The Leader's attention remained entirely fixed on the cluster of black and white mist, completely oblivious to the anomaly in the scroll.
Just as the red light was about to break through the black and white mist, the original pearl suddenly began a massive collapse.
As if injected with stimulants, the black and white mist rapidly contracted and expanded.
The Leader merely looked at it, and a sound invaded his mind.
"Crack, thump—thump, crack—"
It sounded like a heartbeat.
"No!" The Leader stared at the scene in disbelief. "How is this possible? It's just an element. How could a mere element damage the Wizard Embryo Fragment?"
An instant later, the black and white mist bared its fangs like a wild beast and devoured the completely collapsed, shattered pearl.
"Ah!" The sight completely shattered the Leader's composure. Ignoring the risk of being contaminated by the black and white mist again, he desperately lunged forward to retrieve the Wizard Embryo Fragment. "No, no!"
It felt like a severed signal.
A vacuum zone appeared within his mental domain platform—a space the original rules could no longer reach.
The red light that had just attempted to disintegrate the outer shell of the Virus Element now acted as if nothing was there at all. It bypassed the mist entirely and began searching elsewhere for targets to eliminate.
Everything devoured by the black and white mist had become non-existent to the system.
"Damn the General! Damn you, Gu Yi! You ruined the final fragment!!!"
The Leader's furious roar abruptly cut off.
Having thoroughly devoured the black and white pearl, the Virus Element became a flash flood bursting from a dam. With unstoppable momentum, it instantly engulfed the Leader.
After devouring him, the mist began to rapidly spread.
The moment the Leader vanished into the mist, the nearby scroll suddenly moved.
It shifted upward, darting bit by bit, approaching the connection port above.
Suddenly, the red light sterilizing the entire world began to flicker.
The entire landscape world flashed back and forth between red and black-and-white.
[Abnormal data intrusion detected. Initiating cleanup protocol. Cleanup failed—cleanup protocol has been compromised. Initiating shredding protocol—shredding failed—shredding protocol has been compromised.]
With every shift in color, the black and white mist occupied a larger area within the landscape space.
The color shifts grew faster and faster.
Finally, everything instantly plunged back into darkness.
Why did everything go black? Did the program crash?
Li Ban, hiding inside the scroll, could no longer see a thing.
He couldn't even sense the mist's presence.
Ever since entering the Leader's landscape world, he had been hiding inside the mobile hub.
Although the hub manifested as a painted scroll here, Li Ban, in his folded state, could still recognize the true nature of things.
The lake and the green mountains were somewhat like computer partitions.
The giant koi fish was like an encrypted folder.
Of course, this was only Li Ban's personal understanding. Their essence had to be far more complex.
Thus, while Li Ban couldn't do much, he vaguely recognized the fundamentals of this world.
Yet, from beginning to end, he couldn't see through the black and white mist or the black and white pearl.
These two objects seemed like entities that didn't belong in this dimension, existing independently beyond his comprehension.
But when Li Ban saw the black and white mist touch the pearl, he suddenly received a fragment of information about the mist.
It was as clear as data stamped directly into his mind.
Devour and mutate.
Furthermore, they were traits Li Ban had no idea how to defend against.
Li Ban had overheard the Leader's system renaming the mist to "Virus."
He immediately realized that this Director and Leader of the Laboratory had been played by the General.
Fortunately, he hadn't rashly touched it while inside the mobile hub earlier, or he would have been the first one devoured.
Since he was certain the Core Element was flawed, Li Ban naturally wanted to sneak away.
However, he found that although he could hide in the scroll, he couldn't control it or leave.
He had also tried using the Flute Sound, but neither of its two abilities could affect the space itself.
It was as if some underlying rule or operating logic rejected his commands.
He could only watch helplessly as the black and white mist devoured the pearl and the Leader, then spread throughout the entire space.
Ultimately, the power of the Virus Element caused the space to shut down completely.
Computations terminated.
The world was left in lightless darkness.
Within this darkness.
Li Ban and the scroll he hid within unexpectedly became the only distinct entities remaining.
The Leader actually called that thing a Wizard Embryo Fragment. Wizard? So the Core Element is the Wizard Embryo Fragment? What the hell is that?
Li Ban tried to leave again.
This time, seemingly because the original rules had shut down, he actually gained the freedom to move.
