As the smell of disinfectant mingled with the morning light and entered his nostrils, Lin Yi's molars began to clench sour.
He stared at the pale gold diamond-shaped mark below his collarbone. The moment his fingertip pressed down, the pulsating sensation under his skin made his pupils shrink slightly—this was no ordinary game mark, but more like some kind of living thing had made its home in his flesh and blood.
The moment his phone vibrated on the bedside table, his right hand was already on the Starfall Iron Sword at his waist.
The soft rustling of the sword sheath against the fabric mingled with the text message notification sound. He stared at the message from an "unknown number" that read, "Welcome back to reality, master of time and space." His Adam's apple bobbed twice, and his knuckles clenched until they turned white.
The last time I received this kind of untraceable information was when I was locked onto by the observer in the game.
"Chu Yao." He called softly to the air, and the silver bracelet on the bedside table immediately glowed blue.
Three seconds later, a pale purple holographic projection unfolded in front of the bed. The AI assistant, in the form of a young girl, stared down at the mark on his chest, the tips of her hair shimmering with the subtle silver light characteristic of data streams: "Abnormal energy fluctuations detected, currently analyzing."
Lin Yi ripped off his sweat-soaked t-shirt, revealing his lean chest.
The mark shone brighter with his movements, its diamond-shaped patterns shimmering with starlight.
Chu Yao's fingers flew across the virtual screen, and the originally smooth operation suddenly froze for half a second—a rare mistake for her as a high-level AI.
"Structural anomaly." As she looked up, the code stream in her iris turned a striking red. "Conventional methods cannot penetrate the third layer of defense; inside is... a high-dimensional information stream." She extended a semi-transparent hand, her fingertips almost touching the mark before abruptly withdrawing. "It's adjusting its frequency, increasing its synchronization rate with your brainwaves by 0.7% per minute."
Lin Yi's temples throbbed.
He recalled the Observer's last words before disappearing: "You've just been observed in a different way," and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. "A stealth program," he blurted out, his voice two octaves lower than usual, "waiting for a certain trigger condition, like when I use my spacetime abilities, or..."
"Or you could completely let your guard down," Chu Yao added, dimming the projection slightly. "If left unchecked, it might take over your consciousness—just like it did with the core of the Mother Nest."
A muffled clap of thunder suddenly boomed outside the window.
Lin Yi looked up and found that dark clouds had gathered at some point and were pressing down on the rooftop. A pale blue beam of light leaked down from the gaps in the clouds and precisely covered the mark on his chest.
The moment the mark absorbed that light, he heard a buzzing sound in his mind, like the prelude to the activation of some ancient instrument.
"Ivan." He grabbed the communicator from the bedside table, his thumb slamming down the shortcut key. "Can you sense it on your end?"
The communicator crackled with electrical activity at first, then a metallic male voice said, "Resonance frequency 117, resonating with the life fluctuations of my newborn body." The moment the door was pushed open, Ivan appeared in the doorway.
He wore a loose white shirt, and the mechanical lines under his eyes were so faint that they were almost invisible—this was his state after he had completely broken free from the control of the broodstock.
"I can use the resonance mechanism to create an isolation layer." Ivan walked to the bedside, a pale green halo emanating from his palm. "The life field of a newborn can interfere with the flow of higher-dimensional information, but..." He paused, his gaze sweeping over Lin Yi's tense jawline, "it can only provide protection, not actively break through."
Lin Yi stared at the green light flickering in Ivan's palm, recalling how, three days ago in the game, this man, once parasitized by the Mother Nest Core, had taken a spatial turbulence attack to save him. "Just take precautions," he repeated, reaching out to press Ivan's wrist. "If there's danger, retreat immediately."
The moment Ivan's finger touched the mark, Lin Yi gasped.
Two completely different energies collided beneath his skin, like a red-hot knife churning inside his flesh.
Chu Yao's projection suddenly enlarged, and the data stream on the virtual screen scrolled wildly: "Isolation layer construction 47%...59%...78%!"
As the last sting disappeared, the mark's light dimmed, and the galaxy within the rhombus pattern transformed into still, shattered diamonds.
Ivan withdrew his hand, a thin layer of sweat beading on his forehead. "It's stable for now, but it's fighting back." He ran his fingertips across his chest, where a pale pink scar lay. "Just like when I fought against the Mother Nest's core."
The communicator vibrated again.
