Volume Six: What She Lost · What I Gained, Chapter 569: Invasion Is Impossible

"... arrive."

I stood on the edge of what used to be a giant circular crater, and almost five minutes had passed. Haoyue should be... almost seventy by now.

There's no time to waste.

"Neumann, are you there?"

After a few seconds (which felt like hundreds of days to Haoyue) of silence --

"... Yes, I'm about three meters to your right and behind."

--Huh!?

So close?

I quickly turned my head to look, but there was nothing there except for the broken cement ground three meters to my right. I tried to sense the Blood Energy, but found nothing.

The weak voice continued, "I'm sorry I startled you... I changed the refractive index and reflectivity of the air around me, the speed of sound in the air, and even the biosignals..."

"Alright, alright, anyway, you're really good at hiding! Although it's rude of me to force you now, but--"

I took a deep breath, faced the direction she was in (approximately), and then...

"--Please! Haoyue is counting on you!"

I immediately knelt down.

Not only are both knees on the ground, but both elbows and head—or rather, the entire upper body—are also pressed against the concrete floor, which is the most standard prostration posture in Buddhism.

"Miss Ye!?"

Neumann panicked. The space around her began to shimmer like a mirage, and the creaking of her wheelchair could be heard. It seemed she was truly terrified and couldn't even control her powers.

But that's to be expected, isn't it? I'm even impressed with my own uselessness and shamelessness. Just a minute ago, I was using a very tough attitude to call Sin Annihilation over to hold Julia back, boasting that I could definitely do it. But in the blink of an eye, I've abandoned my dignity and begged others. It's just too ugly.

However, I was helpless. I was truly at a loss and could only Neumann help. And to ask someone for help, one must show sincerity. "Abandoning dignity and prostrating oneself" was the greatest sincerity I could express in this emergency.

"Miss Ye, you... you... you... you don't need to do this! I... I will definitely help, so please get up! I can't accept this courtesy!!!"

"Then, please!!!"

However... I also have other reasons for doing this. Given Neumann's personality, if I ask her to do something so formally, she'll probably feel like she did something wrong, thus developing a strong sense that "I can't leave without helping this person," which should improve her efficiency. But that only applies to Neumann; if someone else were to ask me to do something like that, I'd most likely ignore them completely.

Suddenly, I wondered if Neumann was the kind of person who would actually agree if a strange man begged her, crying and pleading, "Please let me graduate from my virginity!"? It's quite possible that this kind of ridiculous hentai scenario could actually happen to her. Suddenly, I kind of understand why Blood Fiend volunteered to protect her.

While I was lost in thought, Neumann had already gotten to work.

"Interval partitioning... First, divide it into large blocks of 99999×99999, then use the Tabu search algorithm to find the optimal solution... No, it's still too slow. Each interval needs fine-tuning... Yes, let's use the A* algorithm as well, adding shortest path search... Sorting, sorting... Be careful not to overflow... And fuzzy computation... Tsk... No, no! Let's refactor from scratch and write a new algorithm... No, it's still too slow!"

Her tone was completely different from her usual gentle and weak voice; her terrifying focus even surprised me.

"That... Little Nuonuo?"

"Please don't speak! Searching here is far more complex than you imagine! This is reality, not the ideal space in the model. There are far too many external interferences; we have to consider every single small protrusion on the ground! And this is just above ground; there's even more underground..."

She suddenly stopped talking at this point.

"... Well, Miss Ye, although I'm reluctant, I have to say that if things continue at the normal pace, I'm not entirely confident I can find her within a minute or two. The chances of success are probably... fifty-fifty."

"50/50? Can't it be --"

"--but!"

She interrupted me.

Although I couldn't see her, I could feel the burning intensity of her gaze, imbued with enlightenment.

"But Miss Ye has already asked me to do this, and you are also Heiress of Blood Sister, I... I will definitely succeed! Otherwise, I would be letting you down, and I would have no face to face Blood Sister!"

"But how—"

"Directly observe the probability!"

What? Probability?

She... can she directly see the probability of things happening!?

This is just too much!

"Hey, Miss Ye, look..."

I felt her little hand grab my arm, and in that instant, the world changed in my eyes.

Numbers. Formulas.

Numbers, numbers, numbers, numbers, formulas, numbers, formulas, numbers, formulas, formulas, formulas, formulas.

Odd numbers, even numbers, integers, decimals, rational numbers, irrational numbers, real numbers, imaginary numbers, complex numbers, different algebraic representations, different carry-over mechanisms, different counting principles, different rules.

Volume formula, area formula, trigonometric function formula, optics formula, mechanics formula, electromagnetism formula, chemistry formula, thermodynamics formula.

Not only that, there's also--

Lines, whether long or short, straight or curved, including straight lines, circular lines, spiral lines, and zigzag lines.

Surfaces, large or small, flat or curved, planes, cylinders, spheres, all sorts of irregular surfaces, Möbius strips, Klein bottles --

Solids, whether microscopic or gigantic, regular or irregular, spheres, cylinders, cubes, pyramids—all sorts of fitting shapes.

