Safe City Ch.201.2

Chapter 201.2: The Fall of the Heavenly Dao

Cheng Qisheng quickly grasped the key point.

“So the Great Annihilation had already tried to devour Fallen Heaven Star before, but the Heavenly Dao of Fallen Heaven Star drove it away. Now, once the Heavenly Dao’s corpse has completely disintegrated, the Great Annihilation will come to Fallen Heaven Star.”

And Blue Sea’s residents were still on Fallen Heaven Star!

No wonder the transformation field looked as though someone had taken a bite out of it. It really had been bitten.

The Heavenly Dao of Fallen Heaven Star was truly formidable. Even under those circumstances, it had managed to protect its world.

But the question now was no longer whether to complete the World Mission. The problem was that the Great Annihilation could descend at any moment.

At this moment, Cheng Qisheng was practically itching to roll the Great Annihilation into a ball and kick it straight out of the greater universe.

The situation on Moon Silk Star had been bad enough, but at least there had been a reasonably precise estimate of when the Great Annihilation would arrive. On Fallen Heaven Star, even the old Taoist priest, who could see the condition of the Heavenly Dao, had no idea exactly when it would descend.

But that wasn’t even the main point.

The main point was that Cheng Qisheng had realized this was already the second time she had encountered the Great Annihilation.

Was it devouring planets faster than before? Or was it that, as Blue Sea’s rank increased, the apocalyptic worlds it encountered were now of such a high tier that they had all entered the Great Annihilation’s menu?

As Blue Sea traveled through more and more worlds in the future, it would undoubtedly encounter that thing again.

It was true that the Safe City could outrun the Great Annihilation. But its residents couldn’t possibly stay inside the city forever.

If Blue Sea had to face the threat of the Great Annihilation in every world it visited from now on, wouldn’t everyone be living in constant terror, with their own residents at risk of being lost at any moment?

“The Heavenly Dao…”

Aether drifted over to Cheng Qisheng’s side and quickly understood what she meant.

“Since the Heavenly Dao of Fallen Heaven Star can stop the Great Annihilation from devouring it, the Safe City should be able to do the same. Even if it can’t block it completely, buying us some time would be enough for you, City Lord, to recall the residents.”

“Good idea.”

Cheng Qisheng casually scooped Aether up and carried it back to the sofa, where she sat down with it in her arms.

This wasn’t the time to be stingy. It was time to bring out the Truth Stone.

Cheng Qisheng stared intently at the red jade as the number of nuclear crystals required gradually appeared on its surface. Only then did she breathe a sigh of relief.

It wasn’t because the price was low that she felt relieved. Rather, it was because the Truth Stone had an answer to her question:

Is there any way to temporarily delay the Great Annihilation from devouring a planet?

This time, the Truth Stone’s price was fifty million nuclear crystals.

That was already nearly half of the nuclear crystals Blue Sea had in storage.

The stone also knew roughly how many nuclear crystals Blue Sea Safe City had left. So first, it sent over a short reaction meme showing two bear-like figures talking. One of them was shouting, “Any other options? Let’s save wherever we can! Our household is practically out of rice to cook!”

Cheng Qisheng replied, “This matter is of the utmost importance, so the sooner I know the answer, the better. Getting the information from you is the most reliable and safest option.”

Indeed, no one could ever predict what the future held.

Just think back to when she’d first met the Truth Stone, then look at their situation now.

Now, it was her turn to persuade the Truth Stone that this amount of nuclear crystals wasn’t all that much.

Strictly speaking, these nuclear crystals belonged to Cheng Qisheng, and she was the Truth Stone’s owner. By rights, whatever she said should have gone.

However, Cheng Qisheng didn’t simply order the Truth Stone to do as she said. Instead, she gently explained the current situation to it.

“We can earn more nuclear crystals. But once the residents are gone, they’re truly gone.”

The Truth Stone thought of the Blue Sea residents who frequently came to it to ask questions.

Because it was their own stone, the residents of Blue Sea were all very friendly and affectionate toward it. Even though it looked different from them, they had never treated it as a mere tool.

Moreover, ever since its owner had brought it back to Blue Sea Safe City, the Blue Sea government had played ten hours of audiovisual entertainment for it every day. They had even assigned someone specifically to look after it, wiping its surface with a damp towel to keep it moist and prevent it from drying out too much.

