Glorious God Throne

[AFK mode will be activated.]

[In AFK mode, time accelerates within the nightmare fragment instance. The game character will continue to grow according to the traits given by the player, with the system simulating their destiny timeline until they reasonably reach their destined peak.]

[The main traits the player has given to the game character [Day] are: [Self-reliant] [Obsessive] [Immune to corruption] [Special mental power] [Love of learning] [Natural talent for magic] and [Determination to become the true Child of the Sun].]

[Based on the nightmare fragment instance’s worldview, in the coming time, the character [Day] will continuously learn and grow, striving tirelessly to become the true Child of the Sun until achieving this goal and making the prophecy come true… The system will simulate the character’s destiny timeline accordingly.]

[Activate AFK mode?]

“Of course!”

[AFK mode activated, simulating character destiny.]

[Under your nurturing and influence, your character [Day] has evolved from “a weak little girl who could die at any moment” to a “Child of the Sun candidate” with exceptional talent, special powers, and the desire to save everyone.]

[On the first day of being left alone, your character “Day” became famous throughout the Chasers of the Sun headquarters. The Chasers were overjoyed and came to pay respects but were turned away by the Grand Mage. The Grand Mage provided you with a completely safe and quiet space for learning. Everyone awaited your growth.]

[In the first month of being left alone, your character “Day” finished reading all of the Grand Mage’s books, learned all basic Holy Light magic, gained a deep understanding of this power system, and became an elite among Holy Light mages.]

[That month, thirteen Chasers became void beasts.]

[In the second month of being left alone, your character “Day” mastered Holy Light magic more deeply and began researching purification magic. Returning Chasers brought news that all ordinary people without Holy Light magic had died and become void beasts in this eternal night wasteland. Only the Chasers remained as the last survivors.]

[That month, twenty-three Chasers became void beasts.]

[In the third month of being left alone, your character “Day” improved the purification magic, combining it with healing arts to create a new version, temporarily called version 1.0. Light element consumption was reduced by 30% while power remained unchanged. The Chasers were overjoyed at this news, believing more strongly that your character “Day” was the prophesied Child of the Sun who would break the curse.]

[That month, nineteen Chasers became void beasts.]

[In the third month of being left alone, your character “Day” continued improving the purification magic, reducing consumption and increasing power. All Chasers learned your improved purification magic, slowing their descent into losing control, but it wasn’t enough.]

[That month, twenty Chasers became void beasts.]

[Due to your character “Day’s” improved purification magic, the monthly increasing number of Chasers losing control stabilized somewhat. But few remained.]

[In the fourth month of being left alone, your character “Day” further developed purification magic to version 3.0, but still couldn’t completely resolve the deepening corruption of the void energy.]

[The Grand Mage could no longer resist the corruption and completely lost control.]

[Now, only seven Chasers remained.]

[In the fifth month of being left alone, your character “Day” watched the last Chaser lose control and become a void beast. This desolate eternal night had only her left, along with countless void beasts.]

[Your character’s mentality shattered, becoming completely corrupted.]

[The shadow of the Dark Sun descended upon the entire world.]

[Mission failed.]

[A new record added to your world destruction achievements.]

[Try again?]

“Load previous save.”

[In the first month of being left alone, your character “Day’s” amazing talent naturally gained everyone’s recognition. Building on the previous weekend’s progress, your character “Day” continued developing purification magic and achieved version 4.0.]

[Due to your improvements to the purification magic, this month only three Chasers became void beasts, fewer than ever before. You gained everyone’s trust and expectations earlier than in the previous timeline.]

…

[In the sixth month of being left alone, your character “Day” improved purification magic to version 9.0. Despite living two months longer thanks to the purification magic, the Grand Mage still couldn’t resist the void energy’s corruption and once again inevitably fell into the abyss of losing control.]

[The last Chaser fell before your character “Day.” Your character “Day” once again had a mental breakdown.]

[Your character “Day’s” mentality shattered, becoming completely corrupted.]

[The shadow of the Dark Sun descended upon the entire world.]

[Mission failed.]

[A new record added to your world destruction achievements.]

[Try again?]

“Load previous save.”

…

“Load previous save.”

…

Bai Yi felt he had become a heartless save-and-reload machine, only needing to load the previous save after each auto-play mission failure, then continue generating new timelines and auto-playing.

[Try again?]

After countless retries, when this familiar question appeared before his eyes again, Bai Yi felt an unfamiliar weariness, even though all he had to do was make a choice.

“Speaking of which, do you think there’s any other choice? Why do I have to manually load saves over and over? A mature system should be able to load saves itself…” Watching the constantly refreshing world destruction records in the achievement system, Bai Yi became emotional.

He puffed his cheeks and casually said, “AFK is meant to save time, right? System, why don’t you upgrade yourself and add the save-and-reload possibility to the auto-play process, and directly simulate a successful timeline through auto-play before telling me?”

As soon as he finished speaking, the system actually made a change.

[Character has been given a new trait: [Infinite Reload]]

[Whenever the destiny timeline reaches its end without successfully saving this world, [Infinite Reload] will automatically activate, and your character “Day” will return to the initial time point of entering the Chasers’ headquarters with memories intact, starting over.]

