"So she wasn’t really disgusted by ."
The Core was still calm. His tone had never changed, as simple as when he was first born.
"Thank you." The Core thanked Martin again.
"If you’re really grateful, then let out of this black tower. And him too," Martin said, pointing at Mo Ling.
"No. Only when the correction plan is complete will she co for ." The Core remained insistent. "I will wrap myself up more tightly, so she won’t be disgusted."
Martin could no longer suppress his anger and cursed, "How can you be so stubborn? What if she’s dead? Wouldn’t everything you’ve done be for nothing? All she did was be a little nice to you. Is it worth doing all this for her?"
"It’s worth it."
...
The Core’s reply rendered Martin speechless, leaving him frozen in place.
These Abyssal Creatures were just this unreasonable. Communication was useless.
"This is the body you’re possessing, right? We could kill you right now. Aren’t you afraid?" Martin threatened.
"You can’t kill . I can create other bodies. Sound is immortal."
Hearing the Core’s words, Martin clenched his fists, but he was powerless. He truly had no way to kill sound.
"Let try," Mo Ling said, stepping forward to Martin.
’Even if I can’t kill sound, I can trap the Core in the Block, preventing him from controlling the black tower.’
’I’ll let him out after the black tower’s distortion opens up.’
’In any case, I can’t just sit here and wait to die.’
’Thankfully, the Core’s main body isn’t that large. It should just fit inside the Block, but it’ll require so precise maneuvering.’
Fighting back his disgust, Mo Ling aid the teleportation fra at the floating stone. Then he retracted it, and the Core instantly vanished from the sky.
’Did it work?’
A profound silence.
Seeing the stone disappear, Martin asked cautiously, "Core, are you still there?"
The voice that had always answered every question didn’t appear. Martin quickly asked several more questions, but there was no reply.
The Core was gone.
Mo Ling cautiously projected his vision into the Block. Inside lay an ugly stone toppled on the tallic floor, unremarkable, just like any of the countless boulders in the black tower.
The feeling of revulsion was gone. Looking at the stone now, he felt no disgust.
Just as Mo Ling was about to leave, a cry slowly drifted out from the stone.
At first, it was just a faint sound. Then it grew louder and began to repeat, allowing Mo Ling to hear it more and more clearly.
It was... a single sentence...
A very simple sentence.
"Is anyone there!"
It was Mo Ling’s own voice!
The hairs on Mo Ling’s arms stood on end. He couldn’t be mistaken—that was his own voice!
The voice was frantic. It sounded like he was crying for help.
’Why is my own cry for help coming from the Core’s body?’
Mo Ling checked again carefully, ruling out every other possibility.
The voice continued to reverberate, a constant assault on Mo Ling’s mind.
’Every sound has aning, every sound has a source... but the Core’s true self is my own cry!’
His mind went blank, filled with nothing but that endlessly echoing voice.
Even after the voice faded and dissipated, Mo Ling couldn’t forget it.
The stone lay quietly on the tal floor in complete silence.
...
Martin’s question broke Mo Ling out of his thoughts. "What happened?"
Mo Ling finally ca back to his senses, his thoughts returning to the present. He quickly shook his head.
"Looks like you really killed him. This place is already starting to collapse," Martin said, pointing at the dissipating stones around them.
The Purple crystal chunks on the ground were slowly shattering, turning into scattering syllables and making the entire cavern incredibly noisy.
The sa strange, repetitive sounds echoed through the cavern, and the ground undulated in constant waves, as if it had liquefied.
"I’ll take you sowhere safe first. Once this world has collapsed to a certain point, we’ll return to our original world."
Martin grabbed Mo Ling’s hand and began to phase through space again. The surrounding scenery shifted, and soon they arrived at the top of the tower, overlooking the entire world of sound.
The Purple tower was lting like ice, its surface dripping downwards like a candle. Mo Ling could feel his own altitude slowly decreasing.
In the distance, all objects began to collapse in various ways, with a cacophony of sounds erupting from them as they fell apart.
Trees began to swell and burst like balloons. Animals slowly folded in on themselves, becoming small clumps before vanishing into thin air. The forms of all things were changing in bizarre ways.
"I can’t believe you actually managed to kill the Core," Martin remarked, watching the world’s transformation.
"I don’t know if I really killed him." Mo Ling was still thinking about that strange cry for help. It was all too bizarre.
"You definitely killed him. The reason this world is collapsing is that the source of power maintaining its foundation has dissipated," Martin explained.
"By the way, where did you put his body?"
’That ugly stone?’
Mo Ling then rembered the boulder inside his Block. He carefully tossed the stone out onto the top of the tower.
The nauseating feeling from the black stone was gone. Martin took one look at it and said with certainty, "He’s definitely dead."
Sure enough, before long, the stone also began to dissipate, turning into simple syllables that drifted into the distance.
Martin listened to the sound and confird, "Yep. There are no other sounds mixed in."
He asked Mo Ling curiously, "Did you strip the Core away? What sound was its true self?"
Mo Ling didn’t know how to answer. ’Should I tell him it was my own cry for help?’
He could only shake his head, indicating he didn’t know.
But Martin didn’t press the issue. He even helped Mo Ling cover for it: "It’s normal that you don’t know. It was probably just so aningless sound."
Mo Ling quickly nodded.
The changes in their surroundings intensified. Even the clouds in the sky began to shatter like glass, sending glittering fragnts falling from above.
Cracks even appeared in the air itself. These fissures spread like lightning, kicking up violent winds wherever they went.
"A world’s collapse is actually this simple," Mo Ling couldn’t help but remark.
"This world is too poorly made. It has no foundation, which is why this is happening," Martin explained.
"What if it had a foundation?" Mo Ling pressed.
"If it had a foundation, the change wouldn’t be this violent. There would be a process. The whole world would slowly move from order to disorder."
"First, objects made of the foundation would slowly break down into the foundation itself. Then the foundation would spread throughout the world, flowing from areas of high density to areas of low density."
A word suddenly appeared in Mo Ling’s mind—entropy.
And Martin’s explanation perfectly matched what Mo Ling was imagining.
"When the Creator no longer injects energy into the world, it becos an isolated system. The world’s entropy increases over ti, moving from order to disorder, and eventually ends in heat death."
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