The wind whipped up a sandstorm.
A slender figure stepped cautiously through the yellow sands, dragging a massive, long-handled scythe while keeping a watchful eye on her surroundings. Suddenly, several half-ter-long, dark yellow shadows shot out from beneath the quicksand, lunging toward her.
Prepared, she kicked off the ground with force, leaping more than two ters into the air to dodge the three sandworms attacking her. Midair, her scythe spun in a sharp arc, slashing through all three creatures at once.
Landing in a roll, she narrowly avoided two more sandworms that burrowed up from the sand to ambush her. Bending back, she swung the hooked blade of her scythe in a sweeping motion, slicing the worms clean in half.
The slain sandworms convulsed for a mont, spraying green liquid across the ground and splattering so onto her.
She wiped it off with the back of her hand, revealing a striking, youthful face—her true body, reconstructed after completing her first SS-tier world and entering the Tower. After several missions, her once pale complexion had tanned into a healthy wheat tone. She shook her scythe to fling off the clinging liquid onto the sand.
Leng Mian surveyed her surroundings, frowning again.
Sothing was wrong with this world. Three full days and nights had passed since she entered this mission, yet she had not managed to leave the desert. Every encounter had been with so kind of alien creature.
According to the mission records, this was supposed to be a world invaded by extraterrestrials. Even if aliens were involved, they should have advanced technology—not primitive, ecological creatures like these.
Could this be a world that had been invaded for so many years that it had devolved into a wasteland?
She pulled a bottled water from her spatial inventory, drank it in one gulp, and continued walking forward.
This was Leng Mian’s second SS-tier world mission. She had already survived countless apocalyptic worlds before this one.
The current Leng Mian was no longer the frightened girl fleeing for her life in school, nor the brave soldier risking everything on the battlefield with the troops.
The person she used to be had already died—before her thirtieth birthday.
Yet sohow, she regained consciousness, restored to her twenty-year-old self, though she was not truly alive. She existed now in another form.
As her experiences accumulated, she slowly realized that the world where she was born and raised might itself have been just a mission world. And that “disappeared” person—perhaps they, like her, had been a mission participant.
So many years had passed. The one who once gave her warmth had long beco an obsession in her heart.
She longed to see her again. But when? How much longer would it take to find her?
Leng Mian stopped abruptly, her gaze falling on a towering figure in the distance, as large as a hill. The creature turned toward her, having sensed her presence, and began charging in her direction.
Her expression turned cold. She pushed all thoughts and emotions aside, locking them away. Tightening her grip on the scythe, she stepped forward to et the creature head-on.
The desert winds swept her tied hair back, flowing behind her and brushing past another unseen, slender figure in the distance.
Surrounded by a gray, translucent barrier that concealed him from external view, a boy with black wings stood silently. His features were flawless, as if painted, but his face bore a faint, mocking smile.
“Looking at her expression, she’s thinking about that person again.”
How ridiculous. After all these years, she still rembered.
What amused him even more was the coincidence—that the person she so desperately wanted to see was, in fact, the “variable” in this mission. She had co so close to entering the world where that “variable” existed.
A speck of dust-like “variable” should have been insignificant, whether it lived or perished.
But now that it was connected to her, it was a different matter entirely.
The boy let out a soft hum, his smile now angelic in its purity.
“The one I want to eliminate—no one can save them.”
That “variable” was on a one-way path to death.
…
In another dinsion, at another ti and place, this was the world Leng Mian was originally ant to enter.
The alien fleet’s assault had been ongoing for thirty hours, leaving no part of the planet untouched. From one end of the world to the other, destruction reigned.
In the outskirts of Fancheng, the underground laboratory had been exposed after two rounds of bombing. Its upper levels were completely destroyed, revealing the rooms and labs on the second underground floor. Survivors in protective gear huddled in crevices, desperately clinging to life.
“Where’s Captain Zhou?” soone called out, rummaging through the wreckage. “Didn’t you say he found a way to breach the door on the fourth underground level?”
“That was hours before the spacecraft attacked here. He took his team to the surface to prepare for a counterattack,” another researcher replied, their voice heavy with despair. Disaster had struck from above, leaving them powerless. They had taken refuge in the lab, hoping to escape unscathed, never imagining that such a fortified building could be blown apart.
What kind of force were they up against?
What had happened to this world?
Half an hour later, the second and third underground levels were entirely destroyed. The survivors trying to escape from the lab didn’t make it far before being hit by another wave of attacks from nearby spacecraft.
Researchers, military personnel, civilians—none were spared.
At the sa ti, the countdown on the fourth underground level finally ended. The person shrouded in the faint golden glow completed their task just in ti, narrowly avoiding death.
Those alien creatures could never have guessed that the reconnaissance spacecraft they had sent to this planet years ago would temporarily shield against their own assault, inadvertently saving a certain “variable’s” life.
…
When Yu Xi regained consciousness, she found herself back in the Star House.
