“God’s Palette” activated!
Ashley reached out and made a grasping motion. Some shimmering liquid rose from the ground against gravity, converging and fusing to form paint.
Little Cousin and Teacher—fuse!
White mist billowed, gathering and dispersing unpredictably…
Ashley stared intently, her heart pounding with anticipation.
Hehe…
The fusion of Teacher and Little Cousin…
The girl’s graceful silhouette gradually emerged. Hazy mist floated over her milky-white body. She padded forward on delicate feet in a sexy, stretched pose, arms crossed and raised above her head, her side profile displaying her smooth, pristine underarm.
Hehehe…
Ashley grinned foolishly, her mood jubilant.
The girl walked toward her, her toes trailing mist. Her arms extended gracefully, pulling Ashley’s little head into her chest.
W-was this a dream?
Though her heart itched with temptation, she held back.
They were subjugating the King Insect—this wasn’t the time for fun. Besides, if those two found out afterward that she’d been playing with their life-sized dolls, she’d die a miserable death…
Of course, not literal death, but repeated torment until she collapsed in exhaustion.
Ashley draped a coat over “Teacher Xixi” to cover the fully exposed areas, then tested its functions. Sure enough, both abilities were usable.
“Doesn’t that mean I can nest dolls indefinitely? Next, I just kill a copy to make a fusion monster, use [Wind Traveler] to copy it, copy your ability and then copy your copy… Holy crap, I’ve stolen everything.”
Ashley immediately tried copying “Teacher Xixi” with [Wind Traveler], but discovered it couldn’t copy copies or herself.
It seemed she could only nest once.
Her gaze swept the surroundings as her mind raced.
To break the deadlock, they had to deal with [Lost Corridor] first. Otherwise, the subjugation team couldn’t concentrate their forces and would be picked off one by one.
The stalemate was extremely unfavorable to the humans. As time passed, the King Insect would summon more Lords of Insects. The Insect Jades probably needed time to produce too.
But where was that thing hiding?
During the scouting phase, Teacher had used her spatial ability “Flip Cover” and discovered that Lost Cities 1-X overlapped, forming at least a dozen layers of nested spaces. Invading a single city number alone was impossible.
The copies of Rift City were materialized with extraordinary power, but the real matter hadn’t vanished. The initial City No. 1 was likely the original Rift City, while the overlapping Copies 2-X were extraordinary manifestations—though some real matter might be mixed in.
Historical records showed [Lost Corridor] had never clashed with extraordinary powerhouses trapped in its corridor spaces. That meant its main body couldn’t enter its own created space, or it was too weak to confidently fight human powerhouses. The former was more likely.
By that logic, [Lost Corridor] was probably in City No. 1.
–
Letisia’s vision blurred. There was no vast space as she’d imagined, and Ashley was nowhere beside her.
She looked around. This was a cubic black space, like a sealed box.
She activated her ability, opening a door in front of her—but beyond it was another cubic space.
She went to a corner and opened it, revealing a diorama structure pieced together from four cubes.
Letisia instantly understood. The enemy had calculated her ability’s effects and set up this labyrinth to trap her.
The maze might not be large, but it constantly shifted. No matter which direction she advanced, the boxes ahead only multiplied.
It was all on you, Ashley. Your ability was the optimal solution against group enemies and complex situations.
Letisia thought to herself as she charged forward at maximum speed.
She was consuming power, but so was the enemy. Weakening [Lost Corridor] as much as possible was the only thing she could do.
–
City No. 9.
Oracle Blade, Four-Dimensional Slaughter!
The slender silver sword suddenly unfolded countless facets and edges. They converged from all sides, forming kaleidoscopic, fragmented slashing lines that surged toward the girl’s delicate body!
Snap!
Xixi snapped her fingers just before she became mincemeat. All the phenomena vanished like smoke, leaving the Silver Knight stunned in place.
“Though you can only wield a tenth of the city lord’s power, that’s still impressive. Unfortunately, the instantaneous calculations for a three-dimensional object passing through a two-dimensional plane are already enormous—not to mention a four-dimensional object through three-dimensional space. But your attack relies on the regional brain machine’s computing power…”
Xixi brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and said,
“I’ve used the regional smart insect’s authority to shut down the brain machine.”
