"Alright, let's begin." Jing Shu took a deep breath, the damp, recycled air of the underground chamber filling her lungs.
It's time for the final cleanup, time to erase every trace that might remain. Everything has to be dumped into that terrifying magma below, the orange glow of the molten rock flickering against the cavern walls. The two-kilometer tunnel will be blown to hell so no one will ever figure out which direction they have escaped to. After that, she still has to find a way out alive.
After exchanging a nod with Zhen Nantian, they each went off to do their part. He carried his heavy pack toward the exit up the mountain, his boots crunching on the loose shale, while she slung two heavy bags over her shoulders and kicked Xiao Dou, who was unwilling to leave alone, into putting on its own bundle. The creature let out a low grumble but complied. Then Jing Shu double-checked every single explosive device, her fingers tracing the wires and confirming the timers.
The lab's instruments looked valuable, the polished glass and metal reflecting the dim light, but she didn't know how to use them. They were too big anyway, and impossible to move openly, so she gave up on those bulky things.
There's one thing she did take plenty of, however—Dr. B's half-finished "Water of Life."
She has a feeling it'll come in handy someday. Even if it doesn't, maybe she can use it to mask or shield the Spirit Spring later. Ever since she had gained her Cube Space, she has become like a hamster; anything that might be useful gets stored away in the dark corners of her dimension. If it turns out useless when the space is full, she'll just toss it. For now, it isn't taking much room anyway.
When everything was ready, Jing Shu stood at the tunnel entrance, breathing steadily, waiting for the signal. The sky was a dull gray, visible through the jagged opening above. Somehow, at some point, it had started drizzling. The fine mist fell lazily from above, light as dust, vanishing as soon as it touched her skin. It was more like a spray than real rain. It only left a faint chill behind, nothing more.
Her pupils shrank. The scene looked oddly familiar, but she couldn't recall where she had seen it before. Maybe in a dream? It felt unreal, yet somehow real. She slowly lifted her hand, only to find her movements weirdly sluggish, like time itself had slowed into a thick syrup.
Her thoughts began to drift far away. In an instant, her memories started flipping open one after another, like her whole life was flashing before her eyes, the way people said it did before death. She was the lead in this film of her own life, watching her journey unfold like a slideshow. No, not just this life; she was seeing the one before too.
The scenes rolled by: her birth, her childhood, her schooling, graduation, the apocalypse... the third year, the fourth year of the end... crack!
Everything froze like a jammed disc. That was the future, the part that had not happened yet—the past life that was suddenly refusing to play. Then, a powerful force surged into her head, snapping her awake. The Cube Space burst into view, exploding open in its second form.
Before her appeared countless cubic meters of land, each face of the cubes sprouting different vegetables and fruits. Short, lush little trees already a meter tall stood in neat rows. Bees buzzed busily, honey-gathering across the space.
Every cube was connected by a faint shimmering thread to the center—the Spirit Spring. From that core, the whole world spread outward. Chickens clucked and laid eggs, ducks quacked, cows mooed in the distance, and the bleats of little lambs echoed faintly.
All the supplies she had stockpiled before the apocalypse were neatly arranged inside, divided into separate zones. Every sector was organized into precise formations she didn't even fully understand. She looked around and saw all her secrets, all her wealth, laid out before her eyes. Right now, she and the Cube Space are one, completely merged. She stood at its very center.
"From this point, everything's my domain."
The drizzle fell from the mountain, but when it touched her, it stopped. It didn't merge with her or the space. The boundary was clear. Her eighth-tier Cube Space, 512 cubic meters in total, had formed a perfect vacuum centered on her.
Jing Shu stared in shock. It's unbelievable. The Cube Space's second form was virtual, unreal. Normally, when she activated it, it was like a projection, unable to touch anything, not even a speck of dust. Yet now, the drizzle avoided it. Why?
"Wait... this drizzle, I remember it!" Her eyes narrowed. "Last time, when I fought those slavers in the underground black market, there was the same fine rain. Right, it's exactly the same!"
Back then, she had thought it was one of Yang Yang's tricks, but now it seemed this rain was Zhen Nantian's doing.
"Sluggish... delayed... slow reaction..." As the drizzle touched her, her thoughts scattered. Her consciousness was invaded, blurred. She didn't even know what she was doing anymore. And those fragments of dangerous memories—could this thing read minds too? It's such a bizarre feeling.
"But... could my memories be exposed? If someone found out I was reborn... no, that shouldn't be possible, right?" she muttered, uneasy.
Still, this ability was way stronger than her own Phantom Bypass hypnosis. Her skill worked by mimicking brainwaves, but she could only affect five people at once. And Zhen Nantian...
"No, this power feels too familiar. The Cube Space is responding to it!" Her head throbbed as if it were about to explode. "What's this?"
Her thoughts spun wildly. This rain—once it fell—he could do whatever he wanted, couldn't he? No wonder that day Zhen Nantian had been so interested in her hypnosis ability.
Splurt!
Splurt!
That strange wet sound kept echoing. From the foot of the mountain, Jing Shu faintly saw Zhen Nantian's solitary figure. In the rain, he moved without emotion, killing people as easily as drinking water. Then his gaze suddenly lifted. Those sharp eyes, deep enough to pierce through anything, found her through the chaos of bodies and distance. His lips moved slowly, his voice light but cutting.
"Didn't expect this... You actually have something with dimensions."
He saw through her.
"Damn it! Damn that Cube Space!"
Jing Shu's heart thudded wildly. "Wait—something with dimensions?"
She might not have understood before, but after these past ten days in the mountains, she had realized what that meant. Dimension. That thing in the mountains—it was a fourth-dimensional entity.