A flash of insight gleamed in the depths of Lin Xiaohe’s eyes.
When Changqing saw it, he thought to himself, Not good—he’d been too impatient and let this cunning little fox see through him!
The boundary monument’s countdown jumped to 12%.
Changqing’s heart gave a heavy thud along with it.
As expected, the very next second, he heard Lin Xiaohe’s meaningful voice.
“You came here for Kaylin Reno, didn’t you? What’s on her? Hmm, let me think. The Imperial Royal Family, the Federation’s Four Great Families—what do they have in common?”
They were all families with the purest bloodlines.
Changqing had already divided the Empire with Jörmungandr. The Imperial Royal Family must have fallen into their hands by now. So why would he still come looking for Kaylin Reno?
Changqing blinked, his eyes serious: “Deal or no deal? One Kaylin Reno in exchange for a one-in-ten-thousand path.”
“No deal.” Lin Xiaohe refused without even thinking.
“Ah, I knew it would be like this. You’ll come looking for me on your own.”
Changqing’s figure vanished from the fourth dimension.
When Lin Xiaohe returned to the third dimension, she saw Hardy and the others looking at her with worried expressions.
“It’s fine. Try to speed up the progress as much as you can. The sooner it’s done, the more security we’ll have.”
“Yes!”
Lin Xiaohe’s eyelid kept twitching. She couldn’t shake the feeling that Changqing’s last sentence had a hidden meaning.
She returned once again to Jiuzhou Star’s Life Safety Center. Kaylin Reno was here.
“Old Black, how’s Kaylin Reno’s condition?”
Old Black glanced at the instruments: “Basically a vegetative state. Barely maintaining bodily functions.”
Lin Xiaohe’s brow furrowed tightly.
She walked to Kaylin Reno’s sickbed. The woman on the bed had pale lips, delicate features, and tightly closed eyes. Compared to before, she seemed a bit more fragile.
“Old Black, is there a crystal like this inside her body?” Lin Xiaohe held out her palm, revealing a small crystal.
Old Black scanned it and said with absolute certainty: “No.”
Lin Xiaohe wasn’t disappointed.
Her thoughts raced. She couldn’t figure out why Changqing would come looking for her specifically over a single Kaylin Reno.
What exactly was special about Kaylin Reno?
Kaylin Reno lay on the sickbed like a worn-out doll, unable to answer Lin Xiaohe’s questions.
She wore white soft armor with seven or eight tears in it. Although the wounds had healed, the hideous scars still showed just how severe her injuries had once been.
The worst one was on her left chest, running almost all the way to her heart.
A flash of inspiration struck Lin Xiaohe as she remembered the last message Kaylin Reno had sent her.
“Old Black, if I want to take something out of her heart, can you keep her alive?”
Old Black pointed to the operating table nearby: “Put her there.”
Lin Xiaohe lifted Kaylin Reno in a princess carry and gently placed her on the operating table.
Old Black came over and pressed a button beside the table. A sterile barrier rose up instantly: “Sovereign, you may begin.”
Lin Xiaohe controlled the robotic arm to cut open Kaylin Reno’s chest and found the beating red heart.
Old Black scanned it once more with the instruments. Still nothing.
But in Lin Xiaohe’s eyes, inside the left atrium, something was emitting a faint blue glow.
She couldn’t help but reach out. The moment she touched the edge of the blue light, it sped along the third dimension at incredible speed and arrived at the fourth-dimensional Sanctuary.
Lin Xiaohe’s heart clenched. She hurried to follow, but only caught a tiny speck of the blue light.
Where did it go?
In just that brief moment, Lin Xiaohe had actually lost track of it.
Just then, Kaylin Reno, who had been unconscious all this time, suddenly opened her eyes.
Her eyes gradually regained clarity. Her hair was scattered on either side, and her body curled slightly under the intense pain in her heart. She looked at Lin Xiaohe coldly but said nothing.
Old Black’s hand hovered over the alarm, ready at any moment.
Lin Xiaohe snapped back to her senses. Meeting Kaylin Reno’s eyes, she cursed inwardly and said with certainty: “You’re not Kaylin Reno.”
This time, was it an Awakened One or an out-of-domain lifeform?
Lin Xiaohe was already used to it.
The Seventh Era civilization leaked like a sieve. It was quite possible that Awakened Ones and out-of-domain civilizations combined outnumbered genuine humans.
Kaylin Reno said nothing, her face cold and ruthless.
Lin Xiaohe didn’t want to fight on Jiuzhou Star. It was her home base, after all—if it got damaged, she’d be heartbroken.
“Talk. Don’t force me to interrogate you harshly.”
Kaylin Reno remained silent, gazing at Lin Xiaohe with cold, disdainful eyes—aloof and arrogant, as if looking at garbage.
Lin Xiaohe hadn’t been looked at with such contempt in a long time, and she certainly wasn’t going to indulge it: “The last person who dared look at me like that has already turned to ash. Take back that look.”
Kaylin Reno turned a deaf ear, still maintaining her lofty posture.
This kind of superiority was different from the original kind.
The old Kaylin Reno’s arrogance came from her rank and family—it was the contempt of the same race across different classes.
The current Kaylin Reno was more like a higher civilization looking down on a lower one.
Even though she was now at someone else’s mercy and no match for Lin Xiaohe, she felt no awe toward her. Deep down, she still despised ignorant, lowly creatures like Lin Xiaohe.
Lin Xiaohe now had a good idea. Most likely, this was another out-of-domain civilization.
She had little interest in Kaylin Reno. She casually sat down on a stool nearby and said indifferently: “The extinction crisis has progressed past 10%. I don’t have time to waste on you. If you’re willing to talk, I can let you stay. If you don’t open your mouth, I’ll have no choice but to throw you into the depths of the Dark Domain and let you fend for yourself.”
Kaylin Reno’s cold eyes flickered. A strange smile curved on her lips: “Where did your system go?”
Lin Xiaohe’s expression changed drastically. She shot to her feet, grabbed Kaylin Reno by the collar, and said icily: “Was it you people?”
The Plant Summoner System hadn’t appeared in a long time.
Lin Xiaohe’s body had been shattered and reassembled, even broken down to particle form, and still no trace of the system had been found.
Lin Xiaohe had always been bothered by this.
She was no longer the Lin Xiaohe who had just transmigrated. She no longer believed in fate or coincidence.
This star domain was like a gu-breeding ground. Every civilization was doing everything it could to survive. Some conspiracies even spanned several epochs.
The system’s existence was absolutely man-made! It was like a time bomb, ready to explode at any moment.
Lin Xiaohe couldn’t imagine what level of civilization could create a system!
Kaylin Reno stood up. Her heart was still bleeding profusely, but she didn’t seem to care at all.
She walked down from the sickbed and stopped one step away from Lin Xiaohe, looking down at her: “So many people have awakened. Haven’t you awakened yet? According to the sequence, you should obey me unconditionally. Now, hand over your body and welcome my descent!”
