Early the next morning.
A dedicated Tiger Soul vehicle pulled up at the Crimson Technology Base in Star City's eastern district.
Feng Qi got off and headed straight into the base.
The guards at the entrance recognized him and didn't stop him. One of them waved to signal the team at the back to raise the barrier.
Inside the base, most of the buildings were still under construction. Workers moved busily to and fro, the rumble of heavy machinery echoing through the air.
The ground hadn't even been paved with stone yet. Looking out into the distance, only the central building was fully completed.
This site was part of the newly planned Crimson Technology Division's base. It covered an area of 138 hectares, divided into four zones, with Phase One construction currently underway.
The newly established Spatial Technology Division had also been set up here as a sub-department under the broader science and technology branch.
Arriving at the main tech building, Feng Qi stepped inside.
Along the way, it was clear the interior work wasn't done. Construction debris was piled in the hallways.
He took the elevator to the third basement floor. As the doors opened, a half-moon-shaped emblem came into view on the wall. At its center was a twisted blue sphere of light, beneath which were five bold blue characters: "Spatial Technology Division."
That emblem was designed by Feng Qi himself.
The distorted half-moon design symbolized the stable-type spatial teleportation array that took decades to develop in the previous timeline.
Having personally witnessed the evolution of humanity's spatial tech, this emblem held deep meaning for him.
And the spatial technology now in this Sacrifice Line had been built on the foundation laid by countless technicians and workers in that past timeline.
Seeing someone arrive, two soldiers stationed outside the elevator turned to look and immediately saluted.
Feng Qi nodded in return and stepped past the decorative partition wall, entering the Spatial Technology Division floor.
His gaze swept across the room. The floor was packed with advanced tech equipment—some newly developed by the Crimson Research Institute using the blueprints, while most had been custom-ordered through the Science Research Institute and the Future Research Institute, then assembled here.
The interior design followed a futuristic sci-fi theme, using starlit blue as the main color, accented by white.
At the far end of the room stood a large curved screen divided into twelve sections, each displaying data from various instruments. In front of the screen was a curved console, where twelve staff members sat, occasionally looking up to monitor and record changes in the data.
Feng Qi's arrival was quickly reported to the department head, who rushed over to greet him.
The Spatial Technology Division's head was a man nearing fifty. He wore rimless glasses, his temples graying, and most of the hair on his head had already fallen out. The few remaining strands were swept over to cover the top—barely.
His name was Zuo Jian, a specialist Feng Qi had recruited in advance through a list provided by Li Xingchen.
Zuo Jian would also serve as the first official director of the Spatial Technology Division.
As they spoke, the two walked to the central console. Zuo Jian gave the order to play the recorded footage of the simulation test.
As the video played, Zuo Jian occasionally explained the conditions and details of the tests.
Feng Qi nodded repeatedly as he watched.
Once the simulation footage finished, Feng Qi gave a final nod and said,
"I'll coordinate the necessary resources as soon as possible. Get ready to start small-scale live tests. Let's prepare to open the spatial channel."
After discussing a few more technical details with Zuo Jian, Feng Qi returned to the Tiger Soul Research Institute.
The speed at which they were absorbing and implementing the spatial technology was faster than he expected. Now that it was almost time for practical testing, energy supply had to be dealt with next.
Tearing open space would consume an immense amount of energy. A dedicated energy channel would need to be built.
He had already allocated space in Star City's eastern district to construct an exclusive energy supply station for the Spatial Technology Division. Construction was currently being expedited.
He figured it wouldn't take more than half a year before they'd be ready to rip open space itself.
As for whether the Demon Blade would come, he wasn't worried.
The Demon Blade was in a desperate phase. As long as a teleportation array appeared in front of it, it would dive in without hesitation. What lay on the other side of the portal? The Demon Blade wouldn't care.
To the Demon Blade, entering the human world was the top priority.
As for challenging Jian Ji after arrival? That wasn't even urgent anymore. It would likely restart its divine ascension training, only seeking out Jian Ji once it had grown powerful enough again.
To Feng Qi, the memories from the last Sacrifice Line felt like a movie he'd already watched. He knew the storyline ahead.
