As someone in sequence 001, I also want to give up today.

He went into the convenience store across the street.

"Boss, a pack of cigarettes, please." He pointed to a brand on the counter.

The shopkeeper was an elderly woman with gray hair. She shakily handed him a cigarette, took the money, and added, "Smoke less; it's bad for your health."

Li Xian nodded, tore open the packaging, took out a cigarette and put it in his mouth without lighting it.

He sat there, a cigarette dangling from his lips, leaning against the pillar of the sunshade at the entrance of the convenience store.

He looked like a young man who was just sitting there doing nothing, lost in thought.

The elderly people sunbathing changed the subject, talking about everything from yesterday's rat infestation to whose son got married.

The breakfast shop sold out of fried dough sticks, and the owner started packing up the stall.

An electric scooter drove past the alley entrance. The child on the back seat glanced at Li Xian curiously, then was urged by his mother to "stop looking around."

Twenty minutes later.

Li Xian threw the unlit cigarette in his mouth into the trash can and walked towards the residential building.

The hallway is old, with peeling paint on the walls and rusty stair railings.

He walked up the stairs step by step, his footsteps echoing in the empty stairwell.

On the fifth floor, someone opened the door, and a middle-aged woman in pajamas came out carrying a trash bag. When she saw Li Xian, she paused for a moment, then stepped aside to let him pass.

On the sixth floor, someone was cooking at home, and the smell of cooking oil seeped out from under the door, mixed with the aroma of scallions.

The seventh floor.

East Household.

The door was an old-fashioned security door with rust spots on the metal sheet.

The peephole was covered by a piece of black tape.

Li Xian stood at the door, neither knocking nor trying to unlock it.

He simply stood there, quietly "watching" the world behind the door.

Four people.

Three B-grade and one A-grade.

The aura of an A-rank is subtle and cold, completely different from the flamboyant flames of Tu Yan.

If Tu Yan is a raging fire, then this person is the ice buried deep underground, silent and still, yet capable of freezing all life.

Li Xian raised his hand and gently pressed it on the security door.

There was no loud noise, no vibration.

The sturdy-looking old-fashioned security door, along with its frame and part of the wall behind it, disappeared silently—not destroyed, but folded into another layer of space.

A circular notch, about one meter in diameter, appeared where the door used to be.

The edges of the gap were as smooth as a mirror, and the cross-section of the steel bars inside the wall could even be seen, but no debris fell out.

Li Xian stepped over the gap and entered the room.

In the living room, four people were sitting around a coffee table.

On the coffee table sat a strange object—a palm-sized altar model cast from black metal.

Its surface is covered with twisted runes, emitting a faint dark red glow.

All four of them turned around at the same time to look at the uninvited guest.

Their expressions froze for a moment.

There was no shock.

There was no fear.

There wasn't even any attempt to defend itself.

The leader of the A-level officers slowly stood up; he was a middle-aged man who looked to be in his forties.

He had a thin face, sunken eyes, and wore a faded gray shirt.

His eyes were fixed on Li Xian, a dark light swirling deep within his pupils.

"Who are you……"

He spoke, his voice hoarse as if sandpaper were rubbing against glass.

"Li Yu's brother? That B-rank quick-response team member?"

Li Xian did not answer.

He simply stood there, his gaze calmly sweeping across the faces of the four men.

"interesting."

A strange smile tugged at the corner of the A-grade man's mouth.

"How did you find this place? Our 'mist' should block all causal tracking... Even if Lin Mo came now, he wouldn't be able to find us."

"The mist?" Li Xian finally spoke, his tone indifferent. "Is this what you mean?"

He raised his hand, his five fingers slightly closed.

Suddenly, a very faint "crack" sounded in the room, like the sound of glass shattering.

At the same time, a wisp of pale gray mist rose from the four of them.

The mist gathered in mid-air into a twisted, ever-changing sphere, and then... shattered into countless tiny specks of light, dissipating into the air.

The A-level man's expression finally changed.

He took a half step back, and for the first time, genuine horror appeared in his eyes.

"Impossible... How could Lord Xumi's 'Mist of Cause and Effect' be possible..."

He didn't finish speaking.

Because Li Xian had already walked up to him.

It wasn't teleportation, it wasn't a sprint, it was just a few ordinary steps, but those steps were so fast that it was as if the flow of time had no effect on him.

The A-level man instinctively raised his hand, a ball of dark purple energy condensing in his palm—that was his ability.

Shadow Erosion, Sequence 89, causes any matter or energy it comes into contact with to decay rapidly.

It's a good ability, but unfortunately, it was trained by the wrong master.

Li Xian copied it without any hesitation.

The man moved very quickly.

But Li Xian was faster than him.

Before the purple light could condense, Li Xian's hand was already on his shoulder.

Then, this mid-level A-rank expert, one of the five elders of the God Group, collapsed to the ground as if his bones had been removed.

He is not dead.

They weren't even injured.

He simply... lost his ability to move.

At this moment, Li Xian's [Causal Displacement] completely severed the causal connection between his two states of "being able to act" and "being unable to act".

The A-grade man lay sprawled on the ground, his eyeballs still able to move, his face filled with incomprehensible fear.

"Who...who exactly are you...?"

Li Xian didn't look at him.

His gaze passed over the limp body and landed on the black metal altar on the coffee table.

