Dimensional Hotel

Hu Li is a very smart girl. With Yu Sheng's reminder, she quickly came to her senses.

"You feel it too, don't you?" Yu Sheng watched Hu Li blink, speaking slowly, "The Omen Wandering Star, the Omen Goddess, the Omen Banner, that room at the end of the second floor that's always spitting things out, and all sorts of other clues that pop up for various reasons, these clues and information give me the impression that…"

Yu Sheng paused for a moment, thought seriously for a while, and then continued cautiously, "It's as if they have consciousness, you know? These 'information' related to the Omen Goddess, they seem to be alive, actively moving towards us, or more precisely, converging on Erin—as if they're drilling through some kind of barrier and recently getting faster and faster at it."

He exhaled softly, looking up at the little puppet grinding a stone ball in the small square.

"If I were to put it more 'conventionally', the situation now is that the Omen Goddess is 'awakening', maybe from within Erin, or perhaps other parts are awakening from elsewhere, and then one day she'll come to us, and regardless of which situation... lacking information, we'll be very passive."

"But 'investigating' might also accelerate this process," Hu Li suddenly said, tilting her head and thinking seriously, "That's how information pollution works, something a schoolteacher once told me."

"...The compulsory education over there is somewhat off the charts, is this really a primary school curriculum?!"

"No, this is extracurricular content," Hu Li's ears twitched, "It's not on the test."

Yu Sheng: "..."

He waved his hand, ignoring the urge to complain, and continued, "Investigation could indeed speed up the process, but the situation now is the 'Omen Goddess' is already after us—not that we're chasing Her, but that She's hot on our heels, and sooner or later, She'll catch up. The less information, the more passive we are, so why not be proactive?"

Hu Li thought for a moment, moved a little closer to Yu Sheng, and wagged her tail vigorously, "Alright."

No matter what the Savior does, she always supports it.

Then the two of them sat together on the rooftop, watching the sky, the distant mountains, the town, and seeing the Snake Princess, who had returned to the town after having her fill, suddenly pop out from an alleyway. Her long legs propped up the snake's upper half as she wandered around the town, looking like a π symbol...

With Hu Li's reminder, Yu Sheng corrected "π" to "h".

Soon after, a creature with tumbleweed-like golden hair emerged from the roadside, and the long-haired princess loudly reminded the wandering Big Snake Demon, "Hey, Snake Princess, you've changed backwards again!"

The Snake Princess hurriedly transformed again, reverting to her normal beautiful snake form, and chatted amiably with the long-haired princess. The two of them talked about various topics, and eventually, the Snake Princess clapped her hands, suggesting they steal the King's dried fish. The long-haired princess, eager for chaos, supported her, "Sure, let's go—I'll call the Mermaid too!"

And so they went together, tying up the Mermaid who was practicing diving in the pool. After a while, noises of scrambling and the sound of an energetic background music came from the 200-square-meter cat tree...

Yu Sheng and Hu Li sat on the castle roof, eating melon seeds and watching the show, observing how this idyllic town was once again a blend of tranquility and bustle. But suddenly, Yu Sheng became curious, "When did the Snake Demon become so familiar with Changfa?"

"I heard it was during the time when she was being educated by Little Red Riding Hood," Hu Li, stretching her neck to look at the commotion by the cat tree, said casually. "Ah, Changfa has been thrown down… and so has the Snake Princess, all balled up and tossed."

Yu Sheng, satisfied, exhaled, lay back on the roof, and watched from the corner of his eye as a dozen mass-produced Erins carried stretchers to the cat tree to cause more chaos. A faint smile appeared on his face as he softly sighed, "It's really nice."

"Yes, really nice."

...

Erin, who was hugging the Omen Wandering Star and polishing it with effort near the edge of the square, heard the commotion going on over by the cat tree. The little puppet lifted her head to look in the direction of the noise and used the eyes of the mass-produced puppets to see the Snake Princess flailing on the ground, and the long-haired princess rolling past her like a tumbleweed.

And then there was the Mermaid, being dragged away by two royal champion warriors, who was still shouting things like "I'm just here to sing," "They said they needed background music here, so I came," "I ate too much fish and came to fight with the cats for dried small fish", but in the end, she was still thrown into a mud pit next to the cat tree.

"Immature..."

The little puppet broke the shared vision with the mass-produced self, muttered while shaking her head, and then picked up the Omen Wandering Star, observing the results of her morning's polishing.

