As the alarm blared through the air, Lin Yi's pupils contracted slightly.
On the monitor screen, the blue light from Lei Yao's particle gun intertwined with the sparks from the base's defenses in his eyes. A suppressed chill crept up his spine—when he destroyed Obsidian's lair three years ago, he deliberately used a spacetime rift to shatter the atoms of the enemy's core members. What could "revive" Lei Yao was definitely not an ordinary method.
“What they want is a ‘faith project’,” he suddenly said, his voice like icy metal.
Xuanmingzi's words of dissuasion were cut off. The hem of the Taoist robe, which was the original incarnation of the game's mastermind, was still stained with the residual blue light of the magic seal. At this moment, he trembled because of these words: "How are you sure?"
“A combination lock.” Lin Yi pointed to the gleaming metal door in the core area.
Amidst the alarm, the beeping sound of the password input was exceptionally clear. "Three years ago, only seven of us knew this string of numbers." He rubbed his thumb against the red mark on his palm from the time-space rift key. "Someone gave it to Obsidian."
Chu Yao's projection suddenly solidified, and her light blue skirt swept across the control panel, creating a stream of data.
She traced silver streaks of light in the air with her fingertips. "Mirroring process initiated. The real files are being transferred to the 17th layer of spacetime cache." Before she finished speaking, the console screen suddenly exploded with blinding static. "Data interference! It's a side effect of the stealth shield—they're blocking our observation!"
"Boss, I'll go clear the area!" Long Wu twirled his heavy sword in his palm, and the dragon pattern on the blade flared up with crimson flames, making half of his face glow red.
The man, who had awakened the bloodline of a true dragon, had muscles taut as if cast in iron. Every step he took on the metal floor shook the ceiling and caused dust to fall. "If those scum dare to touch even a single brick in the core area, I'll melt them down to molten iron, bones and all!"
"Watch out for their weapons." Lin Yi suddenly grabbed Long Wu's wrist.
He could feel the other person's pulse pounding like a drum. "Xuanmingzi said it's made of materials from another dimension." Long Wu was stunned for a moment, then grinned and showed his white teeth: "No matter how evil something is, it can't withstand the True Dragon Fire!" Before he finished speaking, he had already smashed open the defensive door, and the shockwave from his heavy sword sent the black-clad soldiers rushing in from outside flying five meters away.
In the surveillance footage of the core area, Long Wu's figure instantly turned into a ball of crimson flames.
Where his blade swept, the black-clad soldiers' energy shields melted like wax, but the next second—the soldiers in the front row suddenly raised their short blades, dark purple light patterns flowing across the blades, actually cleaving through the dragon flames!
"Dragon Scale Shield!" Long Wu groaned as a bloody gash appeared on his left shoulder.
He staggered back half a step, the dragon pattern spreading from the blade to his neck. "These bastards... they even learned the methods we used to deal with the Mother Nest back then?"
Lin Yi, watching from outside the surveillance camera, clenched his sleeves tightly.
He could hear Long Wu's muffled shouts mixed with the sound of metal clashing, and he could see Lei Yao standing behind the battle line, the scar on his left cheek twisting into a centipede with a cold laugh.
The particle gun's muzzle remained pointed at the core area, while the combination lock's beeping had reached its seventh beep—just two more steps until the door opened.
"Chu Yao, mirror progress?" His voice was as steady as a precision instrument, but his knuckles were bluish-white from the force he was using.
“87%.” For the first time, the AI’s voice carried an electrical buzzing sound. “But the source of the interference is approaching… It’s Lei Yao. His tactical helmet contains a high-frequency oscillator, which is cracking the cache protocol.”
Xuan Mingzi suddenly stepped forward, a blinding blue light condensing in his palm: "I can use spatial manipulation to lock this door, it can only last three minutes at most." There was struggle in his eyes—as someone who had once controlled the rules of the game, he knew all too well the spatial turbulence that forcibly locking it would cause, "But then..."
"Hold on until the mirror image is complete," Lin Yi interrupted him.
As he watched Lei Yao raise the particle gun on the monitor, he suddenly remembered the same madness in the eyes of this man when he was frozen in time and space three years ago on the interdimensional battlefield. "What they want is the truth about the 'Faith Project,' so we'll give them the truth—but it has to be the truth we want to give them."
The combination lock beeped.
