Qiu Fa contacted the government immediately after receiving Old Lei’s phone call. A military satellite paused its other tasks to lock its tracking focus onto him.
While rushing to assemble tactical squads, the government dispatched personnel to evacuate the villagers from the settlements near Qiu Estate.
Once Qiu Fa stepped inside the castle walls, the satellite location feed on the command center’s main display could only show the exterior of Qiu Estate. A single red tracker dot blip marked his position, but the visual cameras could not penetrate the structure to reveal what was happening inside.
Fortunately, before entering, Qiu Fa had dialed Madam President’s line and kept the call open, allowing the command center to listen to the audio stream.
Hearing Old Lei’s voice over the speaker, everyone in the command room grew tense, holding their breath.
“Even if I tell you now that you were the one who slaughtered your own family, you probably wouldn’t believe me anymore,” Old Lei said. He had originally prepared a fabricated memory bubble showing Qiu Fa going berserk with Atavist power and butchering his own kin. That emotional trauma would have cut straight to the bone, shattering his will to live and driving him toward self-destruction.
In the original web novel, this was precisely one of the key factors that drove Qiu Fa toward his tragic demise.
However, Old Lei realized that psychological trick would no longer work.
Sure enough, hearing Old Lei bring up the subject, Qiu Fa did not bat an eye. “Cut the useless chatter,” he replied coolly. “Don’t bother stalling for time. Whatever trick you have up your sleeve, throw it at me.”
In the past, Old Lei’s scheme might have succeeded. But a certain information broker had already proven to him that his hands were clean of his family’s blood. And more than anyone else in the world, he trusted her.
“Hmph. The story begins several centuries ago in Yongle City,” Old Lei scoffed. He pulled out a remote control and flipped a switch. Across three strategic positions inside the castle, three mounted devices lit up with glowing red indicators.
Immediately after, the audio line on Madam President’s phone went dead. “The communication signal is jammed!”
The room full of officials, who had been straining their ears, suddenly found themselves cut off. Anxiety gripped everyone, but they were powerless to reconnect.
Left with no other choice, they threw themselves back into analyzing the organization’s financial ledger and intelligence files to unravel the conspiracy.
“Yongle City, Nevergone District… everything started in Nevergone District. What makes that place so special?”
“The Spacetime Worm! Didn’t we discover a few months ago that the disasters in Nevergone District were all caused by a Spacetime Worm?”
“A Spacetime Worm… Could they be researching a time machine? Did they know about the worm all along, studying how to harness it to travel back through time?”
“If that’s the case, we’re facing a whole new kind of war!” A general slammed his hand onto the table. Altering the past could shatter the timeline in countless ways.
“A time machine?” Madam President’s brow furrowed. “No, I don’t think it’s that simple. Merely traveling through time wouldn’t draw so many fanatical followers to their cause, especially wealthy and influential figures. What could drive them to risk everything just to rewrite history?”
There had to be a far more insane, shocking objective—one that defied normal human comprehension. Suddenly, a chilling realization flashed through Madam President’s mind. Cold sweat broke out across her back as her heart froze in dread.
Out in the torrential rain, Jing Pei transformed into her dragon form and soared into the sky, cutting a straight line toward Qiu Estate. Traveling through the air offered the fastest path; she could still make it in time.
Meanwhile, seven kilometers away, two commercial airships glided through the stormy skies along stacked flight paths—one preparing to land, the other having recently taken off.
Despite the terrible weather, flight schedules remained active, though poor visibility demanded extreme vigilance from both pilots and air traffic control.
“Attention all passengers. The airship will arrive at Yunjin Prefecture International Dockyard in fifteen minutes. Due to weather conditions, expect severe turbulence. Please return to your seats, secure your belongings, and keep an eye on your children…”
Knowing they were minutes away from landing, the crew in the cockpit let their guard down for a fraction of a second. But in that brief moment of distraction, their attention lapsed. When they snapped back, horror struck—their vessel had veered off course into the adjacent flight lane, closing in on the other airship at terrifying speed.
Both massive airships were cruising at over six hundred kilometers per hour.
Air traffic control realized the error a moment too late. Frantic warnings crackled over the radio, but there was no time to pull away. A deafening explosion shattered the sky.
A catastrophic mid-air collision. Together, the two passenger airships carried over four thousand lives.
Screams echoed across the distance. Jing Pei whipped her head around, glimpsing fiery explosions tearing through the dark storm clouds far off in the horizon.
It was another sick game engineered by the rebellious Plot. To stop her from reaching Qiu Fa, it had no qualms about sacrificing thousands of innocent lives.
A phantom voice seemed to whisper in her ear: Now, make your choice. Will you let four thousand people perish for the sake of Qiu Fa, or will you abandon Qiu Fa to save them?
The satellite feed transmitted from Qiu Estate wasn’t just being watched by the government. High-ranking members of the organization and the remaining half of its shareholders sat gathered around a large monitor behind animal masks, watching every move.
