Ancient Empire

(This chapter is free.)

My head... hurt so much...

What happened?

It felt like my mind was a bowl of mush, all kinds of random things churned together, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find the information I needed.

It took more than ten minutes before I gradually regained control of my thoughts.

Ah! Right! I remembered! What had happened before I passed out—Qian Qian and I had been standing at the school gate when a student from some elite school was bullying one of our classmates. We didn't want trouble, so we were about to leave quickly, and then?

I seemed to have glared fiercely at that rich brat who was throwing his weight around and thought about teaching him a lesson.

And after that...

All at once, everything returned clearly to my mind. The countdown from that mysterious "Zenith Ranged Strike System" seemed to echo in my head again.

"Qian Qian! Run!" I shouted, jerking upright.

"This is... that dream?" I looked around and found myself surrounded by those gray metal buildings from the dream. There was no doubt about it. After losing consciousness, I had returned to this strange place.

I rubbed my forehead and looked around, only to suddenly realize that something seemed wrong with the surroundings. It seemed... a little too dark...

So I looked up...

The next second, I felt like my heart had skipped several beats!

The enormous metal sphere in the sky had somehow come so close to the ground that it was almost within reach. Its massive surface blocked nearly half the sky, pressing down like another continent. I could clearly see the complex metallic structures on its surface. Some looked like towers, some like weapon silos, and others like protruding communications equipment. Even more numerous were dense clusters of dark gun barrels, like a forest. Between these metallic installations were vast circular depressions that seemed to be landing platforms or energy-gathering facilities. This horrifying jungle of steel moved slowly across the sky, silently conveying an overwhelming terror to me directly beneath it.

What the hell was this thing? This scene was way too sci-fi!

No matter how much I complained inwardly, it wouldn't change my fate of being crushed flat by this Sky Fortress, which was like a tiny planet. Though it was descending so slowly that the movement was almost impossible to detect, my intuition told me that this enormous Planetary Fortress was still coming down!

My intuition in this dream had always been astonishingly accurate. Just like how I instinctively felt now that, even though this was a dream, what happened in this world would definitely affect me in the real world.

What now? Run? You've got to be kidding. Do you know how huge this metal ball is? I estimated its radius had already exceeded a thousand kilometers! No matter how slowly it descended, it would turn me into dumpling filling long before I could run out from under it!

The most urgent thing now was to stay calm. Calm! This metal sphere was descending slowly, so it wouldn't crush me right away. Before then, I had to find a building to hide in. It had to be sturdy enough—sturdy enough to withstand that enormous fortress in the sky that was practically an asteroid...

If I had to find somewhere that sturdy, I might as well run a thousand kilometers!

Wait, I seemed to have forgotten something...

Right, where were the other two metal spheres? There had originally been three metal spheres in the sky, so why could I only see one now? Had they hidden behind the metal sphere that was already about to touch the ground?

...At a time like this, I still had the leisure to think about that. One celestial fortress was enough to turn me into dumpling filling. Two more would only make the filling a little more evenly flattened...

But that fleeting thought cleared my already chaotic mind for an instant. I remembered the voice that had sounded in my head when that energy beam appeared at the school gate.

Whatever it was—some supernatural phenomenon or superpower—it seemed that I could influence that energy and the Zenith attack system it belonged to to some extent. Or rather, there was a strong possibility that I had activated that attack system. Now it seemed there had to be some connection between this dream world and the Zenith Ranged Strike System. In other words, could I actually influence things in this dream world?

That had to be it! After all, this was my dream. No matter what, it was my turf. My will had to be able to influence things here!

That was easy to say, but I still wasn't sure whether it would work. By now, I no longer considered this world an ordinary strange dream. This bizarre dream had already gone beyond the scope of normal dreams and risen to the level of a paranormal event. Who knew whether I was dreaming or had been swallowed by some illusion? Or worse, maybe a bolt of lightning had sent me traveling through time—though that wasn't very likely. That guy writing this had promised not to write a transmigration novel.

Doing my best to calm down, I began focusing my mind, trying to control the Planetary Fortress in the sky that was about to bring disaster down upon me.

This was difficult because I had no idea where to start. Theoretically speaking, high school courses didn't include Planetary Fortress control...

All I could do was repeatedly think about making the enormous sphere move away from the ground.

Several dozen minutes passed without the slightest response. In the silent world, only my increasingly heavy breathing could be heard. The enormous fortress in the sky had clearly drawn closer to the ground, and the metal protrusions that had once been blurry were now sharply visible.

But just as I was about to give up, a sensation like something had connected suddenly came from the depths of my mind.

That was it!

A wave of wild joy surged through me, and the connection I had just established was severed again by my excitement.

"Focus, focus!" I muttered inwardly, forcibly suppressing my distracting thoughts. I concentrated completely and conveyed my intention as precisely as possible.

I didn't know how long passed before a mechanical voice finally sounded deep in my mind. "External command set received... authorization confirmed... ambiguous command analysis... Warning: the command you have submitted will alter the operational state of the World Arbitration Organization. Please confirm that you possess sufficient authority... Confirmation repeated: World Arbitration Mechanism No. 2 Gaia altering orbit..."

As the mechanical voice fell silent, the massive sphere in the sky emitted a deep rumble and began to rise slowly. With that low roar, this silent world suddenly underwent an earth-shaking transformation!

The voice that always sounded whenever I left this world suddenly echoed between heaven and earth, carrying joy for the first time. "Found it..."

Then, this monotonous world regained its colors!

The ash-gray sky was like a screen being switched on, rapidly taking on a vivid azure hue. That pure color, utterly unlike anything that should have existed in this world of steel, was even more beautiful than the clearest sky I had ever seen. The distant, hazy mountain ranges were swiftly covered in green from top to bottom, letting one feel the rich breath of life even from a thousand miles away. Around me, the cold metal buildings also came back to life. Pale blue halos appeared across their shells, and flickering lights lit up one after another around me. Seen from high above, they looked like a burst of blooming Fireworks. The enormous fortress-like sphere in the sky also changed. Torrents of blue-white light, emerging from nowhere, surged through the metal ravines on its surface. The glowing halos flashing across it filled the gigantic Sky Fortress with a mysterious and magnificent beauty.

In barely a dozen seconds, this dead place had become a magical world brimming with life. Beautiful natural scenery and surreal visions of the future blended together in an unbelievable harmony. The view could only be described as magnificent. I stood there dumbly in the utterly transformed metal city, almost forgetting to breathe.

"What... exactly is this..." I murmured.

A pleasant female voice with little emotional fluctuation suddenly sounded beside my ear. "This is the most ancient and powerful civilization in this multiverse, one that once ruled the universe through magitech."

The sudden voice startled me. I instinctively leaped aside, then turned back and saw the "person" beside me.

A pale blue, half-transparent girl floated there. Her eyes, which seemed unable to focus on anything, turned in my direction.

A ghost? Or a hologram?

Based on how this story was going, I figured it was the latter...

"Hello." I made an awkward expression. "My name is Chen Jun. Um... what can I do for you?"

"Greetings." The girl opposite me bowed and said, "I am Gaia, the Second Unit of the World Arbitration Organization. It is a pleasure to meet you, Emperor."