As the alloy door to the tactical room closed behind him, Lin Yi heard the sound of his tactical boots striking the ground.
A cold, hard wind blew through the ventilation ducts of the lunar base, carrying the smell of metal and gunpowder, brushing against the stubble of hair behind his ear that hadn't been properly shaved—it was from when he stayed up all night repairing the spacetime rift three days ago, when Chu Yao's mechanical arm had scratched him. At the time, the girl blushed and said she would pay him with a new razor; now it felt like something from a past life.
The emergency light at the end of the corridor suddenly turned blood red, so bright it made one's pupils contract.
The members of the Time and Space Legion were already lined up on the training ground. The hum of the anti-entropy war blades sounded like a lurking pack of beasts, gathering strength in the silence.
Lin Yi's gaze swept over the scarred boy at the front of the line—the job changer he had rescued from the newbie village last month. At the time, he was huddled in the mutated beast's nest, clutching half a half-eaten compressed biscuit in his hand.
The boy's breastplate was now polished to a shine, and his eyes behind the tactical goggles gleamed as if they had been tempered by fire.
"Come here, everyone." Lin Yi stopped by the elevator platform in the center of the training field. His voice wasn't loud, but it was like a pebble thrown into a deep pool, creating ripples.
The team members swarmed around, with Long Wu pushing to the front, his chest muscles straining against his tactical vest. "Brother Lin's about to give a speech, so you all better stand up straight!"
Su Qing squeezed in through the side door, carrying a tablet. The wisps of hair on her head were whipped up by the wind from the base, and her fingertips still had silver glue residue from the locator.
She shoved the tablet into Chu Yao's arms, who adjusted her blue-light blocking glasses and traced a data stream on the holographic screen with her fingertip: "The energy matrix has been synchronized to every blade, and the countermeasure device's hacking program..."
"Let him speak first." Xuanmingzi's voice was like the gentle tapping of an ancient bell, his white beard shining in the dim light of the star chart.
The old Taoist priest was standing beside the elevator platform, his left hand resting on the bronze sword tassel at his waist, while his right hand displayed the twelve major stars on a star chart, their brightness fluctuating in an orderly fashion. "This kid's words are more effective than any program."
Lin Yi stepped onto the lifting platform, the metal pedals making a dull thud under his feet.
He could smell the sweat of the front-line team members mixed with the bitter scent of the nano-medicine—the smell left from three consecutive days of reinforcing the defensive fortifications.
His Adam's apple bobbed twice as he recalled a rainy night three months ago in the newbie village, where he stood at the village entrance holding a rusty iron sword, with twenty-seven trembling players behind him and a horde of mutated beasts surging towards him like a tide.
"Do you know why I called everyone here today?" He removed his tactical goggles, revealing a faint white scar at the corner of his eye. "Because two hours ago, the intruders increased the defenses of node A-17 to 50%."
The air in the training field froze instantly.
Some gasped, others' battle blades hummed and suddenly rose higher, and Long Wu's fist slammed into his breastplate, yelling, "Fuck him!"
"50%." Lin Yi repeated, his fingertips lightly tracing the hourglass emblem on his chest. "Back when I killed my first mutated beast in the newbie village, that creature's scales had a 60% defense." He swept his gaze across the crowd, noticing the scarred boy gripping his battle blade tightly. "Back then, I only had twenty-seven newbies around me who hadn't even awakened their skills yet. Now—" He spread his arms wide, "behind me stand three thousand warriors who can carve star maps into their battle blades, three thousand madmen who can weld spacetime rifts shut in another dimension!"
A few scattered laughs came from the crowd, like sparks splashing into dry tinder.
"Three months ago, Long Wu had three ribs broken in an underground boxing gym," Lin Yi said, pointing to a burly figure in the crowd. Long Wu grinned, revealing his canine teeth. "Now he can tear open the carapace of a mutated beast with his bare hands." He then turned to Chu Yao, "When Dr. Chu was buried under data in the lab, she couldn't even hold her tactical terminal steady." Chu Yao paused, her hands adjusting her glasses, her ears turning red. "Now she can crack an intruder's countermeasures system in three seconds."
Su Qing's fingertips trembled slightly as she held the tablet. She remembered the video call with the children from the orphanage yesterday, when the chubby little boy who always liked to pull her braids held up a drawing: "Sister Qingqing is going to defeat the big monster!" The two crooked words "Victory" on the drawing paper were traced three times by her with the highlighter on the locator.
