Deathly silence, a silence powerful enough to swallow up all other sounds.
The moment Long Wu's iron-like finger pierced through the chaotic figures and pointed directly at Lin Yi, the air in the entire temporary camp seemed to be sucked out, solidifying into an invisible cage.
Everyone's breath was held in their chest, their heart was gripped tightly by an invisible hand, and even the flow of blood seemed to slow down.
"His shadow is strange!"
These five words, like a thunderclap containing the law of destruction, exploded in everyone's minds.
All eyes were focused on the faint shadow at Lin Yi's feet.
Under the camp's light, the shadow appeared normal, swaying slightly with his body's movements.
However, in the eyes of Long Wu, a true dragon descendant whose bloodline had awakened and whose perception of aura was extremely acute, a faint, imperceptible fluctuation of nothingness, not belonging to this dimension of time and space, was emanating from the edge of that shadow.
Those are traces of pollution from a higher-dimensional will!
Panic spread like a plague, instantly engulfing the population.
Lin Yi was corrupted by the will of a higher dimension?
Or is the Lin Yi in front of us simply a disguised clone?
This thought sent a chill down everyone's spine.
He is humanity's last hope and the core of Project Ark. If something happens to him, everything will collapse completely.
However, Lin Yi, who was at the center of the storm, showed not a trace of panic on his face.
He didn't even blink, his eyes remaining as calm as a bottomless ancient pool.
Meeting Long Wu's sharp, knife-like gaze, a playful smile slowly curved his lips.
"How can you be so sure..." His voice wasn't loud, but it reached everyone's ears clearly, carrying an all-knowing composure, "...that the person speaking to you now is me?"
The moment he finished speaking, he raised his right hand, his five fingers spread, and a soft light appeared out of thin air above his palm.
Within that light, a crystal-clear amber, as if frozen in time, floated quietly.
Inside the amber, a figure exactly like Lin Yi could be vaguely seen, with eyes closed, as if he had fallen into an eternal slumber.
An incomparably pure, powerful, and familiar soul aura emanated from the [Time Amber].
"This is... spacetime imprint encryption!" Chu Yao exclaimed in shock. The blue halos representing massive data streams in her eyes flashed wildly, and she instantly understood everything before her.
“That’s right.” Lin Yi’s clone’s gaze swept over the shocked faces of the crowd as he slowly explained, “The moment I stepped into the Gate of Destiny and faced the will of the higher dimensions, I knew that the dangers of this journey would far exceed my imagination. To prevent my original consciousness from being directly locked, copied, or even erased by the power of the higher dimensions, I activated the final contingency plan. I sealed my complete consciousness and soul essence into this [Time Amber] constructed from fragments of the laws of time.”
He paused, a hint of resolve in his voice: "And the me before you is merely a tactical clone with all the tactical logic and memory data pre-programmed... My mission is to draw all firepower during the silent resurgence of the main consciousness, buying him time."
The impact of these words was a hundred times stronger than Long Wu's accusations just now.
The crowd looked at each other, unable to process this unbelievable truth for a moment.
Chu Yao was the first to react.
As the chief scientist of Project Ark, her rationality instantly overwhelmed her emotional turmoil.
"【Authenticity Verification Protocol】, activate!" she shouted, her fingertips swiftly tracing patterns in the void. Strands of blue data spread from her body, coiling around her clone Lin Yi like serpents.
The end of the data link probed into the body of the clone Lin Yi and began to detect the resonance frequency between his soul wave and the spacetime anchor point.
A few seconds later, the final result popped up on the virtual screen in front of Chu Yao.
“The soul ripple matching degree is 99.9%, but there is a 0.01% deviation in the resonance frequency with the spacetime reference anchor point... It is confirmed to be an avatar generated based on the original template.” Chu Yao’s voice was calm and crisp. She looked at the avatar Lin Yi, and there was a trace of complex respect in her eyes. “The original consciousness is in a deep silent recovery state. According to the energy dissipation rate, it is estimated that it will take another twelve hours to fully return.”
Twelve hours!
This point in time feels like a heavy mountain, pressing down on everyone's hearts.
