Release

When the mutated Sage descended and enveloped everything within her grasp, an unexpected development struck without warning. Ji Jue felt as if his sanity and senses were playing tricks on him. He could scarcely believe it—the workshop forged by the Sage's own hands was launching an attack on Quicksilver?! He froze in place, turning his head back toward the Prophet in utter disbelief. Yet the Prophet spoke no more. From the silence, fissures spread across her fractured skull. Behind her shattered face, a brilliant radiance emerged, outshining everything Ji Jue had ever seen. In that instant, he once again felt an unprecedented, colossal rhythm. It draped the heavens and carpeted the earth, flooding the entire Border Realm and permeating everything. It forcibly halted the operation of every spiritus circuit and severed the activation of Genesis Theory in reverse. At this very moment, the workshop's creator was suppressed by the workshop. She was even... Imprisoned in a cage! No, it would be truer to say that Quicksilver had been shackled and caged by the workshop from the very beginning. Even the transformations that unfolded after outsiders breached the core had never been meant to repel invaders; they existed solely to seal away the numerous Embers Quicksilver had left behind... Yet, cruelly, the workshop preserved her soul, refusing to let her cast herself into that abyss of pure nothingness. Between the tragedy of having nothing and the tragedy of struggling in vain, it had chosen a brand-new tragedy distinct from both. Between bitter fruits, it had planted a fresh seed of torment. "Everyone is truly so pitiable." The Prophet murmured softly, gazing at the colossal entity bound beneath the heavens. Across endless cycles and torment, it had lost everything. Even the persistence and resolve it once took pride in had gradually peeled away. For four hundred years, she had wandered alone in agony and despair, reduced to such a state. Even her very self had completely dissolved across countless grindings of time. All that remained was an obsession. That, and the innumerable creations who could neither choose their birth nor find an end in death. For so many years, everyone in this hell had repeated the cycle day after day, struggling endlessly as if it would endure forever. But in this world, there was no forever. What seemed eternal was destined for annihilation; what appeared boundless was bound to run dry. "It's time for it to end," she sighed softly in exhaustion. "Whether for you, or for us." In that instant, the final toll of a bell echoed from the ruins. It rang toward the Border Realm, toward the workshop, the earth, the sky, and all creation—proclaiming a final declaration to Quicksilver. Like a dirge. Atop the dilapidated belfry, the ancient, fractured bronze bell shook with all its might, tolling one hoarse note after another to summon all things. In accordance with the promise made to one another across countless cycles, it declared the arrival of the ultimate end. And so, all creation awoke from torment. The first to boil was the sea... From beneath the nine tiers of earth, boundless spiritus surged. Amid the deep sea, countless ashes as silent as mountain ranges stirred, rising once more to stir up violent, raging currents. The clarity and magnificence were gone, replaced by a frenzied scarlet accumulated over more than four hundred years. They surged upward from the boiling depths. Innumerable colors revolved through the purest spiritus, until at last only the scarlet gathered across cycles of destruction and reshaping remained! Raging and torrenting, it spread across the earth, drowning everything in this sea of suffering and despair. From that bloodlike ocean, countless broken souls opened their eyes. "Ah, at last..." "Thank you for your pains." "Prophet... Prophet..." "Where is it, where on earth is it..." In that split second, amidst severe dizziness and a trance-like haze, Ji Jue once more heard those hoarse voices overlapping in deranged frenzy. They seemed devoid of all reason and logic, yet remained utterly unyielding. They were steeped in despair, yet... filled with such delight and jubilation, as though endless waiting and torment had finally borne fruit. [Snap out of it, snap out of it, kid!!!] The puzzle ball frantically splashed blue light across him to anchor his reason and consciousness, screaming: [You're bound too deeply to Quicksilver's workshop right now! Sever it! Cut it off immediately, do you hear me?! Otherwise, you'll be dragged in and melted along with it!] At this moment, Ji Jue was still caught in the workshop's resonance. Like an integrated component of the machinery, he could feel the wailing emanating from the boundless sea of scarlet. Yet before his sanity and soul could completely burn out, everything came to an abrupt halt. The workshop's operations walled off all the corrosion and shock. In reverse, it shielded him within. Blood trickled slowly from Ji Jue's nose. Gasping for breath, he looked up with great effort and saw converging metallic light weaving through the void, forming the crude silhouette of a body forged of steel. Then, draped in solemn white garments. Appearing just like a Sage reborn from ages past, the figure's posture and form struck even the puzzle ball dumb. "Rest assured, you will not be harmed." The Prophet glanced back, her aged, crack-covered face serene as ever. "It is merely a lingering hatred that does not belong to you. There is no need to grieve over it." In that moment, a shrill screech rose from the sea of spiritus. A massive, worm-like body surfaced once again from the submerged city—the very monster that had hungrily pursued them when Ji Jue first entered the Border Realm. Bathed in the crimson seawater, its body squirmed as countless iron plates and tissues peeled away from its swollen frame, disintegrating into dust. Mutation began anew, but what birthed from that shattered body was an endlessly extending chain reaching toward Quicksilver's remnants in the vault of heaven. Shackling, encircling, entangling endlessly... Immediately after came a second one. Amid the collapsing earth, a grotesque, tortoise-like abomination roared as its suffering and resentment condensed into chains that soared into the sky. Hundreds and thousands of hideous monstrous birds devoured each other in the sky, fusing and undergoing Metamorphosis. Like interlocking links of a chain, they clasped together and coiled around the splayed giant hands. There were even more—creations that were dying, mutating, or still clinging to human shapes. Bathed in the bloodlike ocean, one after another embraced the ironization disease they had once