Long Wu's voice, crackling with static, came through: "Brother Lin, the cleanup of the old industrial area in the south of the city is almost finished." Faint metallic clanging could be heard in the background. "However... we detected an abandoned small warehouse here. The door is sealed with an energy lock, and the patterns on it are very similar to those at the edge of the spatial rift last time."
Lin Yi grabbed the Starfall Iron Sword from the table. The blade was drawn three inches from its sheath, and the cold light made his eyes shine.
He looked out the window. The dark clouds had dispersed at some point, but the blue light still hung in mid-air, like a peering eye looking down from above.
"Hold the line." He snapped off the communicator, his fingertips lightly tracing the mark on his chest. "I'm coming right away."
As the smell of rust from the old industrial area in the south of the city, mixed with the dampness after the rain, entered his nostrils, Lin Yi's Starfall Iron Sword was already fully drawn.
Long Wu, wrapped in blood-stained tactical clothing, stood in front of the warehouse door. His boots crushed half a shard of glass, the sharp sound startling several circling crows into flight.
"The lock is active." Long Wu raised his hand, his knuckles still stained with brown blood—splattered from cleaning up the remaining mutants half an hour ago. "I burned it with dragon breath for three minutes just now, but the patterns actually shone even brighter." He stepped aside to make room, and the pale gold patterns on the warehouse's metal door rippled as Lin Yi approached, subtly resonating with the mark on his chest.
Lin Yi's fingertips hovered three inches above the keyhole.
The mark under his skin suddenly felt hot, as if he were being pulled by an invisible thread, and he pressed it on as if possessed.
The metal door beeped, and the patterns on it climbed up his arm like living things, stopping abruptly when they touched his wrist—where Chu Yao's specially made energy suppression ring was emitting a slight tremor.
"Step back." He shouted in a low voice, while his other hand formed a hand seal.
The power of spacetime condensed into a dark blue vortex in his palm, and a muffled sound like gears meshing came from inside the door. The rusty door panel suddenly exploded.
Dragon Five's dragon scales instantly covered his entire body, shielding Lin Yi beside him. He only breathed a sigh of relief after the dust settled: "There's nothing alive inside."
In the center of the warehouse stood seven instruments, each about half a person's height, their metal casings covered in scorch marks, yet a faint golden light still flowed through their interfaces.
The central control panel screen suddenly lit up, and a string of symbols that were exactly the same as Lin Yi's mark pattern began to scroll.
Long Wu pulled out his tactical camera and snapped several photos. As the lens swept across the bottom of the device, his pupils suddenly contracted: "Brother Lin, look at this."
Engraved on the instrument's base was a line of crooked, blood-red characters: "They are also studying this mark."
"Who?" Lin Yi's voice was as cold as ice.
He reached out and touched the control panel, the remaining energy rushing from his fingertips into his mind—it was fear, despair, and the record of countless nights of trembling.
A scene flashes by: a bespectacled researcher kneeling on the ground, his fingernails digging into a metal plate, the instruments behind him emitting a blinding light that illuminates the diamond-shaped mark on his chest.
"They might be remnants of the Observers who were previously eliminated." Long Wu tore off a piece of the instrument's outer casing; the inner layer was engraved with the same star-shaped totem as the "Observers" faction in the game. "They didn't take the data, but left clues...it's like they deliberately lured us here."
Lin Yi's hands, gripping the outer shell tightly, showed prominent veins.
He suddenly remembered Chu Yao's warning this morning, and a chill ran down his neck—if this was a series of traps set by the observer, then they had been in the game from the moment the mark appeared.
"Take all the equipment away." He shoved the outer casing into Long Wu's arms. "Chu Yao needs these for comparative analysis." As he turned, his gaze swept over the scraps of paper in the corner of the warehouse, and he bent down to pick up half a sheet of experimental log: "...78th fusion failure. Before the target's consciousness collapsed, it cried out 'Observation Tower'... The mainframe said that we must find the person who rejected the template..."
"Observation tower?" he repeated softly, his fingertips tracing the scorch marks on the edge of the page. "Could Chu Yao's talk of higher-dimensional information flow be related to this?"
When they returned to the base, Chu Yao's projection was already waiting at the laboratory door.
Her iris code stream was three times faster than usual, and when she saw the device in Long Wu's arms, her virtual skirt even rippled with unstable waves: "Same source energy detected!" She tapped her fingertip, and all the devices suddenly floated up, the scorch marks on their surfaces melting away like ice and snow, revealing the complete star totem underneath.
