Chapter 733: Sequence Number
Within the grayish-green thick fog, Lin Ye felt the burning sensation on his skin growing more intense, and this burning sensation didn't seem to be caused by the surrounding fog.
‘Damn it, the world has already split apart. The other versions of me in other worlds are taking damage. Perhaps the cooling tower is something similar to that bicycle. If I keep staying inside the cooling tower, the world will continue splitting, and neither the Nameless Armor nor the Disaster Hazmat Suit can resist this superimposed damage originating from other worlds!’
At that moment, he suddenly triggered the power of that special Fate Rule Fragment, and countless abandoned factory worlds filled with drifting grayish-green thick fog appeared before his eyes.
Lin Ye passed through the top of the cooling tower and fell into the empty sky. The sky was somewhat dim, but there was no thick smoke here.
After stopping the use of the Falling Rule Fragment, Lin Ye began falling downward. Before landing back inside the cooling tower, he manipulated the surrounding spiritual energy to move away from the top of the cooling tower.
‘Did I get out?’
Lin Ye looked around in midair. This place wasn't much different from the previous factory world, except the cooling tower here wasn't emitting thick smoke, and there was no industrial waste at the bottom.
‘So how do I leave this place? I can't use another Teleportation Card, can I?’
Lin Ye landed on the road and tried to sense the outside world with his mental energy. It seemed there was nothing here that would affect mental energy.
Little Guardian appeared beside Lin Ye. Due to the influence of that thick smoke, she hadn't been able to come out before.
“There isn't some kind of risk here too, is there?”
Lin Ye took out spare flesh tissue from his loot space and used it to create a large number of Parasitic Butterflies. The Parasitic Butterflies began exploring this area, expanding the Parasitism Network.
“Hard to say. If those thick smoke factory worlds are common worlds, then this world without thick smoke is a special world, and there must definitely be something much more troublesome here.”
Little Guardian didn't find any issues here, but that very fact was suspicious in itself.
“You're right, but there's another possibility. This could be the only exit, with nothing dangerous here.”
As the Parasitism Network spread outward, Lin Ye discovered a portal on the road in the distance.
It was a white portal fixed to the ground that could exist long-term.
“I don't think that's possible.”
Little Guardian answered very bluntly.
“Alright, I hope you're wrong.”
Lin Ye sent a Parasitic Butterfly into the portal. He could feel that the Parasitic Butterfly was still alive, but this seemed to be a one-way portal; the Parasitic Butterfly couldn't come back.
“……I think there's something wrong over there.”
Little Guardian followed behind Lin Ye. She didn't have any evidence to prove there was something wrong with the portal, nor did she perceive any danger, but she just felt something was very off about this place, and even more so about that portal.
“Don't rush. Let me try something first.”
Lin Ye took out materials for setting up a simple portal from his spatial item. He didn't have spatial power, but he could use the spatial energy generated by the nearby portal to activate the simple portal.
“If there's no problem here, then the simple portal should activate, because there's no thick smoke affecting teleportation here.
If the simple portal can't activate, then it means there's a big problem here.”
Lin Ye quickly set up the simple portal.
Using the spatial energy from the white portal, Lin Ye tried to activate the simple portal. The simple portal was activated quickly.
A Parasitic Butterfly flew into the portal. The moment it reached the other side, Lin Ye lost contact with the Parasitic Butterfly.
After that, Lin Ye set up several more simple portals. No matter what he sent through, even the Alienated Body, none lasted even a second.
“There's definitely a problem.”
The fact that something could eliminate the Alienated Body so quickly made Lin Ye think it was highly likely that the other side was a thick smoke factory world.
“What do we do now?”
Little Guardian cautiously disappeared from beside Lin Ye.
“……The information I got from using the Information Card earlier was: the exit is inside the cooling tower of the 1047 Abandoned Factory.”
Lin Ye, while controlling the Parasitism Network to explore this area, thought about whether the exit might really be inside the cooling tower.
A Parasitic Butterfly flew inside the cooling tower of the 1047 Abandoned Factory. Since there was no thick smoke here, the situation inside was clear at a glance.
Inside, it was just the normal internal structure of an abandoned cooling tower. There was no exit, and the Parasitic Butterfly that went inside could fly back out.
“……That is a possibility.”
Little Guardian didn't perceive any dangerous factors inside the cooling tower.
“Wait a moment… Isn't the sequence number on the abandoned factory wall a bit off?”
Lin Ye suddenly spoke up.
“It's Factory 1047. What's wrong with it?”
Little Guardian carefully perceived the sequence number on the wall through the Parasitism Network.
“It's too clear, and the number 4 is close to the center. It feels like it was altered from the number 1.”
When Lin Ye was in elementary school, he had helped classmates change their test scores, so he was very sensitive to this sort of thing.
“……Are you sure this isn't a system translation issue?”
Little Guardian said uncertainly.
“The system only lets me understand the meaning of the text; it doesn't show me the translated text. So this has nothing to do with the system.”
Lin Ye began using the Parasitism Network to check the sequence numbers of all the abandoned factories in this area.
“But didn't we reach this place through the cooling tower of the 1047 Factory? If the factory we went to before wasn't the 1047 Factory, how did we get here? Could every factory's cooling tower lead to this place?”
Little Guardian asked, confused.
“There are two possibilities.
The first possibility is that the factory we entered before wasn't the 1047 Factory, but the 1017 Factory. Normally, we couldn't have reached this place, but I used the power of fate to force my way here.
The second possibility is that over there, we did enter the 1047 Factory, but here, the terrain structure is different from the other thick smoke factory worlds, and the sequence numbers of the abandoned factories are also different.
I lean more towards the second possibility. No one said this place has the same structure as the previous factory world. That was just inertial thinking.”
“It looks like there's nothing inside.”
A large number of Parasitic Butterflies entered the cooling tower interior. They weren't affected at all and could fly back out.
“Jumping in and trying will tell us.”
Without hesitation, Lin Ye jumped directly down from the top of the cooling tower.
The moment he touched the bottom of the cooling tower, spatial fluctuations occurred at its base, teleporting Lin Ye to another area.