Chapter 1 "This is..."

"This is..."

The village chief looked at Claude's photo and asked in confusion, "Where did you get this image from?"

"We met this person in the forest."

Li Ang asked, "Have you seen him before?"

"No, after the progeria became more severe, the people in our village rarely stepped out of the village."

The village chief replied, "But I have heard of him. According to word of mouth from my ancestors, there are many strange things lurking in the forest outside, including a bizarre, ugly, and crazy three-armed man.

Is he still alive?

According to the timeline, he has existed for at least two or three hundred years."

That long?

Li Ang's heart stirred. He exchanged a glance with Hohenheim, and they tacitly didn't mention that the new "medicine" promoted in the village earlier came from the three-armed man, Claude.

Soon, the group arrived at the foot of the mountain.

The village chief stepped forward, turned his back to the players, and pressed a certain spot on a stone at the foot of the mountain.

Rumble—

The mountain rocks suddenly trembled, accompanied by a large number of falling stones. A giant rock, weathered and cracked, slid smoothly to the left, revealing an arched entrance.

"Hoo..."

The village chief wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and led the others into the archway, arriving in front of an unremarkable stone gate.

The stone gate was generally grayish-white, unpolished, with a rough surface, and no door handle or keyhole.

Above it, there was a recessed vacancy, shaped like a rectangular cuboid.

The village chief signaled the players to take out the stone they had obtained in the underground palace earlier, flip the brick over, with the flowing cloud pattern facing outward,

And slowly insert the brick into the vacancy.

Since the stone gate was relatively high, Ding Zhensi completed the task of placing the brick.

The moment the brick perfectly fit into the vacancy, the flowing cloud pattern in the middle of the brick slowly lit up with a circle of dim white light.

The stone gate trembled, shaking off a large amount of dust.

Ding Zhensi controlled the Kui Niu mecha and took half a step back, ready to take out the [Gui Shi Jiu Miu] shield and hold it in front of him, blocking any possible attacks.

Several seconds passed, and nothing happened.

Li Ang coughed and asked the village chief, "Village chief, the key."

The village chief stared straight at the stone gate, stunned for a moment before he came back to his senses. "Oh, oh, sorry, I haven't actually seen the complete appearance of the Holy Mountain gate either..."

He smiled awkwardly, reached into his collar, took out a strangely shaped copper key resembling a slender stick,

And trotted to the stone gate, slowly placing the copper key with many grooves at the top onto the stone gate.

The copper key did not encounter any resistance and merged into the seemingly solid stone door.

Accompanied by a series of complex mechanical sounds resembling a gear system in operation, the stone door automatically split into two, left and right, sliding into the mountain, revealing a three-meter-high, oval-shaped halo of light.

The halo was generally white, with the outer ring brighter than the inner, constantly emitting visible white particles to the outside world.

The outer ring particles wandered randomly and irregularly, appearing and disappearing like sparks,

While the inner ring particles rotated counterclockwise as a whole, converging in the very center.

A door?!

The word flashed through the minds of all players at the instant they saw the halo.

The halo behind the stone gate was almost identical to the star gates they had seen in the real world, except for the color—star gates were diverse and varied, forged from starlight,

While the halo was purely white, and the constantly surging white particles made it look more unstable compared to star gates.

The village chief pulled out the copper key, took a few steps back,

Took a deep breath, his eyes reflecting the slowly rotating light gate, and said with a complex tone mixed with reverence, melancholy, regret, and other emotions, "This is the gate to the Holy Mountain."

He paused for a moment and looked at the warriors,

Interpreting the players' shock as surprise at the Holy Mountain gate, he said with a smile, "According to the rules set down by the ancestors, I will leave first.

This gate will only open for three minutes each time,

Brave warriors, please enter as soon as possible."

After speaking, the village chief put away the copper key and, under the protection of the village guards, quietly retreated from the mountain and disappeared around the corner.

Ding Zhensi looked at the oval of light and swallowed. "This is..."

"Mm."

Hohenheim nodded with a solemn expression, without explaining anything. He stepped forward and carefully examined the light gate.

"Behind this gate is just a solid mountain rock wall, with no more space."

Hohenheim said slowly, "In other words, this oval of light should be some kind of teleportation array. Stepping into it will teleport us to another location."

