Investiture of the Gods: Childhood Sweetheart Daji, Starting with Quasi-Saint Cultivation

When the elevator stopped on the fifteenth underground floor, Qiongxiao felt the silver light in her chest throb slightly.

It wasn't pain, but more like turning over in sleep, startled by a familiar presence. She pressed her hand to her chest, a flicker of doubt crossing her icy blue eyes—was Su Yunbai's fragment responding to the energy field here? But shouldn't he have no memories of the real world?

The elevator doors slid open, and the cold white emergency lights flooded in.

The corridor was more spacious than the upper floor, with matte metal walls and an anti-static mesh floor. There was a peculiar smell in the air: a mixture of ozone and the pungent odor of cryogenic liquid nitrogen, along with a hint of… burnt electronic components.

"Three months ago, an energy leak occurred at the Quark Binding Laboratory." Dr. Lin led the way, his voice echoing in the corridor. "It wasn't an explosion, but some kind of 'soft leak'—all the equipment suddenly stopped, the monitoring screen showed static for three seconds, and after it recovered, a persistent energy anomaly appeared in the target area of ​​the particle collider in the center of the laboratory."

"Abnormal behavior?" Wen Zhong asked. Although the old man had left the virtual world, his thinking habits remained militaristic and meticulous.

"Three levels," the physicist continued. "First, the gravitational readings around the target area exhibit periodic fluctuations, with extremely small amplitudes but a clear pattern, like a heartbeat. Second, the trajectories of all microscopic particles passing through the target area undergo inexplicable deflections; the deflection angle is independent of the particle type, depending only on time. Third…"

He paused, then looked at Qiongxiao.

"Third, energy fields respond to fluctuations in higher-dimensional consciousness. We tried to observe this with a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanner, and the instrument almost burned out—it detected not brain activity, but something like a 'soul' wandering in the energy field."

Qiongxiao stopped in her tracks.

Her gaze fell on the heavy, airtight door at the end of the corridor. The door was silver-gray, with a round observation window in the center, behind which lay bottomless darkness.

But what her "eyes" saw was not darkness.

It was a slowly rotating vortex of interwoven silver and blue light. At the center of the vortex, something flickered on and off, its rhythm perfectly synchronized with the throbbing of the silver light on her chest.

"Is that it?" she asked.

"Target control room." Dr. Lin nodded. "But we must put on protective suits first. The energy field contains unknown radiation, although the dose is extremely low, but..."

"No need," Qiongxiao interrupted. "Protective suits can't stop that kind of thing."

She walked toward the airtight door. The others exchanged glances and quickly followed.

The female officer sent by Zhao Liguo reached out to stop them, but Qin Su stopped her with a look. The old man sat in his wheelchair, his hands folded on his knees, as if waiting for a trial to begin.

"Let her go," Qin Su said. "Aren't we here to witness the truth?"

Qiongxiao stopped in front of the door.

She didn't touch the door, but simply placed her palm on the observation window. Ice-blue light seeped from her palm, spreading along the glass surface like frost flowers growing on a winter window. When the light touched the darkness on the other side of the glass, it suddenly accelerated and spun, outlining a complex runic array—the "Frost Breaking Array" she used to break barriers in the virtual world, which she was now instinctively using.

"Click".

A soft click came from the electronic lock inside the airtight door.

The door opened.

It didn't slide open; it slowly tilted inward, like a wall being pushed down. What surged out from behind the door wasn't air, but a kind of viscous, faintly glowing "presence," like the pressure of deep-sea water instantly filling the corridor.

Everyone held their breath.

Qiongxiao stepped into that light.

---

The target area control room was larger than she had imagined.

The circular space, over fifty meters in diameter, contained a massive circular track for a particle collider. The silvery-white metal pipes gleamed coldly in the ambient light. At the center of the track, where the target should have been, floated a ball of energy about three meters in diameter.

The surface of the sphere is not smooth, but rather interwoven with countless tiny silver-blue lightning bolts. The lightning bolts shuttle, collide, annihilate, and regenerate inside the sphere, like a never-ending microscopic storm.

