PGVCW 62

 

Playing God in Various Catastrophic Worlds

Chapter 62: Farewell to the Magical Realm

The main forces of Blue Star gradually withdrew from the magical realm.

Some individuals proposed abandoning Blue Star entirely and executing a global migration into this new world, but this domain ultimately remained foreign ground. Even with the authorization of the Light God, remaining stationed for longer than two months caused people to experience an intangible sense of systemic exclusion from the world.

If Blue Star had been utterly obliterated and humanity left without an alternative sanctuary, this realm would have offered a viable refuge. Yet at present, their native homeland was steadily recovering and improving, was it not?

As the main expeditionary columns pulled back, Xia Wang'an caught sight of the serfs who had gathered to bid them farewell.

They had learned that Her Highness the Princess was an immortal cultivator—a close friend of the divine who had single-handedly rescued the entire world. For their part, Princess Wang'an had extended direct aid, cured their ailments, gifted them permanent homes, and allocated personal plots of arable land.

"Return now; from this day forth, you are no longer serfs. The Princess's domain shall be distributed among you all." "Eat well, accumulate your savings, and perhaps consider studying the arts of mages and warriors."

Several young civil engineering students felt a profound reluctance to leave. This territory could practically be considered a creation of their own hands, built piece by piece into its present state. The orderly rows of public latrines, the meticulously demarcated wheat fields, the leveled dwellings, and even the expansive threshing floors utilized for assemblies had all been constructed under their direct supervision alongside the locals.

Initially, the construction corps comprised exclusively Blue Star personnel, but over time, they began recruiting residents from the magical realm. Working side by side, sharing meals, and marching to and from labor sites together, they had cultivated deep cross-dimensional friendships despite initial linguistic barriers.

And now, the time had come for departure.

The younger personnel could not hold back their tears, while the older workers maintained a more stoic composure, though their expressions remained heavy with sorrow. Yet no one attempted to obstruct the retreat; everyone understood that the Princess and her retinue had saved the world and were now returning to the Immortal Realm of the Sea.

As detailed explicitly within The Travels of Jenny, the inhabitants of the immortal realm never resided among mortals outside of crisis periods. Now that the calamity was resolved, their withdrawal was natural.

With pestilence eradicated, the living environment of humanity was undergoing a profound renaissance, gradually reverting to the glorious prosperity of three centuries prior without fear of sliding back into destitute starvation. Yet the locals vividly remembered who had extended a helping hand during their darkest sickness, who had taught them to maximize crop yields during famine, and who had patrolled relentlessly to safeguard their lives on the day their god fell.

Individuals stepped forward bearing local cabbages, monster meat, and—knowing that these immortal cultivators appreciated magical novelties—gatherings of dwarves and beastkin delivered an array of handcrafted magical utilities.

A soldier marching within the column observed the heartfelt farewell offerings from the indigenous populace, his stern, weathered features softening visibly.

"When I was deployed on operations a few years ago, it was exactly like this."

Back then, Blue Star was poverty-stricken, and the populations they rescued had nothing of material value to offer; yet a simple pen or a shared morsel of food carried genuine emotional sincerity. Although military regulations prohibited accepting gifts, witnessing the unadulterated gratitude of those they aided made every hardship and exhaustion worthwhile, leaving a lingering sweetness in the heart.

The Small Flower and the Divine Garden

Encircled by cheers from her Blue Star compatriots, Xia Wang'an skipped lightly along the path, occasionally breaking into a cheerful hop, brimming with vibrant energy.

Anyone could perceive that her spirits were exceptionally buoyant, inspiring smiles across the faces of the entire Five Tongs Squad.

Before stepping across the portal threshold, Xia Wang'an squatted down at the edge of a flowerbed and gently snipped away a delicate, crimson bloom. The vibrant little flower stretched its petals cheerfully beneath the sunlight.

Releasing the blossom toward the open sky, Xia Wang'an watched as a gentle breeze swept the flower upward into the higher currents.

Drifting gracefully through the air, the bloom ultimately descended to rest gently within a slender, pristine white palm.

A deity murmured softly: "Grow well."

The flower received a gentle, affectionate stroke before being transplanted into the sacred soil of the Divine Realm, where it continued to bloom with unbridled vitality.