The metal door began to open slowly.
Lei Yao's particle gun surged with blue light, and the black-clad soldiers behind him rushed forward as if on fast-forward. Long Wu's heavy sword finally cleaved through the last dragon scale shield, and crimson flames, accompanied by a dragon's roar, crashed into the crowd.
Blood splattered on the monitor screen, staining Lei Yao's face crimson, yet his laughter grew even more maniacal: "Lin Yi! You think you can trap us? Even the Mother Nest couldn't—"
"Shut up."
The low shout was like a steel needle piercing everyone's eardrums.
Ivan had somehow appeared beside Lin Yi.
The man, who had once been parasitized by the core of the Mother Nest, now had his eyes closed, his pale fingertips pressed against his temples, and the veins on his forehead bulging like snakes: "Mother Nest..." His voice was as soft as a sigh, "not Mother Nest, but something much dirtier."
The alarm suddenly rose eight octaves.
Chu Yao's projection abruptly turned towards Ivan, the data stream swirling in her eyes: "Abnormal energy fluctuations detected! The source is—"
"The core area," Lin Yi interrupted her.
He stared at the black mist surging out from behind the slowly opening metal door, at Lei Yao's suddenly frozen smile, and abruptly released his grip on the key to the spacetime rift.
As the silvery-blue aura bloomed at his feet, he heard himself say, "Long Wu, retreat." He then said to Xuan Mingzi, "Prepare the spatial barrier." Finally, he looked at Ivan, "What you sensed, wasn't it...?"
“It’s a pity.” Ivan opened his eyes.
His pupils churned with a dark purple light, much like the color of the core of the Mother Nest before its collapse. "It was old, and it was hungry."
The moment the metal door opened completely, a hand covered in scales emerged from the black mist.
Lei Yao's particle gun exploded into fragments with a "crack".
In a corner unnoticed by everyone, a drop of black blood seeped from Ivan's fingertip.
Just as the scaly hand emerged halfway out from the black mist, Ivan suddenly staggered and grabbed the edge of the control panel, his knuckles carving deep marks into the metal surface.
The veins in his neck twisted and writhed like living things, and a broken roar escaped his throat: "The Hive... it's the Hive's remnant! They used those disgusting symbiotic technologies to piece together the core fragments that were crushed back then!" He raised his bloodied fingertips, and dark purple blood droplets condensed into tiny vortices in mid-air. "This taste... it's exactly the same as when the Hive stuffed memories into my brain when I was parasitized!"
Lin Yi's pupils suddenly shrank to pinpoints.
Three years ago, on the battlefield of another dimension, when he personally used a spacetime rift to shred the core of the mother nest, that sticky black substance emitted a shrill cry similar to that of a baby crying before it was annihilated—and now, the same frequency is surging in the blood droplets on Ivan's fingertips.
He pressed his hand against the biometric area of the control panel, and the spacetime emblem pulsating in his palm instantly lit up like stars: "Chu Yao, mirroring progress!"
"92%!" The AI's voice finally showed some fluctuation. The data stream at the ends of its hair was no longer a stable silver-blue, but mixed with a glaring scarlet. "But the enemy interference source is adjusting its frequency in sync. They... they seem to be able to predict our cache path!"
"Then let's give them something unexpected." Lin Yi chuckled, his left hand loosely clenched into a fist.
Suddenly, ripples spread across the air behind him, and ten phantoms, identical in shape to his, stepped out from the ripples, each phantom's fingertips pulsating with the same spacetime emblem.
This is the exclusive skill of [Time and Space Dominator], "Phantom Splitting" - using time fragments to create a clone with 70% of the original's combat power, "to disrupt their formation, and keep a close eye on Lei Yao."
The phantoms obeyed the order and moved, instantly merging into the battlefield.
In the surveillance footage, the black-clad soldiers who had been suppressed by Long Wu suddenly stopped in their tracks—they all saw seven Lin Yi rushing towards them from different directions, the blue light from their particle guns weaving into a net in the air.
Sparks suddenly flew from Lei Yao's tactical helmet. He ripped off the smoking gear, his scarred face contorted with rage: "It's an illusion! Concentrate fire—"
"Concentrate my ass!" Long Wu's heavy sword, wreathed in dragon flames, cleaved through the shields of three soldiers, the blade then deflecting the particle gun from Lei Yao's hand. "Your grandpa is the real one!" His dragon markings had spread across his entire arm, and his slashed left shoulder was healing at a visible speed. "Xiao Yi's clone can fool the radar, and it can fool your dog eyes too!"
