Chapter 461: Chapter 461: The Missing xp Mother

“What is this place?!”

I looked around in astonishment at the mysterious and spectacular scene around me. A solitary stone slab platform, roughly several kilometers across, floated in endless darkness, surrounded by several slowly rotating, seemingly within reach, colossal planets. On those planets, you could even vaguely see the rise and fall of mountains and remnants of civilizations, while farther away shone the splendid stars, vast galaxies, and magnificent nebulas–like colorful ribbons floating, they added the only speck of color to the vacant, deadly silent, black night sky.

“I’m not quite sure yet, but I have a terrible guess…” Monina had also donned her black cloak, each hand wielding a narrow black straight dagger, from which wafted black smoke so intense I felt that just touching it might completely incinerate a soul.

Later, this guess was confirmed–the “Blazing Spirit Blade” could indeed cut through souls, even though its owner usually used the sharp divine weapon for mundane tasks like cutting vegetables, peeling fruit, chopping dumpling filling…

“Stupid brother, the task of leading the way is yours!”

“Why me…” Yelsen’s expression froze, then his gaze floated towards me reluctantly, “Isn’t there someone more suitable here… Eh, alright alright, I’ll do it.”

I looked confusedly at Monina, who explained with a smile, “Currently, we haven’t entered the Other Space in front just yet. A barrier, existing between the tangible and the illusory, prevents any physical entity from stepping onto this platform; thus, stepping out of the shadow zone below our feet leads an invader back into the gymnasium. Normally, crossing this kind of barrier would require a special key, but now, due to the massive explosion and resultant destruction, the barrier between the two spaces has weakened significantly. Bombarding it with a sufficiently strong energy should break the illusionary wall.”

That is to say, a master of Energy Science is needed. No wonder Yelsen said I’m more suitable for this job, but it’s your own fault for rashly shouting “I’ll lead the way” earlier.

Thus, Chunyuan Yangping must die, in every version.

Although his face showed reluctance, under his sister’s unyielding gaze, Yelsen obediently took action. He casually leaned the ornate Emblem Heavy Shield against his leg and tightly grasped the hilt of the Holy Feathered Longsword, striking a stance with his waist twisted and the sword tip forward. Visible Divine Energy fluctuations peeled from the Void around him, gathering more and more towards the increasingly bright Light Blade, and the intensifying energy even whipped up a whirlwind of pure Light Element in this airless place, centering on Yelsen’s golden sword in his grasp.

If you dare shout “Sword of Promised Victory” now, believe it or not, I’ll smack you so hard you’ll never grow a single hair of Dai Mao again!

I only criticize like this because Yelsen’s current appearance is too much like “that,” it’s not even funny… How about we compromise, and you call this move “Dynamic Light Wave” instead?

Fortunately, although it looked mightily impressive, Yelsen wasn’t using a named technique, but merely a simple release of energy, or I’d really worry he might shout some oath of xxoo later…

After a few seconds of charging, a powerful Holy Light Storm suddenly burst from the tip of the giant sword–an unadorned and even targetless release of pure energy. The unprecedented flash could instantly blind whoever stared directly at it. Despite promptly shutting my eyes, the light that felt like another sun exploding in front of me still made my retinas throb painfully. Hence, I had to yell at Lin Xue who had turned her head away from the start:

If you knew all along, would it have killed you, girl, to give me a heads-up?!

When everything gradually quietened down, I slowly opened my eyes. The shifting illusions in front of me shook a bit before eventually merging back together, re-forming the giant platform floating in mid-air.

It seemed as if nothing had changed, even the ground right in front of Yelsen, those ancient, dark gray stone slabs unmarred, but the subtle dissonance transmitted from my spiritual perception confirmed that I was indeed standing in another space.

“Okay, the Void Barrier has been broken.”

Yelsen set the giant sword on his shoulder, turned his head with a beaming sunny smile, looking every bit as glorious as a raid leader who just ordered his team to loot and carve equipment from a dragon he’s slain.

“Sure,” Monina nodded and then looked up blankly, “So, big dummy brother, you’ve destroyed all the barriers and passageways, how are we going to get out later? This is a half-plane used to store ‘that thing,’ you know~~”

“Clang,” Yelsen’s giant sword heavily struck the ground, and the once mighty Greek War God really turned into a waxy War God at this moment.

No way!! Is this guy’s brain filled with tofu?!

“Phew, I already knew,” Monina shook her head sadly and sighed, then her gaze drifted toward Lin Xue next to me, who was full of confidence, “Prophet, you have the outside coordinates, right?”

“How did you know?” Lin Xue made a surprised expression.

“Judging the complete personality traits of every person I meet, mastering everyone’s patterns of behavior, and determining the target’s current thoughts and actions based on the smallest clues — these are skills a Blade Ranger specializing in special operations and infiltration assassinations must master,” Monina said with a proud look on her face, “Otherwise, how could I have successfully skipped half a semester at the military academy back then?”

