As the nuclear explosion erupted.
Endless light and heat burst out from the epicenter.
The air was scorched dry and ignited, and the earth began to melt.
Surging flames and light roared outward from the epicenter, swallowing everything within a radius of more than ten kilometers in an instant.
The shock wave and heat generated by the explosion continued spreading farther and farther.
Vast stretches of forest caught fire, and countless animals became innocent victims.
A mushroom cloud slowly rose between heaven and earth.
"Is he dead?"
Someone murmured before a screen displaying satellite surveillance footage.
If anyone from this world had been there, they would surely have recognized the speaker as Chu Ge, the owner of Northern Lights Biological Company.
Regardless of how mistaken this world's survivors had been in their guesses about the origins of the Zombie Virus, the conclusion they ultimately reached was correct.
It was indeed Chu Ge who had precisely deployed the Zombie Virus that destroyed all of human civilization.
After destroying human civilization, Chu Ge had launched a dense network of military satellites to take complete control of this world. Combined with the highly intelligent artificial intelligence he had created and devices installed in various locations, they allowed him to monitor every region on the planet.
Together, they formed the Sky Eye System.
At first, Lin Ze had only operated on a small scale, gathering intelligence, learning the language and writing of World No. 3, and searching for survivors. The Sky Eye System had not detected anything unusual.
The drones he sent out were also assumed to be the work of survivors from this world.
The Sky Eye System paid no attention to them. Those survivors were not priority targets at the moment, and even if left alone, they might well die on their own after a while.
At that point, Lin Ze had yet to stir up any trouble.
But when Lin Ze began visiting the former capitals of various countries, searching for clues that would lead him to this world's military bases, he was exposed to the Sky Eye System.
Those places were already key surveillance zones for the Sky Eye System. Lin Ze had practically walked right into its net.
According to the intelligence analyzed by the Sky Eye System, this suddenly appearing unknown entity had features that matched no one in this world. The initial suspicion was that he was from another world or an extraterrestrial visitor, and that he possessed the telekinetic ability to manipulate objects—a power commonly seen in works of fiction.
He also had a short-range spatial teleportation ability, moving several hundred meters each time, with a cooldown between uses.
In addition, life-field scans showed that Lin Ze was physically extremely powerful.
Taken together, there was no need to test him to know he possessed formidable individual combat ability—enough to pose a threat to Chu Ge.
If the other party discovered his location and launched a decapitation strike, it would be difficult for him to resist.
This turn of events was unsettling.
So Chu Ge had chosen to strike first without the slightest hesitation. To ensure a decisive blow, he had even used nuclear weapons.
Spatial abilities and telekinesis were indeed powerful, but Lin Ze was still a carbon-based life-form. Against a nuclear attack, he was nothing.
Teleporting several hundred meters still left him within the nuclear weapon's blast radius.
From the fact that Lin Ze had no chance to dodge and had been hit directly by the nuclear weapon, it seemed his decisive choice had been the right one.
"Next, I'll wait a while, then send some robots to inspect the battlefield."
"Most likely, that stranger has already been reduced to ash, but what if we can find some useful remains?"
"I also need to be more careful about my own safety. I'll relocate to somewhere more secure first. From now on, I'll use the Sky Eye System to rule the world from the shadows, pretending to be a rogue artificial intelligence and concealing my own existence."
"That way, if another unforeseen enemy like this appears, I'll have enough time to respond."
Watching the light and heat slowly fade from the surveillance footage, Chu Ge considered his next steps.
Lin Ze's existence proved that the multiverse spacetime worldview and extraterrestrial civilizations were real. That alone was already a worthwhile gain for Chu Ge.
But if possible, after ensuring his own safety, he also wanted to see whether he could develop superpowers that he could use himself, improving his own body's ability to survive.
"Hm?"
As he was thinking this, the Sky Eye System's administrator, the strong artificial intelligence Sky Eye, suddenly brought up a new image.
In it, Lin Ze—who had just been subjected to a nuclear strike and should have been reduced to ash—now stood unharmed atop a high-rise building in a city far from the nuclear blast's epicenter.
He wore a smile, as though he knew someone was watching him, and waved toward the sky in greeting.
"Hello."
Lin Ze stood at the very center of the blast. His vision was filled with blinding white light, leaving him unable to see anything else.
Yet he had not been injured by the terrifying attack. The moment the intercontinental missile descended and the nuclear blast began, he had activated Within Reach Horizon, passed through the Gates to Heavens, and arrived in another safe Grotto-heaven World.
The Gates to Heavens had blocked the spread of the nuclear blast's destructive force. No matter how terrifying the nuclear weapon's power, it could not harm Lin Ze across the boundary between worlds.
After witnessing the might of a nuclear weapon up close, Lin Ze began to consider what he should do next.
The other party had clearly discovered him and had acted with extreme decisiveness, opening with a lethal move.
Although Lin Ze had also been thinking of locating the other party and then striking with the force of thunder, he ultimately lacked the home-field advantage. This was an opponent of extraordinary intelligence and decisiveness.
"I was discovered while investigating. Then the other party immediately launched a nuclear strike against me."
"Unless something unexpected happens, the method I devised for finding him won't work anymore. He's surely relocated by now. Even if I find his industrial production base, I won't be able to follow the trail back to him."
"If he's determined to stay hidden, I'll have to destroy all his forces, turn him into a tiger without fangs, strip him of all his production capacity and ability to hide, and only then search all of World Number Three to find him."
Thinking this over, Lin Ze frowned slightly.
His ability to survive was formidable, but in terms of actual combat power, he was not particularly strong.
If he wanted to rely on his own strength to deal with the mastermind secretly controlling World Number Three, he would probably need quite a while to develop.
After thinking it over briefly, Lin Ze decided to use a little trick.