Although the Truth Stone didn’t actually possess any external sensory abilities, seeing so many people taking such careful and attentive care of it still made it happy.

Thinking of all those Blue Sea residents who treated it as one of their own, and how they might be swallowed up if the Great Annihilation arrived too suddenly, the Truth Stone immediately felt that its owner’s words made perfect sense.

But they were all one big family—humans and stone alike. Having its owner spend fifty million nuclear crystals just to obtain a little information seemed like a terrible deal to the Truth Stone.

—Even though it was the trading platform itself.

This time, it displayed a scene from a Blue Sea television drama.

In the scene, the male and female leads had met after signing up for a wilderness survival show. During the day, they had walked thirty kilometers, climbed several rugged mountains, escaped an attack by a pack of wolves (they weren’t allowed to kill protected animals), and even climbed a cliff to steal some honey. Finally, they managed to hunt a wild goat that wasn’t a protected species.

At the entrance of a cave, the two of them used the friction of wood against wood to start a fire and roast the goat.

Then, while gnawing on a goat leg, the female lead said to the male lead, who was busy eating the other leg, “One goat isn’t enough. Let’s catch another one.”

“It’s too late now. I just caught a rabbit. Want some?” the male lead replied.

The female lead smacked her lips, savoring the taste of the goat leg. Then she picked up the homemade bow and arrows lying beside her and stood up.

“I have a way. Just watch.”

Cheng Qisheng fell silent for a second.

In the end, however, thanks to her exceptional powers of comprehension, she managed to understand what the Truth Stone meant.

“You’re saying I should combine as many questions as possible into a single question, and leave it to you to figure out how to get the person answering to address multiple questions at once?”

The Truth Stone skillfully displayed a meme of an orc nodding emphatically.

“That’s right, that’s right! Exactly!”

Cheng Qisheng smiled and gently stroked the Truth Stone.

“Good. I’m counting on you, then.”

After finishing her conversation with the Truth Stone, she turned to Aether and gave its jellyfish head a good rub.

“Come on. Let’s put our heads together and figure out how to combine all the things we want to know into a single question.”

…

Once again, inside a Tier 9 Safe City.

Achengdu carefully applied eye drops to each of her countless eyes to keep them in good condition. Then she opened the Safe City’s three-dimensional projection map and inspected the planetary core and mantle beneath it. Only after that did she return to her sleeping tank, thoroughly satisfied.

She had finally obtained a fragment of the world’s rules. All the manpower, resources, and effort she’d expended had been worth it.

Achengdu waved her more than a hundred tentacles, intending to have a good, long sleep.

Suddenly, a flash of red light streaked past her eyes.

Achengdu opened her densely packed eyes and saw a familiar sight floating right in front of her: a fragment of the Truth Stone.

Achengdu: “……”

In an instant, she was reminded of that insane night when she’d practically been rushing to finish a research paper.

She sank a little deeper into her sleeping tank, immersing most of her body in seawater.

“I don’t need nuclear crystals anymore. Don’t come looking for me. Go find some other answerer.”

The Truth Stone didn’t say a word. It simply turned around and made its storage space transparent, showing Achengdu a mountain of glittering nuclear crystals—forty-nine million of them.

After displaying its treasure, it could easily have vanished on the spot through a transit passage. Instead, it deliberately floated slowly past Achengdu and headed toward the door.

Achengdu, whose mind was now filled with images of glittering nuclear crystals, blurted out, “……Wait!”

The Truth Stone slowly turned around.

The octopus City Lord, Achengdu, gritted her teeth. “What’s the question? Let me see it.”

Having once been poor, then grown wealthy, and now likely about to spend her nuclear crystals and become poor again, the Tier 9 City Lord Achengdu remained as miserly as ever.

As she climbed out of her enormous sleeping tank, she began using her tentacles to pick up fatigue-relief eye drops and administer them to each of her several hundred eyes.

After all, she’d already served as an answerer once before. It would be a waste not to use the format she’d worked out through trial and error back then.

Besides, the experts in her Safe City had just developed a new formula for fatigue-relief eye drops. It was practically the icing on the cake!

This time, she had experience on her side. She could definitely get the job done in a single night again!

…

The next morning, the familiar scene played out once more.

Cheng Qisheng had only just woken up when the Truth Stone, brimming with pride, cheerfully returned an answer so thick it was practically the size of a book.

The moment she opened it, the familiar format and the exhaustive, detail-packed rambling immediately reminded her of the Octopus City Lord.

