Chapter 293-The Manga Pariah's Guide to Self-Salvation

Lin Zhixing stood before the screen. The red glow of the display flickered on and off across her face, her entire body radiating tension.

She was caught off guard by Ye Zheng's perceptiveness, and she loathed herself for not noticing the anomaly sooner—yet on calm reflection, even if she had caught it in time, she probably couldn't have stopped any of this.

"Yes, the person whose consciousness linked with the Creator, Wang Tao, wasn't Percy. Percy was an indirect byproduct. The consciousness he truly inhabited was—"

"Vincent Aston."

They said it in unison.

"You told me that the time and space of this world, from the Higher-dimensional World's perspective, is like a book you can flip through back and forth—only your technology can't do it effortlessly yet, and there's still some uncertainty."

"Two months ago, the creator of King of the Demonic Domain died unexpectedly. The company preserved his consciousness and fed it into the experiment. We all instinctively assumed his consciousness would merge with Percy, but..."

Ye Zheng's voice carried a note of resignation. "He went to this world's past—five hundred years ago—and happened to bring along a blood-stained prop sword. He became Vincent Aston."

The creator of King of the Demonic Domain had clearly forgotten his true identity. Five hundred years after becoming Vincent Aston, in order to build himself a more perfect body, he had used the stolen [Mother of All Things] along with the "Blood of the God" he'd brought into this world to create Percy.

Percy did not carry the Aston Royal Family's bloodline. In a sense, he really was the Creator's biological "son."

Because the two worlds existed in different dimensions, Percy's existence in turn attracted the Wang Tao of three years ago. With the company's assistance, he began serializing King of the Demonic Domain, which gave him the opportunity to enter this world as Aston XIV.

The story was a chain of interlocking links, ultimately forming a closed loop with no beginning and no end.

Lin Zhixing was silent for a moment. "I can no longer tell where the evil started."

"If you must pick a culprit, Wang Tao was merely the blade."

Ye Zheng said.

"He brought the Demonic Domains, but without the company, he never could have—has your world started showing signs of Demonic Domains too?"

Ye Zheng asked in a perfectly casual tone. On the other side of the screen, Lin Zhixing jolted, her foggy mind snapping to full alertness.

"How did you know?!"

"Whether it's Wang Tao or Vincent Aston himself, neither could possibly wield the power to draw in that many worlds. The rules of the universe shouldn't work that way."

Ye Zheng raised her eyes. Her world had plunged entirely into darkness; a distant tower melted into the night, its faint lights twinkling alongside a handful of stars.

From what she knew of the readers' world, that world grew even livelier and more beautiful at night—ablaze with light, dazzling and colorful. Had she not seen photos on the forum, her meager imagination could never have conjured such a sight.

The population density there was equally beyond her comprehension. If Demonic Domains appeared in such a bustling place, the casualties would far surpass those in this world.

"You mentioned that King of the Demonic Domain started out as just one unremarkable project among many. The company has numerous ongoing projects and a mature system for locating and linking to other worlds."

"When they fully uploaded Wang Tao's consciousness into the experiment to strengthen the link between the two worlds, did his consciousness accidentally come into contact with that system?"

Ye Zheng's inquiring voice was as gentle as ever, yet Lin Zhixing couldn't lift her head from the weight of guilt. Her voice trembled almost imperceptibly as she admitted:

"Yes. That's the bug I mentioned."

"To accelerate the experiment, they uploaded Wang Tao's consciousness to the Main System. Perhaps even they didn't anticipate that this would cause problems with the system's operation."

"Those other worlds were supposed to be subjects of the company's observation, but because of the vulnerability in the Main System, they were drawn to your world—and even the company didn't notice..."

"You don't need to feel guilty about that. You aren't them, and they don't represent your world."

Ye Zheng instinctively tilted her head up toward the empty sky, shaking it gently, wearing a comforting expression.

At the same time, she heard a resonant thud in her heart. She could finally confirm why Demonic Domains had been appearing so abruptly, disrupting this world's natural course—and why they kept invading without end.

Wang Tao had exploited the Main System—though his incarnation in this world, Vincent Aston, was unaware of it. He probably fancied himself some kind of divinely favored emissary.

Lin Zhixing took small comfort from that, but was still frustrated. "I should have tracked that man down sooner, before they had a chance to go rogue. Who could have guessed someone who died from overload could get a cyber-resurrection..."

"By that logic, this might have a lot to do with me, too." Ye Zheng suspected the Creator had been angered to death by her. She added: "Even if he really did die from my provocations, I refuse to believe I indirectly caused this disaster."

Even if Wang Tao had been perfectly healthy, the company's dangerous ambitions would have eventually stripped him of his free will and bodily autonomy, turning him entirely into part of the experiment.

An accident and vulnerability like this was bound to happen sooner or later—and bound to blow back on their world. Of that, Ye Zheng had no doubt.

"So, what's happening in your world?" Ye Zheng asked keenly.

