"I am the final copy, created from his soul data before he died."
The deep, hoarse voice echoed through the dark void.
Ruo Yan looked at the figure formed from countless streams of purple data. The Soul Threads around her fingers trembled unconsciously, as though resonating with something both familiar and foreign.
The Necromancer also knelt on one knee beside her. The green flames in its eye sockets swayed slowly, reflecting the figure before them.
Ruo Yan was silent for a few seconds before asking.
"You’re really dead?"
The figure faltered.
He reached up and scratched his head, then looked to the side as though he had just noticed something was off.
"Hold on."
The data streams across his face flickered rapidly. The serious expression and weary look that had just appeared vanished completely.
Owin clicked his tongue.
"Played the wrong opening."
Ethan: "..."
Laira: "..."
Ruo Yan narrowed her eyes slightly.
"The wrong opening?"
"That’s right." Owin slapped his own forehead lightly. "That was the intro I prepared in case I died before anyone made it here. I ended up leaving this world later on, but forgot to delete it."
He waved his hand dismissively.
The entire solemn atmosphere that had blanketed the space evaporated in an instant. Owin sat down in midair, legs crossed, looking as relaxed as if he were sitting in a tavern rather than the final data layer of a collapsing ruin.
"First of all, don’t ask me whether I’m alive or dead."
Owin pointed at himself and grinned with absolute confidence.
"I’m alive."
Ruo Yan stared at him without blinking.
"You’re alive?"
"Perfectly healthy." Owin nodded. "At least I was when I left this frequency. Probably still haven’t kicked the bucket."
"Then what exactly is the thing in front of us?"
Ethan didn’t care about his flippant attitude. His gaze was still studying the data streams forming Owin’s body.
"Just a soul frequency that was saved."
Owin drew a circle in the air with his finger.
"I cut a piece of my soul’s oscillation pattern, memories, and thought processes, then stored them here. It can talk, answer simple questions, and react based on the situation."
He tapped his own head.
"But this isn’t a soul, isn’t a clone, and definitely isn’t some slumbering fragment of my true self. You could destroy this thing and I wouldn’t even know."
Laira folded her arms across her chest.
"Where is your real body right now?"
"No idea."
Laira frowned slightly.
"You don’t know where you are?"
"I’m just a frequency left behind a long time ago." Owin looked at her as though the question were utterly absurd. "How would I know what the real me is doing right now?"
He thought for a moment, then said,
"Could be drinking."
"Could be sleeping."
"Could also be getting chased down by someone because he owes money."
Owin paused, his expression turning more serious.
"I hope it’s not the last one."
Ruo Yan looked at him.
The image of the ancient Puppeteer she had imagined was collapsing at a staggering speed.
No dignified bearing of an ancient powerhouse.
No sorrow of someone who had lived through countless ages.
No regret or wistfulness about passing on an inheritance to the next generation.
The person in front of her just looked like an irresponsible fool who had dumped all his belongings and gone on vacation.
"Why did you leave this place?" Ruo Yan asked.
"Traveling."
"You left behind the workshop, the inheritance, and an entire space full of death traps, and then went traveling?"
Owin scratched his chin.
"Sounds a bit irresponsible when you put it that way."
"It doesn’t just sound like it."
Ruo Yan corrected him coldly.
"You are irresponsible."
Owin shrugged.
"I left behind plenty of good stuff. That counts as being responsible."
He gave Ruo Yan absolutely no chance to keep interrogating him and immediately held up two fingers.
"Second thing."
Owin pointed at the space around them. The puppet blueprints, soul structures, magic arrays, and countless memory fragments were still drifting slowly through the darkness.
"This place, including the workshop, the reclamation mechanism, the corridors, the Dead Path, and the independent space you all just passed through..."
He paused briefly, then said in the most casual tone imaginable,
"I made it for fun."
The space fell silent.
Ethan looked at him.
Laira slowly lowered her arms.
Even Ruo Yan didn’t react immediately. It took several seconds before she could confirm she hadn’t misheard.
"You just said that place was made for fun?"
"Yes."
"A world full of puppets, traps, chaotic gravity, extermination protocols, and paths that could kill countless people?"
"Yes."
"Just for entertainment?"
Owin tilted his head slightly.
"It wasn’t entirely my idea."
He pointed at the Necromancer kneeling beside Ruo Yan.
"This bastard had a part in it too."
The green flames in the Necromancer’s eye sockets flickered briefly.
Ruo Yan turned to look at it.
The puppet maintained its posture, but for some reason she had the distinct feeling it was deliberately avoiding her gaze.
Owin laughed.
"That day, we’d had quite a lot to drink. This guy felt like building puppets every single day was too boring, so he suggested we create a special pocket dimension, toss a few treasures inside, and then watch the greedy ones run in and fight each other for them."
"I thought it was a great idea."
