Chapter 780 - 780: Stop Persecuting Nia!

The game has reached this point, and from the story's perspective, many players understand that it's nearing its end.

Although there's still a lot of content to explore in the game, for example, different Titan beasts represent massive maps, and there are many powerful monsters on these maps that players haven't encountered yet.

Setting aside other things, just in the Gura Kingdom, there's an ape over level eighty and an ancient Tyrannosaurus Rex at level ninety. Based on their in-game strength, not their story power, either monster could easily defeat all of Ira.

And there are all sorts of different Blades; most players will have only collected a little over ten by this point.

Plus, there are the characters' ability rings, the Blades' affinity rings, and side quests in various regions. In terms of content, Xenoblade Chronicles is definitely a game that players can sink a lot of time into.

But the story is another matter entirely. Amidst the battle against Malos and the awakened Aion, who transformed into the "little green" one.

Rex and the others fell from the ruins, arriving at the legendary land of doom: the Land of Morytha.

This brand-new area completely stunned all the players who reached this point.

God, the World Tree, Elysium, Argentum, Blades, Titans, and the Cloud Sea. The vast worldview led many players to believe from the very beginning that it would be a fantasy world, similar to sword and magic.

Because so much of the content seemed to tell players that this was the case.

But as the story progressed, especially with the appearance of the Siren and the Haust, and when Pyra and Mythra fully opened their hearts to Rex, revealing the massive armor, Aion.

It told players one thing: the game's worldview isn't what you imagined. Sword and magic? Have you ever seen mechs in sword and magic?

And now, arriving at the Land of Morytha, this new map has made many realize that Xenoblade Chronicles' worldview might be completely different from what they imagined.

Tornadoes and lightning, the Land of Morytha, located at the deepest part of the Cloud Sea, is shrouded in darkness.

More crucially, the Land of Morytha is a ruin of a modern city that players are incredibly familiar with.

Collapsed office buildings, destroyed highways, buildings and metal melted by thermal warheads—clearly, this was once a world with incredibly advanced technology.

Combining this with the so-called "God" from before, the mechs, and a cutscene showing a future world, Ben came up with a rather bold idea: that the so-called "Holy Grail" and devices like the Haust and Siren were war machines created by humanity in the past.

Due to resources or other reasons, humanity, which once possessed a highly technological civilization, engaged in civil war, ultimately leading to the collapse of civilization?

Or perhaps it was an attack from an adversarial civilization in the universe, like the various strange monsters found in the Land of Morytha.

Having reached this point, Ben, combining the information gathered so far, is speculating about the game's worldview.

As for the story itself, he's not paying much attention.

After all, it's a straightforward, heroic adventure for a main protagonist group. For players his age, this kind of story isn't off-putting, but it doesn't inspire the same sense of amazement or interest.

Instead, more than the main story, he's more concerned about whether Nia will eventually find a way to turn things around or end up as a loser... no, a "loser cat."

Continuing to advance the game's plot, Jin, who was previously an enemy, also falls into the Land of Morytha. At a crucial moment, Rex saves Jin and, after reaching an understanding, they decide to find a way to leave this death trap together.

During this journey, Jin reveals the truth: Malpene's conspiracy. After the Holy Grail War five hundred years ago, Malos was defeated, and the hero Aldah, fearing the power of Fire, decided to seal it. However, after that, Malpene attacked the survivors of Ira, and his Driver, Laura, died because of it.

"As expected, in any game, the church is never the good guy." Ben listened to Jin reveal the truth and wasn't particularly surprised.

Because he had already noticed quite a few hints that Pope Malpene wasn't a good person.

And when you think about it, in nine out of ten games, characters associated with the church are villains.

Furthermore, as the story progresses, Jin is targeted by Ira's battleship, and Rex and his group advance toward the World Tree.

Upon reaching it, it's different from how it looked from afar, like a towering tree. Inside the World Tree is a space station full of technology. At this moment, Malpene controls the Titan beasts of various nations like Specia and Indol, launching an attack on Ira's main body and the World Tree.

At a critical moment, Addam, who remained outside the World Tree, suddenly steps forward. Unlike others, he, along with Jin, only wants to get revenge on Pope Malpene.

The subsequent storyline between Jin and Malpene didn't elicit much of a reaction from Ben. As a traditional RPG, this plot was quite conventional.