The bumpy and rugged "mini-planet" still hadn't changed a bit, though the large rock on the ground had developed a deep groove, the surface of the Omen Wandering Star seemed to be unscathed.

"Why is it so hard..." Erin frowned, knocking the Omen Wandering Star on the ground, carefully examining the stone ball.

The grey, dull stone sphere slowly rotated in her hand, its pitted surface reflected in the puppet's crimson, radiant eyes.

That reflection resembled a lone star, afloat in a vast, blood-colored universe, solitary and distant.

The grayed-out star reflected in the puppet's eyes slowly cracked open, revealing jagged sharp teeth in the fissure, like an eerie, terrifying grin.

Erin blinked.

It was suddenly quiet, as if the whole world had vanished into some distant, forgotten moment. The last starlight from afar had long since faded, leaving the world in endless dimness where even the once blazing dark-red glow of the universe gradually merged into the final ripple of the decaying earth.

She stood in the midst of this endless dusk and chaos, cautiously holding the gray-white dying star.

A faint sound emanated from its surface—in the remaining flickers of light, among the last refuges, tiny, overlapping sounds, like the buzz of insects, burrowed into her mind.

Erin felt a little perplexed. She was curious to clearly hear those voices, but a grander noise seemed to be roaring in her mind, as if some enormous memory… or "information" kept burrowing into her mind incessantly. For a moment, she seemed able to understand what those roaring noises meant, but she quickly felt her mind becoming muddled, unable to understand those sounds anymore. Even who she was and why she was here had become burdens too heavy for her rational mind to handle.

Suddenly, she sensed something and lowered her head.

She saw countless tiny points of light striking her body—her originally small figure had, unbeknownst to her, become so vast and unfamiliar. Compared to her body, those tiny points of light seemed like glowing dust, carrying the same mind-numbing noise as they charged furiously toward her, disappearing in the blink of an eye as faint sparks.

For some reason, Erin suddenly felt a bit anxious.

She didn't even know what those points of light were, but she felt anxious—this emotion seemed to emanate from another "self" deep within her body, spreading to her like a tide through a heavy curtain.

They were going to die;

It was going to die;

She was going to die.

Something must be done to prevent the arrival of the "end," but time wasn't sufficient—from the start, there wasn't enough time.

Everything had long been predetermined.

All struggles were in vain; the omen's descent had already been etched into the world's fundamental laws.

The small sounds mingling in the immense noise suddenly became clear, layering upon one another, with weak insect chirps overlapping together, even sounding like thunder rumbles.

Erin heard countless people praying to her, initially in chaotic pleas, then fearful confessions, interspersed with blessings she couldn't understand—many voices were wishing her something, but in the next instant, she quickly forgot those voices.

She felt herself becoming "stronger."

She didn't know what this supposed "strength" was about; it was an indescribable feeling, but she indeed felt herself… "exceeding" some kind of "threshold."

Her perception expanded, her body expanded; she felt she even touched the world's edge—or maybe the world was collapsing, the universe shrinking?

The newborn deity had no time to think, intense pain swept through its consciousness.

Outside the world, it hurt, cannot touch.

There were things there that would decompose everything.

Escape… but there's nowhere to escape.

The protective shell of the world that once sheltered her had vanished.

She could only escape inward, retreat within herself...

Suddenly, Erin shuddered awake.

The warm, gentle breeze passed through the town, the sky was bright and clear, and the nearby study room had children singing, with the loudest one being completely off tune.

Erin looked down at the Omen Wandering Star in her hand, where the grand information impression remaining in her mind dissipated quickly like morning dew, then she widened her eyes, looking up toward the castle.

"Yu Sheng! Yu Sheng!!"

The little puppet yelled loudly, quickly running toward the castle.

Memory receded, and the last bit of "impression" remaining in her mind quickly sank, returning to the depths of darkness.

"Yu Sheng!"

As if inertia drove her legs, Erin still ran swiftly toward the castle, but a trace of confusion already appeared in her eyes—and then two seconds later, her running speed also slowed down, merely continuing to walk forward subconsciously, holding that cold, icy mother star in her hand.

"Yu Sheng..."

Erin lowered her head, looked at the gray-white stone ball in her hand, paused, and then laughed happily.

She waved the stone sphere, showing off to the person on the roof—

"Yu Sheng! This ball is indeed super durable!"