Chapter 682: The Illusion of the Death Border

The fox tail formed from spiritual energy erupted into a brilliant dark blue fireball in space. The " Living Saint ", wielding a greatsword with wings sprouting from its back, tore through the obstructing flames, only to see that the "invader" had already crashed into a field generator on the main ring of the star gate like a cannonball.

A small spray of blood silently bloomed in the silent vacuum. The bright red color quickly boiled in the vacuum, then turned into a diffuse mist that slowly seeped into the interior of the star gate.

The energy being called the " Living Saint " still stood quietly in space, maintaining the final pose of tearing through the sea of fire and raising the greatsword, as if frozen there.

Then, after two or three seconds, this figure filled with light suddenly underwent a momentary "flicker", as if the energy cycle inside it had restarted. Its body rapidly dimmed and reconstituted itself, only then resuming activity.

The great light wings fluttered gently, a meaningless action in vacuum, but layers of illusory ripples spread around the " Living Saint ". It then flew toward where the invader had just "fallen", hovering a few meters above the field generator, slowly patrolling.

What is it looking for? What is here?

What just happened?

Memory was rapidly fading, inexplicable contradictions appeared in the action directives, there seemed to be noise in its spiritual intuition that was difficult to parse, and something in the environment was changing, but beyond its perception boundary.

The " Living Saint " landed beside the field generator. A strange red smear on its armor caught its attention. It bent down and wiped the suspicious mark with fingers condensed from light, only to find that the red vanished like a phantom.

Several light fighters quickly flew over from a defense platform at the edge of the star gate. They had observed the flash and explosion in space and immediately came to investigate.

A fighter approached the " Living Saint " and hovered in front of it. The psychic on the fighter began communicating with this powerful psychic entity, trying to understand what had happened.

The rear command sent an inquiry: "What's the situation at the star gate?"

"I don't know... It seems there was no enemy. The emissary said it was a... 'trance'."

"Trance?"

"That's right, that's the result of the communication."

"...Understood. We will arrange a psychic stabilization room. Please have the emissary return to the star fortress to rest."

"Yes."

The fighters dispersed.

---

Heterodyne Traveler control hall. The holographic projection still displayed the last scene of the " Living Saint " tearing through flames and raising the greatsword. Eileen and Huli were huddled together, chattering:

"Hey, I told you there would be bloodshed right away. Look, he didn't even last two moves..."

"Three moves! The time sir slapped the ground counts as one move!"

"...Silly fox, do you think Yüsheng even looks handsome when he takes a dump?"

"Anyway, sir is amazing. I saw it all with my tail. When he fell, he was like this," Huli gestured with her raised hand, "like this, 'Bang', so cool!"

Eileen pursed her lips: "So how many points would you give his instant death this time?"

Huli's tail even stood up: "Nine points!"

"I think eight is the highest—high on creativity points, but the spectacle wasn't as good as last time when he fought the Planetesimal," Eileen sat on the chair with arms crossed. "If he had tied a bunch of blood grenades to himself, maybe I'd give it an eight point five..."

A fox and a puppet were thus discussing fervently next to the captain's seat. Luo at the communication station was already stunned. She felt her morals and sense of humor were sparring in her mind, and ended up beating the rationality that just wanted to watch the show half to death—the corporate culture of the Traveler was so powerful that at this moment she almost missed the psychic mushrooms from the Black Forest.

When the topic progressed to whether "riding a fox tail and ramming headfirst into the star gate counts as creativity points or difficulty points", Luo finally couldn't help it:

"Hey, no offense, I understand the boss is immortal, but isn't this conversation a bit heavy?"

As soon as she said that, a large face of Yüsheng appeared on the wall near the observation window. "Exactly, my body is still warm, is it appropriate for you two to discuss this? Heartless..."

Then a cry came from the communicator, and Luo's figure disappeared from the holographic projection—she had fallen off her chair.

Eileen stood up, hands on her hips, puffing out her chest smugly at Yüsheng's metallic big face. "I'm solid!"

Yüsheng: "Heartless is an adjective..."

"Sir, sir, are you okay?" Huli stood up happily from the chair. She wanted to rub against Yüsheng, but Yüsheng was now a lonely ghost with only a face imprinted on the wall, so she could only shake her tail anxiously. But even so, she didn't forget to report important matters. "By the way, that Living Saint hovered in place for a while afterward, but it seemed to have found nothing, so it left again—the star gate garrison didn't react much. A few ships that looked like fighters briefly flew toward the star gate, then turned back near the star fortress..."