Don’t treat that as a proud part of your history, please!

But luckily, the perceptive Lin Xue had used her spiritual power to set coordinates in the outer space earlier, preventing us from getting lost in this reportedly troublesome half-plane. According to Monina, such half-planes are not naturally occurring but are specifically designed as confidential spaces for storing special “items” and have high security. Even though most of its defense mechanisms are now ruined, without clear external coordinates, teleporting out from here would be extremely dangerous, with a fifty percent chance of being thrown into a spatial misalignment zone.

The other fifty percent chance is to fall into the Endless Void…

Of course, the above troubles probably aren’t enough to kill us outliers, but just as toads don’t bite, they disgust you — spatial misalignment and the Endless Void might not kill us, but we’d be so dizzy that we might throw up our bile. And if someone’s bad luck with directions kicks in, they really might end up stuck there…well, it’s possible.

Not to mention, we now had a burdensome Artemis tagging along. Initially, my intention was for her, being a regular human, to stay outside or perhaps return first, considering that the Awakeners are now mostly relying on her power to maintain themselves. As a leader of the Awakeners, staying away from the main base for too long wasn’t a good idea — but the main reason was that she was too frail. Facing an unknown life-forbidden zone that doesn’t even have air, she wouldn’t stand a chance. However, Yelsen confidently cast a layer of “Grace from the Immortal Holy Hall” on this stubborn girl. Allegedly, this Law-level guardian skill can keep the protected person in an invincible state until the caster’s death, granting her an undead body. Artemis’s curiosity about the mysterious New World was fully stimulated as a result, and so, we ended up with a tricky little burden…

Therefore, though I knew she was in an invincible state, I couldn’t help but make every step as careful as possible. It’s not that I doubted Yelsen’s abilities as a War God or anything… Okay, I just feel this bonehead isn’t very reliable…

Yelsen’s role is that of a Star Domain Garrison Officer, a warrior specializing in defense, similar to Sicaro, but the latter is better at using skills and arrays to boost the entire army’s tactical defense capabilities in legion-level battles, while the former focuses on maximizing his personal defense and protection abilities for the squad. In our current small group operations, Yelsen clearly shows more ability than that bootleg salesman, although, when it comes to attributes of idiocy, it’s hard to say who is the better…

Cautiously holding his heavy shield, Yelsen carefully led the way, guiding us slowly toward the center of the platform. From this perspective, the hot-blooded idiot Yelsen did have a professional side: always vigilant, regardless of circumstances as still as dead water.

“What exactly is ahead?” As we gradually approached the central part of the platform, Lin Xue’s frown tightened, and finally, she couldn’t help but bring up the question hanging over all of our heads.

At least, Monina clearly knew something.

“As a Prophet, can’t you see it?”

“Not very clearly, but this is the place where the secret of the World Fragments is unraveled.”

“Your power is indeed amazing; even as a member of the Divine Race, I can only rely on experience to make such a judgment…” Monina suddenly sighed, then called out to the leading MT, “Idiot brother, no need to be on guard anymore. If you hadn’t skipped classes during your graduation year, you would know that it’s now impossible for any enemies to exist here.”

Me: “…So, you’re saying Yelsen has been performing a mime with the shield since just now?”

This Lady Dark Goddess really never misses a chance to torment her own brother.

Meanwhile, as Monina’s voice fell, Yelsen, holding the shield, suddenly stiffened, then petrified… uh, turned to ash, literally turned to ash!

Lilina, that terrible person, even poked Yelsen’s body twice with a branch and then turned to report to us, “Inform his family, I’ve done all I could.”

Ignoring how these shameless treasures interacted, at that time my sister and I were squatting on the ground and noticed something different.

Runes, although covered with the same dark gray ancient stone slabs as the surroundings, there were many vaguely familiar runes on this particular stone slab. After recalling a bit, I suddenly remembered that these were Divine Race script–thanks to Dingdang using them frequently, and because Lilina had released a Divine Technique not long ago, I recognized a bit of these elegant yet complex symbols.

“Divine-made space?”

Big Sister also recognized those characters and started mumbling to herself.

“Here, there should have originally been a colossal palace.”

Lin Xue gently touched those rough rune stone slabs with her fingers, then slowly stood up.

“Three-tiered ancient Baroque architecture with two Gothic high spires at the entrance and two postmodern Stone Humans at the front door, spot on! Just like that!”

Can’t you save your spiritual power for some useful predictions?

“Quite an accurate description…” Monina looked stunned for a moment, “Alright, as you said, there was once a huge palace here, a Divine Race building, known as the terminal of the Dark Imperial City.”

