them, grading their notes? If so, would submitting notes be a communication method the fortress intentionally left behind?
And now, the fortress didn’t kill him. Could it be that it wanted to talk with him?
Yu Feichen had no certainty about such things. He only knew he genuinely wanted to talk with the fortress. He quite liked this world.
Reaching the history classroom entrance, the door was open, as if waiting.
The metal plate slideshow was blank. A single sheet of paper and a pen lay on the central desk. Yu Feichen sat there, picked up the pen, and unhesitatingly wrote a sentence on the papyrus.
“Can you deconstruct yourself?”
After prolonged silence, the slideshow moved. A new metal plate appeared with no images, only a massive question mark.
“?”
Yu Feichen: “Then give the power to me.”
“??”
“Or just give me the entire fortress.”
“???”
As three question marks appeared on the slideshow, the entire classroom suddenly filled with bone-chilling coldness. The mechanical dummies that had been decoration sculptures in the corridor ghostlike moved to the classroom entrance, staring fixedly at Yu Feichen.
Yu Feichen wrote: “State your terms.”
Long stillness. So long another cycle passed, Yu Feichen’s body again approaching shutdown.
The image changed. The familiar scene reappeared—still that busy workshop diagram with a question mark where the product should be.
The classroom’s chill deepened. They already understood what that image meant—this fortress wanted to recover its original product.
Yu Feichen’s expression remained cold as he wrote, stroke by stroke: “Stop pretending.”
After finishing, the image on the slideshow remained unchanged for a long time.
“I won’t help you find it.”
Still nothing.
“You don’t want to return to the past either.”
Unchanged still. Time flowed on as Yu Feichen’s body gradually froze and stiffened. The fortress wanted to wear him down to death.
He calmly produced his final blood-salt heart chunk to restore his energy, then wrote on the paper: “I won’t die.”
The other side still made no move. Yu Feichen continued his empty-handed scheme.
“Come with me, or continue struggling.”
This time, a new slideshow finally arrived.
On the left: a simple stick figure. On the right: a detailed fortress miniature. Between them: a massive question mark.
As if no language barrier existed, Yu Feichen read its meaning the instant he saw the image.
—How will you treat me?
All his previous words had been spoken without hesitation. This time, he thought for a very long time. Finally, he set down a short statement on the paper.
“I want to be your master.”
In the prolonged silence, the chill quietly faded away.
Suddenly, a new slideshow appeared.
Human text, clumsy and unfamiliar, with only sparse strokes.
“Okay.”
The entire fortress suddenly vaporized into a flickering phantom.
Yu Feichen abruptly looked up as the phantom swept past him like a flowing cloud. Everything in his vision contracted and shrank. Suddenly, the perspective rose, and amid the vertigo, as the surrounding landscape cleared again, he found himself in utter darkness.
In the dense black night, countless flickering fragments of light scattered near and far around him. He himself was just one especially tiny piece among the fragments.
When his gaze focused on the nearest light point, it slowly enlarged and unfolded—the shadow of that steel fortress.
Then the fortress transformed into countless scattered flows of light, dancing and merging into his body. Like the scene of claiming rewards after completing a deconstruction.
But this time he hadn’t borrowed any power from the supreme deity. The entire process involved only him and the fortress.
This was what he wanted. The Door of Eternal Night had a fixed process: believers entered fragments, obtained clues, escaped fragments. After escaping one fragment, the supreme deity’s power reestablished connection with the believer. Using the clues, they deconstructed this fragment and drew the power into themselves, then distributed part of it as reward to the believer.
But what if he could deconstruct himself?
Previously, though he’d entertained such thoughts, he didn’t know how to do it. Because he neither understood how to truly deconstruct a fragment nor knew how to obtain that power.
He didn’t know—didn’t those fragment worlds that captured people and outside power also not know?
And this fortress’s existence was so special that Yu Feichen wanted to risk attempting it. This was also why he had let all others—especially Vincent and Anphiel—leave first.
The fortress certainly missed the already-vanished past. But as machinery created by humans, it wanted more a master who could control itself. Without a master, it never knew where to go.
The facts proved he hadn’t guessed wrong.
As for why he made such a guess, it wasn’t because the fortress had revealed any flaws. It was because Yu Feichen felt he and it were quite similar. Both unable to return to the past, neither expecting a future.
So when a stranger suddenly extended a hand, it followed.
I’ll treat you well, he thought.
He couldn’t use that power yet, but wouldn’t remain unable forever.
Withdrawing his thoughts, Yu Feichen continued observing his surroundings. Those glimmers were so faint, like scattered remnants drifting. Yet in the center of this pitch-black eternal night, there stretched an ocean of radiant light, blazing like a sun.
Its territory was so vast, occupying most of his vision, without visible boundary. Beyond the pure bright light gleaming at its center like midday, countless dazzlingly brilliant points scattered like millions of luminous ribbons.
Just as he observed that sight, the system’s announcement sounded.
“Escape successful.”
“Deconstructible world not found.”
“Return passage opening. 10, 9, 8, 7, …3, 2, 1.”
“This adventure concludes. Looking forward to your next adventure~!”
An irresistible force pulled him toward the sun’s very center.
Brilliance enveloped him.
The next second, Yu Feichen stood on the ground of the Radiant Frost plaza.
Standing there, he thought for a long time. Thought of paradise and eternal night, of people, deities, fragments and power. Thought of Anphiel being forcibly dragged out by Bai Song.
Until a dove flew past his vision. Yu Feichen extended his hand and cruelly grasped it.
When leaving the fragment, Bai Song must have been pulled back to paradise, though Yu Feichen didn’t know where he was now. He planned to contact him later. Right now, he needed to find someone else.
He told the dove: “I’m looking for Xiamson.”
Yu Feichen rarely used communication tools, so the dove didn’t recognize him well. After tilting its head to think, it made a “coo~” sound indicating it was contacting.
Before making contact, the dove’s throat suddenly emitted: “Coo—”
Yu Feichen’s brow furrowed. Someone was contacting him.
The dove spoke: “Lord Claros requests communication.”
Yu Feichen: “Decline.”
“Coo—”
“Lord Claros requests communication.”
“Coo—”
“Lord Claros requests communication.”
Yu Feichen: “Accept.”
“Please select voice or text.”
“Text.”
“Coocoocoocoocoocoo—”
After cooing, floating text appeared before the dove.
“Resurrection day is approaching. They’re having a meeting today. Come with me.”
Yu Feichen felt confused. He and Claros really weren’t close.
He replied: “For what?”
“Murphy isn’t talking to me anymore.”
“Among paradise’s officials, only he ever talked to me.”
“Going alone would be embarrassing.”
Yu Feichen: “I’m not available.”
Claros: “Come with me, and your recent actions won’t be reported to the supreme deity.”
Yu Feichen paused thoughtfully, then replied: “What did I do?”
Claros: “Hehehehe.”
Yu Feichen: “.”
He released the dove and walked toward the Tower of Genesis.
As he walked, he received many gazes whose meaning was unclear. Many people watched him, then gathered to whisper about something. The last time he received such treatment was when Mogoros hung banners celebrating that he’d finally gone to the Door of Eternal Night.
Yu Feichen ignored those gazes, coldly entered the elevator. Then he suddenly noticed something new on the elevator’s button panel.
An annotation line.
Previously, only the twelfth floor button where the Disciplinary Deity was located had annotations reading: “Sathernal not permitted to enter.”
Now the button for the floor where Murphy was also had a new line of text.
“Yu Feichen, Claros, and dogs not permitted to enter.”