“Witnessing the ‘Land of the End’…”

Zhang Shan also smiled bitterly: “Chu Tianqiu, at the very least I’ve gone through two cycles with you, yet I fundamentally didn’t know about your ‘Echo.’ Doesn’t that count as lying?”

“Whether you believe me or not,” Chu Tianqiu answered with a serious expression, “I haven’t lied to anyone. I’ve never killed anyone either. I’ve been understanding this place from the very beginning. After I fully grasped all the intelligence, I ultimately decided to liberate this place. This has been my motivation for action all along, never changing.”

“And your purpose in liberating this place… is to become a ‘God’?” Zhang Shan asked again.

“What else?” Chu Tianqiu answered with a hint of sadness. “This place fundamentally cannot be escaped. From the moment we all entered, we were already destined to remain here.”

The expressions of everyone standing nearby changed when they heard Chu Tianqiu speak.

This place… cannot be escaped?

“Then what do you mean by ‘liberation’?” Zhang Shan asked.

After hearing this, Chu Tianqiu pondered for a moment and said: “Since we’re about to begin formally cooperating, naturally I should let you know about this.”

After speaking, he looked at Han Yimo and Doctor Zhao, as well as Old Lu and Little Glasses behind Zhang Shan.

“After I finish saying this, the four of you can decide whether to stay or leave. I’ve done enough for you. It’s time to stop.”

Everyone neither agreed nor denied, only looking at him with different expressions.

“Once I become the ‘God’ of this place, the entire ‘Land of the End’ will lose its reason for existence, and there will be no need for you to be resurrected either.” Chu Tianqiu said pointedly, “In other words, one general’s success is built on ten thousand bones. Everyone will stop cycling, and this place will become complete ruins.”

Everyone present changed expressions after hearing this.

Little Glasses’ gaze gradually became stern. He reached up to adjust his glasses frame and said: “Mr. Chu, I’m sorry, but that means… we regard you as a ‘God,’ yet we must pay the price of being reduced to dust and smoke?”

Chu Tianqiu’s words plunged everyone into prolonged silence.

“But what’s the reason?” Little Glasses came to his senses and asked. “Why are you certain that we’ll help you become a ‘God’ and then go die ourselves?”

“Because you can only do this,” Chu Tianqiu said, extending one finger. “This place must have one person become a ‘God’ to resolve all of this, but each of you can only possess one divine power. You’re far too distant from an ‘omnipotent God.'”

“This reason is clearly insufficient, right?” Little Glasses asked again. “Even if you explain all these principles to us clearly… will we willingly give up? Many people in this world with terminal illnesses know they’re incurable, but they won’t give up treatment at the first opportunity. It’s the same principle.”

After hearing this, Chu Tianqiu nodded: “You’re right. Let me put it another way.”

Everyone looked at him in silence.

“Now every single person within your sight has already wandered here for seventy years, a total of over twenty-five thousand days, two thousand five hundred cycles. Yet in all this time, not one person has escaped. Even that ‘Notebook of the Escapee’ in my hands was a lie to deceive you. If no one breaks through all of this, we will cycle here for all eternity. We’ll repeatedly have our memories washed away and joyfully start anew, day after day, year after year.”

“Although there’s nothing wrong with what you’re saying…” Little Glasses said, “haven’t we always been getting through it this way? Even the ‘seventy years’ you speak of is only a few days to us. We haven’t suffered the torment of ‘longevity’ like you have, so we still can’t make the same determination as you.”

“Yes, that’s precisely the problem,” Chu Tianqiu nodded. “This is also the crux of the entire ‘Land of the End.’ All the people here cannot truly unite in the real sense because their memories aren’t unified. They can only rely on powerful ‘Echo’ users to lead others. But the more powerful the ‘Echo’ user, the more insane they become, and the more difficult it is to lead everyone. This is a paradox that’s difficult to resolve.”

“That’s right,” Zhang Shan also nodded. “Normal people won’t follow madmen.”

After hearing this, Chu Tianqiu nodded: “But then again, even without memories, can you willingly cycle here? What if the time that’s passed isn’t seventy years? What if you still have to stay here for hundreds or thousands of years…? How long do you plan to stay here? Until the outside world has already been completely destroyed, yet you’re still ‘immortal’ here?”

At this moment, not to mention others, even Little Glasses with the clearest mind began to hesitate.

“There’s also the most important point,” Chu Tianqiu said. “What if I also lose my memory?”

“You…?”

“Now two people are about to stand at the peak of the ‘Land of the End,'” Chu Tianqiu extended two fingers. “One is me, one is Qi Xia. But I must speak honestly with you—whoever it is between the two of us… will only be a flash in the pan. Once someone stands at the peak in this place, they will inevitably alarm the upper level, and they will personally come out to sanction us. This has continuously happened over the past several decades, without a single exception.”

After hearing this, Little Glasses swallowed and asked: “Alarming the upper level… what will happen?”

“They’ll reshuffle everything here. No matter how powerful the ‘Echo’ user, no matter how formidable the ‘Zodiac,’ before those two people, they can only be toyed with like playthings,” Chu Tianqiu said. “In other words, even if the two of us stand however high now, we’re already near the risk of falling down. If you don’t seize this strong wind to spread your wings, the next opportunity will probably have to wait several more decades.”

“After the reshuffle… will everyone lose their memories?” Zhang Shan asked.

“That’s right, at least ninety-nine percent of people will lose their memories,” Chu Tianqiu said. “But is this important? Even if only half the people lose their memories, information gaps and memory breaks among all the ‘Participants’ will already have appeared. Those who retain memories and those who don’t will be unable to communicate effectively. Neither side can obtain the other’s trust, and the difficulty of reaching the peak will increase infinitely. In your eyes, what lies before you is merely an opportunity that emerged after only two or three cycles, but Qi Xia and I have been operating for many years.”

“But I still don’t understand,” Zhang Shan said again. “You said yourself that you have a useless ‘Echo,’ but how exactly are you able to use other people’s abilities…?”

After hearing this, Chu Tianqiu chuckled softly: “Perhaps heaven favors me. My ‘Echo’ cannot activate any ability, but it can borrow other people’s abilities. Even I don’t know if this counts as good fortune.”