Prologue

Even if everything is destined for destruction—humanity, planets, the future, even space itself.

Even if everything will vanish—life, galaxies, history, even time.

Humans strive endlessly for the continuation of their race and the transmission of life, but also for pleasure, for their own preferences, and sometimes simply to vent or lose control, causing destruction and ruin.

Everyone believes themselves to be an independent individual, with their own thoughts, doing what they wish to do. Yet, they do not realize that, somewhere along the vast river of human history, at some unknown time and under unknown circumstances, a will unique to humanity was born.

It is the collective consciousness of humanity; it is humanity itself. Since its birth, it has always protected humankind, fulfilling their wishes, but it has also discovered that humans possess a tendency toward self-destruction, even engaging in countless acts that lead to their own ruin.

To ensure the survival of humanity, and to delay its own collapse, it has made various efforts to save them.

Through crisis after crisis, it finally realized that the tendency toward destruction is also a part of human consciousness. As the embodiment of human consciousness, it cannot act against itself, nor can it erase humanity’s destructive impulses.

Therefore, it made an unprecedented decision: to extract all events that could bring about humanity’s destruction from the long flow of time and space, transforming them into independently existing legendary worlds, thereby preserving the continuation and prosperity of humankind.

That is why humans know that Pangu once split heaven and earth, but no one truly believes such a mighty giant ever existed.

That is why humans know the world was once destroyed by a great flood, but there are only legends and records—no evidence can be found, and its existence cannot be proven.

That is why humans know that Nüwa created mankind, but are more inclined to believe Darwin’s theory of evolution.

That is why humans know of the wild battle between the Yellow Emperor and Chiyou, but nothing can be found in archaeology—not a single clue—so it is regarded as the fantasy of ancient people.

Humans do not even know that their history should have included three great floods, seven meteor impacts, and six nuclear apocalypses.

Nor do they know that humanity has gone extinct eighteen times due to atmospheric pollution, nineteen times due to genetic mutations from faulty evolution, thirty times due to war, and one hundred and eighty times due to viruses unleashed by the reckless use of technology.

They are even more unaware that the most advanced continents once regressed to barbarism because of foolish policies...

Every cataclysm that could have destroyed humanity—including the time and space in which they occurred, all the characters involved, all the objects, everything—was extracted from the human world by it.

To protect humanity, it has always worked silently, until one day it discovered that its own power was not limitless. More and more mythic and legendary worlds, like straws piling up, increased its burden to the point where it could no longer sustain the flourishing of the main world.

Those legendary worlds, formed by extracting crises that could destroy the world, began to generate backlash. The butterfly effect of these mythic and legendary worlds rebounding against the main world grew ever stronger, leading to unimaginable disasters, people vanishing without reason, countless accidental deaths, the emergence of nearly incurable diseases, pandemics sweeping the globe, and even the collapse of time and space in the main world... If this continued, it would bring about the irreversible destruction of humanity.

It had to maintain those legendary worlds, preventing them from rebounding against the main world, but it could not act against itself. Thus, it had only one choice...

It decided to select heroes from among humanity to save the world.

Those who, due to the collapse of legendary worlds, would be implicated, suffer misfortune, or die, were chosen by it. In order to save the world, to save humanity, and also to save their own fates, they were sent to carry out one arduous mission after another. The vast majority of people did not believe in such things, refused its summons, or regarded it as nothing more than a dream.

Only a very few stepped forward, striving to save the world. Many of these brave souls failed, but a rare few succeeded.

The reward it gave to these successful ones was... glory akin to that of the gods!

This consciousness calls itself William Brooks!

William Brooks is the sky, the world, nature itself, the embodiment of human consciousness, the primal source of the will that maintains the world!

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The Twelve Mythic Eras and Three Thousand Legendary Worlds:

William Brooks Heaven——

""The Annals of William Brooks""

William Brooks does not understand why it came into being, nor does it comprehend what form of existence it is, nor can it grasp the meaning of its birth, the reason for its existence, or... its relationship with humanity.