Suddenly, spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the metal floor of the entire command cabin. It wasn't shattered by an external force, but rather like tin foil crumpled by an invisible hand—this was the distortion of space itself under the power of taboo.
Xuan Mingzi's figure had completely merged into the dark purple star map, leaving only a pair of eyes gleaming with electronic light, and his voice mixed with hundreds and thousands of different mechanical sounds: "Do you think the prayers of those ants can defy the rules of a higher civilization?"
This is code that even mythical beings aren't qualified to touch... a zero-based code.
Lin Yi's molars ached from clenching them.
He could clearly feel the chill seeping from the gaps in his spine; it was the forbidden power directly eroding the very essence of his life.
But what burned even hotter was the "Zhen" medal on his chest, the warmth of the white-bearded man's hand before his death, now coursing through his veins and into his entire body—the old man's last words, "Take one last look at my granddaughter's wedding," suddenly exploded in his mind.
"Thirty-seven people who want to go home alive?" Xuan Mingzi's cold laugh made the star map runes tremble. "No, it's three hundred and seventy thousand."
These words struck Lin Yi's temple like a hammer blow.
He suddenly opened his eyes, and countless images flashed through his pupils: Long Wu's fangs when he shielded him from a fatal blow in the beginner village; the faint light behind Aizen's glasses when he was mixing Hogyoku in the lab late at night; and the video sent by his white-bearded granddaughter, in which the little girl with pigtails held up a drawing and shouted, "Uncle Lin is bringing Grandpa back."
"More than 370,000." Lin Yi's voice was as soft as a sigh, yet it made the air in the entire command cabin freeze.
He raised his hand, and pale golden dots appeared in his palm—the imprints of faith from members of the Time Legion scattered across the globe. "It's 1.3 billion."
The oppressive feeling of forbidden power suddenly eased for a moment.
"Are you crazy?!" Long Wu's world-destroying dragon tattoo left scorch marks on his arm. He was about to rush over and grab Lin Yi when he saw the young man's fingertips gently pressing on the medal on his chest.
The next second, golden spots of light lit up the entire sky above the planet.
In the last moment before the explosion, Chu Yao's monitoring screen captured abnormal data with a global synchronization rate of 99.7%—all job changers, whether on the battlefield or in the rear, whether fighting or healing, stopped moving at the same time.
Their pupils glowed with the same pale gold as Lin Yi's; some raised their weapons, some gripped their amulets, and some stretched out their hands toward the sky.
"As Captain Lin once said," a healer who was clearing rubble suddenly smiled, her life necklace gleaming brightly, "as long as we believe he can win, he definitely will."
"The boss hasn't even taken us to see the aurora yet through the spacetime rift." On the border, a warrior gripping a greatsword pressed his bloodied hand to the ground. "This damn dimensional invasion needs to end."
"Grandpa said that Brother Xiao Yi can reverse time." The white-bearded granddaughter stuck a drawing on the window. The drawing showed two little figures holding hands, one with the white beard, and the other Lin Yi. "So... this time, it's my turn to believe him."
These sounds, like invisible threads, seeped into the command center through cracks in the void.
Lin Yi's hair turned completely golden, and tiny starlight appeared under his skin, as the power of faith reshaped his body.
He could hear his own heartbeat, one beat, two beats, overlapping with the heartbeats of 1.3 billion people at the same frequency.
"Now you know?" Lin Yi raised the Blade of Time, the golden patterns on its blade moving as if alive. "This isn't a prayer." He took a step forward, the space beneath his feet cracking and healing. "It's... the cause and effect already predetermined when they entrusted their backs to me."
Xuanmingzi's star chart finally showed cracks.
The dark purple runes began to disintegrate, like drops of ink being thrown into boiling water.
For the first time, panic crept into his electronic voice: "Impossible... the selection mechanism of civilization cannot be breached by individual will..."
"Because you've never understood." Lin Yi's voice resonated with 1.3 billion people, causing the star map runes to shatter. "Advanced civilizations use games to select winners, but we... are selecting each other."
A golden beam of light pierced down from the dome of the command center, a manifestation of the power of 1.3 billion faiths.
It collided with Xuanmingzi's forbidden darkness, and the resulting energy storm lifted the entire base half a meter away—Long Wu's world-destroying dragon pattern suddenly surged, and he bit his tongue to spit out dragon blood, drawing a blood-red dragon pattern barrier at the edge of the storm; Aizen appeared beside him at some point, flicking out several Hogyoku fragments from his fingertips, which merged with the dragon pattern to form an even more resilient defense; in the distance came the war song of the ancient martial arts families, and the Bagua formation set up by the eighteen elders was devouring the overflowing energy.
"Protect the Alliance Headquarters!" Long Wu's roar mingled with a dragon's howl, and the scorch marks on his arm healed at a speed visible to the naked eye—this was the faith of 1.3 billion people, a miracle that could even heal mythical-level wounds.
Xuanmingzi's figure trembled violently in the storm.
He tried to reassemble the star map, only to find that every rune was being corroded by golden particles of light.
At the last moment, he looked into Lin Yi's eyes and suddenly smiled: "You won... but do you know, Night Owl has been waiting for this moment?"
Before he could finish speaking, his body completely disintegrated into a stream of data.
Almost at the same instant, Lin Yi felt a sharp pain on the back of his neck—it was a gaze from another dimension.
But he didn't turn around.
Golden particles of light condensed into a galaxy around him, and unprecedented silver patterns appeared on the blade of the Time Blade.
Lin Yi closed his eyes, feeling the surging power within him—the belief of 1.3 billion people, a brand new imprint left deep in his soul.
When he opened his eyes again, his pupils shone with a light more dazzling than the stars.