The only unknown was the Lanpi Clan.
Compared to other forces, the Lanpi Clan was far more mysterious—even more so than the Psionic Race.
Worse yet, the timing of their appearance changed in every single Sacrifice Line. It was like they existed outside the flow of time altogether.
No matter how many times the Sacrifice Line restarted, Feng Qi could never fully grasp their pattern. Just thinking about it gave him a headache.
But the Lanpi Clan didn't currently interfere with his plan to merge the five major cities.
So he couldn't be bothered to deal with them—for now.
Sitting at his desk, Feng Qi's mind churned with ideas, continuing to plan Star City's future development.
Time passed quickly, and before he knew it, he'd pulled another all-nighter.
The downside came the next morning when he looked in the mirror and saw the dark circles under his eyes.
His physical body in the Sacrifice Line was far weaker than in the main timeline. Without the support of rune crystals or medicinal supplements, he didn't even meet the baseline requirements for frontline deployment. Staying up all night was seriously damaging.
But for Feng Qi, if this timeline allowed him to partner with the Demon Blade…
Then these physical issues wouldn't matter. He would gain access to an entirely new, bound growth system.
The Demon Blade had plenty of ways to extend his lifespan.
After staying up all night, Feng Qi washed up and headed to the Tiger Soul dining hall for breakfast.
As soon as he walked in, he spotted Old Mist.
Old Mist had never been interested in human food.
Normally, the Tiger Soul Research Institute arranged to have livestock blood delivered from Star City's farms so Old Mist could extract and absorb nutrients from it. Seeing him here at the dining hall was quite a surprise.
After grabbing his food, Feng Qi sat down across from Old Mist and set down his tray.
"What's going on with you?"
"Pah, this tastes awful." Old Mist spat out the food he'd been chewing and looked up with a disgusted expression.
"If it tastes so bad, why are you eating it?"
"I've been reading a bunch of material on human cuisine lately. It reminded me of how Mu Qing is able to absorb and convert energy from food. So I started wondering—what if the Mist Tribe could evolve in a new direction? Besides extracting energy from blood, maybe we could also absorb it from food... like Mu Qing does. Of course, I doubt I can ever reach her digestion speed, but this is just something I want to try."
"Another one of your weird ideas."
Feng Qi wasn't even surprised anymore by Old Mist's strange experiments.
Back during a previous Sacrifice Line, Old Mist had once referenced the Dark God Clan's faith-growth path and came up with a 'hero faith growth route' specifically for him.
At the time, he was just beginning to explore how the Miracle Bracelet worked. Old Mist's suggestions were what led him to develop its usage to the current level.
You could say his entire development of the Miracle Bracelet's functionality was built on several of the directions Old Mist proposed early on.
Even the current concept of the Faith Skill Library came out of that foundation.
Old Mist's learning ability was unquestionable.
That's also why Feng Qi believed he had such high potential for growth.
Even though Old Mist had a divine-tier miracle artifact and an extremely promising bloodline, he still actively studied the strengths of other races.
Take humanity, for example.
Even though the human race was weak, Old Mist still found its history, culture, and other aspects fascinating.
He'd drawn many lessons from humanity's rise and decline.
While they ate, Feng Qi brought up the future direction of the Mist Tribe.
In the previous Sacrifice Line, Old Mist had left Star City shortly after the Silver Moon Clan was dealt with and gone to the Eastern Sea to rebuild the Mist Tribe.
In this timeline, Feng Qi had decided to help lay the groundwork for the tribe's early development.
Especially the massive resources needed for building their domain territory in the beginning.
The previous timeline had already proven Old Mist's reliability. And the Mist Tribe's development brought humanity three major benefits: safety, resources, and shared intel.
Investing in Old Mist to rebuild the Mist Tribe—whether out of personal trust or for the sake of future strategy—was well worth it.
Hearing the proposal, Old Mist didn't bother playing humble. He immediately nodded in agreement.
"Sure. I'll keep track of all the resources Star City gives me. Once the Mist Tribe's rebuilt and we've plundered enough stuff, I'll pay it all back."
