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Translator's note about Taotie:
Taotie (Chinese: 饕餮) is an ancient Chinese mythological creature that was commonly emblazoned on bronze and other artifacts during the 1st millennium BC.
It is used to refer to one of the four evil creatures of the world, with a greedy and gluttonous nature. In Chinese articles, Taotie is also used by writers to imply a "glutton".
Fortunately, Fang Xiu still had the power of Nightmare.
He used this power to weave one dream after another. Each dream was a false world meant to contain the unspeakable, chaotic, and maddening information. These dreams were created and shattered repeatedly, in an endless cycle.
Gradually, Fang Xiu's consciousness began to sink, as if he were falling into a deep sea, descending further and further.
At the same time, he began to understand everything. He vaguely heard some unspeakable whispers and learned the name of this mass of flesh: Taotie*.
The creature in ancient mythology, Taotie!
After learning this name, Fang Xiu suddenly realized that the Specter invasion might have started much earlier than expected.
The creatures from ancient myths likely existed and were all Specters.
They might have started invading the world in ancient times, leaving behind countless mythological stories.
The gods and immortals in myths were probably the psychics of ancient times.
For some unknown reason, the myths disappeared, history fractured, and the world entered a period of calm.
Years later, Specters reappeared, and psychics emerged again. Historical tales of strange people and events reflected this pattern.
After another gap, they appeared once more, continuing into the modern era in an endless cycle.
At that moment, Fang Xiu finally died completely, triggering the death reset. Time began to flow backward, and everything around him started to shatter.
After repeating the previous steps, the group found themselves at the door again.
Like history being replayed, the door to the Other Side was opened once more, and countless Snakeworms swarmed in.
Relying on No Turning Back, Fang Xiu pushed through the horde of Snakeworms, heading toward the door.
"You handle them; I'm going inside to have a look," he said, stepping through the door to the Other Side again.
He wasn't going in to die but to understand everything. He knew there was no way to defeat Taotie at this point.
Inside Taotie's belly, he could feel the mysterious nature of those unspeakable murmurs. They seemed like the truth of the world, elusive yet profound.
His intuition told him there was a tremendous secret hidden within. He would try to understand, once, twice, or even a hundred times if necessary. Eventually, he would comprehend everything.
Upon entering the door, Fang Xiu saw the endless Snakeworms and the massive, unending mass of flesh again.
"Taotie, I'm back," he said, his calm gaze containing unimaginable madness as he walked toward mountain flesh.
Taotie turned its gaze toward him again, and No Turning Back fled once more.
A colossal hand blocked the sky and reached to grab Fang Xiu, swallowing him whole.
Once again, Fang Xiu found himself inside Taotie, surrounded by endless truths of the world.
With the protection of Nightmare's power, he greedily absorbed as much truth as he could. He didn't realize that as he sought to comprehend the truth, the truth itself was slowly influencing his consciousness, fundamentally altering his perception.
Moments later, Fang Xiu died, falling to the folly of a mortal trying to glimpse ultimate truth. The death reset was triggered once more.
…
"Taotie, I'm back."
Once again, Taotie devoured Fang Xiu without hesitation. Taotie seemed devoid of reason, interested only in consuming—or perhaps he saw Fang Xiu as an ant, not worth understanding.
The infinite truths surrounded Fang Xiu again, and the madness in his eyes burned even brighter. He was no longer satisfied with only listening; he began to mimic the unspeakable murmurs with his human throat.
And then, he died again.
The fourth, fifth, sixth, and sixty-ninth times! Fang Xiu had learned to produce some brief murmurs. He felt a step closer to the truth. But it wasn't enough—far from it.
He wanted more, to understand more. So he started devouring Taotie's decaying flesh like the Snakeworms.
Taotie didn't care at all. His rotting flesh seemed as infinite as his greed. For the first time, Fang Xiu found the flesh delicious, perhaps because it contained the truth.
The seventieth, seventy-first, seventy-second, and one hundred and first times…
The madness in Fang Xiu's eyes gradually faded, replaced by an unfathomable calm that was like an abyss, making people fearful to look directly into it.
At the same time, he could clearly sense a mark etched into his consciousness: the mark of truth!
It took the form of a giant, abyss-like mouth, imprinted firmly in Fang Xiu's mind. It had a name: Taotie's Mouth.
With this mark, Fang Xiu felt like he had gained a new talent—the ability to consume everything.
This talent felt innate to him. It wouldn't disappear even with death rewinding because it was the truth, the knowledge itself, now deeply embedded in Fang Xiu's mind. Once learned, it became as instinctual as breathing.
This was the truth and knowledge that Fang Xiu gained after dying one hundred and one times.
Knowledge is power, and Fang Xiu's knowledge now came from devouring!
Dying a hundred times to gain the truth of devouring seemed worth it to Fang Xiu. Now, with the Taotie's Mouth, he could devour Specters. It was a dream come true for him.
After gaining Taotie's Mouth, Fang Xiu stopped seeking more truths. He realized that with his current strength, this was all the knowledge he could handle.
It was like giving a complex math problem to a monkey. No matter how many years or even millennia it spent looking at it, the monkey would never solve it.
…
"The left path isn't an option. Take another," Fang Xiu advised when Yang Ming chose to go left. The left path led to the door to the Other Side—a dead end.
The group trusted Fang Xiu's words without hesitation. Yang Ming was pleased because Fang Xiu had helped eliminate one wrong option.
"Then let's go down the middle," Yang Ming said, glancing at Fang Xiu. Seeing no objection from him, Yang Ming led the group down the middle path.
At the end of the path…
"Oh, there's a door here! This must be the exit!" Yang Ming said excitedly.
Fang Xiu frowned immediately because this door looked identical to the door to the Other Side, one he was all too familiar with, as he had gone through it over a hundred times.
Just as Yang Ming reached out to open the door, Fang Xiu said, "Try another path."
Reluctantly, Yang Ming withdrew his hand. The group returned to the fork road, choosing the right path instead.
But at the end of that road was still the door to the Other Side.
"There's another door here. It looks just like the one we saw before. Xiu, should we try opening this one?" Yang Ming asked.
"Switch paths again," Fang Xiu said calmly.
So, they retreated once more, even back to where they had first placed a marker to choose another direction. But to their shock, no matter which path they chose, the door to the Other Side was always at the end.