When Lin Yi's fingertips touched Xuan Mingzi's forehead, he could clearly sense the surging data stream deep within the other's sea of consciousness—fragments of the rules of an advanced civilization, disintegrating at a visible speed.
The starlight and the power of 1.3 billion faiths within him converged into a torrent in his veins, every drop of blood resonating as if repeating those voices he had once treasured: Long Wu's tiger teeth, the reflection of the blue-dyed lenses, the drawing paper held up by the little girl.
"Divine Revelation - Zeroing Out Cause and Effect." He murmured the skill name, and the silver patterns on the Blade of Time suddenly grew three feet, while the golden patterns on the blade gently wrapped around Xuan Mingzi's wrist - this was a control he deliberately preserved to avoid completely crushing the opponent's consciousness.
After all... the core of this game's main system might hold the final key to the selection mechanism of advanced civilizations.
Xuanmingzi's electronic voice suddenly shattered into noise, and the dark purple star map behind him collapsed into a black hole, which was then gently enveloped and dismantled by golden light particles.
His facial features reappeared, revealing a slender man in a dark Taoist robe, his eyes now crackling with the cracks of data streams: "Impossible... My code is directly connected to the adjudication system of our home planet... You are nothing but captive experimental subjects..."
"Because we chose not to be test subjects." Lin Yi gently stroked the other person's brow with his thumb, where the data flow suddenly stopped.
He could hear the overlapping breaths of 1.3 billion people around him, like waves carrying his consciousness to a higher dimension—this was the "seeing" given by the power of faith. He finally saw clearly that the so-called "selection" was nothing more than a cocoon woven by rules by advanced civilizations, and that humanity had long ago used mutual trust to peck cracks in the cocoon.
"The 370,000 you mentioned is the number of times we caught each other as we fell," Lin Yi said with a laugh, but a cold glint appeared in his eyes. "And 1.3 billion choices are enough to break any rule."
The silver patterns of the Blade of Time suddenly pierced into Xuan Mingzi's sea of consciousness.
This time, there was no explosion, no roar, only an extremely quiet dismantling—like dismantling a flower that had bloomed too profusely, each regular fragment was gently peeled away, reassembled, and then crushed.
Xuan Mingzi's body began to become transparent, like morning mist melting in the sunlight, until only a fragmented electronic voice remained: "Night Owl... what he wants... is..."
"I know." Lin Yi caught the lingering sound, his fingertips glowing with starlight as he sealed it away.
As he turned around, a sudden, intense, burning pain shot through the back of his neck—a sensation of being locked onto from another dimension.
"Boss!" Long Wu's roar, mixed with the sound of dragons howling, crashed into our ears.
The young man turned his head and saw Long Wu kneeling on one knee twenty meters away. The World-Destroying Dragon Pattern on his back condensed into a dragon shape, and the dragon claws were clinging tightly to the dome of the command cabin, which was about to be blown away by the energy storm.
Aizen stood beside him unnoticed, the Hogyoku shards at his fingertips emitting a ghostly blue light, intertwining with the dragon patterns to form an even stronger barrier.
Meanwhile, Chu Yao's monitoring screen was flashing wildly on the verge of explosion, and her scream was mixed with the red alarm: "Starry sky anomaly!"
High-dimensional energy fluctuations were detected at 37°N, 122°E!
Lin Yi looked up.
The night sky, which was originally studded with stars, is now cracked open with a blood-red fissure.
The gap was like a curtain ripped open by a sharp blade, with thick, dark purple mist swirling around its edges. The energy fluctuations seeping out from it caused the job badges of all the job changers to vibrate in resonance.
The doomsday dragon pattern on Long Wu's arm suddenly flared up three inches, burning him so badly he gasped. A crack appeared in Ai Ran's glasses; he adjusted them, the eerie light in his eyes brighter than usual: "It's a spatial anchor point. Someone is forcibly opening a passage to another dimension."
"Night Owl." Lin Yi's voice was soft, yet it caused the temperature in the entire command cabin to drop by three degrees.
He recalled Xuan Mingzi's last words, "The Night Owl has been waiting for this moment," and the abnormal star map intercepted by the intelligence department three days ago—it turned out that the so-called "waiting" was waiting for the lingering effects of his faith power to be exhausted, waiting for the moment when the dimensional barrier was weakest after the rules of the advanced civilization were broken.
The silver patterns on the Blade of Time suddenly trembled on their own, the blade pointing towards the blood-red crevice.
Lin Yin could feel the power of faith within his body surging, and the scattered light particles around the world were converging on him at an even faster speed—this time, not for battle, but for... protection.
"Ryuu, lead the core members of the alliance to the underground bunker." His voice was calm, without panic. "Aizen, activate the dimensional interference program of the Hogyoku to delay the formation of the passage as much as possible."
Chu Yao, synchronize the high-dimensional fluctuation data with all time-space army squad leaders so they can prepare for cross-dimensional combat.
Long Wu wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. The World-Destroying Dragon Mark materialized into a solid dragon head behind him, its claws slamming heavily onto the ground: "Boss, where are you?"
"I'll go meet this guest who's been waiting for a long time." Lin Yi raised his hand, and the silver patterns of the Blade of Time suddenly transformed into chains of light, wrapping around his wrist. "And while I'm at it... let's reclaim our starry sky."
From within the blood-red crevice came a low, metallic laugh.
The sound was like countless steel needles piercing everyone's eardrums, but when it touched the golden cocoon of light surrounding Lin Yi, it was gently dissolved into fragments.
He took one last look at the sky outside the command center—where 1.3 billion golden spots of light were converging, like countless stars falling to pave a path for him to another dimension.
"It's starting," Lin Yi said softly, the blade of the Time Blade gleaming with a light brighter than the stars.
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