Chapter 740: The One Who Reaches the Summit
"Witness the 'End of Eternity'..."
Zhang Shan also forced a bitter smile. "Chu Tianqiu, I've been through two cycles with you, and yet I never knew your 'Echo.' Isn't that a lie?"
"Believe me or not," Chu Tianqiu replied with a serious expression. "I have never lied to anyone, nor have I ever killed anyone. I came here to understand this place from the very beginning. After I had fully grasped all the information, I ultimately decided to liberate this place. That has been my motive all along—never changing."
"And your purpose in liberating this place... is to become 'God'?" Zhang Shan asked again.
"What else?" Chu Tianqiu answered with a hint of sorrow. "This place is inescapable. From the moment we entered, all of us were destined to remain here forever."
The people standing nearby changed expressions upon hearing Chu Tianqiu's words.
This place... inescapable?
"Then what do you mean by 'liberation'?" Zhang Shan asked.
Chu Tianqiu paused for a moment after hearing this, then said, "Since I'm about to formally cooperate with you, it's only right that you know this."
After saying this, he glanced at Han Yimo, Dr. Zhao, and the Old Lü and the Little Glasses standing behind Zhang Shan.
"After I finish what I have to say, the four of you can decide whether to stay or leave. I've done enough for you. It's time to stop."
None of them agreed or denied it; they simply looked at him with varying expressions.
"Once I become the 'God' of this place, the entire 'End of Eternity' will lose its meaning to exist. You all will have no need to revive either." Chu Tianqiu spoke bluntly. "In other words, one general's success leaves ten thousand bones to rot. Everyone stops cycling, and this place will become a complete wasteland."
Everyone present changed expressions upon hearing this.
The Little Glasses' gaze gradually turned cold. He adjusted his glasses frame and said, "Mr. Chu, I'm sorry, but... you're saying that if we worship you as 'God,' we'll have to pay the price of being utterly annihilated?"
"Not just annihilation." Chu Tianqiu answered. "I hope you will give everything for me—whether it's your eyes or your heart. After paying everything you can, you will die a hard-fought death, leaving only shattered corpses here to be annihilated."
Chu Tianqiu's words plunged everyone into another long silence.
"But why?" the Little Glasses asked, coming back to his senses. "What makes you so sure we'll help you become 'God' and then die ourselves?"
"Because you have no choice." Chu Tianqiu raised a finger. "This place requires someone to become 'God' to resolve everything. And each of you can only possess one type of divine power. You're far from being 'the omnipotent God.'"
"That reason is clearly not enough, is it?" the Little Glasses pressed. "Even if you explained all this to us... would we willingly give up? Many terminally ill people in this world know their illness is incurable, but they don't give up treatment immediately. It's the same logic."
Chu Tianqiu nodded after hearing this. "You're right. Then let me put it differently."
Everyone watched him in silence.
"Every single person you can see right now has been wandering here for seventy years—a total of over twenty-five thousand days, two thousand five hundred cycles. Yet in all that time, not a single person has escaped. Even the 'Escapee's Notebook' I had in my hands was a lie I told you. If no one breaks this cycle, we will be trapped here forever in endless reincarnation. We'll have our memories wiped away repeatedly, joyfully starting over, day after day, year after year."
"Even if what you say is right..." the Little Glasses said, "we've always been living like this, haven't we? To us, the 'seventy years' you mentioned are only a few days. We haven't suffered the torment of 'longevity' like you have. So we still can't bring ourselves to make the same decision as you."
"Yes, that's precisely the problem." Chu Tianqiu nodded. "This is also the crux of the entire 'End of Eternity.' It's impossible for everyone here to be truly united because our memories are not unified. The only way is to rely on a powerful 'Echoer' to lead others. But the more powerful an 'Echoer' is, the more insane they become, and the harder it is to command everyone. It's an unsolvable paradox."
"That's right," Zhang Shan also nodded. "Normal people don't follow madmen."
Chu Tianqiu nodded in agreement. "But on the other hand, even without memories, would you be willing to cycle here forever? What if the time that passed wasn't just seventy years? What if you had to stay here for hundreds or thousands of years...? How long do you plan to stay here? Until the outside world is completely destroyed, and you're still here, 'immortal'?"
At this point, even the Little Glasses, who had the clearest mind, began to hesitate.
"And there's one more crucial point." Chu Tianqiu said. "What if I lost my memory too?"
"You...?"
"Right now, two people are about to stand at the summit of the 'End of Eternity.'" Chu Tianqiu raised two fingers. "One is me, the other is Qi Xia. But I have to be honest with you—no matter which of the two of us it is... we are nothing more than a flash in the pan. Once someone reaches the summit in this place, they will inevitably alert the higher-ups. They will personally come down to deal with us. This has been happening repeatedly over the past few decades. Not a single exception."
The Little Glasses swallowed, then asked, "What will happen... when the higher-ups are alerted?"
"They will reshuffle everything here. No matter how powerful the 'Echoer' or how formidable the 'Zodiac,' they will be toys in the hands of those two people—easily manipulated." Chu Tianqiu said. "In other words, no matter how high we stand now, we are already on the verge of falling. If you don't seize this strong wind and spread your wings, the next opportunity might be decades away."
"After the reshuffle... will everyone lose their memories?" Zhang Shan asked.
"Yes, at least ninety-nine percent of people will lose their memories," Chu Tianqiu said. "But does that matter? Even if only half lose their memories, the information gap and memory fragmentation among all 'Participants' will already appear. Those who retain their memories and those who don't will be unable to communicate effectively. Neither side will be able to gain the other's trust, and the difficulty of reaching the summit will increase infinitely. From your perspective, this opportunity has emerged in just a few cycles. But Qi Xia and I have been working for many years."
"But I still don't understand," Zhang Shan pressed on. "You said yourself that you have a 'useless Echo.' So how exactly can you use other people's abilities...?"
Chu Tianqiu let out a light laugh upon hearing this. "Perhaps Heaven favors me. My 'Echo' cannot activate any ability on its own, but it can borrow the abilities of others. I don't even know if this counts as good fortune."