"This is the observer's secondary observation station." Chu Yao's voice tightened for the first time. "They are researching how to bind the imprint to the consciousness of low-dimensional beings." She pulled up a scanned copy of the experimental log from the warehouse. "78th fusion...failed because the target body could not withstand the overload of high-dimensional information."
But you…” Her gaze fell on Lin Yi’s chest, “You not only withstood it, but you also actively triggered the resonance of the mark.”
"Because I am the master of time and space." Lin Yi unbuttoned his shirt, the mark shimmering under the cold white light. "So they chose me." He suddenly closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into his sea of knowledge.
There was a ball of light enveloped by Ivan's isolation layer, which was now beginning to wriggle as he actively sensed it.
"No—" Chu Yao's warning came a beat too late.
A stinging pain, like an electric current, coursed through my entire body.
Lin Yi staggered and knocked over the lab table, the metal instruments crashing to the ground.
An endless sea of stars appeared in his pupils, with a crystal observation tower floating in the center, each layer engraved with the same patterns as his mark.
There was a blurry shadow at the top of the tower. As he tried to make it clear, the shadow suddenly condensed into a pair of eyes—golden pupils, vertical pupils, just like the pupils of the Observer when they appear in the game.
"Cough..." He covered his mouth, and pale golden blood seeped through his fingers.
Chu Yao's projection instantly enveloped him, and countless beams of light pierced his temples: "Consciousness shock!"
Stabilizing brainwave frequency!
Long Wu rushed over to help, but Lin Yi raised his hand to stop him.
He stared at the bead of blood in his palm, within which tiny, shimmering stars seemed to dance: "I saw the observation tower... and the eye at the top." His voice was hoarse. "That eye was looking at me, like it was looking at an insect pinned to a specimen frame."
A 3D model popped up on Chu Yao's virtual screen, which was the observation tower he had described: "Based on the experimental log and the imprint structure, this should be the observer's main observation station, located in the ninth dimension." She retrieved the previously analyzed imprint data, "Now we can confirm—the imprint on your chest is a beacon."
Once activated, it will synchronize your location, consciousness fluctuations, and even spacetime ability parameters with the beings within the tower.
The laboratory fell into dead silence.
Long Wu gripped the dragon-patterned battle sword at his waist, the blade humming; Ivan stood at the doorway, the mechanical patterns in his eyes beginning to flicker again, a sign of his fluctuating emotions.
"Synchronize location." Lin Yi repeated, his fingers gently tracing the mark. "They want to locate me, and then...?"
"Then annihilate them." Chu Yao pulled up a deciphered observer communication record. "In the archives of a certain civilization, they called this beacon 'precision strike coordinates'."
When a target grows to the threat level, the primary observation station will directly deploy dimensional weapons.
Lin Yi suddenly laughed, a laugh tinged with ice: "So they're in a hurry to plant beacons on me, afraid I'll grow too fast." A ghostly blue power of spacetime coalesced at his fingertips. "But they forgot... I am the Master of Spacetime."
"Brother Lin!" Long Wu shouted.
Chu Yao's projection instantly turned into a red warning: "Uncontrollable risk 97%!"
The mark may backfire—
Before he could finish speaking, Lin Yi's spacetime power had already seeped into the mark.
The pale golden light cluster vibrated violently, and spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the isolation layer.
He heard a whisper in his mind, as if from a place both extremely far and extremely near: "You rejected the template... but you cannot reject the echo of fate."
A wave of excruciating pain washed over me.
Lin Yi knelt on one knee, his forehead resting on the lab table.
But a burning light shone in his eyes—there was no threat in that whisper, but rather a certain...regret?
Chu Yao's light band suddenly brightened, and her voice unusually urgent: "Imprint frequency detected to be synchronizing with your brainwaves!"
Although it's unstable, it might be an opportunity!
Lin Yi raised his head, sweat dripping down his chin.
He gazed at his golden pupils reflected in the mirror, a hunter's smile spreading across his face: "An echo of fate?" He stretched out his hand, letting the power of time and space intertwine with the light within the mark. "Then let it hear what...my fate is."
Amidst the laboratory alarm, Chu Yao's projection suddenly displayed a new interface, showing a line of rapidly approaching green numbers: "Synchronization Rate: 12%...15%...18%..."
Within Lin Yi's sea of consciousness, a wisp of dark blue, resonating with his spatial and temporal power, was seeping from the cracks on the surface of that ball of light—it resembled a kind of recognition, or perhaps a kind of... expectation.
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