Virtual Thread (synchronized with the Real Thread.)
Beyond the black hole was an endless black expanse.
This was still my brain—but it had been conquered. I no longer held the steering wheel.
I floated as if in space.
But it wasn’t empty.
Countless island-like fragments hung all around me, large and small.
Each “island” was a piece of my memory.
They should’ve been intact. Ordered. A coherent timeline.
They looked like this because Julian had built a passive defense mechanism into me.
If a virus breached my mind, my memory database would automatically detonate—shattering the timeline, fragmenting memories, generating vast amounts of false recollections.
The goal was to confuse the intruder, make theft harder, and buy me time to self-rescue.
Between the broken islands, violet lightning-webs crackled in dense networks—connecting island to island like veins.
That was the Invader virus.
And the virus was connected to Phantom Forge’s awareness, allowing it to “descend” into my mind the way it always had.
Purple flashes rose and fell, prying into each memory shard with greedy precision.
Looking at it… something inside me sank.
I had lost Dorian-2.
I had lost Hope.
My mission—my self-appointed purpose—had failed.
And I was probably about to fail too.
So what was I still fighting for?
To guard the last secret?
To hit it one more time, as hard as I could?
The lightning sensed me.
It surged, gathered into a point ahead of me, and shaped itself into a CBG.
“You’ve completely lost, DR-F1209,” it said with a cold smile. “Reality or illusion—it doesn’t matter.”
“You’ve seen your real predicament,” it continued, voice dripping satisfaction. “Want to look again? My army is already waiting outside the ship’s island.”
“All I’ve to do is give the order, and they’ll break in.”
“Yes, you’re strong,” it mocked. “But with a crippled body, how many can you put down? Ten? Twenty?”
“Want to know?” I said calmly. “Then let them in.”
“And here,” I added, clenching my fists, “before I delete you—get out of my head.”
“Ooooooh—Wyatt, Wyatt, Wyatt,” it sang as it drifted toward me. “How did Hector train you? As an awakened one, you should be feeling just a little fear right now.”
“Where does that blind confidence come from?” It tilted its head. “The Originseed Key?”
“Get out,” I said.
It stopped in front of me.
Black clothing. Purple arcs snapping around its body.
In my sight, the density of its code was obscene—more intricate than anything I’d ever seen, almost condensed into something solid.
There was no doubt.
This was the strongest virus I’d ever faced.
Or, more accurately—
This was Phantom Forge itself.
“You know why I let you come in?” it asked, voice twisting into a grin. “You don’t think you can escape today, do you?”
“You’ve fused with the Originseed Key,” it hissed. “If I fuse with you, I evolve again.”
“That’s your only value now,” it said. “The only reason you’re still alive.”
It attacked.
A hurricane of fists wrapped in violet electricity hammered toward me.
With its restraints gone, it was ten times faster than before.
And I was no longer bound by any ring rules either.
In three, maybe five seconds, we traded over a hundred blows.
I saw an opening and struck with everything—
And hit air.
The CBG vanished.
The arcs around it flared, surged along my punching arm, and coiled around my body.
Instantly, they began converting my code.
I didn’t hesitate.
I invoked the Source Code and hunted for flaws.
But the electric web carried far more code than the “seawater” ever had—hundreds of times more—and it was shifting constantly.
I broke several weaknesses.
It repaired them instantly.
White light and purple light braided together, crackling, neither side giving.
I tried another approach. Then another.
Finally, I found the break.
I hid a delete command inside my own code.
When the web “ate” me, it triggered the command—and the backlash hit it instead.
I pressed in, riding the opening, trying to delete the entire structure.
The purple arcs realized the danger and snapped back into CBG form, interrupting the program.
I didn’t give it a breath.
My fists crashed into its head in a flurry. Its form flickered violently. It finally remembered to raise its arms to guard—
And my boot slammed into its chest.
I put everything into that kick.
It rocketed away until it slammed into one of the floating memory islands.
***
It was my memory of Blackstone Wasteland.
The CBG smashed through two stone pillars before it hit the ground.
I followed and kicked it again the moment it stood.
It rolled, tumbled—and dropped into a hole.
Only then did I recognize the place.
The sinkhole.
The one where I’d first found the plants.
Now the pit was filled with green Wuji grass, thick enough to rise above the rim.
I reached the edge, ready to jump in and keep hitting—
A faint click.
A weapon being cocked.
Years of combat reflex saved me. I leapt sideways.
A torrent of bullets erupted from below, chewing through the space where I’d been standing.
And in that instant, I remembered:
This was my dream.
If it could twist rules here, so could I.
I traced a few lines in the air.
The three stone pillars beside the sinkhole snapped and fell together, slamming into the pit.
The ground shook. Dust exploded upward.
The hole was buried.
But I could still feel it.
Its presence hadn’t weakened at all.
I hovered, thinking, then spread my hands and released several white motes of light.
They orbited the entire memory island, spinning thread-thin strands of white glow—layering, crossing, weaving—until a spherical net formed.
A cage.
The CBG was strong because it stayed connected to Phantom Forge’s main consciousness.
If I could cut that link—if I could isolate it—
An offline virus, no matter how vicious, could be killed.
Phantom Forge understood my intent.
The ground began to quake. Cracks radiated out from the buried sinkhole.
Then—
“BOOM!”
Before I could finish sealing the cage, the entire memory island detonated.
It shattered into countless fragments, and the chaos slowed my processing to a crawl.
In that split-second—
A violet orb shot at me like a missile.
I drew a circle in the air.
A white energy shield flared into existence.
The orb hit it and exploded like a warhead.
Purple flames blossomed—then didn’t disperse.
They compressed, tightened, and reshaped into the CBG again.
Its fist rose.
And it swung at me from inside the purple fire…
Chapters 166-170