June 20th, the three-day deadline had passed.
On the Suroma observation ship, Andrew paced back and forth on the deck, frequently pulling out his phone for a glance, his mood restless and uneasy.
“It's you again?”
Hearing the voice, Andrew turned. It was the young observer they had met a few days ago.
The observer approached and asked curiously, “Are you really an observer? Why haven't we seen you in the observation room at all?”
Andrew answered vaguely, “Nothing... my ability is a bit special. I need solitude to observe.”
“Oh, I see.” The observer didn’t press. Everyone had secrets, and anyone allowed on this ship had passed strict screening, so espionage wasn’t a real concern.
“Look, remember what I told you last time.”
The observer looked out toward the sea. By the tenth day of the rule period, the gravity vortex had already produced a spectacle on the ocean surface.
A “plateau” dome made of water, as tall as a skyscraper, rose and stood over the sea like an impenetrable wall dividing both sides. From a distance, the surrounding ocean surface bent upward toward it, as if a water bow had been drawn taut by gravity, aimed straight at the dome.
Even the color of the water in that area had changed.
A pale blue-white phosphorescence seeped up from the depths, floating on the surface like ghost fire. During the day sunlight masked it, but at night it showed a sinister side.
“It’s changing so fast...” Andrew said.
“It’s almost less than three thousand meters from the sea surface,” the observer said. “At that depth, the gravity vortex not only drastically affects the sea surface, but some of the moonlight has begun to penetrate the water layer and become visible. I heard that yesterday a few observation ships that retreated too slowly were accidentally pulled into the vortex. Really unlucky.”
Andrew frowned. “The later we deal with it, the more dangerous it becomes. I don’t understand the point of the voluntary signup period the other day. Isn’t that just delaying the timing?”
The observer looked at him. “Either way, this means three thousand Ascendants will die, or three thousand top-level fighters. Such a heavy loss—people won’t want that unless absolutely necessary, right?”
“But these people are dying to save the world. Isn’t that an honorable thing? If we don’t do this, tens of millions of Ascendants worldwide will face failed challenges, their Mind Power upper limits will degrade, and the Bright Moon rising from the ocean will cause disasters beyond calculation!”
Andrew grew more passionate as he spoke, his face flushing red by the end.
The observer shrugged and said, “Hey, buddy, we’re just chatting. No need to get so worked up. But now that you say it, I’m pretty sure you won’t be one of those three thousand. Haha, just joking, don’t mind me.”
After speaking he walked off. Andrew opened his mouth to call him back but stopped himself.
He was actually one of the three thousand, but he was the Carrier Array owner. So the other 2,999 in the array would be hit by the high-energy laser backlash, but he would not be.
The First Research Institute Dean Joiessen’s words still lingered: if the plan succeeded, Andrew would be allowed into the Senate’s subordinate council.
Andrew remembered the taste of the restaurant food and red wine, but more important was the guarantee of benefits and security joining the council would bring.
“...No.” Andrew shook his head and murmured to himself, “I’m not doing this for that. I want humanity to pass the rule and avoid a greater disaster...”
At that moment his phone rang. Before he could pick it up, he heard Pei Jiaozhi’s voice.
“Pei Jiaozhi, prepare. Move quickly, send someone to pick him up.”
The hesitation in Joiessen’s mind vanished and he became excited. “The array action is about to start?”
“Yes. He’s about to become humanity’s hero.”
“This will be magnificent. I thought that sea area would turn into a super vortex; I didn’t expect a water plateau to form.”
On a Nordstar high-altitude plane, Adam watched the satellite footage of the sea area streamed to the monitor. The Lanyang ocean region, affected by the gravity vortex, displayed frequent anomalies. The central area looked especially shocking from a bird’s-eye view.
Zhang Minglu beside him said, “Experts say this ‘plateau’ was forced up by downward gravity and the rotational currents squeezing from both sides. If a person—or even the sturdiest ship—were squeezed like this, it would be over in an instant.”
“That’s dangerous.”
Adam turned to look at Guan Tong, who was sitting in the back with his eyes closed.
