Chapter 20: A Dreamland Where Even Hope Cannot Be Caught 5000
This is a story that happened a long, long time ago, about a little boy.
That year, the boy was nine years old. He had a father who worked as a technical director at a large company, a mother who was a full-time writer at home, and a little sister four years younger than him. The four of them lived in a small nation in the center of the continent, a life that was calm and without ups and downs.
His father was generous but busy, his mother stayed at home but was strict, and his five-year-old sister was usually well-behaved and sensible, though she occasionally caused some trouble in the house. The boy's life was neither perfect nor tragic—just ordinary, a normal family, normal happiness.
But there was one thing that always troubled the boy: the expectations placed on him by his parents, teachers, and even his classmates and playmates.
What do you want to be in the future? What are you interested in? My child is so smart, he can definitely get into a good academy. My student's grades aren't bad, he should indeed work hard in this direction.
This was the habit of the Siberia people. They liked order, they liked predictable, controllable lives. From large-scale social engineering and national construction down to child-rearing and future planning, no matter what it was, they always liked to make many preparations in advance, using various technologies and arrangements to make everything proceed according to their own wishes.
The Siberia people could make everything run according to their own wishes, even the world itself—this was what the central government boasted in the news at the time. And at that time, the Siberia people had already developed facilities that could control the weather and suppress earthquakes. They boasted that all of nature had been grasped in human hands.
So the Siberia people should be like this.
You should do this, you should do that, you should become this kind of person, you should become that kind of person. Under the arrangements of his parents, the young boy studied mathematics, practiced musical instruments, pondered problems, delved into physics, spent time with books in cram schools, and copied notes in school. Every day, he ran back and forth between various places, following his parents' demands to learn one kind of knowledge after another, striving to become the person they expected.
As for his own thoughts, the boy didn't have any yet, and he didn't care, because he didn't mind living according to the plans others had laid out for him. The vast majority of Siberia people were like this. At home, they obeyed their parents; at school, they obeyed their teachers; if they entered society and worked, they obeyed their superiors and bosses. Most Siberia people lived according to the thoughts of others—this was the norm of society.
The boy had no complaints about this. He earnestly followed the advice of his elders, completing one task after another that they expected of him. And so life continued in its plainness. If no accident occurred, the boy would likely step by step become a high-level technical professional like his father, becoming part of the upper echelons of society.
But this peaceful life did not last long.
One calm summer night, a sudden, grand meteor shower that covered the entire night sky—even the entire sky of the Siberia World—fell from the heavens. Its appearance was completely unexpected by the Central Observatory; there had been no signs whatsoever before it.
Amid the delighted cries of pedestrians on the roadside, streaks of light streaked across the sky. These multicolored meteors, almost none of which shared the exact same color, seemed to appear out of nowhere and then vanish just as suddenly. Although everyone saw these meteors falling from the sky, no one found even a single fragment of meteorite.
That year, the boy was ten years old. It was his tenth birthday. As he stood on the balcony of his home with his parents, looking up at the meteors streaking across the night sky, he saw a meteor flashing with a deep blue light fall from the sky and enter his brow.
And the next day, the world was changed.
Because the so-called "superhumans," which had only existed in legends and movies, had truly appeared in this world without miracles.
So-called superhumans were those who possessed abilities beyond what ordinary humans could hold. The first superhuman discovered was a drunken middle-aged man. Probably due to social obligations, he had consumed excessive alcohol and, in his sleep, ignited a massive fire. Blazing flames spewed from his mouth and nose with his snoring, burning down the entire bar and the surrounding half of the neighborhood, killing hundreds of people. This immediately caused great social panic and quickly raised the central government's vigilance against the existence of superhumans.
The whole world showed great longing and fear toward this unknown power that could easily kill others. People wanted to obtain it themselves but didn't want others to have it. To determine whether this middle-aged man should be sentenced to death, the lawyers' teams on both sides engaged in a long tug-of-war in the Siberia Grand Court, sparking huge social debate.
But soon, no one paid attention to that man anymore... because after that, other various superhumans began to appear on the stage.
Some had physical abilities beyond ordinary people, some could control water currents, some could transform into lightning, some could turn invisible and fly... telekinesis, ice, mind reading, memory manipulation, gravity and repulsion, shapeshifting and transformation... These superhumans came from all corners of society, from high-ranking officials in the central government to homeless people huddled in street corners. From the moment they appeared, these superhumans quickly disrupted social order.
Some used their abilities for evil, some for good. For various reasons, conflicts soon broke out among superhumans. They fought in the streets, brawled in the squares. The government was helpless against them. The police and military might have some deterrent effect on the weaker superhumans, but against the powerful ones, they were utterly useless. These powerful superhumans were no longer afraid of normal weapons of war; neither missiles nor lasers were of any use. Even long-range sniping would be detected by some strange sixth sense. The strongest among them might not even die from fission bomb attacks.
