The distortion of the starry sky continued to intensify, and the golden light of the two characters "Lin Yi" on the Monument of Destiny pierced through the twilight, stretching his shadow extremely long.
The exclamations from the square washed over Lin Yi like a tidal wave, but all he could hear was the buzzing of his own heartbeat and the fragments of his soul resonating together—a warning unique to the master of time and space. The burning sensation on the faint scar on the back of his neck crawled up his spine to his brain, like a fine needle gently pricking the depths of his consciousness.
"So you're unwilling to even descend here yourself to observe?" He gazed at the night sky where star trails were twisted into spirals, his knuckles turning bluish-white from the hilt of the meteorite iron sword. "To penetrate reality with your will?"
He pressed the answer button almost immediately when the communicator vibrated in his palm.
Chu Yao's holographic projection appeared beside her, her hair tips shimmering with pale blue data streams, her fingertips rapidly tapping on an invisible holographic keyboard: "The spectral analysis from global observatories has been synchronized to your terminal." Her voice was softer than usual, with a static-like tone at the end, "The source of that light... is not in any known star map."
Lin Yi looked down and scanned the data stream projected onto his retina, his pupils suddenly contracting.
The standard spectral analysis column displayed glaring red gibberish, while the words "logical void" were flashing in the special field marked by Chu Yao.
“It’s like someone erased the evidence of its existence with an eraser, leaving only the marks.” She looked up, and the data stream in her iris suddenly condensed into a star map. “It’s trying to anchor its coordinates, with consciousness.”
Footsteps could be heard from the other end of the square.
Ivan was wearing a faded gray trench coat with the collar open, revealing pale blue veins on his collarbone—traces left over from the core of the mother nest.
He stopped three steps away from Lin Yi, suddenly closed his eyes, pressed his fingers to his temples, and his Adam's apple bobbed twice: "It moved." When he opened his eyes again, a strange silver light shone in them. "The symbiote in my body is trembling. It's not fear, it's... anticipation?" He reached out and pressed his hand on the Monument of Destiny. The golden light on the monument spread from his palm. "It's calling out. It's not an invasion, it's 'witnessing'."
"Witness what?" Lin Yi gripped the hilt of his sword, the lightning patterns crackling on the spine.
Ivan shook his head, and as his fingertips withdrew from the monument, a pale purple scale of light appeared in his palm: "I don't know. But I can feel that the will of this light is not malicious. It's more like..." He looked at the distorted star trails in the night sky and suddenly smiled, "More like a teacher tapping on a student's desk, saying 'It's time to hand in your homework.'"
The communicator vibrated again, and Long Wu's voice, accompanied by a metallic scraping sound, squeezed in: "I'm on the top floor of the R&D base, and I can see the anomaly across the entire sky. Should we clear the perimeter?" The soft hum of a Tang sword being drawn leaked from the electrical current. "That old Tang sword hasn't seen blood in a long time; my hands are itching."
Lin Yi gazed at the gradually solidifying star trails—the distorted ripples suddenly contracted at a certain point, as if an invisible hand had grasped the end of a thread.
He could clearly sense that the anchor point of that consciousness was at the abandoned space launch site three kilometers away, which was the starting point of the "lunar colonization program" twenty years ago, and now only the rusted launch pads were pointing towards the sky.
“Chu Yao, locate the anchor point coordinates.” He turned and walked towards the hovercar at the edge of the plaza, the Starfall Iron Sword humming softly in its sheath. “Ivan, come with me to the launch site. Long Wu…” He paused, glancing at the image of Long Wu flashing on the communicator—the other was holstering his Tang sword at his waist, the dragon pattern on the hilt gleaming coldly under the light. “You guard the outer perimeter. If anything tries to squeeze in through the dimensional rift…”
“Cut it down.” Long Wu grinned, the crisp sound of the Tang sword being sheathed made the communicator buzz. “I’ve deployed defenses within a five-kilometer radius of the launch site. Even mythical insects will have to get past me first.”
