The Creatures That We Are
Chapter 1295: Ultimate

Chapter 1295: Ultimate

Nana sank into the sea. Gurgling water, she remembered who she was, and her eyes sharpened.

Her tail turned into a fish tail covered in blue scales. She quickly swam toward the surface of the water. With a powerful whip of her tail, she broke out.

Then sank again.

Shocked, she tried another leap, but she sank once more. Finally, she realized that she had been trapped in two mirrored seas with infinite reflections. No matter how she swam, she could never escape.

Her tail turned into human legs, and she began to suffocate. One hand clutching her neck, she struggled to reach toward the illusory light source on the other side of the water, attempting futilely to reach something.

A hand grasped hers.

Nana finally broke out of the water.

Gasping for breath, she looked around to find herself in the indoor swimming pool of a high school. She wore a deep blue one-piece. It seemed that she was a student who had accidentally drowned in a swimming class.

Gao Yang was the one who had offered her a hand. Hair damp and wearing only swimming shorts, he knelt by the poolside on one knee, a hand extended to Nana. “I’ll pull you out.”

Nana hesitated before taking his hand.

She climbed out and threw up water by the pool, finally recovering.

“Here.”

He handed her a dry towel. She took it and roughly dried her hair, leaving the towel hanging on her shoulder.

They sat on the cool, smooth tiles lining the pool, their legs submerged in the water. Clear sunlight shone in through the high window, illuminating a small square in the heart of the pool like a path leading to heaven, accompanied by dust motes.

It was quiet, serene, and leisurely, as if there was nothing important to do outside of watching time pass.

Translucent air fish emerged in the pool, swarming up to Gao Yang and Nana’s feet.

She said reluctantly, “Thanks for that.”

He quietly looked at the air fish without a word.

Nana propped herself up with her hands on the edge of the pool, kicking her legs to scatter the air fish. Tilting her head at him, she asked, “What do you think after the fight?”

He thought for a moment. “Here, all contradict all, all offset all, all belong to all.”

She nodded. “Pretty good.”

“What does it mean?” Gao Yang asked.

“Why does it have to mean something?” Nana countered.

He didn’t know. He looked up at the sunlight streaming down from the window. “It’s not the answer I’m looking for.”

“Well.” Nana lifted her legs out of the water to hug them to her chest, resting her head on her knees. Then she looked to the side at Gao Yang’s sad, sunken profile, breaking into a wry smile. “You still don’t get it, Gao Yang.”

Gao Yang was about to say something when the familiar ring in his head returned.

...

“Hm...” Nana clasped her hands together before flipping them, raising her arms above her head while standing on her toes, leisurely stretching her body.

“You’ve come all the way here. It would be anticlimactic not to fight a boss. Then I’ll kindly play the bad guy.”

She extended a finger. “Friendly reminder, I’m no more powerful than you are. I can be killed. Here, we’re all infinitely close to God. We can have everything but also nothing. If you think fighting is the answer, do your best and kill me.”

She raised a hand. “Let’s get started.”

Gao Yang didn’t make a move. Instead, he raised his hand to stop his companions from initiating an attack.

“Gao Yang,” Qing Ling called out with a frown.

“Gao Yang!” Vermilion Bird was confused, too.

“Brother Yang!” Zhang Wei shouted.

“What are you waiting for, bro? Let’s go!” Wang Zikai was eager.

Gao Yang felt the incessant ringing in his head.

Nana didn’t move, either. She broke into a smile of pleasant surprise. “Oh, you finally realized.”

Yes, Gao Yang remembered.

Since entering the Gates of Closure, they had already done this interview countless times and fought Nana countless times. But they couldn’t win. It didn’t matter what they tried. They could get infinitely close to victory, but never actually reach it.

In an instant, he found himself alone with Nana. She looked at him with a twist of her lips and said sympathetically, “It’s time to show you the real Workshop of Truth, Gao Yang.”

She raised her hands. Countless gears emerged, ranging from the size of a star to the size of a small firefly. Above her was a special gear. It had no color, but it looked pristine white. It had no size, so perspective didn’t apply to it. It seemed to be turning clockwise and counterclockwise at once. It seemed like a perfect circle, but it was neither flat nor a sphere. Its form and dimension were beyond human perceptions.

Facing the gear, Gao Yang felt like he was standing in front of it or behind it, far from it or close to it, able to see its entirety clearly or unable to even see a part of it.

The gear turned once.

Then all the gears in the universe seemed to turn in different directions.

He had a strong feeling that the gears were turning in the direction that the human body, soul, emotions, mind, will, concept, and fate were trying to resist. He could only think of one word to describe that direction:

Reverse.

To humans, the gears were turning in reverse.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Ultimate,” Nana said.

“What is ultimate?”

“The most supreme truth and will, the origin and destination of everything.”

Clank.

“Is that God?” Gao Yang asked.

Nana shook her head with a smile.

“Did God turn the Ultimate?”

She shook her head again with the same smile.

“Ultimate can turn, then it can stop, too.”

Her reaction was the same.

“Why don’t you say anything?”

“You already have the answer,” she said.

Gao Yang fell silent.

Clank.

Nana reached out to him. “Stay, Gao Yang. You and I are under God’s gaze, and you and I already have everything.”

Clank.

“Gao Yang, Ultimate will not stop.” She took a step forward and spread her arms. “Humans came from the void yet run away from the void.”

“Humans inherited divinity yet misinterpret divinity.”

“Humans approach the Ultimate yet deny the Ultimate.”

“Humans crave salvation yet question what salvation is.”

Clank.

“Gao Yang, the world humans feel, observe, ponder, understand, construct, depend on, pursue, and inhibit is merely an illusion. What is there to love in that illusion?”

“The world is fake, and so is love.”

“That’s the answer you’ve worked so hard to seek.”

“Do you accept it?”

Gao Yang was silent for a long, drawn-out moment. After a moment that outlived eternity, he slowly looked up with determined eyes.

His companions returned.

“I reject it.”