After flipping through another two pages, Cheng Qisheng was certain.

This answer had absolutely been written by the Octopus City Lord.

What a wonderful octopus! If she ever got the chance to meet her in person, she’d definitely send her some eye drops from Blue Sea.

Cheng Qisheng silently thanked the Octopus City Lord for her efforts, then began reading the answer in earnest.

[Not every world possesses world rules. Only planets that possess world rules qualify as Great Worlds. For example, cultivation worlds, supernatural horror worlds, and rule-based horror game worlds all have their own world rules. Civilizations in other, lesser worlds can be understood as wild octopuses that haven’t been nurtured by world rules.]

[World rules cannot be forcibly taken away. They can only be gifted willingly by the world itself. When certain Great Worlds face a crisis, there is a chance they will offer their world rules as a reward.]

[If you encounter a world like this, you must seize the opportunity and do your utmost to complete its World Mission and obtain its world rules. World rules are not only one of the key requirements for transforming a Safe City into a planet; the City Lord can also use them to temporarily wield the power of a god.]

[When certain crises arise, world rules can also transform into a barrier and stand at the very front to shield you from danger.]

[As for the questioner’s inquiry about whether the Heavenly Dao is the same as world rules, my answer is no. You can understand it this way: in many fantasy worlds, the world and the Heavenly Dao complement each other, jointly supporting the entire world and giving it a complete, high-end renovation.]

[World rules, on the other hand, are slowly nurtured by the world after this high-end renovation is complete. Once these rules emerge, the world has been upgraded to a luxurious renovation.]

[Neither the world itself nor the Heavenly Dao possesses intelligence, but both instinctively seek to preserve themselves. This is also why some worlds are willing to offer their world rules as a reward.]

In fact, the proper answer could have ended there.

But with the Truth Stone keeping watch, the Octopus City Lord obviously still had to keep typing away furiously and produce another enormous amount of text afterward.

[You can think of the Heavenly Dao as the law, except that its jurisdiction extends across an entire world.]

[Every world needs its own laws to develop in a stable and orderly manner. For example, in a supernatural horror world, it isn’t against the law for supernatural entities to eat humans, nor is it against the law for humans to kill supernatural entities. But in a cultivation world, demons and monsters that eat humans may incur heavenly tribulation. And once a cultivator has embarked on the path of cultivation, they cannot switch to another path, or they will develop inner demons. These are all examples of laws.]

[At the same time, the Heavenly Dao is also the enforcer of the entire planet. If an external enemy invades, the Heavenly Dao will stand in front of the world to protect it.]

There was much more after that, but Cheng Qisheng planned to read it at her leisure later. For now, she needed to digest the information about the Heavenly Dao first.

So, in other words, the Heavenly Dao was like a court, impartially governing the development of an entire Great World.

But now, the Heavenly Dao was gone, and the world’s consciousness had no authority to enforce the law.

As a result, Fallen Heaven Star had descended into complete chaos.

In the past, the Heavenly Dao had also been responsible for the realm where souls returned after death. Now, with no Heavenly Dao to receive them, the souls of the deceased would be sent to the Realm of Returning Souls by the City Gods and other underworld deities, only to promptly turn around and run right back out.

Demons and monsters had once been kept in prison, too. But with no Heavenly Dao overseeing them, the prison gates had become little more than decorations. Consequently, demons and monsters were now everywhere across Fallen Heaven Star.

There was also the matter of the righteous gods. In the past, whenever a righteous god committed an evil deed, the Heavenly Dao would immediately strike them down with a bolt of lightning.

But now, even if a righteous god turned into an evil god, the Heavenly Dao—which had already become a corpse—wouldn’t intervene.

Perhaps a little of the world’s original “law” still remained, since the corpse of the Heavenly Dao hadn’t completely disintegrated yet. It was barely holding things together.

Nevertheless, anyone could see that Fallen Heaven Star was already on the verge of total social collapse.

“Reforge the Heavenly Dao…”

Looking at the results of the Octopus City Lord’s all-night effort, Cheng Qisheng fell into deep thought.

To reforge the Heavenly Dao meant establishing a new supreme court for the entire world, complete with law enforcers who could replace the original Heavenly Dao and govern the whole world.

Suddenly, she raised her head, thinking of the mythological system of Blue Star.

“Then why don’t I just…”

“Create a Heavenly Court of my own?”

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