As the hovercar's engine roared into the air, Lin Yi glanced back at the Monument of Destiny.
The golden light of the two characters "Lin Xia" remained gentle, while the light of the two characters "Lin Yi" had pierced through the clouds, leaving a golden trail in the night sky.
He touched the fragment of his soul in his heart; the energy within the crystal was boiling as the star trails solidified, as if echoing some kind of transdimensional covenant.
“The assignments I have to submit,” he said, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he looked out the car window at the approaching launch site, “are always perfect.”
As the hovercar broke through the last layer of mist, the shadow of the abandoned launch pad loomed menacingly in the moonlight.
The moment Lin Yi jumped out of the car, the burning pain in the back of his neck reached its peak—thirty meters directly in front of him, the air distorted like crumpled cellophane, and a faint blue light seeped out, casting a blurry figure on the ground.
The shadow raised its "head," and Lin Yi heard another voice mixed in with the resonance of his own soul fragments.
“Experimental Subject 001,” the voice said, sounding like countless people speaking at once, yet clear enough to penetrate all other noise, “ready to be observed.”
Long Wu twirled his Tang sword in his palm, the blade reflecting his taut jawline.
The airflow created by the hovercar as it took off ruffled his tactical cloak. He looked up at the golden trail that cut through the clouds, and his Adam's apple bobbed. This was the first time since Lin Yi had saved him from the jaws of a mutated beast in the newbie village twenty years ago that he felt that the boy who always liked to squat under a tree and eat pancakes was really about to reach the forefront of his destiny.
"Old Tang Dao, it's time to stretch your muscles." He whispered to the dragon pattern on the hilt, his fingertip brushing against a very shallow notch on the blade—a mark left three years ago when he blocked a claw attack from a mythical-level Skybreaker for Lin Yi.
A swarm of surveillance drones had already been deployed five kilometers away, but he didn't activate any thermal imaging; he simply closed his eyes and opened his arms.
The blood of a true dragon surged within his veins, and even the dust in the wind became his eyes and ears.
"Three kilometers southeast, there are three modified off-road vehicles." He suddenly opened his eyes, his dark pupils swirling with a golden-red light. "They're not players, they're from the Ancient Martial Arts Sect." He pressed the communicator to his ear, drew his Tang sword, and plunged it into the ground. The blade vibrated, causing the ground to crack like spiderwebs. "Notify them, go another ten meters. My sword doesn't discriminate."
Lin Yi, inside the hovercar, was unaware of the commotion outside.
He watched the launch pad approach, a burning pain in the back of his neck like a red-hot wire drilling down his spine toward his brow.
The fragments of his soul burned in his chest, and fine ripples of spacetime appeared on the surface of the crystal—that was the resonance of the [Spacetime Master]'s talent, pointing to the distortion point thirty meters away with more precision than any navigator.
"Time travel, activate," he said softly, pressing his palm against the fragment on his chest.
The next second, the world twisted like crumpled pages of paper.
A blinding white light flashed before Lin Yi's eyes, and when he opened them again, he was standing in a desolate place.
There was no sound of air moving; the cracked black rock ground shone with a cold, desolate gray; and in the distance, a wisp of eerie blue mist floated, like a crushed star.
He could clearly sense that the light mist was churning with fluctuations that did not belong to any dimension—there was no aggressive energy surge, no benevolent temperature, just pure "existence," like a pair of invisible eyes, dissecting every inch of his soul into data.
"The Observer," Lin Yi murmured softly, his knuckles unconsciously stroking the hilt of his sword.
He could feel his heart beating three times slower than usual—this was the instinctive protective mechanism of the spacetime ruler when facing higher-dimensional beings.
The fragments of his soul suddenly trembled violently, projecting a miniature star map into his palm. It was his resonance with the laws of spacetime, and also the source of his confidence to face this will.
"Since you're observing, you should at least give a response." He took a deep breath and raised his hand to release a pure spatial-temporal fluctuation.
