Chapter 1915: Condensing Faith and the Creator

Night is lonely.

After being forced out of the Thought Space, Lin An stood motionless like a sculpture.

Lying on the ground, looking up at the sky through the pit's bottom, one cannot help feeling incredibly small; the starry sky seems like an inverted abyss, infinitely deep.

"So..."

"This is the truth of my rebirth..."

A sigh.

After an unknown time, a complex bitterness welled up in Lin An's heart.

Although his will had been unshakable throughout his journey, facing such truth Lin An still felt it was too absurd to accept.

He would rather he had simply been reborn, with no scheme, no so-called "fate."

Although Lin An also knew everything has cause and effect, he had long sensed that his rebirth might not be a true rebirth.

"So..."

"I am the fire seed chosen by the Savior, just as I condense faith. A truly dead me was selected, and from then on I became part of the faith itself."

"I am a believer, and also the faith itself. I am the fire seed, and also the flame of hope."

"Above the self, the original fire‑keeper condenses stronger conviction; below the self, the fire seed I pass on will spread without end."

"Endless splitting, endless diffusion."

"As long as one fire seed remains, the belief remains."

"As long as the Doomsday System is not extinguished, belief is eternal and indestructible."

"Such a cycle, endless splitting... until the day of victory."

In silence, Lin An stared blankly at the stars overhead; after unraveling the key to the whole mystery, the answers to the remaining questions came flowing like water.

He did not hate that his fate had been predetermined, nor did he resent the existence behind it.

Faced with such a colossal, ultimately rebellious plan.

To be honest, after understanding it Lin An felt only deep shock; he could imagine that the being who launched this plan must have endured pain ten, a hundred, a thousand times greater than his own, in order to find the sole solution in endless despair.

Of course, all this is merely his speculation; perhaps the truth is even more complex and astonishing than he imagines.

Nevertheless, this let Lin An see for the first time a hope to end the apocalypse.

"Perhaps not everything is prearranged..."

"What I have experienced, the path I have walked, is not predetermined."

Removing his mask, Lin An suppressed his negative emotions; even if he is part of this ultimate plan, that does not mean he lacks free will.

"From the very first mission issued by the Savior System, one can see that the initial punishment for failure was erasure, then later reduction of strength, and later still the System would rather be exposed than let me die."

"This shows that what I have experienced is not within the calculations; the plan likely merely selects those who could become fire seeds and then gives them guidance."

"Whether one truly becomes a fire seed depends entirely on oneself; this is the same as my approach to condensing faith."

"The future is not fixed, fate is not fixed..."

Lin An's eyes flickered; he felt that all his previous doubts were now crystal clear.

It is obvious that his path is correct and his performance excellent.

Yet after connecting all the clues, Lin An still could not determine one thing: Chu An's existence.

"Is Chu An a guide? No... not really."

"If understanding the truth of belief requires repeated life‑and‑death crises, letting me personally endure everyone's pain, then the Long'an Project might qualify, but more so are my past‑life memories; I later went to the Alien Species world and the Star Battlefield."

"\"Rather than saying Chu An resembles a guide, it's more like No. 77 does... but No. 77 is obviously not either. \""

Lin An frowned; Chu An's presence seems more like a weakening of crisis, helping him survive better. Through a peephole he recalled his entire journey and had to admit that without Chu An he could not have reached this point.

That guy is like a riddle, making people both love and hate him.

"The initial fire seed should not be 'important'; an unevolved fire seed is meaningless."

"Otherwise the Savior System would not have issued death missions so frequently in its early stage."

"\"So, Chu An is more like a cheat? Or perhaps the Hua Guo military's early fire‑seed plan, unbeknownst to us, coincidentally aligns with the Savior System? \""

"\"Both aim to oppose the apocalypse; some fundamental things naturally correspond, just as nuclear fusion and steam engines essentially both boil water. \""

"\"Facing the System, a Fifth Stage cultivator and an ordinary person facing the apocalypse differ little in difficulty—both are hopelessly huge. \""

After long contemplation, Lin An shook his head slightly, forced to give up. The clues are still too scarce, especially since he feels behind this layer of truth lies another deeper one; that answer may surpass anyone's imagination...

For some reason, when he exited the Thought Space due to excessive mental fluctuations just now, his eyes flashed once more with a memory from his past.

It was as if something he knew yet...

"\"Did not dare\" to know?"

A long while.

Returning to a state of absolute rationality, Lin An stopped thinking further.

No matter what, he now has a correct answer.

"\"How to condense faith, and even the future path, is now bright before his eyes; he knows what to do! The true road to hope, the path to becoming a true god, lies beneath his feet! \"

Rising from the ground, Lin An silently clenched his fists, intending only to prepare for condensing faith. He has little time left before the next mission.

Just as Lin An was thinking of something, he casually opened the system communication when—

A series of dense private‑message alerts sounded one after another.

"\"Lin An! They're here! \"

"\"Lin An, I'm Jiang Haochen! Do you realize... you're about to die!? \"

On the wilderness, a squad of Awakened Ones moved cautiously toward the loud crash where the heavy object landed.

Looking around at total darkness, with occasional wails from the city's edge, several people were both tense and somewhat excited.

"\"Almost there, almost there! It's right ahead! \"

Lao San, are you sure you saw something falling from the sky? It even looks like a person!!

That's for sure, my skill is treasure hunting; with this ability, how much good stuff have we gotten!!

He patted his chest, brimming with confidence.

But facing Lao San's assurance, the bearded man who was the leader began to worry:

Before, we were just looking for food, or earlier we'd go look for spirit energy fruits—like that tree you took us to last time, which almost got us killed! You say it's a person, or something that fell from the sky... that couldn't be a Third Stage, could it!!

Damn it, if we go over, they'll crack us..

Lao Da! I saw him drop straight down with my own eyes! A Third Stage would be even better! Think about it, this thing is a dying Third Stage—what Third Stage can't even fly! By then, hehe...

Yeah! Lao Da! Fortune favors the bold; now everywhere's in chaos, lots of Third Stages have fled! If this guy got hurt in a fight with a person, we'd strike it rich!

His eyes gleamed with greed; facing the teammates' mistake, the bearded man's heart stirred, and he simply quickened his pace.

Soon, as several people feared being beaten to the punch, they rushed to the vicinity of the landing spot.

In an instant, a wind pressure at the bursting point suddenly turned into a shockwave office, blowing everyone away.

Only seen at the center of the landing point, a black light like lightning shot up into the sky in an instant, disappearing in the blink of an eye.

Holy shit!!

Such astonishing power instantly scared everyone to the point of almost peeing themselves.

This isn't a badly injured Third Stage that fell; with that speed, it's probably a Fourth Stage!

After watching Lin An fly away, eyes wide, the leader Lao Da, still shocked, instinctively wanted to shout at Lao San.

But as soon as he turned back, he saw Lao San, who had treasure‑hunting ability, stiff as if he'd seen a ghost.

Lao San!? Lao San, what are you spacing out for? Damn it, you almost got us killed—hurry up and run, this place..

Lao Da! He.. his aura is exactly the same as that person's just now and the corpse on the tree!!

His face turned deathly pale, his voice trembling.

Lao San stared in shock at the sky where Lin An had vanished; in that very instant, he felt that breath he would never forget in his lifetime, and that breath was exactly the same as the corpse on the altar fruit tree they had encountered before.