A cluster of newly born infant angels fluttered their tiny wings, their innocent faces illuminated by intense curiosity as they crowded around the blossom. Having recently come into existence, they possessed negligible combat capabilities and maintained an insatiable thirst for knowledge regarding all things in creation.

"O Divine Father, what is this?" "Silly, it's a flower. The Divine Father once mentioned that the ancient Divine Realm featured a massive garden." "Then why is there no garden now?"

Smiling, the deity patted their tiny heads: "Flowers bloom and wither; a fallen garden can simply be replanted." The infant angels chorused obediently: "Understood! We'll help plant the flowers!"

Giggling gleefully, they fluttered around the deity, gesturing wildly as they debated selecting prime real estate to cultivate a magnificent new garden.

The Transformed Blue Star

Xia Wang'an had spent a considerable duration away from Blue Star.

Upon her return, she experienced an uncanny sense of disorientation, as though stepping across the dimensional boundary into the magical realm all over again. In the skies, magical airships glided overhead, descending steadily into terminal stations to exchange passengers. Commuters tapped their optical wrist-chips against platform turnstiles, eliciting crisp electronic chimes: "Beep—Youth Pass."

The roadways teemed with novel vehicular contraptions—automaton proxy-chariots engineered by dwarves. Some carriages accommodated two passengers internally, others transported occupants across external limbs, while drivers balanced additional riders atop their helms as they hurtled down the asphalt.

Xia Wang'an quickly understood the urgency behind their frantic speeds when two uniformed traffic officers—similarly mounted atop high-speed proxy-chariots—pursued the violators while bellowing through megaphones: "Overloaded! You are in violation of passenger capacity limits!"

As they zipped past, a young pedestrian strolled by humming a catchy melody that Xia Wang'an immediately recognized as the theme song from a popular magical realm broadcast series.

Even the towering holographic billboards looping across skyscraper facades advertised magical utility products:

"The Ticker-Clip: pinch away mental fatigue instantly! Immune to cognitive pollution, impervious to alien beast domains. The Ticker-Clip—your optimal psychological defense."

The Ticker-Clip was originally a specialized rodent-trapping implement utilized across the magical realm. Mice were universally detested pests there primarily due to their elusive stealth and destructive habit of gnawing through magical scrolls and parchment archives. Worse still, local rodents qualified as magical beasts imbued with inherent mana, enabling them to compromise arcane apparatuses.

The Ticker-Clip functioned as a specialized arcane restraint trap designed to suppress a rodent's internal mana flow, facilitating rapid capture. Yet upon importation to Blue Star, this alien mousetrap had undergone a profound functional pivot.

Compact, portable, and capable of delivering localized neural feedback to suppress human energy volatility alongside a sharp jolt of physical pain, it offered the precise utility demanded by tactical professionals.

Was this not the ultimate awakening-stimulant every alien beast hunter had desperately fantasized about?

Consequently, it had exploded in popularity, securing the position of best-selling import among all returned magical commodities.

Displaying an expression of fascinated amusement, Xia Wang'an strolled down the thoroughfare, spotting an array of alternative magical utilities.

"I never anticipated that magical merchandise would achieve such widespread cultural penetration."

Preoccupied by the crisis surrounding the Light God's extinction, she had neglected domestic leisure; returning now felt precisely like venturing out briefly only to discover that the web novels she followed had updated an additional two hundred chapters during her absence.

"Our world's native energy reserves are severely depleted, but mineral crystal resources remain abundant."

Virtually all resource veins critical for traditional Blue Star high-tech manufacturing had vanished, leaving behind mountains of seemingly useless byproducts. Mineral gem deposits, for instance, held decorative value during peacetime but offered negligible utility amid survival struggles beyond aesthetic appeal.

Now, however, the economic paradigm had inverted entirely: magical commodities operated on gem crystals as a primary power source, and Blue Star possessed an inexhaustible abundance of mineral gems.

While Xia Kingdom's industrial research divisions had never ceased operations, resource scarcity previously prevented the general citizenry from accessing high-end technological conveniences. Advanced amenities like optical holographic consoles and spatial simulation games existed, yet frontline hunters still relied on combustion motorcycles for terrestrial transport.

The situation mirrored a household fully equipped with cookware and utensils, yet utterly lacking basic foodstuffs.

