As the soft sound of the door closing rippled through his eardrums, Lin Yi's shoes touched a completely different "ground"—not a physical entity, but more like a warm, soft medium enveloping consciousness, like amniotic fluid soaking in a mother's womb, yet shimmering with the faint light of shattered diamonds in the Milky Way.
His pupils contracted slightly.
The spacetime master's keen perception of dimensions failed at this moment.
There was no boundary between the sky and the earth, no trace of the flow of elements, only countless points of light floating around him: some were charred fragments of ruins, some were the outlines of cities yet to take shape, and there were a few clusters of dark blue light, like a battle scene that had been paused—that was a parallel universe he had experienced.
"bite--"
The spacetime emblem on the back of the neck suddenly ignited, a warning of danger.
Lin Yi's fingers unconsciously touched the side of his neck, but stopped the moment they touched it—something was moving within those points of light.
The previously still fragments began to spin, faster and faster, like ripples spreading across a lake after a stone has been thrown in.
The cluster of pale blue light at the very center suddenly condensed into a semi-transparent shadow, its shape resembling a person but not an object, its features blurred yet its "gaze" clearly perceptible.
"Who?" Lin Yi's voice spread through the sea of consciousness, without echo, but startling more points of light to tremble.
He could feel his consciousness being diluted by some kind of rule—like a drop of ink falling into clear water, which, if not actively gathered, would soon dissipate into this nothingness.
In the real world, Long Wu is still guarding the portal to time and space.
Afu squatted at his feet, letting out a low whimper, its tail no longer wagging.
But at this moment, Chu Yao had already left the cheering crowd. Her projection appeared simultaneously in front of seven holographic terminals, and the data stream flowing from her fingertips suddenly broke into garbled code.
“The coordinate offset rate exceeds 99.99%.” For the first time, there was a fluctuation in her voice, and the star map in her iris flashed a dangerous red light. “All positioning algorithms are reporting errors… He is not in any known dimension, not even in the definition of ‘existence’.”
The terminal suddenly emitted a piercing beep, and Chu Yao's projection blurred for a moment.
She abruptly raised her hand to her temple, a few strands of silver data spilling out from between her fingers: "A logical paradox is forming—if he cannot be defined, then the entire universe's understanding of 'existence' will collapse."
In an ancient-style pavilion a thousand miles away, Xuan Mingzi was staring blankly at the wine pot on the table.
He used his last bit of privilege to copy it from the system database; the aroma of the wine in the pot still carried a trace of Lin Yi's original body temperature.
"Buzz—"
A blue light suddenly appeared between his brows, a resonance unique to the ruler of time and space.
Xuan Mingzi's pupils instantly transformed into a star map composed of data streams, and his previously relaxed posture suddenly tensed: "His sea of consciousness is in chaos... He is being 'erased'."
With a light tap of his fingertips on the table, the wine pot on the table suddenly exploded into millions of light spots, which condensed into a semi-transparent code matrix beside him.
Xuanmingzi closed his eyes briefly, and when he opened them again, the composure he once had vanished: "Original master brain core, activate the consciousness connection protocol."
Countless blue lights surged from his fingertips, weaving into glowing chains in the air, each chain engraved with obscure runes.
This is the "anchor" he built using the remaining system code—in the realm outside of logic, only consciousness itself can serve as a coordinate.
In the sea of consciousness, Lin Yi's breathing suddenly stopped.
He saw a crack of blue light appear in the void ahead, and from within the crack came a familiar, slightly hoarse voice: "Lin Yi, grab me."
It is Xuanmingzi.
“You are currently in the ‘conceptual layer’.” The voice came through the bridge of consciousness, carrying electrical noise. “There is no space here, no time, not even the individual ‘you’. To survive, you must anchor your consciousness with the strongest ‘self-awareness’.”
Lin Yi's fingertips clenched unconsciously—he touched the texture of the tactical glove, the "anti-transmission wear and tear equipment" that Long Wu had forced on him.
The sensation exploded along his nerve endings. He suddenly remembered the force with which Long Wu punched his shoulder, the warmth of A Fu's wet nose brushing against the back of his hand, and the jasmine sachet that Chu Yao wore in her hair when she first manifested human form.
