Buzz—!!!
"Intruders! Drop your weapons! Stop resisting immediately!"
A piercing alarm blared. Upon seeing Firefly's figure, several soldiers guarding the area immediately raised their rifles and aimed at her.
Facing them, Firefly's palms began to glow with fire. With a mere casual wave, scorching high temperatures instantly consumed the soldiers.
Seeing this, the other soldiers showed expressions of terror and immediately opened fire on Firefly.
However, when those energy bullets struck the Sam Armor, they failed to leave even a scratch. Subsequently, these soldiers were also completely incinerated by the high heat.
Firefly stepped into the monitoring room. A thick scent of blood assailed her senses; corpses with slit throats lay scattered across the floor, blood soaking into the floorboards.
Lin Zhenyi stood with his back to the door, fully focused on operating the monitoring terminal.
Seeing this scene, she frowned slightly, then walked to Lin Zhenyi's side and asked:
"Did you find the recording?"
"Almost. It should be during this time period." Hearing Firefly's voice, Lin Zhenyi did not look back, his fingers tapping rapidly on the control panel.
Soon, a flash of joy crossed his eyes. "This is it!"
After saying that, he pressed a button, and the surveillance footage began to play slowly.
In the footage, the researchers were originally recording and observing changes in the miniature spirit tide when, suddenly, an alarm rang out.
This alarm was identical to the one from just now. The group of researchers panicked briefly, but upon seeing that no intruder had burst through the door, they regained their composure.
However, five minutes later, a blue light suddenly flashed, and Lu Zhaoran appeared beside the spirit tide rift, holding a Knight's Sword.
She first glanced at the spirit tide beside her, revealing an expression of disbelief. Then, as if sensing something, she instantly turned her head to look behind her.
Immediately, she raised her Knight's Sword and began to retreat slowly toward the miniature spirit tide.
But the person pursuing Lu Zhaoran seemed to have anticipated this. The space surrounding the spirit tide suddenly vibrated, and various purple-black spatial rifts began to flicker in the air.
The instruments placed around the miniature spirit tide were instantly destroyed by these purple-black rifts, which then flashed rapidly toward Lu Zhaoran's direction.
Seeing this, Lu Zhaoran, who had been retreating slowly, suddenly exerted force with her feet and vanished into the spirit tide.
Only in the final instant before her figure completely disappeared, a tricky spatial rift grazed the blade, shearing off a small section of her Knight's Sword.
...
After watching this scene, Lin Zhenyi fell silent.
The facts were laid bare.
Lu Zhaoran had indeed entered the miniature spirit tide, even though it appeared she had been forced into it by someone else.
Thud—
At that moment, the door to the monitoring room was once again violently burst open, and another batch of reinforcing soldiers poured in.
They aimed their guns at the two of them. Among them, the leader shouted with a hollow bluster:
"Our S rank ability users will arrive shortly! If you don't want to die, then..."
But before he could finish, a head accompanied by a spray of blood slammed heavily onto the floor.
"S rank..." Lin Zhenyi slowly turned around. His cold gaze swept across the severed limbs on the ground, his killing intent spreading as tangibly as a physical substance. "So what if they are S rank? I'll kill them all the same!"
Before his voice finished echoing, black light flashed, and he vanished from the spot.
Now, only Firefly remained in the monitoring room.
Compared to Lin Zhenyi, she did not seem nearly as anxious.
Firstly, because the fact that Lu Zhaoran had entered the spirit tide was now confirmed, being anxious was useless; Lin Zhenyi was merely venting his rage.
Secondly, because she suddenly recalled something the system had said previously.
"The spirit tide is an anchor point for travel between two worlds..."
Recalling these words, Firefly muttered to herself.
Did that mean Lu Zhaoran wasn't actually dead, but had traveled to another world?
However, it was highly probable that once one crossed over, it was very difficult to cross back. This was likely why, in the understanding of this world, crossing over was equated with death.
"System, if I enter the spirit tide, can I go to the other world? Is there any risk?"
[Yes, no risk.]
The system responded promptly.
"In that case... then it's perfect. I'll take a character inside to see what that world is like, and find traces of Lu Zhaoran while I'm at it."
Thinking of this, she turned her gaze toward the spirit tide in the small observation room.
But before she could take a step, the system warned again:
[However, after going to the other world through the spirit tide, it will be temporarily difficult to return to this world.]
"Difficult to return to this world?" Hearing the system's answer, Firefly was somewhat confused. "Even Cipher's teleportation gates can't perform a transfer?"
[Because that world is a different plane and does not exist in the same universe as this world, teleportation is impossible.]
"Then I'll have to consider this carefully..."
After hearing the system's answer, Firefly began to think about which character to let enter the isekai.
Thud—
Suddenly, a dull sound interrupted her thoughts. Turning her head, she saw Lin Zhenyi, who appeared to have been pinned against the wall by an invisible, massive force.
"...What happened?"
Firefly was somewhat confused by the sight.
Wasn't he an A+ rank spatial ability user? Even if the spirit tide here was disrupting space, he shouldn't have been beaten like this so quickly, right?
Seeing this, she activated her scan once more.
Her vision penetrated the walls, and Firefly instantly saw the source of the restraint on Lin Zhenyi:
Not far away, an old man holding a strange staff stood to one side. At the top of the staff, spatial fluctuations were flickering.
And at the old man's feet lay Buck, who should have been at the elevator passage, now bound.
"Spatial ability... So it's you!" Even pinned against the wall, Lin Zhenyi glared fixedly at the old man, the fury in his eyes almost erupting. "Was it you, you old fogey, who forced her in?!"
"Correct." The old man's tone was indifferent, the light on his staff brightening slightly. "Are you here for that young girl?"
Lin Zhenyi did not answer. Black light flared violently on his body as he attempted to activate spatial displacement.
However, in the next second, he remained pinned to the spot, his position not shifting an inch.
Buzz—
Boom!!!
The old man pressed his staff down slightly. A powerful spatial force descended with a roar. Lin Zhenyi was slammed down from the wall by an invisible giant palm, smashing heavily into the center of the floor with a dull thud.
"The space here has long been locked by me, added to the disruption of the spirit tide," the old man looked down from above, his voice cold and devoid of any emotion. "Did you think your meager spatial abilities could still amount to anything?"