novelraw Chapter 341: (Extra 15)
Chapter 341: (Extra 15)
Xing Min stared at her in a daze for two seconds, then saw a familiar smile in her eyes.
His fingers moved slightly, and the faint golden light that had been wrapped separately around each of them expanded into a spherical shield surrounding them both — no more barriers between them.
Xing Min let out a quiet sigh, opened his arms, and pulled her into a full embrace. He wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and cradled the back of her head, wanting to hold her longer, just so she wouldn’t see his eyes turning red.
He hadn’t expected that when she awakened — when she regained memories of their past — his emotions would surge so uncontrollably.
He told himself it had only been just over a month. But even so, he still couldn’t help it…
…
Yu Xi had first noticed something was wrong with this world because, despite dispatching multiple batches of taskers, there had been zero mission progress — not even 0.01%.
In the most recent dispatch, more than half of the taskers failed.
When taskers fail, they are forcibly wiped out by the apocalyptic world’s system rules.
There were many things she could influence or control, but this — this she couldn’t touch.And it made sense, if you thought about it. These people had already died once. The System T somehow devised a way to automatically detect residual energy wavelengths from fading consciousness and resurrected them in the form of soul-like entities.
Being wiped out meant that the energy field — or soul — was completely erased. She knew what that felt like. For the apocalyptic system managing these worlds, it was as simple as deleting a file on a computer.
There was no gruesome imagery. The despair, the silent screaming, the unwilling struggle — all vanished in an instant, as easy as popping a soap bubble.
But to her, who had traveled through so many apocalyptic worlds, that was still a life. Even if no blood spilled, they had once existed — living and breathing.
This was the first complete failure in all the hundreds of missions she had overseen. She had always been careful, starting with the most basic survival tasks. Progress was slow, but she preferred that over meaningless sacrifices.
…
And yet this time, she had lost over a hundred souls at once.
She spent some time investigating and found that what was originally classified as a B-level world had, shortly after the disaster began, suddenly spiked to SS-level.
For most taskers within the system towers, an S-level apocalypse was already a major threshold. Many would struggle at that difficulty for a long time.
But SS-level? That was completely out of reach for those still running B-level missions.
This situation reminded Yu Xi of the Acid Rain World. A similar anomaly had occurred there: a regular apocalypse was contaminated with fragments of a higher-level one, raising the difficulty level.
But to jump from B to SS instantly … the invading fragment must have come from a world even higher than SS.
Was it from an SSS-level apocalypse?
Yet all twenty-nine of her SSS-level worlds were currently stable, none of them missing any fragments. That meant this fragment didn’t come from her own star cluster — and as such, she had no access to its details: the type of apocalypse, the fragment’s scale (and effect), when or how it had landed…
If left alone, this world would eventually collapse under the weight of that high-level fragment’s energy — just like the Acid Rain World once did.
“Whether it was an accident or intentional, since it’s affecting my world, I have to find out what’s going on.” That’s what she’d said to Xing Min at the time.
Not just find out — she also wanted to remove the invading fragment from the original B-level world.
But this couldn’t be done through the world control panel of her native system. The simplified numbers and data on the surface actually represented a fully functional, living world.
Trying to manipulate that from the outside was like performing surgery on an ant — with bare eyes and human hands. She could squash the ant easily, sure — but she couldn’t save it.
Unless…
Unless she made herself smaller than the ant, so she could wield that vast power from within its body.
System T had tried this once, back in the Infinite Train World. But once its energy went unchecked and exceeded the world’s limits, it was forcibly rejected by the system.
That method wouldn’t work.
But someone else’s method would.
Yu Xi would have to seal away all her memories and become a native NPC of this B-level world. As long as she awakened by her own strength later on, she’d be able to freely use her powers.
Of course, she wasn’t like Leng Mian.
Leng Mian had once entered System T’s world, while the one she was entering now was her own. Even if she were to die in the disaster or never awaken at all, as long as the set time arrived, she would still be able to return to her native world — though it would consume a massive amount of mental energy.
She might fall into a weakened, unconscious state for a few days due to the mental drain, but compared to Leng Mian’s fate — forever trapped in the mission world if he failed to awaken — this cost was nothing.
Besides, as long as she followed the world’s rules, she could also arrange a few backdoors for herself.
For instance, the moment of entry into the apocalypse. That world operated on a different timeline than her own. Though she couldn’t save the taskers who had already failed and been erased, she could choose the general timeframe for dispatching the next wave of taskers — which meant she could also choose the timing of her own entry.
