As the blue light from the portal faded from Lin Yi's body, a sharp, tingling pain suddenly shot through the back of his neck.
The coldness of the metallic ground seeped into my ankles through my combat boots—a sensation unique to real-world bases.
But he had no time to pay attention to any of that at the moment—the two keys in the palm space ring were getting hot, the heat drilling into his veins through his skin, like two living golden snakes, slithering and undulating along his arm.
"Master!" Chu Yao's voice was unusually urgent. A holographic projection suddenly unfolded before his eyes, and a stream of pale purple data tangled like a tangled mess around the 3D model of the Infinite Core. "The resonance intensity between the Star Key and the Dragon Soul Key has exceeded the critical value, and the core stability index is plummeting!"
Lin Yi lowered his eyes to look at his left hand. A faint golden halo appeared on the surface of the ring, and two balls of light could be vaguely seen chasing each other within the halo.
He instinctively pressed his hand on the ring, his knuckles turning white from the pressure: "We previously speculated they were tools to restart an interdimensional civilization, but now it seems..."
"They are keys, and also switches."
A hoarse male voice came from above.
Lin Yi's pupils contracted slightly. When he looked up, he saw a cloud of black mist gathering five meters in the air, its outline gradually becoming clearer into a figure wrapped in a dark-patterned robe—a shadow.
This mysterious entity, which always appears at crucial moments, now had a crimson light flickering in its eyes. "You have triggered the activation conditions of the 'Genesis Protocol'."
"Agreement?" Lin Yi took a half step back, the core of cause and effect trembling slightly deep within his sea of consciousness, ready to deal with any possible attack.
"The final procedure for advanced civilizations to select civilizations." The shadowy figure raised his hand, and a semi-transparent cocoon of light condensed at his fingertips, within which floated the projections of the two keys Lin Yi had just obtained. "When all seven Genesis Keys are gathered, the agreement will initiate the 'Civilization Trial'."
Now you have two, and their observers... have already noticed this planet.
The base's alarm suddenly blared overhead.
Lin Yi frowned and looked at the ceiling. He could hear the roar of heavy mechs coming from afar—it was Long Wu directing the defense forces.
When he looked away, the coldness in his eyes was almost tangible: "So what?"
They want to use Earth as a guinea pig, and I'm going to overturn that testing ground.
The shadowy figure's crimson pupils narrowed to slits, as if scrutinizing something.
Three seconds later, he suddenly vanished, leaving only one sentence echoing in the air: "Judgment Day will not wait for you to collect all seven keys."
At the same time, in an underground research institute three kilometers away.
Aizen pushed up his reflective glasses. The "space-time resonance index" on the holographic screen had just dropped, but it spiked again due to the appearance of an uninvited guest.
He turned to look at the center of the laboratory, where a distorted mass of dark purple data floated. He could barely make out the features of Night Owl—the left half of his face had disintegrated into snowflakes, while a maniacal laugh lingered on the right corner of his mouth.
"Dr. Aizen." Night Owl's voice was like rusty gears grinding together. "I heard you're researching the Hogyoku?"
We need purer extradimensional energy, right?
Aizen tapped his fingers lightly twice on the lab table.
The Hogyoku inside the glass jar suddenly emitted a ghostly blue light, responding to the fluctuations emanating from the Night Owl.
He didn't reply, just stared at the data until Night Owl's laughter became sharp: "As long as you help me destroy Lin Yi, I can give you the energy coordinates of the interdimensional core area."
Without that spacetime overlord interfering, you could have obtained ten times more samples than you are now!
The laboratory fell into dead silence.
A cold light flashed across Aizen's glasses. He reached out and pressed down on the glass jar, and the light of the Hogyoku suddenly surged, almost piercing through the jar.
When the light faded again, he finally spoke: "I can help you test his limits."
But if he...
"Strong enough." Night Owl's voice suddenly turned sinister, and garbled data darted towards Aizen's wrist like venomous snakes. "You'll be glad you're on the victor's side."
Before the words were even finished, the data cluster vanished without a trace, like ashes scattered by the wind.
