When the cocoon of light dissipated, Long Wu's knuckles pinched out a bluish-white crescent moon on the corner of his clothes.
He stared at the faint golden light trails remaining on the ground, his Adam's apple bobbing. Suddenly, he bent down and picked up a piece of metal—a fragment of the mask Lin Yi had just put on his face, with some bloodstains still stuck to the edge.
"Vitality synchronization failed." Chu Yao's projection suddenly condensed beside him, data streaming from her eyes. "The mainframe's residual computing power is reconstructing the interface protocol; dual-channel activation is now required."
Long Wu whirled his head, a shard of the mask leaving a red mark on his palm: "What dual-channel?"
"Real-world neural connections and projection into the sea of consciousness," Xuanmingzi's voice came from behind.
He held the cracked compass in his hands. The green mist within the cracks had dissipated, revealing half a fragment of a jade pendant engraved with the character "Lin." "This is... the core technology of the 'Faith Project' from twenty years ago." His fingertips gently traced the jade pendant, a flicker of pain in his eyes. "Back then, they wanted to use consciousness resonance to condense the spiritual power of millions of people into a key."
"So this crappy server is a prototype?" Ivan twirled his short blade, sparks flying from the runes on it. "If it triggers resonance, will the boss's consciousness be torn to shreds?"
Chu Yao's projection split into three, each displaying a data stream in front of the three people: "According to the residual code, the access port of Divine Realm-A is adapting to Lin Yi's frequency—" Her voice suddenly turned two degrees colder, "It's an active adaptation."
It's like...waiting for him.
Long Wu's Dragon Scale Blade whistled as it was drawn half an inch from its sheath, the blade reflecting the taut lines of his jaw: "Then should we still let him go?"
"Because he has to go."
Everyone turned around.
Before anyone knew it, Lin Yi was already standing in the center of the light trail.
He pulled out a black tactical vest from somewhere, the time-space emblem on his chest glowing faintly beneath the fabric.
The torn hem of his clothes, which had been swept away by the light stream, had been roughly tied up, revealing a section of his muscular forearm, on which were still faint red marks from the burns caused by the light cocoon.
"Old Dragon." He walked towards Dragon Five, reaching out to press down on the other's hand gripping the hilt of the knife. "Outer perimeter security is your responsibility." Dragon Five's fingers trembled, yet he still gripped the hilt tightly, the fragments of the mask in his palm almost digging into his flesh.
"Ivan." Lin Yi turned to the man with his arms crossed. "Monitoring consciousness fluctuations—you were most familiar with this kind of mental disturbance when you were the host." Ivan's short blade suddenly vanished into thin air, reappearing embedded in the metal box at his feet, runes glowing a ghostly blue: "If resonance is detected, I can forcibly pull him back."
"Chu Yao." Lin Yi looked up at the projection entwined with data streams. "Maintain a stable connection." Chu Yao's fingertips drew silver lines in the air, and the code wall instantly enveloped the entire camp: "For every 1% drop in synchronization rate, I will implant a wake-up anchor in his sea of consciousness."
Finally, he looked at Xuanmingzi.
The old man was carefully putting the jade pendant fragments into the compass's hidden compartment when he heard the name. His fingertips paused: "A backup plan to cut off the signal... You really want me to prepare it?"
"What if I get locked in there?" Lin Yi tugged at the collar of his tactical vest, revealing a faint spacetime emblem on his collarbone. "This thing can tear space in reverse, but it needs an external trigger." He chuckled. "Back when you were the leader of the gang, managing the servers, you should know how to hack into the ports."
Xuan Mingzi suddenly reached out and wiped the dust from Lin Yi's hair with his sleeve: "Back in the newbie village, when you first triggered the spatial rift, I should have told you..." His voice was hoarse, "This jade pendant... belongs to your mother."
The camp suddenly fell into dead silence.
Long Wu's knife clattered to the ground, Ivan's short blade runes flickered violently, and Chu Yao's data stream experienced a brief disruption.
Lin Yi looked down at the emblem on his chest.
Pale golden light particles were moving along the skin's texture, as if in response to something.
He recalled that rainy night twenty years ago when the old man at the alley entrance gave him the bronze key; he recalled the faint female voice in his mind every time he triggered a spacetime rift; he recalled the look in Su Qing's eyes when she said, "You have a light that doesn't belong to this era."