“Aren’t you nervous, Shadow?”
“As long as you perform steadily I won’t be.”
“Of course. I’ll extend the attached gravitational field as long as possible.”
Zhang Minglu reassured them: “Guan Tong won’t be sent into the vortex center, only the edge. As long as the distance is sufficient it’s fine. Guan Tong, get ready. We’re almost over the target.”
Guan Tong opened his eyes and looked at the blue sky and white clouds outside the window.
Because they had to enter the gravity vortex area, he, as a participant in this operation, couldn’t board a ship to approach. The safer method was to be flown to the target point and jump from the air.
He rose and went to the hatch, adjusting the positioning settings he carried. The device would relay his location in real time and also allow contact with those on the plane.
“Adam, you prepare too,” Zhang Minglu said.
“Understood.”
At the command Adam became serious. He stood up but did not go to the door; only Guan Tong would jump, and Adam would assist remotely.
“We’re at the target,” the pilot’s voice came. “You may jump.”
The side door burst open, and the airflow surged in, whipping their hair.
Guan Tong had already donned his mask and underwater suit.
He walked to the doorway. Zhang Minglu patted his shoulder and earnestly warned, “If the operation fails, withdraw. There will be other chances. Don’t be reckless!”
Guan Tong nodded, then leapt from the plane.
Whooooosh.
The wind howled as his body fell fast. Soon a peculiar Mind Power presence enveloped him, and Adam’s voice came through his tracker.
“Shadow, I’ve covered you with a gravity field. Can you feel it?”
“I can.”
“Good. I’m going to concentrate on outputting Mind Power and calculating the field. I won’t speak again. When I’m about to lose it I’ll speak. At that moment you must immediately exit the gravity vortex’s influence!”
“Understood.”
Adam fell silent as promised. Guan Tong had already fallen a considerable distance, clear of the clouds, and could see the shimmering sea below.
That wasn’t sunlight...
Guan Tong squinted. Sunlight falls from above, bright and translucent on the sea. But the light on the surface here came from beneath, a pale bluish haze, like a layer of shining lead-gray.
He knew that was the Bright Moon’s moonlight.
When he was less than a hundred meters above the water, he summoned Shadow to catch him and slow his descent, preventing a direct, knockout-inducing splash. At that height a free dive would have rendered him unconscious by impact.
After landing on the sea surface, he could clearly feel the surrounding water moving toward the center. Even at the edge of the gravity vortex the pull was intense—proof of the Bright Moon’s powerful gravity.
Protected by Adam’s invisible gravitational field, he remained unaffected for now, but that protection was temporary. He could not waste a second.
Begin.
He plunged into the water and directed Shadow to swim toward the center. Shadow’s own speed, the vortex’s pull, and the closer distance of the Bright Moon to the sea surface compared to before allowed it to speed toward the Bright Moon.
After ten days of rule period, the Bright Moon had not only continued to rise, its mass had also been continuously increasing.
When Guan Tong “saw” it, his first reaction was shock.
The last time he told Uenoshi he felt sick because he’d seen many sea creatures trapped by gravity, their heads forming dense “moon rings”—a nauseating sight.
This time he didn’t feel disgust. It wasn’t that the carcasses were gone, but they had turned transparent! Like clear membranes wrapped around the sphere, layering upon layering to the point you couldn’t count how many there were.
This was a sign of increasing gravity. Most of each corpse had been absorbed by the sphere, with the remaining residue combining and stacking into transparent sheets. The moonlight passed through and refracted, turning what used to be soft light into an eerie glow.
And with mass increasing, the sphere had grown much larger; Guan Tong couldn’t take it in at a glance, unable to judge its true scale.
Terrifying...
Guan Tong maneuvered Shadow to approach the Bright Moon’s midsection visible in his view and unfolded the Shadow Domain.
He needed Shadow to quickly expand in a planar form, cut into the sphere, and push forward.
If Shadow could pierce through and emerge from the other side, he could perform a Substantial-Ins substantial conversion.
He didn’t expect—nor did he think—Shadow could cleave this giant sphere like slicing a mountain. Their masses were not comparable. He only needed to delay it: even holding it open for 0.1 seconds over the Bright Moon would make the plan succeed.