The combination lock in the core area suddenly emitted a long beep.
Chu Yao's projection jerked backward, as if an invisible hand had gripped her neck: "98%! But console permissions have been tampered with—someone is forcibly injecting a self-destruct program!" A pale blue mist seeped from her fingertips, a sign of AI overload. "We must cut off the main power to stop it, but that would cause the image data to—"
"Tch." Lin Yi interrupted her, pressing his thumb heavily on the red button on the control panel.
The alarm suddenly rose three octaves, and all the lights in the base went out instantly, leaving only the emergency lights casting a ghostly green glow in the corners.
He gazed at Chu Yao's body, which was gradually becoming transparent due to data loss, but his voice was as steady as an anchor: "The mirror data is in the 17th layer of spacetime cache. After the main power is cut off, their interference waves cannot get in."
A sharp, metallic scraping sound suddenly rang out in the darkness.
A beam of pale blue light pierced the darkness, illuminating the man standing at the entrance to the core area—he wore dark patterned armor, completely different from the ordinary black-clad soldiers, with the Obsidian Organization's serpentine emblem embroidered on his left chest, and the dagger in his hand was emitting a dark purple light that resonated with the blood droplets on Ivan's fingertips.
“You shouldn’t have come here… Number Zero.” The man’s voice was like shards of ice scraping against glass. He raised his dagger, blue light solidifying into a tangible blade. “Back then, you destroyed the Mother Nest Laboratory, destroyed my experimental subjects, and now you want to destroy Project Faith?” His pupils gleamed with an eerie gold within their deep blue. “It doesn’t matter. As long as this knife plunges into the control panel, all the data will go with your memories—”
"Shut up!" Lin Yi suddenly pressed his right palm into the air.
The spacetime rift behind him suddenly opened, and a chain of starlight-like light flew out and precisely wrapped around the man's wrist.
But the man's dagger was faster. In the instant the blue light flashed, the alloy on the control panel melted like wax, and the blade sank two-thirds of its way in.
"boom--"
A blinding white light exploded.
Lin Yi was thrown against the wall by the shockwave. With his ears ringing, he saw a familiar pattern appear on the hilt of the dagger—it was the star trail totem that he had carved at the entrance to "God Realm-a" in the other-dimensional ruins three years ago.
He suddenly recalled a fragment of a chapter that Chu Yao had once analyzed: "When the key resonates with the core, the sealed door will open for the greedy."
The white light gradually dissipated.
The metal casing of the control panel was emitting blue smoke, and from the crack cleaved open by the dagger, a wisp of translucent light was slowly emerging.
The light mist gathered more and more, eventually outlining a rotating door-shaped silhouette in mid-air—behind the door was a chaotic purple, and a muffled sound like a heartbeat could be faintly heard.
Ivan suddenly grabbed Lin Yi's wrist.
His body temperature was terribly low, yet he was trembling: "That door... and the spatial passage in the core of the mother nest, have the same frequency."
Lin Yi stared at the door that was gradually becoming clearer, his throat tightening.
He could feel the spacetime rift key burning in his palm; it was a warning that danger was approaching.
In the very center of the door, in that faint mist of light, he seemed to see his reflection from three years ago—wearing a lab coat, standing by the control panel of the Mother Nest Laboratory, with a culture chamber labeled "Subject 0" in front of him.
"drop--"
Chu Yao's projection suddenly solidified again.
Blue smoke was still rising from the ends of her hair, but she spoke at top speed: "Mirroring complete! Data has been transferred to the 17th layer cache, main power is restarting—but that door..."
“I know.” Lin Yi pulled off the spacetime rift key from his collar; the star patterns on the key’s surface were flashing in sync with the pulse of the door.
He stared at the semi-transparent portal, hearing his own voice mixed with the buzzing of the alarm restarting, "Chu Yao, contact Xuan Mingzi to set up a spatial barrier; Long Wu, tie up Lei Yao and the rest of the scum; Ivan..." He turned to the still trembling man, "Come with me and see whose secret is hidden behind this door."
The portal in mid-air suddenly began to tremble.
From the purple light behind the door, a second hand covered in scales reached out.
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