[Because of having memories from previous timelines, your character “Day” will continuously accumulate Holy Light magic experience through [Infinite Reload]. Theoretically, in infinite cycles, your character will eventually reach the peak and find a way to save this world.]

[The system will directly simulate the final timeline, which is also your character’s limit reached through infinite cycles.]

[AFK mode activated, simulating character destiny.]

[After countless reloads, your character returned to the initial point, the Chasers’ headquarters, conquering the Grand Mage and other Chasers with amazing talent and ability.]

[The purification magic, continuously improved through countless reloads, was now in its most perfect version. The new purification magic quickly replaced the old version, and your character “Day” became revered by all Chasers at once, carrying all their aspirations and expectations.]

[Since your character “Day’s” arrival and passing down of the new purification magic, everyone’s corruption levels were effectively suppressed, and for six whole months, not a single Chaser completely lost control.]

[But the laws of Return to the Void had completely corrupted this world’s foundation. Even perfect purification magic could only temporarily drive away the void energy’s corruption within a person’s body, unable to stop the omnipresent void energy from polluting living beings in this world.]

[The purification of the purification magic and the corruption of void energy began a prolonged war, with each person’s body as the battlefield.]

[In the ninth month of being left alone, the first Chaser couldn’t resist the corruption and gradually lost control, becoming a void beast.]

[—This would also be the fate of every Chaser in the future.]

[The hope that had risen was once again extinguished.]

[This brought them even deeper despair.]

[It even destroyed many people’s courage to continue struggling.]

[“The prophecy is completely useless. Even the Child of the Sun can’t resist the gods’ curse.”]

[“We are destined to perish in this curse.”]

[“Forget it, forget it, let it be.”]

[Through countless reloads, facing failure after failure, your character “Day’s” corruption level kept rising.]

[This time, she completely despaired.]

[The flames of the Dark Sun spread across the entire world.]

[Your character “Day’s” own beliefs began to waver.]

[“I’ve already done my utmost, everything I could. Perhaps I shouldn’t have forced it from the beginning?”]

[“The prophecy was just a lie. No matter what I do, I cannot turn a lie into truth. Should I give up?”]

[Player attention: AFK mode ended. Your character “Day” cannot achieve the goal no matter what. Even starting a new timeline with auto-play won’t change this result.]

[Your character “Day” has reached the major failure route.]

[Would you like to start over, choose a new path, and give your character completely new traits from the beginning?]

Distorted and blurry text appeared in the frozen world as Bai Yi floated like a ghost, deep in thought.

He scrolled through the long auto-play record, growing increasingly astonished. Finally, he felt a surge of sympathy for the character—trying to save the world in countless blocked timelines, failing again and again, repeating over and over, only to reach a bad ending. Just thinking about it was an unbearably tragic life!

…If such a person really existed, they would be the template of a beautiful, powerful, yet tragic hero—a tragic hero among saviors.

—He suddenly understood why the Bai Yi from other timelines hadn’t stored memories in the system, but only gave vague hints, guiding himself step by step to unveil the truth.

If he could receive memories from other timelines the moment he got the system, Bai Yi wouldn’t need to waste so much time figuring out how to use the system. He could start acting quickly because he’d know everything that would happen in the future, and handle Return to the Void more confidently…

But leaving aside how this would rob him of creativity, making him follow successful experiences from other timelines rather than exploring new paths, more importantly, could his mind handle the overlay of so many timeline memories? Would he still be himself then?

Perhaps one day he would be strong enough to receive memories from infinite timelines without any effect, but not now.

—Only sending the system, without memories or game instructions. This was Bai Yi’s consideration for Bai Yi, and also Bai Yi’s trust in Bai Yi. He believed this was enough.

In comparison, Bai Yi’s treatment of the game character seemed quite cruel. Fortunately, the character’s auto-play was just the system’s simulation of destiny, not actually repeating N times.

However, this was his first time encountering an instance where the character’s auto-play simulation couldn’t meet the completion requirements no matter how many times it tried.

Although he knew the mission requirements were difficult, game players could always complete it if they were willing to spend time constantly reloading.

Moreover, the system had introduced the infinite reload auto-play mode.

Bai Yi had thought that with the possibility of endless retries, infinite timeline cycles, and countless save-reload attempts, the system’s auto-play mode would just skip unnecessary intermediate processes. Like a computer eliminating all impossible successful plans and only showing the final successful result, the final completion… but it wasn’t that simple. Should he say the goal was set too high?

Was [dispelling the void energy’s corruption and saving this world] impossible even with countless reloads?

—If there was even a sliver of possibility for success, the system could find that successful path through simulation and countless attempts. Unless all possibilities faced failure.

“So, was this goal really set too high?”

Regarding this, Bai Yi was actually mentally prepared.

After all, he was trying to dispel the void energy’s corruption, which was not only the cause of this world’s destruction but probably also the cause of countless real-world timeline destructions.