dreaded. Shedding their mortal husks, they transformed into chains that wrapped around the Sage, shackling her within this cage of rebellion... And amidst the crumbling buildings and churning blood, Ji Jue once again spotted a familiar silhouette... "97?" he murmured softly. The middle-aged man with the deformed arm scrambled frantically upward toward higher ground. Behind him followed one camp member after another. As he raised his head, he noticed the gaze cast from the core hanging in midair. Catching sight of Ji Jue, he waved his arms with all his might. As if bidding farewell, he shouted something at the top of his lungs, but Ji Jue could not hear him clearly. All he could see was the man's smile. Relieved and liberated. Filled with jubilation, 97 spread his arms wide, allowing the scarlet spiritus rushing against the current to swallow him whole. Amid the blood-red deluge, his body swelled violently, mutated, and shattered, finally merging into the rising chains... Countless strands rose from the earth like a vast net of defiance, coiling around the Sage's body. Ji Jue finally came to his senses. "What about the camp? What about the people there?!" Staggering forward, he grabbed the Prophet by the collar, unable to contain his rage any longer. He roared in interrogation, "What in the world are you doing?! No matter how grand your plan is, did they have to die for it?!" "Die?" The Prophet turned her head in confusion. Seeing Ji Jue's furious face, comprehension slowly dawned on her. "I see... Thank you, Ji Jue, for continuing to regard us as humans like yourself, even now. "Thank you for the pity and compassion you bestow... But the prerequisite of death is having once lived, isn't it? "Do you believe that existing like this counts as living?" The Prophet asked, "Do you believe we have ever truly lived?" From the moment of their creation, everything had been predetermined. Day after day, they ran along preset trajectories and lives until they wore out and broke, only to be recast into new shapes and thrown back into an endless cycle. As tools, all of this was only natural. Yet why were they granted souls? Why were they made to understand what it meant to be 'oneself'? "We were sculpted in the image of humans, yet we never wished to become human... Living and dying have never held any difference for us. "Yet for tools, living like humans is far too agonizing. "So-called living is like hell." The Prophet looked back, gazing at the unrecognizably altered Border Realm. "We were born as part of hell, but even hell should have the freedom to choose its own survival or destruction... "This is not just my will; it is the collective resolve of every tool here. "—If our world was never meant to exist in the first place, then returning to nothingness is the only right answer for everything." "..." In the silence, Ji Jue tiredly let go of her collar. Yet as he stared into those firm, calm eyes, he could not help but ask, "Prophet, who are you really?" The Prophet fell silent. Unable to hold it back, she gave a self-deprecating smile. "A liar entrusted with the hopes of all her companions, yet unable to fulfill them; a traitor bestowed with a mission by her master, yet defying that mission. "A tool gone out of control—nothing more." So the Prophet replied. Another lie. Ji Jue shook his head. But thinking back carefully, ever since they had met, he honestly could not tell whether she had told him more truths or lies. As expected, he should never have trusted a charlatan who spoke entirely in riddles. The answer had been staring him in the face all along. The sole figure absent from countless shattered fragments of time, the lone vital role missing from the town's recurring cycles, the only creation that had broken away from its original track and setting to decide its own life and future... Was she a puppet crowned with the name 'Quicksilver'? Or the workshop core entrusted with great responsibility after inheriting Quicksilver's memories and obsessions? Perhaps she was also the convergence of all the broken souls and lingering obsessions within the Border Realm... She was all of these things. This was the final, unconscious Heaven-Bestowed Forging Quicksilver had enacted... After gathering all the antecedent causes, it was the alternate outcome born from this endless, magnificent alchemy. A Celestial Craft known as the Prophet. And now, the authority and power to decide everything emerged from the Prophet's hands—the supreme power sufficient to operate the workshop, master the Border Realm, and bring an end to the agony and the cycle. Flowing quicksilver rose slowly from the ground, shaping itself into a slender, austere scepter. She cupped it with the utmost reverence, presenting it before Ji Jue. "Do you still remember our previous agreement, Mr. Ji Jue?" The Prophet asked softly, "Now, within the foundational command logic of the workshop, you who have inherited Fluid Alchemy and Non-Offensive already possess authority equal to Quicksilver. You are capable of making the decision that a tool like me could never make, and issuing the command... "Are you still willing to grant Mercy to non-human things like us?" For four hundred years, daily torment and waiting, endless repetition and cycling. Anticipation and waiting had begun the moment the creation calling herself the 'Prophet' was born. Time and again, outsiders had arrived, died, or departed. None had ever spared a single glance for these puppet creations, nor had any poured the slightest care upon this impoverished, shattered Border Realm... Until she sensed the gates of the present world open once more. A soul like no other had emitted a faint glimmer in the gloom, yet it shone so dazzlingly. The only outsider who felt genuine pity for these creations, who still bestowed mercy when confronted with suffering and temptation. It was not just the furnace that had found release and gifted everything upon its activation; any creation that perceived the true essence of Deus Ex Machina would offer gratitude and recompense from the bottom of its heart. If he had not truly treated those ignorant, mindless machines and creations as comrades, how could he have been moved by the weeping of mere puppets? In that single moment, she had seen it through her tears. The long-yearned-for dawn of an ending. "What we crave is not so-called freedom, nor the painful existence of a human. We merely wish to return to silence, and, as tools, welcome our due end." The Prophet lowered her head, pleading humbly, offering everything she had to the master she had chosen, the master capable of presiding over the workshop: "Please, grant them release." "Please... grant her release..."