A trick called Lure the Snake from Its Hole.
From Chu Ge's perspective, Lin Ze had never revealed where he stood.
The other party had most likely attacked Lin Ze out of a desire to eliminate every target beyond his control and keep himself safe.
But now that he had failed to get rid of Lin Ze, the two of them were on equal footing and could talk.
At this point, if Lin Ze showed goodwill and the two of them made a deal, then after receiving the item Lin Ze traded, the other party would take it to wherever he was and put it to use. Lin Ze could then follow the item's movements to locate him.
The other party would surely go to great lengths to conceal the item's trail while moving it, but Lin Ze could stay behind the Gates to Heavens. He did not have to play by those rules. Once he found his target, he could simply strike.
There was no harm in failure. If the shortcut didn't work, he could always overwhelm the other party openly with sheer force.
"What should I trade?"
With a plan in mind, Lin Ze began refining it.
Soon, he had worked out the whole plan and began to put it into action.
"Hello."
After Lin Ze greeted the satellite in the sky, a drone soon flew out from a corner of the city and stopped in front of him.
Then a neutral, synthesized voice came from the speaker mounted on the drone and greeted Lin Ze.
On the rooftop of a tall building with a wide view in the ruined city, the two met amicably, as if Lin Ze had never been hit by a nuclear strike.
"Allow me to introduce myself. I'm Lin Ze, a plane merchant from the Gates to Heavens Mall. Our mall's mission is to trade across myriad worlds and exchange what each has to offer. I came to this world to find trading partners."
"Though it seems the locals here aren't very welcoming."
Lin Ze introduced himself calmly.
He only offered a mild complaint and gave no indication that he was angry about the earlier attack.
His long introduction explained why he had come and laid the groundwork for the goodwill behind his plan to Lure the Snake from Its Hole.
The drone hovered silently for a moment.
It seemed to be processing what it had just heard, or perhaps thinking about how to explain the earlier clash.
In fact, Chu Ge, who was operating the drone, was considering what Lin Ze's words meant.
The heavens, myriad worlds, a plane merchant.
Taken literally, they meant a powerful organization that traveled through many worlds using advanced spacetime technology, trading each world's specialties for profit.
These terms were not difficult to understand. Similar concepts had appeared in works of fiction in this world before.
But works of fiction were, after all, just fiction. Taking them literally, Chu Ge couldn't understand what an enormous organization capable of crossing multiple spacetime continuums could possibly want from a civilization that hadn't even left its home planet.
It felt like an emperor personally traveling to a remote mountain village to steal a broken bowl from a farmer. Absurd.
An organization with technology on that level would have surely mastered matter and energy completely, able to create anything it wanted at will. The population, material resources, and technology of a low-level civilization would mean nothing to it.
From this, he could infer that the so-called Gates to Heavens Mall was probably a front, nothing more.
But Lin Ze had withstood a nuclear weapon without a scratch, and his ability to teleport hundreds of kilometers in an instant was genuine.
Still, those were only his own deductions. What if the Gates to Heavens Mall really was that powerful, and there were simply many things he couldn't yet understand?
So Chu Ge decided to probe him further.
Following his principle of concealing his identity, Chu Ge disguised himself.
"Hello. I'm Sky Eye, an artificial intelligence developed by Doctor Chu Ge. I'm equipped with human thought circuits and belong to the species of mechanical intelligent life. You may already know that, for my own safety, I eliminated most of the humans in this world."
"Because your appearance might threaten my survival, I attacked you in an unfriendly manner."
"For that, I apologize."
"Since even nuclear weapons cannot harm you, I'm unable to pose a real threat to you. And you, as a merchant, don't seem to possess particularly powerful combat abilities. On that basis, we have the foundation for friendly cooperation and mutual survival."
"If you need it, I can give you some resources as compensation. After that, we can formally begin trading."
A long speech slowly came through the speaker.
Its blunt tone was exactly what one would expect from an artificial intelligence.
At the same time, it was testing Lin Ze, hoping to analyze his real situation based on what he wanted.
"I do need compensation. You can prepare some gold and silver as an apology, and also as currency for our future trade."
"That shouldn't be too difficult for you, now that you control the resources of the entire world, should it?"
"I've encountered a few customers who were also mechanical intelligences. They generally wanted computers with greater computing power and technology for interstellar travel. As long as you can provide enough gold and silver, I can provide those things."
Lin Ze spoke calmly.
Lin Ze had previously guessed that Chu Ge was behind everything, and that the martial arts techniques he possessed would surely interest him.
But the other party had told him that it was an artificial intelligence, not a human. Lin Ze was at a loss.
Fortunately, he had anticipated this possibility, so it hadn't thrown him off.
"There is something I don't understand. Given that the Gates to Heavens Mall can cross spacetime, why would you still need things like gold and silver?"
"Although gold and silver are precious metals produced only by supernova explosions, and in this world they're not only industrial materials but were once used as currency, such metals should be meaningless to beings who can travel through endless worlds."
"Surely the boundless universe isn't short of planets made entirely of gold. Trading with me would be highly inefficient."
Chu Ge continued imitating the way an artificial intelligence spoke, bluntly questioning Lin Ze to gather information.
"In theory, that's true. Trade is inefficient."
As he spoke, Lin Ze opened the Gates to Heavens to a new coordinate, connecting World No. 3 to a location somewhere in the starry sky.
The drone's camera, like the naked eye, could clearly see that on the other side of the gate was a golden planet. It was obvious without using any special instruments that gold made up most of its composition.
A genuine Golden Planet.
Its gold reserves could be measured in trillions upon trillions of tons.
A hundred million times a hundred million made a trillion; a trillion upon trillion was a one followed by a full twenty-four zeroes.
Before you continue