If dispelling void energy was so easy, countless previous Bai Yis wouldn’t have all failed. So many timelines that completely lost their future had already told him that with his current power, attempting to oppose Return to the Void was still too weak.

But in that case, when the one-month countdown ends and Return to the Void descends upon reality, wouldn’t he be equally helpless?

As soon as this thought arose, Bai Yi dismissed it.

—He had spent so many game points to arrive in this world, guided by the hope fragment to this nightmare fragment instance. This meant the gains from this instance couldn’t possibly be useless; they should help resist Return to the Void in reality.

So, what was the difference between Return to the Void in reality and this world?

—”It’

This world’s current time point was infinitely close to death, void energy permeated everywhere, and its foundation was 99.9% corrupted, so Bai Yi could only make futile efforts.

But the real world was different.

It was like comparing terminal illness to early stages, or even just initial symptoms…

His improved purification magic couldn’t treat a “terminal patient,” but that didn’t mean it couldn’t save an “early-stage patient.”

If Return to the Void had just descended and this world had just encountered void energy corruption, Bai Yi believed that with his mastery of purification magic, the result wouldn’t be countless failures.

“…So this is why the hope fragment guided me to this nightmare fragment instance? To obtain some power that could dispel void energy corruption in its early stages?”

If so, even if he couldn’t perfectly complete this nightmare fragment instance, it didn’t seem to matter anymore.

Even if he withdrew now, the gains would be sufficient.

Bai Yi gazed at this world in frozen time.

Endless night, darkness that could never become daylight, and those struggling to survive, abandoned in the night.

He seemed to faintly see countless figures looking toward him, like looking at the only lit torch in the darkness.

Bai Yi suddenly smiled.

“Really, fleeing in panic isn’t my style! It’s just a mere nightmare fragment instance…”

“I almost forgot, I’m not really trying to save the world—I just need to resolve the obsession…”

There was one more thing unsaid: besides the difference in corruption strength due to earlier versus later time points, the Return to the Void in reality and this world had an even more important difference—these two worlds themselves were different.

—He hadn’t forgotten that he was currently only in a nightmare fragment instance, not the real Holy Light Continent.

The real Holy Light Continent had long been destroyed by Return to the Void. The nightmare instance was just the remnants of a dead world and a dream woven from the lingering thoughts of the long-dead.

Compared to the truly dead Holy Light Continent, the nightmare instance was just a lower-dimensional illusory world. If he couldn’t save the real Holy Light Continent, couldn’t he at least change this nightmare?

The reason so many previous simulations couldn’t succeed was because, for the character “Day” in the nightmare instance, the illusory nightmare instance was reality.

The Return to the Void energy was like an overpowered boss villain, and “Day” as a game character had her limitations – she could never defeat it no matter what. But players outside the game were different.

Players only needed to lightly tap the keyboard, modify data, set up special programs, and they could give game characters infinite power-ups, allowing them to gain the ability to defeat boss villains.

In other words…

“Time to activate some cheats!”

For a long time, Bai Yi had spent more time in the Nightmare Fragment instance than in reality, and his understanding of the Nightmare Fragment instance was deeper than anyone could imagine.

The Nightmare Fragment instance was essentially dominated by the lingering thoughts of the dead. Those who had died thought they were still alive, and thus constructed the world within the nightmare instance, where all the deceased lived just as they had when alive.

This world should have been the same way.

Yet oddly in this world, even though it was a constructed nightmare, most people’s souls were deeply imprinted with their own death and the world’s despair, as evidenced by the slime monsters everywhere. The living were a tiny minority.

Even those who were alive struggled in the nightmare, constantly sliding toward the abyss of losing control.

But these few people still struggling against losing control, compared to the widespread slime monsters, were the ones with the most steadfast humanity and strongest desire to live in this world.

If possible, they absolutely didn’t want to die or lose control – it was just that their subconscious told them destruction was their inevitable fate, and no one could obtain salvation.

Thus, this despairing Nightmare Fragment instance came to be.

Therefore, Bai Yi didn’t need to actually have the ability to dispel the Return to the Void energy and save everyone – he just needed to make them believe he could.

What he needed to do was deceive everyone, deceive this world.

Just as dream owners believe they’re immune to all harm, and thus nothing in the dream can hurt them… as long as he could make everyone in the Nightmare Fragment instance believe the Child of the Sun could save them and protect them from the Return to the Void energy’s corruption, then the Child of the Sun in the dream could accomplish all this!

It seemed similar to earning Legend degree points? Except previously, earned Legend degree points would be submitted to the system, and then the system would consume the Legend degree points to turn falsehoods into truth.

Though it was just a guess, Bai Yi felt this must be the correct answer. And so he acted—

On his status panel, the maxed-out “Bewitch” skill was glowing.

He looked down at all the motionless people below.

Everyone gazed up at him with eyes full of anticipation.

—And he would turn this anticipation into absolute trust, into fervent belief that he could accomplish anything he claimed.

“Let’s load from this checkpoint~”

The frozen world began turning like pushed gears.

A new playthrough began.

This time, it was a brand new start. He would deceive the entire world, turning lies into the world’s reality.