The whole nation: You're put to survive on a desolate planet, you'll be running an alien b

The air behind the bronze door was damp, sticky, and had a rusty, fishy smell, as if it had been soaked in cold oil. One by one, the dim lamps pushed through the darkness along the tomb passage, and the light fell on the floor tiles, but it was as if something had eaten away a layer of them, and the edges were always covered with an unnatural gray.

Li Haotian walked at the front, the token pressed against his palm, radiating warmth. The tomb keeper followed half a step behind, his wooden staff tapping the ground, a thin "path" of talismanic light spreading beneath his feet. Each lift and lowering of the staff was like handing over a travel document to the imperial mausoleum.

"The black lines are still there." Qin Yue said in a low voice, her gaze sweeping across the wall. Those hair-thin black lines peeked out from the cracks in the stone, wandering along the runes, like dormant insects trying to gnaw at bones.

The tomb keeper said in a deep voice, "They are testing the boundaries of the seal. Wherever they eat, the rules loosen."

Li Haotian said no more, only quickened his pace. The further they went, the more obvious the resonance of the runes became, like tiny bells ringing in their eardrums. The cart carrying the isolation pod was being pulled by two team members, the wheels making a soft sound as they rolled over the brick seams—but the sound was immediately crushed by the death energy, as if stuffed into cotton.

Suddenly, the familiar rhythm inside the isolation ward stopped for a moment.

One heartbeat after another, then a half-beat was missed.

Li Haotian paused and turned around.

The silver cocoon lay quietly within the force field framework, its surface shimmering like tiny ripples in the wind. The next second, the ripples converged into a single point, and then—"click."

It was a very soft sound, like a fingernail scraping against glass.

A thin, almost invisible crack appeared on the surface of the silver cocoon. There was no blood or light in the crack, only a silver-black fluid slowly oozing out. It did not drip like a liquid, but hung in front of the crack, as if held by an invisible tongue, trembled, and condensed into a thin, curved piece.

Ivory.

It's more like a toothed piece peeled from the void, with unrealistically sharp edges and a surface interwoven with cold silver light and dark black patterns, as if a "regular" cross-section had been ground into a blade.

"Don't come any closer!" The tomb keeper's voice suddenly tightened, and he raised his wooden staff, causing the talisman to light up brightly.

But the toothed blade completely ignored any warnings. It spun slightly, as if drawn by a scent, and drifted towards the black lines on the tomb passage wall. There was no acceleration, no rush; it simply touched them gently—

"laugh."

A very soft erasing sound rang out, and the black line vanished instantly, as if erased by an eraser. It wasn't broken, it wasn't burned, it was simply "gone." As if it had never existed.

Everyone froze for half a second, then their breath caught in their throats.

This thing can deal with black lines.

But the price also became apparent the next moment.

As the serrated blade erased the black lines, the surrounding runes seemed to be blinded. The light of the ghostly lamp suddenly went out of focus, and a brief gray-white tinge appeared at the edge of the runic light, as if the visual signal had been forcibly cut off. The "path" beneath the tomb keeper's feet trembled, and the rhythm of the runes' flickering became disordered.

From the depths of the tomb passage came a very low echo, like something that had been suppressed suddenly taking a breath.

"Sealing fluctuations!" Qin Yue immediately raised her gun, but didn't know where to point it.

The tomb keeper's face turned ashen. He slammed his wooden staff down, forcefully pinning the rune's light in place: "It's overstepping its bounds—it's not just smearing black lines, it's swallowing the 'eye' of the rune as well!"

The tooth-shaped piece hovered in mid-air, as if tasting something sweeter, and slightly deflected, drifting towards the section of the wall with the densest runes.

Li Haotian's eyes suddenly sank to the bottom.

He understood—this wasn't a "tool," it was a "tooth." Teeth are born to bite, to tear, to swallow. The black lines were flesh, the runes were bone. It could distinguish which was harder, but that didn't mean it would stop biting.

"Force field—fully activated!" Li Haotian ripped open the control latch on the outside of the isolation chamber, pressed his palm on the token, the token's patterns lit up, and the surrounding force field frame hummed, like a fully drawn bowstring.

The toothed blade continued to drift outwards, as if it had passed through the boundary of the air. Tiny ripples appeared at the front edge of the force field, and when touched by it, they dented like the surface of water.

"It ignores physical barriers." Qin Yue gritted her teeth. "What is this—"

"It's called 'Rule Blade'." The gravedigger's Adam's apple bobbed. "It doesn't cut things; it deletes things from the rules."

Before they could finish speaking, Li Haotian directly affixed the token to the force field node, forcefully transforming the force field into a closed "cage" shape. The buzzing suddenly intensified, even causing the ghost lamp to sway.

The toothed blade seemed to be shrouded in an invisible net, suspended in mid-air, its silver-black lines flashing wildly, like it was grinding its teeth in defiance. It then lightly touched the inner wall of the force field—a thin "scratch" immediately appeared on that light screen, and its luster dimmed slightly.

A vein throbbed on Li Haotian's forehead, and he forced out a low growl: "Go back!"

It wasn't an order, but more like suppression. He forcefully shoved his own aura and the "authority" of the token into the force field, forcibly imposing a "boundary" on the brace.