Doomsday Wonderland

The process of finding Exodus via the taxi spacecraft went surprisingly smoothly.

Perhaps it was because the Shark Nexus had yet to discover Exodus's hiding place, or maybe even if they had, there was nothing they could do about it. When Lin Sanjiu piloted Exodus out of the smog, circling high in the sky before making a direct dive toward Chimeric City, she had never felt more grateful for its existence. When fate pushed her away from her family and friends, drifting alone into the dark, silent sea, at least she still had this ship. It was the one thing that could carry her as she turned back, breaking through the waves of clouds.

1

Unlike her journey to the Old Sea's Crest, Exodus's flight toward Chimeric City took it straight into a densely populated zone.

No more observing from afar. This massive, snow-white space-grade ship was now tearing through the various transportation layers and traffic routes of Cloudwalk Heights at a speed strictly forbidden. With Silas's precision in control, there was no risk of an actual collision, but if Lin Sanjiu had been able to lean out and look behind her, she would have seen the chaos trailing in her wake—a trail of blaring alarms, disrupted routes, and gridlocked aerial highways, all marking the path she had just blazed through.

1

Amusingly, it wasn't long before Lin Sanjiu heard her own exploits on the emergency traffic news broadcast via Beacon-Wolf Signal. The female news anchor described the ship's exterior in detail, condemning the "suicidal, blind-flight maneuver" of its pilot. She then went on to report every area Lin Sanjiu had passed through, speculating about her destination.

A few minutes later, the anchor suddenly paused before speaking in an excited tone.

"We have just received breaking news! This reckless spacecraft has finally come to a stop! It is now hovering directly above Chimeric City! Residents of Chimeric City, please take immediate caution—"

She didn't use a hover pod. Instead, she walked step by step through the now-silent, cavernous interior of the ship, making her way toward the docking bay.

As she passed by the spot where Pete had once been confined, she came to an abrupt halt. There, on the ground, was a small pile of shattered glass.

The glass cup that Yu Yuan had used to trap Pete had turned into nothing more than debris after it was forcefully broken. She had forgotten to clean it up.

Lin Sanjiu stared at the fragments for a few moments before pulling out her Beacon-Wolf Signal device once again. This time, she actively searched for trending topics and news in Cloudwalk Heights.

Scrolling quickly past articles on "The Stir-Fried Egg That Reveals the Truth of Life," "Real Head Transplant Surgery," and "The Upcoming Great Deluge," she soon found something of interest—a lower-ranked trending topic titled: "Dismantlers: One of Cloudwalk Heights' Hottest High-Paying Careers?"

She tapped into the discussion thread and opened the related images. It didn't take long for her to find a picture of the very dismantler who had released Pete.

The image itself was nothing special, just a shot of the man reaching out to accept money. It appeared to have been taken in secret; aside from him, no one else was visible in the frame, and the location wasn't immediately clear.

However, if one had never been aboard Exodus, they might not recognize the setting. Lin Sanjiu only needed a single glance.

The dark, indistinct background in the image was none other than Exodus's docking bay. And the hand handing over the payment—

It was Cyrus's hand.

When the glass cup had just been broken, she had been preoccupied with restraining Pete. As she grabbed him and prepared to haul him deeper into the ship, she had turned her head for a brief moment, just long enough to see Cyrus paying the dismantler.

Because she had turned, the angle had shifted. That meant Pete, dangling in her grip, had seen it too.

In an instant, Lin Sanjiu understood everything.

Pete's ability, [Wildfire Sweeps the Plains], had already been activated the moment he was freed from the glass cup, and his target had been the only outsider he had brief contact with. The dismantler became Pete's means of sending a message to the outside world and to the Shark Nexus.

No matter how cautious they were, no matter how thoroughly they ensured the artisan himself was unproblematic, none of that mattered in the end. Wu Yiliu had been waiting outside. When he noticed that a dismantler had suddenly become a trending discussion topic in Cloudwalk Heights, he must have understood immediately: this was Pete's signal to them.

What exactly that signal conveyed, Lin Sanjiu couldn't tell.

But no wonder Xie Feng had said she had only waited at the rental shop for a day or two. If the dismantler had spread the information immediately upon leaving the ship due to [Wildfire Sweeps the Plains], then the timeline made perfect sense. Wu Yiliu had sent Xie Feng to the rental shop to lie in wait. By the time Lin Sanjiu arrived, it had been just the right amount of time.

Lin Sanjiu heard herself let out a soft chuckle as she curled her fingers around the small white device.

A few seconds later, the Beacon-Wolf Signal personal terminal shattered into tiny pieces, crumbling into the pile of glass shards.

1

"Silas," Lin Sanjiu instructed calmly, "open the docking bay."

As the ship's floor panels slowly parted, the sprawling, layered streets of Chimeric City unfolded beneath her, stretching as far as the eye could see.

A memory surfaced. When she had first arrived in Chimeric City, a young boy had proudly told her that even though this place was poor, he still loved living there. Now, that boy was gone, along with the entire city, leaving behind only an empty husk, and the lost, wandering fragments of a soul trapped within it.

Eight-Heads De had once said that every accessible part of Chimeric City had been sealed off inside a subspace, completely locked away. But whoever had sealed it off likely hadn't accounted for one thing. Lin Sanjiu possessed a means of crossing space.

"You must focus on the landing site in your mind," Mrs. Manas cautioned. "If you only use Advaita's Temporal-Spatial Leap once, I don't think your mental stability will be at risk. But if you misjudge your landing point, you may never find your way back..."

"Don't worry," Lin Sanjiu replied. "I won't get this wrong. I can feel it."

Standing at the edge of the open docking bay, she closed her eyes and stepped into the air.

Layers upon layers of space and universe, flowers and misinterpretations, tears and shadows all unfolded before her, enveloping her, pushing her, passing through her.

Unlike last time, when she had been overwhelmed by the dizzying spectacle, this time, she barely paid attention to the shifting dimensions flowing past her.

Her destination was fixed, steady—Chimeric City.

Time stretched infinitely, yet also collapsed into a single instant.

By the time she felt herself stabilizing, she knew before even opening her eyes that she had arrived.

However, when she did open her eyes, she froze.

This was Chimeric City, without a doubt. The long, layered, branching architectural style was unique to this place.

But everything else, everything in her line of sight, was unfamiliar.

It was as if someone had coated Chimeric City with an entirely new surface. The streets were now covered in smooth, snow-white walls and pristine, dust-free floors. Overhead, rectangular white lamps cast a bright yet sterile glow.

Half-human-height sealed metal canisters, countless white tubes, and intricately structured metal scaffolding filled the space. As Lin Sanjiu's gaze followed the shape of what had once been a Chimeric City street, she saw even more machines and equipment she couldn't even begin to name.

What had Chimeric City become?

Why hadn't Eight-Heads De mentioned any of this?

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