This mission had ended so abruptly that she didn’t even have the strength to open her eyes and take in her surroundings. Instead, she ntally confird her departure with the system.
Fifth apocalyptic world mission completed. Current star coin total: 640. Team mission disguise failed. Current star coin total: 640.
Hearing this, Yu Xi felt speechless. If it was a disguised team mission, it couldn’t have succeeded in the first place, so announcing its failure felt unnecessary and a bit ridiculous.
Mid-tier acid rain world invaded by world fragnts. Difficulty increased to mid-high-tier apocalyptic world. Compensation: 100 star coins. Current star coin total: 740.
Next mission begins at midnight on the 7th of next month. Please retrieve world details before midnight on February 6th.
Yu Xi was surprised. So, there’s a silver lining after all.
However, as she recalled the near-death experience from this mission, her joy quickly faded, replaced by somber reflection.
The earlier missions had gone too smoothly. No matter the world, she had always relied on various star tools to solve even the greatest challenges, subconsciously believing that nothing was beyond her ability to handle.
Indeed, her high-output star tools and enhanced physical strength had allowed her to erge unscathed ti and again. Even in the rare tricky situations, she always found a way to turn the tables.
Spending so much ti in dangerous worlds while remaining relatively safe had dulled her sense of caution. Even when she knew the risks intellectually, her body’s mory made her instinctively believe she could handle it.
The last ti this overconfidence nearly cost her life was in the teorite world. If not for Yu Qi and Ya Tong’s help, she might have been killed by a deranged missioner’s attack. Although she had ultimately defeated the attacker using her star tools, she would have sustained severe injuries.
This ti, she and Lin Wu had been cautious. They didn’t descend the tal staircase. But in hindsight, even that level of caution wasn’t enough—or rather, her capabilities didn’t match the trust she placed in herself.
Out of concern for the other humans in the lab, for Lin Wu’s ailing parents, and for the hope that her body would live on after she left, Yu Xi had acted on impulse. Upon discovering that the area behind the door wasn’t a laboratory and appeared empty, she had entered without much hesitation to investigate.
She had intended only to observe, believing that no matter what happened, she and Lin Wu’s combined offensive and defensive strength would suffice. That mindset had nearly cost her life in the mission world.
If not for Lin Wu… but was that really Lin Wu? The one who deployed the barrier—was it truly him? He was, after all, a missioner too, likely equipped with survival chanisms. Perhaps his barrier had functions she wasn’t yet aware of.
Without Lin Wu’s desperate rescue this ti, she likely would have truly died.
The sensation of dying was utterly unbearable, as if her body had been completely destroyed. So, the mont she heard the system announce the mission’s completion, she imdiately chose to exit.
Thankfully, it was only the body from that apocalyptic world that had been on the verge of death. Once her consciousness returned, all discomfort vanished.
But because of this abrupt departure, she hadn’t had ti to figure out what was hidden beneath the tal staircase in the cylindrical structure, what that shadow was, what other secrets the world held, or what happened after they left.
She couldn’t dwell on it for now, though. Fan Qi and Yu Feng were standing in front of her, watching her with concern, as if she were about to embark on a long journey.
Behind them, every available surface in the Star House was piled high with supplies. Fortunately, she now had 740 star coins.
Yu Xi pressed her hand against the black system panel of the Star House and initiated the upgrade.
“Host, do you confirm the second upgrade of the Star House?”
Yu Xi confird.
Just like the first ti, the mont she confird the upgrade, the Star House disappeared, and she found herself facing the vastness of the universe once again.
Nebulae and stardust swirled and transford in their unique patterns. Ti and space lost all aning, and she seed to wander endlessly through the cosmos, traveling from one galaxy to another. The infinite universe felt as though it would never end.
Unlike the last upgrade, this cosmic vision seed to last longer. Among the stars and nebulae, she vaguely caught sight of a small black shadow.
No, it wasn’t small—it was a massive spacecraft.
The vision ended abruptly. It felt as if an invisible hand had pushed her out of wherever she had been, and her consciousness snapped back to her body.
“Host, the second upgrade of the Star House is complete. Current star coin total: 340.”
The neutral system voice echoed in her mind, cold and detached, reminiscent of the system’s tone during her first two missions.
Yu Xi frowned. “You seem… off. Are you okay? What was that I just saw—a spaceship?”
“The Star House warehouse has been expanded along with the upgrade. Simulation functionality is now enabled. One-click environnt change functionality is now enabled.”
The system offered no response to her question, chanically delivering the rest of its ssage before falling silent.
Yu Xi couldn’t shake the feeling that sothing was wrong, but with more pressing matters at hand, she set it aside for now.
When she checked the Star House’s newly expanded warehouse, her mood brightened considerably. The original 180 cubic ters of zero-gravity, tiless storage space had finally grown—and by more than double.
Using the aluminum shelves she had previously placed inside, she estimated the new dinsions. The space now asured approximately 8 ters in length, width, and height. This ant the Star House warehouse now offered around 512 cubic ters of storage.
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