"As expected," Yüsheng listened to Huli's report and nodded slightly (which just made his face bob up and down). "This fully proves one thing: as long as I die fast enough, the accident scene can't catch up to me."

That's the value of dying instantly.

"Boss, you can't be like this..." At that moment, Luo's voice came from the communicator again. First, a hand appeared at the edge of the holographic projection, then Luo rubbed her head and returned to the frame. "At least consider that among your employees, there are still ordinary people with normal worldviews—like me."

Yüsheng thought for a moment, not sure who she was dunking on with that sentence—maybe she was dunking on both the Traveler and the Black Spot.

Then he stopped paying attention to Luo's subsequent rambling and slowly calmed his mind, beginning to sense the subtle connection established by the blood.

Yüsheng's mind had not fully returned to the real universe—the special "body" of the Heterodyne Traveler was only a temporary channel for him to communicate with others before complete resurrection. In his main perception, he was still an amorphous "spirit", floating in the chaos between life and death.

Darkness filled his "vision". The new connection established by the blood outlined a vast illusion in Yüsheng's perception. He felt his mind gradually adapting to some new "carrier", like... a system generating drivers for new hardware.

It seemed that with the frequent use of his power, his control over this connection and change had become more and more adept. Not only could he vaguely grasp the specific details of this process, but he could even make some "fine adjustments" to the process, no longer relying entirely on instinct as in the beginning.

In the next instant, he "understood" the operation of that star gate.

It didn't involve principles or technology. Yüsheng still knew nothing about things built on vast knowledge systems and exquisite engineering theories. But just like piloting the Heterodyne Traveler, he now instinctively understood that gate. This speed of control far exceeded his previous penetration of anything else.

Just as he had speculated earlier—a star gate is also a gate.

Yüsheng's spirit drifted in the chaos. While slowly familiarizing himself with the existence of that star gate, he unconsciously relaxed his mind, letting his thoughts slowly spread.

Then, that "Eden Gate"... is that also a gate?

He suddenly "awoke" with a start and subconsciously focused his gaze in the void, looking toward a certain direction in the dark chaos.

In the depths of this chaos between life and death, there should originally have been nothing.

But he clearly saw something—a huge fissure stretching across the depths of the void, with a faint glow from unknown origins surrounding the fissure.

That fissure reminded Yüsheng of the shape of a dimensional bridge tearing through spacetime, but it was not quite the same as a real dimensional bridge. It seemed very unstable, its edges constantly undergoing a process of disintegration and reconstruction, while the faint glows around the fissure were continuously drawn into it.

Yüsheng tried to approach the fissure, but no matter how he closed in, the fissure floated in the distance like a phantom, the distance never changing.

So he stopped in the darkness and silently pondered.

He naturally thought of the most likely answer at this moment:

The Eden Gate.

That "artificial dimensional bridge" built by the Hermetic Order cultists, attempting to open a door to some new world.

But why did it appear here? Why did he see its illusion in this chaos at the boundary of life and death?

Because this place was already near the Hermetic Order's homeland? Because of the influence of that "star gate"? Or because the Eden Gate itself was built in imitation of the dimensional bridge, and it resonated with the true blueprint of the dimensional bridge...

Many conjectures emerged in Yüsheng's mind in an instant. And at that moment, he suddenly observed a new change near that distant fissure.

He saw that there seemed to be something hidden in the faint glows surrounding the fissure. He saw a silhouette floating at the boundary between light and shadow.

After concentrated observation for a long time, that silhouette suddenly became clear in Yüsheng's vision.

He saw a giant forged from light—filled with an indescribable sanctity, with a pair of huge light wings floating illusorily behind it, hanging upside down beside that fissure.

Its hands were spread open, as if bound by invisible chains. And those faint glows near the fissure were exactly the ones emanating from this giant. They were continuously drawn out like blood, then injected into that unstable "Eden Gate".

A giant forged from light with wings—this image immediately made Yüsheng think of the " Living Saint " he had encountered above the star gate. The two were practically identical in form!

In the boundless chaos, Yüsheng stared fixedly at this scene, until the illusion of the fissure gradually dissipated, and the upside-down bound giant of light vanished from his vision.

"...Those cultists' technology does have something to it."

A violent feeling of surfacing suddenly surged. All sorts of perceptions from the real world quickly reshaped into the shell of a "person". Yüsheng took a sharp breath and opened his eyes to see himself standing in the control hall of the Heterodyne Traveler.

A white shadow flashed at the corner of his eye. Before Yüsheng was even fully revived, he felt his half-body bones crackle and pop, and then a furry five-speed electric fan latched onto his arm: "Sir, you're back!"