Chapter 348 – Which World Is This?
The data also included the locations of several weapon caches, so Tu Ran could replenish her arsenal whenever necessary.
Tu Ran spent three days preparing.
At 8:08 AM on the fourth day, on what she considered a lucky time, Tu Ran activated [Space-Time Manipulation] with Xi Chunzhi and Zero standing by.
A pale blue, water-like ripple of a door appeared before her.
Tu Ran walked toward the door with an expressionless face, but her heart was far from as calm as she appeared. “Haenden Star System, Haenden Star, it has to be the Haenden Star System…”
She needed to go to the Haenden Star System to replenish her mental power.
Right now, her mental power was only at 36%, not nearly enough to sustain her.
The Haenden Star System was her ideal first destination.
Unfortunately, luck was the most unpredictable thing.
What she saw when she entered was a group of several dozen unknown creatures, all standing facing her, their eyes glowing green.
They were humanoid but not entirely human, with bodies similar to humans, long limbs, graceful lines reminiscent of human anatomy, yet with the coldness and toughness of machinery. Their faces were completely covered by mechanical parts, resembling fully mechanical beings. Still, Tu Ran could notice the subtle wrinkles on their faces, and the disgust and disdain they naturally exhibited upon seeing her.
Their facial features were minimalist to the extreme—so simple that even though Tu Ran had never seen these creatures before, she didn’t find them strange at first glance. Instead, she felt a sense of harmony in their features, an indescribable beauty that seemed just right.
Their eyes were like flawless green gemstones—mechanically cold, yet mesmerizingly beautiful.
But the moment they noticed Tu Ran, the pupils in their eyes suddenly shifted from a lazy oval shape to a sharp, needle-like straight line.
She had opened the portal right into their meeting room!
Tu Ran resisted the urge to curse as the group of semi-humanoid creatures lunged toward her. In a flash, she quickly shoved an inner core into her mouth.
[Invisibility]
!!
Tu Ran suddenly disappeared from her original spot.
She took advantage of the gap in the encircling group, slipping through the small opening and landing behind them.
She instinctively lowered her breathing, her eyes locked on the creatures’ movements.
The creatures watched helplessly as their prey vanished, circling the spot where she had stood in a frantic search. They then widened their range, pacing around the entire meeting room.
It seemed they knew she had turned invisible.
Tu Ran carefully jumped onto the table, evading their probing.
She looked around, hoping to deduce which world she was in based on the surroundings. The walls were smooth and cold like metal, with no windows or decorations. The floor was covered with a silver-gray carpet, and the only furniture was a long metal table. The entire space felt like an airtight iron box.
If there was anything that could reveal some information, it was the only door in the metal box.
The arched door was made of the same silver-gray metal, adorned with intricate, subtle patterns. A few eyes were faintly visible within the design, their pupils either round, needle-like, or oval, with some half-closed, and dark green gemstones embedded within. Looking at it gave the unsettling feeling of being stared at by countless eyes.
Tu Ran had a strong intuition that this image held deep meaning—possibly related to the species’ beliefs or mental support systems. Unfortunately, she couldn’t decipher it, and none of the data Zero had provided her with seemed to match the world she was in now.
After the semi-humanoid creatures circled the meeting room twice, still finding nothing, one of them, dressed more elaborately and exuding a more authoritative aura, stopped.
After he stopped, the other creatures also halted, all looking toward their leader. One of them even stopped just less than half a meter away from Tu Ran.
The leader instinctively waved his hand toward the empty space above the table.
He had little hope; their search had already covered every inch of the room, and they hadn’t spared the air above the table.
As she had done several times before, Tu Ran teleported to the other end of the table before his hand could reach her.
Seeing that nothing had been caught, the leader no longer tried and focused his attention on the rest of the group.
Their pupils were still slits, and they had not relaxed their vigilance.
The leader raised his finger, his movements slow and graceful, resembling a devout believer praying for food. His thickest finger extended into a long, sharp nail, the surface gleaming coldly, like a sharp steel blade. Tu Ran instinctively imagined that the nail might pierce her stomach with deadly precision.
She shuddered. It was dangerous to imagine one’s own death before a fight even began. Biting her tongue, she forced her attention back to the nail, focusing on its next movement.
If she wasn’t mistaken, this creature was preparing to contact external reinforcements.
In most cases, the level of communication technology in a world could roughly indicate its technological advancement.
For example, the Federation’s communicators and the Haenden Star System’s advanced eye crystal implantation technology.
This was also why she hadn’t immediately used [Space-Time Manipulation] to escape.
She needed to gather as much information as possible about this world.
The sharp nail gently scratched through the air, splitting it apart. A small, dark, lightless space was revealed.
Because it was a spatial tear, the gap was narrow at the edges and wide in the middle, taking the shape of an eye.
However, it was only the shape of an eye. The space inside was completely empty.
But the next second, something absurd and bizarre happened.
The empty darkness slowly flipped upwards, like an eyelid slowly opening. A vivid, dark green pupil gradually appeared in Tu Ran’s line of sight.
What the hell is this?
Is this some kind of magic?
Is this a magical world?
Tu Ran’s mind was in turmoil. If she weren’t trying to remain hidden, she would have jumped off the table to investigate this green eye up close.
Before she could calm her shocked heart, a more astonishing sight unfolded.
The green eye, still half-lidded, slowly moved in its socket, dodging the others and locking onto Tu Ran’s position.
Tu Ran: “…”
A faint white light radiated from her body, and her figure was completely exposed.
This eye could actually see through her disguise and reveal her presence!
The room was suddenly thrown into chaos as the tension was palpable.
Tu Ran flipped off the table and jumped to avoid the attack from the nearest creature. At the same time, she raised her hand, launching a white energy ball toward the eye in midair.
The moment the energy ball made contact, the eye cunningly closed. Since the eye was a tear in space itself, when it closed, the space became a bottomless abyss.
The energy ball vanished without a trace, not even causing a ripple.
As Tu Ran landed and quickly teleported behind one of the creatures, she grabbed his cold neck with a hand that still held the warmth of a human.
She tried to read his memories.
But she failed.
It was as though she had encountered an immense, unscalable wall. The memories of the creature were sealed behind it, and no matter how she tried, she couldn’t penetrate it.
Tu Ran’s heart grew heavier.
Her gaze swept over the eye, and its position was now marked only by a black void. Tu Ran tried to activate her invisibility once more.
But it lasted less than a second, like an old black-and-white television briefly losing its signal. The cunning eye reappeared, exposing her once again.
These long-limbed, humanoid creatures possessed the agility of humans, the speed of a cheetah, and the lethal power of machines.
They also had an incredibly tight-knit cooperative ability.
As the encirclement gradually tightened and the creatures prepared to trap her like a turtle in a jar, Tu Ran threw out an invisible blade of light.
