The rules of Dungeons and Dragons were for a world set up by Westerners. After countless people refined it continuously, the world gradually approached balance. It was a pure swords and magic type world. It had humans, elves, dwarves, giant dragons, gods, ghosts, demons and devils… It could be said to be a hodgepodge-like world, but with countless people continuously refining it, and with the time spent to accumulate knowledge on this subject, this world actually ended up balanced, just as if it were a real world.
In Dungeons and Dragons, there was an extremely ominous area called the Infinite Layers of the Abyss. It was a world with countless planes, all mutually interlinked. Even in the Abyss, each layer was a plane equivalent to a world, each with different laws. For example, one world could have more positive energy, while another could have more negative energy. It could also be that one was more aligned to the fire element, while another to the water element, with numerous different examples. It could be said to be a strange major world composed from countless minor worlds.
“Don’t you feel that has some similarities to the world before you? Coming down from the hole above leads to a different world. Going down again may again lead to a different world. Aren’t all these layers on top of one another similar to how the Abyss is? In addition, we’re in the Eragon world, and the information before said this is hell. If so, everything that can be told to us has already been told. I think that this should be the information they left behind.”
“What kind of information is this?” Zheng had also unlocked the third stage of the genetic constraint, and although he thought for a long time, he couldn’t grasp the essential points among them. He suddenly asked, “Why won’t they just directly leave the truth behind? Is it very fun to make people play the guessing game?”
“It’s not why won’t they, but why can’t they!” Xuan shook his head. “Let me try to hypothesize their intentions. Remember what I told you before? When all impossibilities have been rejected, the truth is real regardless of how unbelievable it is!”
“First, let’s guess, what were they were planning to tell us with all these arrangements? Firstly, we are in Eragon, so giant dragons are what naturally come to mind first. Then, the structure of the underground castle has an eighty percent possibility of being there to tell us we are under the rules of Dungeons and Dragons. Next, ‘hell’, as well as that vast world and abyss, would let you determine that we are either in Baator or the Infinite Layers of the Abyss. It’s a planar amalgation formed from countless interlocked planes. If so, the information they want to leave behind should pertain to the countless worlds.”
Xuan had already walked to before the giant door with runes. He wasn’t panicked, but only nodded his head. “We’ll stop those deductions here. We’ll reinfer using the information we have obtained. From the information we had previously, as well as the last message you obtained, two things can be confirmed. One, there were two forces during the ancient era, both branches created from human evolution. One were the Saints, which focused on body evolution. Second were Cultivators which focused on a combination of rune technology and body evolution. This is something already confirmed. Two, the two sides once had a great battle between them. This Grand Primordial War shattered Heaven and Earth, and only after a long time did humanity recover their vitality with great difficulty. This is the information we can confirm.”
“What’s unconfirmed is what did Saints and Cultivators discovered after the Grand Primordial War? This discovery actually made the two form an alliance, let them feel terror, and even work together to build God’s Realm. This meant that after they died out, humanity could follow their path to evolve, and their legacy wouldn’t be lost. It’s roughly this information.”
Xuan paused when he reached this point. He pushed up his spectacles and contemplated. After a long while, he continued, “What’s next has my guesses and inferences included. Firstly, we need to understand what they’re trying to tell us. I believe that the information we can gain from Eragon based on the rules of Dungeons and Dragons and the Abyss you’re in and what they’re trying to tell us, is that the real world has an infinite number of planes and space. Our Earth and universe is but one among them, which is the meaning behind the Infinite Layers of the Abyss.”
“Isn’t this something already proven by scientists? There should be an infinite number of universes due to different dimensions, the difference in passage of time or the difference in planar coordinates. How is it worth being surprising and telling us about?”
“If they were just telling us this normally it indeed wouldn’t be a problem. But if they start off with telling us the rules of Dungeons and Dragons, and are using this as a metaphor, what they’re trying to tell us is clear. Our world’s laws are just like that of Dungeons and Dragons. Our world, the infinite real worlds and various planes are all fake!” Xuan said assuredly, “They want to tell us that we’re just a bunch of living things living in a fabricated simulation. Those countless worlds and universes are but a box. What existences lies outside the box is unknown. They, no, it! Those are the true enemies of Saints and Cultivators!”