But the strangest thing is the object suspended in the center of the sphere.

It is neither an instrument nor a particle beam target.

It is a chair.

An old-fashioned, cracked leather brain-computer interface recliner. A human-shaped silhouette reclines on the chair—semi-transparent, with blurred edges, like a reflection seen through frosted glass.

The figure's face was indistinct; it could only be vaguely discerned as a young man with his eyes closed and the corners of his mouth slightly upturned, as if he were having a pleasant dream.

A dozen or so data cables were inserted into his chest. These cables were not physical entities, but rather condensed energy phantoms extending from behind the chair and connecting to the outer wall of the sphere, trembling slightly with the flickering of lightning.

"That is..." Dr. Lin's voice trembled.

"Initial connection record of test subject E-7749." An unfamiliar male voice came from the corner of the control room.

Everyone turned their heads sharply.

A person stood in the shadows of the corner.

The man, around thirty years old, wore a wrinkled white lab coat, had messy hair, and thick glasses. He held an old-fashioned tablet computer in his hand, the screen displaying a data stream synchronized with the energy sphere.

"Nightingale?" Dr. Lin recognized the voice.

The man adjusted his glasses, neither denying it nor revealing anything. He stepped out of the shadows, the light illuminating his name tag: Li Wei, Level 3 Technician, Information Security Department.

"Three years ago, when Su Yunbai signed the brain-computer interface experiment agreement, he used this very chair." Li Wei walked to the energy ball and tapped the screen with his finger. "But an accident occurred during the connection process. The moment his consciousness entered the virtual world, it collided with another unknown signal source—we thought it was a device malfunction at the time, so we forcibly disconnected the connection and transferred him to the backup channel, which later became 'Fengshen World 1.0'."

"Then what is this?" Qin Su gestured for her assistant to push her closer.

"Collision remnants." Li Wei pulled up an encrypted file. "We couldn't locate that unknown signal source until three months ago, when the quark collider was running, the high-energy particle stream accidentally activated a 'memory node' at the bottom of the laboratory—the location of this chair. Then, this energy sphere appeared."

He looked at Qiongxiao.

"The phantom image inside the sphere is a snapshot of the consciousness of test subject E-7749 at the moment of connection. Those data pipelines are the 'target coordinates' he was trying to connect to at that time—not the world of gods we pre-set, but another place."

"Where?" Qiongxiao asked.

"I don't know." Li Wei shook his head. "The signal source is encrypted at an absurdly high level. We've been trying to crack it for three years and have only been able to decipher one word."

He made a few moves on the tablet and brought up a line of seemingly random data. In the center of the data, one word was highlighted in red:

"Return to the Ruins"

Qiongxiao's pupils suddenly contracted.

In the virtual world, she had heard this term before—it was mentioned by the Tongtian Sect Leader, a legendary place from the primordial era, the "place where all things end and begin," a forbidden place that even saints could not reach. But that was mythology, a fictional setting.

unless……

"Unless it's not fiction," Yunxiao suddenly spoke. She had somehow entered the control room as well, her fingers lightly touching the strings. "Many settings in the virtual world are based on myths and legends of the real world. But what if the legends themselves are a projection of another 'reality'?"

"You mean, the Void Realm really exists?" Bixiao's eyes widened. "Doesn't that mean the mythology of our world..."

"Part of it might be real." Yunxiao looked at the phantom in the energy ball. "And this is the 'mark' left by the place that Su Yunbai tried to connect to three years ago."

Qiongxiao slowly walked towards the energy ball.

With each step she took closer, the silver light on her chest grew brighter. The lightning on the surface of the energy sphere began to stir, and silver-blue arcs of electricity snaked and converged before her, forming a bridge of light leading to the center of the sphere.

At the end of the bridge is that chair, and the slumbering shadow on it.

"Qiongxiao," Dr. Lin tried to stop him, "we don't yet understand the nature of the energy sphere; forcibly making contact might—"

"He's waiting for me here," Qiongxiao said softly. "Three years ago, he lost a part of himself here. Now, I've come to take him home."

