Chapter 462: Chapter 462 Lin Xue’s Warning

Explaining things about gods, worlds, and multi-universes to Artemis is quite a hassle, of course. The biggest challenge isn’t how to make her believe in the existence of gods and understand the principles of parallel spaces. Having experienced so many incredible things, this girl’s acceptance level had soared to an unbelievable height. She could basically take our word for anything. The real challenge was…

How to get her to link us, a bunch of inescapable characters, with those epic novel-worthy details, especially the setting where two gods had recently dined with her in the school’s cafeteria. For her, this was clearly too bizarre to grasp.

Thankfully, this problem was perfectly resolved after Monina and Yelsen ascended in broad daylight.

“Ascended, huh…”

Outside the gym, Artemis stared blankly at the slowly closing space vortex above, speaking with a dazed expression.

And I was pondering which was prettier–Monina’s dark wings or Yelsen’s holy light wings in comparison to our own angel’s.

“Lord Brother, wings are bound, not tradable…”

Alaya sensed what I was thinking and timidly spoke in my mind, her voice full of concern that I might actually decide to pluck her wings off one day and replace them with a new pair.

Psh, who would be so foolish? Wings are expensive these days; wouldn’t I just dye them?

“Wood, you’ve completely lost your way!” Since all these thoughts were shared on a public channel, Lin Xue unsurprisingly heard my exchange with Alaya and couldn’t help but criticize our bizarre topic of discussion, despite being somewhat immune to it due to her familiarity with us.

“Psh, suddenly seeing two different sets of wings and you expect me not to feel envious?” I glanced sideways at Lin Xue as she was fixing her hair, “Speaking of which, you being a great prophet, didn’t you think you’d end up hanging from a tree when setting coordinates?”

Lin Xue immediately bared her teeth and swung a punch at me: “How dare you say that! Coming out from that dangerous half-plane, did you think it was easy?! Seeing Miss Lin hanging from a tree and you didn’t even think to come hold me down!?”

Hold you down my ass! Would holding you end in anything but you relentlessly calling me a pervert and complaining to death?

“Artemis, go gather your friends,” Big Sister said smilingly as she watched us, shaking her head then turning to the still dazed blonde girl tied in a ponytail, “Although I don’t know what troubles might arise during the mounting process, a bit of precaution is certainly necessary.”

“Then… what about you guys?”

“We need to prepare too. After all, our main goal isn’t just to rescue you all but to deal with a bigger threat,” I said with a smile, connecting the communication with Shadow City, “Sandora, have the documents we sent been transferred completely?”

“Bubbles is analyzing them now; you guys really hit the jackpot this time,” Sandora’s voice sounded rather envious, “Perhaps we should thank that mastermind behind the scenes.”

“Let’s talk after everything succeeds.” I replied and then ended the call.

Artemis had already left, eagerly going to gather her classmates. When Big Sister told her that we had found a possible way to rescue them from their nightmare, this usually calm girl almost burst into tears. Although she had calmed down after leaving the half-plane, without a doubt, more intense emotions would be unleashed when she faced her companions. It was probably best that we didn’t get involved in that scene.

“Girl Lin, what do you think those Fallen Apostles steal a world management terminal for?”

As I walked slowly toward the old building district, I suddenly remembered this question and couldn’t help but ask it curiously. As a prophet, even for things that couldn’t be predicted, Lin Xue would usually rely on mystic perception to make her own deductions. Once those ambiguous things were successfully explained, they were essentially facts.

“Who knows…” Lin Xue started by curling her lips but I knew she had more to say, “The World Management Terminal is exclusively for the Divine Race; the World Arbitration Agency used by Xyrin People and that terminal are completely incompatible systems. The Fallen Apostles have no use for that thing at all; maybe it’s just a collecting obsession?”

Don’t you think this kind of collecting is bizarre to a certain extent?

“Wood, do you still remember what Visca once said about the mysterious and grand plan of the Fallen Apostles?”

I recalled for a moment, then a phrase suddenly crossed my mind: “…they’re not just out to destroy…they destroy the world in a ritualistic process…”

“Ritual?” I voiced the particularly striking word from my memory. For some reason, this word was quite clear in my mind, and it was solely this keyword that helped me recall the phrase Visca had mentioned.

“Directly attacking the World Management Terminal to destroy the world undoubtedly requires taking great risks, and even methods that break through the Half-plane Barrier are dangerous,” Lin Xue swiftly closed her eyes, repeatedly sorting through the slightly clearer future emerging in the vague midst with her abilities while moving slowly along, “But if it’s to complete that ritual, leading to the world’s necessity to be destroyed by ‘core destruction,’ perhaps that could explain why they would use this method to destroy the world, and also…Ah!”

Sure enough, she tripped… That’s what you get for not watching where you’re going! Do you really think your perception abilities are invincible? Even Alaya can emit a hundred thousand volts while walking but still stumbles, right?

