The smell of disinfectant pierced Lin Yi's nostrils like needles, causing his eyelashes to tremble.

The cold light from the medical pod made him squint, but a warm, trembling sensation, more rapid than his heartbeat, was in his right palm—the chip engraved with cursive script was pressed against his palm, like a living thing eager to speak.

"The boss is awake!" Long Wu's roar shook the cabin door.

The muscular man clung to the edge of the cabin, his eyes beneath thick eyebrows bloodshot. "Doctor! Come and examine me right away!" As he turned, the scar on the back of his neck, burned by extradimensional energy, still tinged with a pale purple—the mark of shielding Lin Yi from the annihilation ray three days ago.

Lin Yi did not respond.

He stared at the chip in his palm, the pale gold patterns flickering with his breath, the words "Destiny is not over yet" casting dappled shadows on his skin like petals blown by the wind.

Su Qing always liked to write notes in this fancy handwriting and tuck them into his textbooks, saying that even if the world ended, he would be able to recognize her handwriting at a glance.

“Abnormal energy fluctuations detected.” Chu Yao’s projection suddenly froze in front of the cabin.

The AI ​​assistant's silver hair no longer bore the burn marks, but instead gleamed with a colder metallic sheen than usual. Her pupils transformed into flowing data streams. "The chip contains encrypted data in an unknown format. Immediate isolation and scanning are recommended." Her voice was unusually tense, and as the robotic arm drooped from the top of the cabin, a subtle crackling sound of electricity exploded in the air.

Lin Yi gently placed the chip on the testing table.

The moment the metal tabletop touched the chip, the lights in the entire medical room suddenly dimmed by two degrees.

Chu Yao's projection flickered violently, and the data stream condensed into a vortex around her: "Analysis progress 1%...3%...Warning, the data carrier has triggered a self-destruct protocol—no, it's actively releasing it!"

A blinding white light burst forth from the chip.

Lin Yi subconsciously raised his hand to shield his eyes, but a shaky image was reflected between his fingers: a massive torrent of players charged across the Starfall Plains, with the leading man facing away from the camera, his black cloak fluttering in the bloody wind.

His right hand held the same time-space key as Lin Yi's at his waist, except that the patterns on the key's surface were more intricate, covered with scales like a living creature.

"That's...me?" Lin Yi's Adam's apple bobbed.

He saw clearly the crescent-shaped scar behind the man's ear—it was in the exact same spot as the wound he had sustained last month when he saved a child from falling from a building.

“Not ‘you,’ but ‘another you,’” Xuanmingzi’s voice came from the doorway.

The Taoist robe of this original game mastermind was stained with undried blood, and his left hand was wrapped with a blood-soaked bandage—a remnant from when he shielded Lin Yi from a fatal blow in the Divine Realm.

A ghostly blue rune appeared at his fingertips, which he pressed against the edge of the image. "This is the residual consciousness of the 'Destiny Template'."

Lin Yi's breath hitched.

He remembered seeing this term in ancient books—when advanced civilizations select "chosen ones," they use countless parallel universe "templates" to test the optimal solution.

But how did those theories end up in his chip?

“You are not the only chosen variable.” Xuan Mingzi’s runes suddenly shattered into stardust. “There are 7,300 branches of fate for ‘Lin Yi’ in the mainframe database. Each of them has reached the Mythical level, and each of them triggered the separation of ‘Su Qing’s’ consciousness fragments in the final stage.” He stared at Lin Yi’s trembling fingertips. “Your memories, choices, and even pain are providing experimental data for a higher being.”

The laboratory suddenly fell into dead silence.

Long Wu slammed his fist against the wall, sending concrete debris raining down. "Damn it! So all I'm doing fighting this other dimension is being a guinea pig for them?" He turned to Lin Yi, his anger softening. "Boss, can we just smash this damn formwork?"

"It is calling."

A hoarse male voice suddenly rang out from the corner.

With his back to everyone, Ivan's pale hand revealed dark green Mother Nest energy patterns, the residual marks of his original Mother Nest core host.

He slowly turned around, the faint glow of the chip reflected in his pupils: "The frequency is the same as when the brood chamber awakened... It needs another host to awaken the complete data." He raised his arm, energy patterns spreading along his veins towards his heart, "And I may be the key."

Lin Yi's fingers dug deeply into his palm.

He recalled the tearing sensation deep within his soul when he separated Su Qing's consciousness in the Divine Realm—it wasn't a loss of power, but rather the template rejecting him, this "failure."

He looked at Chu Yao, whose data stream had stabilized and was importing chip data into the holographic screen: "In-depth analysis will take twelve hours. I suggest strengthening the base's defenses."

"Long Wu, go and deploy three mechanical legions to guard the outer perimeter." Lin Yi's voice was as deep as lead. "Have Lao Zhou activate the anti-space jammers to the maximum extent, and don't let anything slip in." He touched the jade pendant around his neck, where fragments of Su Qing's consciousness lay dormant. "Chu Yao, provide me with the analysis process. Xuan Mingzi, come with me to the database to check the records of the 'Destiny Experiment Field'."

Long Wu pounded his chest, his military boots sparking as he turned.

Xuanmingzi silently followed. When his Daoist robe swept past Lin Yi's feet, he smelled a faint scent of blood and rust—a scent belonging to humans, not the program itself.

In the mental link space late at night, Lin Yi sat cross-legged in the void surrounded by star trails.

The chip hovered between his eyebrows, and a pale golden mist was seeping into his consciousness.

"Lin Yi, you've finally arrived."

The sound came from all directions, so familiar that it made his heart stop.

That was his own voice, yet it carried a sense of vicissitude that didn't belong to this time and space, "Welcome to the end of fate."

The scene exploded before my eyes.

He saw countless versions of himself fall on different battlefields, saw Su Qing's fragments of consciousness being repeatedly separated in various timelines, and saw the words "mythical level" branded like shackles onto the soul of every "Lin Yi".

"Cough!" Lin Yi suddenly woke up, his back soaked with cold sweat.

The holographic clock by the bed showed 3:17 a.m., but the chip in his palm had disappeared at some point.

"drop--"

The communicator by the bedside suddenly lit up red.

Chu Yao's projection displayed unusual aberration: "Spatial coordinate shift detected... Your location has changed from the base medical pod to—"

The alarm stopped abruptly.

Lin Yi's breath froze in his chest.

He stood in a laboratory with a cold, gleaming light, surrounded by neatly arranged culture chambers, each containing a man who looked exactly like him, fast asleep.

They all had crescent-shaped scars behind their ears, and wore chips around their necks engraved with "Destiny is not over yet".

On the deepest part of the metal wall, a line of words was written in scarlet paint:

"Destiny Experiment Field, Sample No. 99 is being activated."

Lin Yi's fingertips trembled as he touched the nearest incubation chamber.

Inside the cabin, "himself's" eyelashes suddenly fluttered, and the corners of his mouth lifted in a look of shock identical to his own at that moment.

The laboratory overhead lights began to flicker.

In the alternation of red and white light, he heard countless echoes of his own voice:

"Welcome to... the real game."