The reality around them didn't just break; it buffered.
The Forgotten Ancestor screamed, a sound that wasn't a voice but a screech of digital static. He raised a translucent hand, and the space between him and Jiang Fan flickered.
[ Alert: Enemy is attempting to execute Command: /DELETE_AREA ][ Danger: Fatal. ]
"Move!" Jiang Fan shouted.
He didn't run. He grabbed the back of Gu Ling's chair and activated Swap.
Zzzzt.
They teleported ten feet to the left just as the space they had been occupying vanished. It didn't explode. It just... ceased to exist. A perfect cube of empty black void was left behind, the edges sharp as a razor.
"He deleted the air," Gu Ling gasped, her sensors screaming warnings. "Jiang Fan, that's not Qi! That's law manipulation!"
"It's not laws," Jiang Fan gritted his teeth, staring at the glitching ghost. "It's admin abuse. He's trying to format the hard drive while we're still inside."
The Ancestor turned his faceless head toward them. The black vortex swirling where his face should be spun faster.
"UPDATE..." the ghost moaned. "WHY WON'T IT INSTALL? I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR 500 YEARS!"
He pointed at Gu Ling.
"INCOMPATIBLE SOFTWARE DETECTED. PURGE."
Thousands of red, pixelated spears materialized in the air. They weren't made of metal or ice; they were made of corrupted code.
"Gu Ling," Jiang Fan stepped in front of her. "Go to the Crystal Heart. Fix the hardware. I'll handle IT support."
"You can't block that!"
"I'm not going to block it. Go!"
Gu Ling gritted her teeth. She revved her engine. "Don't die, you lazy idiot."
She blasted off toward the bleeding Crystal Heart, weaving through the floating debris.
The Ancestor fired. The red spears rained down like a digital monsoon.
Jiang Fan stood his ground. He opened his inventory.
"System," he said calmly. "I have 1.2 million Idle Points. Purchase 'Firewall: Absolute Denial'."
[ Purchase Confirmed: 500,000 IP Deducted. ]
Jiang Fan raised his hand. A golden, hexagonal barrier expanded in front of him.
CRASH-CRASH-CRASH.
The red spears slammed into the gold barrier. Sparks of raw data flew everywhere. The impact was heavy—Jiang Fan's feet dragged through the rock—but the barrier held.
"Hey! Old Man!" Jiang Fan shouted over the noise. "Have you tried turning it off and on again?"
The Ancestor froze. The mockery seemed to short-circuit his rage.
"REBOOT?" the ghost twitched. "YES... REBOOT... SYSTEM RESET REQUIRED."
The ghost began to expand. The black corruption in his chest flared, threatening to explode and take the entire pocket dimension with it.
"Oh, bad idea," Jiang Fan muttered. "Snack! You're up!"
He shook his sleeve. The Void-Eater kitten tumbled out, looking annoyed at being woken up.
"Meow?"
"Eat the bugs," Jiang Fan pointed at the corruption leaking from the ghost. "All you can eat buffet."
Snack's eyes dilated. It saw the delicious, high-calorie corrupted energy.
HISS.
The kitten opened its mouth. It unhinged like a snake, revealing a throat that looked like a black hole.
SWOOOSH.
A vacuum force erupted. The red spears, the black mist, the glitching pixels—they were all sucked toward the tiny kitten.
The Ancestor shrieked as his attack was eaten. "ERROR! PACKET LOSS! DATA CORRUPTION!"
AT THE CRYSTAL HEART
While Jiang Fan and his cat were battling the glitches, Gu Ling skidded to a halt in front of the Mountain Core.
Up close, it was worse than she thought. The crystal wasn't just cracked; it was infested. Black, tar-like tendrils were wrapped around it, choking the light out of it.
"It's suffocating," Gu Ling whispered.
She extended her mechanical spider legs. From the tips of the legs, fine silver drills emerged.
"I need to bypass the corruption and inject pure Qi directly into the leyline," she muttered to herself, her mind racing with schematics. "If I mess this up, the mountain falls out of the sky."
She closed her eyes. She reached out with her new senses—the ones Jiang Fan had helped her unlock.
Feel the machine. Be the machine.
She thrust her mechanical limbs into the crystal.
CRACK.
Pain shot up her spine. The corruption tried to invade her system.
[ Warning: Viral Intrusion. Firewall Integrity at 80%. ]
"Get out!" Gu Ling screamed, not with her voice, but with her intent.