This is... the world I live in?

Is this the world as Neumann saw it?

If we disregard all appearances and only quantify and calculate everything, this is what it looks like!?

Furthermore, upon closer inspection, all the numerical formulas—points, lines, surfaces, and solids—are constantly changing. These are minute numerical alterations, jumping around and making one's scalp tingle. Is this a macroscopic manifestation of the uncertainty principle, or something else? My quantum mechanics is terrible, so I completely don't understand it. And this is just macroscopic data; it's already so astonishing. If we delve into the molecular, atomic, quark, or even quantum level—

"Miss Ye, please look over there!"

A jumble of numbers and formulas appeared before me, and these things somehow coalesced into the shape of a young girl! Is this Neumann? Has she created a freely moving, data-driven version of herself by adjusting various data points, and projected it into this space?

Following the direction Neumann pointed to, it appeared in what should be this large area left by the crater at the racetrack—

"Percentage?"

"I've already converted everything to percentages with four significant figures!"

"Could this be...?"

"That's right, it's the 'probability that the compressed space exists there'!"

"You can see that too!?"

"I... uh... anyway, it does work, but we can't use it too often... no, anyway, this way we can directly narrow down the search range! By sorting the search intervals according to their probability, we can maximize the algorithm's efficiency in one go!"

Upon closer inspection, I saw that about two hundred meters away from here, the numbers were...

"92.36%, 91.54%, 96.77%... So high!"

"So that's the highest priority zone—ah, I've got it!"

She released my arm, and all the numbers, formulas, and geometric figures in front of me disappeared, and the world returned to normal.

Her voice was very excited.

"At our current location, 16.297534° north of east, at a depth of 227.645348m, and 2.492751cm below the soil surface, that's it!"

"Good--"

With the exact coordinates, I immediately sprang into action. The splattered blood transformed into a Blood Hand, which dug out the entire patch of soil that Neumann had pointed out! A large amount of blood was poured directly into the soil, separating the impurities, and the target was found in less than two seconds!

"That's it!"

It was a deep red marble, about the size of a fingernail, and it was undoubtedly Valentina's compressed space!

The Blood Hand retracted, and the marble immediately entered my hand. At that moment, I breathed a sigh of relief; I had finally gotten it done!

"Alright, now we just need to figure out how to break it..."

"Uh... wait... Miss Ye... is that the compressed space?"

"Yes, anyway, as long as we break it, what's inside will be released! Then we just need to kill Yu Xun and Valentina-- "

"No, that's impossible."

Huh!?

I can almost see the despair on Neumann's face.

"Impossible... impossible? What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry, but I only started observing the situation a few minutes ago. If I had known earlier that this was 'Valentina's' compressed space... Waaah..."

"Stop stammering and explain yourself clearly!!!"

A sudden surge of inexplicable anxiety rose within me, burning away all the joy I had just felt.

"Valentina... Valentina, the Extra Weapon, I've heard of her... Her abilities themselves aren't particularly amazing, the key is the compressed space she creates—the special properties of marbles..."

"... Special properties?"

"Yes!"

Then she revealed information we had never heard of before.

"Once her marbles are formed, they cannot be destroyed or hacked, not even by the higher-ups! That's why she was made an exception and became a member of the Extra Weapon!"

"Haa... Haa..."

Valentina sat on the gradually smoothing racetrack, panting and looking quite dejected, but her injuries were healing at a visible speed.

"Are you feeling better, Valentina?" Yu Xun asked with concern.

"To be honest, it's not great... but it's still much better than before."

As she spoke, Valentina took out another vial of energy-replenishing Spiritual Medicine, gulped it down, and the bitter liquid transformed into pure power upon entering her body, supporting her to continue maintaining this excessively compressed space.

The surrounding scene resembled a movie playing in reverse. The steel bars and cement that had fallen to the ground during the fierce battle were rising into the air and returning to their original positions to rebuild. One side of the wall had been largely restored, and the ravaged ground was merging together. The entire racetrack was rapidly returning to its state before the damage occurred the previous night.

Yu Xun and Valentina were in the same state, their bodies returning to their previous condition. In other words, their injuries were healing and their strength was recovering—but this only applied to Yu Xun. Although Valentina's strength was also recovering, she was also struggling to maintain the existence of the compressed space, so her situation was still not optimistic, and the Spiritual Medicine she drank was only an aid.

How is Casey?

"Don't worry, he's doing just fine inside."

Valentina took out a dark green marble and shook it, indicating to Yu Xun he didn't need to worry.

"They should be desperately searching for the compressed space we're in right now, right?"

"Finding a tiny marble in such a large area is like finding a needle in a haystack... Don't worry, they won't find it."

"Even if you find it, there's nothing to be afraid of. Unless you can't hold on any longer, even if high-ranking officials come to the scene, they won't be able to damage or invade your compressed space."

"Yes..."

By the time Valentina could no longer hold on and the space returned to normal, Haoyue would already be dead, and it would be too late for the fools outside to do anything.

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It suddenly started pouring rain on the way back, and I got completely soaked...