Chapter 311-The Manga Pariah's Guide to Self-Salvation

Inside the laboratory, metallic instruments refracted cold light. On the surrounding screens, a monstrous beast with gaping jaws roared at a young woman in white. Below one of the screens, a researcher sitting in a chair suddenly tore off her metal helmet, clutching her bleeding nose as she rushed out.

"The images System is transmitting are wrong! They're fake!"

The researcher responsible for perceiving the other world burst out of the sealed room. Outside was a spacious laboratory where most researchers worked with their heads down, numb and indifferent. Several senior researchers were clustered around an old man in a tailored suit, eagerly presenting their work.

"This iteration of Hope will be a completely new revolution. In less than three years, we'll be able to establish a stable passage between the two worlds..."

"Is that so? I haven't seen any passage, but those low-dimensional worlds come and go as they please in ours—wreaking havoc then vanishing. You lot can't even pinpoint their coordinates!"

The old man rapped his cane angrily. When the first otherworld had breached their domain, he'd thought the project was on the verge of success. But they only appeared briefly before vanishing; by the time his people arrived, those alien spaces had disappeared without a trace.

"Do you have any idea how much trouble this has caused the company? If it happens again..."

If it happened again and attracted large-scale public attention, certain powerful figures above would strip the Lin family of their research authorization and hand it to other vultures circling in wait.

"If it happens again, you're out!"

The old man wheezed. He was getting on in years—too old to withstand such emotional turbulence.

The lead supervisor nodded hurriedly, a flash of terror in his eyes. This project was classified at the highest level; if he were dismissed, it wouldn't just mean losing his job—his personal freedom and safety would be at stake.

"Why are you standing there?" The supervisor pushed up his glasses and stared at the dazed young researcher, a sudden sense of foreboding creeping over him.

"The images System is transmitting seem off... I suspect they're fake!"

She mustered her courage—this was a matter of enormous importance. The world they were observing couldn't possibly have the ability to deceive them, unless something was wrong with Main System itself.

She'd been brought in midway to handle observations. Before her, the Linkage had been in charge, and even after his physical death, his consciousness had been uploaded to the cloud to continue working—until he suffered complete brain death not long ago. Fortunately, Ye Zheng had already established a certain depth of connection with this world; otherwise, the entire project might have been interrupted.

Before taking over this position, she'd already developed a deep interest in Ye Zheng, so she quickly noticed something was off about the images System was feeding back. How could a Demonic Domain of that level make Ye Zheng look like she was facing a mortal threat? It was as absurd as those cheap AI-generated videos flooding the market.

The young researcher wiped her nosebleed again. During observation she had to wear a specialized helmet to establish a deep link with Main System. Setting aside her subjective doubts, the mental shock she'd just endured was impossible to fake—something must have happened...

She looked hopefully at the supervisor, only to find him wearing an expression that bordered on pity.

"Ah, Mr. Lin, please forgive her rudeness. The pressure of this job is extraordinary—two people before her already had episodes like this."

The supervisor shrugged helplessly, shooting the young researcher a look laced with menacing warning.

He steadied the half-skeptical old man and patted his own chest in assurance: "Our entire lab revolves around Main System's operation around the clock. Any vulnerability is caught and patched immediately, and even if a minor glitch slips through, the full might of this tech campus can correct it easily..."

"The equipment and personnel you sent us have all been properly deployed. If another alien space appears, there absolutely won't be losses like last time..."

The supervisor slowly guided the old man toward the exit. Behind them, the stunned young researcher suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth, eyes wide with horror.

That's right—because of the massacre in the campus men's restroom last time, the entire base had been equipped with a substantial arsenal of heavy weaponry.

Given the project's danger level, they had even rushed to construct a missile silo, in case an extremely dangerous world or monster posed a critical threat to this world. A single launch would be enough to level an entire city.

The launch procedure was highly complex. For human operators, it required multiple keys used simultaneously, plus an elaborate password verification protocol to ensure the legitimacy of the launch command... but for Main System, initiating the launch sequence would be child's play.

The young researcher was deeply unsettled, an overwhelming sense that something catastrophic was about to happen. After a moment of agonized indecision, she let out a shout, then bolted from the laboratory like a woman possessed. Every instinct screamed at her to get out!

She ran heedlessly down the corridor, past one sealed room after another, with no presence of mind to notice that inside one instrument-packed room, a dark rift had materialized out of thin air.

*

For Vincent, he had forgotten that name for five hundred years. Though most of the time he was utterly lost in power and desire, there were occasional bouts of emptiness—as though a piece of his soul were missing, leaving a hollow, anxious void.

The Holy Sword he'd brought to this world had gone missing thanks to a group of fanatic believers. Fortunately, the Divine Blood remained, and it had been helping him seize control of one body after another ever since.

Divine Blood could not only tether souls—it could even force an ability as godlike as [Mother of All Things] into an incompatible body. That was the secret behind his murder of Marcy and his subsequent control over every Pope that followed.

The amnesiac Vincent had fantasized about his origins. Perhaps he was the son of a god, descended here with some divine mission, or perhaps he had committed some sin and been exiled here, stripped of his memories...