Just like how, in the past, Xing Min would always guide her into apocalyptic worlds right before disaster struck, giving her a little preparation time.
Another example was her tailor-made identity.
In this apocalyptic world, Yu Zhenzhen was originally an only child — no younger sister.
When she and her scumbag husband were going through a divorce, the disaster hit, and she hadn’t gone to H City. After that, she struggled alone with her daughter, severely lacking food, clean water, warm clothing, and all other necessities.
Not long after, Yu Tianbao died from a high fever and lack of medicine. The emotional blow devastated Yu Zhenzhen, and after several years of struggling through the apocalypse, she eventually died as well …
Yu Xi chose this character and merged her arranged identity into Yu Zhenzhen’s life. At the same time, she split off a portion of her spiritual power and, with Xing Min’s starship system’s assistance, injected mechanical consciousness into that identity’s mind.
She created a “Yu Xi” within this world. It was her, and yet not fully her — just yet.
Like a tiny sapling, she took root in this world, was born, and gradually grew up, with a complete background and social network.
Just as Xing Min used to arrange native identities guided by mechanical consciousness before each of her missions — to avoid detection by System T — this time, it was to avoid detection by the world’s own rules.
The moment she fainted during military training and woke up again was when her true self officially entered the prepared identity.
The 500-cubic-meter space, the suddenly enhanced physical attributes, the concealed lottery smartwatch … Before awakening, these were the most she could have. Any more, and it would’ve triggered suspicion from the world’s rules.
Also, to support her mission, Xing Min had agreed to personally enter this world afterward. He arranged a body for himself too. Since they no longer needed to avoid System T, he created a healthy adult body.
His body came with a storage space. He didn’t lose his memory, and he could freely use the starship’s energy — so long as it didn’t exceed the world’s rules.
He had also promised her: he wouldn’t pull her out early just because she was in danger. She asked him to let her hold out until the very end.
Yu Xi never told Xing Min that she actually had a 50% chance of awakening successfully.
There was a logic to everything.
Heavy rain, hurricanes, flooding, hail, low temperatures … She’d experienced all these disasters before, so they gave her some bonus toward awakening.
She deliberately chose a background of being orphaned, with only one older sister to rely on — similar to her role in the Meteorite World — which also boosted her awakening odds.
Yu Qi had been betrayed by a scumbag and a mistress; so had Yu Zhenzhen.
And yes, she did have a first love in high school. The guy had once promised they’d go to the same university, but due to unforeseen events, he broke up with her — saying something similar to what Pang Yuqing said: that she had become too strong, too excellent, and he no longer matched her…
But the most important boost to her awakening still came from Xing Min.
They had been through so much together. As long as he stayed by her side, she would eventually awaken through the deja vu those shared memories evoked.
Luckily, that moment hadn’t come too late.
**
The current disaster level of this world, by her estimation, was still around B-rank.
Hail was scary, yes — but the rain, hurricanes, and flooding weren’t particularly difficult to handle.
What gave her pause, though, was the earlier appearance of the “Long Night.” She suspected that the metal dust from outer space in the clouds might be a fragment from another high-level apocalyptic world.
After sharing her theory, Yu Xi shifted her gaze beyond the faint golden light shield. She slightly raised her eyebrows, and in an instant, the hail and moisture molecules in the air hovered midair against gravity, then broke into countless fine ice crystals. In the next second, they reformed into a semi-arched ice shield, firmly protecting her and Xing Min.
The ice shield was only about 5 to 6 millimeters thick, but due to the intense pressure from Yu Xi’s ice control and the ultra-low central temperature, it now had strength surpassing titanium alloy; heat-resistant, corrosion-resistant, and far safer than Xing Min’s light shield under current world constraints.
Xing Min retracted his energy.
He understood: the current Yu Xi had fully awakened. She could now access all her powers.
And with the abilities she now possessed, calling her a god of this world wouldn’t be an exaggeration.
“What is this?” Almost the moment the ice shield took shape, Yu Xi noticed something off. Outside the transparent ice layer, there were some powdery particles clinging to certain areas — looking a little bit like dust.
These substances seemed to have been automatically excluded when she used her ice control power. The ice crystals under her command filtered them out on their own. At this point, her ice control ability had reached the highest level, and her mastery over all forms of ice manipulation was refined to perfection.
Whether water or ice, under her will, it responded like a living thing, manifesting exactly as she envisioned it — no need to watch over each step of the process.
What she’d demanded was an ice layer at absolute zero temperature, and to achieve that, the purity of the ice had to be extremely high; so the forming ice crystals would automatically eliminate any impurities.