The fluctuation was not aggressive; it simply spread like ripples. The moment it touched the light mist, the entire space was suddenly enveloped by a transparent barrier.
\"bite--\"
The mechanical voice exploded in his mind, and Lin Yi's pupils shrank sharply.
The voice was unlike the previous overlapping sounds; it sounded more like the audible output of some kind of precision instrument, each syllable almost coldly accurate: "Detection of experimental subject 001 actively releasing spacetime fluctuations, matching degree 99.7%."
"You are the first human to respond to us."
These words struck Lin Yi's mind like a heavy hammer.
His temples throbbed, and his Adam's apple bobbed—the first one?
Didn't those humans who were selected in the previous Civilization Trial Grounds notice this gaze?
Before he could sort out his thoughts, the light mist suddenly contracted violently, condensing into a human-shaped silhouette directly in front of him.
The silhouette lacked specific facial features, yet it inexplicably reminded him of the names erased from the Monument of Destiny—those powerful figures who should have become myths but remained forever at the epic level.
"Welcome to the true infinite world, Experiment No.: 001."
These words were like a bucket of ice water poured over my head.
Lin Yi's neck instantly broke out in a cold sweat, the tremors of the soul fragments almost piercing his skin.
A truly infinite world?
Was his previous experience of merging games with reality just an "appetizer"?
"Who are you—"
His voice was stuck in his throat.
The light mist suddenly began to dissipate, and fine cracks appeared on the transparent barrier.
Long Wu's furious roar came from afar, and his communicator vibrated wildly in his palm, indicating that spatial fluctuations were tearing apart the surrounding area—something was trying to force its way into this domain shrouded by the observer.
Lin Yi gripped the Starfall Iron Sword tightly, and the lightning patterns on the blade crackled.
He could sense the observer's will withdrawing, but the information it left behind was like a thorn, piercing deep into his consciousness: Subject 001, the true infinite world, and...
"Wait!" he roared at the dissipating light and mist, only to be met with the echoing mechanical voice: "The next observation will be initiated when you break through to the ninth star of the Mythical Realm."
Space suddenly twisted violently, and Lin Yi was thrown back to the abandoned launch site.
Long Wu's Tang sword was pressed against the neck of an old man in a gray robe. The old man, who had a bronze token of the Ancient Martial Arts Sect hanging at his waist, was pointing it tremblingly at the sky: "That light...that light is not a game!"
yes...\"
"Shut up." Long Wu glanced at Lin Yi, then slightly lowered his Tang sword, and the old man immediately fell silent.
He sheathed his sword and walked to Lin Yi's side, lowering his voice: "Three groups of forces were testing the defense line, but I drove them all away."
"But in that space just now..." He stared into Lin Yi's pale golden pupils, "What did you encounter?"
Lin Yi did not answer.
He gazed at the gradually calming star trails in the night sky, the fragments of his soul still burning in his chest.
The words "a truly infinite world" and "Experiment 001" surged through his mind like a tide.
He touched the faint scar on the back of his neck; the burning pain there had somehow turned into warmth, as if some kind of mark was awakening.
"Long Wu," he suddenly turned around, his gaze sharp as a knife, "from today onwards, the Time Legion's defense level is raised to the highest level."
Long Wu nodded and tapped the hilt of his sword lightly with his fingertips.
And above the unseen starry sky, the gaze that had once watched Lin Yi re-emerged.
"Experimental subject 001, initial observation completed."
"Initiating the second phase, granting partial memory permissions."
"Objective: To awaken its ultimate mission as the 'master of spacetime'."
Lin Yi gazed at the night sky, which was gradually returning to calm, and his Adam's apple bobbed.
He could sense that some dormant memory was awakening, like an ancient treasure chest being opened with a key.
"Who are you...?"
He looked up at the starry sky and asked softly.
This time, there was no answer.
But in the wind, there seemed to be a faint, almost imperceptible laugh.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com