Qinian’s five fingers curled inward, and the flames in his palm rose higher, illuminating his lowered brows and eyes.
“If we don’t destroy it, are we supposed to leave it here and let it keep hurting people?”
The fire reflected in Lu Zhaoming’s eyes, yet he did not so much as twitch an eyebrow.
“I’m stopping the way you’re doing it—not your objective.”
“If I wanted to keep you here, I wouldn’t have merely blocked that attack just now.”
Jiang Nuan had no doubt about that.
This was the Lighthouse Base. All Lu Zhaoming had to do was issue a warning, and they would be dealing with more than just him. The entire Lighthouse would surround them in an instant.
Lu Shiyan said in a low voice, “Then what exactly are you trying to do?”
Lu Zhaoming was silent for several seconds.
At last, he looked at Lu Shiyan.
“At first, I didn’t believe this world was real.”
“But when repeated verification kept pointing to the same answer, refusing to accept it became meaningless.”
“Over the past few years, more and more outsiders like you have appeared, yet this world has no way to account for where they came from.”
His gaze settled on Lu Shiyan.
“I became certain when I saw you.”
“Features so similar to mine, and the same name.”
“…There can’t be this many coincidences in the world.”
Jiang Nuan was speechless for a moment.
She had imagined Lu Zhaoming denying it, flying into a rage, or even attacking them.
But she had never expected him to acknowledge it so calmly.
He said it too smoothly, as if he had turned this conclusion over in his mind countless times, and today was simply the first time he had finally spoken it aloud.
…This man’s rationality was even more absolute than she had imagined.
Lu Shiyan’s hand, hanging at his side, slowly tightened. “So you already knew I was…”
“I knew.” Lu Zhaoming calmly finished for him. “You’re my son, from more than a decade in the future.”
Lu Shiyan’s pupils contracted sharply. “Then why have you never asked me?”
“Because acknowledging you wouldn’t change any of the conclusions. It would only make you hesitate while trying to decipher this world.”
Lu Zhaoming looked at him and paused briefly.
“And I would hesitate too.”
“Hesitation won’t make the outcome any better.”
Lu Shiyan closed his eyes. When he opened them again, his expression had returned to calm. “Since you understand all this so clearly, why are you still stopping us?”
Lu Zhaoming raised a hand. A thin golden barrier spread over the snake-patterned tree before them.
“Because the snake-patterned tree is no longer just the core. It’s also a container.”
“If you destroy it now, the anomalous energy will escape first. When that happens, your world will be subjected to an invasion several times stronger than this one.”
As the pale golden barrier settled into place, the scene beneath the tree became visible to them as though they were looking through it.
The enormous roots buried beneath the earth should have been intertwined, sustaining this world.
But now, their surfaces were covered in black veins.
They looked like parasites growing along blood vessels, already embedded deep within the roots.
The two colors were twisted together. The sight alone was enough to make anyone nauseous.
Shen Wu raised a hand and pressed a fingertip to his temple.
The instant his Eye of Truth activated, his expression changed.
[Anomalous energy.]
[It has grown together with the roots of the snake-patterned tree.]
Jiang Nuan’s heart sank.
At that moment, a muffled boom came from underground.
The black veins buried beneath the soil lit up all at once. One of the roots burst through the ground and shot straight toward Jiang Nuan with a shriek of displaced air.
“Jiang Nuan!”
Jiang Ce reacted first.
His heavy shield crashed down, blocking her path.
The next moment, a gunshot rang out beside Jiang Nuan. The bullet struck the front of the root and knocked it off course.
Qi Sui’s silver threads instantly wrapped around it, while Qinian’s flames surged over it.
The root was reduced to a charred black husk and fell into the soil.
But the black smoke hidden within it did not disappear. It scrambled into the air, one strand after another.
Lu Zhaoming watched the wisp of blackness merge into the night. “As you can see, destroying this tree will only shatter the prison containing the anomalous energy and allow it to run completely wild.”
More black roots were exposed beneath the split earth.