However, I chose not to stand by this time, previously riled by Lin Xue’s complaint. I stepped forward preemptively to catch Miss about to dramatically face-plant, resulting in her face turning red all the way to her neck.

“Mistake! It was just a minor mistake!” Lin Xue awkwardly waved her hand, then as if to vent her frustration, she turned and found the culprit that had tripped her: a section of reinforced concrete barrier buried in the ground.

“Bang!!!”

A loud explosion and dust filled the air, and the concrete barrier turned into fragments filling the sky.

“Uh… You were saying something, feel free to continue…” I quickly tried to divert her attention, gaping at Lin Xue’s swift violent action. If this girl suddenly realizes the moment she crashed into my arms was witnessed fully by Big Sister and the others, isn’t she going to kick me flying next?

That’s when Lin Xue’s occasional dullness, typically sharp-minded, became apparent. Look, even the usually carefree Qianqian now knows to pinch my waist from behind…

“Although everything is still very blurry, something a bit more precise has surfaced,” Lin Xue spoke irritably but finally wasn’t focused on the little embarrassment moments ago, “I’ve always been seeing some quite bizarre images, those things regarding the ultimate purpose of the Fallen Apostles. The information obtained today should be filling in a crucial link needed to interpret the future, with two segments becoming clearer. First, they are collecting something, but ‘that thing’ is just a murky shadow in the predictions. Based on my experience, it’s either because someone is interfering, making me unable to see the related images, or that thing is uncertain, presenting different states in different event trajectories. I think the latter possibility is greater; after all, the Fallen Apostles can’t determine every single thing I am to predict, and using strong energy to interfere with my investigation would surely drain a lot of their resources.”

They are collecting something? Does that include a World Management Terminal?

“Only heaven knows,” faced with my guess, Lin Xue didn’t refute directly for the first time, “If it is part of a grand plan of the Fallen Apostles, just one or two vague segments can’t possibly reveal too much, but my intuition tells me, Wood, you guessed it right.”

“And the second segment?”

What use the Fallen Apostles want with the Divine Race’s world management terminal system is a question likely no one can figure out in the short term. My concern is, what else did Lin Xue see that’s more important? In combating a lethal enemy hidden in the shadows, even a casual word from a prophet could potentially become the deciding factor for victory.

Of course, excluding tomorrow’s weather forecast.

“This prediction is somewhat special; its future trajectory will be influenced the moment I utter it,” Lin Xue seemed quite hesitant regarding the second segment she saw; she paused for a moment, then shifted her gaze toward Big Sister and the others, “Only Wood can listen to this.”

“Is there such a requirement?” Qianqian looked doubtfully at Lin Xue’s serious expression. “Really?”

“You should also understand the uncertainty of the future, shouldn’t you? If you extrapolate the flow of time a bit, you might see how far the butterfly effect can be magnified,” Lin Xue said gravely, “Don’t worry, although I can’t tell you about this prediction, you can ask the piece of wood later yourself, since he always speaks without reservation in front of you.”

Qianqian still seemed a bit skeptical, but Big Sister stepped up to prioritize the bigger picture. She took Qianqian’s hand and Lilina, who planned to disguise herself as a cactus on the concrete, leaving only me and Lin Xue standing on the deserted campus path.

“Wood, take good care of yourself.”

After a few seconds of silence, Lin Xue suddenly spoke in a tone I had never heard her use before. She kept her head slightly lowered, not letting me see her expression, but from her serious and…concerned–to truly describe it, concerned tone–I seemed to sense something more.

“Uh…you’re not going to tell me that there’s a death omen above my head, are you?”

I said jokingly; topics such as “the death omen twinkles” were not uncommon from her, every time creating a creepy atmosphere to declare that the death omen flickered brightly above my head, using it to extort heaps of Xyrin trinkets from me–enough for her to dismantle over several days.

“I am not joking,” Lin Xue said earnestly. “You are the enemy’s primary target, or maybe you are the biggest threat to them. I am not sure which assumption is correct, or perhaps both are. In that half-plane, I saw metaphors that are incredibly disturbing; killing you has even been incorporated into their grand plans. Wood, could you just take this seriously? They’re crafting the plan to attack you with the same seriousness as if they were destroying the world!”

I was stunned for a moment. Naturally, I wouldn’t doubt her words. Ever since Lin Xue became our partner, whenever she seriously shared her predictions, they had never been wrong.

“Oh, I see, what’s next then?”

Many thoughts flashed through my mind, but in the end, my response was nonchalant.

“Wood!!” Lin Xue suddenly exploded. “Are you even listening to me?! Do you know how much effort I put into clarifying the metaphors that have been appearing for a long time?! They’re planning every move on how to eliminate you! You’re always like this, always lazy, unmotivated, indifferent to everything, without goals, without drive, without plans, just muddling through….”

