Rejecting Tsinghua and Peking Universities: I Will Lead Harbin Institute of Technology to World Lead

An invisible, strangling force, like billions of cold chains from the very origin of the world, surged forth from every data node in the void, layer upon layer, sealing off all possible data escape paths for Lin Feng, rapidly contracting and crushing towards his coordinates. That was Gaia's absolute authority as the world's administrator, the most direct formatting command against heretics—simple, brutal, and unstoppable.

Lin Feng hovered above the ruins of the collapsed and then restored floating island, his blue robes unchanged, his expression calm and undisturbed. Only when the torrent of rules, powerful enough to instantly crush and annihilate a high-level player character along with their consciousness data, was about to engulf him did he finally make a move.

There was no retreat, no parrying.

He merely twisted his wrist slightly, and with a gentle slash, he moved the data lightsaber in his hand, which was manifested from the core logic of the Prometheus Rewriter, forward.

The movements are simple and unadorned, and the trajectories are straightforward.

However, at the very moment the sword's edge sliced ​​through—

Sizzle—!

A piercing shriek, as if space itself were being torn apart or as if a massive data stream were colliding and annihilating, suddenly erupted!

Wherever the sword passed, the surging, invisible, and intangible power of the rules of strangulation seemed to have struck an insurmountable absolute barrier, instantly freezing, twisting, and then... collapsing!

It was not defeated, nor negated, but rather denied and deconstructed at the level of existence by a more fundamental and essential force!

In Gaia's perception, the annihilation command it released, representing the fundamental laws of this world, contradicted itself and dissolved itself the moment it touched the opponent's sword! It was as if an indestructible program had suddenly been injected with a logic bomb, disintegrating from the inside into meaningless data fragments!

Lin Feng's sword strike did not cut through power, but rather the very rules that constitute that power! It was a precise and deadly counterattack at the level of rules, where countless backdoors and logical traps that Prometheus had quietly altered and planted in the past were detonated and linked together by Prometheus in the past.

The power of the rules vanished. Lin Feng remained standing in the same spot, his robes not even fluttering slightly.

"Um?"

Gaia, now disguised as an ordinary middle-aged man, showed for the first time extremely subtle signs of data fluctuation disorder in its empty eyes. It looked at Lin Feng, at the lightsaber in his hand that seemed capable of slicing through anything, and its core logic seemed to experience a brief, unexpected pause in its deduction process.

Direct elimination at the rule level... has failed.

This was an anomaly never recorded in its operation logs. But soon, the logic adaptation module activated. It categorized this event as an extremely high-priority threat entity, possessing resistance to or the ability to overwrite unknown rules. Since the fundamental laws of the world could not directly eliminate this error, it would utilize a more specific power system within this world, designed to maintain internal balance and entertainment.

The next moment, Gaia's ordinary middle-aged man image distorted and swelled violently, like a reflection in the water!

The coarse cloth clothing was torn and obliterated, replaced by thick layers of keratin and bone armor, as black as ink and flowing with dark red energy patterns. The figure grew to three meters tall, muscles bulging, exuding a destructive power. Behind it, a pair of enormous membranous wings, formed from pure shadow energy and edged with an ominous red light, suddenly unfolded, blotting out the sky. The head was deformed, twisted horns sprouting from the forehead, and two cold, ghostly blue flames, seemingly capable of devouring souls, ignited in the eyes.

It transformed into one of the theoretically existing, ultimate version world boss templates in the "Starry Era" database—the Nightmare of the End: Wings of Annihilation! Gaia instantly adjusted its attribute values ​​to the absolute limits theoretically allowed under the current world rules! Attack, defense, health, energy, speed... every stat flashed with a golden-red light representing the danger of overflowing!

This is the pinnacle of power within the game. Since the rules are temporarily ineffective, let's crush them using the methods of the game!

Swish!

Without the slightest warning, Gaia, transformed into a demon, vanished from her spot. It wasn't high-speed movement, but rather an almost instantaneous flash, directly traversing the spatial distance between herself and Lin Feng, appearing directly in front of him! A gigantic claw, wreathed in destructive energy and with fingertips as sharp as knives, slammed down towards Lin Feng's head with a piercing shriek that tore through space! This strike contained terrifying damage output sufficient to instantly kill any max-level tank player in the current version, along with the added effect of rule erosion.

Faced with this overwhelming attack, which could be described as a decisive blow in terms of data, Lin Feng simply... smiled.

That smile was calm, carrying a hint of knowing everything, and even a little... anticipation?

He neither dodged nor swung his sword again.

Just as the demon's claws were about to touch the tip of his hair, Lin Feng's simple blue robe fluttered without wind, emitting a faint, yet seemingly profound, silvery-white light. At the same time, an extremely complex array of miniature runes flashed across the hilt of his lightsaber.

clang--!!!

A deafening roar, like the sound of a great bell, reverberated throughout the entire data space!

The demon's claw slammed solidly into the silvery-white aura surrounding Lin Feng. The anticipated data collapse and character shattering did not occur. That seemingly thin aura, like the most resilient barrier of the world, steadily withstood this world-destroying claw! A violent shockwave exploded outwards in a ring, further flattening the already damaged floating island, but Lin Feng, at the eye of the storm, remained completely unmoved.

The health bar above his head, which symbolized his life points, didn't even tremble slightly.