Those powdery particles must’ve been filtered out as impurities. In other words, these substances were originally embedded inside the hailstones and fell down together from the sky.
She and Xing Min observed them for a moment. Xing Min, more sensitive to light, noticed that the areas covered in these powder-like particles seemed slightly dimmer.
This observation immediately made Yu Xi think of the “Long Night” from before.
According to the authorities, the Long Night had been caused by powdery particles in the clouds reflecting sunlight, which led to 70% of the planet experiencing prolonged darkness.
But hadn’t those powdery particles already been neutralized using specialized aerosol missiles? Why were they reappearing now? And why were they embedded in hailstones, falling to the ground?
“No,” Xing Min touched the ice layer with his fingertips, frowning. “This isn’t powdered metallic mineral …”
“Then what is it?”
“These are microbial spores. I’ve seen them before. When a wormhole was opened, there was a life form from a distant galaxy that manifested in exactly this form.
They don’t have a fixed homeworld. Most of the time, they lie dormant on meteors, drifting through the cosmos. If they happen to land on a planet with organic life, these microbial spores will gradually awaken from hibernation and use organic lifeforms as hosts.”
Hearing this, Yu Xi recalled the third mission world and frowned. “Will it control the human body? Like … zombies?”
“No, but the hosts will start getting sick.”
Xing Min recalled the past. Back then, countless lifeforms from different dimensions emerged together, and the destruction they caused was unimaginable. Compared to that, these spores weren’t as terrifying.
“The symptoms vary, but every single one was a previously unknown illness. Most patients eventually died from rapidly dropping body temperatures and organ failure… And the illness is contagious — transmitted through blood or saliva. What’s really spreading is the spores themselves. Once passed on, they’ll mutate again.”
“Many of the Taien people died from this. But our world had more advanced technology, and we quickly identified the spores’ weakness and cured the infected.”
Xing Min summarized the characteristics of the spores: inactive and dormant in low temperatures, they love warmth and absorb heat as nourishment. The body temperature of most organic beings is their ideal host environment. Once in close proximity, they revive, enter through saliva or blood, and begin to reproduce.
No normal organic being can withstand their parasitism. The host becomes their incubator, home, food, and nutrient source…
Everything they need is drawn from the host’s body. Around ten days after infection, the host begins to show symptoms.
Two to five days later, the host dies.
From the moment a host is parasitized, they become a walking source of infection — without even realizing it.
That’s the truly terrifying part: an extended contagious incubation period, paired with a very short illness progression time.
Ordinary worlds, especially ones with underdeveloped technology, can’t detect these spores. Like this B-rank apocalypse world — it’s ten years behind even Yu Xi’s original world technologically.
No matter how much they test, they’ll only treat the infected as patients; mistaking it for a new type of disease.
And no medicine they try will be able to kill the spores.
In truth, it’s not hard to expel the spores from a host.
The spores thrive on heat. In cold environments, they won’t leave the body voluntarily—unless the surrounding temperature exceeds 37°C, and it’s humid at the same time.
If the host remains in such an environment for two to four hours, all spores will automatically exit the body and survive in the warmer, more humid surroundings.
What Xing Min had described helped Yu Xi deduce why this world had suddenly jumped from B-rank to SS-rank — and also allowed her to infer something more.
For example, the microbial spores that had gathered in the clouds during the Long Night weren’t reflecting sunlight — they were absorbing it. It was like the sky had been covered with layers upon layers of thick, tightly woven black curtains, completely blocking out the light.
This hailstorm wasn’t the first time those microbial spores had fallen to the ground. They had already descended during the Long Night’s torrential rains. And as long as they encountered suitable human bodies and met the conditions for blood or saliva contact, they would find hosts.
Which meant, the outside world was already filled with hidden danger.
Yu Xi immediately thought of Yu Zhenzhen and Tianbao and began to carefully recall their every movement since the Long Night began.
First, they had stayed indoors the entire time and never came into contact with rainwater.
Second, the water supply had already been cut off. Like most city residents, they weren’t exposed to saliva-based transmission through tap water.
Third, when she had injured those three men who tried to break in at night, there was no blood contact — and she herself had no open wounds. Thus there was no blood-based transmission either.
Fourth, during their evacuation, Tianbao and Yu Zhenzhen had never left the tent on the raft. Even if they’d gotten splashed by rain briefly while getting in or out, they had no open wounds — so no hosting occurred.
Even in the worst-case scenario — if they had already been parasitized — as long as they showed any strange symptoms, she could immediately arrange for everyone to take a sauna.
