A Night of Desperation
Chapter 617: hope one

In this world there are many people, many things, only discovered for their true worth when lost.

Yu Hong once thought he understood the meaning of this sentence.

But now, he finds he doesn’t understand.

Arms wide open.

His eyes widened so much they almost tore at the corners, gazing at the people below as they reformed and gathered.

Yiyi, Teacher, Fu Bai, Quan He, Ku Chan, along with other mages from Aus Academy, they all stand quietly in the same place, their clothes, faces, unchanged from before they vanished.

But...

They do not move.

Everyone, anyone, shows no sign of movement, their blood flows, yet they remain still like wax statues, without consciousness.

Yu Hong clenched his hands, flew swiftly, pierced into the spacecraft.

He gently, cautiously landed in front of Yiyi.

Yiyi is the same as before, wearing a white dress, her black hair simply tied into two small braids, her fair face carrying an innocent smile.

Yu Hong reached out, gently placing his hand on her forehead.

No reaction, the touch was icy cold.

"Yiyi...?" Yu Hong’s nervous smile slowly faded away.

He withdrew his hand, paused for a few breaths, then suddenly lunged towards Quan He, Ku Chan, and other people nearby, his hand reaching to touch their faces.

All of them were cold. Without the slightest awareness.

"This shouldn’t be.... I’m a Heavenly Venerate!! A heavenly rank!!" Yu Hong withdrew his hand, lips trembling.

He stepped back a few paces, sat cross-legged, and began to restore his depleted Holy Power.

A moment later, his Holy Power restored as before, he stood again, whole body emitting black and white threads of Holy Power, flooding into everyone present.

The strength of reversal once more exerted.

Unfortunately, it was useless, everything, everyone, remained in that statue-like unconscious state.

They stayed just as they were at the moment before disappearing, attire, posture, quietly there, no longer moving.

But Yu Hong didn’t give up, repeatedly trying, constantly unleashing the power of reversal.

Yet without any effect.

He doesn’t know why it is this way, clearly, he already possesses a heavenly rank, albeit just a rank, but the ability of a Heavenly Venerate he can use, this is already equivalent to most of a Heavenly Venerate.

Clearly he has reached this extent, yet...

Again and again.

It’s unknown how much time has passed.

Yu Hong finally stopped.

He stood quietly in the spaceship, his face showing a peculiar bewilderment.

His hand placed on Quan He’s forehead, quietly, there...

"Right, what was I just doing?"

He looked at Quan He who was smiling in front of him, yet he couldn’t remember who she was.

Gently retracting his hand, he walked one step at a time past Ku Chan, Feng Xuezi, Fu Bai, and others.

He looked at those familiar faces, yet in his mind, he couldn’t recall their names.

The emotions from before now calmed down with the fading memory.

Until walking up to Yiyi.

"Yiyi...." He reached out his hand, gently brushed Yiyi’s long hair.

He only recognized Yiyi among this group of people.

"Yes, my ability can’t revive her...." He suddenly remembered.

Hesitating for a moment, Yu Hong embraced Yiyi, soared up, heading towards the Black Black Spirit.

He has to find a way to revive Yiyi.

The abilities of a Heavenly Venerate are vast, surely a way must exist, it’s definitely just he himself not realizing it, rather than the inability of the heavenly rank.

Yu Hong thinks in his heart.

Normal Heavenly Venerates, which of them haven’t lived at least tens of thousands of years, he, at most, isn’t even a hundred years old. Experience and the exploration of capability rank are far less than normal levels.

He believes Yiyi cannot be revived not because his ability is absent, but because the mastery level of his ability isn’t strong enough.

Returning to the Black Black Spirit, Yu Hong placed Yiyi back in her own room, maintained her body with Holy Power, then exited to begin his cultivation.

Sitting by the window, he gazed at the spaceship being dragged along as it sailed.

Taking out the Outer Eye again, casually adding a strand of hair, then the Black Mark began to strengthen.

’If I just strengthen continuously, the Heavenly Venerate may perish in the Heartless Belt, but stronger than a Heavenly Venerate, I’ll surely find a way. If one strengthening doesn’t work, I’ll keep strengthening, until... until finding the true land of vitality.’

Thinking this, Yu Hong glanced at the Outer Eye surface where the new countdown appeared: July 4, 26 years, 19:04.

This longer time made his heart tremble slightly, but still, he chose to begin strengthening.

Sss...

Suddenly an immense amount of Holy Power was devoured into the Black Mark, and along with it, his consciousness and spirit were drawn in.

Yu Hong slowly closed his eyes, entering a state of cultivation refinement, constantly maintaining the absorption of the Black Mark.

A day later, the absorption ended, and the countdown officially flickered, starting the calculation.

He also continued the daily reversal maintenance for Yiyi.

One large and one small flying object turned around again, not returning but due to Yu Hong’s control, freely allowing the Vitality Ship to guide itself in navigation.

Every day, apart from cultivating and refining vitality, Yu Hong explored the use of the Heavenly Venerate’s power.