“Management terminal!?” My attention wasn’t on the few words about Divine Race architecture–the ubiquitous annoying folks selling Divine Artifacts in the Third Ring didn’t bother me, but the four words “management terminal” meant something different, “World’s XP lady?”

Big Sister tapped me on the head gently: “…Be serious, we’re saving the world here!” then turned her head aside, “Windows?”

Monina was already completely overwhelmed, or rather, assimilated by us, facing the Divine Court described as XP lady, she even nodded slightly in agreement: “Pretty much, each Star Domain God manages the world with a different operating system. The captain prefers the classic fool-proof World Tree because it loads mods quickly and doesn’t crash, the common functions can be handled with script but maintenance is a pain, hence only the Life God System would choose such life-like management terminals, but this one here… this ruin, based on the runes on the ground that once supported the palace and summarized the world’s information, should be the third version of Dark Imperial City, powerful performance, and good reliability. It’s a pity that because the version is a bit old, civilization evolution and traversal functions need manual setups, usually only hardcore tech enthusiasts would use this thing to manage the world.”

“The techie’s Divine Artifact,” I cried my heart out, prostrating on the ground, hands pressed against what seemed to be the foundation of God’s Palace but now just an OS in rune stone slabs, “Okay, so where has this palace gone?”

“Gone.”

Lin Xue’s eyes sparkled with a deep glow, all obscurities had disappeared, and the entire truth was unfolding before her eyes.

“The world was undergoing some important evolution when all this happened. The Dark Imperial City, serving as the management center, was invaded, but for some reason, the heavily guarded World Management Center didn’t put up any resistance at all. The destruction of the world happened in a second, not due to some super-energy explosion or a Revelation flash from outside the world but because the world system itself collapsed instantaneously.”

Did the Blue Screen also fry the CPU, huh?

“It completely matches the intelligence we’ve gathered so far,” Monina looked around. “I must report everything to the Divine Realm. This might be the first instance of the World Core going missing, but the related report must have already reached the Brilliant Divine Court. I need to see if they need this intelligence.”

“Who has the gall to steal… to steal the World Core?”

I hesitated for a moment but decided to describe it as “stolen.” The temples where the gods managed the world simply vanished into thin air–quite absurd…

“In fact, apart from its storage location — a highly secure half-plane, and the surrounding defense forces, the World Core itself didn’t have strong defensive capabilities. After all, it’s just a management terminal; nobody puts two Forbidden Curse Scrolls on the cover of their laptop, right?”

Yes, Pandora not only installed micro shield generators on every laptop at home but also mounted two laser guns beneath the lens of the digital camera I bought last year, damn it!

“However, despite the World Core itself not being particularly strong in defense, the security measures around it are very formidable, including encrypted half-plane protection. Basically, the only entities capable of breaching or circumventing the half-plane’s security and stealing it are…”

Monina suddenly paused, and then Big Sister continued, “Fallen Apostles…”

“I probably need to head back to the Divine Realm now,” Monina retracted her twin blades and picked up her brother-in-law from the side, who was still rather dazed. “If it really is the Fallen Apostles targeting the World Core, we must alert all divine worlds to heighten their vigilance. During the golden era of the Xyrin Empire, we taught a lot of half-plane technology to the Xyrin Apostles…”

Like, for instance, Shadow Space Technology.

“Well, I’m a bit embarrassed,” I said. Even as the counterpart to the Fallen Apostles, facing the current complex situation, I still didn’t know what to say. In ancient times, the gods had taught the Xyrin People almost all the half-plane technologies related to the security of the World Core. Thus, a world management terminal was stealthily stolen without any resistance.

Even a heartless person couldn’t laugh at this moment.

“No, you needn’t feel troubled by this,” Monina still wore a polite smile, her expression unchanged from before. “It has nothing to do with you all. We never take our anger out on others or let our emotions worsen the situation. The Xyrin Apostles and the gods are friends, and always will be.”

If these words came from anyone else, I might think they were being hypocritical, but coming from a member of the Star Domain Divine Race, the credibility just skyrocketed. They are such a Race, sometimes painfully fair in their dealings.

Basically, just pluck one out, toss them into a crowd, and they could pass for Jesus.

“Hold on,” just as Monina was about to say goodbye and we planned to return to the outer space, a voice suddenly interrupted. “Why do I suddenly feel… that your conversation is a bit strange?”

Artemis had noticed something was off–Monina, you slipped up just now, didn’t you?

“A mistake! That was a mistake!”

Monina’s face flushed as she gave a fierce push on the spine of the wildly laughing Yelsen, “Well, it doesn’t matter much. The issue will be resolved soon anyway, so telling her doesn’t hurt.” (To be continued. For more details, please visit www.wuxiaworld.site. More chapters, support the author, support genuine readings!)