Published: March 2, 2025
Life is the accumulation of every choice one makes, and each choice comes with its own consequences.
Making choices is important; perhaps at a fork in the road, choosing left or right could lead to entirely different life trajectories. Carmel didn’t quite understand how things had developed to this point, but as she recalled everything from the past, she felt more at peace.
It seemed that ever since she had wanted to follow Lin in that grand plan to "dig to the Heart of the World," all outcomes had already been predetermined…
As she pondered this, a gentle breeze unexpectedly caressed her cheek, and faint sounds floated in the air, as if someone were whispering in her ear.
"Carmel, what are you thinking about?"
Lin's voice came from a distance, startling Carmel. She raised her head, and her eyes were met with the lush primordial jungle—this was Lin's physical form.
Still on Earth, still by Lin's side, nothing seemed to have changed for Carmel in over a decade.
But that was only seemingly…
So she replied, "Nothing, just thinking about some things."
"Don't space out. The Celestial Lord will soon pass through this passageway to the Earth's Core. That's the Celestial Lord! By the way, have you ever met the Celestial Lord?"
Lin's voice was filled with uncontainable excitement, as if she were about to meet a deity she worshipped.
Lin's state sent a chill down Carmel’s spine, and she thought of the decision that had changed everything…
Their excavation plan had seemed like a fantasy, yet as Carmel and Lin grew stronger, they actually reached the end of the plan.
They crossed through layers of magma and arrived deep within the Earth's Core. As the last barrier separating them from the Heart of the World was pushed open by Carmel, a grand will presented itself before them.
"You… who are you?"
The voice spoke, and with the ebb and flow of its aura, Lin's projection involuntarily bowed. She murmured the word "mother" under her breath, pointing out the identity of the voice's owner to the dazed Carmel.
However, Carmel did not heed Lin's kind reminder; she simply gazed fixedly at the figure standing beside the Great Light Sphere.
Dressed in white, with a complex patterned iron mask concealing their face, the eyes beneath the mask were like black holes, drawing in all of Carmel's attention.
Until the masked figure spoke, "I know this woman; she appeared in the ranking battles, her name is Carmel, right?"
The Celestial Lord's voice was calm yet powerful. As the words resonated, Carmel felt a jolt; she instinctively realized she had stumbled upon some illicit transaction. Yet, within the realm of earth's will, she couldn’t even manage to flee.
Fortunately, earth's will seemed indifferent to Carmel; he merely looked at Lin and after a while, spoke again, "So it’s you, the collective consciousness..."
"It’s me, Mother!"
Lin's voice brimmed with uncontainable excitement, and everything that followed seemed inevitable…
A heartwarming reunion ceremony… then Lin became the most loyal lackey of earth's will, tasked by her mother with a daunting responsibility.
To guard the passage she had personally excavated!
...
Carmel didn’t know how many passages led to the Heart of the World, but according to the Celestial Lord, there seemed to be only two at present—one in the Mariana Trench and the one excavated by the two of them.
So the significance of this passage was self-evident.
Carmel had a rough understanding of the chaos outside—an organization led by the Celestial Lord was clashing with Beijing both openly and covertly, intending to overthrow its absolute dominance. Beijing’s surveillance of the Celestial Lord had never ceased, and the passage in the Mariana Trench had already raised suspicions, while the one that she and Lin had excavated had become a hidden alternative.
Today, the Celestial Lord would delve into the Earth's Core from here and have another meeting with the home planet.
Carmel didn’t know what the Celestial Lord and earth's will wanted to discuss, nor did she wish to know—because the more one understands, the quicker one meets their demise.