With the introduction of magical commodities, the provisions finally arrived!

"Daily life has become remarkably streamlined for everyone. Among the most celebrated innovations is the magical dry-cleaner—it sanitizes garments instantly without utilizing a single drop of water, which is nothing short of miraculous."

The underlying physics were elementary: circulating mana stripped organic stains from fabric matrices, effectively substituting mana for aqueous solvents. For Blue Star citizens who—despite regaining access to open oceans—remained conditioned to practice strict water conservation, this utility proved utterly irresistible.

Corporate R&D divisions were already dissecting the mechanical architecture of existing magical appliances with the explicit ambition of engineering a dedicated magical bathing chamber. By eliminating water reliance from personal hygiene entirely, domestic comfort would achieve absolute perfection.

Society hummed with vibrant vitality. Street vendors peddled decorative magical blooms along sidewalks; though purchasing volume remained modest, it signaled that general living standards across the Xia Kingdom had elevated by multiple tiers. Transitioning from chronic food insecurity to enjoying the discretionary luxury of purchasing ornamental flowers for aesthetic appreciation marked a monumental societal milestone.

Notably, the exterior plazas surrounding the supreme headquarters building were adorned with dense clusters of magical flowers, accompanied by official inscribed placards explicitly designating them as a tribute offering dedicated to Xia Wang'an.

Every citizen understood that secure nutritional sustenance and ubiquitous access to advanced magical utilities materialized solely because of this single Savior. A year prior, access to potable water represented a heavily rationed luxury commodity, let alone mechanical laundering.

Directing her retinue to transport the floral tributes into her personal quarters, Xia Wang'an inspected the items. Magical flowers were handcrafted facsimiles constructed from concentrated mana; so long as the ambient magical matrix remained stable, they retained permanent, lifelike vibrancy.

Her chambers were swiftly blanketed in a rich, botanical fragrance.

Pulling her bedcovers upward with profound emotional satisfaction, Xia Wang'an closed her eyes amidst the sea of artificial blooms: [007, sweet dreams.] [Sweet dreams, Host.]

The Uncharted Domain

Upon opening her eyes to discover herself situated within an unfamiliar environment, Xia Wang'an registered zero shock. If anything, habitual familiarity defined her reaction.

007 had previously cautioned her against arbitrary deity-creation not merely due to the astronomical difficulty threshold, but because it understood that following temporal regression mechanics, the Host had deliberately restrained her maximum output capacity during combat engagements. Channeling absolute reserves risked destabilizing her spatial traversal mechanics.

Recalling her past life experiences, an accidental, uncontrolled dimensional transition frequently deposited travelers directly into high-hazard operational tiers. High hazard did not necessarily denote a dying world undergoing planetary dissolution; rather, it signified the localized presence of entities possessing combat thresholds exceeding standard scaling metrics.

Yet Xia Wang'an maintained absolute composure, mirroring her steady temperament from previous iterations. Even prior to embarking on dimensional traversals, her baseline emotional equilibrium during academic examinations surpassed her peers—exemplified by students who solved complex mathematical equations during Chinese literature lectures without altering their facial expressions when reprimanded by instructors.

That unwavering composure had ensured her survival until the final chapter of her previous existence. There existed no rational basis for failure in the current era.

Reassuring 007 internally with a brief mental platitude, Xia Wang'an pushed open the door of the dilapidated cabin where she had materialized.

To articulate an accurate assessment, the interior infrastructure was thoroughly decrepit, fouled by the cloying, metallic stench of dried blood. Yet she accepted the conditions without complaint; compared to spawning inside a subterranean nest of mutant abominations, this constituted a pristine baseline.

Stepping outdoors, the expected visual panorama materialized immediately: an expansive landscape of utter desolation.

The standardized structural signature of a world on the brink of structural annihilation.

While she surveyed the perimeter, a shadowy silhouette stirred within the dim interior of the cabin, inching forward across the floorboards accompanied by an oppressive, freezing miasma.

The raven-haired maiden appeared entirely oblivious, maintaining her curious ocular audit of the surroundings.

A pale, skeletal hand extended gently to rest upon her shoulder.

Xia Wang'an pivoted her head, coming face to face with a female entity whose eye sockets wept continuous streams of fresh blood and tears. The apparition parted her jaws, revealing a complete absence of a tongue, emitting a garbled, indistinct vocalization: "Can you... feed me?"

"Negative."

Xia Wang'an rejected the proposition with formal, righteous indignation: "You possess functional limbs and mobility; why on earth are you resorting to begging?"

Though the entity lacked ocular organs and a lingual apparatus, Xia Wang'an recalled enduring periods where half her physical physique was structurally obliterated while she independently scavenged for survival sustenance.

The sinister grin distorting the entity's visage froze mid-form.

Having failed to register a solitary shred of terror, panic, or psychological despair from the human subject, the anomalous entity experienced cognitive friction. As an apex anomalous entity reigning supreme across this regional sector, its predation paradigm mirrored standard supernatural entities—instilling paralytic fear in targets before dragging them bodily into its personal pocket dimension. Once sealed within its domain, victims functioned as helpless prey trapped in an adhesive spider's web, entirely stripped of escape vectors.

Yet the anticipated behavioral sequence had derailed entirely: the prey had walked uninvited straight into its territory while exhibiting zero emotional panic.

This anomaly disrupted the logical processing pipeline of an entity whose cognitive directives rigidly followed a sequential formula of: Intimidate -> Seize -> Consume.

Dismissing the entity with an indifferent shrug, Xia Wang'an batted its pale hand away from her shoulder and resumed her topographical inspection.

The Supernatural Threat

Sensing an affront to its predatory dignity, the entity's blood-streaming ocular cavities accelerated their flow, projecting outward clusters of razor-sharp chitinous spikes that propagated rapidly along the interior ceiling surfaces.

Resembling organic root systems weaving a dense predatory snare, the web matrix expanded to encapsulate Xia Wang'an precisely at its gravitational center.

Still, Xia Wang'an refrained from turning back.

Consequently, countless interlocking filaments erupted directly from the entity's oral cavity, dorsal spine, and extremities until all semblance of humanoid morphology dissolved entirely, bloating its central torso into a massive spherical mass.

Observing the morphological transformation, the entity retained a human facial visage centered atop an otherwise monstrous, three-meter-tall arachnid torso.

Across the surrounding expanse of ruins, the ambient, subterranean whispering sounds that usually resembled alien species communicating in hushed tones died away abruptly, accompanied by a sudden cessation of local atmospheric currents.

Every minor anomalous entity inhabiting this regional sector shrank back into their respective subterranean nests like shivering feral beasts. They could intuitively sense that the supreme sovereign of this domain had been pushed past its anger threshold.

Far in the distance, an armored transport vehicle navigated carefully along a recently cleared gravel thoroughfare.

"We are traversing the jurisdictional territory of the Class-A Anomaly known as the Spider-Woman. Maintain absolute discipline, everyone—keep your emotional volatility strictly throttled, otherwise you risk triggering a forced extraction into its domain."

Squad Leader Cheng Hu instructed his personnel from the passenger seat: "While the Spider-Woman is terrifying, its operational parameters restrict direct physical violence exclusively to targets trapped inside its pocket dimension. So long as you maintain emotional equilibrium, you will not trigger its domain trap."

The driving team member offered a strained, bitter smile: "Logically we understand the mechanics, but given that the Saka Squad was entirely annihilated right here just two days ago, maintaining emotional stability while driving through this sector is easier said than done."

Decades prior, this geographic expanse had constituted a peaceful, functional civilization before the sudden, cataclysmic descent of the Anomalies.

The Anomalies represented physical, highly heterogeneous entities that manifested spontaneously, embodying the collective negative emotional output of human civilization. Formidable and lethal, they consumed human flesh, deployed isolated pocket dimensions to trap victims, and digested them slowly over extended durations.

Humanity had risen in armed resistance, yet a horrifying tactical variable complicated the conflict: human casualties who perished inside an Anomaly's pocket dimension possessed a measurable statistical probability of transforming into secondary Anomalies upon expiration—turning their weapons directly against their former comrades in arms.

Over decades of grinding attrition, human demographics shrank exponentially while Anomaly populations multiplied. Had certain powerful Anomalies not inexplicably vanished at periodic intervals, granting humanity critical respites to catch their breath, the species would likely have been entirely driven to extinction.

Yet even with those occasional reprieves—

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