***
Bonus chapter! Thank you to Chocco for the donation! ^^
***
When Ning Su opened his eyes again, he found himself in a strange place.
Outside the window was a massive, pockmarked, yellowish-brown curved surface. Soon after, he saw planets of varying sizes scattered across the vast expanse of space, some near, some far.
Silver-gray, russet-red, earth-yellow, water-blue, deep green—countless planets hung silently in the boundless, soundless universe, some motionless, others slowly rotating.
Ning Su was stunned.
Was he… traveling through space?
He turned to look inside. The interior somewhat resembled an airplane, with many people seated inside, gradually opening their eyes.
But clearly, whatever was flying through space was not an airplane as he knew it.
It had to be some kind of spaceship—something he’d never seen before.
"Where is this? How did I get here?"
"Damn it, I hid all the way at the bottom of the ocean, and they still dragged me in!"
"Is this my consciousness, or my actual body?"
"The day has finally come. Is it too late to kill myself now?"
"Hey, buddy, can you kill me?"
"Stop! Stop! I want out!"
Ning Su: "..."
He could only understand about half of what they were saying.
Some of it, like demanding to be let out mid-flight, made no sense to him.
Based on Ning Su’s limited understanding of space, a human body exposed to the vacuum of the universe wouldn’t survive.
When in doubt, Ning Su stayed quiet. He remained in his seat, observing and thinking about his current situation.
This was likely the world dark Ling Xiao had sent him to—Ling Xiao’s world.
Ning Su didn’t know exactly how dark Ling Xiao had managed it, but he could roughly guess his capabilities.
The Ling Xiao in the memory space was formed from memories. Memories condensed into a physical form, memories condensed into a world—this was probably a world born from Ling Xiao’s memories.
The noise inside the spaceship grew louder. Ning Su listened for a while but still couldn’t make much sense of it.
A man up front remained hunched over, silently gazing out the window, not saying a word.
Ning Su poked the man's prominent shoulder blade.
The man slowly turned to look at him. The complex light from the cosmos outside the window fell across his face, lending a faint hue to his pale skin as he regarded Ning Su with a lazy, somewhat cold expression.
Ning Su: "Big brother, where are we? Where are we going?"
The man: "Are you some kind of primitive?"
Ning Su: "..."
Seeing Ning Su's blank, bewildered expression, the man seemed mildly amused. "Where were you hiding before? In some primitive forest? Deep in the mountains where there's no access to the light net?"
Ning Su wasn't sure how to answer. Claiming to be from the deep mountains probably seemed like the easiest cover.
Just as he was about to speak, the man glanced at the spot over Ning Su's heart. "You're from the Shahai Research Base?"
Then he looked back at Ning Su's slightly dazed but smooth, well-hydrated face. "You don't look like you're from the desert."
Ning Su looked down and noticed a small badge on his shirt—a simple sketch of a yellow desert.
Before entering this world, Ling Xiao had said he would enter his world disguised as another player or an NPC.
Ning Su nodded blankly.
The man: "The desert really is as backward as the rumors say. But I'm surprised you don't even know where we're headed."
Ning Su: "I slept for a very long time and woke up here."
The man automatically filled in the gaps. "Unfortunately, we've been captured to play a game."
Ning Su paused. "An infinite game?"
The man made a sound of affirmation. "You've heard of the infinite game? Must not have been sleeping for decades, then."
Ning Su: "..."
Seeing Ning Su's youthful and confused demeanor, the man felt a rare pang of sympathy. He patted Ning Su's shoulder and said, "It's alright. We've managed to hide until now and lived this long on the planet. That's lucky in itself."
Ning Su glanced at the man's chest, where he saw a sea-blue wave emblem. Based on what he'd overheard and deduced, this man was probably from the deep sea—a research base known for being highly advanced.
Ning Su nodded.
Then he turned to look out the window and finally grasped the kind of space he was in.
Not far away, another massive spacecraft arrived. Its silver-gray metal reflected the complex light of the cosmos, cold and dazzling. The people inside stared back at him with hollow, numb expressions.
He began to understand—this spacecraft was like their bus, a transport meant to deliver them to the game base.
But the differences didn’t end with the mode of transportation.
When they were on the bus, none of them had known they were headed to the game base, that they were about to be plunged into an endless game.
But some people on this spacecraft knew.
Even before entering the game, they were aware of the existence of the endless game and the system.
It was unclear whether this was due to their more advanced technology, or because the endless game had existed in this world for so long that people had gradually become aware of it in its later stages.
Ning Su poked the man in front of him again.
"..."
The man turned around. "Why are you poking me again?"
Ning Su asked, "Hey, when did you all become aware of the game's existence?"
The man replied, "About five years ago."
Ning Su blinked. "Could you elaborate?"
"..."
Just then, the spacecraft came to a stop.
Despite the noise and chatter earlier, not a single person moved to leave after the spacecraft halted.
The entire cabin fell into utter silence. In that moment, Ning Su felt a profound loneliness, as if it seeped from the deepest reaches of the universe.
This was a world Ning Su did not understand—one that couldn’t be interpreted using the common sense of his own.
Since someone had suggested leaving the spacecraft, they must have had a way to survive in space.
But even if they could survive in the vacuum, what awaited them outside? Were there corpses and monsters like those that attacked after disembarking from the hearse? Even if there were none, or if they managed to evade them, the sheer, overwhelming loneliness of the vast, boundless universe seemed unbearable.
Here, at least, there were still people.
As the spacecraft resumed its journey, the man fell silent for a moment before finally speaking to Ning Su. "Is your world really that backward, or have you been asleep for too long? How do you not know any of this?"
"Didn’t the whole planet find out back then?"
Ten years ago, they became aware of a space that would suck people in like a black hole—though at the time, they didn’t yet know it was a game.
They noticed this because, starting a decade ago, the number of people disappearing from this world, along with those dying in accidents, far exceeded normal levels.
The period from ten to five years ago was the peak of unexplained disappearances. Over those five years, the world’s population dropped to a terrifyingly low level.
The large number of disappearances and deaths also provided ample cases for research.
It wasn’t until five years ago that they achieved the separation of the body and consciousness, using simulated death to briefly touch the edge of the game.
That person said, "We call the ruler of that space the System. It is a product of a higher dimension, and for now, we have no way to fight against it."
To avoid being captured, many people moved away from populated areas and hid in places where normal humans wouldn’t live—underground, in the deep sea, in the desert.
This led to the deep-sea research bases and desert research bases that Ning Su had heard about.
These bases served dual purposes: apocalypse shelters and research facilities. They were equipped with shielding barriers to protect those inside from detection, while researchers inside worked on ways to resist the game system.
They were aware of each other’s bases, but only on a basic level. In reality, they had no idea what the outside world was like five years later. They each lived isolated lives within their respective bases.
That person said, "In the end, I suppose we failed."
