On Jiuzhou Star, at the Life Safety Center, Lin Xiaohe stood guard by Lin Jingqiu’s side, her brows knitted with worry.
Old Blackie tried to comfort her. “There’s a good chance she’s about to awaken. Look on the bright side—our understanding of prehistoric civilization is about to take another leap forward.”
Sigh.
Lin Xiaohe let out a quiet breath. She hoped her second sister would still be her second sister. She couldn’t even begin to imagine how she’d feel or what kind of face she’d put on if that woman in the bed turned out to be someone else entirely.
On the hospital bed, Lin Jingqiu’s eyeballs were darting around rapidly, as if she was about to wake up.
Lin Xiaohe shot to her feet and grabbed Lin Jingqiu’s hand. She was just about to call for help when her entire body froze.
It was hard to describe the feeling. It wasn’t physical discomfort, nor was it a disturbance in her mental energy, and it wasn’t a glitch in the fourth dimension either. It was more like—somewhere in the unseen fabric of things, something had gone just slightly off-kilter.
Imagine the universe as a spiderweb so tightly woven not even a speck of dust could slip through. Now imagine one single, tiny thread in that web being gently plucked.
Lin Xiaohe sensed a powerful surge of spacetime force, as if it was trying to alter something on her.
The feeling was terrible—utterly uncontrollable.
Alarms blared in Lin Xiaohe’s mind. She took one last look at her second sister, who had just opened her eyes and was murmuring weakly, “Little sister… I’m awake.”
Relieved, Lin Xiaohe set that worry aside and threw all her focus into dealing with this sudden change.
She urgently summoned Little Black and ordered it to take the Giant Tomb back to the 4th-dimensional sanctuary.
The moment she arrived at the sanctuary, she saw a spinning vortex suddenly tear open in the fourth dimension.
The vortex grew larger and larger.
Plop!
It was the sound of something breaking through.
Lin Xiaohe and Little Black felt as if they’d been dropped into a bottomless pit.
The walls of the pit were covered in fragments of color.
There were scenes of Lin Xiaohe staying up late, cramming for her college entrance exams. Scenes of her playing cat and mouse with Lianhua Mu. Scenes of her second sister, Lin Jingqiu, holding her tight, as if they were sitting inside an ancient, ornately decorated boat…
When her feet finally touched solid ground, all five of her senses came rushing back.
Lin Xiaohe stood alert, using her mental energy to scout the area.
But in this silent, enclosed space, her mental energy vanished like a stone dropped into the ocean.
With no way to use her mental powers, Lin Xiaohe might as well have been deaf and blind. Her field of vision and perception shrank to that of an ordinary person.
Little Black shifted uneasily, taking a step forward. Without the Giant Tomb, it felt terribly exposed—like running around naked.
“Don’t move,” Lin Xiaohe said quickly.
Little Black went still.
The quiet space was utterly silent. The ground beneath their feet seemed to be made of soil, and from it came a faint, almost imperceptible hissing sound.
Crack!
The layer of soil underfoot gave way like a thin, brittle cracker, finally unable to bear the weight of the girl and the bug. It collapsed completely.
Lin Xiaohe and Little Black fell through empty space, tumbling into a large, sturdy tunnel.
The tunnel was nearly vertical, and incredibly tough. Little Black’s sharp limbs couldn’t even leave a scratch on its surface, let alone slow their descent.
They fell, and fell, and fell some more.
Lin Xiaohe had no idea how much time had passed. She felt like she’d been hurled into the air and was now arcing downward.
The same Lin Xiaohe who had once roamed freely across the cosmos now had none of her strength or tools left. It was as if she’d been reduced to that powerless girl from the very beginning.
Crack.
Little Black hit the ground first, hastily extending its tentacles to wrap around Lin Xiaohe, struggling to beat its wings.
It let out a loud, defiant cry, using every ounce of its strength to finally break their downward momentum.
Lin Xiaohe’s hair stood on end, cold sweat drenching her back.
Below her, ahead of her, all around her—stretched an endless, boundless graveyard.
Warships of every imaginable shape and size jutted out at odd angles across a luminous green world, as far as the eye could see.
“Let’s go down for a closer look.”
Little Black controlled its altitude, descending to a spot close enough to see the warships clearly, but far enough to keep a safe distance.
Using Little Black’s vision, Lin Xiaohe studied the entire graveyard of ships.
The shapes of these vessels were bizarre—nothing like any Federation or Imperial warship she knew, and nothing like the holy ships of the Shaman civilization either.
They were seamless, with no trace of joints or assembly. It was as if they had been born as warships.
And they were enormous. Lin Xiaohe was nothing more than an ant before them.
Where did these warships come from? Who piloted them? Where was this place? And why had they all crashed in the very same spot?
This place made no effort to hide its strangeness—as if it wanted you to know something was off.
“Little Black, keep flying.”
They flew farther and farther. After passing the ship graveyard, they began to see the remains of colossal creatures.
Some of these remains were humanoid; others belonged to species she couldn’t identify. It was impossible to tell what relationships existed between them. The only common thread was their immense size.
Flying onward, they came upon more than ten thousand skulls hanging in the air.
These skulls had no flesh or hair; their bones gleamed with a crystalline light.
For some reason, Lin Xiaohe felt a nagging sense that she had seen them somewhere before.
Clack-clack-clack-clack.
The jawbones of the skeletons chattered away, as if trying to say something. But without tongues, all that came out was the hollow clattering of bone against bone.
To be honest, ten thousand skulls all swiveling to face you at once was deeply unsettling.
Lin Xiaohe swallowed hard and told Little Black to keep moving forward.
As she flew farther away, the skulls grew agitated, their jaws clacking faster and faster.
A few tried to fly toward her, but were yanked back by ropes as black as ink. The sheer force of the pull sent them swinging back and forth through the air.
Lin Xiaohe stopped and studied the skulls closely. She sensed no hostility from them.
“You don’t want me to go any farther?”
The skulls bobbed up and down, as if nodding.
Lin Xiaohe hesitated.
Just then, far off in the distance, an invisible wind seemed to blow away a thick veil of mist, revealing a tall altar.
Gradually, the entire space filled with a low, mournful wail—bleak, sorrowful, and desolate.
These sounds were so packed with emotion they made one’s very soul tremble.
Pity. Repentance. Bottomless hatred. Regret. Anger. Despair…
Every negative emotion a human being could possibly feel was woven together in that chorus.
Lin Xiaohe stood frozen, dazed. These gut-wrenching feelings crashed over her like waves, one after another, threatening to drown her completely.
As if possessed, she ignored the terrified, trembling skulls and steered Little Black toward the altar.
The altar gleamed as if brand new.
Lin Xiaohe dismounted from Little Black and moved as if to kneel.
But just as her knees were about to touch the altar, she jolted back to her senses.
Why the hell am I kneeling?!
A Chinese person kneels to Heaven, to Earth, and to their ancestors. Who exactly was she supposed to be kneeling to on this altar?
In that critical moment, a streak of white light slammed into Lin Xiaohe with tremendous force.
It was the Divine Lord, who had been waiting in the wings all this time!
A smug, triumphant smile curled across his face—but in the very next second, that smile froze solid.
He had phased right through Lin Xiaohe’s body!
What the hell?!