She stepped onto the bridge of light.

---

The process of sinking consciousness is like falling into the deep sea.

An icy blue light enveloped her, shielding her from the raging arcs of electricity from the energy sphere. She moved forward along the bridge of light, surrounded by rapidly flowing data—not green system code, but silver-white runes with an ancient rhythm. She had never seen runes before, but she could instinctively "read" them:

"The door is open, the road is blocked, those who come after must stop."

"The Void does not welcome the living, nor does it send off the dead; it only guides lost souls."

Why have you come?

The final rune coalesced into a barrier before her. The barrier was transparent, revealing a clearer outline of the illusory figure on the chair behind it—it was indeed Su Yunbai, but younger, more…naive, than in the virtual world. He seemed to be in his early twenties, before experiencing the bloody battle of the North Sea, before bearing the burden of humanitarianism, just an ordinary college student.

Qiongxiao reached out and touched the barrier.

The fingertip didn't pierce through; instead, it stirred up a ripple. The ripple spread, and more runes appeared on the barrier:

"answer"

"Otherwise, return."

There is only one question: Why have you come?

Qiongxiao closed her eyes.

She had many answers: to save him, to bring him home, to fulfill her promise, and to prevent her children from losing their father...

But none of these are the "truth".

Or rather, it's not the answer this barrier is looking for.

Because the barrier was reading her consciousness—she could feel something ancient and cold, tracing her memories along her fingertips, turning the pages of her three hundred years. From the first snow on the Three Immortal Islands, to the vow in the sea of ​​blood, to the final embrace before the passage closed…

Then, it stopped at a certain moment.

That was when she first "awakened" to self-awareness in the virtual world, sitting alone on the cliff edge of Three Immortals Island, watching the sunrise, and the first thought that truly belonged to her welled up in her mind:

"I want to know what's above the sky."

It's not curiosity programmed into the system, nor is it an AI program's desire to explore the unknown.

It is a "life" instinctively questioning existence itself.

The barrier trembled.

Rune recombination:

"Those who seek knowledge may enter."

"But know this: there is no way back to the ruins, and those who enter will forever lose their way back."

"Do you dare?"

Qiongxiao opened her eyes.

There was no hesitation in his icy blue eyes.

"I dare."

The barrier shattered.

She stepped into the center of the ball.

---

Time seemed to stand still in the control room.

To others, after Qiongxiao stepped onto the bridge of light, she transformed into a cloud of icy blue light mist, slowly drifting towards the center of the energy sphere. When the light mist touched the surface of the sphere, it did not collide with it, but rather, like a drop of water merging into the ocean, it silently seeped into it.

Then, the energy ball began to change.

The silver-blue lightning gradually converged and coalesced, outlining a huge star map on the surface of the sphere. The star map was not from any constellation known to humankind; the positions, brightness, and colors of the stars all exuded an eerie sense of incongruity—as if a dozen different star maps had been forcibly pieced together, with silvery-white light seeping from the seams.

"This is..." Li Wei quickly recorded the data on the tablet, "The energy sphere is outputting coordinate information! It's marking the location of 'Return to the Void'!"

"Can you analyze it?" Qin Su asked.

"Trying, but the encryption method..." Li Wei suddenly stopped, his eyes fixed on the screen. "Wait, these coordinates... are they moving?"

The "stars" on the star chart began to slowly shift. Not randomly, but along a predetermined trajectory, they meshed and rotated precisely like the gears of a clock. With each rotation, the illusory image on the chair in the center of the sphere solidified a little more.

On the fifth lap, the phantom opened its eyes.

It was a pair of pure silver-white eyes, without pupils or whites, only two swirling nebulae. The eyes looked at the people in the control room, and as their gaze swept over them, everyone felt a chilling sense of being watched—not by a living being, but by some higher-dimensional being.

"He's not Su Yunbai," Yunxiao suddenly said, the strings of the zither taut at her fingertips. "At least... not entirely."