"So this is the answer?" he said softly, reaching out to press Xuan Mingzi's hand on his shoulder. "Whatever's inside, I want to see for myself."
Chu Yao's projection suddenly turned entirely towards the light trail, and the data stream condensed into a countdown: "Dual-channel activation countdown—10."
Lin Yi released everyone's hands.
As he walked toward the trail of light, pale golden light particles on the ground automatically converged, forming a vortex beneath his feet.
Long Wu suddenly rushed up and shoved a piece of the mask into his palm: "Wear it!"
just in case...\"
"If I don't come back, use this thing as a token and lead the Time Air Force to break in." Lin Yi tucked the fragment behind his ear, the metallic coolness creeping into his veins through his skin.
As he turned around, he saw Ivan give him a "no problem" gesture, Xuanmingzi's compass glowed green again, and Chu Yao's code wall was thickening at a visible speed.
9.
He took a deep breath.
The emblem on his chest suddenly felt hot, as if a fire was about to burn through his ribs.
A subtle tremor came from the depths of my consciousness, as if some dormant being was being awakened.
8.
He picked up Long Wu's Dragon Scale Blade, its tip embedded in the edge of the light trail, the blade reflecting the tense faces of everyone.
7.
Ivan's short blade runes merged into a blue light, drawing a defensive array beneath his feet.
6.
Xuanmingzi's compass suddenly emitted green mist, enveloping the entire camp in a semi-transparent cocoon.
5.
Chu Yao's voice pierced through all the noise, clear as if it were right next to his ear: "Consciousness projection has been activated, reality connection synchronization in progress... Lin Yi, your consciousness frequency is resonating with Divine Realm-A."
4.
He felt an invisible hand pulling at his consciousness.
Fragments of memory began to surge: the white lab coat in the laboratory, the pale golden liquid in the glass jar, the bronze key in the crib, the touch of his mother's long hair brushing against the back of his hand.
3.
The heat of the Time-Space Emblem reached its peak.
He heard his own heartbeat, like war drums, like thunder, like the echo of the words "You have to choose for yourself" that he had heard countless times in the middle of the night over the past twenty years when he woke up in the middle of the night.
2.
Long Wu's roar pierced through the cocoon of light: "Boss—"
"1."
Suddenly, everything went completely dark.
When Lin Yi regained his focus, he found himself standing in a pure white space.
There was no ground beneath my feet, no sky above me, only countless specks of light floating like stardust, one of which, particularly bright, was twinkling at a familiar frequency—
The light particles were very similar to the spacetime emblem on his heart.
In the pure white space, Lin Yi's pupils shimmered with tiny golden light under the reflection of the code stream.
The points of light that had been floating like stardust suddenly accelerated, casting lines of flowing characters onto his retina—not Earth script, not game runes, but more like some kind of code etched into the origin of the universe.
"Welcome back, Believer Zero." The mechanical voice came from all directions, making his temples throb.
The frequency of the sound completely overlapped with the faint female voice deep within his consciousness, like two strings being plucked by the same force.
He recalled the bronze key the old man at the alley entrance had given him twenty years ago, and the burning sensation in his palm each time a spacetime rift opened—it was no coincidence after all.
"Do you confirm restarting the 'Faith Project'?"
Lin Yi's fingertips trembled slightly in the void.
He remembered Xuanmingzi saying the jade pendant belonged to his mother, Su Qing saying he had a light that didn't belong to this era, and the baby crib, white coat, and pale golden liquid in the glass jar that flashed in the cocoon of light.
Suddenly, all the fragments connected in his consciousness, stringing together a possibility he had never dared to imagine: the "Faith Project," the experiment from twenty years ago, the jade pendant left by his mother, and the time-space emblem on his chest that had been there since birth—
"Confirmed." He took a deep breath, his Adam's apple bobbing as he uttered the two words.
Before the words were even finished, a deluge of information flooded into his consciousness.
A sharp pain exploded from between his eyebrows.
Lin Yi staggered half a step and covered his ears with both hands.
He saw the laboratory from twenty years ago, a woman in a white lab coat placing an infant into an incubation chamber, the words "Believer Zero" flashing on the monitor screen outside the glass dome; he saw the woman insert half a jade pendant into the groove of a bronze key, the touch of her hair brushing against the back of his hand as she turned, overlapping with his memories; he saw a spaceship from an advanced civilization descend into the atmosphere, injecting the code for the "Infinite" game into the Earth's network, and the origin of all this pointed to a name buried by the river of time—
"Lin Wanqing." He uttered the name unconsciously, his voice torn to pieces by the code stream.