Aizen looked down at his wrist, where a few strands of dark purple light remained, slowly seeping into his skin.
He tugged at the corners of his mouth, revealing an almost gentle smile: "Interesting."
Meanwhile, in the base command center, Lin Yi's palms suddenly felt hot.
He abruptly ripped off the spatial ring and saw two keys trembling violently, golden light illuminating his entire palm.
Dozens of messages flooded into the faith link at the same time—Long Wu said that abnormal fluctuations were detected in the underground energy reservoir, Xiao Li said that her corrosive agent suddenly failed, and even the descendants of the ancient martial arts family in Jiangnan sent a message: the clan's forbidden stone had cracked.
"It seems..." Lin Yi put his key back on, his gaze sweeping over the live surveillance footage on the command center wall. All the screens were flickering with static. "Someone's getting impatient."
He turned and walked toward the central control panel, his fingers tapping rapidly on the console.
He forcibly activated the communication channel, and the clear sound waves instantly overwhelmed the faith of all the job changers: "Attention all, assemble at the Time Legion Headquarters in three hours."
As the alarm sounded, he looked out the window at the gradually darkening sky and heard the key ringing clearly in the ring.
This time, in addition to the ancient call, the voice also carried a faint... warning.
The red alarm lights in the command center cast blood-stained shadows on the ceiling. Lin Yi's fingers tapped a series of afterimages on the control panel, and the defense deployment map on the holographic screen flashed continuously with his commands.
Long Wu's communication voice blared through his earpiece: "The Southeast District mech group has sealed off all underground passages, and the aerial warriors from the ancient martial arts families are setting up a trapping array outside the atmosphere—but the abnormal fluctuations in the energy reservoir are intensifying, and the temperature has exceeded the critical value!"
"Modify all the spacetime stabilizers in the third sequence." Lin Yi loosened his collar, and a sharp pain in the back of his neck shot up his spine to his temples.
The core of cause and effect spun deep within his consciousness, like a red-hot iron, infinitely stretching his perception—he could hear the boiling sound of liquid energy in the energy reservoir three kilometers away, he could see the clan-protecting stone of the ancient martial arts forbidden land in Jiangnan developing spiderweb cracks at a visible speed, and he could even capture several researchers cursing at a suddenly malfunctioning instrument in a submarine base at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.
"Master, the monitoring range of the Core of Cause and Effect has covered the entire globe." Chu Yao's projection suddenly blurred and then reformed, with a few strands of dark purple garbled code wrapped in the data stream at the ends of her hair. "But... seventeen signals have been artificially blocked." She tapped her fingertip, and seventeen red question marks popped up on the holographic screen, distributed in Tokyo, New York, and the Sahara Desert—all old battlefields where large-scale interdimensional invasions had occurred in the early days of the game "Infinite".
Lin Yi's pupils shrank to pinpoints.
He recalled the words "observer" spoken by the shadowy figure before it disappeared, and the "judgment of civilization" activated by the seven keys of creation.
The spatial ring in his palm suddenly became incredibly hot, and the resonance of the two keys vibrated through his bones and blood, like the prelude to some ancient war song.
"Long Wu, have all those who have changed jobs synchronize their coordinates to the Faith Link." He took off his ring and clenched it in his palm, golden light illuminating between his fingers. "Those above the Transcendent level, go guard the seventeen shielded points. Those of Epic level, come with me to the outer perimeter of the Infinite Core."
"Yes!" Long Wu's reply carried the sharp sound of a blade being drawn from its sheath, and soon the communication channel was filled with "Received" messages.
As Lin Yi stepped onto the metal steps toward the underground core area, the stinging pain in the back of his neck suddenly turned into a burning sensation.
He stopped abruptly and looked up—the air rippled like water, and a figure wrapped in a dark blue robe stepped out from it.
The newcomer had a delicate, feminine face, with a dark blue tattoo on his left eye that matched the one on the Hogyoku in Aizen's laboratory. In his right hand, he carried a semi-transparent energy box, inside which floated a shard of crystal the size of a fingernail.