He recalled his last glimpse of the landscape space to determine his bearings.
Now, the entire space—except for the mobile hub he occupied—was flooded with the Virus Element.
But the Virus still needed time to completely infect the landscape space.
I have to get out of here, Li Ban thought. Staying means I'll just end up devoured by that thing.
On his way here, he had observed the entire classified records room through the small screen window. If this place had no other information transmission channels, it had to be a completely sealed room, isolated from the outside world.
Otherwise, there would have been no need for the Leader to physically carry the mobile hub in here; a simple data transfer would have sufficed.
Therefore, Li Ban reasoned that as long as he could leave the landscape space, he could use physical isolation to escape the Virus Element's contamination.
But first, he had to get back to the port.
With the internal rules of the landscape space suspended, Li Ban attempted to move.
The process was rather strange.
He wasn't actually running with his legs, but rather swapping positions with adjacent data.
There might have been better and faster methods, but this was the only way to move he could grasp right now.
However, during his escape, Li Ban felt the scroll he was in becoming increasingly unstable.
The Virus Element was beginning to invade his last sliver of normal space.
Had it already contaminated everything else?
But Li Ban couldn't stop. Standing still meant certain death.
Or was it his movement that had drawn the Virus Element's attention?
From earlier until now, the Leader hadn't made a single sound.
Li Ban didn't know exactly what had happened to him, but it was undoubtedly horrifying.
Without looking back, he unleashed a Mental Piercing directly at the spot where he sensed the threat!
This was a projective release ability, not something he threw out and retracted, so he didn't have to worry about the contamination clinging to him.
After this probing attack, Li Ban immediately felt the speed of the Virus corroding the scroll slow down.
Joy sparked in his heart, and even his data movement sped up considerably.
However, the threat hadn't stopped completely. After a brief pause, the Virus resumed its invasion of the scroll.
Perhaps because Li Ban was the only one consciously fleeing for his life, his overly active behavior caused more and more of the threats to lock onto him.
But he still couldn't stop.
Whenever he felt the Virus was about to breach the scroll, he used Mental Piercing.
The threat closed in time and time again, and Li Ban fought back just as often.
Gradually, his mental energy began to run dry.
In the Leader's now completely lightless mental domain, Li Ban had been digitized and felt no physical pain, but he could sense the amount of spiritual rhinoceros within the element with absolute clarity.
It was as straightforward as a mana bar.
Now, there really wasn't much spiritual rhinoceros left in the Flute Sound.
He had to go faster!
Suddenly, a scene of a Star River appeared in Li Ban's consciousness.
This was a sight he usually only saw when he entered into cultivation.
It appeared again! I can't consciously control it, but it always shows up when I need it—it's a bit like—
There was no spiritual rhinoceros in this world; the Star River shouldn't have appeared for no reason.
When I absorb spiritual rhinoceros, the image of a flowing Star River appears, just like a cosmic world in motion—a cosmos? A world?
A bizarre thought suddenly sprang to mind.
This is the Leader's world, his mental domain. My Star River influenced the mobile hub earlier. Can it influence this place now?
With a single thought, all things came to life.
A path woven from converging starlight suddenly materialized in front of Li Ban.
The starlight illuminated the darkness.
At the end of the path was a square entrance.
Moreover, the moment the starlight appeared, the surrounding Virus Elements acted as if they had met their nemesis, halting abruptly and even shrinking back.
The starlight is even stronger than Mental Piercing. Should I use it to deal with the Virus Element?
The moment this thought arose, Li Ban snuffed it out.
His current understanding of both the starlight and the Virus Element was extremely limited.
He couldn't take the risk; escaping with his life was the priority.
What good would fighting the Virus do? Save the Leader?
Li Ban continued to follow the starlight's guidance, sprinting toward the connection port that had appeared in the void!
Within the starlight, Li Ban continuously adapted to his digitized body.
As he grew familiar with the environment and his new form, his speed suddenly surged.
In the blink of an eye, he dove headfirst into the port.
==
The Leader grabbed Chen Dong's arm, and Chen Dong subconsciously apologized.
Even though the one who had intentionally confused the concepts of the Core Element and the Virus Element was the General.
But for Chen Dong, whose personality was flawed, this still felt like his own mistake.
He couldn't muster any anger; he just felt somewhat powerless.