"The thatched hut in the starting village," he murmured, the image of the small wooden hut he built in the game on his first night flashing through his mind. "The blood that splashed on my face when Long Wu charged with his heavy sword, the blade cleaving through the monsters, was warm."
“Chu Yao’s jasmine.” His consciousness began to solidify, and those blurry points of light were pushed further away. “She always said that data doesn’t need fragrance, but during that manifestation, the jasmine scent in her hair was even stronger than in reality.”
"And... I promised to lead everyone to the end." Lin Yi's consciousness suddenly solidified into a semi-transparent humanoid form. He looked up at the shadowy figure that was watching him, his eyes as cold as a sword tempered with ice. "I haven't built a larger space legion yet, and I haven't let all dimensions know about the human era. Why should I disappear here?"
The shadow emitted a piercing shriek and transformed into countless points of light, scattering and escaping.
Lin Yi felt the burning sensation on the back of his neck subside, replaced by a firm pull—it was Xuan Mingzi's chain of consciousness, firmly gripping his core.
“Very good.” Xuanmingzi’s voice finally carried a hint of relief. “To maintain this ‘specificity,’ you need to fabricate a reason for your ‘existence.’”
At the same time, Ivan, far away at the resistance base in another dimension, was wiping the particle gun in his hand.
He suddenly stopped, the muzzle of his gun pointing to the ground, his other hand pressed against his chest.
"Thump."
My heartbeat suddenly became clear, as if something was scratching at the depths of my consciousness.
Ivan frowned, a hint of confusion flashing in his eyes—he was the former host of the Mother Nest Core, and theoretically no longer needed the primitive physiological response of "heartbeat".
"Is it... a summoning?" he murmured to himself, his fingertips unconsciously stroking the pendant on his chest, the "interdimensional locator" Lin Yi had given him, which was now slightly warm. "From... a direction beyond logic?"
In the sea of consciousness, Lin Yi finally saw the "ground" beneath his feet—a road paved with countless fragments of his memories, each piece shimmering with a warm light.
He took a deep breath, took a step forward, and the road stretched out beneath his feet, leading to a deeper unknown.
Unseen by him, the dispelled shadow huddled in a corner of his consciousness. Within the pale blue light, a voice murmured in a volume only he could hear: "It's here...it's finally here." As the metal casing of the particle gun made his palms sweat, Ivan's fingertips suddenly recoiled as if electrocuted.
The pendant—a locator personally crafted by Lin Yi from a transdimensional alloy—was incredibly hot at that moment, leaving a faint red mark on his collarbone.
"Thump, thump, thump."
My heart was pounding like a drum, making my eardrums ache.
He looked down at his chest, where the core of the mother nest should have been located, but now only a pale pink scar remained—it was left by Lin Yi when he used the power of spacetime to remove the parasite from him.
Memories suddenly flooded back: three months ago on the interdimensional battlefield, he was a puppet of the Mother Nest's will, wielding a particle cannon to bombard the human defenses; and now, he would distribute hot cocoa to the children in the base every morning, and help hand wrenches to Chu Yao when she was debugging equipment.
"Mr. Ivan?"
A girl's voice came from outside the door; it was Xiao Kui, the youngest survivor in the base.
He quickly stuffed the particle gun into the tactical case, and turned around with a gentle smile: "What's wrong?"
Xiao Kui, holding a mechanical rabbit, poked her head in. The rabbit's ears still had the blue tape he had fixed the night before stuck on them. "Uncle Long Wu said the Star Ring is bright again. Do you want to go to the top of the tower?"
Ivan's fingers unconsciously traced the pendant, the heat seeping into his veins through his skin.
He knelt down and straightened Xiao Kui's crooked bow tie: "You go first, I'll be right there."
The moment the door closed, his expression turned completely grim.
The residual perception within the core of the nest told him that this call did not belong to any known dimensional rules—it was neither like the cold data flow of the system's will nor the distorted fluctuations of an interdimensional intruder.
It was more like... some kind of "source" gently knocking on his consciousness.
“This is not the end,” he whispered to the empty room, his voice carrying a certainty he himself was unaware of. “It’s just the beginning of another phase.”
As the silver light of the star ring swept across the top of the tower, Long Wu was rubbing the anti-slip texture of his sword hilt with his thumb.
