Chapter 56 White Hole Prison (End)

Chapter 56: White Hole Prison (End)

Shi Wu stood there, frozen, staring dazedly at the wall that had just swallowed a living person whole and now was perfectly still again.

"Move!" Bao Yan's voice rang out again.

But the path ahead was completely severed. A bottomless abyss, churning with flesh and blood, stretched before them.

There was no escape.

At that moment, Bao Yan made an unexpected move. He pulled out the small "Little Snot," which had been curled up asleep, from inside his clothes.

The translucent, jelly-like creature seemed to sense the malice around it, writhing uneasily and emitting a faint glow.

Without any hesitation, Bao Yan hurled it straight into the churning abyss!

Little Snot arced through the air before landing on the seething flesh opposite. A miracle occurred—the tiny creature was like a drop of pure water falling into boiling oil. Wherever it touched, all the writhing, malevolent flesh hissed in terror like creatures encountering a natural predator, frantically retreating to either side!

A "bridge" composed of solid, non-writhing flesh was thus "purified" into existence across the abyss!

Shi Wu's pupils contracted sharply at the sight.

"What are you waiting for?!" Bao Yan barked, being the first to charge onto the bizarre bridge.

The others didn't dare hesitate another second and followed closely behind. Just before the entire prison was completely consumed by a vortex of flesh and blood, they burst through the teetering main gate!

*

The salty, briny sea wind hit their faces, carrying the island's unique scent of damp decay. The black sand beach stretched out, desolate, under the gray-white sky.

Behind them, the massive prison was silently collapsing and imploding, finally sinking completely into the ground, leaving only a bottomless crater.

It seemed to be over.

The girl and the tall, thin man could no longer hold on, collapsing onto the sand, gasping for breath, their faces streaked with indistinguishable tears and sweat.

Shi Wu stood still, gazing at the lifeless sea in the distance. The sharp pain in his side and the hollow feeling of watching lives end made chills run through him.

The atmosphere was heavy and oppressive.

Suddenly, a cold voice shattered the silence.

"Shi Wu."

It was Bao Yan.

Shi Wu slowly turned to face him.

He was met with Bao Yan's sudden, out-of-nowhere punch!

*Thud!*

A solid punch landed squarely on Shi Wu's cheek. The immense force sent him staggering back several steps. The corner of his mouth split open instantly, a trickle of blood welling up.

The calloused fist connected solidly with his face. Intense pain and a metallic taste rapidly spread through his mouth. Shi Wu's head rang from the blow, but he didn't fall. Instead, it was as if a fuse had been lit; a terrifying ferocity instantly blazed in his eyes.

"Bao Yan!" he roared, lunging forward without dodging, slamming a knee just as viciously into the other man's abdomen!

The two of them engaged in the most primitive, most savage brawl on the very beach they had just escaped death on. They were like two beasts with long-held grudges, pouring all the pent-up frustration, anger, suspicion, and exhaustion from this ordeal onto each other.

The dull thuds of fists hitting flesh and the heavy panting intertwined into a chaotic cacophony on the deathly silent beach. They fought from standing to kneeling, from kneeling to rolling on the cold sand.

Shi Wu's prison uniform was already torn to shreds. Bao Yan's neat guard captain uniform was disheveled. Both were marked up on their faces.

The girl and the tall, thin man watched, dumbfounded. They wanted to intervene but were too intimidated by the violent aura that warned others to stay away to step forward.

After what felt like an eternity, the chaotic fight gradually subsided.

Both men had exhausted their last ounce of strength, lying flat on their backs on the cold black sand, letting the salty, briny sea breeze wash over their exhausted bodies.

"Hah... hah..." Shi Wu gasped for air, his chest heaving violently. The pain in his cheek made him grimace. "The hell's wrong with you... hitting so damn hard?"

"Speaking of—" Shi Wu paused for two seconds, a bit of his defeated air dissipating. "You weren't deliberately getting back at me, were you? Because of that prison thing?"

Bao Yan didn't speak, silently turning his head away. His golden eyes looked exceptionally speechless under the gray-white sky.

"This mission..." After the cathartic fight, Shi Wu had completely calmed down. He looked up at the deathly still sky, his voice hoarse as he spoke. "Was 'investigate and expose the truth of White Hole Island Prison.'"

"An idealist, driven mad by reality, ultimately choosing to ally with demons, wanting to create a perfect world without 'impurities.'" He paused, a hint of vague self-mockery in his tone. "In the end, he became the biggest 'impurity' himself. How ironic."

"We exposed the truth," Shi Wu said slowly. "But teammates died, 902-2 died, and those players and prisoners who were 'purified'... We couldn't change anything."

A tremendous sense of powerlessness, like icy seawater, engulfed him completely.

