The more Zhang Shan listened, the more he felt the situation was becoming bizarre. Several doubts surfaced in his mind.

“Wait a minute… Old Nie.” Zhang Shan interrupted. “What do you mean by the memories of Qinglong and Heavenly-Dragon? If everything you’re saying holds true, how could those two have memories floating scattered in the sky? Have they died too?”

“I don’t know.” The man shook his head. “But that’s indeed what I heard.”

“So that means one day… everyone here will slowly remember everything that happened in the ‘Land of the End’?” Zhang Shan asked in confusion. “You said ‘rationality levels will decrease’—does that mean everyone will stand here with stronger ‘Ripples’ and all their memories?”

“To be honest…” The man said with a grave expression. “I really don’t know… All of this is a plan, or rather… a fantasy.”

“Even you don’t know… then why are you taking it upon yourself to send me out?”

“That’s why I said I’m taking a gamble. I’m betting on sending you out, betting that you’ll survive to the end, and that one day you’ll remember all of us.”

The despair in the man’s eyes resurfaced.

He stared quietly below, his voice small from beginning to end.

Whether he was afraid others would hear this bizarre news, or afraid of disturbing the nonexistent sleep time, was unclear.

“This is fucking absurd…” Zhang Shan scratched his head, wanting to rebut a few points, but always felt his mouth was clumsy and couldn’t articulate his reasoning. He could only ask, “Old Nie, you know what the most important thing to all of us is, right? Is it the damn ‘Ripple’?”

“I know what you mean.” The man looked at the crowd below and nodded. “What’s important to us has never been the ‘Ripple,’ but ‘memories.’ For many people, ‘Ripple Transformation’ is just a means of preserving ‘memories.'”

“Right!” Zhang Shan’s tone grew somewhat anxious. “If it’s really like you said, all of our memories are…”

He looked up at the sky, still feeling it was absurd. “…are floating up in the sky, then why the hell would that person create a ‘Barrier’ to block us from obtaining those memories? Now everyone’s trying to find ways to undergo ‘Ripple Transformation’ to preserve memories—doesn’t this increase the difficulty of our escape?”

After hearing this, the man reached up and touched his nose bridge, picking off a dried scab of blood, then said, “Perhaps… it’s to keep us from going mad?”

“I think anyone capable of doing this… should have their own considerations.” The man said thoughtfully. “He just feels we shouldn’t obtain memories right now, or perhaps what he really wants to block isn’t our memories… but I don’t know his thoughts.”

“Old Nie, I feel like you’ve been deceived… His deal doesn’t hold together logically, and there are too many factors involved…” Zhang Shan counted on his fingers. “First, you need me to survive safely to what he calls ‘the end’; second, the person who cast the Barrier has to die at the end; third, his so-called ‘Barrier’ has to completely disappear; fourth, I have to undergo ‘Deep Ripple Transformation’ to remember all of you…”

“Yes, exactly.” The man said.

“And the premise of all this still has to be built on ‘our memories really floating in the sky.'” Zhang Shan shook his head. “I don’t agree. This method is like a tightrope on a cliff—dangerous from the very first step.”

The man threw the blood scab in his hand onto the corpse mountain beneath his feet, then turned to look at Zhang Shan. “We have no choice.”

“What…”

“You know it yourself—we’ve entered the ‘Fall Countdown.'”

The man sighed deeply and pointed to the people sitting on both sides of the road below the corpse mountain. “How much longer do you think our people can hold out? Even if our numbers allow us to last a few more cycles, our rationality won’t.”

Zhang Shan also looked down following the man’s finger. Every inch of this city’s land had foul black blood, and every person’s face was covered with exhaustion.

They didn’t even have the strength to bury their teammates and their own corpses. They only knew to stake their lives on the gambling table.

“Right now, there are only two paths before me to choose from.” The man reached out and patted Zhang Shan’s shoulder. “The first path is to send you out, and then I’ll lead all the ‘Ripple Soldiers’ to die in battle.”

“And the second?” Zhang Shan asked unhappily.

“The second path is you stay here, and then we all die in battle.”

Hearing this, Zhang Shan opened his mouth and was clearly silent for a while.

He felt he couldn’t say a single word.

“We can all see the ending.” The man gave a bitter laugh, his white teeth particularly bright in the dark night. “Among these two paths, there’s no ‘victory,’ only a thread of ‘hope.’ The only thing I can do is send the ‘hope’ out, because war has never been individual. I can only listen to what was said from the other side and set my sights as far as possible.”

Zhang Shan swallowed and still couldn’t open his mouth to refute.

He didn’t know what he was persisting for. Continuing to stay here could only result in death, but going to another unfamiliar city and abandoning all his former comrades… no matter how you looked at it, it wasn’t his style.

“Old Nie…” After a long while, Zhang Shan came back to his senses and asked, “That person you mentioned… how will he grant me a new identity?”

“According to what he said, he can make deals with the ‘upper echelons’ here.” The man answered truthfully. “One time when you wake up again, you’ll no longer be a teammate in my room, but will appear in a completely new room. When you walk out the door, what you see will no longer be our city…”

“Damn.” Zhang Shan shook his head helplessly, a complex smile appearing on his face. “We’ve always been fighting and killing against the so-called ‘upper echelons’ here, but that person can make deals with the ‘upper echelons’… What kind of spell did he cast on you to make you believe these words so wholeheartedly?”

“It’s ‘identity.'” The man answered.

“Identity…?”

“If any other ‘Participant’ came to tell me these words, I wouldn’t believe them.” The man smiled and shook his head. “Unfortunately, the person who told me this is a ‘Zodiac.'”

Zhang Shan’s eyes widened slightly after hearing this.

“I find it hard to understand too.” The man reached up and touched his head. “That Earth-Dragon in the north told me someone wanted to see me, and then during the ‘Zodiacs” off-duty hours, I met that Baiyang through a teleportation door.”

“So this is actually… a coordinated attack from within and without?” Zhang Shan asked with a frown.