"The objective has been updated."

David looked up and said, "My current task is to enter the Holy Mountain and complete the trial."

"Me too."

Anbury nodded. The previous objective [Kill the magical beast, complete the village chief's request, and obtain the key to the Holy Mountain] had been completed and replaced with new text.

"Looks like we have to step into it."

Li Ang said thoughtfully, silently releasing the group mind link in his mental ability, pulling Ding Zhensi and Liu Wudai into the network.

[Eh?]

Before Ding Zhensi could react, Li Ang quickly introduced what he had learned from Liu Wudai earlier—the pattern engraved on the stone brick above the Holy Mountain gate had appeared in the Heterogeneous Academic Society's database.

Li Ang: [Do you know about this?]

Ding Zhensi: [Ah? This, I don't know. My job every day is to be studied. Because my Kui Niu mecha is quite special, in order to reduce the possibility of information leakage, I don't have permission to read some information that I don't need to know.]

The Kui Niu mecha of Ding Zhensi houses fragments of the soul of a strange beast excavated by the Special Affairs Bureau from the Qiumo (Prisoning Demons) Cave,

The pilots of the Mountain and Sea series mecha are not only the operators of the mecha, but also the [anchors] who suppress the soul fragments of the strange beasts and are mutually reinforcing,

When the mecha's power is released and enters a berserk state, the restrictions on the soul fragments of the strange beasts will be lifted, unleashing the potential power of the primordial strange beasts, greatly improving all aspects of the mecha's performance, even exceeding the limitations of the mecha itself.

But this also brings potential negative effects, namely, the pilot may be affected or even controlled by the soul of the strange beast in the long-term struggle with the spirit.

In order to reduce risks, Ding Zhensi and other Mountain and Sea mecha pilots are really just pilots. They will never be allowed to know what they shouldn't know, and their information permissions are lower than those of front-line agents like Xing Hechou.

Li Ang: [Okay. From the appearance, the similarity between this oval halo and the star gate is more than 70%. Considering that the pattern has appeared in the Heterogeneous Academic Society's database,

It cannot be ruled out that this script world is related to the Heterogeneous Academic Society.

Um... are the teleportation arrays on the Heterogeneous Academic Society's side similar to this thing?]

Ding Zhensi hesitated for a moment, [The teleportation array currently in use within the Special Affairs Bureau looks completely different from this.

Our teleportation array is made of talismans and formations from the Heterogeneous Academic Society, and it is continuously powered by a nuclear reactor-level power generation device.

It looks like a large cabinet, or rather a container.

If this thing is also a teleportation gate,

It should be more advanced than the teleportation array currently used by the Special Affairs Bureau.]

Li Ang: [Is that so...]

Is this halo a replica obtained by the Heterogeneous Academic Society by studying the star gate?

Or is this a star gate that the Heterogeneous Academic Society captured before?

A large number of possibilities intertwined in his mind. Li Ang smacked his lips, rubbed his palms, and sighed, "Take it as it comes.

But since the mission objective requires us to enter the teleportation gate, it proves that there are no directly fatal threats behind the teleportation gate, and there will be no settings like opening-the-door kills."

"Mm."

Hohenheim nodded, withdrew his gaze from the halo, and said lightly, "Everyone, remember to turn on your walkie-talkies later.

In case the teleportation gate randomly teleports us to different locations."

After speaking, Hohenheim took out a walkie-talkie from his backpack, pressed the button,

Tied the walkie-talkie with a rope,

And then threw the walkie-talkie into the halo like throwing a chain ball.

According to the description of [Inazuma Eleven Walkie-Talkie], Unit 1 can laterally observe the distance to other walkie-talkies, but this time, the flashing lights of Unit 1 did not change at all.

"Beyond the call range..."

Hohenheim's expression changed slightly. He reached out and tried to pull back the rope.

Pa ta.

The rope broke on its own as soon as it was pulled up. Hohenheim's expression became even more solemn as he held the broken rope.

It wasn't because he was worried that the walkie-talkie couldn't be retrieved,

The cross-section of the rope was extremely smooth, without any roughness, as if it had been gently cut by a high-frequency cutting knife.

Can only enter, cannot exit...