She had seen through it: the copy spaces operated entirely on the brain machines’ computing power.
But due to neural transmission delays, the farther from the brain machine, the greater the computation errors. The parrot glitching in midair at high altitude, lag when darting between regions, clocks showing discrepancies—all due to signal delays.
The Silver Knight, as a copy, also lacked computing power. He abandoned his ability, gripped his sword, and strode directly toward the girl. His metal boots ground against the ground, producing heavy, resounding clangs.
“Since you have a virtual port on you controlled by the brain machine…”
Xixi snapped her fingers again. The Silver Knight halted abruptly, his joints twisting uncontrollably. He reversed his grip on the rapier and aimed it at his own throat!
Pfft!
The longsword awkwardly pierced through the armor’s gap, producing a ear-piercing metallic scrape, followed by the squelch of the tip stirring flesh and the dull rasp of the blade against neck bone.
After manipulating the brain machine to force the copy to suicide, Xixi activated her ability and turned the city lord into a small bottle of paint.
Then, the girl rested her cheek on her hand, pondering…
Several points were now confirmed.
First, copies couldn’t boost computing power via replicated brains—otherwise, there wouldn’t be shortages.
Second, the computing power source had to be living human brains, so all the brain fish in the brain machines were live humans.
Third, brain machine numbers were critically low—otherwise, it wouldn’t be the city lord soloing her, but a mob gang-up.
Based on the ratio of brain fish to region size, the entire city’s brain fish numbered around seven thousand—about one-seventieth of Rift City’s five hundred thousand residents.
Xixi had no doubt all fifty thousand had been turned into brain fish. Ordinary people had no resistance against extraordinary events.
That was fifty thousand people. Even someone as cold-hearted as her couldn’t ignore it.
But what could be done after seeing it?
They were now in phase four—maybe something could have been done initially, but it was far too late.
From the known intel, the enemy wasn’t an entropy-increasing invader that wasted resources in conquest and plunder. On the contrary, it minimized destruction and maximized resource plunder efficiency, making the original species utilize entropy more effectively—an entropy-reducing type.
Setting aside humanity, the “brain fish” made extremely efficient use of humans.
Human brains had evolved, but their bodies were still monkey-level, far inferior to chitin-hydraulic, desire-free insectoid drones that fully obeyed the main will. Better to discard the bodies, preserve the brains, immerse them in the same nutrient fluid—no comparison, no jealousy, perfect equality in every sense.
Xixi pinched her chin in thought.
It wasn’t hard to calculate: assuming each layer needed seven thousand brain fish and no more than twenty extraordinary powerhouses were trapped, the remaining few hundred thousand brain fish’s computing power must be doing something else.
“Sasha…”
Xixi’s gaze grew solemn. Saving people was Union City’s job—the predator plotted for meat, not guarding others’ leek fields. But Sasha was her pet, one of her few friends.
She couldn’t imagine facing Ashley again and explaining where Sasha was.
Though she didn’t know which layer held Sasha, she vowed to rescue it.
A few minutes later, a colossal fusion beast appeared on the street.
Its body was the size of a two-story building. Hundreds or thousands of spiked, shelled limbs protruded from its sides, propelling it forward like oars, aided by soft ventral feet that left a long trail of slime.
Like a negative toad, its back carried dozens of brain fish in shell depressions forming puddles—one fish per pit, wriggling occasionally in the mucus.
More pits lay empty, awaiting. It seemed Xixi planned to scour every inch and flatten this layer.
After controlling the city lord copy, Xixi still proceeded cautiously: infiltrate regional brain machines, shut them down to strip copies of computing power, win easily, then sweep for loot—mainly brain fish and extraordinary powerhouse corpses.
Finally, the girl stood with hands behind her back atop a five-story-tall Brain Fish Toad. Thousands of human brains incubated in egg sacs within the toad’s body.
Dozens of glossy, transparent neural bundle sheaths extended from the toad’s surface as neural chains, linking to extraordinary copy fusion beasts, providing computing power and maximizing their abilities.
