As soon as the words fell, D suddenly swung his hand, and his and Notch's figures instantly disappeared from the spot.
Notch only felt his vision blur. When he came back to his senses, he was shocked to find that he was already in a strange environment.
Looking around, everything was pitch black. Only lightning flashing across the sky from time to time lit up this eerie space.
Notch was startled and quickly looked around. He soon judged that he was currently in the void.
However, what puzzled him was that this area was like a reactor, with constant flashes of lightning and thunder.
Those thick bolts of lightning were like ferocious giant pythons, baring their fangs and claws as they lunged toward him.
At the moment those lightning bolts touched Notch's body, he vaguely seemed to see his great-grandmother.
Obviously, the lightning striking Notch came from the original lightning released by the Wither Slasher.
But strangely, the account Notch was currently using was only an ordinary player account, not an administrator account with the highest permissions.
Under normal circumstances, coming into direct contact with such terrifying original lightning should have caused him to instantly turn to ashes and die on the spot.
Yet unbelievably, Notch not only miraculously survived, but he also did not appear to suffer fatal injuries, and his body did not fall. Instead, he remained suspended in the air.
However, although the original lightning did not take Notch's life, the pain it brought was beyond what ordinary people could imagine.
Every time lightning struck his body, Notch felt a tearing pain spread through his entire body, as if he were being ripped apart.
This pain clung to him relentlessly, wave after wave crashing against his mental defenses, pushing him close to collapse.
Without a doubt, all of this was carefully arranged by D.
The place where they were now was directly above the Nameless Land, the very place where J had once been deceived into coming by D.
Before bringing him here, D had given Notch an invincibility status.
Just like Entity 303 back then, invincibility could preserve his life, but it could not avoid the tearing pain caused by the original lightning.
Clearly, the psychological stimulation Notch experienced earlier had been far from D's expectations and was nowhere near enough to completely satisfy him.
He not only wanted to deliver a heavy and deadly blow to Notch mentally, he also wanted to see Notch's body suffer the same level or even worse pain.
At this moment, D stared in fascination at Notch, who was engulfed in original lightning and fully showing his painful state. In his eyes, the scene was like a beautiful painting, and he was completely absorbed in it.
He wished time would freeze here and remain forever at this moment.
Unfortunately, things did not go as he wished. Compared to simply admiring the miserable state of Notch, who had already become a "defeated opponent," he now had more important and urgent matters to deal with.
So even though he was reluctant, after enjoying Notch's painful groans for a full five minutes, D finally chose to spare him.
Before leaving, D did not forget to leave a few mocking words.
"Remember to say hello to J for me."
"I suppose there must be plenty of things between you two that you've been wanting to say?"
"No need to rush, talk... slow... ly..."
After saying this, D turned and left. The moment he departed, Notch's body began to fall rapidly, and soon he dropped into the Nameless Land.
———
[Inside the Nameless Land]
"I absolutely won't hurt you... please believe me, please let me finish what I want to say first..." J's face was full of panic.
While gesturing in a flustered way, trying to make the Execution Dragon understand that he had no ill intentions at all, he was also eager to continue explaining.
However, at that moment, a dark figure fell rapidly like a meteor, cutting through the sky and crashing toward their direction with a sharp rushing sound.
Along with a deafening "clang," the ground seemed to tremble.
J widened his eyes in shock and saw a bald head appear not far from him. Because the person had fallen face-down onto the ground, J could not see the face clearly for the moment.
He could only see a few letters on the smooth bald head, "N-o-t-c-h..."
"Notch?!" The moment J saw that name, he froze on the spot as if under a paralysis spell, completely unable to believe his eyes.
He could not imagine that the bald man who looked like a player in front of him would be called Notch.
The moment he saw that name, J's brain began running at high speed. The shock in his heart was like surging waves, crashing against his mental defenses one after another.
When J came back to his senses and prepared to step forward to take a closer look at what this bald man named Notch looked like, the bald man who had been lying motionless on the ground suddenly turned his head.
"J??!" The bald man's voice sounded immediately afterward, trembling slightly and not hiding the excitement within it.
Originally, after J saw the true face of the bald man in front of him, his mind had already gone blank and his thoughts had completely stopped.
But now, hearing this voice that sounded both familiar and unfamiliar, his mind that seemed to have crashed suddenly restarted.
The gears of memory slowly began turning, and bits and pieces of the past gradually surfaced.
"It really is you..." J muttered, his voice trembling uncontrollably.
When he focused his gaze again on Notch in front of him, Notch's somewhat worn face and exhausted eyes made J's nose sting. His eyes instantly became wet, and tears gathered inside, ready to fall at any moment.
"You..." J opened his mouth, but found that his throat felt blocked by something. Countless words were stuck there and could not come out.
"Back then..." He tried to recall the past, searching for a suitable topic to begin with, but the words circled on the tip of his tongue again and again and still could not be spoken.
"I..." J took a deep breath, wanting to continue expressing the surging emotions deep in his heart.
But when he saw the complicated and hard-to-read expression on Notch's face at this moment, he suddenly deflated like a punctured balloon and became completely at a loss.
He did not know what state Notch was in now. He did not know whether he should bring up those long-buried past events, nor did he know whether those things would cause unexpected stimulation to Notch.
For a moment, J only felt mixed emotions in his heart. All kinds of feelings tangled together, making him feel extremely conflicted and pained.
Although J did not say anything clearly, seeing J's eyes and hearing those incoherent words, Notch understood everything.
He suppressed the emotions in his heart and spoke with a choked voice.
"I'm fine… I remember everything."
"I'm sorry… I only remembered you now…"
"Are you okay…"
[🎉 Shoutout to Asriels, LN and Slashdog for joining p@treon. Thank you very much.🤗]