A piercing alarm suddenly sounded in the camp in the real world.
Chu Yao's projection distorted into gibberish in mid-air, and spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the originally stable code wall: "Abnormal vital signs!"
Heart rate 240, brainwave frequency exceeding human limits—his consciousness was being overwhelmed by a deluge of data!
Long Wu's Dragon Scale Blade slammed into the ground with a "clang," causing the metal box to vibrate and hum.
He took three strides to the edge of the light trail, the veins on the back of his dragon-scale-covered hands bulging: "I'll cut this damn space apart right now!"
"No!" Xuan Mingzi grabbed his wrist abruptly, the compass burning hot in his palm. "The spatial structure of Divine Realm-A is dynamic; forcibly tearing it apart will shred his consciousness!" Cold sweat beaded on his forehead as he stared at the spot where Lin Yi had disappeared. "Back then, the 'Faith Project' caused millions of people to suffer mental breakdowns because their consciousness capacity exceeded its limit... Now he's actively receiving a system rewrite..."
The runes on Ivan's short blade suddenly went out.
He knelt on one knee, palm on the ground, his Adam's apple bobbing as he uttered the words everyone dreaded most: "His mental energy fluctuations... are weakening."
The camp fell into a deathly silence.
Only Chu Yao's alarm continued to repeat mechanically, like a dull knife cutting into everyone's nerves.
In the pure white space, Lin Yi bit his mouth until it was full of blood.
He felt his consciousness being dismantled into the most basic light particles, and the spacetime abilities he once regarded as cheat codes were now all transformed into transparent threads, connecting him to the entire code space.
The pain suddenly subsided, replaced by a strange clarity—he saw how the underlying code of the "infinite" game was woven into a false reality, how advanced civilizations had set Earth as a "testing ground for civilization," and even more so, the truth behind the experiment twenty years ago:
Lin Wanqing, the mother, is the chief scientist of the "Faith Project". She uses her genes to merge with the spacetime technology of advanced civilization to create a "key" that can carry the consciousness of millions.
This key began to develop in him while he was still in his mother's womb—the time-space emblem on his chest is not a professional mark at all, but a manifestation of the "key core".
"So the mystery of Su Qing's background..." His consciousness chuckled softly within the code stream, "So the interdimensional invaders are in such a hurry to destroy Earth... It turns out they're not afraid of the 'infinite' game, but of this key truly awakening."
In reality, Chu Yao's data stream suddenly stabilized.
The garbled images in her pupils disappeared, and her voice returned to calm: "Vital signs are recovering... Brainwave frequencies are forming a new resonance pattern."
Xuanmingzi released Long Wu's wrist, and the green mist on the compass began to swirl again.
He stared at the golden particles remaining at the trace of light and suddenly remembered the boy in the starting village who triggered the spacetime rift for the first time—it turned out that from the very beginning, fate had placed the heaviest key in his hands.
"Don't interrupt..."
A faint sound seeped out from the light trail.
Long Wu looked up abruptly and saw pale golden light particles re-condensing into a blurry human figure, centered on the spot where Lin Yi had disappeared.
"I've seen the truth."
This time, the voice was so clear it seemed to resonate directly in everyone's minds.
Ivan's short blade runes glowed a ghostly blue again. He looked up at the trail of light and suddenly laughed: "That guy... what big move is he up to now?"
In the pure white space, Lin Yi's fingertips gently traced the floating code.
The information that had once given him splitting headaches was now as docile as a tamed band of light.
He saw his consciousness resonating with the core of the entire Divine Realm-A, and saw the ultimate goal of the "Faith Project"—not selection, not trials, but to forge a key that could pierce the blockade of advanced civilizations using the spiritual power of Earth's civilization.
"So..." His pupils suddenly shone with a galaxy-like brilliance, a light not belonging to humanity, but emanating from the very origin of time and space. "I am the original key."
The code stream suddenly began to spin wildly, forming a huge vortex beneath his feet.
Lin Yi felt something awakening deep within his consciousness, like a giant beast that had been dormant for twenty years finally opening its eyes.
At the center of the vortex, an even older and more colossal existence is emerging—the core of God Realm-A, the final answer his mother buried for him with her life twenty years ago.
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