Jump Successful

Time ticked by.

Under Chen Fan's horrified gaze, the point of light emitting a soft glow gradually expanded, quickly forming a rapidly spinning ring of light.

He did not know the ring's "true identity," nor did he know what it was for.

But there was one thing he could be sure of: this ring of light was unstable.

Like a warped bicycle tire, the ring visibly deformed as it spun at high speed.

Not only that, as the area covered by the ring gradually expanded, the scenery around it began to distort as well.

As time passed, the ring gradually stopped expanding and, amid increasingly severe distortion, formed a "Light Sphere" floating in midair.

At that moment, the distortion reached its peak, and a miraculous sight appeared before Chen Fan: the desk that should have been obscured by the Light Sphere reappeared before his eyes at a bizarre and extremely warped angle.

Chen Fan's gaze shifted slightly. The scene before him stirred a memory buried deep within his mind.

After racking his brain for a while, he finally recalled some astronomical knowledge he had casually encountered in his previous life: due to their immense gravity, black holes often produced a Gravitational Lensing Effect around them.

Put simply, massive gravity distorted light, allowing rays that should have been blocked to enter an observer's field of vision along strangely curved paths.

Without a doubt, what he was seeing was caused by the Gravitational Lensing Effect!

"So..."

Having realized this, Chen Fan immediately connected the scene before him to that strange dream of his.

"That wasn't a dream?!!"

Chen Fan swallowed hard and murmured uncertainly, "Inter-universal... ultra-long-distance teleportation?!"

Looking at the increasingly unstable Light Sphere, Chen Fan's mind went completely numb.

No way, you're seriously doing this?

Being transmigrated was one thing, but why were aliens involved too?!

He remembered it clearly: in that broadcast-like message from the "dream," the other party had explicitly stated its identity—the Pan-Universal Human Alliance.

Setting everything else aside, that name alone did not sound like some insignificant nobody.

Perhaps due to the aftereffects of the obscure whispers battering his mind, Chen Fan's thoughts were exceptionally active at that moment. All sorts of bizarre questions sprouted in his head like mushrooms after rain.

Aliens... wait! They had crossed universes. Could they even still be called aliens?

And why would such an obviously powerful alliance suddenly have anything to do with him? Had they misunderstood something?

He remembered now. They seemed to be searching for a lost Research Ship...

Could they think that Research Ship was in his possession?!

The moment that possibility occurred to him, Chen Fan's previously scattered thoughts instantly ground to a halt.

After a brief daze, he once again let out a timeless, classic expletive:

"Holy shit!!!"

Reality did not give Chen Fan much time to react or think.

Just as he realized that the other party might be here for the missing Research Ship, the clearly unstable Light Sphere began to behave strangely.

Amid rapid, violent flickering, a badly damaged hand with faint electrical sparks flashing across its surface slowly emerged from within it and opened its palm toward Chen Fan.

The hand slowly extended outward, followed by an increasingly battered arm.

Blue-violet arcs of electricity danced erratically across the arm, radiating a chilling aura into the surroundings—

The immense charge carried by those arcs made Chen Fan's hair and body hair stand on end!

Chen Fan stared in horror at the scene beyond his understanding. Terrified beyond measure, he was like a frightened quail, capable only of making meaningless wheezing sounds in his throat.

His brain had nearly crashed, leaving him with only one thought:

I'm screwed!!!

Just as he prepared to lower his head and beg for mercy, the arm that had been continuously extending from the Light Sphere seemed to lose its support and fell to the floor with a clang.

The blue-violet electrical effects that had flickered over the arm's surface abruptly vanished. Even the terribly unstable Light Sphere dissipated into the air in an instant.

The room returned to its original darkness, and everything that had just happened seemed like nothing more than an illusion.

Chen Fan looked toward where the arm had fallen and swallowed hard.

After hesitating for a long while, he raised his numb, tingling hands and tremblingly assumed a praying gesture. "Lord... please grant light to this world..."

Whether from excessive fright or some other reason, Chen Fan felt that his voice sounded strange—hoarse, yet carrying a faint electronic quality.

Dim yellow light shone down from overhead, once again dispelling the darkness in the room. It allowed him to see the arm's true appearance—

"...A Mechanical Arm?"

Chen Fan murmured in a strange tone.

Once he realized that, much of the worry and terror in his heart faded. Compared to some fantastical being crossing the void in the flesh, wrapped in lightning, a mechanical construct was far more comprehensible to him.

He gathered his courage and carefully stepped forward, inspecting it closely beneath the dim incandescent light.

The severed Mechanical Arm was covered in a layer of unknown silver-white metal. The earlier impact had caused extensive damage to the metal layer, exposing the complex circuitry and internal structure beneath.

At the end of the Mechanical Arm was an incomparably smooth fractured cross-section.

Clearly, it had suffered an extremely powerful attack when it broke apart!

Just as Chen Fan prepared to inspect it further, a faint glow came from the Mechanical Arm's palm.

Before he could react, a fan-shaped beam of fluorescent blue light swept across his body.

The next second, an Electronic Synthesized Voice rang out in the room.

Unlike the stiff electronic voice emitted by the statue, this Electronic Synthesized Voice sounded remarkably lively.

Surface thought reading successful. Language module configuration complete.

Detecting spacetime node...

Jump successful. Confirmed arrival in the EL13697101 Universe!

Verifying target identity...

Confirmed. Subject is the target signal source!

Attempting to initiate an Inter-Universal Hyperspace Membrane Broadcast...

Warning! No available communication node detected. Unable to connect to the Dangerous Technology Administration. Attempting to calculate feasible alternatives...

Only then did Chen Fan belatedly realize what had happened.

He let out a hoarse cry of alarm and staggered backward.

Only when his body struck the solid wall of concrete and cement did Chen Fan stop retreating.

"You..."

Perhaps feeling that he should not simply sit and wait for death, Chen Fan swallowed and asked in a trembling voice, "What exactly are you?"

As fluorescent blue light lit up in the Mechanical Arm's palm, the Electronic Synthesized Voice sounded again:

Pan-Universal Human Alliance GT-52 Carbon-Based Lifeform Universal Intelligent Terminal.

P.S. The book has been signed, so updates will be stable from here on out. Updates should be around noon every day.

Data is especially important during the new-book period, so please keep reading, dear readers. Recommendation tickets, monthly tickets, and so on... ahem, the more the better, of course!

Thank you all for your support! Er Lan offers his thanks!