"But...." Lali didn’t finish her sentence and paused.
"The only ones that can be opened are nearby worlds. Or rather, nearby planets. Do you understand the concept of a planet?"
"I’ve tried many times, fifty, a hundred? Maybe more, so many that I can’t even remember...."
Although her expression was calm, the words she spoke were filled with deep despair.
"I understand what a planet is, but why is it like this?" Zhang Rongfang furrowed his brow. Lali was undoubtedly a top-tier expert on his level, but judging from her many years of fruitless attempts,
it seems opening the passage is really very, very difficult.
Lali walked to the edge of the passage, gently caressing the cold stone base with her hand.
"I calculated for a long time, and the final result is actually still energy."
"Energy?"
"Yes...." Lali nodded, "The gravitational pull of the White Eye is too powerful, and nothing can resist its attraction. Even the land beneath our feet, relying on its enormous mass and orbital rotation, struggles to withstand it all."
"But there’s a cost to this. The cost is that the life of this planet is burning, rapidly declining," Lali said softly.
"Declining... What does this have to do with the passage?" Zhang Rongfang asked.
"Of course, it has something to do with it. The energy we use to open the passage is actually drawn from the planet’s core.
So the more tests we run, the more core energy we extract, and the faster it will cause the entire world to move toward the White Eye," Lali explained.
"Moreover... I calculated that the last passage opening was just an experimental accident. If we want to deliberately open the entry to that passage, the world behind that passage is very, very far away... So the required energy is also extremely massive!"
Her words were already quite clear.
To escape the terrifying gravitational pull, one must use a sufficiently large amount of energy as power to burst forth and leave this planet.
But now the core is running low; using it again might... accelerate the destruction of everything.
Zhang Rongfang looked at the rotating passage, remaining silent for a moment.
"By the way, I’m not sure if Chana Tower mentioned this to you. To open long-distance passages, it not only requires massive energy but also unlocking the three Flawless Secret Locks left by the Spirit Eye Race," Lali continued.
"I don’t know why they left such seals. But opening long-distance passages will be affected by three different degrees and methods of special influences."
"They did mention it, the Flawless Secret Lock, it’s the technology left by the Spirit Eye Race. Long mentioned it’s simply impossible to find," Zhang Rongfang nodded slightly.
"That’s what’s most despairing. No matter what we do, we can only watch helplessly as everything draws nearer, watch as everything deteriorates, yet we’re powerless," Lali said in a low voice.
"So we need to gather everyone’s strength even more," Zhang Rongfang replied seriously.
"Can the passage be opened now?"
"Yes, but it can only open to nearby worlds. Those worlds are just like ours, or even worse," Lali shook her head slightly.
"Shall we give it a try? I want to verify something," Zhang Rongfang said earnestly.
"Opening a passage to a nearby world, the backup energy can only open it once. How do you want to verify it?" Lali asked, puzzled.
"I want... to enter personally once. To see the situation in other worlds," Zhang Rongfang said, looking into Lali’s eyes.
Lali fell silent, seemingly pondering something.
After a long time, she nodded in agreement.
"I understand. If this will bring you more peace of mind."
She walked to the edge of the copper mirror passage, the forge in her heart pounding violently.
Silver light lines lit up in her palm, like thin threads, shooting into a gray opening in the base of the passage.
The entire copper mirror passage began to tremble slowly, emitting a creaking, piercing sound.
It was as if a wooden board, burdened beyond its capacity, was bearing an overwhelming force.
"After opening, the maintenance time is only ten minutes, keep that in mind." Lali reminded him.
"Understood!" Zhang Rongfang kept his eyes fixed on the passage doorway.
The gray mist there began to spin violently.
All of the gray started to speed up, contract, and quickly condensed into a point at the center.
Pop!
Suddenly, there was a soft sound.
All the gray mist inside the door completely disappeared, leaving behind only a clear, transparent water wave.
"You can go in now. This is a world I’ve frequently visited before," Lali said, slightly fatigued, retracting her hand and looking at Zhang Rongfang.
"Thank you." Zhang Rongfang spread his bat wings behind him, lifted off, and rushed forward.
A flash of red, and he charged directly into the door of the copper mirror passage.
The transparent water wave inside the doorframe swayed slightly, bursting into ripples, but soon calmed and disappeared.
"...." Watching the disappearing Zhang Rongfang, Lali stood in place, lost in thought for a moment.
She didn’t know why she was still willing to trust him.
Perhaps it was because of his exaggerated, terrifying ability and talent, or perhaps it was because, like her, he was on the same path, sharing the same plight.
But no matter what, this person.... this King of Bloodline, indeed brought a hint of new hope, a hint of new expectation.
*
*
*
The transparent water wave formed a passage, extending continuously in front of Zhang Rongfang.
Extending to an unseen end.
The passage was fifteen meters high and nine meters wide, just enough for him to spread his wings and enter alone.
Now, he was suspended inside the passage, flying forward rapidly.
It seemed as if there was no gravity, no air, only an eerie, silent dead space.
Soon, about half a minute later.
A bright white light gradually appeared ahead.