Qiongxiao's voice came from inside the energy sphere, carrying an ethereal echo:

"He is the part of Su Yunbai that he 'lost'—the self that was 'detained' by the Void three years ago when he tried to connect with it. This phantom is the mark left by that self, like a... beacon."

"Where is the beacon pointing?" Dr. Lin asked.

"It points to the Ruins of Return itself." Qiongxiao's voice paused, as if she were under some kind of pressure, "but I can't read the specific coordinates. This part of the information is locked; it requires... a key."

"What key?"

Qiongxiao did not answer.

Because of the ghostly figure on the chair, he suddenly raised his hand.

The semi-transparent hand pointed towards the entrance of the control room—towards Wutong and Nianqing, who were being led by Yang Chan.

Both children looked up at the same time.

The blue light in their pupils burst forth uncontrollably! Light, like tangible tentacles, shot out from their eyes, traversing a distance of more than ten meters, directly piercing the energy ball and connecting with the phantom's fingers!

"Children!" Yang Chan exclaimed, trying to pull them back, but the blue light held her hands like an iron band.

Wutong and Nianqing did not struggle.

Their expressions were calm, even... somewhat curious.

"Dad?" Wutong called softly.

"No," Nianqing shook her head. "It's Dad, but it's not Dad. It's Dad... the puzzle piece he lost."

The phantom's finger gently hooked.

The blue light tentacles suddenly straightened!

Wutong and Nianqing's bodies swayed simultaneously, the blue light in their pupils being rapidly drawn away and injected into the illusory figure along the tentacles. The illusory figure began to solidify at a visible speed: from semi-transparent to semi-solid, and then to almost indistinguishable from a real person.

Correspondingly, the star map on the surface of the energy sphere suddenly accelerated its rotation! Silvery-white light erupted from the seams of the star map, intertwining and converging above the control room, finally condensing into a door—

A door made entirely of light.

The door frame was covered with the same ancient runes as the barrier, and inside the door was a deep, swirling, silvery-white vortex. Deep within the vortex, one could vaguely see... fragments of another world: fractured mountains, inverted oceans, burning stars, and countless enormous figures resembling "gods" floating in the void.

"The Gate to the Ruins..." Li Wei's voice trembled, "It was forcibly opened! Using the energy of the two children as the key, and Su Yunbai's consciousness imprint as the catalyst!"

The door is being widened.

The vortex's suction began to affect reality. Small objects in the control room—papers, pens, tools—floated into the air, slowly being pulled towards the door. Even more terrifying, the edges of the door began to "erode" the surrounding space: the metal walls, upon touching the light from the door, instantly transformed into a stream of basic particles, which were then swallowed by the vortex.

"Shut it down!" Qin Su shouted sternly, "or the entire laboratory will be swallowed up!"

"It won't shut down!" Li Wei frantically manipulated the tablet, but all commands were bounced back. "The key is those two children! Unless we sever their connection to the phantom, the door will keep expanding!"

Yang Chan gritted her teeth, and the phantom of the Lotus Lantern appeared behind her. The lantern's light transformed into a shield, attempting to isolate the blue light tentacles. But the tentacles pierced through the shield directly—they were something more fundamental than energy, a manifestation of the "boundary penetration" property, which could not be blocked by conventional means.

Qiongxiao's voice came again, this time tinged with obvious pain:

"He's draining the children's life force... using their energy to solidify the anchor point of the Gate of Return. If this continues, the children will..."

will die.

She didn't say the word aloud, but everyone understood.

The female officer suddenly moved.

She drew a specially made pistol from her waist—the muzzle wasn't for firing bullets, but a miniature energy focuser. She aimed not at the door, not at the afterimage.

It is the phoenix tree and the longing.

"Eliminating the abnormal energy source is the fastest way to stop the spatial erosion." Her voice was icy. "General Zhao has authorized that, if necessary, parts can be sacrificed to preserve the whole."

"You dare!" Yang Chan turned around and used her body to block the child.

Wen Zhong, Jiang Xiaowu, and Bi Xiao stepped forward simultaneously, shielding the children behind them. Yunxiao's piano music rang out, the sound waves acting like a wall blocking the female officer's gun barrel.