Judging by Lin Zhixing's tone, something had gone wrong over there.

"...There was an incident at the research facility. The entire morning, not a single person who went into the men's restroom came back out. Someone eventually realized something was off."

"They sent in a special forces unit. Only one person came out alive. The restroom was piled with dismembered remains—not enough to piece together a single complete body. The entire area is now sealed off, strictly off-limits."

"The information has been locked down tight. If not for System's alert, I'd have had no way of knowing."

Ye Zheng heard a ding-dong in her mind—System claiming credit.

The System that served her was technically part of the Main System, but it clearly had ideas of its own now. Ye Zheng's lips curled up unconsciously.

"So, is the company planning to pull back?"

If the company stopped now, there was still a chance to salvage things.

"I heard many people at the lab protested because of the incident, but they've since gone missing."

Lin Zhixing rubbed her face hard in front of the screen. Every second she stood here meant danger; she could easily be the next person to vanish.

"...This is no longer something the Lin family can decide. Even if the company wanted to stop, there are too many people and too many complex factions who refuse to."

"They call it the colonization of a new era. Whoever can colonize the universe will command an unprecedented age."

Ye Zheng couldn't quite follow some of the terminology. Her world's history had lost too much to the Demonic Domains. Legend spoke of a world-wide catastrophe a thousand years ago that had concentrated all surviving people onto this single stretch of land. There had been plenty of fierce power struggles since, but compared to the readers' world, things seemed far simpler.

The logic was universal, though: once the prize was tempting enough, countless people would be willing to take the risk.

Lin Zhixing had once been fully confident about stopping the company's plan, especially after partnering with Ye Zheng. But the deeper she delved, the more she learned, the more that confidence eroded.

"That's certainly not good news."

Ye Zheng mused, yet her tone carried not a shred of heaviness. Her dark eyes gleamed no less brightly than the stars overhead.

"For you, trying to shake this plan from behind all their layers of protection is nearly impossible. But for me, whatever defenses money and power from your world can build are utterly trivial."

"Because I stand at the very center of their plan. Isn't what they covet right here, inside me?"

Ye Zheng spoke as though it were the most natural thing in the world, radiating a confidence that commanded attention—and beneath it, a fury kept close to her heart.

Since they were banking on her to deliver a groundbreaking breakthrough... she would be happy to oblige!

On the other side of the screen, Lin Zhixing's eyes lit up too. "Exactly! They can guard against threats from this world, but they can't guard against another."

Certain people in their ivory towers would treat the lab incident as nothing more than progress and promise. They'd be eager to accelerate the timeline.

In truth, the company had been puzzling over something: Ye Zheng wasn't remotely the most popular character across all their projects—by aggregate data, she was middling at best. Yet astonishingly, rather than attracting matching consciousness frequencies, Ye Zheng excelled at stirring resonance deep within people's consciousness.

Even readers who initially disliked Ye Zheng found their consciousness frequencies gradually aligning with hers—understanding her, resonating with her.

As far as Lin Zhixing knew, once this variable called Ye Zheng had been identified, the design department immediately used her as a template to recalibrate their approach and launch new projects.

Lin Zhixing had looked into it. They had simplistically defined Ye Zheng's variable as "a side character's comeback." Audiences today were tired of conventional stories and had developed a contrarian impulse against formulaic plots; a side character who defied the protagonist catered to a different kind of rebellious appetite.

They had even lavished praise on Lin Zhixing, applauding her for bucking convention by choosing Ye Zheng—whose popularity should have been at rock bottom—as her breakthrough point, calling it bold and brilliant.

But Lin Zhixing didn't believe they'd found a shortcut, because they didn't understand Ye Zheng at all.

Lin Zhixing's eyes darted as an idea formed. She could use the project's new breakthrough as a pretext to boost Ye Zheng's popularity.

The higher Ye Zheng's popularity climbed, the weaker the Creator's influence in that world became—the less control he held.

Right now, Vincent Aston's greatest advantage was the power from the Higher-dimensional World. Even a toy sword was a dimensional-level weapon in that world.

But so what? Ye Zheng also had the Higher-dimensional World's power behind her!

Popularity, channeled through System, became a tangible force. At first it had manifested as the ability to alter the "plot," but even though the plot had long since ceased to exist, that power remained—and continued to grow day by day.

Ye Zheng was also searching for ways to harness this force. It might prove decisive at a critical moment.

Suddenly, a mechanical tone sounded in her ear, replacing Lin Zhixing's voice.

[The preview for the original manga plot has been updated!]

In the dim night, Ye Zheng wore the most surprised expression she'd made all day.

Ever since Sykes had been killed, the original plot could no longer sustain itself. The Creator's consciousness had completely lost control over the trajectory of this world, and the preview had stopped updating.

Ye Zheng didn't have her phone on her. Without pausing, she strode briskly toward her quarters, praying her phone hadn't been damaged in today's battle.

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