After defeating Jin, Rex starts his "talk no jutsu." At a crucial moment, Pope Malpene, who holds a deep-seated grudge against Jin, appears and kills two other members of Ira.

In the end, Jin, thinking of Laura, puts his heavily injured body to its limits, expending all his life force to raise his attack power to the maximum and perish with Malpene, who shares a similar grudge. Finally, he understands everything and asks Rex to stop Malos.

However, what concerned Ben wasn't this. It was that even at this point, the game's systems and mechanics still seemed to be tormenting Nia.

This is because the game unlocked a new Blade attack called the Triple Saber.

It sounds incredibly cool, and the conditions for using it are for Nia to participate as a Blade, and when Pyra and Mythra's bond with Nia reaches its maximum, use a level four special.

The animation is very flashy, but the damage is incredibly disappointing. Ben feels it's not even as strong as a level one special.

Coupled with Rex's earlier statement to Nia, "I like Nia and everyone else," and the confession to Pyra and Mythra in a completely different context, as well as Nia's "Endurance" in her affinity ring, Ben feels Nia has been subjected to hardship once again.

With his feelings about Nia's plight, Ben controls Rex and the others as they advance towards Elysium.

But Elysium, at this moment, is not what Rex imagined. Instead of an endless oasis, it's a barren wasteland. The former Elysium is now just ruins.

Following the direction of the bell, the group arrives before God's chamber. They are getting closer to God's location, but then Rex suddenly realizes everyone around him has vanished.

He encounters Nia, Mòrag, Zeke, and Tora one after another, and they all speak harshly to him, provoking Rex.

And all of this is "God's" experiment; these are the fears and illusions within others' hearts.

Then, "God" tells the origin of this world. It turns out that the place called the Land of Morytha was once called Earth. Countless years ago, a high-tech interstellar survival war broke out.

In the past, "God" was a mad scientist named Klaus who attempted to use the Trinity Processor to control a substance from a higher realm called "The Gate."

This substance could selectively tilt the infinite possibilities of parallel universes towards the worldline desired by the wish-maker. He naively believed it was the opportunity to change the world.

So, he forcibly opened The Gate against advice. However, because the probability of his ideal world existing was zero, the old world collapsed during the tilting process. As a result, all of humanity and the essence within the Trinity Processor disappeared forever into a distant dimension, leaving behind only souls, reason, ruins, and his other half.

His other half disappeared into a distant dimension, leaving him with only one half and regret. He hoped to create a world that could continue to exist to atone for his sins.

Therefore, he created the Cloud Sea—nano-robots that break down matter from the old world into matter for the new world—and cast the core crystal containing all life information into the Cloud Sea to form new life and ecological cycles.

At the same time, he created Blades and transformed souls and reason into the Holy Grail to manage the Blades' information.

As the Blades interacted with humans, information was exchanged, eventually transforming into Titans carrying complete information, generating new life.

Even though he had guessed everything, when the true worldview was revealed, Ben was still surprised.

This truly exceeded his imagination. He thought it was a fantasy game, but it turned out to be a science fiction game?

And when you think about it, this explains a lot of things.

For example, why Malos's data was lost, and he could only steal data from Pyra and Mythra.

And he viciously used "cut" instead of "copy." Fortunately, Pyra had backed up her data beforehand, which allowed her to be revived.

Also, Malpene once went to the World Tree to steal a core. This can be understood as stealing a CPU. Since it was stolen, he could only try to use it. However, not knowing the model, he accidentally fried the machine.

Then, for some reason, this CPU ended up in Aldah's possession. Compared to Malpene, Rex's CPU has a much more legitimate origin; he used it legitimately and even dared to approach the manufacturer and the original seller to learn how to overclock it.

Of course, setting aside this plot, the most moving thing for Ben was that even at this point, the game still hadn't given up on persecuting Nia.

Aside from the earlier "I love Nia, and everyone else," and the "turtle brain" comment in the Specia Empire, the illusion created by Klaus was also a memorable scene.

"Mythra, you're always like this!"

"You only look at her, you don't care about anything else!"

"I'm right here, why don't you see me? Look at me, Rex! Really look at me!"

Completely defeated!

Even though it was just an illusion, with Nia saying these words, in this battle for Rex's affection, you have no chance anymore.

(End of this chapter)

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