In the race against time with the higher-dimensional will, twelve hours is enough for anything to happen.
The clone Lin Yi's expression became extremely solemn. He issued his first order upon returning: "Within these twelve hours, we must spare no effort to create the illusion that 'Lin Yi is still in control of the overall situation.' Otherwise, once the higher-dimensional will senses the weakness of the main body, it will immediately abandon its probing and accelerate the replication process at any cost, overwhelming us with a massive number of fake Lin Yis."
"What do we do?" Long Wu asked in a deep voice, having put away his hostility and instead displaying a resolute determination to fight side by side.
Lin Yi's clone's gaze fell on him, and a bold plan quickly took shape: "Stage a play. A play that is realistic enough to fool the higher-dimensional will."
Half an hour later, a deafening explosion came from the ice field outside the camp.
Dragon Five's massive dragon body appeared and disappeared in the wind and snow. Its violent dragon breath melted and vaporized the thick ice, creating a large area of messy battle traces.
He deliberately sprinkled the crimson blood of the true dragon in several key locations, and the powerful energy contained within was enough to make any being who was spying on this place believe it to be true.
At the same time, the clone Lin Yi staggered back to the camp, his body covered with a layer of simulated spacetime rift burns, his face as pale as paper. Under the "horrified" gazes of everyone, he fell heavily to the ground and "fell unconscious".
Chu Yao immediately stepped forward, her voice, tinged with just the right amount of anxiety and sorrow, resounding throughout every corner of the Ark via the camp's broadcast system: "Emergency Notice! Commander-in-Chief Lin Yi has suffered severe injuries in the battle against the high-dimensional projection and has fallen into a deep sleep, currently repairing the spacetime damage! All personnel, enter the highest state of combat readiness!"
This news was like a bombshell, instantly bringing the atmosphere inside the Ark to a fever pitch.
And that's exactly the effect they wanted.
The higher-dimensional will lurking in the shadows was indeed fooled.
It captured the “fierce” battle and Lin Yi’s “serious injury” through its ubiquitous surveillance network.
In its logical judgment, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Without Lin Yi as their core leader, the Human Alliance will fall into chaos, making this the perfect time to fill the power vacuum.
Almost at the same time that Chu Yao announced the news, around the world, those lurking pseudo-Lin Yis, created by the will of higher dimensions, began to stir.
Their numbers grew exponentially in a short period of time, as they emerged from the shadows, attempting to take over Ark branches in various locations and create even greater chaos.
The crisis seems to have come faster and more violently than expected.
Just as Chu Yao was staring intently at the global situation map, her brows furrowed, a faint fluctuation of consciousness suddenly emanated from the special-grade stasis box in the medical area.
"It's Ivan!" Chu Yao's spirits lifted.
Although Ivan's body was still in a state of stasis and repair, his consciousness had briefly broken free of its restraints thanks to his powerful mental strength.
A fragmented brainwave resonance, transcending physical barriers, projected directly into Chu Yao's mind.
It was an extremely complex encrypted data stream.
"Mother Nest... Remaining... Clearance Command..."
Chu Yao immediately mobilized her computing power to decipher the code, her eyes flashing with blue light.
To her surprise, she discovered that this was the last legacy she had salvaged from the destroyed Zerg hive core database—a set of low-level cleanup instructions specifically designed for gene template clones!
It can temporarily paralyze all copies based on the same template.
"Perfect timing!" Without hesitation, Chu Yao immediately rewrote the instructions and implanted them into the virus program framework she had already prepared.
She named it "Shadow Eater".
Once the "Shadow Devourer" virus is released through the Ark Core's global broadcast system, it can instantly throw all fake Lin Yis into system chaos.
This time they've gained will be crucial in determining the outcome!
"The plan must be brought forward." The clone Lin Yi had "awakened" at some point. He stood behind Chu Yao, his gaze fixed firmly on the coordinates of the South Pole. "We can't wait any longer. We must break into the Antarctic ruins and seize the highest authority over the Ark's core before the fake Lin Yi forms an encirclement."
Action is urgent.