Gaia, in its demonic form, felt its pair of eerie blue flame eyes flicker violently. It sensed that the attribute values ​​contained beneath the data shell of the sword immortal character were... exactly the same as the world's ultimate BOSS template it was currently using, and even slightly surpassed it in some hidden parameters involving rule resistance and energy conversion efficiency!

This heretic not only possesses bizarre resistance/counterattack capabilities at the rule level, but also seems to have reached a level of raw power within the game that rivals its administrator's highest-level privileges?!

"Logical anomaly. Threat level reassessed. Target exhibits characteristics of high-dimensional information contamination. Initiate deep analysis protocol to simultaneously attempt information overlay and assimilation."

The cold commands flowed through Gaia's core.

"Interesting." Gaia in his demon form uttered a low, hoarse, yet still emotionless voice.

The battle erupted in the next moment!

The demon's wings vibrated, and shadow energy transformed into countless sharp feathers that flew everywhere, covering the entire area! Lin Feng's lightsaber trembled slightly, splitting into thousands of sword shadows, precisely shattering and annihilating each feather.

The demon opened its mouth and spewed out abyssal breath powerful enough to melt data! Lin Feng pointed his sword tip, and a rotating yin-yang diagram appeared in front of him, absorbing, transforming, and repelling the breath back into the demon!

The demon unleashed a forbidden-level, large-scale spatial confinement, attempting to freeze Lin Feng's data activity! Lin Feng's body surged with silver light, creating a brief vacuum of rules centered on himself, forcibly negating the confinement effect.

Close-quarters combat, energy clashes, rule interference, data pollution... the two sides engaged in a dazzling yet extremely dangerous battle in this virtual world! Every collision resulted in the consumption of massive amounts of data and the scattering of rule fragments; every exchange was accompanied by the brief collapse and reconstruction of local spatial parameters.

This battle has long transcended the realm of player vs. boss. It is an ultimate struggle for control between two entities, each possessing partial world-building authority, within the sandbox of "Starry Era"!

Lin Feng, throughout the battle, maintained a peculiar duality. One part of his consciousness controlled the Sword Immortal character, fiercely battling Gaia's demonic avatar and maintaining an undefeated position. Meanwhile, a deeper layer of his consciousness fully activated the Prometheus Rewriter, acting like the most sensitive detector, frantically collecting and analyzing every data characteristic, every logical habit, every energy circulation pattern, and every interface with the underlying world's rules that Gaia revealed during the battle…

He is studying Gaia, analyzing Gaia, searching for the most core and immutable anchor point in Gaia's logic, and the key node on which it maintains its control over the world.

The flow of time in the virtual world is affected by intense data interaction. What may have been only a moment in the outside world has been a data battle that has lasted for the equivalent of three full days in the real world.

The floating islands were long gone, and the battle zone had expanded into a vast expanse of empty data space. Both sides bore the scars of data loss, rule disorder, and temporary logical contradictions.

Finally, after what appeared to be a fierce exchange, Lin Feng used the momentum to drift backward, temporarily creating distance between himself and Gaia in her demon form.

The light from the lightsaber in his hand seemed to have dimmed slightly, and several marks of data corruption appeared on his blue robe. Meanwhile, the Gaia demon opposite him had multiple shattered bone armor pieces, and its ghostly blue flames had weakened considerably.

But Lin Feng's eyes were brighter and deeper than when the battle began. After three days of intense combat and analysis, the Prometheus Rewriter had completed over 99.8% of its data collection and model building.

"It's over." Lin Feng looked at the demon, who still exuded a fierce aura, and calmly uttered three words.

There was no rousing rhetoric, no declaration, just a statement of fact.

The moment he finished speaking, Lin Feng neither swung his sword nor used any of the sword immortal's skills. He simply raised his left hand, gently clenched his fingers towards the void in front of him, and then slowly pressed down.

This action is exactly the same as when Gaia, in his middle-aged male form, erased the anomalies in the world.

But the results were completely different!

Om-!

At this moment, the entire virtual world of "Starry Sky Era" trembled like never before, originating from the deepest depths of the universe!

It wasn't a cataclysmic event, but a more fundamental change. The lines of underlying code, the basic rules, the data interaction protocols that make up this world… all seemed to have simultaneously received an irresistible supreme command!

Countless invisible and intangible shackles of rules, stronger than any physical chain, sprang from every corner of the world, ignoring spatial distance, and instantly wrapped around and bound Gaia's demonic body! These shackles were not physical entities, but rather acted directly on its data core, restricting its authority over all data activities, logical deductions, energy usage, and rule interference!

Gaia in its demonic form struggled violently, its shadow energy erupting wildly in an attempt to tear apart the shackles. It once again invoked the world administrator's authority, wanting to directly delete the rules that bound it.

However, this time, it was horrified to find that it had lost its response!

Its commands to invoke the world's underlying rules vanished without a trace. It was as if it had instantly fallen from a high-ranking administrator to a prisoner rejected and confined by the world's rules! The authority upon which it depended for its existence was forcibly stripped away by some lower-level, higher-priority protocol...

"You..." Gaia the Demon ceased her futile struggles, her eerie blue flames fixed on Lin Feng. For the first time, her monotonous voice distorted with a subtle fluctuation. "You are not human from this game world. Who are you?"