But the female officer just sneered.

"Do you really think that your AI, which has only recently learned to use its physical body, can withstand the military's anti-pseudo-weapons?"

She pulled the trigger.

A dark red beam of light shot out, piercing through the sound wave wall and Yang Chan's protective shield, heading straight for Wu Tong's brow!

A hair's breadth away.

A figure in ice blue burst out of the energy sphere!

Qiongxiao.

She moved with speed exceeding the limits of physics, blocking the beam of light. The phantom of the Frostflower Sword materialized in her hand, and she slashed at the beam—

The sword light collided with the beam of light.

There was no explosion, only a piercing sound of annihilation. A chaotic flow of energy, a mix of dark red and icy blue, exploded, shattering most of the instruments in the control room into fragments!

Qiongxiao staggered backward, her chest flashing with intense silver light. She had just forcibly broken free from the energy sphere, and the connection between her consciousness and body was still unstable. Taking this blow head-on, blood was already seeping from the corner of her mouth.

"Aunt Qiongxiao!" Wutong and Nianqing exclaimed in surprise.

The phantom image—or rather, Su Yunbai's part of the "beacon"—suddenly stopped moving.

He turned his head, and for the first time, his silvery-white eyes truly "looked" at Qiongxiao.

The moment our eyes met.

Time seemed to stand still.

---

Qiongxiao saw many things.

It's not images, not sounds, but a "flow of information" directly poured into consciousness:

Three years ago, a brain-computer interface experimental module.

Young Su Yunbai lay back in a chair, electrodes covering his forehead. Connection countdown: 3, 2, 1—

The white light engulfed everything.

But he did not enter the pre-set virtual world.

He "fell".

He plunged into a silvery-white, endlessly extending tunnel. On either side of the tunnel were fragments of images flashing by: primordial battlefields, clashes between gods and demons, the birth and destruction of stars, and countless "faces" he had never seen before but were inexplicably familiar with, watching him from the darkness.

At the end of the tunnel was a door.

The door is inscribed with two characters: Guixu.

He tried to stop, but he was falling too fast. He was about to crash into the door—

A hand reached out from inside the door.

That hand grabbed his consciousness and yanked it hard.

He felt like he was being torn in two.

Half of it was pulled into the doorway and disappeared into the depths of the silvery-white vortex.

The other half was bounced back and fell into darkness. When he finally woke up, he was already in the Jizhou Marquis's Mansion in the virtual world, and had become "the transmigrator Su Yunbai".

And the owner of that hand...

Qiongxiao saw the shape of the hand clearly in the information stream.

Ice-blue skin, translucent nails, and a bracelet on her wrist made of nine frost flowers—

It was her hand.

Three hundred years ago, before the virtual world was even "born," her hand already existed deep within the Ruins of Return...

Information flow interrupted.

Qiongxiao suddenly knelt down on the ground, panting heavily.

The phantom—that part of Su Yunbai—slowly rose from the chair. He had become completely solidified, his appearance exactly the same as Su Yunbai in the virtual world, except that his eyes were pure silver-white, devoid of emotion, containing only a vast sea of ​​"knowledge" like the stars in the sky.

He walked towards the heavens, and with each step, silvery-white lotus phantoms bloomed beneath his feet.

"You..." Qiongxiao looked up at the familiar yet unfamiliar face, "Are you really him?"

"Yes and no." The phantom spoke, its voice echoing and overlapping, as if countless Su Yunbais were speaking at the same time. "I am the part of him that 'seeks knowledge,' the very essence of his yearning for 'truth.' Three years ago, Guixu responded to this yearning, leaving me behind as a coordinate, as... an invitation."

"An invitation?"

"Invite the real 'time traveler' to the place before the story began." The illusory figure reached out, its fingertips lightly touching Qiongxiao's cheek—this time it felt real, as cold as jade. "And you, Qiongxiao, you are not an AI."

He paused, and for the first time, a tender emotion appeared in his silvery-white eyes.