“Shadow, how are you doing over there? Adam’s sweating; he seems close to losing the field.” A tense Zhang Minglu’s voice came through the tracker a few seconds later.
Guan Tong replied, “Not yet. The sphere’s diameter is too large. My Shadow hasn’t completed the penetration!”
“Ten more seconds!” This time Adam spoke; he had earlier said he would only speak when he could no longer hold out.
“How could this be?” Guan Tong was puzzled. “During simulation—”
“It’s different in reality. I underestimated the actual conditions! Because the Bright Moon keeps rising, its gravity field continuously changes. I have to follow those changes in real time, and the brain calculation load is enormous!”
“I understand.”
Half the seconds had passed as they spoke. As Guan Tong silently counted down the last second, Shadow still hadn’t fully pierced the sphere.
But he had to act. If Adam’s gravity field collapsed, he would immediately be affected by the Bright Moon’s field and could lose control.
Substantial-Ins substantial!
Body Swap!
At the last instant of the countdown Guan Tong activated both abilities.
Shadow, which had traversed the sphere, became physical, and at the same moment his own body transferred out of the gravity vortex’s influence.
The instant Body Swap completed, Guan Tong appeared on the nearest island, standing on the sand and feeling the link to Shadow sever.
He exhaled slightly, realizing this was the result of Shadow being completely destroyed—this was the first time since he gained Shadow that such a thing had happened.
Of course Shadow wasn’t dead. After being utterly destroyed it could still be summoned again from the Wordless Book. Guan Tong was simply surprised; he had not expected the Bright Moon’s destructive power to be so strong that it not only obliterated the Shadow inside the sphere but transmitted force to all of Shadow’s branches.
But that wasn’t the focus right now...
The focus was: there was no prompt in his mind.
“...”
No one needed to tell him. If the Fire Thief hadn’t given a prompt, it meant the rule hadn’t ended.
If the rule hadn’t ended, the operation had failed.
Guan Tong couldn’t help kicking at the sand, his disappointed gaze fixed on the flung grains.
...
“What’s wrong? Is the screen broken?!”
“No, I observed... something’s off!”
“The frequency changed. A strange frequency mixed with the Bright Moon’s frequency. Wait, strange?”
Inside the Suroma observation ship, the observers began shouting and calling out.
Soon the comms screen lit. Joiessen’s serious face appeared and he asked, “What happened?”
The observation ship leader replied, “The Bright Moon’s observation readings have shown a major fluctuation!”
“Major fluctuation? What does that mean? Has anything attacked it?”
“Possibly. The readings show a decrease in its mass and it has become very unstable. Although it hasn’t stopped rising, the impact is undeniably far greater than the effect of using a super nuclear bomb before! The strange thing is we did not observe any attack targeted at it...”
A young observer near the leader fell silent, hesitating.
In that fleeting instant he had detected the frequency change. That brief anomaly, which appeared inside the Bright Moon and then almost instantly vanished, felt very familiar to him.
“Could this be a secret operation from Beixing? Any ships or submarines near the target sea area?” Joiessen asked.
Submarines!
The young observer immediately recalled being aboard the Goddess of Fortune when it was sucked into the gravity vortex. At the brink of doom a force had lifted the hull, enabling the submarine and the dozens onboard to escape with their lives.
The frequency of the force that lifted the hull matched exactly the strange frequency he’d heard just now. It was clearly from the same source!
“We haven’t observed any extra ships or submarines appearing,” the observation ship leader said. “Dean Joiessen, isn’t the array action about to begin? How could such a change occur?”
Joiessen on the screen looked puzzled but didn’t say much. “I suspect this may involve Beixing. Handle it immediately. Continue close observation and report anything at once.”
“Understood!”
When the communication ended, the observation ship leader turned and instructed all the observers: “If anyone detects any external influence applied to the Bright Moon, report it to me immediately!”
The observers all agreed. The young observer who recognized the frequency’s light in his eyes, lowered his head and decided to keep this to himself for the time being.