Chapter 62 I Can Just Become the Lord of Light

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"Why did it turn out like this?"
"I told you long ago, other content creators have already beaten it."
Chunfen-laoshi said in his video: "After this ending came out, I was also lost for a moment—why did it have to be this way? But I quickly understood. It had to be this way, because the situation here is completely different from the side dungeons."
"The protagonist doesn't possess the game-breaking, single-handedly dominating ability seen in the dungeons. In Naruto terms, he is at best a half-god like Hanzo, two entirely different concepts compared to Hashirama Senju. Assassinating an emperor serves no purpose; the world does not revolve around the protagonist."
"A good ending is not necessarily a truly good ending, and a bad ending is not necessarily a truly bad ending. This chaotic-world ending has no epilogue; perhaps after the chaos, a new wise monarch will restore order..."
"Are we starting to elevate the theme now?"
"They called it a new ending, and it's just this?"
"A bit disappointed. Old Gou already unlocked the emperor-assassinating route. Honestly, since the true ending got betrayed by pig-teammates so many times, I don't think this ending is all that bad. We're already in the twilight years of the dynasty, with exorbitant taxes reaching historical peaks. Rather than letting the world continue to be exploited by the Zhao clan, the scholar-bureaucrats, and foreign nations, it's better to break the whole thing down and start over."
"Look at the progress bar, we're only a third of the way through."
As expected, Chunfen-laoshi changed his tune:
"However, I refuse!"
"Although this is a decent ending, in any other game, reaching this point would mean no further demands should be made—imperfection is its own kind of perfection, and the true ending's epitome of chivalry is already flawless in the hearts of many players. But, as luck would have it, I discovered it."
"The philosophy this game truly wants to express, President Gu's martial arts game, is by no means a simple wuxia game. There is much more he wants to convey, and the proof is the genuine, hidden true ending."
"Let me state my conclusion first: the game constantly showcases the various sufferings of the common people at the bottom of society during the twilight of the dynasty. Some are natural disasters, but most are man-made calamities. He definitely intends for the players to change all of this."
"On the surface, one should resist, avoiding the most direct invasions and the fires of war. Subsequent developments demonstrate that merely doing this is not enough; if the protagonist wants to save the common people, he must do more."
"The righteous path cannot be relied upon."
In the game, the protagonist becomes the leader of the righteous martial arts alliance, but the forces of the righteous path will never rebel. The righteous factions are mostly respectable people, property owners, and they hold simple, naive notions of loyalty to the monarch and patriotism.
The greatest feature of this Alliance Leader route is the ability to rally martial arts fellows and use massive personal reputation to easily resolve jianghu affairs. Whenever a typical wuxia conspiracy occurs and the protagonist appears, everyone believes him.
This force becomes much weaker when placed on a battlefield, though it still provides bonuses; convening a Heroes' Assembly can summon a batch of people to temporarily defend a city, but they can only help intermittently because jianghu wanderers are inherently free spirits.
"Clearly, if I want to start a rebellion, I can only become the leader of the Demonic Cult."