He had tried to stop him, but the Leader trusted no one. The moment he obtained the Core Element, he had immediately retreated to the physically isolated classified records room and forbidden anyone else from entering.
Thus, Chen Dong had missed his only opportunity to stop him after learning the truth.
The light in the eyes of the Leader, whose body was now covered in pustules, grew increasingly dim, and his hostile aura gradually vanished.
Looking at the Leader in this state, Chen Dong said sadly, "You obtained the information about the Wizard Embryo Fragment during the process of hypnotizing and brainwashing me. You thought it couldn't be fused and needed to constantly devour corpses to maintain its vitality. But... that was actually misleading information that Gu Yi intentionally left behind after hypnotizing himself first."
The grip on Chen Dong abruptly loosened. The Leader asked in surprise, "You... remembered."
With his past misdeeds exposed, he instantly lost the self-righteousness to scold Chen Dong.
"That's not important anymore," Chen Dong said. "We were originally just—anyway, we were all played by the traitorous Du An. The Core Element stored in the Myriad Ancient Pagoda was nothing more than a trap he set to completely get rid of us."
The Leader's face drained of all strength. "Why did he do this?"
The Leader's voice was cut off by a massive, booming rumble.
The three of them looked toward the window simultaneously.
Outside, the fiery red sky had, at some unknown point, turned the color of blood—the kind of blood that had been flowing for a long time and was already starting to turn black.
The deafening rumble wasn't thunder.
It was countless giant fireballs falling from the sky.
Smashing straight down onto the already devastated earth.
"The world... the world is starting to collapse." Zhang Yang had long since stopped understanding what they were talking about.
But he understood one thing: the Laboratory's plan had failed.
They hadn't acquired the Wizard Embryo Fragment, and now they couldn't even save their own world.
"How could this happen?" He scratched his head, his face full of confusion. "We're supposed to be really strong, right?"
Struck by an idea, he turned to the Leader, who was so weak he could barely sit up. "Leader, you're dying. Please give the Wizard Embryo Fragment to me or the General. We'll do our best to extend the world's survival time. As long as we have time, there's definitely still a way."
It seemed that even at the very last moment, this young near-guard could maintain his optimism.
The Leader looked at Zhang Yang, his former strictness replaced by sheer powerlessness.
"Child... I'm sorry."
The Leader let go of Chen Dong and reached out to stroke Zhang Yang's face, but putrid flesh and blood had already begun leaking from his nostrils.
Reflected in Zhang Yang's bright eyes, he could see his own pupils had already grown cloudy.
"I'm sorry. I didn't tell you, but the Wizard Embryo Fragment died three years ago. Ever since the General's betrayal, it has never responded to me again."
"Perhaps it knew better than we did. The day the General gave up, this world no longer had a future."
"Now, it's our turn to face destruction—"
The Leader's arm stopped in mid-air, and his entire body slumped backward.
He collapsed into the soft, comfortable Experimental Capsule.
Zhang Yang couldn't accept this ending. He stared blankly at the Leader's corpse, motionless.
Chen Dong walked over to the window and looked at the apocalyptic scene outside.
Because all the survivors had already been relocated here, there was no one left alive outside.
In this cruel landscape, like a fiery hell, the accompaniment of human wails was missing.
But as he watched the giant fireballs approaching from afar, he knew that soon—perhaps the very next one—would smash down right on top of them.
Then, they would be swallowed and vaporized by the intense heat, or they would simply die before that even happened.
Chen Dong murmured, "Is this what you were thinking? Rather than watch it march toward the apocalypse, it's better to just end it right now."
"General, are you going to find an Experimental Capsule and enter a dream? That way, you can at least see something beautiful before you die," Zhang Yang, who had been silent for a long time, suddenly spoke up.
Chen Dong turned his head.
A massive fireball over three meters in diameter fell behind him, nearly brushing against the window.
The ultra-reinforced glass fractured into a spiderweb of cracks from the shockwave, and the entire building began to tremble.
Everything before his eyes was shaking, yet Chen Dong remained very calm. "What about you?"
"Me? I'm going to shut off the main valve." Zhang Yang forced a smile. "If you want to go back to the Experimental Capsule, you'd better hurry.
We're about to turn off the lights."
Chen Dong nodded.
He didn't want to die here.