Just then, the words 902-2 said before dying flashed through his mind—

"...You must be careful... the world... is not the world..."

Shi Wu's breath hitched violently.

Instinctively, he turned his gaze once more to that perpetually gloomy, overcast sky that had loomed over them since they landed on the island.

And then, he saw it.

The thick, gray-white cloud layer was slowly, silently parting to either side.

What was revealed was not the familiar starry sky they knew, nor any normal sky.

It was an indescribable, massive dome covered in bizarre folds and membranes.

Then, right in the center of that sky, a slender fissure that looked like it could split the entire sky open, slowly, slowly opened.

It was an eye.

An unimaginably enormous eye, without a pupil, filled only with chaotic colors.

It hung there silently in the "sky," gazing down with complete indifference at this tiny island below, at these few insignificant, ant-like beings on the beach.

At that moment, time seemed to stand still.

So, this sea, this sky, this island, this prison... everything was merely a speck of dust in its eye.

The true "Sanctification Bureau."

The true Cthulhu.

So, they had been inside Cthulhu's body all along.

Shi Wu's breath caught in his throat. An intense surge of fear and powerlessness washed over him. What he had seen earlier wasn't that black creature, but this true "god" before him now.

Everything was insignificant, nothing was truly real...

Why the prison was never full... finally had an answer.

“Heave-ho, heave-ho, heave-ho—”

Shi Wu was startled. Where was that sound coming from?

He instinctively looked down and saw a translucent, gelatinous little thing, using its only short tentacle to brace itself on the ground while its round body heaved upward, doggedly inching toward Shi Wu.

It crawled with great difficulty, leaving a faint, damp trail on the rough black sand. Once it reached Shi Wu, it affectionately rubbed its soft body against his wrist, as if trying to comfort him.

Shi Wu gazed dazedly at it, the overwhelming sense of powerlessness that had nearly crushed him actually eased a little because of this tiny creature.

“What is this?” He looked up at Bao Yan, who was also lying on the beach.

Bao Yan’s gaze shifted from the enormous eye to the “Little Snot” struggling to climb onto Shi Wu, a complicated look in his eyes.

“Picked it up during the ‘Sanctification Bureau,’” he answered tersely.

Shi Wu stared at the little creature, which had already successfully climbed onto his arm and was now rolling around, lost in thought.

The giant eye still gazed down at them indifferently from the “sky,” but it seemed to make no further move.

Why?

Why was that black monster pretending to be System 000 so obsessed with having him kill Bao Yan? If it was just about devouring players, any player’s death should have been its nourishment. Why specifically Bao Yan?

Moreover, that monster clearly possessed near-divine power within this instance, capable of manipulating everything, yet it seemed to have no direct rule-based authority to eliminate players. All its killings were carried out through “rules”—luring or using others as proxies. Did this mean it was also bound by some higher-level rules?

And this “Little Snot”… what exactly was it?

It could effortlessly “purify” the monster’s flesh, making the monster instinctively retreat.

Bao Yan had not only survived the “Sanctification Bureau”—a ritual that should have been a sacrifice—but had also “picked up” this thing. Everything seemed so contradictory and unbelievable.

Countless clues intertwined in Shi Wu’s mind into a complex web, and at the center of that web seemed to be this harmless-looking little thing still “heave-ho-ing” incessantly on him.

Before he could think further, crackles of eerie static emerged.

“Please answer the mission’s answer—”

A cold, mechanical voice echoed in the minds of every survivor.

The girl and the tall, thin man, who had just shown a flicker of vitality, instantly froze, their faces blank with confusion and fear. An answer? Answer what? They had just crawled out of hell, their minds empty except for a survival instinct and sheer numbness.

Shi Wu, however, didn’t move. He simply lay there, letting the “Little Snot” roll around on his arm.

“Please answer the mission’s answer—countdown begins, 60, 59…”

The mechanical urging sounded again.

Shi Wu took a deep breath, sat up, and faced the void of the sky and that eye:

“The truth of White Hole Prison is that an idealist who firmly believed in ‘the inherent goodness of humanity,’ after being destroyed by extreme malice, allied with true ‘evil’ in order to ‘purify’ the sins of others. In the end, he twisted his original ideal, turning a beacon of hope into a slaughterhouse that harvested souls.”

He paused, a hint of mockery curling at the corner of his mouth.

“But that is only the first layer of truth.”

“The deeper truth is—this island, this sea, this so-called ‘world,’ are nothing but the gut or a dream of a colossal deity. All our struggles, deaths, and so-called ‘truths’ are, to It, merely a case of—insignificant indigestion.”

“‘Sanctification’ is not cleansing, but being devoured. That is the true meaning of ‘White Hole.’”

As soon as he finished speaking, they instantly appeared in the white world.

“System 000 online.”

“Hi~ Long time no see.”

Author’s note: