Jian Xingyi couldn’t bear to watch any longer; he could only hear the wails of many players and the sound of flesh being torn. 

The collapse of the tower would surely injure many players, and those whose flesh-and-blood bodies fell into the chasms would face nothing but being devoured. With the breach in the city walls, zombies surged in, and the players guarding the ramparts were the first to bear the brunt of the attack. 

Jian Xingyi bowed his head in prayer. If only… 

If there’s even a one-in-a-million chance, if they have any chance left at all, please activate it… Don’t they still have one more chance with the safety catch? 

Why isn’t the system responding?! The situation is getting worse and worse… 

Actually, everyone has already performed beyond expectations, and they have ample resources—nothing is a problem. At the start, the Holy Son even said there was a 60% chance of winning, but… those odds were based on everyone’s combat strength and supplies, but what wasn’t factored in was… human stamina and energy, as well as the zombies’ physical condition and numbers. 

In those probability calculations, the city walls were considered impregnable, and everyone believed that to be true. But… even the sturdiest walls can’t withstand a battle that drags on too long. So that 40% chance has now been pushed aside. 

If this continues, I’m afraid… 

After consulting with Bai Jie, Jian Xingyi activated the Snow Spirit Talisman. 

When he opened his eyes again, he found himself back in that vast, white, snowy landscape. 

The Holy Son remained seated on the high platform. 

Jian Xingyi ran up to him, looking somewhat disheveled, and panted, “We… we can’t win, can we?” 

The Holy Son: “That is correct.” 

Jian Xingyi took a deep breath. “What about the safety pin? Don’t we still have one chance left to use it?” “The safety pin can only be activated before the battle; it cannot be used during combat.” 

“Is there any other way?” 

“There is. I can send you back to the time before the battle so you can activate the safety lock.”

“Then please do it right now!” 

“Are you sure?” The Holy Son opened his eyes and looked at him. “I’ll send you back to the Doctor’s base in the real world. You can only return there and use a computer outside the game to run the program to trigger the safety lock. This means you won’t be able to use the talisman to find me once you’re there—you won’t be able to come back.” 

Jian Xingyi froze. 

This is… a one-way ticket. 

Jian Xingyi stammered, “But that’s not right… Why can’t I come back? The Doctor’s base has a hibernation pod. If I enter the pod, I can return to the game, can’t I?” 

The Holy Son shook his head. “The hibernation pod can’t alter spacetime. While you’re at the Doctor’s Base, there’s already one ‘Xinghe’ in the game. If you go back, wouldn’t that make two Xinghes? That would create a paradox.” 

“……” 

He had a point. 

Jian Xingyi asked hesitantly, “If I activate the safety lock, can we win?” 

“60%.” 

Still the same 60%. 

True… The safety mechanism is just that, but winning still depends on everyone’s effort and fighting. No… No, that’s not right!

At least now they’ve gone from having no chance of winning to a 60% chance! 

That’s already a lot! 

“The past has already happened, so it can be revisited. But the future is unreachable, because no one can ever predict what will happen. Xinghe, have you made your decision?” 

Jian Xingyi froze again. 

【Ding!】 

【Player 【Xinghe】 has only two minutes left of their ten-minute dialogue time. Do you wish to activate the Snow Spirit Talisman for a second dialogue?】Jian Xingyi thought to himself, If he doesn’t do it, everyone might die in the zombie horde. 

If he did it, he would die—though it wasn’t exactly that he would die. It was just that if he returned to reality alone, guarding a base that had already lost its purpose 

…that would be no different from death. It would be better to just die outright. 

But… if sacrificing him gives everyone else a chance to survive… it doesn’t seem like such a bad deal? 

Since death is inevitable either way, might as well make it count, right? That way, if they really do win… after all, with maxed-out gear and buffs, their chances are higher. If everyone survives, they can at least honor his memory—it’s better than all of them going down the drain together. 

It’s just a little sad, because he didn’t get a chance to tell Shanhai he liked him. And his dream of opening a restaurant won’t come true either. 

The words he didn’t say that day—he suddenly realized that since they’d officially become a couple, he’d never actually told Shanhai he liked him. But… never mind. Thinking about it, it’s probably better he didn’t say it; otherwise, Shanhai would be even more heartbroken if he died. 

Jian Xingyi closed his eyes and said, “I agree. Take me back.” 

Originally, he’d created this game in the hope that one day everyone could return to the normal world with him. In a way, this was… a dream come true. 

“Okay.” 

━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━

“Bang!”

“Bang! Bang!!” 

Six hours had passed, and the battle was still raging, while the city walls were already nearly destroyed. Bai Jie’s eyes were heavy with exhaustion. She looked around; Jian Xingyi still hadn’t returned, and she had no idea where he’d gone. Just then, the system’s voice suddenly rang out all around her. 

【Beep… beep…】 

【Player Xinghe has activated the safety lock procedure outside the game!】 What? 

Shanhai’s eyes widened. 

【Safety Lock 2/2 confirmed activated!】 

Boom—! 

At the same moment, countless fireworks lit up the sky. These fireworks were exactly the same as those from the anniversary celebration—the day all players were trapped inside the game. 

Just as dazzling, just as fleeting. Heralding a new chapter. 

【Dawn and daybreak have not arrived, so I shall build a ship to cleave through the night sky!】 

【Wishing all players a smooth journey through this crisis!】 

At that moment, everyone looked up to see light breaking through the clouds. 

This wasn’t true dawn, but it resembled the pale, fish-belly-white sky just before daybreak. As scattered rays of sunlight appeared, everyone found them momentarily blinding. 

It seemed they were unaccustomed to these sudden, long-awaited rays of sunlight. 

Shanhai seemed to sense something. He opened his terminal and saw that “Xinghe’s” ID had gone dark. Shanhai closed his eyes. 

Just as he thought…

Bang—!

Shanhai’s mind had effectively ceased to function. He could no longer hear the sounds around him, and everything before his eyes had suddenly lost its color. Only his limbs continued to move—simply because his duty as a soldier remained unfulfilled, forcing him to fight like a walking corpse, while muscle memory kept him from stopping.

The Godfather grew even more frenzied in the sunlight, but his movements were visibly slowing down. Even the ordinary zombies had stopped in their tracks, looking up at the sunlight in the sky with confusion.

Bai Jie cried out hysterically, “There’s hope! Everyone, pull yourselves together—we can win!”

Perhaps because of the light, everyone felt a glimmer of hope. Their once utterly exhausted bodies felt revitalized, and their blood began to boil once more.

“Xinghe and Cangshui have built a wall for us!!”

“The boss from Grapevine Peak is leading the charge at the very front!”

“Xinghe has already activated the safety mechanism for us! Kill!! We can win!!”

At that very moment, Shanhai heard the notification sound.

【The Spirit Battle Talisman has reached max level! Will player 【Shanhai】 answer the Savior’s call and join the Spirit Battle?】After nearly six hours of intense combat, the Spirit has reached max level!!

【Max Level: Three days remaining; can summon 500 foot soldiers, 100 vanguards, and 1 general】As a result, the white mist around them grew thicker, as if preparing to confront the black mist of the zombie horde, when Shanhai saw a towering phantom materialize in the distance.

These Spirit Warriors were all made of white mist, lacking distinct features or physical form, but Shanhai recognized them nonetheless. It was… his teacher, the Colonel.

Shanhai’s eyes widened.

The General of the Spirit Battle Talisman…is the Colonel! The Colonel is Savior 01’s greatest shield!

【The Spirit Battle Talisman is fully charged! Will player 【Shanhai】 answer the Savior’s call and join the Spirit Battle?】

Confirm!

Shanhai took a deep breath.

He let himself respond to the Spirit and walked over to the Colonel’s side.

—This time, he would fight side by side with his mentor. The Colonel fought for the Savior.

And he, Lu Yan, fought for the stars!

“Kill—!”

After the Heroic Spirit’s 【General】 appeared, the Heroic Spirits seemed even more powerful and cohesive, almost like an army. With an entire army at their backs, the players felt invigorated, their blood boiling with excitement.

Bai Jie shouted, “Everyone! Those are the Spirit Heroes! They’re the people who died in this game before—they’ve come back to help us! We have to prove to them that we’re just as good! We have to… we have to prove to them that we’re pretty awesome too!”

Listening closely, one could hear a tremor in Bai Jie’s voice; her eyes were already red. Like Shanhai, she, too, had recognized their teacher… and her father.

Le Ke’s eyes welled up with tears as well.

Father had returned to fight alongside them!

He could even feel the colonel’s white mist gently pat his head as it passed by, just like it used to.

Bai Jie also saw Jian Xingyi’s ID go dark. Suppressing her emotions, she continued, “Xinghe is dead! He died to activate the safety lock for us! We can’t let him down!”

A murmur rippled through the crowd.

“Kill!!”

“For Xinghe, kill!!” The crowd was more fervent than ever.

Seven hours had passed.

“Thud!”

Shanhai and the Spirit General joined forces to kill the last Godfather.

Little remained of the city walls, but there were no more living zombies.

All around were mountains of corpses; the air was thick with the nauseating stench of rotting flesh and the sharp tang of rust. Had they won?

Everyone was still a bit unsure—had they really won?

After seven hours of relentless, brutal combat, they hadn’t quite processed it yet; their bodies were still trembling from overexertion. Until… the sun rose.

God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

On the first day of creation, everyone was bathed in sunlight.

They had finally welcomed the dawn.

Dawn has broken.

Someone shouted, “We won!” and immediately everyone began screaming, weeping, and collapsing to the ground. It turned out they really had won.

━━ 🐈‍⬛ ━━

Five years later, *A History of the New World* was officially published, detailing how humanity had gradually overcome natural disasters and viruses to build a new world.

The first page of Volume 1 tells the story of a person named 01 who came up with a brilliant idea: to use a program to merge the virtual and real worlds.

The final page of Volume 1 describes how 01 traveled back in time to activate the safety mechanism, but because everyone was unwilling to accept his departure, they gathered all the programmers to work tirelessly on research, devoting every resource to the scientific endeavor.

Finally, five years later, they successfully brought 01 back from the abandoned “reality” to their own “reality” using a hibernation pod.

Volume 2 begins with the story of this new world—such as Bai Jie establishing a new government, or everyone erecting a statue of 01…but that’s all for later.

An insider quietly added a few lines of “spicy gossip” at the end of Volume 1. Rumor has it that when 01 returned, his lover—02—even cried!

Here are the details.

“Hmm…”

When Jian Xingyi opened his eyes, all he saw was a white ceiling.

“It worked!! It worked!” 

“He’s really back!”

Jian Xingyi turned his head in a daze to look at everyone.

Huh?

Jian Xingyi was a little confused.

After returning to the base in the real world, he first activated the safety lock and then waited quietly.

When he saw the computer display confirming everyone’s success, he rejoiced along with them, dancing around alone in the lab. Jian Xingyi felt that his mission was complete, and that he would now have to stay here alone…

Commit suicide?

But that was a bit too much for him; when the moment actually came, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. What if…

There’s always hope as long as you’re alive, right?

So Jian Xingyi simply went into hibernation in the pod. Although this pod couldn’t bring him back into the game to reunite with them, at least it allowed him to hibernate unconscious, sparing him the agony of loneliness.

And five years later, Jian Xingyi did indeed find hope.

He blinked, taking in the scene before him—Bai Jie, Yu Shen, Cangshui, Lone Wolf, Heiye, and the others were all there. Shanhai was there too.

Jian Xingyi pinched his arm to make sure this wasn’t a dream, then tentatively asked, “Am I really back?”

Then he was pulled into a warm embrace.

Shanhai held him tightly. Though he couldn’t see his expression, he could feel warm liquid dripping onto his shoulder.

“Mm-hmm. Welcome back.”

Jian Xingyi was worried he’d ended up in the wrong time and space, so he asked again and again, “We won, right?” 

“Yes.”

“Humankind defeated the natural disasters and the virus.” 

“We’ve ushered in a new dawn.”

—The End

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T/N: Thanks to all readers who have accompanied us in this story’s journey. We are so happy tp have finished this project, no worries, there are still four bonus chapters! Once again, thanks for reading!