Once again, Jiang Nuan sensed the salty, acrid taste of anomalous energy—thicker than ever before.
“Lin Zhou put it here,” she said. “The Lin Zhou in our present comes from outside the restricted zone. He’s the leader of the Apocalypse Society in our timeline, and he admitted it himself just now.”
Lu Zhaoming was silent for several seconds.
“I see.”
“I had already suspected that the current Lin Zhou didn’t belong to this world. I simply never expected him to be the one who planted all this anomalous energy.”
His gaze swept over the contaminated roots before moving toward the brightly lit banquet hall in the distance.
“The Federation, Ice Lake, the surveillance…”
“He’s recreating what happened back then.”
After saying this, he shook his head with faint resignation.
“He went to all this trouble just to make that buried history happen all over again in front of the outsiders?”
“To prove that the people of the past shouldn’t have been sacrificed, he’s sacrificing another batch of innocents.”
“No matter how you calculate it, the numbers will never add up.”
Jiang Nuan’s breathing briefly stopped.
She had said only two simple sentences, yet Lu Zhaoming had immediately deduced Lin Zhou’s objective.
The minds of this father and son really did seem to come from the same mold.
Lu Shiyan frowned deeply as he looked at the contaminated roots.
“What you said is correct. The container can’t be destroyed first. We need to deal with the anomalous energy before dismantling the core.”
“The only feasible solution is…”
“Purification.” Jiang Nuan finished for him. It was practically the only method available.
Lu Zhaoming did not deny it. “Entering the core requires a psychic ability. Dispelling the contamination requires a purification ability. Neither can be omitted.”
Jiang Nuan tugged at the corner of her mouth.
Wonderful. The mission briefing might as well have carved her name into it.
“Is there any other way to enter the core?” Jiang Ce asked in a low voice. “I’ll go in with Jiang Nuan.”
The moment he finished speaking, almost everyone took a step forward at the same time.
Within the psychic link, several voices rang out together. Their words differed, but their meaning was astonishingly unanimous: no one intended to let Jiang Nuan enter alone.
[Going in together will only get in the way.] Shen Wu’s voice sounded.
[The energy sustaining the world’s origin inside the core has already become completely tangled with the anomalous energy. Every additional person who enters will introduce another distinct fluctuation.]
[Anyone without purification abilities won’t be able to help. They’ll only be treated by the core as an invading source, triggering powerful backlash.]
[When that happens, she’ll have to purify the anomalous energy while also splitting her attention to rescue the rest of you.]
Lu Shiyan glanced at Shen Wu. [He’s right.]
Jiang Nuan did not answer immediately.
The salty, acrid scent in the air continued to grow stronger, pressing down on her in waves.
But she was not afraid. After all these days of accumulation, the river of energy within her was fuller than it had ever been.
Jiang Nuan looked at the tangled black roots beneath the ground and spoke through the psychic link.
[I’ll go in alone.]
Ye Que’s voice immediately rang out.
[Not a chance.]
[Hear me out first.] Jiang Nuan continued. [Shen Wu is right. If you go in with me, you might not be able to help. You could even stimulate the core and cause the anomalous energy to run wild prematurely.]
[Rather than going in together, stay outside and be ready to receive me. If something goes wrong, at least there will still be people outside who can find a way to pull me back out.]
She paused for a moment before adding:
【I’m not planning to play the hero and gamble with my life. The moment things start to go wrong, I’ll pull out.】
【You all should know better than anyone how afraid of death I am.】
With that final sentence, the mental link fell briefly silent once again.
Because, honestly… it was pretty convincing.
Lu Zhaoming’s gaze swept over everyone one by one.
Those gazes all settled on Jiang Nuan—some blazing, others silent—and not a single one showed any intention of looking away.
At last, he turned to Lu Shiyan with an indescribable look in his eyes.
How should it be put…? If it had to be translated, it probably meant: Son, you’re in for a rough time.
Trying to claim even a share of their affection was no easy task.