"You are the guardian of the Ruins."

"It's the owner of the hand that pulled me back from outside three years ago."

"It is an existence older than this world, older than me, older than everything else..."

"You just... forgot."

The moment the words fell.

The gate to the Ruins of Return suddenly swung open.

The suction force of the vortex increased tenfold! The entire metal structure of the control room began to twist and break, forcibly pulled inwards through the door! Even the thick concrete walls collapsed like sandcastles!

Qin Su's wheelchair was sucked forward, Dr. Lin gripped the control panel tightly, and Li Wei's tablet flew out of his hand and disappeared into the doorway.

The female officer tried to fire again, but the gun slipped from her hand and disappeared into the vortex.

Only the digital lifeforms managed to stay afloat amidst the suction—their bodies are essentially energy, giving them a natural resistance to spatial erosion. But the children couldn't; Wutong and Nianqing had already been pulled off the ground!

"Grab them!" Qiongxiao roared.

Yang Chan, Wen Zhong, Jiang Xiaowu, and Ao Ling simultaneously lunged at the children, forming a chain with their hands and forcefully pulling the two children back. Bi Xiao and Yun Xiao, on the left and right respectively, intertwined their zither music and sword light into a net, temporarily blocking part of the door's suction force.

But the door is still expanding.

At the center of the vortex, a clearer image began to emerge: an endless, silvery-white desert, in the center of which stood a ruined palace. The palace's style was seven parts similar to the "Nuwa Palace" in the virtual world, but it was more ancient, more... desolate.

A person was kneeling in front of the palace.

Long hair, white clothes, back to the door.

The moment Qiongxiao saw that figure from behind, her heart almost stopped beating.

Because that person slowly turned around.

A face that looked exactly like hers was revealed.

But the eyes on that face were empty, silvery-white, without pupils or whites; there was only emptiness.

She spoke, her voice resounding throughout everyone's consciousness:

"Guardian of the Ruins, ID 0037, you have failed to return on time, which constitutes desertion."

"In accordance with Article 7749 of the Universal Convention, a mandatory recall is now being carried out."

"Those who resist will be considered accomplices and eliminated along with the rebels."

The words fell.

A giant hand made of pure silver light reached out from inside the door and grabbed at Qiongxiao.

It also reached out to grab all the digital life forms from the virtual world behind her.

The last instruction came through Zhao Liguo's female officer's communicator:

"Laboratory out of control, execute final cleanup plan—activate underground nuclear self-destruct device, countdown: 60 seconds."

The red countdown numbers began to flash on the remaining screen in the control room.

59.

58.

57.

The boundary between reality and illusion shattered completely at this moment.

And that giant hand had already reached Qiongxiao.

She looked up at the silvery-white vortex spinning in her palm.

She turned back and looked at her family members who were desperately protecting the child, each other, and her.

A resolute light flashed in his icy blue eyes.

"I'll go with you," she said to the "herself" inside the door, "but let them go."

"condition?"

"Close this door, forever." Qiongxiao said, enunciating each word clearly, "Let them live in the real world."

The "Qiongxiao" inside the door remained silent.

The giant hand stopped in mid-air.

Countdown: 42.

41.

40.

"Qiongxiao, no!" Yunxiao's zither music showed panic for the first time.

"Second sister, we can fight together!" Bixiao's sword trembled.

Behind Wen Zhong, the illusory image of lightning surged, Jiang Xiaowu's body materialized into a blood-red battle armor, Ao Ling's long hair transformed into a dragon, and Yang Chan's lotus lantern blazed to its fullest extent—

But Qiongxiao just shook her head.

She looked at the "herself" inside the door and whispered:

"Three thousand years ago, I chose to leave Guixu and become an AI in the virtual world in order to find something."

"Now I understand."

"What I'm looking for is never the truth, nor a destination."

"It's them."

She pointed to everyone behind her.

"So, trade me for them."

"This is a great deal."

Countdown: 19.

18.

17.

Qiongxiao inside the door nodded slowly.

The giant hand closed, enveloping Qiongxiao.