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The bullet comments started rolling in: 'Isn't the Demonic Cult route the path to the bad ending?' and 'Besides, Dragon King actually said during a livestream that the true ending has no more branches, and when asked if he could become the emperor himself, that was also denied.'
When creating this video, Chunfen must have anticipated such comments: "Don't listen to President Gu's previous statements claiming there are no more endings. Just watch my gameplay first."
Regarding the livestream, if we rewind time back to shortly after the game's release, before winning the tournament, people were already asking if there was a true ending.
Gu Meng recalled how, in his past life, Game Science during the initial release of Black Myth: Wukong continuously avoided responding to the massive hype surrounding how many endings there were, leaving streamers frantically searching for a third ending.
In reality, as we now know, there were only two endings. Moreover, looking at the game files, it was very likely originally a single ending, and a branch was added close to release without playing any cutscene, though whether this was for secrecy or other reasons remains unclear.
As a player back then, Gu Meng found it quite annoying because knowing whether there were two or three endings wouldn't actually constitute a spoiler. After players found the second ending, Game Science's continued failure to give a direct response felt like toying with the fans.
Later on, it seemed they probably didn't know how to respond properly either. Their consistent strategy during development was to ignore the outside world and focus entirely on making the game. They weathered a lot of public pressure; if you don't speak, you won't make mistakes.
Before release, Game Science mostly used in-game footage for promotion. Normal commercial promotion was minimal, relying instead on organic word-of-mouth.
Normal promotion involves heavy advertising like Yuanmeng Star, but Black Myth didn't have that kind of traffic-generating budget—it relied almost entirely on sheer quality.
Every year, the actual game footage released consisted of solid substance, and players had to actively seek it out to watch.
At the time, Gu Meng thought to himself that he had already given very clear instructions to the system.
The true ending—that incredibly passionate final desperate stand defending the isolated city—had its best branch ending in exhaustion right up to the end of life. There was absolutely no narrative where they successfully counterattacked the Mongols, nor would the Song Dynasty be saved simply because the protagonist resisted. The system could not possibly violate an instruction that had been emphasized so many times.
Gu Meng knew that the protagonist could kill the Song Dynasty's emperor. Drawing on the experience of previously being backstabbed by the true face of the heroine in the pure-love hidden ending, he knew this area would be heavily explored. Gu Meng was aware of the emperor-assassinating chaotic-world ending; it was considered a neutral ending, and likewise had no further derivatives.
Gu Meng himself felt there were no further derivatives regarding the true ending, so he had answered directly: stop looking, there are none.
Meanwhile, Chunfen-laoshi was in the middle of his video, explaining his mental journey.
"The route of becoming the Demonic Cult leader has also been unlocked by many people."
"The ultimate ending is the Demonic Contamination of the world, killing countless close friends with one's own hands, as well as slaughtering many civilians. It is far from a good ending."
"In this regard, Yu Xuan drew a clear boundary. The Demonic Cult in the main world is mainly a stitched-together fusion of the Sun Moon Holy Cult and the Western Demonic Cult, lacking a clear platform and filled with martial arts scum. Therefore, the ordinary Demonic Contamination ending is fundamentally a bad ending."
"I can sense that President Gu probably didn't like the portrayal of Zhu Yuanjiang rising to power with the image of a petty villain in The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber, while exaggerating the contributions of the Manichaean Cult. That's why he drew this boundary and completely deleted Zhu Yuanzhang."
"Then, in another side dungeon, he added a 'good' Manichaean Cult, allowing players to aid the cult in that world."

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"One good, one evil; two sects standing side by side."
"The main world's Demonic Cult is ignorant and superstitious, with its platform already set in stone. Once developed, it probably wouldn't even be as good as the Taiping Dao or the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. Even becoming the cult leader wouldn't allow one to control the entire populace. One fundamental root cause is that the Ming Zun (God of Light) in the main world is simply not a righteous deity."
"Therefore, I just need to become the Ming Zun myself."
"Heavenly Book, initiate!"
On screen, the protagonist transmigrated into the Demonic Cult minor dungeon—a dungeon that can be unlocked either by becoming the Demonic Cult leader or by completing the Heaven Sword Heavenly Book quests.
Completing all routes within the Demonic Cult's secret chamber allows the player to complete the seventh, purely theoretical layer of the divine art *Great Shift of the Universe*.
'What is this doing again? Aren't the dungeon storylines unrelated to the main world? Whatever you do in the dungeon shouldn't affect the development of the main world. There's no such thing as running amok in the ancient Warring States period causing changes in the main world, because they are already different parallel space-times.'
'I think I understand... They aren't entirely unrelated. A few dungeons, like the overseas immortal mountains, are attached to the main world—they are actually the same world.'
'Because of the transmigrational transition cutscene in this Demonic Cult dungeon, rather than a normal step into a secret realm like entering the immortal mountains, we assumed we were transmigrating to different space-times, but it might actually just be different locations within the same world.'
'Legend has it that the residual consciousness of Ming Zun lingers here. Following the guidance of the Heavenly Book, carving the five characters "Great Shift of the Universe" before Ming Zun's seat grants the divine art. Here, it requires manual input, after which the player's dominance over the Demonic Cult will be greatly enhanced, but that's still not enough.'
'Ah, right, it can enhance dominance! This clearly shows the dungeon is already affecting reality. Why didn't I think of that?'
Chunfen: "I believe smart players have already figured it out. This dungeon is set in the main world's space-time. The Heavenly Book only requires us to carve the 'Great Shift of the Universe' before the seat to acquire the divine art. But if that were the only answer, there wouldn't be any need to specifically open an input box; walking there and having the protagonist automatically carve the characters would have sufficed."
'I get it! This is a puzzle. The answer isn't unique. Besides the Great Shift of the Universe, you can input other things.'
'Then what should be inputted? Won't inputting anything else just result in no response?'
'That's because you inputted the wrong thing.'
Chunfen continued: "I've tried many options myself. The answer might not be unique, but one of them is valid—a slogan that the 'good' Manichaean Cult in the other dungeon space-time has, but this world's 'bad' Demonic Cult lacks."
Chunfen inputted into the game: "Burn my residual body, blazing sacred fire."
......

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