A highly elite team, led by Lin Yi (whose clone is also present) and composed of core members such as Long Wu and Chu Yao, traveled in the most advanced stealth shuttle, cutting through the Antarctic blizzard like a ghost, heading straight for the prehistoric ruins buried beneath the ancient glacier.
However, their whereabouts were eventually exposed.
As soon as the shuttle landed, a piercing alarm blared through the sky.
Amidst the wind and snow, figures identical to Lin Yi emerged from all directions.
Their eyes were vacant, but their movements were as fast as ghosts, and each of them possessed seven to eight tenths of Lin Yi's original combat power.
"You came really fast." The clone Lin Yi snorted coldly, and his figure instantly became blurry.
【Space Folding, A Thousand Shadows!】
In an instant, hundreds of "Lin Yi" appeared on the battlefield, each exuding the same aura, making it difficult to distinguish the real from the fake.
Using his exquisite control over the laws of space, he created countless mirror images, instantly disrupting the enemy's attack formation.
"Roar!" Long Wu let out a deafening dragon roar. Without the slightest hesitation, he spat out a mouthful of pure true dragon blood, which turned into a scarlet flame in the air.
【Burning Shadow Flames!】
The flames cause almost no harm to physical entities, but to these replicas constructed of energy and information, they are like maggots clinging to the bone. Once they are touched, they will burn them to ashes, starting from their energy core.
The battle instantly intensified.
Lin Yi's clones weaved through countless mirror images, like ghostly dancers on the battlefield, precisely avoiding fatal attacks while guiding Long Wu's flames to their target.
However, the most thrilling moment still arrived.
Just as the clone Lin Yi was about to use a spatial fold to teleport behind a fake Lin Yi to launch a surprise attack, the fake Lin Yi seemed to have anticipated all his movements, suddenly turned around, and threw a punch.
On the fist, there was a spatial fluctuation exactly like that of Lin Yi's clone!
The clone Lin Yi was hit solidly by this punch, and his whole body flew backward, smashing a large section of the ice wall.
He stared in astonishment at the enemy, whose face was no longer empty and numb, but instead bore a cold, intelligent sneer.
“Every tactical choice you make originates from Lin Yi’s combat database. And we share the same database.” The fake Lin Yi spoke coldly, his voice hoarse and eerie, “In the end, you are just a shadow.”
These words, like a poisonous thorn, pierced deeply into the core of Lin Yi's consciousness.
But he didn't have time to experience this sorrow that stemmed from existence itself.
He gritted his teeth, forcibly suppressing his surging blood and qi, and led his battered team, under Long Wu's cover, to fight their way out and finally break into the core control room of the Ark deep within the Antarctic ruins.
Inside the enormous circular control room, countless red alarm lights flashed on the cold metal walls.
Through the huge porthole, one could see that the massive, dark army of the fake Lin Yi had completely surrounded the area.
They have no way out.
"Chu Yao, how's the preparation for the 'Shadow Devourer' virus going?" Lin Yi, the clone, asked, panting heavily. His left arm had become unstable and translucent, a sign of excessive energy consumption.
"It's already loaded into the broadcast system and can be released at any time! But we can only buy you three minutes at most!" Chu Yao's face was also pale.
Three minutes.
Lin Yi, the clone, smiled bitterly.
Three minutes was simply not enough for them to launch any effective counterattack.
His gaze finally settled on the red button in the center of the console, which was covered by triple protection.
That's the self-destruct program in the Ark's core.
"My mission has come to an end," he said softly, his voice filled with a sense of relief.
He was a shadow, a decoy, and now he will fulfill his final purpose—to perish together with this polluted core and with the endless "self" outside.
He raised his hand, his trembling fingertips slowly reaching for the button that would decide everything.
Long Wu and Chu Yao tried to stop him, but he stopped them with a resolute look in his eyes.
The cold metallic touch came from my fingertips; the breath of death was close at hand.
Just a split second before his finger was about to press down—
"Don't rush."
A familiar, steady voice, yet carrying a hint of distant etherealness, suddenly rang out from all of their communicators, crystal clear.
"I'm just one last step away—"
"Cognitive regression".
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