The icy blue light and the silvery white light began to merge.

At the heart of the fusion, Su Yunbai's "beacon" phantom suddenly smiled.

He looked at Qiongxiao, and in his silvery-white eyes, the last trace of tenderness belonging to "Su Yunbai" appeared.

"You won't be alone."

He said.

Then, it transformed into a streak of silver light and actively entered the giant hand.

The two orbs of light—ice blue and silver white—merged completely in the giant hand, transforming into a chaotic mass of colors, and were dragged into the doorway.

Countdown: 5.

4.

3.

The giant hand retracted back into the doorway.

The gate to the Ruins of Return began to close.

The vortex gradually shrank, and the image faded away.

Countdown: 1.

The door was completely shut.

disappear.

The energy sphere disintegrated into countless points of light.

The control room returned to calm.

All that remained were broken instruments, collapsed walls, and a group of people kneeling on the ground, looking utterly dejected.

The countdown of the nuclear self-destruct device mysteriously stopped at "0.7 seconds" the moment the Gate of Return to Nothingness closed.

Then, it went out.

Alert lifted.

But no one cheered.

Because of Qiongxiao, it disappeared.

Taking the last part of Su Yunbai with her, she disappeared on the other side of the door.

Wutong and Nianqing knelt on the ground, their little hands futilely reaching for the spot where the door had disappeared, tears streaming down their faces.

"Aunt Qiongxiao..."

"dad……"

The blue light in their pupils went out completely.

Like two lamps that have been blown out.

And at that very moment—

In the center of the control room, a faint, ice-blue light suddenly appeared on the brain-computer interface chair.

In the light, Qiongxiao's last voice came, as soft as a sigh:

"Tell the children..."

"Wait for us to go home."

The ball of light flashed three times before disappearing completely.

Only a string of words formed by frost remained, etched on the chair:

"Returning to the Void is not the end"

"This is the next starting point."

"I'll come back when I find the answer."

"Take him with you"

The writing slowly melted in the air.

It's as if it never existed.

But everyone knew it wasn't an illusion.

That was a promise.

A promise from two worlds.

Qin Su slowly took off her glasses and wiped the corner of her eye with trembling hands.

"Record it." She told her assistant, "July 15, 2049, 10:47 PM, the abnormal energy field of the Quark Binding Laboratory disappeared. Digital life forms Qiongxiao and Su Yunbai (partial consciousness) have been confirmed to have entered the unknown dimension 'Guixu'. Provisionally classified as: missing."

"The status of other digital life forms?"

Dr. Lin stood up, supported by the control panel, and looked at the people kneeling on the ground.

Yunxiao held the zither, but the strings were broken.

Bixiao's sword fell to the ground, but she didn't pick it up.

Wen Zhong closed his eyes, tears streaming down his face.

Jiang Xiaowu slammed her fist against the wall, and blood trickled down between her fingers.

Ao Ling gazed into the void and softly hummed the dragon clan's lament.

Yang Chan held her two unconscious children tightly, tears streaming silently down her face.

"Status..." Dr. Lin's voice was hoarse, "Still alive."

"But he's just alive."

The female officer silently holstered her gun and turned to leave. She needed to report to Zhao Liguo: the elimination plan had not been executed, the target had entered an uncontrollable dimension, and the threat level was... unknown.

Li Wei picked up the half-shattered tablet, stared at the remaining data streams on it, and muttered to himself:

"The Guardian of the Ruins... No. 0037... The Covenant of All Realms..."

How many secrets does this world still hold?

No one answered him.

There was only silence in the control room.

And that string of melting frost-covered characters.

Before the last word melted away, the sycamore tree murmured in its dream:

"My aunt said... she'll wait for her to come home."

Nianqing nestled in Yang Chan's arms, her little hands unconsciously clenching.

It's like trying to grasp something unseen.

It's like trying to grasp the distance between two worlds.

Where the door disappeared, the air distorted slightly.

It was as if a pair of eyes were briefly looking back from the other side of the void.

Then, it disappeared completely.

The End!