She poured her own Violet Frost Qi into the core. It was a battle of wills. The black tar hissed, fighting back, trying to rust her gears.
"I am Gu Ling!" she shouted, her eyes glowing blindingly bright. "I am the Mistress of the Frost Forge! I do not rust!"
She pushed harder. Her mechanical limbs spun, drilling out the rot, replacing it with clean, stable structures.
CLICK.
A piece of the crystal realigned. The red light of the core flickered... and turned blue.
THE FINAL DEBUG
"His shield is down!" Jiang Fan yelled.
Snack had eaten enough corruption to destabilize the Ancestor's form. The ghost was flickering in and out of existence, looking confused and vulnerable.
"REBOOT FAILED..." the Ancestor whimpered. "SYSTEM... CRASHING..."
Jiang Fan walked up to the ghost. Up close, he could see the face of the man beneath the corruption. He looked tired. He looked like a man who had sought power and found only madness.
"You tried to hack the heavens," Jiang Fan said softly. "But you didn't have the bandwidth."
He placed his hand on the System Fragment embedded in the ghost's chest.
[ System Interaction: Corrupted Node Found. ][ Option: Purge? ]
"Rest now, Ancestor," Jiang Fan whispered. "Shift is over."
[ PURGE. ]
A blinding white light erupted from Jiang Fan's hand.
The Ancestor didn't scream. He sighed. It was a long, heavy sigh of relief.
"Thank... you..."
The corruption shattered like glass. The black mist dissolved into light. The ghost faded away, leaving only silence.
And one item.
Floating in the air where the ghost had been was a coin.
It wasn't gold or silver. It was made of a material that shifted colors like an oil spill. It pulsed with a terrifying amount of ancient Qi.
Jiang Fan caught it.
[ Item Looted: The Heavenly Dao Token (Ancient) ][ Rank: Divine ][ Description: A currency used by the Ascended. One token is worth approximately 100 million Spirit Stones. ][ Note: Owning this makes you a target for every Sect on the continent. ]
Jiang Fan stared at the coin. "One hundred... million?"
He felt a headache coming on.
"I'm rich," he muttered. "And I'm going to be hunted. Great."
THE RETURN
The realm stopped shaking. The red sky turned a peaceful blue.
Gu Ling slumped in her chair, exhausted. Her mechanical legs retracted, smoking slightly.
"We... we did it?" she asked, her voice trembling.
Jiang Fan walked over, holding Snack (who was now fat, round, and asleep) in one arm and the coin in his pocket.
"We did it," Jiang Fan nodded. He looked at the repaired Crystal Heart, which was now humming with healthy blue energy. "You fixed the hardware. I deleted the virus. Teamwork."
He looked at Gu Ling. She was covered in grease and soot, her hair was a mess, and she looked ready to pass out.
"You okay?"
"My spine feels like it's on fire," she admitted. "But... the good kind of fire. The kind that says I won."
Jiang Fan smiled. "Let's go home. I have a new pillow waiting for me."
[Time Skip: 2 Days Later]
Location: The Outer Sect Market
The mission was a success. The Sect Master was ecstatic. The Frost Forge Pavilion was swimming in funding.
But Jiang Fan had a problem.
He sat in a private booth at the "Golden Scale Merchant House," staring at the coin on the table.
Sitting across from him was Boss Pang, a shrewd, round merchant who ran the black market of the sect.
"Brother Jiang," Boss Pang wiped sweat from his forehead. "You show me this... thing... and ask for an appraisal. Do you want me to have a heart attack?"
"Is it valuable?" Jiang Fan asked, sipping tea.
"Valuable?" Boss Pang lowered his voice to a squeak. "This is an Ascended Token. You can't spend this. If you try to buy a bun with this, the shopkeeper will explode. It's too dense."
"So it's useless?"
"No! It's priceless! But to sell it... you can't do it here. You need a bigger stage."
Boss Pang leaned in.
"Have you heard of the Sky City Auction House? It's held once a year in the neutral zone. Kings, Emperors, and Sect Masters go there. That is the only place that has the capital to break this coin into spendable currency."
Jiang Fan groaned. "Traveling? To a city? That sounds exhausting."
"Think of the bed you could buy with 100 million stones," Boss Pang whispered seductively. "Think of the snacks. Think of the automated servants."
Jiang Fan paused.
"Automated servants?"
"An army of them."
Jiang Fan picked up the coin.
"Boss Pang," he said seriously. "Book me a ticket. We're going to an auction."