A virtual door suddenly appeared out of nowhere. Yu Sheng pushed the door open and stepped into Baili Qing's office.As soon as he entered, he saw the space had switched to "Global Surveillance" mode — countless holographic projections that would make ordinary people dizzy surrounded the entire area, with scenes transmitted from various Exotic Realms continuously refreshing in every corner. A cool figure clad in a white suit dress stood in the center of all the images, monitoring them with a solemn expression.
As soon as Yu Sheng appeared, those pale gray eyes turned towards him. Baili Qing nodded at him slightly, "You're just in time. A minute ago, the monitoring system reported another batch of new leaks."
Yu Sheng quickly moved to Baili Qing's side, turning his head to look at the surrounding dizzying holographic projections. These projections mostly depicted situations within various Exotic Realms, and the footage likely came from the action recorders carried by the Deep Diving Team or Special Service Bureau Officer groups — Yu Sheng didn't possess the ability to observe all the monitors simultaneously like Baili Qing, but with a quick glance, he saw several familiar scenes.
The remnants of structures invaded from Exotic Realms, unified stone majestic buildings, with a few larger realms appearing with chaotic dim skies and curtain-like shadows hanging down from the heavens.
In a few fleeting surveillance images, Yu Sheng also saw plant structures that seemed like withered roots.
"Oh my..." he subconsciously pulled at the corner of his mouth, "What's going on here?"
"As you can see, suspected extradimensional structures akin to 'Lodaxim High Wall' are invading Boundary Land's various Exotic Realms on a large scale. Even confined spaces like the 'Museum' and 'Dark House' have detected small-scale invasive objects."
While speaking, Baili Qing gently waved her right hand, and numerous holographic projections switched in front of Yu Sheng, amplifying and highlighting certain images.
Those images depicted fully armed deep divers and Special Service Bureau Officer groups fiercely engaging with several bizarre enemies.
"As the invasion continues, various hostile entities have started appearing near many erosion points. They are non-communicative, highly aggressive, and a significant number possess regenerative capabilities...
"The impact range of this wave of invasion is still expanding. Nearly two-thirds of the Exotic Realms' monitoring systems have reported alarms... I suspect the remaining one-third have also been invaded, but haven't reached an alert level yet."
Baili Qing gently inhaled, turning to look at Yu Sheng.
"That's the situation."
Yu Sheng gazed into her pale gray eyes, hesitating for less than two seconds, "Well, let me tell you our situation — a few minutes ago, we just retreated from a similar invasion point... Zheng Zhi fell into it."
Baili Qing's expression didn't change, showing a calm that was close to peripheral necrosis from the enormity and multitude of tasks — it might also be because Yu Sheng was standing before her, and she was somewhat prepared mentally...
Then Yu Sheng briefly explained their side to her, including the colossal rift found at the Exotic Realm's boundary leading underground, the root structures deep within the rift, and that peculiar "Minstrel."
Baili Qing crossed her arms, remaining silent for a while. After Yu Sheng finished speaking, several seconds passed before she solemnly said, "Regarding the roots you mentioned... I've received several eyewitness reports here. All reports describe similar situations: root-like objects clinging to geological fault zones, showing massive tearing and withering signs. Now it seems..."
Baili Qing paused slightly when Baili Xue's voice came from the air beside them, "It appears that some existence attempted to prevent the 'Kingdom' behind Lodaxim High Wall from disintegrating or collapsing, but it failed. Now that fragmented Kingdom is crashing into our world like hail... Exotic Realms are anomalies at the reality world's edge; if this 'storm' continues, crossing of those things might just be a matter of time."
Yu Sheng listened with a furrowed brow, the rapidly deteriorating situation exceeded his expectations. Seeing Baili Xue's eyes emerging from behind a nearby group of holographic projections, he quickly asked, "Can we identify the source behind these 'fragments' now? How's the situation at the Fault?"
"The Fault... the Fault situation is worse," Baili Xue's voice carried a hint of tension, "You should open the door and take a look... just don't open it directly to the bottom, just to where the old folks were before, take a look and you'll understand."
Yu Sheng furrowed his brow, opened a door leading to the Fault, and stepped through it.
In the next moment, he directly arrived at the dark expanse at the bottom of the Council Tower, stepping onto the fragmented land.
Baili Qing and Baili Xue followed behind him.
Yu Sheng stepped to the edge of the fragmented land, glancing down, immediately understanding why Baili Xue had specially warned him not to directly open the door to the "bottom."
