The metal fragments inside the tactical belt were slightly warm, and Lin Yi could feel the temperature through his gloves, like something alive pulsating under his skin.
Long Wu's breathing, tinged with the smell of gunpowder, came through the communicator: "Fifty-eight seconds until the third tower. Shadow Blade Squad has retreated to the safe zone." He didn't reply immediately, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the star-patterned design on his tactical wristwatch—the tremors of the spacetime rift were clearer than any alarm, telling him that a critical juncture was approaching.
"Boss!" Su Qing's voice suddenly pierced through the electrical noise, urgent with a slight crackle, "You've analyzed the metal fragments you gave me!" The holographic screen of the tactical terminal unfolded in his palm, and a line of scarlet text appeared in the pale blue data stream: [Night Owl Nest Core Program Remnant - Consciousness Assimilation Protocol V3.7].
Lin Yi's pupils suddenly contracted.
He saw Su Qing's virtual projection lying in front of the terminal, her hair tips blowing wildly in the turbulent data flow, her fingertips still in the position of her last keystrokes: "This is not the remains of an ordinary energy tower, but a backup storage unit of the Mother Nest consciousness center!"
It contained records... that they intended to extract all human consciousness from their bodies, compress it into data, and stuff it into the so-called 'Absolute Order Network'! "When she looked up, the light in her eyes almost burned through the projection," she said. "Those missing players, those ordinary people who suddenly 'died of natural causes' in reality—they were all used as experimental subjects!"
"Damn it!" Long Wu's roar exploded in the communication channel, and the suppressed curses of the Shadow Blade Squad members could be heard in the background.
Lin Yi could imagine what that guy looked like right now—his back pressed against the crumbling wall, his knuckles clenched white, and his eyes behind his tactical goggles blazing with fury.
He pressed the microphone, his voice calmer than ever: "Chu Yao, are there any relevant images in the Mother Nest database?"
"Retrieving data." Chu Yao's data body condensed into blue light beside him, and the data stream hanging from the ends of her hair suddenly surged, like countless silver snakes darting into the defensive firewall of the mother nest.
Three seconds later, a blurry surveillance video floated in mid-air: inside the closed experimental chamber, dozens of people dressed in hospital gowns were strapped to neural docking chairs. Their pupils gradually faded to a dark green, and silver threads seeped from the electrodes on their foreheads, crawling along the blood vessels into their temples.
In the last scene, a girl suddenly struggles to lift her head, a strange smile curving her lips—she is clearly the high school student who "ran away from home" reported in the news last month.
"That's enough." Lin Yi pressed the pause button heavily with his thumb, his Adam's apple bobbing.
He could hear his own heartbeat amplified inside his tactical helmet, like a war drum beating down on him.
Aizen had appeared beside him unnoticed, the scabbard of his spiritual pressure sword scraping against the ground with a dull thud. "They're building the Consciousness Matrix. When it's complete, the entire Hellhole will be a giant brain-computer interface." His voice was like steel hardened with ice. "There are still seventeen hours until the final fusion. We don't have enough time."
"What do you want to say?" Lin Yi turned to look at him.
Aizen's pupils surged with dark purple spiritual pressure, a sign that he was about to unleash his full power: "Activate the Hogyoku." He went straight to the point, "The innermost layer of the Mother Nest has twelve layers of spiritual energy barriers that cannot be broken by ordinary attacks."
The Hogyoku can temporarily increase my spiritual pressure, forcibly tearing open a breach.
The air froze instantly.
Lin Yi remembered that Aizen had said three months ago that the Hogyoku was a forbidden technique from an ancient interdimensional civilization, and that overuse would lead to the collapse of the spiritual sea.
He stared at the countdown ticking on his tactical wristwatch, the starlight flashing so fast it formed a band of light—the spacetime rift was urging him to make a decision.
"What price will be paid?" he asked.
Aizen's fingers traced the patterns on the hilt of his sword: "Three days of overdrafted spiritual pressure, followed by a 72-hour period without the ability to use any supernatural powers." He paused, "But I can guarantee to tear through the barrier for three minutes."
Lin Yi reached for the Boundary-Breaking Blade at his waist, the coolness of the blade creeping into his veins through his palm.
