In front of me, the presence of silver-white bullets grew stronger and stronger. The silver bullet that transcends the material entity transforms the way of being, forcing its way into my mind with ideology, and using sensibility as a channel to lock me firmly. I felt – or rather, I felt – that I couldn't resist the onslaught of this pattern. The explosive power of the silver bullet is not reflected in the destructive power of matter, although I can't fully understand all its mysteries, but between the crisis of life and death, the intuition of the occult expert is telling the fate of being hit: I will be like billions of humans on the earth, because of the serious injury of the consciousness level, lose consciousness, lose personality, and even die from the consciousness level, and even this death will be fed back to the material level, causing the physical structure of the body to fall into a state of death.

It was a terrible blow than a blow that burst out with his own life, and besides, he chose an excellent moment to catch me off guard. I've never felt like I'm underestimating my enemies, and I've tended to make imaginative assessments of enemy strength in past battles, however, I have to admit that Billy's final attack rose to heights I hadn't thought about at all. Although in the infinite mystery, there will always be some forces that can burst out in the extreme state of terrifying lethality, and these forces cannot be assessed in advance, and I have always been vigilant about this, but my familiarity with Billy in the past has caused me to have inertia when judging others, and this time Billy in the apocalyptic illusion has the same qualitative difference from him in the past, so it is useless for me to be vigilant.

Of course, I am not ashamed of my mistakes, the emotions that arise in my heart are definitely not the feelings that shame can describe, and there is absolutely no resentment towards Billy, and I know very well that I do not have even the slightest negative emotion towards Billy. I can more or less realize the emotion and hope that Billy's last bullet pinned on me, even though Billy himself did not describe it, but expressed it only in the lore of this blow, and I felt the resonance of it—it was the will of anyone who wanted to find hope in despair, fight back, and protect something and overcome something at the risk of his own life.

Yes, the more I am in such a critical situation, the more I can feel this will. I can find an extremely familiar feeling from this silver bullet, which has something that Takakawa has been holding on to in the past, and Takakawa now. Since I can't resent myself as Takakawa, nor can I resent Dorothy who is on the opposite side, then I can't have such a negative feeling for Billy either.

It is precisely because of this silver bullet that I feel emotionally resonant, that I feel that I cannot fight this silver bullet, because to fight it is to deny my life as Takakawa, and the efforts of all Takakawa and those I love to fight against this desperate world. I am also extremely sure that if I die under this silver bullet, there will be no unwillingness, and the sense of crisis I have at this moment is just the survival instinct of a life trying to move forward, but this instinct does not surpass my sense of identity with this silver bullet.

Once I'm killed by Billy's last bullet here, it's almost like proof that a desperate blow with such a will has the power to defeat enemies that seem impossible to defeat.

The result of this death can make me believe calmly that people have the strength and will to fight against the seemingly invincible "virus".

This calm mood has become a shackle that binds me, and even the survival instinct cannot make a miracle in front of this shackle - just like I am unwilling to let the factor of survival instinct make such a miracle, probably, I can understand this "unwillingness", because this survival instinct factor is also reflected in the "virus" from time to time. If this force derived from the survival instinct can overcome all disadvantages and achieve the ultimate victory, isn't it meaningless, worthless, and miraculous for us to rely on our own will to try to transcend the instinct of the "virus" now?

If I had survived the attack of this silver bullet just because of the power that burst out of my survival instinct, then one day, the "virus" would also use its even more terrible survival instinct to burst out with unimaginable power, and nullify the lore of everyone's own will.

Compared to the foreseeable final battle, compared to the incomprehensible existence called the "virus", the moment of life and death I am facing at this moment is no heavier than a feather.

The sense of near-death crisis made my consciousness extremely concentrated at this moment, so that in the world of consciousness, I could see more clearly than before what trajectory the silver bullet was advancing, what kind of acceleration it was propelling, and at that moment, this clear sense made me feel that I could dodge this blow, but at the same time, I could deeply feel how much I didn't want to dodge this blow.

Yes, whether it is instinctive evasion or self-conscious bearing, this contradictory but unified balance is beginning to swing in my observation of myself.

However, at the moment when the scales were about to tip in one direction, a blood-red color diffused in front of me. It was like spilling out of an extremely small, unobservable "point" that spread faster than a silver bullet could propel, and I couldn't describe the volume of the blood-red, and the words used to describe the concept of a concrete outline had lost their meaning in the face of the blood-red. It simply exists, spreads, rotates, and grows bigger, but how big this "big" is cannot be described by known concepts.

Even so, I knew what this blood-red was.

- Jiang!?

Now that Tomie's sense of weight and presence has completely disappeared, I think of her again, and from the existence of "Tomie" I think of more humanoid rivers, and from humanoid rivers I think of "rivers", that existence that has always been deep inside me, as ambiguous as "virus". And when I think about it, its impression quickly deepens, and the whole process is like a silver bullet taking shape in my consciousness and mind.

I instinctively recognized that I was already observing the "river".