The dark red light emanating from the altar was now flickering violently, as if it had been stimulated by something.

Li Xian reached out and picked it up.

The altar felt cold to the touch, and the twisted runes on its surface seemed to wriggle slightly.

He could sense that this thing was trying to send some kind of signal in a certain direction—it was "sounding an alarm."

"Want to notify your accomplices?"

Li Xian spoke to the A-level man who was sprawled on the ground, his tone still calm.

The A-level man didn't answer, but the fear in his eyes deepened.

Li Xian ignored him.

He closed his eyes, and his consciousness once again sank into the sea of ​​cause and effect.

This time, his goal was not to trace the origin of the rats.

Rather, it is these four people in front of us, and all the causal connections between them and the core of the God Group.

All powers are operating at full capacity.

The causal lines, like countless transparent threads, extended from the four people in all directions.

Some point to memories of the past, some to possibilities of the future, some... point to other corners of the city, and some point to even more distant places.

Those causal lines that had been obscured by the "mist" were now as clear as day in his eyes.

He "read" through them one by one.

The road leading to the old residential area in the west of the city is a hidden supply point.

The road leading to the abandoned factory in the southern suburbs is a training camp.

The road pointing to an underground parking lot is a communications relay station.

Pointing to that road in the capital...

Li Xian's brows twitched slightly.

The cause-and-effect line in Beijing points to a seemingly ordinary commercial office building.

But at the other end of the line, there was a familiar scent—near the laboratory of Dr. Zhao Mingyuan, the energy expert.

The Divine Group has informants in Beijing, and they are located right next to the General Administration's core research facilities.

This line is very valuable.

But he continued reading.

A thickest, brightest, and most deeply dark causal line extends from the core of these four people, across the sky of Jiangcheng, across the border, and southward.

Crossing the ocean.

Crossing countless islands.

Finally, they landed on a vast and desolate continent.

Australia.

Deep inland on that continent, in a place that is not marked on any map.

Li Xian "saw" someone.

It was a figure sitting upright in the darkness.

He couldn't see the person's face clearly, only a thick, impenetrable mass of blackness, and those eyes...

Separated by half the globe, by the layers of mist of the sea of ​​cause and effect.

Those eyes seemed to sense something, and they slightly raised themselves, glancing in his direction.

God Emperor.

The name sounds impressive.

Li Xian calmly opened his eyes.

The A-level man and the other three B-level men, who were lying on the ground, had completely given up struggling.

They couldn't understand what Li Xian was saying, nor could they see through what he was doing.

But they could sense that the causal fog surrounding them, which the organization considered "absolutely safe," was as fragile as paper in front of this person.

"What exactly... do you want to do..." the A-level man asked with difficulty, his voice weak.

Li Xian glanced down at him.

That one glance sent a chill down the spine of this A-level expert, who was used to life and death and whose hands were stained with blood.

It wasn't murderous intent.

It's not anger.

Rather, it's a kind of...indifference.

It's like a human looking down at an ant, wondering if it can still move.

"You've done a lot," Li Xian said. "At the amusement park, it was Tu Yan. This time, it's you all. And next time? Who will it be?"

The A-grade man's lips moved as if he wanted to say something, but he couldn't utter a single word.

Li Xian didn't look at him again.

He looked up and gazed at the sky outside the window.

Australia.

God Emperor.

At the other end of the causal line lies the core of that darkness.

"Stay put," he said as his last words. "Someone will come and take you away."

Then, his figure disappeared from the room.

It's not teleportation.

It was a complete disappearance, without leaving a trace.

It was as if he had never existed.

Only four people collapsed on the floor and the still faintly flickering black altar remained in the room.

There was a five-second silence.

A B-level actor finally regained the ability to speak, his voice as dry as sandpaper:

"Who...who exactly is he?"

No one answered him.

---

Li Xian stood in the void.

Beneath my feet lies a surging sea of ​​clouds, above me glaring sunlight, and in all directions stretches endless space.

He has already notified Chen Zhe to go and take those four people away. Next…

He never truly used the [Endless Source] at full power.

This almost superhuman ability—a continuous supply of mental energy—has an unknown theoretical upper limit.

He usually uses a little mental energy to make the flame more even when frying eggs.

Or you can use it to create a gentle mental field when you're putting a bell to sleep.

Or you can use it to think about a hundred things at the same time without getting flustered while slacking off in the fast-paced team.

That's it.

But now, he has lifted the restrictions.

The endless source flowed like a floodgate opening, unleashing a torrent of immense spiritual power that poured into every core of his abilities.

The spatial folding was pushed to its limit.

It's not a short-distance jump, not passing through walls, and not folding a corner of a room.

It is an ultra-long-distance transmission that spans half the globe.

Before this, Li Xian had never attempted such a far spatial fold.

Too far, and the coordinates are difficult to pinpoint accurately; too much energy is consumed, so it's not worth it.

But now, he has unlimited spiritual power.

And now, what he's about to do is worthwhile.

Space Folding · Endless Leap

The space around him began to distort violently.

It wasn't the usual slight, almost imperceptible ripples, but rather a visible, boiling motion, like water at full temperature.

Light curved around him, and time slowed down around him.

The spatial structure is distorted, and distance has lost its meaning.

When Li Xian finally stood on solid ground again, he found himself on a desolate red earth continent.

Australia.