The rest of the time was spent chatting idly with Yiyi.

He spoke, Yiyi listened.

Time flowed continuously, slowly flipping the pages of the calendar on the electronic clock.

In the blink of an eye, ten years passed...

Inside Black Black Spirit.

Yu Hong sat cross-legged to cultivate, occasionally glancing at Yiyi sitting at the table by the window, quietly reading a book.

Yiyi remained motionless, smiling gently, with her eyes fixed on a book titled Array Formation Introduction in her hands.

She stayed in that posture without moving.

Though it was just a single pose, each time Yu Hong opened his eyes and saw her, his heart would calm down significantly.

Boom.

At that moment, suddenly, the entire Black Black Spirit seemed to hit something.

Yu Hong’s expression changed slightly; he quickly got up and hurried toward the Main Control Room at the ship’s bow.

Inside the Main Control Room, outside the circular window in pitch darkness, a spherical object emitting a faint red glow was blocking the way.

This object was the first thing Yu Hong had seen in this area over the years.

He thought there was nothing left in this place, but unexpectedly, something still remained.

After carefully observing that object and ensuring the safe room was undamaged, he pondered for a moment and leaped out of the safe room to approach the spherical object.

Approaching it, Yu Hong reached out and gently touched the sphere’s surface.

The entire ball was about half the size of Black Black Spirit.

It floated in the darkness, faintly glowing red, surrounded by dissipating black air, seemingly decomposing itself continuously.

Yu Hong pressed on this thing, finding its texture very resilient, somewhat like the balls he used to play with in childhood.

After thinking for a moment, the tip of his finger lit up with a touch of black and white Holy Power, transformed into a sharp stab, lightly piercing the sphere’s surface.

Sss.

The sharp stab easily penetrated the ball’s surface.

In an instant, a vast stream of consciousness information gushed from inside the ball, flooding into Yu Hong’s mind.

"It’s a pleasure to meet you, latecomer."

In Yu Hong’s mind, a blurry humanoid figure clad in blue-purple armor appeared, its body shining with a gentle purple glow.

The armor on the figure was engraved with complex and blurry patterns, with a ball of deep blue flame burning behind it, encircled by a golden ring that kept it in the center.

"Hello." The figure, wearing a heavy helmet, nodded slightly towards Yu Hong.

"No matter who you are, getting here and seeing this message means you have reached the end of the order of living beings."

"I am Ji, Star God King, the strongest Star God, past and future, the one and only."

Ji!?

Yu Hong trembled slightly, recalling the information recorded in the Star Singing Hall earlier, his heart growing serious.

"Can you hear me speaking?" He tried to send out his own thoughts.

But it was useless.

Ji continued speaking his own words, as if set in a fixed program.

"Reaching here, you must have lost many things. Because here is the Forgotten Belt, a place destined to forget the past. With the Great Annihilation devouring and destroying everything, the traces left in your heart by all things will disappear completely along with their total disappearance. This is destined to happen. It won’t change with your efforts."

He paused.

"Whether you’re a Star God, a Heavenly Venerate, or a progenitor, reaching this point means you have certainly mastered interference with time and space; you must have tried to reverse time. It didn’t work, right?"

Ji spoke calmly.

"....." Yu Hong’s heart tightened slightly, continuing to listen.

"Interference and reversal in any system require comprehensively pinpointing the material particles to be reversed. The essence of reverse interference is actually allowing the material you pinpoint to return to its previous state." Ji continued, "But everything that disappeared in the Forgotten Belt cannot be perfectly restored; it’s not an issue of your ability but because at the moment of their disappearance, they have already completely lost the original particles that were part of them."

"None of us are completely isolated individuals; our past is connected with the place where we were born, the universe where we were born. There lie our memories, imprints on us, our bodies, and souls, all nurtured and grown by the universe where we are rooted. When the universe is completely annihilated, everything about them will also disappear from our bodies in tandem...this is forgetting."

"We will completely forget the past along with the annihilation of the universe we were born in, and then memory issues will arise, followed by soul defects, starting to miss the most fundamental components, ultimately...when everything beyond the Forgotten Belt begins to annihilate, our memories, including everything about the past, will silently decompose and disappear."

"Memory is composed of information from countless affairs, and when the information of affairs disappears, memory also disappears accordingly. Without memory, cognition completely disappears, everything returns to the most ignorant phase of a baby before existence."

Ji stopped, letting out a long sigh.

"But do you think this is the end? No...."

"Babies do not come without roots; everything that constitutes our infant period consists of traces left by Life Evolution. Their essence is similarly composed of all things."

"With the annihilation of all things, their traces also annihilate together, thus...the foundation for a baby’s existence also dissolves...."

He sighed once more.

"So, do you now understand the essence of the Forgotten Belt? It’s not that it has its own calamity, causing you to be forgotten, but rather upon reaching here, the external world inevitably annihilates completely, thus here, everything whose rank is not high enough, will disappear."