That was the "Reverse Scale" sword that Lin Yi had forged for him using meteorite iron from a spacetime rift. At this moment, the sword trembled slightly, resonating with the frequency of the star ring.
"Thinking about him again?"
A whimpering sound came from behind. The mutated Border Collie had somehow jumped onto the fence and put its front paws on Long Wu's shoulder.
Its pupils reflected the shimmering light of the star rings, much like the way Lin Yi used the Time-Space Emblem to open the portal.
"Do you think he's looking at this starry sky right now?" Long Wu reached out and rubbed Afu's ear, his knuckles turning white from the force.
The wind lifted his cloak, revealing the time-space locator pinned to his waist—it was specially made by Chu Yao, and even though Lin Yi was outside of logic, he could still detect a faint fluctuation.
The memories of the starting village from three months ago are still vivid.
Back then, Long Wu was just an ordinary player wielding a rusty iron sword. It was Lin Yi who patted him on the shoulder and said, "Follow me, and you'll survive." Later, in the space-time rift, it was Lin Yi who shielded him from the spatial turbulence with his own body. And later, when the legion was formed, it was Lin Yi who placed the badge symbolizing supreme command into his palm: "I need someone who can protect the rear for me."
"When I find you," Long Wu raised his fist at Xinghuan, the Reverse Scale Sword humming as it was drawn three inches from its sheath. "I will personally bring you back."
Suddenly, Afu pricked up its ears and began barking wildly in a certain direction.
Following its gaze, Long Wu saw a cluster of eerie blue lights on the horizon—Ivan's hoverbike, speeding toward the top of the tower.
Deep within the ocean of consciousness, Lin Yi's consciousness finally came to a stop.
The "existence" before him had no physical form, yet it was more oppressive than any concrete thing.
It was a ball of light composed of contradictions: sometimes like a shattered star map, sometimes like tangled DNA chains. When it spoke, the sound exploded simultaneously in Lin Yi's eardrums, consciousness, and even bones.
"You broke the template."
Lin Yi's consciousness was taut like a string.
He could feel the other's "gaze" trying to analyze his core—the authority of the master of time and space was diluted here, but fragments of his memories still shone under his feet: Long Wu's heavy sword, Chu Yao's jasmine fragrance, Xiao Kui's mechanical rabbit, and all the "concrete" things he had promised to protect.
"It has also torn the order apart." The existing "voice" was devoid of emotion. "Now, you must bear the consequences."
Lin Yi suddenly laughed.
He recalled the night in the beginner village, when he was squatting in front of the thatched hut repairing the leaky roof, and Long Wu held up a torch and said, "I'll help you"; he recalled the first time Chu Yao manifested human form, when she fell into his arms because she couldn't adapt to the gravity, the jasmine scent in her hair mixed with the burnt smell of garbled data; he recalled Ivan standing in front of the base ruins, pointing his particle gun at the sky and saying, "This time, I fight for humanity."
"Consequences?" His consciousness took a step forward, and fragments of memory solidified into a more solid road beneath his feet. "I have borne the consequences of the newbie village being besieged by monsters, the consequences of the collapse of the spacetime rift, and the consequences of the invasion of an interdimensional army."
The existing ball of light trembled violently, as if stung by this "concrete" will: "You don't understand..."
“I understand.” Lin Yi’s consciousness suddenly solidified into a physical form, his black tactical uniform still stained with the blood from the previous battle—it was Long Wu’s blood, warm and with a rusty smell. “I understand that all the ‘consequences’ are not as important as the people behind me.”
Silence spread through the sea of consciousness.
The existing ball of light gradually contracted, eventually condensing into the shape of an eye—the sole "focus" in the pure chaos.
“You’ll regret this,” it said.
Lin Yi did not answer. He slowly closed his eyes, letting his consciousness sink into the deepest darkness.
The next second, the entire ocean of consciousness churned violently!
The road, composed of fragments of memory, began to crumble, yet a more dazzling golden light burst forth from the point of collapse.
It was light purer than a spacetime rift, and a more primal fluctuation than a mythical mystery.
A crack slowly opened in front of Lin Yi, and a familiar, warm tremor came from the depths of the crack—it was just like the burning sensation of the emblem on the back of his neck when he first awakened the master of space and time.
On the other side of the rift, something is awakening.
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