A similarly round white light gate was rapidly approaching, situated at the end of the entire passage.
A glimmer of anticipation flashed in Zhang Rongfang’s eyes. His bat wings gradually decelerated, and soon gently came to a halt before the white light gate.
"Is this another world, another planet?"
He couldn’t imagine it at all; in his past life, for technology to advance to the point where one could reach other planets, it would also require an extremely long time.
And here, it only required Lali to use the Spirit Eye Race’s technology, combined with her own space manipulation ability, to pull this vast distance closer in just this little bit of time.
"Perhaps it’s also because the White Eye brings all the planets closer...."
Zhang Rongfang speculated so.
But no matter what... he was about to enter a brand new, unknown world...
This anticipation...
He revealed a trace of strangeness in his eyes, reached out his hand, and slowly touched the white light gate.
Hiss...
A section of his finger automatically detached, flew into the light gate, and disappeared.
Soon, that section of his finger could still sense mostly intact.
Then Zhang Rongfang leapt forward, rushing into the entire light gate.
The white light flashed suddenly before his eyes.
His eyes adapted slightly to the piercing light, and he immediately saw everything in front of him clearly.
Heat!
Extremely terrifying heat!
The vast expanse of white before him was countless heavenly light radiating from the sky.
The terrifying high temperature and malevolent energy radiation were rapidly penetrating Zhang Rongfang’s body’s cells, quickly killing all the cells on the surface of his skin.
Even his eyes were completely burnt and blinded the moment he entered.
"Rise."
Zhang Rongfang’s expression remained unchanged, and he raised his right hand.
With a bang, his entire right arm instantly turned black, exploded, and transformed into countless black spiritual lines, weaving into a large, wide black canopy above his head.
So far, this was the only way to maximumly block the heavenly light.
With the canopy blocking, the large areas of burns on Zhang Rongfang’s body rapidly healed.
His innate rapid reactive ability began to take effect.
In a very short time, his skin surface split into generation after generation of various cells.
The most heat-resistant cells quickly remained, while the others died completely, and then ultra-fast divided based on these most heat-resistant cells.
Soon, Zhang Rongfang’s entire body surface turned dark red, as if he had no skin, only blood and flesh.
His right arm transformed into a large black umbrella, held above his head, blocking the heavenly light.
His eyes regenerated in the eye sockets, growing into new, heat-resistant and sturdy eyeballs.
By this time, he finally slowly adapted to the environment here. He also saw clearly where he was.
He was suspended in midair at an altitude of about a hundred meters.
Below him was a purple-red rocky terrain.
Occasionally, you could see lava flowing slowly along the cracks between the ground, with twisted high temperatures everywhere.
Looking up.
Above, the glaring heavenly light had no clouds to obstruct it, only an enormous white pupil occupied the entire sky.
From here, you could even see the white gaseous flames slightly boiling and pulsating on the surface of the white pupil.
Countless gaseous light flames formed a massive white sea of flames on the surface of the white pupil.
After just a few seconds of continuous observation, Zhang Rongfang felt something was wrong with his eyeballs.
When staring directly at the white pupil, the temperature of his eyes began to increase rapidly again.
In no time, wisps of white steam began to emerge from his eye sockets, an anomaly caused by the fluid inside his eyeballs evaporating and flying away.
He immediately looked away.
Strangely enough, as long as he didn’t look at the white pupil, the temperature quickly dropped again.
"Is this the malevolent energy radiation?" Zhang Rongfang exhaled and glanced back at the light gate.
Immediately, he flapped his wings and flew forward at full speed.
Boom!
The sound barrier was instantly broken, and he then entered twice, thrice the speed of sound.
The ground below swiftly zipped by, gradually blurring into a dark red light and shadow.
His eyes constantly scanned the ground, trying to find a trace of life still remaining here.
But unfortunately.
There were no people.
No living things.
Except for rocks, lava, there were not even any charred black dead trees to be seen.
Even staying in this environment, he could feel the temperature within his body rising uncontrollably at a rapid pace.
Over time, all the water inside his body would evaporate and heat up, and he too would die here.
He flew who knows how far, yet the surrounding ground still contained no life.
Only a cluster of what seemed to be ruins of buildings flashed by below.
But with golden lava flowing there, it was evident that no life remained.
The more Zhang Rongfang saw, the colder his heart became.
Calculating the time, he eventually flew back.
At the same time, he dived towards the ground.
He reached out and grabbed the ground fiercely, holding a handful of scorched earth.
The high temperature of the scorched earth caused wisps of smoke to rise from the surface of his palm, but it quickly disappeared.
The insulating layer evolved on Zhang Rongfang’s body surface effectively prevented burns from the high temperature.
He examined the black soil carefully, realizing it was not soil at all, but countless black powder!
Soon, he flew back near the light gate.
He turned around and looked at the desolate land before him.
"If there’s still life, perhaps it is only deeper underground..."
With this guess, Zhang Rongfang carried the black soil and turned to enter the light gate.
This kind of world, perhaps, is their future.
He suddenly understood Lali’s feelings a bit. Only after truly witnessing the apocalypse and experiencing despair can one understand how grueling that predicament truly is.