He wanted to return to the main Laboratory.
To be with his comrades.
Right at that moment, with a smack, something fell onto the floor.
Chen Dong looked back and was stunned to discover that the mobile hub, which had been plugged into the mainframe, had somehow fallen off on its own.
He redirected his steps away from the door, walked over to the hub, and picked it up.
Chen Dong wasn't afraid of any danger inside it.
What else was there to be afraid of?
The hub's small screen suddenly lit up.
A little pixelated figure made of mosaics was bouncing up and down inside it.
Chen Dong froze for a second, suddenly remembering a person who had originally been brought along by the Director but hadn't shown up at all. "Li... Li Ban? He actually transferred you into the hub?"
[There is still a chance to live. Return to the Laboratory. Return to the Wizard World.]
A row of text replaced the pixelated figure on the screen.
Chen Dong's fingers abruptly tightened around the mobile hub. He looked up at the door, realization dawning on him. "Yes. There's a chance."
He suddenly broke into a fast sprint toward the outside.
The side effects of the forced logout seemed to have vanished, and his body was filled with unprecedented strength.
He didn't look at the Leader's corpse, nor did he pay any attention to the guardsman Zhang Yang heading for the main valve.
He sprinted forward rapidly.
The elevator sensed someone approaching and automatically began descending, but Chen Dong simply couldn't wait. He took massive strides down the stairs.
"Clack, clack, clack—clack, clack, clack—"
"Boom!"
The building suddenly shuddered, followed by the incessant sound of structural collapse.
Chen Dong's shoulder was struck by a piece of suddenly falling ceiling, and he pitched forward.
But his immediate reaction was to land on his arms first, protecting the mobile hub in his embrace.
[Are you alright?]
Ignoring the pain, Chen Dong scrambled to his feet and kept running before the next chunk of ceiling could crash down.
"I'm fine," he said with a smile. "I won't be needing this body anymore anyway."
"You've already guessed it, haven't you? The Wizard World isn't a virtual reality, and what we transfer are our brain signals. So, the death of our bodies here won't affect our bodies in the Wizard World."
"I'll change the settings. No one will ever forcefully wake you up again."
The ceiling and walls shattered all around him, dust falling and billowing up. Chen Dong felt as if he were sprinting across a smoke-filled battlefield.
Chunks of metal or stone slammed into his body from time to time, and blood gradually dyed his white uniform red.
At this moment, Chen Dong forgot the pain, forgot the sorrow.
He felt as if he had once again become a Spirit Practitioner in the Wizard World. Amidst the violently shaking building, his steps were light, his body agile, running forward with absolute determination.
However, "Hum—"
In an instant, all light sources within the building vanished.
"Zhang Yang flipped the main switch."
Chen Dong froze for a second, but his feet didn't stop.
The massive, burning meteorites outside the windows continuously provided him with illumination.
"It's fine. Even without power, I can operate it manually."
Through the mobile hub's small screen, Li Ban looked up at Chen Dong's chin.
He hadn't expected the usually spineless Chen Dong to be so strong and resolute.
He had originally planned to use Mental Piercing to force Chen Dong into taking him along to escape.
But he never expected the man to scoop up the mobile hub without a shred of hesitation.
This Assistant Chen had always been entirely out of sync with the atmosphere of the entire Laboratory.
He was a kind person.
Finally, Chen Dong arrived outside the main doors of the Laboratory.
He had originally intended to force the doors open.
To his pleasant surprise, however, he found that the previously jammed doors were still stuck halfway open.
Even after the door on the other side had automatically closed, there was still a gap left for him to squeeze through.
Chen Dong squeezed through sideways and quickly located his own Experimental Capsule.
The power to the Experimental Capsule was also cut.
"It's fine." Chen Dong expertly connected the mobile hub to the Experimental Capsule.
There was still a small amount of energy left inside the mobile hub.
This energy was different from electricity; there was no need to worry about voltage or current.
As soon as it was connected, the Experimental Capsule immediately lit up with a faint indicator light.
This meant the Experimental Capsule could operate at minimal power consumption.
The small screen on the hub displayed "Transferring," and the progress bar was moving incredibly fast.
Chen Dong revealed a relieved smile. He quickly typed a few commands into the mainframe, and only then did he lie down inside the Experimental Capsule.