"When Master Xuanmingzi was planting cabbages on the mountain," Lin Yi looked at the old Taoist priest, who stroked his beard and smiled, "only three main stars were lit in the astronomical chart." The astronomical chart suddenly burst forth with brilliant starlight, the twelve main stars forming the Big Dipper. "Now he says, although this situation is perilous, there is a glimmer of hope."
"That glimmer of hope," Lin Yi's voice suddenly rose, like a war drum shattering the clouds, "is us!" He grabbed the anti-entropy battle blade at his waist, the dark blue blade light cleaving through the shadows above the crowd, "It's the madman who blocked the rift with his body in the newbie village three months ago!"
He's an idiot who didn't sleep for three days and three nights at the lunar far side base!
They knew full well that this battle was a near-certain death, yet they still stood here—
"Humans!" Three thousand voices converged into a torrent, making the lenses of the tactical goggles buzz.
Su Qing's tablet fell to the ground with a "thud," but she didn't pick it up. Instead, she stared at the faces illuminated by the battle blades—an old hunter with a white beard, a female mage with pigtails, and a disabled programmer sitting in an exoskeleton. The fire in their eyes was brighter than any star chart.
Xuanmingzi's star chart suddenly trembled violently, and the twelve main stars formed a chain-like pattern.
The old Taoist priest squinted at the void, "The invaders' advance party... has arrived."
Chu Yao's terminal emitted a piercing beep, and the red dots on the holographic screen looked like spilled blood.
She typed rapidly, beads of sweat forming on her forehead. "The A-17 node's defense layer is being peeled away. Countermeasure activation countdown... ten, nine, eight..."
"Su Qing!" Lin Yi pointed his blade at her. "Locator!"
Su Qing paused as she bent down to pick up the tablet, only to realize that, without her noticing, everyone had a GPS tracker attached to their tactical vests.
She touched the stray hairs sticking up on the top of her head and smiled—it turned out that when she squeezed in, she had subconsciously installed enhancement modules for the ten people around her.
"Long Wu!"
"Here!" The burly man patted his chest armor, twirling his battle blade in his palm.
"Take a team and cut in from the right flank of the rift. Dismantle the energy core of the countermeasure device."
"Alright!" Long Wu grabbed the battle blades of his teammate and tapped them together. "Kids, stick close, I'm going to lead you through the walls of this other dimension!"
\"Chu Yao!\"
"The anti-entropy matrix is synchronized," the female PhD student said crisply, adjusting her glasses. "The output power of each battle blade has increased by 15%, which should give them a run for their money."
"Senior Xuanmingzi!"
The old Taoist priest's astronomical chart transformed into a stream of light and entered his brow. His bronze sword hummed as it was drawn from its sheath. "The path to survival guided by the stars, I will pave for you," he said.
Lin Yi glanced at the crowd one last time; the boy with the scar on his face was wiping his eyes vigorously.
He raised his battle blade, the blue light reflecting off it and making his pupils glow. "Remember why we're standing here—"
The alarm suddenly pierced the air.
A blinding red light flashed on the dome projection screen of the training ground, and a hoarse shout came from the front-line communicator: "Node A-17 has been breached!"
The invading vanguard... no, the main force!
They've arrived with the dimensional crusher!
Long Wu's battle blade suddenly changed its humming tone, like a caged beast being released from its cage.
Chu Yao's fingers flew across the keyboard, and the data stream on the holographic screen almost solidified.
Su Qing grabbed the last locator and clipped it behind her neck. The stray hairs on her head were blown wildly by the alarm, but she smiled more brightly than ever before.
Lin Yi snapped the tactical goggles back onto his face, the hourglass emblem burning hot at his Adam's apple.
He gazed at the three thousand pairs of eyes before him, bright as stars, and suddenly recalled that rainy night in the starting village, when he, sword in hand, told twenty-seven newbies, "Follow me, and you'll survive."
Now he says: "Follow me, and you'll win."
\"Set off!\"
The sound of combat boots hitting the ground shook the base.
The dark blue light from the anti-entropy blades formed a galaxy, flowing down the corridor towards the portal.
Lin Yi walked at the front, able to hear whispers rising and falling behind him—
"Protecting reality."
"Protect the game."
"To protect...our world."
As the blue light of the portal illuminated ahead, he touched the hourglass on his chest.
This time, the sands of time no longer slip through our fingers, but instead coalesce into the sharpest blade, held in the hands of three thousand mortals.
The invaders' dimensional crusher hummed through the void, like the horn of death.
But as the blue light of the portal engulfed Lin Yi's figure, he heard a sound behind him louder than any horn—
"Humans, fight back!"
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