The emergence of superhumans and the conflicts among them quickly affected the stability of the entire society, even though the government had begun to conscript some ordinary superhumans on a large scale. This was because superhumans were still awakening continuously and without any pattern, including criminals, mental patients, and antisocial madmen. Their existence threw the entire central government into a frenzy. The Siberia people without superpowers collectively fell into panic. They felt that their peaceful lives could no longer be controlled, and their lives were in the hands of some superhuman who might or might not be a madman.
But the boy became much freer because of this. The cram schools on the streets had mostly closed down, and even many schools had lost their normal teaching functions. Countless students could only stay at home, waiting for the day when classes would resume. But that day was far off, because the relationship between superhumans and ordinary people was gradually intensifying.
As long as individuals have intelligence, have personalities, have different positions and thoughts... as long as there are "differences" between individuals, then conflicts will inevitably arise between them.
And the huge gap in power brought by superpowers would magnify these conflicts hundreds or thousands of times.
Before superpowers existed, if two people had a quarrel, as long as it wasn't too intense, neither would choose to resort to violence, because they could both get hurt and both might be punished.
But if one of them had superpowers, they only needed to move a finger, glance from several streets away, or send their ability through the crowd into the other's body and choose the right moment to trigger it, and they could easily kill the annoying person in front of them, with no one able to find evidence. Superpowers were just too convenient and too powerful. Before their abilities, ordinary people were probably not much stronger than ants. This was still just ordinary energy-type abilities. If it were a psychic-type superhuman, perhaps with just a glance, your self-personality would completely collapse, turning you into a puppet licking their shoes.
If a conflict really arose between two parties, would the one with power not do this? Maybe. There were always people who wanted to believe in the quality of others, staking their lives on the morality and self-control of others.
In short, the world now only maintained a fragile balance. The relationship between superhumans and ordinary people was tense, but the relationships among superhumans themselves were also extremely contradictory, unable to unite as one.
And the last straw that broke this fragile balance was a few simple pieces of news.
Through repeated battles, the most powerful superhumans discovered that their abilities could be enhanced by killing other superhumans and absorbing the essence of their powers. At the same time, through clues said to have come from an unknown source, they also learned that the central government was secretly conducting research on an "Anti-Superhuman Interference Field," attempting to wipe out all superhumans in one fell swoop.
And so, the war between superhumans and superhumans, and between superhumans and ordinary people, began abruptly and unnaturally.
That year, the boy was twelve years old. On the day the war began, he was at home with his parents, celebrating his sister's eighth birthday on the second floor of the house. After cutting the cake and lighting the candles for his sister, the boy casually turned his head to look out the window. Then he saw a red flash streak by. A scorching ray cut across his home from left to back, shattering all the walls on the first floor.
In an instant, before even a cry of surprise could escape, the boy's home, along with the houses of the entire street around it, was completely destroyed and began to collapse rapidly. But in this extremely dangerous moment, the boy found that his body, which had curled up from sudden fear, had now straightened out again. He felt a strange power spreading through his body, making his speed many times faster, allowing him to dodge all the dangers directly, making everything around him seem like slow motion.
At this moment, the boy's eyes were flashing with a magnificent blue light. The radiance of this overflowing energy was the most obvious characteristic of "superhumans"!
At this moment, for the boy, time seemed to stand still. After realizing that his home was being attacked by a superhuman, he immediately turned around nervously, looking toward where his parents and sister were. At this moment, the boy's parents had their legs pinned down by the ceiling that had fallen from the collapsing building. Their expressions were terrified, as if they were screaming, their eyes full of confusion and fear. His sister had already been buried under broken rocks and bricks, with only one small hand exposed...
His heart, which had been ice-cold from the start, gradually began to hold some hope. Although he didn't know why, and didn't yet understand what his ability represented, the trembling boy now knew that perhaps he had the power to help his family. At this moment, he only wanted to save his loved ones as best he could. Thinking this, the extremely nervous and uneasy boy immediately ran toward his sister, who was closest to him, toward the layers of rubble and debris.
The boy wanted to clear away the debris and rescue his sister from it. But after he struggled with all his might and barely managed to lift a large piece of rubble, the boy understood.
He couldn't save anyone.
Even though he had awakened superpowers, he was still just a twelve-year-old boy, a child. His instinct told him that this state he was in would last at most less than five seconds. And in five seconds, he couldn't move the rubble off his sister, nor could he drag his parents, pinned under the ceiling, out from under the crushing weight... He couldn't salvage anything.