Zheng was in a daze, and finally understood what Xuan was saying after a long time. He immediately pondered on it, and after another long while he finally said, “If so, no wonder they lost. The creators who could build our infinite universes and space simply isn’t something they can resist... Then what is the meaning behind building God’s Realm? Could it be that they want us to follow them in resisting those creators?”
“It’s not necessarily true that the creators are stronger than us. Accurately speaking, the things that are under consideration are different since the dimension resided in is different. Let me make an example… you've played internet games before, right?”
“Find any Internet game. For example, for one with Cultivators as the theme, you’ll get stronger as your rank increases. Calling the wind and summoning the rain, as well as moving mountains and filling seas would be common. If you could arbitrarily modify the game even more, then you could kill hundreds of bosses with one punch, or be even stronger. As long as it adheres to the game’s rules, you could modify the character to the peak. Then, with that powerful character as the blueprint, what do you think will happen if that organism enters our real world and keeps his power?”
The end result was self-evident. The human world would definitely take heavy casualties if even nuclear weapons couldn't destroy this organism. Humanity could very likely become extinct, or if this organism became an unparalleled existence, all of humanity could possibly become slaves. Or, society could be radically changed, and become the societal order this organism wanted etc etc. In short, this would be a disaster to humanity.
“Understand? The laws are different, and strong has different definitions. As we are in a box, everything outside the box may possibly exceed our imagination. For example, one dimensional creatures cannot understand the so-called various ‘sides’ of two dimensions. Two dimensional creatures are unable to understand the ‘height’ in our dimension. Perhaps we are characters in a novel. Everything about us has long since been in his mind, and our infinite universes progresses along with him writing out his imagination. When a character transcends his novel, he would create even stronger existences, or use some methods we aren't able to understand to deal with him, with the prerequisite that the box can’t be destroyed.”
“We’re characters in a novel? Could someone be writing about us and our world?” Zheng found it strange hearing this, and hurriedly asked.
Xuan shook his head. “This is only a single possible hypothesis. If the character in the internet game isn’t controlled by anyone and has artificial intelligence, they wouldn’t know what the so-called ‘internet’ is, or that their world is merely some data. Similarly, us in our world, or the box we reside in, don’t know what lies outside the box, what created this box, where we’ll go if we escape… All this is unknown.”
Zheng had unlocked the third stage at this moment, and simulated Honglu’s thought processes. After thinking for quite a while, he said, “I roughly understand what you mean. With a internet game as an example, if an NPC transcends the game and can roam freely in the internet, it’s a huge threat even if they can’t appear in the real world. Like in Terminator, computers were controlled, and nuclear missiles were fired which caused the Earth to be destroyed. The Saints and Cultivators at that time reached this realm. No wonder the box creators couldn’t tolerate them. This is roughly what they want to tell us, right?”
Xuan was however, slowly starting to frown. He whispered softly for a long while before suddenly saying, “There should still be one piece of information, although it sounds outrageous. Zheng, take a spin over there and see if there are any living things.”
Zheng felt strange in his heart, but he still operated the Sky Stick to fly around randomly after hearing that. After flying for a short while, he still hadn’t met any living things. The world was still a field of dark red, and he immediately said to Xuan, “What living things? It’s very spacious and empty here.”
“Then I’m indeed wrong for this hypothesis. I just find it strange. Why wouldn’t they directly leave a message, but instead use a metaphor to make us guess? If my hypothesis is correct, then there should be activity on your end…” Xuan murmured to himself, baffled.
“Wait… wait! I see it! A lot of monsters suddenly appeared from the ground!”
Zheng was originally waiting to reply to Xuan, but before his words could come out, he could see ground below shift gradually. Then, countless reptile-like creatures, merely twenty to thirty metres in size, appeared. They looked like ordinary reptiles, all with different shapes. But, their numbers were simply too many, and a field of densely packed red reptiles were beneath him, a scale of over a hundred million. Just as Zheng shouted out, the reptiles suddenly started biting at each other, and a chaotic battle immediately broke out.
“Yes! THIS is what they’ve been trying to tell us! No wonder they couldn’t directly leave a message to us! So that’s why they had to tell us this before the final battle…”