Chapter 1982 - 1978: Ancient Civilization
After Nuwa’s avatar realized she was just a void existence, she felt a kind of pessimism, but also possessed a strong will to survive.
She negotiated with Ye Fan, wanting him to fulfill her last wish, which was to use him to deal with Nuwa’s true form. She wanted to verify what Ye Fan said; she still carried a certain hope inside her, about how to save herself, how to kill Nuwa, how to witness the death of her creator.
"If your heart is full of revenge, it’s actually meaningless," Ye Fan said, "But I’ll temporarily agree to help you, as long as you can tell me where Shen Yan is. Then, I’ll temporarily spare you and let you have the energy to continue living."
Nuwa’s avatar replied, "Okay, I can only give you the clues. When I enter and exit the Pan Gu secret realm, I take a special passage. This passage, in my view, was created by the maker of the Pan Gu secret realm for themselves; but now, it seems this passage might just be an illusion. She should have left the Pan Gu secret realm through this passage."
"That’s it? This seems insufficient for you to save your life," Ye Fan said.
Nuwa’s avatar said, "I’ll tell you how to enter this passage and how you can pass through it to see what you want... These are things I have seen and heard before; you can go and see them. As for whether you believe it or not, that’s your own matter."
"You come with me." Ye Fan, afraid that Nuwa’s avatar might trick him, directly suggested she accompany him to check it all out. He wanted to know if Nuwa’s avatar was lying to him.
Soon, Ye Fan brought Nuwa’s avatar to the passage Nuwa had mentioned. Unlike other space passages, this passage seemed more like the one Ye Fan had first used to enter the Pan Gu secret realm. Here, it was a very inconspicuous cave, inside which seemed to hold some mysterious power, guiding towards a distant place.
Such power was abundant in the Pan Gu secret realm, so Ye Fan previously never paid attention to such minor space-time rifts. It was only after he arrived that he realized the issue was not that simple.
"Here it is. If you want to find that girl, just come in with me," said Nuwa’s avatar.
Ye Fan replied, "Mm."
The two proceeded forward, reaching a space-time rift before Nuwa’s avatar looked inside, saying, "This, in my opinion, is the simplest form of space magic. Now, after losing everything, I realize that earlier it was just my arrogance. There’s no space magic here at all; inside, it’s likely all just void stuff."
"Let’s go!" Ye Fan and Nuwa’s avatar simultaneously entered the space-time rift; Ye Fan wanted to know what secrets it held.
After entering, Ye Fan found there was absolutely nothing around, like an empty shell, just endless darkness inside. If it weren’t for his powerful elemental powers for support, perhaps Nuwa’s avatar would have been shattered.
"How can this be? Here wasn’t like this before; it should be another world," Nuwa said.
Searching in this nearly four-dimensional space for a long time, Ye Fan finally found the time axis of a three-dimensional space, entered it, and instantly there was light in front of them, like Ye Fan had brought Nuwa to a very familiar place.
This place was Earth.
But it wasn’t an ordinary Earth, it seemed to have undergone a catastrophic event. Here, traces of human existence weren’t entirely absent; one could still see the high-rise buildings. However, due to some disaster, now those buildings were just ruins. No life surrounded them, no organisms existed, let alone human skeletons or anything else.
"Here, it seems there’s nothing left but stones, and they’re burnt stones. Are you sure this is the place you wanted to bring me?" Ye Fan asked, "You’re not suggesting Shen Yan is here, are you?"
Nuwa’s avatar looked at everything before her with disbelief, saying, "No, how can this be? This shouldn’t be what I’ve seen before. Here wasn’t like this—how did it come to this?"
"What are you still hiding?" Ye Fan asked severely.
Nuwa’s avatar turned to look at Ye Fan, saying, "Ye Fan, do you think at this point I still have the privilege of hiding anything from you? As you said, if I’m just an avatar, then this world is deceiving me, making me believe I’m Nuwa—a charade, perhaps everything I’ve experienced here was demonstrated by the true form, allowing me to undergo this, rather than a forced memory... You’re considered one of the clever ones among humans, such questions shouldn’t stump you; you shouldn’t need to ask me, right?"
Ye Fan didn’t say anything. It indeed seemed very similar to Nuwa’s avatar’s words; Nuwa’s avatars should each have their own space to live in, within which was a non-existent illusion.
Only by letting these avatars experience the illusion would they believe it all happened.
Ye Fan asked, "Where is Shen Yan now?"
"She probably hasn’t come back, or after returning, found a place to hide. With your cultivation, you found this place; with her cultivation... more likely she was crushed in the previous void," Nuwa’s avatar said with some hopelessness, "Now I’ve finally completely believed what you said; I am indeed an avatar, and everything I’ve experienced should be non-existent. What you see here is perhaps the human state after the last heavenly disaster."
Ye Fan frowned, "Last heavenly disaster? Not this one? Why do I feel this is so Earth-like?"
Nuwa’s avatar sneered, "Do you know when the last heavenly disaster happened? It was in the sixty-fifth year of the ancient calendar. Do you know what that means? By Earth’s time calculation method, that would be over tens of millions of years ago. After that, the sporadic experiences wouldn’t be considered a heavenly disaster... Before this heavenly disaster, many civilizations evolved in the universe, just not Earth... But star systems similar to Earth’s environment and development situation numbered in the tens or even hundreds of thousands. The civilization of that time, compared to now, has many differences; they also built such skyscrapers, but the people living in them didn’t have as advanced a technological level as later humans... But those humans conquered space..."
Nuwa’s avatar spoke with a bit more reminiscence.
"I know you don’t believe what I’m saying, but you only need to remember one thing: these events were generated in my mind, it should be what Nuwa wanted me to know. You don’t need to doubt."