The end of the drainage pipe was not an exit, but a vertical drop-off.
Lin Bei slid rapidly down the slippery wall, the wind cutting his eardrums like a knife. Just as he was about to crash into the rocks at the bottom, a massive, warm resistance hit him head-on, like falling into a giant marshmallow.
He snapped his eyes open, and the scene before him completely overturned his understanding of reality.
Physics Rebellion: The Kingdom of Suspended Water
This was a massive underground cavity kilometers in diameter, known as the "Distortion Layer."
There was no so-called "ground" or "sky." Countless water spheres, ranging from a few centimeters to hundreds of meters in diameter, floated like transparent planets in the dim void. Inside the spheres, a faint phosphorescence glowed—luminescent plankton trapped within.
Lin Bei found himself suspended between two water spheres. He tried to kick against the air, discovering that the air density here was extremely high and full of moisture; every stroke of his arm felt like moving through a thick medium.
"Don't move around. The gravity gradient here is chaotic."
Aya's voice came from above. Lin Bei looked up to see her standing lightly on a piece of floating debris, her black hair drifting upward as if underwater.
"Is this the true face of Fitzroy Island?" Lin Bei looked into the distance. A massive water sphere actually encased a complete primordial rainforest tree, its roots stretching out in the water, grasping at something in the void.
"This is a 'blind spot' in Earth's gravitational field," Aya pointed downward. "The beating of the Core disrupts the magnetic field, causing physical rules to deviate here. Siren Company built a 'mining transit station' here. They don't just want the Core; they want to extract these 'High-Energy Heavy Waters' possessing anti-gravity properties."
Hunger of the Left Hand
Lin Bei looked down at his left hand.
Since entering the Distortion Layer, this transparent arm showed a near-morbid excitement. The blue veins under the skin were no longer quiet streams of light but were heaving violently like living snakes.
"It's burning." Lin Bei gritted his teeth, enduring the scorching heat coming from the depths of his marrow.
"It's craving energy." Aya jumped onto a piece of debris next to Lin Bei, her gray-purple eyes staring fixedly at his arm. "This hand was originally part of the Core. Now that it's returned to a high-energy zone, it wants to swallow everything around it."
Lin Bei felt his left hand extend outward uncontrollably, fingers splayed, palm facing a fist-sized water sphere nearby.
Whoosh!
The water sphere was instantly sucked into his palm, then vanished like it was vacuumed up, turning into a thin blue stream that disappeared into Lin Bei's pores.
An indescribable pleasure shot up his left arm to his brain, and Lin Bei couldn't help but let out a low groan. The sensation was more intense than any drug; it was the rapid expansion of power.
"Control it," Aya's tone turned cold. "If you are dominated by this pleasure, you will soon become a will-less energy monster. Your father paid a huge price to keep your 'humanity'."
Lin Bei violently clenched his fist, forcibly cutting off the suction. He looked at Aya, his eyes guarded. "What exactly did my father pay? Why do I feel like you know him better than I do?"
Aya was silent for a moment, then pointed below. "That base has everything you want to know. But first, we have to cross Siren Company's 'Sentinel Zone'."
Shadow Infiltration
In the middle section of the Distortion Layer, Siren Company had built a ring of metal scaffolding, like a giant spider web covering the entrance to the abyss.
Dozens of drones called "Predators" circled in the void, their red detection lasers weaving a net.
"If you get scanned, the mothership will fire high-frequency shockwaves directly, vibrating you into powder," Aya whispered.
Lin Bei hid behind a massive, hundred-meter-long water sphere, his breathing becoming extremely shallow. Watching the red beams, a "sense of premonition" in his mind began automatically calculating the interval of every beam.
"I can do this."
Lin Bei suddenly exerted force, shooting out like an arrow from a bow in the weightless state.
He didn't fly directly. Instead, using his left hand's ability, he gently waved his arm as he approached a laser, condensing the surrounding water vapor into an extremely tiny, irregular ice crystal lens.
The laser hit the ice crystal and refracted slightly, sliding just past the edge of Lin Bei's body.
He weaved through the countless intersecting red lights, his body rolling and folding, every movement precise to the millimeter.
Just as he was about to cross the Sentinel Zone, a guard suspended on the scaffolding suddenly turned his head. The thermal imager in his goggles caught the faint blue glow around Lin Bei's body.
"Intruder detec—"
Before the warning could leave the guard's mouth, Lin Bei had crossed the thirty-meter distance, instantly appearing in front of him.
Lin Bei didn't use violence. He simply placed his left hand gently on the guard's helmet.
"Shh."
Lin Bei whispered. The blue veins in his left hand instantly invaded the guard's electronic systems, the massive energy load burning out the communication module instantly. The guard fell silently toward the bottom like a puppet with cut strings in the weightlessness.
"Nice work." Aya had appeared behind him at some point, a hint of undetectable praise in her tone.
Secrets in the Ruins
They landed in an abandoned experimental cabin beneath the scaffolding. This had been Lin Jianguo's temporary base; the walls were covered with yellowing photos.
Lin Bei stopped in front of a photograph.
In the picture, Lin Jianguo was holding a little boy of five or six, eating ice cream under the Fitzroy lighthouse. The boy was smiling brightly, but his left arm was wrapped in thick black bandages.
Lin Bei touched the photo, discovering a medical record hidden behind it:
"Subject Beta (Lin Bei): Third genetic collapse occurred today. Only solution: Stripping of original limb, accessing Core Backup. Price: Subject will permanently lose normal senses as a 'human'. Lin Jianguo Personal Statement: If I must sacrifice his 'humanity' to buy his life, I would rather be the sinner who killed his son."
At the end of this passage, the handwriting became messy, stained with tears from countless struggles.
Lin Bei's hand trembled slightly. He had always thought his father alienated him and treated him as a test subject because he was cold-blooded.
He never thought that the alienation was because Lin Jianguo didn't dare to look directly at the son he had personally pushed into the abyss.
"He tried to separate you from this plan while keeping you alive," Aya stood at the door, looking into the abyss. "But Siren Company didn't agree. What they want is a complete 'God,' not a child eating ice cream."
The Ultimate Threat
Just then, a muffled sound came from deep within the abyss below.
Gravity in the entire Distortion Layer instantly returned to normal. Lin Bei and Aya were pulled downward simultaneously.
"The Core has been pulled out!" Aya cried out. "They are forcibly moving it!"
Lin Bei felt the pressure of gravity suddenly returning, squeezing his internal organs. His left eye turned completely azure, a wild rage rising in his heart.
"If they want to take it, they'll have to ask for my life first."
Lin Bei followed gravity, like an angry meteor carrying blue lightning, diving straight toward the massive black mothership deep underground