Chapter 38: The Sub-Atomic Debugging and the Fractal War
The sky above the Secret Continent was no longer a natural canopy of stars and clouds; it had become a jagged mosaic of reality and static. The three Sentinels of Order—those gargantuan inverted crosses of celestial fire—loomed like divine executioners. Their presence alone was a "Frequency Attack", emitting a low-frequency hum that vibrated the very molecular bonds of the obsidian towers below.
Zhou Fan hovered in the epicenter of this atmospheric distortion. His body was no longer a singular mass of flesh; he was a shimmering cloud of Fractal Geometry. To the naked eye, he looked like a man, but to a high-level observer, he was a walking storm of complex equations. Every second, his mind was calculating the exact "Weight" of the universe's hostility.
"Identification: Rogue Variable 7749," the Sentinels spoke in unison. Their voices were not sound, but a direct injection of Static Data into the local space. "Violation: Unauthorized rewrite of planetary constants. Punishment: Total Sector Format."
The central Sentinel blinked its glowing eye. A beam of Absolute Nullification—a blinding white pillar of non-existence—erupted from its core. This wasn't fire or light; it was a "Delete Command" made manifest.
"Analysis: Nullification Beam detected," Zhou Fan's internal processor whirred. "Nature: Destructive Data Stream. Countermeasure: [Sub-Atomic Ghosting]."
As the beam hit Zhou Fan, it passed through him as if he were a hologram. In reality, Zhou Fan had shifted his physical coordinates into the Planck Scale, vibrating his atoms at a frequency that occupied the "Gaps" between the bits of reality. He was there, but he was also "Between" the calculations of the Sentinel's beam.
"You speak of formatting," Zhou Fan's voice resonated through the sky, echoing like a glitch in the world's audio. "But you are merely legacy hardware. You are the remnants of a system that fears the unknown. I am the New Architecture."
Zhou Fan extended his hand. From his fingertips, millions of thin, violet threads of light—Logic Filaments—shot out into the air. They didn't hit the Sentinels; they pierced the "Source Code" of the air itself.
"[Technique: Sub-Atomic Debugging]!"
Suddenly, the fiery body of the first Sentinel began to flicker. Its solid form started to pixelate. Zhou Fan wasn't attacking its physical shell; he was editing its "Collision Physics". He was telling the universe that the Sentinel's fire was no longer "Hot" and its structure was no longer "Solid".
The Sentinel roared—a digital screech that tore through the eardrums of the cultivators in the simulation below. It tried to compensate, its white fire turning a chaotic crimson as it attempted to "Re-compile" its own data.
"Warning: Error 404 - Integrity not found," Zhou Fan mocked, his eyes glowing with an intense, cold brilliance. "I have stripped away your 'Permissions'. In this sector, the only Administrator is Me."
He clenched his fist. The Logic Filaments tightened. The first Sentinel didn't explode; it "Collapsed" into a 2D plane—a flat, glowing image of itself—before shattering like a piece of broken glass. The fragments didn't fall; they were absorbed into Zhou Fan's obsidian towers, converted into raw processing power for the Continent's firewall.
The remaining two Sentinels perceived the threat. They began to rotate at impossible speeds, creating a "Dimensional Vortex". They were trying to rip the Secret Continent out of the 3rd Dimension and cast it into the "Null Zone"—the cosmic recycle bin.
"Ling Er! Anchor the Continent!" Zhou Fan commanded via the Soul-Link.
Below, inside the core of the Great Shrine, Ling Er felt a massive surge of pressure. She took the Source Key and plunged it into the central altar. Her soul resonated with the earth. "By the power of the Random Seed... STAY!"
The Continent groaned. Earthquakes shook the silver sands as the land fought against the dimensional pull. Ling Er's skin began to glow with a soft, erratic light—the light of the "Uncalculable". This was her unique power; because she was unpredictable, the Sentinels' algorithms couldn't find a way to "Grab" her soul or the land she anchored.
Seeing the Continent stabilize, Zhou Fan turned his full attention back to the sky.
"Two variables remaining," he whispered. He opened the Logarithmic Existence: Volume III to a forbidden page. "Let's see how you handle an [Infinite Recursive Loop]."
Zhou Fan clapped his hands together. A sphere of distorted space enveloped the two Sentinels. Inside that sphere, time began to fold. Every action the Sentinels took to escape was instantly fed back into the beginning of their movement. They were trapped in a micro-second of time, repeating the same millimetre of motion for what felt like an eternity to their processors.
As they struggled in the loop, Zhou Fan began to "Harvest" them. He reached into the vortex and started pulling out their core memories—the maps of the 5th Dimension, the secret locations of the Designers, and the blueprints of the universe's firewall.
"Information Harvested: 85%... 92%... Integration Successful."
The sky finally cleared as the last two Sentinels dissolved into harmless sparks. But Zhou Fan stood in the silence, his expression grim. The data he had just harvested revealed a terrifying truth.
The Cosmic Erasure Squad wasn't just coming to delete the planet. They were coming because this planet was a "Bug" that threatened to crash the entire Multi-Universal Operating System. And the "Bug" wasn't the Continent... it was Zhou Fan's very soul.
He descended to the shrine, his white hair flowing like a stream of data. Ling Er was exhausted, leaning against the altar.
"We won?" she whispered.
"We survived a 'Patch Update'," Zhou Fan replied, looking at his transparent hands. "But the 'Full System Reset' is still coming. And now I know why. My soul... it doesn't belong to this simulation. I am a piece of code from the Outside."