Lin Xue’s ventilating speech abruptly stopped because I suddenly pressed my hand heavily on her head.

“Ah, yeah, you’re right,” I said with a smile, tapping on the bewildered Miss’s head twice, “but what about it? What do you think I should do about the potential attacks from the enemy? Hide myself in a hole? Wait for next spring to become a pile of wood?”

Lin Xue: “…”

“As the current leader of the Xyrin Empire’s surviving forces, it makes perfect sense that I am placed first by the Fallen Apostle to be eliminated. Even if you hadn’t told me, I knew this. The Fallen Apostles aren’t fools; they wouldn’t ignore such an obvious threat and allow it to grow stronger. From the beginning, I knew they had their eyes on me and I had no intention of running away, so your prediction is all the same…well, it’s still a bit useful. At the very least, we now know one thing: I might pose a huge threat to the Fallen Apostles, a threat so significant that they included me in their world-destroying plans. This is good news; it might give us a direction for our future actions. In summary, your prediction only brought me good news–get it?”

“Wood…” Lin Xue stared at me blankly; the usually shrewd Miss was now looking somewhat foolish. Then she suddenly reacted, swatting away the hand that had been messing with her hair. “You really are a monster… Fine, since you’re not completely foolish, I won’t waste my affection!”

With that harsh line, Lin Xue huffily turned and walked forward. She looked quite imposing, assuming one ignored her evidently anxious pace.

What an incurable tsundere.

As this thought crossed my mind, I still quickened my steps to catch up with her.

In the small square in front of the old building, approximately twenty “Awakeners” had already gathered under Artemis’s leadership. She must have already briefed these people on the general situation. Of course, some technical details that no one understood were probably beyond her explanation, but from the “Awakeners'” eyes filled with a mix of anticipation, excitement, and even more confusion and doubt, it was clear that Artemis had as exhaustively as possible communicated what she could comprehend to her companions.

Big Sister and the others saw me and Lin Xue appear, and immediately rushed over to greet us first, with Qianqian jumping up first, curiously getting in my face, “Ah Jun, Ah Jun! What did Lin Xue tell you?”

“Just trivial stuff, just that the Fallen Apostle really wants to kill me.”

I mentioned it nonchalantly.

“Ah!!” Qianqian instantly screamed, then looked around nervously, as if a Terminator coming to assassinate the leader of the human rebellion might spring out of the bushes nearby.

“Ah Jun, what’s going on?” Big Sister frowned, my careless tone and the explosive fact it implied made her quite concerned.

“Relax,” I knocked on Qianqian’s head, stopping her foolish actions of looking everywhere for assassins, “Lin Xue is just being oversensitive. Think about it, when have the Fallen Apostles not been out to kill me?”

Qianqian paused, then nodded, “Oh, that’s also true.”

Hey! Even if it’s true, you shouldn’t accept it so readily! Have a little heart, will you!?

“Don’t worry, boss is as hard to kill as a cockroach, he won’t die,” Lilina said as she walked over nonchalantly, holding a lollipop, “The connection to the World Tree has been established, and Bubbles on that side has also loaded the last batch of preset data, don’t you want to say something before we start?”

Following the direction Lilina was pointing, I met Hu Wen and others’ eyes, which were asking for an explanation.

“Yo!” Reflexively, I grinned and waved at them.

“Yo your sister!” Lilina jumped up and headbutted my chin, “Ah… that hurts…”

Lilina’s headbutt VS the Emperor’s chin, the former once again utterly defeated–this girl really thinks she’s Pandora, thinking she could use her headbutt on me as if it could penetrate a warship’s armor!

“Artemis should have already told you guys about the situation,” I said, facing the curious looks from Hu Wen and others, not knowing where to start, “In any case, we will handle everything. It is a bit early to say this, but according to the central computer’s simulations, the success rate is 100%.”

“Who exactly are you? Aren’t you the Awakeners of this place?”

Hu Wen still felt it unbelievable, in their view, the bunch of odd characters in front of them were only new members who had recently joined the Awakeners’ ranks, just the other day they still needed to be shown around, and suddenly they were turning into saviors, a plot twist that was hard to accept.

“Well, you can call us the Salvation Army.” Lilina chomped on her lollipop, her words a bit muffled.

“No, that’s not right! It’s Boundless Love! We are special envoys from the inter-universe humanitarian organization Boundless Love!” Qianqian pressed down Lilina’s excited little head, firmly correcting her.

Lin Xue looked around innocently, raising her hand, “Actually, I think I’m a high-level cadre of the Human Superpower Team…”

I shrugged, “I even thought we were all leaders of the Xyrin.”

Big Sister noticed everyone’s eyes were on her again, she quickly turned her head, “I’m just the nanny, I don’t get involved!”