Xing Min’s earlier solution: high heat and humidity sounded to her exactly like a sauna. If they stayed in a sauna for four hours, all the microbial spores would be expelled.
And once everyone left the sauna, she would instantly drop the temperature and freeze any expelled spores in ice, sealing them up and sending them to …
“To where they belong?” Xing Min glanced at the sky and understood her meaning.
“First let’s clear this area. At the very least, we’ll reduce the nearby sources of infection.” Yu Xi was anxious to get back to check on Yu Zhenzhen and Tianbao, so she didn’t ask Xing Min to take out the Jeep. Instead, she reached into her newly unsealed ultra-massive space and pulled out a bottle of metallic ice, then began pouring purified water outward.
Before the water could even hit the ground, it had already crystallized into ice particles. These crystals flowed like a stream of water, shaping themselves into a structure within the shield dome.
Even though Xing Min had seen this many times, the sight of ice crystals flowing like liquid and painting the space into form always struck him as beautiful.
The base ice platform fused with the semi-arched dome. As they stepped onto it, Yu Xi drew out and froze all water molecules on their bodies, clothes, and shoes—anything that might’ve carried spores — and sealed them with the dirt and debris into the surface.
Once the platform sealed, the entire dome-shaped ice capsule began to lift off the ground. Inside, ice chairs and tables started forming in the frozen space.
Back when she first gained her ice powers, Yu Xi had considered trying to replicate car or airplane parts so she could build her own transport.
But that was unnecessary. As long as they were inside a container made from her ice, she could move it through the air at high speed however she liked.
She sat on the ice chair, focused her energy, and began piloting the ice craft across Qiu Wang Mountain Scenic Area, weaving back and forth.
So that afternoon, as everyone else was suffering from the hailstorm, the people in Qiu Wang Mountain witnessed something they’d never seen before.
The hail that had been plummeting from the sky began to reverse direction. The hail slowed, then reversed course, shooting upward — as if some strange anti-gravity phenomenon had occurred. The chunks of ice didn’t slow after rising; they kept accelerating, until they became streaks of white light shooting toward deep space.
From farther away, the scene was even more surreal. While everywhere else hail pounded the earth, Qiu Wang Mountain looked like it had slipped into another world.
There, the hail rose like bubbles drifting upward from the sea floor. As the speed increased, the entire event looked like a reverse hail meteor shower.
This reverse meteor shower lasted as long as the hail itself — if not longer.
One or two hours after the hail ended, rain began falling again in other areas. But in the southeastern slopes of Qiu Wang Mountain, people noticed something odd — there was no rain at all.
At first, they thought it was just a local anomaly.
But soon, those living at the edge of that area discovered something else: it wasn’t that there was no rain; it was that a nearly invisible, massive dome had enveloped the land, shielding it from rain and storm winds alike.
Some brave folks approached and touched it, only to recoil at the sharp, freezing cold.
It was an ice shield.
A giant one. After surveying and measuring, residents estimated it covered around four hectares. Outside, the storm still rages — inside, only an overcast, misty sky remains.
What was going on? Where did this ice dome come from? Why didn’t it melt? Why did something so scientifically impossible exist?
From the moment the ice shield was discovered, the people inside it grew restless. Some remembered a TV show with a similar plot — and worried they’d just become the next “people trapped under the dome.”
What if they could never leave from now on — what would they do?
Some people discussed it for a long time but couldn’t come to any conclusions, so they simply gave up: “Whatever! Honestly, I think this is pretty great. Just look at it — it’s storming and pouring out there, and we’re perfectly fine in here. That hail earlier was terrifying, and a lot of people nearby were injured. Thank goodness the military arrived quickly and took the injured away…”
Because of the storm, no one had gathered to chat like this in a long time. Now that it wasn’t raining, people took the rare chance to be outside and couldn’t help but talk.
“Actually, thinking about it … the military’s actions are even weirder. Our houses have all been reinforced, and most of us made it through the hail just fine. There was one unlucky guy who was outside and got his foot smashed, and his family carried him back indoors. But when the military came, they didn’t just take the injured guy — they took his whole family.”
“Now that you mention it … that is kind of strange …”
“Come on, is anything stranger than the hail flying back up into the sky?”
“From our perspective, whether it was the reverse hail or the ice dome … both seem to be protecting us …”
“When you put it that way, it does feel strange. So what’s going to happen to the rest of the world outside the ice dome?”
**
Inside the ice dome coverage area — the A-frame villa homestay resort.
The breathtaking display that afternoon and the storm-blocking ice dome had brought everyone inside the resort to the central function building. While everyone was still anxious and afraid, it was mostly because of the natural fear toward unusual phenomena — not because they thought the event itself was bad.