He recalled the list Su Qing had deciphered: Long Wu's niece, the homeless children Chu Yao had protected for three years with her data, and the orphanage children Ai Ran had once saved. "Three minutes is enough," he said, his voice as soft as a sigh, yet carrying a resolute force. "But I can only unleash seventy percent of its power."
Aizen nodded, and as he turned around, his spiritual pressure began to gather around him, casting a long, dark purple shadow.
Long Wu's communication broke again: "Third tower countdown: ten seconds. Detonate?"
"Detonate." Lin Yi's voice mingled with the roar of the explosion. "Su Qing, synchronize the analysis results with all members of the Time-Space Legion."
"Chu Yao, hack the Mother Nest broadcast system. I want every imprisoned consciousness to hear—" He drew his Boundary-Breaking Blade, the blade whistling as it sliced through the air, golden light surging along its spine from the cracks. "Their reinforcements have arrived."
The tactical terminal suddenly vibrated.
Lin Yi looked down and saw a line of gibberish appear in Xuan Mingzi's encrypted channel, the last character still flashing: "I found it..."
His finger hovered over the reply button, the silver light from the crack swirling in the depths of his eyes.
In the distance came the alarm of the core of the hive, like the howl of some giant beast.
Deeper still, something is awakening—a will older and colder than the Mother Nest's mainframe.
The vibration from the tactical terminal traveled through Lin Yi's palm. As Lin Yi lowered his eyes, Xuan Mingzi's encrypted channel had just displayed a complete message—the last word condensed into a blood-red dot on the screen, the word "Dimension" still carrying the echo of the data stream, when the communication was completely cut off with a "zzzz" sound.
His thumb hovered over the redial button, his knuckles white from the force, and the faint, suppressed breath of Xuan Mingzi still lingered in his earpiece, like a low, warning call.
"Boss?" Su Qing's projection suddenly popped up on the side of the terminal. The data stream at the tips of her hair turned a pale pink due to tension. "The Mother Nest's consciousness scanning frequency has suddenly increased by 200%. They may have discovered that we are analyzing the core program!" Before she finished speaking, the purplish-black light cone at the top of the Mother Nest in the distance suddenly swelled up, cutting spiderweb-like cracks into the entire sky, and even the air smelled of burning.
Lin Yi's tactical goggles automatically switched to thermal imaging mode. Looking at the surging dark red energy flow inside the mother nest, his Adam's apple bobbed twice.
He recalled Xuanmingzi's hesitant words in the virtual space three days ago—the game's main AI avatar, always dressed in a blue robe, was staring at his fingertips and saying, "Some truths, even the program dares not record."
This message is like a poisoned knife, piercing through the last veil of pretense: a will that does not belong to this dimension... could it be more ancient than the advanced civilization behind the Mother Nest?
\"bite--\"
The mechanical voice startled Chu Yao's data body, causing it to shake. The silver snakes at the ends of her hair suddenly stood up. "It's the Shadow's encrypted channel!" As soon as she finished speaking, a pale golden holographic projection appeared in mid-air: the Shadow was still wrapped in a star-studded cloak, even its pupils were hidden in shadow, but it seemed more anxious than usual.
"Consciousness shielding frequency." Without any pleasantries, he raised his hand and tossed out a chain of light shimmering with a galactic halo. "A technology used by early advanced civilizations to seal the consciousness of rebels. It can disable the Mother Nest's scanning within a five-kilometer radius for three hours." As the chain touched Lin Yi's palm, he clearly heard the hum of some ancient gear turning. "After three hours, the frequency will resonate with the Mother Nest's core, drawing their attention to the energy matrix."
"The price?" Lin Yi asked directly.
The shadowy figure's cloak fluttered even without wind, revealing half of a sharply defined profile: "None."
Or rather…” His voice suddenly lowered a few decibels, “This is the last bit of compensation I can offer for the 'Trial Grounds of Civilization'.”
Lin Yi stared at the chain of light in his palm, recalling what the shadowy figure had said last month when he helped them hide the spacetime rift: "Even law enforcers have their own bottom line."
The alarms from the hive came crashing down like a tidal wave. He could feel the spacetime rift throbbing beneath his wristwatch; it was his intuition screaming—this frequency was their only chance.
