NOVEL NEXT WORLD Chapter 194: The Imaginary Tree
[Long before human civilization emerged, the world already possessed form.]
[The eternal, boundless Imaginary Tree, rooted in the Sea of Quanta, over eons immeasurable, branched out into countless limbs, bearing an infinity of leaves and blossoms.]
[In this endless expanse, in a trivial, insignificant corner, human civilization was born.]
With the successful conceptualization of the Imaginary Tree, the chaos coalesced into order.
The long, uncertain groping in the dark finally yielded a tangible result. Otto, like a wanderer lost for five hundred years, finally reached the edge of the fog, glimpsing a winding path leading out of the darkness.
After numerous observations, the true nature of the world began to take shape in his mind. Otto realized that the Imaginary was the origin of all things.
He followed the winding path, his pace quickening, until he was running, driven by a desperate urgency.
The image of the tree grew clearer. Otto reached the end of the path, the very edge of modern scientific understanding.
He leaped, plunging into a deeper, unseen abyss.
There, he finally saw it. The infinite tree, its branches and leaves encompassing the entire world.
But he also made a devastating discovery. This was only the beginning, the starting point of humanity's understanding of the Honkai.
Civilization was born from the Imaginary Tree, flourishing alongside its growth.
However, in its struggle against the Quantum Sea, the Imaginary Tree had to grow along a specific path. This self-selective, evolutionary mechanism manifested in the human world as the Honkai.
Humanity could never escape the Honkai because the Imaginary Tree had to grow.
If a civilization failed this selection process, it withered and fell from the tree, becoming nothing more than a fleeting bubble in the Quantum Sea.
To achieve lasting peace, humanity had to return to its origin, to the Imaginary.
This was Otto Apocalypse's understanding of the world. And the answer he sought lay within the infinite branches of the Imaginary Tree.
Yet, even with this newfound understanding, Otto couldn't change reality.
Only after plunging into the abyss did he truly grasp humanity's insignificance.
He struggled to move through the endless sea of red sand, unable to get closer to the Imaginary Tree. Every ounce of effort yielded only a single footprint.
The golden tree stood eternal, unchanging. And he could do nothing.
Just as his strength gave out, his consciousness fading into darkness, Otto saw a figure standing before him.
A figure with short, gray hair, their back to him, walking steadily towards the Imaginary Tree.
Otto didn't know how long this person had been walking, but they had clearly gone further than him, closer to the Imaginary Tree.
Stranger still, countless chains bound the figure, one end rooted in the red sand, the other wrapped tightly around them.
He couldn't fathom it. In a world where he could barely take a single step, someone was dragging the entire world forward.
"How… interesting." A flicker of admiration sparked in Otto's eyes as darkness claimed him.
He awoke back in the Schicksal base.
Before him, the Soulium body he had used to peer into the Imaginary was twisted and deformed. As he touched it, it crumbled into fine red sand, just like the ground in that other world.
…
The moment Otto's consciousness faded, Ren sensed a shift. He turned, seeing a pair of footprints in the endless sea of sand, their origin unknown.
Contrary to Otto's assumption, it wasn't chains that bound Ren, but the roots of the Imaginary Tree itself, a restraint imposed by the Imaginary space.
This world was the true realm of the Imaginary, a place where even the Honkai itself was annihilated.
Ren had been journeying through this space for a long time.
It was because his true self resided here that the Honkai consciousness, formed from Prometheus's intrusion, couldn't pinpoint his location.
Ren knew that as a Herrscher, he was inherently subject to the Honkai's control. And once the Will of the Honkai noticed him, it would constantly monitor him.
This was both surveillance and control.
This control had been subtle in the past, but during Kiana's recent ordeal in ARC City, he had felt the Will of the Honkai attempting to directly influence his actions.
He had anticipated this from the moment he became a Herrscher, and he had a plan.
The core of that plan was Kiana—a weapon he had carefully chosen.
Her purpose was to sever the connection between him and the Will of the Honkai, freeing him from its surveillance.
To test the sharpness of this weapon, he had allowed the Will of the Honkai to exert its influence over ARC City.
The weapon wasn't yet honed to its full potential, but its form was taking shape. That was enough for now.
Regardless of the weapon's quality, it was Ren who wielded it.
Even in the few seconds he had paused, the roots binding him had begun to constrict. Ren refocused, his gaze on the roots.
Were they roots, or threads?
He closed his eyes, pulling at the roots entwined around him.
When he opened them again, his eyes glowed with a golden light.
For the first time, his own Herrscher markings appeared in his irises—an intricate, inverted tree, its crown pointing downwards, the opposite of the Imaginary Tree.
The complex patterns transcended the usual simplicity of Herrscher markings. They resembled an intricate diagram more than mere lines.
Snap.
The light flared, and several roots severed, the sound echoing in the silent expanse.
Ren took a step forward. Instantly, more roots surged forth, binding him anew.
The closer he got to the Imaginary Tree, the more numerous the roots became.
He had started unbound, yet now he was completely entangled, a testament to the length of his journey in this world.
He no longer knew how much strength it took to break free, only that each step caused the entire sea of sand to tremble.
It was no wonder the Will of the Honkai kept such a close watch on him. If it discovered what he was doing, it would undoubtedly activate the failsafe left by the Previous Era, unleashing Kevin, the Final Herrscher, to eliminate him.
With Otto gone, silence returned to the endless red sea of sand. Only a single figure remained, continuing his arduous journey forward.