Yu Xi, having returned home, confirmed that Yu Zhenzhen and Tianbao hadn’t taken a single step outside the A-frame house. She rushed over and hugged them both, letting out a long breath of relief.
Even though, for the past nineteen years, the only part of her accompanying Yu Zhenzhen had been a thread of spiritual energy — now that she had fully awakened, both those nineteen years and the two months she had spent in this world had become part of her real, complete memory.
So whenever she recalled Yu Zhenzhen and Tianbao’s original fate, she couldn’t help but feel sorrow.
“Jie, be mentally prepared. Things are probably going to get chaotic outside. For the next ten days, you and Tianbao can’t go anywhere. You have to stay inside the villa.”
Ten days — the incubation period after being parasitized by the microbial spores. During this stage, they wouldn’t know who around them might be infected, and they couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t be infected themselves.
After all, Yu Zhenzhen and Tianbao were just ordinary humans — fragile — and the transmission of this infection didn’t come with obvious signs like zombies or other viral outbreaks. In fact, it happened completely silently.
Only once symptoms appeared could one be sure.
So, for safety, she needed Yu Zhenzhen to stay put for the full ten days.
She would have Xing Min embed a light shield around the A-frame villa, and the outer large ice dome would serve as an additional layer of protection.
After handling this, she still planned to remain here, re-deploy mission takers, and continue resolving the original disasters of this world — so she needed a base.
Four hectares of land — 40,000 square meters, roughly the size of 5–6 standard football fields.
It wasn’t that Yu Xi couldn’t create a larger dome, but within this area, she could monitor everything that happened.
When she selected the range, she included the Pang family’s A-frame villas homestay resort and specifically marked several other nearby inns. Some had poor conditions, others were better. Altogether, these locations housed around 200 people. Even if someone tried to investigate the origin of the dome, they’d have no way of tracing it back.
The military’s official shelter was not within the dome’s range. First, it was too far; even if she covered it, it wouldn’t help — she couldn’t oversee it. Second, military personnel needed to go in and out constantly for rescue operations, so it wasn’t practical.
Most importantly, it had already been a long time since the Long Night. The first batch of infected hosts had already passed the incubation period. Those who were going to show symptoms must already be in serious condition by now.
With the capabilities of the official shelters, they must have already discovered the disease’s transmission method and were working on treatment and investigation.
So it was highly likely that there were infected individuals inside the official shelters.
Yu Xi wanted to save this world, and she would do everything she could — but only after ensuring Yu Zhenzhen and Tianbao were completely removed from danger.
Tonight, she would have Xing Min do what he did best — invade every network across the planet and release every known piece of information on the microbial spores and how to treat them. Across the globe, among countless nations and people, there would be believers and skeptics alike. In this first wave, they’d save as many as possible.
The rest, she would take it one step at a time.
Yu Zhenzhen looked at her little sister’s serious, determined face and nodded earnestly. She didn’t know exactly what was going on, but if Yu Xi said so, there had to be a reason.
Those who are protected must trust the one protecting them. Trust her, don’t misinterpret her, and don’t drag her down.
If even she couldn’t trust Yu Xi, if she doubted her — how hurt must that make her sister, who was working so hard to protect them?
That night, no one really felt like cooking. Though it was dark outside, it wasn’t raining or storming anymore, and many of the people at the resort were happily strolling outdoors.
Xing Min drew all the curtains shut, Yu Zhenzhen switched on a warm light in the living room, and Yu Xi pulled out a ready-made meal from her space — the one she’d packed when they were still waiting at the hotel for Yu Jun.
Pigeon and ham soup, garlic prawns, Shanghai-style braised duck, stir-fried water spinach, scallion-fried clams, seafood glass noodles, and salted pork with vegetable rice.
Five dishes and one soup. When she took them out, they were still warm and fragrant. Tianbao’s mouth nearly watered when she saw the clams in scallion sauce.
Her favorite shellfish!
And soup!
And shrimp bigger than her hands!
And her favorite salted pork with veggie rice!
Tianbao was over the moon. As the four of them sat around the coffee table eating, she kept squirming in place like someone had flipped a switch on her bottom. Yu Xi thought, if Tianbao had a tail right now, she would definitely be wagging it like a little puppy.
Late that night, the internet across the planet exploded with shocking news — keywords like “live microbes,” “parasitism,” and “death” appeared in every headline.
Anyone with access to a phone, TV, or radio — anyone still able to receive information — was made aware of it.