Qian Renxue suddenly realized something.
To anchor a future, she first needed to know what she wanted. And what she wanted stemmed from who she was—not as the Crown Prince, not as a deity, not as a guardian, but as Qian Renxue, as an independent individual.
This return to the Douluo Continent wasn't just to find a future, but to find herself. The sense of self that had gradually blurred over ten thousand years of being a deity needed to be clarified and redefined through a mortal experience.
"Then, let's begin," she said to herself. "From today onward, I am not the Angel God, nor a guardian. I am Xue Yan, an ordinary wandering scholar, searching for my own path in this world threatened by the Void."
In the morning, Qian Renxue ate breakfast in the small dining room on the first floor of the inn. Simple wheat porridge, a few slices of black bread, a cup of weak tea. The food tasted ordinary, even a bit coarse, but she ate with great earnestness. As a deity, she had long since lost the need to eat; occasionally tasting divine fruits and nectar was only for the flavor, not out of necessity. But now, food was a requirement for survival, and with every bite, she could feel the tangible sensation of energy entering her body.
There were five or six people in the dining room, all scholars or researchers, discussing their work in low voices:
"...The spacetime curvature of the Northeast Rift has increased by another 0.2%."
"...Sample analysis shows that the flow of time in the Fading zones is 0.03 seconds per day slower than in normal areas."
"...The Spirit Pagoda's latest report indicates signs of degradation in the spiritual awareness of soul beasts near the rifts."
Qian Renxue listened quietly, gathering information. From these fragments, she roughly pieced together the current situation: the abyssal rifts were slowly but irreversibly expanding; their impact on the surrounding environment was not just spatial, but also temporal and cognitive; the major powers of the continent were cooperating to research countermeasures, but had yet to find a fundamental solution to stop the expansion.
"Excuse me," a voice sounded beside her. "May I sit here?"
Qian Renxue looked up. It was Lin Mo from last night. He was carrying a tray, his eyes bloodshot; he had clearly been up all night.
"Go ahead."
Lin Mo sat down, ate a few bites in silence, and then lowered his voice. "Xiaoyu, that girl, she has completely recovered. This morning's tests showed her Void Connection Index is at zero, even lower than the average for a normal person. The experts at the observation station can't explain it and can only classify it as a rare case of spontaneous recovery."
Qian Renxue nodded but said nothing.
"I know it was you," Lin Mo looked directly into her eyes. "Even though I don't know how you did it, thank you. Xiaoyu is a child from my neighbor's family; I watched her grow up. Her parents went missing during a rift investigation five years ago. She's always been strong, but this time, if it weren't for you, she might have..."
He paused and took a deep breath. "So, to return the favor, I owe you one. You came because of the abyssal rifts, right? What do you want to know? As long as it doesn't violate regulations, I can provide some internal information."
Qian Renxue thought for a moment. "I want to know, what is the essence of the rifts? Is there any consensus among the major powers' research?"
Lin Mo glanced around and lowered his voice even further. "There is no consensus, only conjectures. There are four mainstream hypotheses: First, it's an invasion channel from another dimension. Second, it's a 'wound' in the universe itself, tearing open here for some reason. Third, it's a precursor to the awakening of some ultimate soul beast or existence. Fourth, it's a bug in the world's rules, a loophole in existence itself."
"What do you personally think?"
"I think..." Lin Mo put down his utensils, his expression serious. "It's a kind of 'forgetting'. Not physical, but in an existential sense. Things swallowed by the rifts aren't destroyed; they are 'forgotten'—forgotten by the world, forgotten by time, even forgotten by themselves. That's why Void Phantoms appear. Those things are still there, but they've forgotten what they are, so they can only mimic other existences they see."
This explanation struck a chord deep within Qian Renxue. Forgetting, erasing traces of existence—how similar this was to the "nihility" described by the old man. To annihilate an existence, one had to erase all its traces in time. And the rifts seemed to be an inefficient, spontaneous process of annihilation.
"Does the observation station have any data on the inside of the rifts?" she asked.
"Very little. People who enter the rifts either never come out, or they come out changed. Not physically, but existentially. They remember everything, but they feel 'hollow,' like exquisite replicas. Moreover, all recording mediums brought back from the rifts—photos, videos, audio recordings—fail within three days and turn completely blank. It's as if the rift refuses to be recorded."
Qian Renxue fell into deep thought. If the rifts were indeed a manifestation of annihilation, then the method to counter them might be hidden within time anchoring. If she could anchor herself solidly enough, could she also help this world anchor itself and resist being "forgotten"?
"I want to see a rift up close," she said. "Not enter it, just observe from nearby."
Lin Mo frowned. "That's very dangerous. Even outside the three-kilometer safety line, long-term exposure carries risks. Plus, you need special permission."
"Can you arrange it? As part of an academic investigation."
Lin Mo hesitated for a long time before finally nodding. "Alright, I owe you. But we can only go to Observation Point No. 2, which is five kilometers out. We can't get any closer. And you must listen to my commands the entire time; you cannot do anything out of line."
"I promise."
After breakfast, Lin Mo went to arrange the paperwork, while Qian Renxue headed to the town library. It wasn't a large building, but its collection was rich, especially the materials on the abyssal rifts, which took up three entire bookshelves.
She spent the entire morning reading. From the initial discovery records to thirty years of research papers, and even various folk legends and speculations. One fact gradually became clear: the appearance of the rifts was neither isolated nor uniform. Over the past thirty years, a total of seventeen rifts had appeared on the Douluo Continent. Their distribution seemed to follow some sort of pattern, but it remained unsolved to this day.
What caught her attention even more was the timeline. The first rift appeared thirty years ago, roughly around the 9,900th year in the Douluo Continent's timeline after she had left. After that, the frequency of rift appearances gradually increased: the second one twenty-five years ago, the third twenty years ago... In just the last five years alone, eight had appeared. Furthermore, the expansion speed of each individual rift was also accelerating.
"Exponential growth," she closed the research report in her hands. "If this trend continues, it won't take ten years. We might reach the critical point in seven or eight years."
In the afternoon, Lin Mo brought news: the permit had been approved. They would set out for Observation Point No. 2 early tomorrow morning.
"Rest well tonight," he said. "We'll be out in the field all day tomorrow, and the conditions at the observation point are rudimentary with no resupplies. Also..." He hesitated for a moment. "If you feel anything off while we're there—headaches, hallucinations, inexplicable sadness—tell me immediately. We must evacuate at once."
"I understand."
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