A pillar of pure white light fell from the sky, aimed directly at the final victor among the seventeen players.
But Yue Shi was faster.
Just as the light was about to touch its target, he appeared beside the player a step ahead.
The player was startled by the sudden appearance of another person, his expression filled with shock.
There were only seventeen people in this game—where did this extra one come from?
But before he could speak, Yue Shi reached out and grabbed him by the shoulder.
In the next instant, the space around the two of them warped slightly.
The player vanished into thin air, shoved directly into a deeper extra-dimensional space.
The pure white light shone silently on the empty ground, swirling aimlessly for a few moments before slowly dissipating.
The combined ability of the seventeen players, suspected to be authority fragments, now rested in Yue Shi's hand in its unfinished prototype form.
Thanks to the reminder from his future self, Yue Shi did not fail this time.
The past was changed.
A new reality overwrote the old one.
But this time, the reaction of the game instance was completely different.
The leaden gray of the sky suddenly deepened into a mass of dark clouds, crackling with thunder and lightning.
The ground began to shake violently as the ruins of the buildings collapsed in swathes.
The entire game scene seemed to have glitched out.
A pillar of white light, even more brilliant than the last, shot down from the sky toward the spot where Yue Shi had originally been standing.
Fortunately, it missed.
At the same time, the GM in ornate golden armor appeared.
Yue Shi didn't give him any time to show off, capturing him on the spot.
Then, he repeated the process of 'friendly communication.'
The GM had no idea what was happening and was completely dazed.
However, when he clearly felt his connection to the Supernatural Game Show severed, his gaze immediately became clear and honest.
“You really are a useless little piece of trash. You can get lost now.”
Yue Shi had left a mark on the GM.
The GM looked stunned. “You’re just letting me go like that?”
“What? You want to stay and keep being my punching bag?” Yue Shi asked impatiently.
The GM promptly made himself scarce.
Yue Shi closed his eyes to sense the mark. When he opened them again, he had locked onto a location in an extremely distant direction.
He didn't linger, tearing through space to exit the instance and transfer toward the position of the mark.
In the endless darkness, he performed continuous spatial jumps at a staggering speed.
Bubbles shimmering with various glows blurred into a ribbon of light, left far behind him.
It was a strange feeling, like traveling alone through the deep reaches of the universe.
Soon, he burst through a dense cluster of bubbles.
The view ahead opened up, with only a few lonely bubbles floating nearby.
As he continued forward, even those scattered bubbles disappeared.
The surroundings were truly empty—nothing existed at all.
Fortunately, guided by the mark, Yue Shi did not get lost.
After a long time, he finally saw his target.
It was a massive golden orb.
It wasn't burning hot like a star; instead, it emitted a constant, soft golden light.
It was the only source of light in this darkness.
The Temple was here.
The surrounding space was vast and empty, devoid of all reference points except for the giant golden orb in the distance.
As Yue Shi approached, the orb grew larger and larger, its silhouette gradually becoming clear.
Eventually, it looked like a star made of golden light, occupying nearly his entire field of vision.
Just as Yue Shi drew closer and the golden light nearly overwhelmed his senses...
A patch of discordant red flickered at the edge of the orb.
As the distance rapidly closed, he soon saw exactly what that red patch was.
It was an endless red flower sea, blooming and burning in the dark void.
The flowers looked like spider lilies, but their forms were even more bizarre and alluring, like flowing blood, radiating a quiet and eerie beauty.
In the flower sea, dozens of figures were struggling to clear the plants.
Their attire was identical to the GM he had encountered earlier.
Their clothing styles were exaggerated and ornate—various sets of glowing armor or robes, and some even had wings.
They moved slowly through the flower sea. Every time they waved their hands to use an ability, a large swathe of flowers would be turned to ash.
But where the ashes fell, new flowers grew almost instantly, blooming again even more lushly than before.
Moreover, these flowers were not entirely passive; they also launched attacks.
Whenever a GM moved within the range of the flower sea, they would be attacked once by the flowers.
The flower sea also seemed to carry a mental contamination effect.
Occasionally, a GM’s movements would become stiff and confused, and they would turn their weapons to attack the companions beside them.
“We can’t kill them all! It’s impossible!”
“The regeneration speed of this damn thing is too fast! Our clearing progress can't keep up with its expansion!”
A muscular GM wielding a giant axe roared in frustration after hacking apart a cluster of flowers.
“Those with low mental resistance, back off! Don’t just stand there making things worse!”
Another female GM, shrouded in a pale blue shield, shouted a warning.
“Energy consumption is too high. We can't handle this contamination zone at all.”
“We should retreat for now and abandon this mission. Let a higher-level administrator come and clear it,” a GM who looked like the leader said in a low voice.
“Agreed.”
“The heat is on, let’s scram!”
Having reached a consensus, the ornate GMs stopped fighting.
Glows lit up on their bodies as their figures flickered one after another, rapidly escaping the red flower sea and vanishing toward the golden orb.
Without the cleaners, the expansion speed of the flower sea increased slightly.
The flickering red spread silently across the orb like a pimple, radiating an unsettling vitality.
However, compared to the golden orb ahead, this flower sea still seemed tiny and insignificant.
It wasn't even as large as a zit.
After watching the failed cleanup operation, the hidden Yue Shi didn't linger.
His figure passed directly through the golden orb, officially entering the range of the Temple.
As he drew closer, the magnificent scenery inside the orb gradually unfolded before his eyes.
The space inside was vast beyond imagination; at a glance, it seemed to far exceed the size of the Blue Star.
Mountains, plains, deserts, and other landforms were all present, and their scales were extremely magnified.
Mountains towered into the clouds, their peaks piercing through the cloud layer.
The plains were vast and boundless, and the deserts stretched to the horizon.
The scenery was magnificent, as if he had arrived on an alien planet.
However, in this vast world, there was almost no trace of life.
There wasn't a single plant on the plains.
There was no ocean.
And no trace of human civilization could be found.
The only place where the presence of 'people' could be felt seemed to be the Temple itself.
The location of the Temple was exceptionally conspicuous.
It stood in the center of a plain, its base diameter impossible to estimate.
The entire structure took the form of a perfect four-sided pyramidal mountain, shimmering with golden light, its height reaching the very limit of this space's sky.
A massive set of white jade steps, wide enough for a hundred people to walk abreast, stretched up with an uncountable number of stairs.
The steps began at the foot of the mountain, winding and spiraling up the slope until they reached the summit.
Atop the peak was the main body of the Temple.
It was a magnificent palace complex, like a three-dimensional city built for giants.
The area was estimated to be hundreds of square kilometers. Several giant colonnades stood like the bones supporting heaven and earth, their pillars carved with reliefs.
The main structure of the palace was layered and stacked, combined in a way that defied conventional mechanics.
It was only here that Yue Shi saw living people.
Flashy figures were darting back and forth within the grand palace.
Yue Shi hovered at the edge of the palace, quietly looking down at it all.
After a long time, his face, which was usually full of malice, rarely showed an expression of appreciation.
“This place is quite nice.”
“The Far Side of the Moon should have a palace like this too.”
Rate on N.U.