He saw a storm, an exceedingly astonishing, fear-inducing, indescribably fierce vortex, with countless twisted interwoven spatial fissures intertwined in endless darkness, alongside frozen lightning brilliance within the vortex's depths, branching out into innumerable twisted streams of light.
Everywhere was dizzying light and shadow, everywhere were illusions projecting blurry landscapes that could not be comprehended no matter what, the entire bottom of the Fault had completely become a chaotic mess. Things that had originally been dormant in the Well of Ages seemed to be stirring deep within the storm. Yu Sheng cast his gaze towards the darkness, and almost instantly, he felt as if countless things were raising their heads from the dark, staring fixedly into his eyes.
"What the hell?!" Yu Sheng instinctively exclaimed softly, "What's going on here..."
"The Fault became like this almost at the same time as the global invasion happened, without any warning or process," Baili Qing's voice came from next to him, "Red urgently used his power to freeze things here, but it could only barely delay what lurks below. The Chairman and Kant have already gone down, but they are only active in the upper layer; they haven't found a safe path to enter deeper."
Yu Sheng listened next to her, and almost as Baili Qing's words fell, his peripheral vision captured two flashes bursting out of the storm.
The next second, those two flashes fell straight onto the shattered land, transforming into two human figures during their descent.
Yu Sheng quickly ran towards that area and saw an immensely strong old man, solid muscle all over him, holding an ornate giant sword, helping a tall figure slowly stand up.
The face of that tall figure could still vaguely be recognized as resembling Kant's, yet at this moment, his feet were bent backward, horns sprouted from his forehead, his skin colored a fiery red, his eyes flashing with chaotic yellow light, entirely non-human.
He also had lost an arm—his left arm was severed at the root, scorching blood flowed like molten fire from the wound, permeating the air with a pungent sulfur smell.
"Chairman! Kant!" Baili Qing also rushed over at this moment, and seeing the condition of the two people, even she exposed a trace of astonishment on her face, "How did it become like this? Weren't you in the upper layer area..."
The demon-like Kant shook his head, freeing himself from the Chairman's support, then with his remaining intact hand, he gripped his shoulder wound, forcefully tearing the flesh, pulling out a new arm.
Next to him, Yu Sheng grimaced watching—despite his own frequent bizarre deaths, seeing others perform hardcore actions still made him feel phantom pain.
Only after the phantom pain did he get shocked—how do these two guys have hidden forms?
And such forms that clearly have a deep story behind them...
"Things have started moving from the bottom layer to the upper layers," Kant finally spoke, "I was struck by Urbano."
Yu Sheng stood there, obviously with a face full of confusion: "Urbano? Who is that again?"
"An old subordinate of the uncle... many years ago," Baili Xue floated by muttering, "Said he was the strongest among the Four Heavenly Kings or something... I heard it from the old auntie."
Listening to Baili Xue's words and looking at the demonic king-like Kant in front of him, Yu Sheng suddenly felt like he needed to vent but couldn't find the words, holding it in finally he uttered: "Demon King and Four Heavenly Kings, huh... should there be a Hero too?"
Then the super-strong Chairman grandpa nodded: "Yes, that's me."
Yu Sheng: "…?"
In this interruption, he heard Kant sigh deeply: "Ah, it's all deeply buried in the Abyss of Time now..."
"Yes, but now those things from the Abyss of Time have come up and given you a slash," the Chairman planted his giant sword into the ground, "You used to be so confident, saying if those things really rose up you could deal with them without hesitation—why'd you lose the fight at just a shadow slightly resembling the past?"
"...I was covering for you, you old geezer," Kant grumbled impatiently, sparks shooting from the corners of his mouth, "You were charging ahead to the middle layers, no concept of defense and couldn't use protection spells, I was wondering how I even lost to such a brute like you back then..."
The Chairman glanced sideways at Kant: "I'm just strong, you should've run when you saw me smashing the Dark Heaven King with the Powerful Heavenly King, but you insisted on resisting my other hand holding the Wisdom Heavenly King."
Yu Sheng beside them was ignited—by the flame of gossip—but at least he knew now was not the time to ask about the vigorous past between the strong Hero and the working Demon King. Seeing the two bickering, he hurriedly coughed twice: "Cough cough, you two hold off, Baili Qing dragged me here to help—what's the situation below now? Is there still a way down?"
"I'm afraid it can't be through here," the Chairman shook his head when he heard this, "It's not about whether there's a way down; the spatial stability below has become very poor. Directly breaking through the Fault could trigger a chain reaction, which would cause the Barrier that Red barely set up to collapse."