An expeditionary fleet roams the Secondary Dimension World, traversing spatial rifts.
The bizarre and colorful scenery outside the window flashed by in Harrison's eyes. He stared intently at the star chart, where coordinates of one Secondary Dimension after another lit up, drawing the fleet's sailing trajectory. Behind him, the other crew members performed their respective duties.
The adjutant stood beside him, pointing to the star map, and whispered, "Following this route, we'll cut into the area actually controlled by the World Tree. Although Lord Black Star has decimated the World Tree Familia, causing gaps in their internal defenses, it's still extremely dangerous for us to penetrate deeper."
"I know, but we can only find the World Tree itself by venturing deep into enemy territory. How can we possibly gain anything without risking our lives?" Harrison replied without hesitation.
The adjutant pursed his lips, unable to resist saying, "Sir, why are you pushing yourself so hard? Given your relationship with Lord Black Star..."
"Alright, stop saying things like that. I don't need your advice."
Harrison didn't even look up.
The adjutant gave a wry smile.
Do you think I care about you? The main thing is that if you back down, we can use your connections to go back and get some rest...
The adjutant said helplessly, "I think we'll just be throwing our lives away."
"Instead of worrying, you should pray that we have a safe and uneventful journey," Harrison replied casually.
"If prayer were effective, what would be the point of having an army?"
The adjutant muttered to himself.
Harrison glanced at him, about to say something, when suddenly his heart tightened, he frowned, and abruptly looked up at the window.
Something's not right...
"What's wrong?" the adjutant asked curiously.
"I'm a little unsettled," Harrison said in a low voice.
"... Quickly! Charge your weapons and prepare for battle!"
The adjutant and the other crew members panicked and immediately started shouting for the fleet to enter battle mode.
They couldn't afford to be careless. Last time, when Harrison was in a bad mood, the Expeditionary Army's outpost was wiped out. In their eyes, Harrison was a jinx; if he had any headaches or fevers, it meant they were all going to be in trouble.
Harrison watched the radar screen warily, but there was no unusual reaction. His unease gradually subsided, and his brow relaxed.
"Could it be my imagination...?"
Harrison was puzzled and shook his head. Since he hadn't found anything, he wasn't sure if his gut feeling was wrong.
"Sir, please don't scare us!"
Upon hearing this, everyone secretly breathed a sigh of relief, their faces full of helplessness, thinking it was just his wicked humor.
The expeditionary fleet quickly disappeared along the spatial rift, and after they left, a semi-transparent figure emerged in this Secondary Dimension —it was Hailian.
"An exploration team from Three Universal Civilizations, huh...?"
Hailian gazed in the direction where the fleet had disappeared, her expression shifting several times, but ultimately she did not make a move.
She has been searching for a suitable Secondary Dimension to add snake-killing agents, and occasionally encounters troops from the Three Universal Civilizations.
Since the World Tree currently has no need to steal intelligence, she did not take action. In any case, other World Tree Familia were dealing with these people, and she did not want to alert them or expose herself; her own mission was more important.
However, the Expeditionary Army was also useful to her. Based on the sailing routes of some fleets, and in conjunction with the Mother Tree's senses of the Pivot Snake, Hailian had recently identified some areas that the Pivot Snake might be frequently active in, as well as some Secondary Dimension that had a chance of being chosen as food by the Pivot Snake, and added serpent-killing agents to all of them.
This time was no exception. Hailian activated spatial magic to find the traces of Harrison's fleet and Luffy. Soon she arrived at a Secondary Dimension with jagged rocks. The Berserk radiation dust storms turned into tornadoes that stretched from the sky to the ground. There was no sign of life in the entire dimension.
"This place is nice."
Hailian nodded. As far as she knew, these Secondary Dimension that had no life but contained different substances were the food that the Pivot Snake preferred. Pure energy-type Secondary Dimension were not favored, perhaps because of their texture; after all, having substances made them crunchy.
She released the snake-killing agent, watched it merge into the Secondary Dimension, and then used a teleportation spell to leave and find her next target.
Two weeks later.
The King of the Boundless, accompanied by the Pivot Snake, traversed the Secondary Dimension World, protected by a densely packed mechanical army that resembled a dark cloud supporting them.
As they passed through each Secondary Dimension, the group would pause briefly to observe the Pivot Snake's reaction. If the Pivot Snake didn't begin to eat, they would move on to the next location.
Although all Secondary Dimension are food, the Pivot Snake doesn't stuff everything into its mouth. After all, its stomach has a limited capacity, and it needs time to digest its food. Eating too much would make it feel bloated.
Unless it is extremely hungry, the Pivot Snake will generally start eating when it encounters Secondary Dimension that suits its taste. As the saying goes, it is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but difficult to go from extravagance to frugality. It does not need to find food itself, so its taste is becoming more and more picky.
After a while, the group arrived at a Secondary Dimension with jagged rocks. The Pivot Snake immediately began to writhe, taking a liking to the food. Ignoring everyone else, it began to feast on the spot, its white mist spreading out, grinding and devouring everything in its path.
Seeing this, the King of the Boundless and the mechanical army retreated to the side, not wanting to disturb the Pivot Snake's feeding.