"Not to me. To Star City. I'll probably be off wandering the world soon anyway."
"Wandering? You mean the spatial tech has made progress?"
"Yeah. In about half a year, the cross-dimensional teleportation array will be ready. That's when I'll head out with the Demon Blade."
"What if the Demon Blade doesn't want you?"
Old Mist took a sip of soup—then made another disgusted face and spat it out again.
"I don't know why, but I just have a feeling it won't turn me down. After all, I've mastered the perfect Blade Momentum that matches it. If we team up, our divine ascension challenge speed should skyrocket. My goal is Jian Ji. Its goal is also Jian Ji. We're totally aligned."
Hearing that, a strange expression crept onto Old Mist's face.
"Divine ascension training, huh? I'm picturing you holding the Demon Blade's leash, going around biting top-tier fighters. The more it bites, the stronger it gets… Actually, didn't the me from one thousand five hundred years in the future Dream Realm timeline also get bitten by the Demon Blade under the guise of a 'challenge'?"
Feng Qi: …
What was originally a brutal and intense divine ascension process completely changed tone once it came out of Old Mist's mouth.
Feng Qi rolled his eyes.
Old Mist couldn't help but burst out laughing.
…
Half a year later.
Eastern outskirts of Star City.
The massive construction project for the spatial teleportation array was almost complete.
Unlike a stable spatial teleportation array, this was a cross-dimensional one. It required an astronomical amount of resources to activate.
So even while it was being built, energy pipelines had already been laid, connecting it to Star City's power grid.
To ensure the array could be activated smoothly, Star City had even issued a city-wide power outage notice days in advance.
All energy was being redirected to power the upcoming activation of the teleportation array.
Feng Qi and Old Mist had arrived at the site several hours early.
By now, the array was in standby mode. Countless drones hovered above, their cameras trained on the array from above. On the ground, technicians held tablets, observing from an overhead view to cross-reference the array's layout and check for any hidden issues.
This verification process had already gone on for days to prevent problems when the array was activated.
By noon, the sun hung high in the sky and the temperature had begun to rise.
After the fourth full inspection was completed, Feng Qi ended his call with Zuo Jian, head of the tech department.
He took a deep breath, pulled out his communicator, and gave a firm command:
"Activate the spatial teleportation array!"
As his voice fell, the heads of the energy division on the other end immediately sprang into action.
A vast surge of energy flowed through the pipelines and surged into several key nodes on the teleportation array. The spatial nodes lit up as energy poured toward the array's core, eventually activating it. Instantly, a column of blood-red light shot up into the sky.
The array spread outward from the core, and countless tendrils of energy extended upward into the heavens.
As time passed, the entire spatial teleportation array lit up, and the crimson light shooting skyward gathered into a blood-red cloud above.
The cloud churned, and the surrounding space began to distort and shift.
Since this spatial technology originated from the Mist Lord, the process of ripping open a spatial passage had an unmistakable Mist Tribe style. The whole sky was tinted with a faint crimson glow.
As they waited, the blood-colored clouds spread further across the sky, and fine cracks began to appear in the heavens.
Because this spatial technology came from the previous Sacrifice Line, Feng Qi didn't feel nearly as nervous as he had during the first attempt to build a spatial passage back then.
All potential risks had already been identified and accounted for. He was confident in this test.
As energy kept pouring in, the spatial rift widened gradually, eventually forming a crack over a hundred meters wide. And it continued to grow.
Compared to the previous Sacrifice Line, this test's expansion speed was clearly several times faster. More importantly, no signs of spatial instability occurred.
When the rift stretched past one thousand meters, it didn't just widen horizontally—it began expanding vertically too.
It was like the sky itself was slowly opening a pitch-black eye, peering down at all life below. The pressure was overwhelming.
Within the spatial rift, a deep darkness churned.
As more energy flowed in, the rift turned into a black curtain rapidly spreading across the sky, gradually blotting out the sun overhead.
Just then, the ground trembled slightly. At the center of the teleportation array, a pillar of blood-colored light surged upward, piercing straight into the spatial rift.