"So I built it."
Ethan recalled everything they had just been through.
The corridors with unstable gravitational pull.
The Dead Path containing three thousand Thunder-Iron Feathers.
Waves of retrieval puppets.
The extermination protocol.
And a battle lasting nearly twelve hours that had pushed Laira, Ruo Yan, and the Necromancer to the brink of death.
"You built all of that while drunk?"
"Not entirely." Owin shook his head. "It took about half a month."
He thought it over and corrected himself.
"Maybe three weeks."
"I was drinking for most of those three weeks, so saying I built it drunk isn’t really wrong either."
Laira looked at him as though staring at a creature more incomprehensible than a Void beast.
"Many people died in there."
"I know."
Owin didn’t deny it in the slightest.
"But nobody forced them to walk in. And nobody forced them to kill each other."
He pointed at Ethan.
"The treasure had already chosen its owner, but the others still wanted to rip it out of this guy’s body. That’s not the fault of the person who built the place."
Ethan didn’t argue.
If Aldren, Brakk, and the rest had chosen to leave the workshop the moment the Thunder Wings had an owner, the entire battle could have been avoided.
It was greed that made them strike.
Then fear that kept them from stopping.
Owin shifted his position and continued matter-of-factly.
"Third thing. The people who made it this far definitely also picked up a decent haul of treasures I left scattered around outside."
Ruo Yan frowned.
"Scattered around?"
"That’s right."
"The Thunder Wings were also something you just left lying around?"
"Probably."
Owin stroked his chin, as though trying to recall something not particularly important.
"I used them once to fly through a Thunder Sea. Afterward I decided they were too noisy. Every time I opened the wings, the lightning made my hair stand on end, so I tossed them into storage."
Ethan’s gaze settled on the Primordial Armor.
Inside it were fifteen hundred Thunder-Iron Feathers that had just fused with his left arm.
The other half had rebuilt Laira’s wing.
A Mythical treasure that Aldren and Brakk had been willing to die for was, in Owin’s telling, just a noisy trinket he’d thrown into a closet.
Ethan was silent for a few seconds, then asked,
"If this place was just made for fun, why was there a Mythical-rank treasure inside?"
Owin burst out laughing.
He laughed so hard he had to press one hand against his stomach, and the data streams forming his body shook along with him.
"Mythical?"
"You really think Mythical is some incredibly high tier?"
Ethan looked at him calmly, not feeling mocked in the slightest.
Owin laughed a few more times before straightening up.
"All right, I shouldn’t laugh. For this world, Mythical treasures are indeed relatively rare."
He shrugged.
"But Mythical has never been the highest mark."
Owin’s gaze shifted to Laira.
He looked at the black horns, the dragon wings, and the Solar Flame Seal hidden within her body. The amused expression on his face didn’t disappear, but his eyes sharpened for just an instant.
"Same as your dragon girl here."
Laira narrowed her eyes at once.
Ethan also looked straight at Owin.
"You can see through it?"
"I’m not blind."
"That’s not an answer."
"Then the answer is yes."
Owin rested his chin on his hand and studied Laira for a few more seconds.
"The seals are quite troublesome. Whoever placed them wasn’t weak. The Solar Flame Seal is also fairly interesting, although the way it’s being used right now is still quite crude."
Laira answered flatly.
"I don’t need your critique."
"That’s fine." Owin smiled. "I wasn’t planning on teaching for free anyway."
Before Laira could continue, he raised one hand.
Streams of purple data immediately converged in his palm, forming a black box. The box’s surface had no fixed pattern. A sword appeared, then shifted into a pair of wings, then continued changing into an egg, an eye, and a gate.
The box drifted slowly toward Ethan.
"All right. To congratulate the three of you for making it here, I’m giving you a Blind Box."
Ethan reached out and took it.
The moment his fingertips touched the surface, the Eye of Truth automatically displayed information.
[Special Blind Box.]
[Creator: Owin.]
[Reward pool: Cannot be determined.]
[Minimum rarity: S.]
[Maximum rarity: Cannot be determined.]
[Warning: The item inside contains a frequency beyond the current analytical threshold.]
Ethan didn’t open it immediately. He stored the box inside the Primordial Armor.
Owin gave an approving nod.
"Not bad. At least you didn’t crack it open in the middle of a space that’s about to fall apart."
"You know this place is about to collapse?"
"Obviously."
"Then why are you still sitting here talking?"
Owin shrugged.
"The space will wait until I’m done."
Ethan wasn’t sure whether to judge the man’s confidence or the absurdity of this place first.
Laira couldn’t hold back.
"You’re really insufferable."
"Thank you."
"That wasn’t a compliment."
"I know."
Owin raised a single finger, his expression still completely carefree, but his voice slowed down.
"I have one more piece of information for you."
"The world you’re living in is actually just a cage."