Seeing the Pivot Snake eating so happily, the King of the Boundless sighed inwardly.
"It's getting more and more troublesome; it's so unbearable."
The King of the Boundless succumbed to Han Xiao's tyranny and reluctantly became the keeper of the Pivot Snake. Even though his lifespan was nearly infinite, the thought of continuing his keepership for several more decades made him feel as if life had dealt him a heavy blow, causing him excruciating pain... even though he didn't have that organ.
The most terrifying thing is that Black Star has three more embryos. Once they all hatch, wouldn't that bring him, the zookeeper, four times the joy?
Moreover, Black Star will definitely force the subsequent births of the Pivot Snake to produce more snakes, one begets two, two begets three, three begets all things, and so on, generation after generation, endlessly...
This is terrible! When will this end?!
The King of the Boundless seemed to see his miserable future before his eyes, and shuddered with fear.
Just as he was lamenting his fate, the Pivot Snake, which was eating, suddenly stopped, writhing wildly and crashing into the mountains, showing extreme pain, as if someone had suddenly stuffed a spoonful of mustard into its mouth while it was eating.
What happened?
The King of the Boundless was startled and hurriedly came forward to control the Pivot Snake, while numerous mechanical troops quickly surrounded it as well.
However, the Pivot Snake, though restrained by the others, continued to struggle fiercely, like a lively fish being pinned down on a chopping board.
Dark Emperor quickly scanned the vital signs of the Pivot Snake and said grimly, "Something's wrong. The Pivot Snake's life force is rapidly declining. Some unknown compound has already spread within its body, like a genetic toxin specifically targeting it. It has already caused irreversible damage, and the damage is still expanding. It must have been ambushed!"
"An enemy nearby?" The King of the Boundless was shocked and immediately unleashed all his senses, but found nothing.
"Our detection radar can't find it either. I've already called the Dominion; he'll be here soon."
As soon as Dark Emperor finished speaking, a beam of light appeared beside him, which was Han Xiao teleporting over.
What's going on?
Han Xiao immediately noticed the abnormal condition of the Pivot Snake, his expression changed slightly, and he injected the Pivot Snake with a needle without hesitation. The panel immediately displayed the battle information.
At this moment, Dark Emperor and the other Mechanical Divine Apostle stepped forward, saying with remorse, "We are sorry, we were unknowingly ambushed by the enemy. This is our dereliction of duty, please punish us, Dominion..."
"Alright, you can leave now."
Han Xiao didn't have time to pay attention to them. He waved his hand and frowned as he looked at the information on the panel.
At this moment, the status bar of the Pivot Snake shows a negative status of [Severe Poisoning]. The description is that it is a genetic toxin specially prepared by the World Tree, which is only effective against the Pivot Snake race. Once it enters the body, it will cause a chain reaction of gene sequence breakage, which is completely irreversible. This causes the Pivot Snake's health to drop at a rate of 1.5% per second, and its maximum health to decrease at a rate of 0.5% per second.
He scanned the area with his senses, but didn't detect anyone else. After asking about what had just happened, he roughly guessed how the Pivot Snake had been affected.
"Good heavens, they tampered with the food directly, and they actually got lucky! What incredible luck..."
Han Xiao's eye twitched.
With so many Secondary Dimension, Pivot Snake choosing its food randomly, how could it possibly win the jackpot? What kind of probability is that? Does this even apply to physics?!
Can't all these mascots even slightly mitigate my godlike luck?
Han Xiao secretly grumbled to himself, but seeing that the Pivot Snake's health was dropping drastically, he took out a vial of Aurora injection and injected it into the Pivot Snake's body. The effect was immediate, and the snake's health was restored instantly.
However, the effects of the poison status were not weakened and remained on the attribute bar; although the health was full, the maximum health was still decreasing.
Seeing this, Han Xiao injected the Pivot Snake with several more injections of Aurora Potion. The blood recovery was just as fast, but none of them could remove the poisoning condition.
"This toxin is quite potent..."
Han Xiao's eyes narrowed slightly.
Giving him some time might allow him to try and break the curse, but given the rate at which the poison causes him to lose health, it would only take 200 seconds to deplete the Pivot Snake's maximum health, which isn't enough time.
"Alright, let's test out our previous idea while we're at it."
Han Xiao's mind stirred, and he used [Life Transformation - Virtual] on the suffering Pivot Snake.
Now that he has three embryos and is willing to make mistakes, he originally wanted to experiment on the newborn larvae, but unexpectedly, the Pivot Snake encountered an accident, so he simply decided to try the idea on it directly.
Data streams flashed across the Pivot Snake's body as it slowly began to fade, and its pain rapidly subsided. The World Tree's toxins targeted biological genes, and the Pivot Snake's life form began to change, gradually becoming immune to the toxins' effects.
During this process, as the Pivot Snake's body becomes ethereal, the toxins within it are automatically released, condensing into a drop of blackish-green liquid that floats in mid-air.
Seeing that the situation had stabilized, Han Xiao raised his hand to absorb the drop of poison, narrowed his eyes slightly, and activated [Bold Explorer] without hesitation.
"Although we're not afraid of such methods, since you dared to send people here to cause trouble, we can't let you get away so easily."