At the same time, the silver bullet I observed had a very similar property to the blood red, and when I realized this, I couldn't help but wonder if the silver bullet was completely made by Billy himself, and immediately denied it, only thinking that behind this bullet, there was something hidden behind Billy himself that Billy himself could not verify. I began to feel that this bullet, although it was the embodiment of all Billy's life and will, was not simply these, and that the "virus" was the driving force behind this manifestation of life and will, and it was an extremely important driving force - Billy himself alone could not use this blow, and it was the power of the "virus", the means of the "virus", and the purpose of the "virus" that made this blow take shape and reach the terrible level in front of him.

Behind Billy's will, the unjurious will of the "virus" is showing its hideous color.

And this feeling also disintegrated the emotional restraint of "not far away" for the first time, and I felt that I could make the act of "dodging", and at the same time, before I used my own will to decide, my body had already begun to shift, allowing the vital point to avoid the ballistic trajectory of the bullet.

However, instead of rejoicing at this result, I felt a heavy heart that prevailed over all other emotions, because, if I had survived, what would have happened would be the strongest evidence that I had lost control of my emotions, my thoughts, my cognitions, and my will. Before I could decide on myself, there was something deeper and more terrifying that made a decision for me.

That's the "virus".

I was completely "terminally ill" and no longer had the ability to decide death.

The blood red color was pierced by the silver bullet as I instinctively dodged the ballistic trajectory of the silver bullet. However, I didn't see the silver bullet coming out of this blood-red patch, it seemed to be lost, it didn't exist, it was digested, silently, without a single movement, not even a ripple. I couldn't feel the silver bullet anymore, and the terrible attack that almost left me at my feet seemed to be over. There is no fierce tug-of-war, no brilliant sound and light, just like sinking into the deep sea.

It's terrifying.

The result in front of me simply made me feel more unbearable, more terrible, and full of mocking malice than if I had been killed by a silver bullet. However, it is precisely because of this malice that he survived. The fact that I am alive at this moment makes me feel a blow deeper into my soul than ever before, and I feel the horror that comes from the deep darkness more than ever.

If this piece of blood red is really as I subconsciously think, it is the embodiment of "Jiang". Then, at this moment, the "Jiang" is closer to the "virus" than ever, even if its appearance actually saved my life, and shows its confrontation with the "virus".

Dorothy and Seki think that "Jiang" is equivalent to "virus", and if they see this scene, they must be overjoyed, thinking that they have found absolute evidence.

The blood-red color continued to spread, quickly overshadowing my observation of myself, giving me a feeling of rapid rise in a blood-red mist. When it reaches a certain peak, it transforms into a sense of heaviness and restraint. As if in a nightmare, I subconsciously opened my eyes, and the scenery of the underground hall once again squeezed into my field of vision.

I realized that I had moved out of the state of consciousness walking and returned to a more material battlefield.

However, what happened in the world of consciousness was so profound that I could not forget it.

I was standing only five meters away from Billy, who looked more like a sculpture in the slow world before Billy. In the next second, his body slammed to the ground, and there was no heartbeat or breathing.

Billy died, and I knew he was going to die, and I thought he was going to die when I was about to be killed by the silver bullet. And I survived in the end, even if the process of fighting for my life was accompanied by an uncomfortable malice. I can't describe my emotions at this time, it's impossible to say that I don't have the slightest bit of happiness, but even if there is happiness, it's just a trace of it, and the huge and violently churning emotions can't be said to be positive at all.

The air was quiet, and it was clear that the rituals were still being performed, and the performers of the rituals were desperately making hysterical sounds, but instead, it made me feel like the beings around me had become quieter, as if the beings who made the noises had been divided into another dimension. In my world, all that's left is the file and Billy's corpse.

Tomie was gone, I couldn't feel her presence, she disappeared like a bubble without a trace, making it impossible for me to observe.

“…… Failed? With regret on her face, the file pounced on Billy at this moment, but it was over. She didn't block my attack on Billy, but it wasn't me who killed Billy, but Billy himself, and from a deeper point of view, the culprit who caused the world to collapse, in this apocalyptic illusion, Billy's death was still not much different from the deaths of others, as if it was a predetermined fate. I know that the file is not saddened by Billy's death, but regrets that he could not trade his own life for victory. I can feel the empathy in Billy, and I can see my own death in his death, and I believe that the file can feel it too.

After all, we are all experts in the mysteries, and we are all people who chase the mysterious and the unknown in that infinite and profound darkness. Perhaps the trajectory of our existence is different, the process of death is different, and the way of expression of personality and will is also different, but from the beginning, we have similar, similar, and even identical parts in essence.

"He almost made it." When I say this to the file, I have no idea what kind of expression I have on my face when I say this. Maybe there was no expression at all, because the complex and turbulent emotions in my heart almost paralyzed my facial muscles.

"It's meaningless to be almost, success is success, failure is failure, as long as it's a battle, there are only these two endings, there is no middle statement." The file reached for Billy Yuan's open eyes, and she lowered her voice, as if worried about waking the corpse, "At least, you made the monster disappear." ”

I know, she's talking Tomie. I really don't feel Tomie's existence anymore, but I don't believe it to say that Tomie has been wiped out. Because, before I entered the consciousness walk, Tomie had already begun to change, and this change was not caused by Billy's attack.

In my opinion, Tomie's disappearance is not the result of the battle between the two in front of him.