Until today—the remnant of his consciousness lodged within Main System merged with this body, and Vincent finally remembered his true identity!

It was nothing like what he had once imagined. He was neither a hero nor a sinner. His life in that world had been utterly unremarkable—just an ordinary person powerless against the tide of life. After five hundred years as an emperor, looking back at it felt as absurd as watching a slapstick comedy.

He refused to even acknowledge that person as himself. That was a previous life. He had long since been reborn through his own strength; now he could command two worlds—no different from a god.

But there was one thing he would never forget—

All of it, every last bit of it, was that woman's doing!

If not for her, he never would have become the company's experimental sacrifice. Even if it had turned out to be a blessing in disguise, he would never tolerate an eyesore like Ye Zheng.

Had he possessed his full memories from the start, Ye Zheng would not have been lucky enough to survive until now. The favoritism both worlds had shown her was truly staggering—no wonder she'd managed to push him this far.

Fortunately, he had finally reclaimed everything that was his!

Within the curtain of golden light, the dark-haired young man suddenly opened his eyes. His golden-glowing pupils were unfocused, and it took a long moment before they slowly sharpened.

He lowered the hand that had held the sword, rolling his stiff neck, ankles, and wrists. The golden light pouring from the sky gradually faded, but a dark rift lingered at the edge of the heavens like a black eye.

A strange, eerie smile crept across the young man's lips. He fixed his gaze on the approaching Ye Zheng and spoke: "Is this the first time we're officially meeting face to face?"

Ye Zheng, looking somewhat worse for wear, stopped in place and stared at him.

"I used to watch you like this from the other side of the screen. Could you even imagine that I existed? If you hadn't been the lucky one chosen, you'd just be another puppet under my pen..."

He spoke slowly, eyes locked on her, savoring every moment as he waited for the expression he craved—fear, shock, disbelief.

"Wang Tao, cut the crap."

Ye Zheng's voice was flat. Her utterly nonchalant tone caught the man completely off guard.

"What did you just call me?" he snapped.

Impossible—how could Ye Zheng have already guessed that the one controlling this body was him? "Wang Tao" was long dead in everyone's eyes. The one inhabiting this body was clearly the great Aston XIV, ruler of the empire for five hundred years!

Seeing the disbelief on his face, Ye Zheng lowered her head with a soft laugh. "It seems you're not too fond of that name."

"Or maybe I hit you a little too hard back then, and your brain still hasn't fully recovered."

At her words, bloody, agonizing fragments flashed through the man's mind, and a stream of icy sensation rushed across the top of his skull, making his scalp tingle.

"Remembering now?"

Ye Zheng asked with mock concern.

When she had traveled back five hundred years, she had deliberately destroyed Vincent's brain to erase any trace of herself—never expecting it to cause the newly arrived Wang Tao to lose his memories entirely.

"Ha ha ha ha... I underestimated you."

"Percy" lifted his head. His now-golden pupils flashed with vicious intensity, a vein at his temple twitching faintly.

"Too bad—even if you knew my true identity all along, even if you went back five hundred years, you still couldn't stop any of this, could you?"

"If you'd managed to stop Percy from opening the passage between the two worlds just now, you might have stood a chance."

"But now, you can't even begin to imagine what kind of being you're about to face!"

The young man threw his head back with a laugh, deactivated his body's metallization, and tossed the Holy Sword carelessly to the ground—as if such a mediocre weapon was beneath him now.

"Ye Zheng, just kill yourself."

He pointed at her, malice veiled beneath a deliberately gentle tone.

"I can control Main System to keep the other alien spaces away from this world. Without you, neither world has any chance of merging. This is the happiest ending for everyone... all it takes is sacrificing you alone."

Ye Zheng folded her arms, lowered her head, and said nothing.

"Don't tell me our most noble, selfless Saintess would rather sacrifice this entire world just to save her own skin?"

His tone was theatrical, a grin he couldn't contain spreading across his face—as if Ye Zheng's "baseness" were something endlessly amusing, worth savoring again and again.

"Ha ha ha ha ha..."

Before his laughter could fully ring out, Ye Zheng's shoulders twitched. He thought she was about to break down in tears like a true and utter loser—but instead, she doubled over laughing, the finger she pointed at him trembling with mirth, all composure abandoned.

"Why do you think I had so many chances to stop Percy from merging with you, yet just stood by and did nothing?"

One hand covering the lower half of her laughing face, Ye Zheng raised her dark eyes—razor-sharp.

The young man's expression shifted. Before he could parse what she meant, his heart was already hammering with unease.

Then, suddenly, he felt something trembling deep beneath the earth.

"You fool—this is exactly the moment I've been waiting for!"

The finger Ye Zheng had pointed at him shot upward, and following its direction, a magnificent column of water burst through the ground, roaring as it surged into the dark rift torn across the sky!

"You lunatic!"

Wang Tao cursed as realization hit—Ye Zheng was going to bypass him entirely... and directly provoke the Higher-dimensional World on the other side!

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