"Lord Lin Yi." The newcomer's voice was like an icicle scraping against glass. "Dr. Aizen asked me to convey a message: he's willing to offer three extradimensional source crystals in exchange for your permission to participate in the core area's defense." He shook the energy box, the fragments gleaming with an eerie light. "In return, he can temporarily suspend his research on the Hogyoku and extradimensional energy."
Lin Yi's gaze fell on the broken crystal.
The core of cause and effect suddenly trembled violently, and a blinding white light exploded in the sea of consciousness—the fluctuation of this shattered crystal was exactly the same as the black and purple light thread that Night Owl left on Aizen's wrist.
"A deal?" He took a half step forward, the spacetime emblem on his sleeve lighting up automatically. "Aizen should know that I never negotiate with people who collude with other dimensions."
Before he finished speaking, he flicked his finger.
An invisible ripple of spacetime instantly enveloped the newcomer, whose robes crumbled inch by inch within the ripples, revealing a body riddled with data cracks underneath—a mimicry forcibly condensed from extradimensional energy!
The energy box crashed to the ground with a clatter. The shattered crystals exploded into black mist the moment they hit the ground, but were trapped in a cocoon of light one meter in diameter by the spacetime barrier that Lin Yi had opened with his other hand.
"Go back and tell Aizen." Lin Yi bent down to pick up the energy box, his fingertips tracing the Aizen-specific runes engraved on its surface. "I don't need anyone's 'help,' and I certainly won't let him touch the Seven Keys of Creation." Suddenly, the two keys in his palm simultaneously erupted with golden light, the light enveloping the energy box and melting it into a pool of liquid metal. "Next time they send this incongruous thing, I'll send the Hogyoku back to another dimension, bottle and all."
The mimic's facial data began flashing wildly, emitting a sharp screech before finally disintegrating: "You'll regret this..."
"Get lost." Lin Yi raised his palm and pushed, and the ripples of spacetime crashed down like a giant hammer, sending the black mist directly into the newly opened spacetime rift.
As the crack closed, he heard a crisp sound of glass shattering in the distance—probably the Hogyoku container in Aizen's laboratory.
The communicator in the command center suddenly blared, a roar from the Night Owl mixed with the metallic rumble: "Impossible!"
How could he possibly control two keys at the same time?! A muffled thud came from the background, like someone crushing an entire holographic wall. "Investigate!"
Investigate all his movements, examine the loopholes in the causal chain...
Communication abruptly stopped.
Lin Yi looked down at the keys in his palm. Their resonance had become deep and resonant, like some ancient musical instrument being tuned.
The heat of the core of cause and effect continued to rise, and he could even see the veins on the back of his hand being illuminated as a translucent gold.
In the depths of the starry sea, billions of light-years away, a shadow belonging to no dimension is wrapped in distorted fragments of spacetime.
It has no specific form, yet it can "see" the two clusters of increasingly bright golden light in the direction of Earth.
When the golden light touched its "line of sight," a pleasant ripple spread through the shadows—like a hunter finally waiting for its prey to run into its trap.
"The game... has only just begun."
Its "sound" has no medium of transmission, yet it precisely penetrates the resonant frequency of each Genesis Key.
Lin Yi, who had returned to the core area, suddenly stopped in his tracks.
He looked at the key in his palm and noticed that the two balls of light that had been chasing each other had begun to merge at some point, and a few strands of dark purple seeped out from the golden light—a color that had never appeared before.
The burning sensation on the back of my neck turned into a tingling numbness, as if something was drilling into my consciousness along my spine.
"Chu Yao," he called softly.
"An abnormal dual-key resonance frequency has been detected!" Chu Yao's projection instantly turned deathly pale. "The energy vibration intensity... is increasing at a rate of 300% per second!"
Lin Yi stared at the key, his Adam's apple bobbing.
He suddenly remembered Whitebeard's dying words: "When the seven keys resonate, even time itself weeps." But now there are only two keys...
The distant hum of the core area's protective shield activating could be heard.
Lin Yi gripped the key and walked toward the security door. The golden light behind him stretched his shadow long, casting a darkness on the ground that seemed capable of swallowing everything.
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