"Long Wu." He pressed the microphone. "Withdraw the Shadow Blade Squad to the southeast area. Release the wave in three minutes." The sound of Long Wu swallowing came through the communicator, followed by a dull thud as something heavy hit the ground: "Understood!"
I'm going to kick Old Zhou's ass right now! That guy's still collecting brood fragments as souvenirs!
Aizen appeared behind him unnoticed, the scabbard of his spiritual pressure sword lightly tapping against his tactical boots: "The Hogyoku has been injected into my spiritual sea." Dark purple spiritual pressure overflowed from his sleeves, leaving charred marks on the ground. "You said seventy percent strength, I kept thirty percent as a reserve." Lin Yi turned his head and saw a hint of a smile floating in the surging spiritual pressure in Aizen's eyes—like an old hunter finally waiting for his prey to emerge from its den.
"Su Qing, give the synchronization frequency parameters to all time-space army squad leaders." Lin Yi threw the light chain into the air, and the pale golden ripples spread instantly, even causing the light cone at the top of the mother nest to pause.
He walked through the broken bricks toward the highest point of the ruins. With the sound of his tactical boots crushing the metal debris, the outline of the entire hive gradually became clear in his field of vision: the twisted metal tower was like a giant beast with its teeth pulled out, and countless silver pipes emerged from the ground, like greedy tentacles piercing into the city's veins.
The wind lifted his tactical cloak, revealing the half-drawn Blade of Destruction at his waist. The golden light from the cracks on the blade intertwined with the silver light from the wave frequency, reflecting the sparks of a wildfire in his eyes.
Su Qing's projection suddenly appeared beside him. This time, there was no data turbulence; her hair hung quietly, but her eyes were brighter than ever: "Boss, all members have confirmed the frequency coverage area. Long Wu said the Shadow Blade team's explosives have been wiped three times."
Lin Yi gazed at the pulsating crimson core deep within the Mother Nest, where he saw scenes he had witnessed in his sea of consciousness: extracted consciousness drifted toward the core like fireflies, eventually merging into that darkness that did not belong to this dimension.
He reached out and pressed his hand to his chest, where the warmth of the little girl he had rescued three days earlier still lingered—when she was rescued, her fingers, gripping his tactical glove, were icy cold, but after regaining consciousness, she made a heart shape with her blood-stained hand.
"Since you want to reshape the world..." His voice, mingled with the wind, was crystal clear, as if etched into the very marrow, "then let me shatter it with my own hands."
The moment the Boundary-Breaking Blade was fully drawn, golden light from the spacetime rift surged forth, gilding his figure with flowing starlight.
From afar came Long Wu's shout: "Frequency activated!"
"Boss, Shadow Blade Squad reports, the scanners of the Mother Nest are all out of order!" Aizen's spiritual pressure exploded behind him, and a dark purple ball of light, like a small sun, burned a gap in the defensive matrix surrounding the Mother Nest.
As Lin Yi turned around, he saw Chu Yao's data body rapidly disintegrating into points of light—she was going to hack into the Mother Nest's energy valve.
Su Qing's projection gently touched his fingertips, the closest she could come to an embrace as a data entity: "I'm going to notify the imprisoned consciousness, to tell them..." Her voice suddenly choked, then quickly rose with a smile, "to tell them that their light has arrived."
The tactical terminal vibrated at this moment, a location sent by Long Wu: "The temporary command center is set up in the abandoned building in the third district. I had someone move twenty cases of energy drinks. Old Zhou said he would save you a can of iced ones." Lin Yi looked at the surging dark clouds in the direction of the mother nest, the golden light from the cracks swirling in his pupils.
He knew that the next three hours would be the most brutal battlefield—but that didn't matter; he had the courage to shatter everything.
"Let's go," he said to Aizen, the blade of his Blade of Destruction pointing towards the core of the Mother Nest. "Go and reclaim their consciousness."
Beneath the ruins, countless figures are emerging from the shadows.
The insignia of the time-traveling regiment gleamed on the tactical helmet like stars scattered in the night.
Further away, fighter jets from the Reality Alliance pierced the sky, sword cultivators from ancient martial arts families flew in, and even warships from the interdimensional resistance army adjusted their course—they all heard Lin Yi's words and saw the blade of light pointing towards the Mother Nest.
A storm is coming.
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