The rocks pressed down at an extremely slow speed. His sister's hand twitched at an extremely slow speed. The boy turned around blankly, looking at his parents. Even though his time was accelerated, he could clearly see the slow changes in their expressions and eyes—it was the despair brought on by gradually shifting from helplessness to fear and panic...
The confusion and fear when attacked, the bewilderment when awakening his ability, the terror when thinking of his parents and sister dying, the joy when feeling he could save them, and now, the helplessness of waiting bit by bit for the final moment to arrive. Even if time was extended, it was meaningless. He couldn't salvage anything, only subjecting himself to longer-lasting pain. The boy suddenly roared. He absolutely refused to accept this reality!
Five... four... three... two... one... The boy frantically tried to move the rubble off his sister. He shouted with all his might, throwing rocks and bricks behind him with every ounce of strength. But time was too short, and the debris was too much. When the duration of his ability ended and time began to flow again... bright red blood seeped from the gaps in the rocks. The small hand spasmed once, lifted, and then stopped twitching. And his parents' agonizing moans echoed in the boy's ears.
Crack.
The boy sat down heavily in the rubble and debris. He was exhausted, a strong fatigue from some unknown source spreading through his entire body. He stared blankly at the pile of rocks in front of him that was seeping blood, at his own hands that were cut with large gashes by the rocks, at his parents with their broken legs beside him, listening to their cries of pain. His mind was blank... At this late hour, violent explosions sounded in the distant city, raging fires broke out, the bright flames illuminating the surroundings as if it were daylight. Under the orange-yellow firelight, the boy's grief-stricken and despairing eyes flickered with an unsteady blue light.
Inside his pupils, the hands of a clock rotated. Even if they could slow down, they would never stop.
Just like fate.
And this was the war, and the beginning of the boy's story.
...
In the vast hall of the grand temple, forty-two majestic and solemn metal pillars supported the high dome, gradually fading into the dark shadows. On the slightly sunken floor of the hall, rows upon rows of profound and complex runes extended toward the center. The magnificent magic array formed by countless regular patterns was now glowing with a faint blue light. As energy surged, countless particles of light scattered and vanished in midair, making the hall almost dreamlike in its beauty.
But now, a "person" slowly awakened from the throne at the center of the hall. He opened his eyes bit by bit, his pupils flashing with deep blue light, a barely perceptible flicker of light and dark remaining within. The hands of a clock rotated. But soon, this trace of sorrowful fluctuation dissipated, turning into utter indifference.
"Overlord."
A young girl's voice sounded in his ear. It was a small soul puppet floating in midair. At this moment, the puppet's calm, almost flat voice came: "The three hundred and nineteenth world line replacement has failed. Your observation failed, and you fell into a dream of possibilities from the collapse of the river of time."
"Is that so."
On the throne, the man fell silent. After a long while, he turned his head and said, in a voice as cold and calm as the soul puppet's: "I had another dream where even hope couldn't be caught."
The man fell silent. The hall suddenly became still. The faint hum of mana flowing echoed between the glowing particles of mana and the dark dome. It could be seen that their light was gradually weakening, as if they had lost some important support. And in the hall, the dreamlike feeling was rapidly fading, as if retreating from some unknown realm back to reality.
And just before the light was about to completely dissipate, he spoke again.
"Then begin the three hundred and twentieth."
The man's voice was calm. And because of his words, the surrounding time seemed to stop. Whether it was the fading light of mana or the receding dreamlike quality, everything froze and stood still. The only exception was the small soul puppet floating beside the throne. And this soul puppet now bowed respectfully in midair, kneeling on one leg: "Obeying your command, 'Time Turner,' 'Fate Overlord,' Your Majesty Fatlervi."
"Now preparing for the three hundred and twentieth world line replacement. Beginning to link to the River of Existence. Beginning to ignite the First Light. Beginning to activate the 'Observer' system."
In the vast and magnificent hall of the grand temple, countless stars lit up. The faint blue light blazed brightly. Profound runes surged layer upon layer, forming two mighty rivers of light. One surged and roared, while the other was calm and rippleless.
And above these two rivers, the dome shrouded in dark shadows began to glow. As millions of light clusters, as if they were souls, were ignited, billions of starlight bloomed one after another. The dome, as if forged from stars, displayed its majestic form. Starlight flickered, as if it enveloped all things in the world, reflecting the entire world and the multiverse.
And under the cover of such a dome, the originally rippleless river of light, calm as dead water, finally began to tremble slightly. It was as if a drop of water had fallen onto the surface of the river at its center. Concentric circular ripples began to spread, layer upon layer, until they covered the entire river surface.
It was only then that the soul puppet's calm, flat voice came.
"Beginning the three hundred and twentieth observation."
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