Hohenheim dropped the rope in his hand,

Downed a few bottles of magic potions, and the Book of Sand automatically turned pages, releasing several group buff spells on the players.

Increase group physical resistance, increase group magic resistance, group underwater breathing, group night vision, group cat's agility...

Circles of light of various colors immediately appeared under everyone's feet.

While drinking the magic potions, Hohenheim briefly introduced the effects and duration of the group buffs,

After making all the preparations, everyone stepped into the halo in turn.

————

It is now 5:30 PM.

Apartment complex, room, living room.

Miss Chai, wearing Li Ang's skin, sat upright and stared at the clock on the wall that was running steadily.

Five and a half hours, three hundred and thirty minutes, nineteen thousand eight hundred seconds have passed since Li Ang teleported away.

There was no change in the location where he disappeared,

No suddenly appearing bloodstains,

Nor any changes in smell, sound, or light.

It was as if Li Ang had disappeared from this room, erased forever.

Calm down...

Miss Chai took a deep breath, forcing herself to breathe steadily.

Her reason told her again and again that the script missions received by high-level players would not be simple,

Whether it was a complete role-playing mode or a direct teleportation,

It could take hours, or even days.

Li Ang had only been missing for less than six hours. Perhaps he was still in a script mission, intermittently making abnormal moves as usual,

Solving puzzles lightly between jokes, hammering the head of the final boss into the wall while spouting nonsense.

Miss Chai chuckled foolishly, as if the figure of Li Ang in a dragon-headed white coat appeared before her eyes,

Even though she was older than Li Ang, both in her life and after her death, she always felt a sense of security by Li Ang's side,

She always felt that she could ignore everything and just live a stable life by eating, drinking, and waiting to die every day,

She could even occasionally give up thinking and be a pure freeloader...

Wait, why do I feel like I'm a dog waiting for its owner to come home?!

Miss Chai suddenly reacted, shook her head, and slapped herself lightly to wake herself up.

The carefully polished skin conveyed a burning sensation back to her face,

Miss Chai glanced out of the corner of her eye at the Double Blade Turkey cowering under the TV cabinet,

Fortunately, that cerebrate had previously received Miss Chai's order and was now immersed in the earth cerebrates' psionic network with turbid and lifeless eyes, interacting quickly and efficiently with other cerebrates in different geographical locations through psionic energy,

Activating the Zerg (insect hive) mothership, allocating troops, and formulating a landing assault operation plan...

It did not notice the silly smile that had appeared on the Holy Maiden's face just now, or the undignified act of slapping herself for no reason.

Fortunately, I almost lost face in front of my subordinates.

Miss Chai breathed a sigh of relief imperceptibly, and her heart gradually fell again.

The first instruction engraved in the cerebrates' genes is to obey the creator, the lord of flesh and swamp, Li Ang,

The second instruction is to obey the Holy Maiden's command,

The third instruction is the development, reproduction, and growth of the Zerg.

Li Ang did not set a grand and distant goal for the Zerg. In order to facilitate control, all actions of the Zerg as a whole must be decided by him,

Whether to agree to execute the various plans formulated by the cerebrates.

But at the same time, Li Ang also formulated a backup plan,

Ensuring that if he died or disappeared for a long time, the Zerg could continue to develop and continue to protect Miss Chai, Wang Congshan, and the human civilization of Earth.

I just don't know what the specific implementation of the backup plan is like...

Miss Chai frowned, feeling that she had vaguely heard Li Ang's instructions, but that day she was lying on the sofa playing on her phone, grinning foolishly at the new skin of the mobile game character, and didn't listen carefully...

Tsk, those characters are misleading me!

If I forget the backup plan that Li Ang told me, causing the Zerg to lose control, then you mobile games are harmful and should kneel down and apologize to the people of the world!

Chai Chai gnashed her teeth and regretted it for a while, sighed heavily, and continued to sit upright, watching the clock on the wall continue to run.

Buzz—

The phone on the coffee table suddenly vibrated,

Chai Chai shuddered, rushed forward, picked up the phone,

Unfortunately, the caller ID was not Li Ang's backup number,

But Wang Congshan.

Chai Chai raised an eyebrow and answered the phone, "Hello?"

"Hello, Li Ang?"

Wang Congshan's natural voice came from the other end of the phone, "What are you doing right now?"