A semi-transparent blood-red tunnel began to take shape within the rift.
It was like a passage to another world, steadily absorbing energy from below as it extended forward, locking onto the coordinates of the Mist Tribe's territory.
The whole process was slow.
Feng Qi looked up at the spatial tunnel, waiting for it to fully extend to the other side.
…
Second Layer of the Domain World.
A grotesque Domain Creature was sitting cross-legged on a barren patch of land.
The land beneath it had once been the royal capital of the Mist Tribe—the core region of their territory.
But now, it had completely turned into a desolate wasteland.
No resources, no life. Everything had been packed up and taken away along with the departure of the Mist Tribe, one of the dominant powers in the second layer of the Domain World.
The creature sitting there was horrifying in appearance, its head resembling a crocodile's but with a humanoid body. Its rough skin was covered in coarse, solid granules, and its height exceeded ten meters.
It had its eyes tightly shut, and a pitch-black katana floated above its head.
With each deep breath it took, strange patterns flickered across the surface of the katana. The blade radiated a tangible killing aura that condensed into black mist, swirling thickly around it.
At the moment, the Demon Blade—still healing from injuries—was in a foul mood.
The Sword Clan had long departed, but he still hadn't found a way to enter the human world.
He had considered building a spatial teleportation array himself, but that would require massive energy and manpower—something he couldn't possibly achieve while controlling just a single blade slave.
He had originally believed the information was solid—that the Mist Tribe, one of the major powers in the second Domain layer, might be heading to the human world. So he came here, hoping to hitch a ride.
Whether or not the Mist Tribe would agree, he hadn't even thought about that.
In his mind, they didn't have a choice. If they refused, nobody would be leaving. He had plenty of time to play the long game and could simply treat the Mist Tribe as his next whetstone.
If they agreed, then great—off to the human world together.
But when he arrived at the Mist Tribe's territory, all he found was a barren wasteland. There was no trace of the rumored Mist Capital.
That's when the Demon Blade realized: the Mist Tribe had already left for the human world, just like the Sword Clan. He was too late.
His entire plan had crumbled, and his mood completely soured.
Still, he didn't leave.
The wounds from his last battle with Jian Ji hadn't healed yet. He decided to stay here and recover while thinking of other ways to reach the human world.
He also held onto one small hope—
If the Mist Tribe had left behind something important, maybe they'd come back through a spatial teleportation array to retrieve it?
Of course, the odds of that were low, but it was still one of the reasons he chose to stay and heal.
Spiritual energy from the heavens and earth gathered with the blade slave's breathing and poured into his body. The healing continued.
Just then, a thunderous boom echoed across the sky.
Startled, the Demon Blade immediately had the blade slave open its eyes. But those eyes were lifeless, filled with deathly stillness—like a walking corpse.
He made the blade slave slowly raise its head and look toward the source of the sound.
There in the distant sky appeared a deep black dot—like a blot of ink dropped onto a colorful canvas. It stood out starkly.
Then, the black dot began to spin, rapidly expanding outward, ripping open jagged black tears in space.
The black hole grew larger, revealing the blood-red walls of a spatial tunnel inside.
Seeing this, the Demon Blade, through the blade slave's eyes, instantly realized what it was. In a flash, he summoned his true form.
Boom!
A surge of black mist exploded around the blade slave.
He raised his hand, and the pitch-black katana pointed straight toward the expanding spatial tunnel in the sky. Then his figure shot forth like an arrow released from a bowstring, tearing through the air as he launched himself into the rift.
All that remained was his maniacal laughter echoing through the wasteland.
…
Outside Star City.
Feng Qi looked up, silently watching the sky, waiting for the Demon Blade to appear.
Just then, the Mist Lord beside him spoke:
"He's here!"
Feng Qi's gaze instantly locked onto the spatial tunnel, where a small black dot had appeared and was plummeting downward fast.
Realizing that the main event had arrived, Feng Qi took a deep breath and braced himself.
He had considered giving the Demon Blade a warning strike to assert dominance.
But the problem was… he wasn't even a match for the Demon Blade.
Even with Old Mist helping, it still wasn't enough.