Hearts thudded like clockwork in a quiet room. “The experiment has begun!” “After twenty-three years, this day is finally here!” “If this succeeds, our grand cause is practically complete!” “Father, the moment has arrived at last.” “It must succeed!”
Murmurs in various languages mingled together, sounding like frantic prayers driven by fanatical devotion.
“Back then, Nevergone District was still called Yongle City—a bustling town with a population of a million, until that Spacetime Worm showed up and devoured everyone,” Old Lei said, bringing the conversation back to the ruins. “Bound by primitive technology, Hualan’s experts failed to detect the worm’s presence, leaving Yongle City an unsolved mystery until recently. Useless fools! The founders of our organization discovered the worm’s existence three hundred years ago!”
“That creature didn’t belong to our world, yet it could tear through invisible barriers at scheduled intervals to feed on us,” two scientists who made the discovery had murmured in disbelief centuries ago.
Before long, a far more radical idea took root in their minds. “Thirteen hundred years ago, the Great Cosmic Convergence came to an end. The dimensions separated, carrying those strange creatures away as space-time shifted. Humanity reclaimed its position at the top of the food chain, divided into atavists and ordinary humans.”
“We originally believed the Great Cosmic Convergence was a freak accident, a statistical miracle like the origin of life itself. But that creature in Yongle City gave us a new perspective.”
“Those parallel dimensions aren’t far away—they’re merely invisible to the naked eye. If we can tear open the dimensional walls and bridge those worlds once more, we can trigger a second Great Cosmic Convergence! Those magnificent creatures will return to our world!”
Frenzy gleamed in their eyes. Knowing that public exposure would ruin their plans, they buried the truth of Nevergone District and quietly embarked on centuries of covert research.
Old Lei stroked the housing of an active machine, madness glinting in his weathered eyes. “Back then, our scientists spent over a century opening the smallest tear imaginable—no larger than the eye of a needle! A glorious pinpoint, even if space repaired itself an instant later. We deployed micron-scale probes through the breach, equipped with self-charging engines and homing transmitters. On our 6,987th attempt, one probe successfully returned, bearing vital samples.”
The blood in Qiu Fa’s veins ran faster. He could feel it—the truth was right in front of him.
“The cells harvested by the probe were ferocious,” a lead researcher had noted in his logs. “When placed alongside ordinary atavist cells, they remained dormant. But the moment they touched cells from the Qiu Family, they devoured them whole. Could that creature be the natural predator of the White Tiger clan in its home dimension?”
“Now that we can stabilize the breach for thirty minutes, let’s run the test at Qiu Estate. Let’s see if the power from the other side can tear open a permanent portal.”
And so, a bloody feast was unleashed.
“Qiu Fa, you lost those memories long ago,” Old Lei sneered. “Allow me to refresh your memory.”
A chilling dread washed over Qiu Fa’s spine. Before he could react, a sharp, agony-laced pain tore through his chest.
A massive claw plunged straight through his ribcage.
Old Lei burst into fanatical, worshipful laughter as he backed away toward the safety perimeter.
Even with his chest impaled, Qiu Fa didn’t lose his footing. He spun around and slashed at the limb, severing the claw with a brutal counterstrike that drew a monstrous roar from the void.
Qiu Fa bounded backward, clutching his bleeding chest, and finally caught sight of his attacker.
A jagged rift hung suspended in midair, as though the fabric of space itself had been torn open. Pitch-black darkness churned within the tear, revealing a pair of colossal, blood-red eyes gleaming from the abyss. Monstrous, cunning, and filled with insatiable greed, those eyes locked onto him like a predator watching its prey.
Qiu Fa glanced down at the severed limb. It wasn’t an entire claw—it was merely a single talon, curved like a scimitar and coated in his blood.
A surge of horror seized him, carrying an eerie sense of familiarity.
The missing memories, locked away for decades, suddenly shattered open. Fragments of his past flooded back into his mind.
He remembered now. On his fifth birthday, during the family banquet, space had torn open just like this. From inside the rift, those same crimson eyes had gleamed, and two fog-shrouded black claws reached out like grotesque human hands, snatching his family members one by one and shoving them into a gaping maw to be devoured…
He had tried desperately to pull them back, but he couldn’t save a single soul. All he could retrieve were severed torsos or lone heads with wide, amber eyes staring back at him in silent terror…
It was this monster. His family had all been slaughtered by this thing.
“Hahaha! It worked! The experiment succeeded!” Old Lei cackled near the castle entrance, dancing in hysterical glee. “The rift opened, and your blood drew the creature back! The targeting was exact! Do you see now, Qiu Fa?”
“This is a miracle! We possess the technology to pinpoint targets and breach dimensional barriers! We will drag this world back into the era of Great Cosmic Convergence! The true Dragon, White Tiger, and Angel gods will return, and you cheap counterfeits will all perish! Hahaha!”
