Just as Bai Ying was about to close her eyes, Yu Xiao's pupils suddenly contracted!
That's right.
If even he wasn't willing to prove that Xingtian was a living mech, then what right did he have to expect others not to treat him as a war machine?
The space Bai Ying and Yu Xiao occupied shifted once again, but this time, the change was far more violent.
Crack!
As the first fissure appeared out of nowhere in the air beyond the window, countless cracking sounds rang out one after another.
The entire space was like a mirror being smashed to pieces. Under his gaze, it shattered into a sky full of scattered starlight and dust.
The two of them eventually found themselves standing in a pure white space.
When Yu Xiao opened his eyes again, his pupils had returned to normal.
"Did I... fall asleep?" Yu Xiao rubbed his temples hard. He felt as if he'd had a very long dream, except that the version of himself in it had been completely beyond his rational control, submerged in negative emotions.
"You didn't fall asleep."
The sudden voice made Yu Xiao jolt in fright!
"Bai Ying? What are you doing here? No, wait... where are we?" The moment he saw Bai Ying, his hazy dream became crystal clear. He could remember every last detail!
"You weren't dreaming. You were showing severe symptoms of 'chasing the little rabbit,' to the point that you lost yourself," Bai Ying explained with unusual patience. "We should still be inside your consciousness."
"So... I killed you while chasing the little rabbit?" Yu Xiao swallowed unconsciously.
"If you'd killed me, I wouldn't be standing here." Bai Ying's eyelids drooped slightly. "But what I did shouldn't be forgiven."
"You were... doing that to me on purpose. You wanted revenge." He vaguely remembered looking through Bai Ying's memories at the very last moment. Maybe he couldn't recall them clearly precisely because they weren't his memories.
Considering the malice toward Xingtian he'd felt from Bai Ying during their neural synchronization, it all made sense.
"Did I ever hurt you?" Yu Xiao finally asked the question that had been bothering him for a long time.
Bai Ying's gaze at Xingtian grew exceedingly complicated.
"You never hurt anyone. I was the one who kept running away..." In the end, that was all Bai Ying said.
"Then pull yourself together!"
Bai Ying abruptly raised her head and stared at Yu Xiao in surprise.
"No matter what, I shouldn't have taken my anger out on you. And you're no longer that cold machine. I'm sorry." She wanted to explain, but self-reproach and guilt clogged her throat, leaving only an apology.
"Looks like we've put each other through a lot. If you think you owe me something, we can talk once I've thought of what I want." Yu Xiao deliberately kept his tone light.
He might not be a saint, but he had more important things to do than take revenge on the girl before him.
"By the way, why did you suddenly synchronize with me? Wasn't I dead?"
"Don't you know what's happening outside?" Bai Ying hadn't expected Yu Xiao to ask that.
Yu Xiao shook his head. He really didn't know.
"Right, you've been in a state of chasing the little rabbit this whole time," Bai Ying realized. "But can't you really sense it? Your power core is absorbing the entire base's electricity. If this continues, both Xuanse Cangqiong and Zhenhai City will be in danger!"
What the hell? My power core had already arrived?
Yu Xiao remembered that while chasing the little rabbit, he'd always appeared as Xingtian, and Xingtian had indeed had a black power core in his chest.
He was one hundred percent certain that the black power core wasn't Xingtian's original one, because he clearly remembered the feeling it had given him—that exhilarating sense of being able to crush everything, of being omnipotent!
But now, he couldn't sense the power core at all. He couldn't even feel any connection between himself and Xingtian.
If there hadn't been someone before him who was neurally synchronized with him, Yu Xiao would've wondered whether he'd already started another journey to a different world!
"I can't sense my power core," Yu Xiao decided to be honest.
"You can't sense it?" Bai Ying was even more surprised than Yu Xiao. "But it's clearly operating inside your body right now!"
"I'm not lying. I really can't feel it."
Ever since Xingtian's power core had shut down, Yu Xiao had felt as if he'd fallen asleep. After an unknown energy had awakened him, his consciousness had remained in a daze.
"But you said that power core belonged to you." Bai Ying looked both anxious and confused. "If even you can't control it, then how are we supposed to stop..."
"Do you trust me?" Yu Xiao's expression turned grave.
Bai Ying nodded without hesitation.
"Then give me two minutes." Yu Xiao knew that every second they wasted would plunge the outside world into greater danger, but first he had to figure out what had happened.
"Okay." Bai Ying readily agreed. "Is there anything else you need me to do?"
"No. Just wait for me."
With that, Yu Xiao closed his eyes.
[Machine spirit login successful. Welcome to the Evolution System] [Searching mech log...]
In less than a minute, Yu Xiao had reviewed everything that had happened outside from the moment he lost consciousness until Bai Ying woke him.
The key to the problem lay in his mech's current condition.
[Due to severe damage to the mech, the machine spirit protection protocol has been triggered. The system has temporarily severed your sensory link with the mech.]
Because he'd lost his sensory link with the mech, the power core had operated entirely on its own after its automatic installation, relying on the intelligent system attached to it.
After being subjected to the Red Hurricane's and Dr. Chris's dissection experiments, the intelligent system had classified the Xuanse Cangqiong base as a hostile unit. This was also the main source of the hatred and rage he'd felt while "chasing the little rabbit," because that hostile classification had seeped into his subconscious.
[There are two ways to restore the link: 1. When the system detects that your mech's integrity exceeds 50%, the sensory link will automatically be restored. 2. When an external link with your identifying characteristics attempts to connect to the mech, the sensory link will automatically be restored.]
The first method was out of the question. The entire Xuanse Cangqiong power system was currently half-paralyzed, and all the installation equipment needed to repair Xingtian had shut down with it.
The second method could clearly only be triggered if the machine spirit had multiple mechs. A mech was the machine spirit's only vessel. Once separated from a mech, a machine spirit could survive in other digital storage devices for no more than five minutes.
And five minutes was the maximum. The smaller the storage device's capacity, the shorter the machine spirit's survival time.
"I have an idea." Yu Xiao opened his eyes. "But it's very risky for both of us."
"What idea?" Bai Ying feared risk least of all.
"Does your neural synchronization device have data storage?"
"There's an interface unit for exchanging neural electrical signals, but it only has a capacity of 5 TB." Bai Ying immediately thought of the small device at the back of her helmet.
Five terabytes...
Yu Xiao's consciousness could only survive inside it for ten seconds.
Before you continue