Chapter 130: Creatures from Another Dimension

The group waited on the spot for several hours until the cracks in the sky gradually faded, leaving only pale traces lingering across the firmament.

Tian Xin’s expression was somewhat unsightly, yet he kept his thoughts to himself. He believed that none of the possible scenarios he could conceive of were likely to happen; if any of them were true, every single one of them would already be dead.

"Lang Xin, take another look and see if there are any changes." Tian Xin wanted to make one final confirmation of his hypothesis. The gradually healing cracks in the sky were a good omen, but he needed to know whether the red, fluid-like entity had transported anything into this space.

"Mmm." Lang Xin, who had just been reassured by Huixin, stepped forward at Tian Xin’s words. The patterns at the corners of her pupils began to emerge, slowly turning a deep blood-red.

The scenery in Lang Xin’s field of vision suddenly shifted. The original trees, sky, and pale cracks vanished entirely, replaced by the pure green power of the wood attribute and an unknown, intermittent red entity suspended in the sky.

"The wood-attribute energy has begun repairing the damaged space. The invading unknown energy has dwindled significantly, and this space is continually expelling it." Lang Xin roughly described what she saw to those around her.

Hearing this, Tian Xin wore a rather peculiar expression that ultimately dissolved into a bitter smile as he turned to Bai Wan'er.

"I originally intended to explore a short distance into the forest with you before parting ways, but it seems we have no choice but to join forces now."

As the future patriarch of the Earth-Heart Clan, Tian Xin’s word was worth more than gold; once spoken, he would fulfill it unless driven by absolute necessity.

Yet, this did not mean the Earth-Heart Clan would silently swallow such a massive loss and concede so many advantages to Purple Star Academy.

Tian Xin had initially planned to travel alongside Bai Wan'er for a brief period before separating to lead his clansmen in search of items beneficial to them. After all, the world was vast, and Bai Wan'er was surely not the only girl capable of capturing his interest. Now, however, the situation had grown somewhat complicated.

Bai Wan'er turned, her beautiful eyes fixing on Tian Xin as she asked, "What is going on?"

Everyone present could sense that Tian Xin possessed some insight into the recent changes. As the ultimate safeguard of Purple Star Academy, Bai Wan'er needed to understand what had just occurred even more urgently.

"Although this space was just formed and lacks even the most basic laws of heaven and earth, it required the joint effort of two Sovereigns just for us to enter. Yet moments ago, such a colossal rift appeared without any warning whatsoever."

Though Tian Xin spoke in a low voice, every word felt like a heavy boulder dropped onto the hearts of the others.

"Could it be that whatever broke the space possesses a level of power far surpassing the Sovereign rank?" Tian Xin's implication was clear enough, yet neither among humans nor within the entire Earth-Heart Clan was there a single entity exceeding the Sovereign rank.

"Yes. If what Lang Xin saw is correct, I believe it was an Adamas."

"Adamas?!?"

"That's impossible."

The unfamiliar term uttered abruptly by Tian Xin bewildered the members of Purple Star Academy, but to the Earth-Heart Clan, "Adamas" was evidently a matter of utmost gravity, as betrayed by their expressions of shock and sheer terror.

Huixin, who stood beside Zixin, wore a look of dread for the very first time. She hurried to Tian Xin’s side, desperately seeking a shred of security.

"Adamas? How could that be? If it had been that thing, we wouldn't even exist in this world anymore." Huixin clutched Tian Xin's arm, repeating the name in a voice filled with anxiety and melancholy.

"Adamas?" Bai Wan'er turned to look at Ye Bai and the others. Nearly everyone shook their heads, indicating they had never heard of such a thing, and Bai Wan'er herself was equally clueless.

Tian Xin let out a long sigh and said, "Has your Sovereign never told you that Earth has grown restless these past few years? Perhaps the second stage of the Dark Era is arriving ahead of schedule."

*'The second stage of the Dark Era? The unpostponable promotion exams, the mysterious vegetation that infiltrated the Purple Sable District guard station, and the unknown source of contamination.'* Tian Xin's words felt like a sudden enlightenment to Ye Bai, and in an instant, many scattered pieces fell into place in his mind.

"If an Adamas truly appeared this time, it indicates that the outside world is now able to detect our existence. A true invasion may be upon us before long."

As the son of the Earth-Heart Clan's patriarch, Tian Xin had access to secrets denied to ordinary people since childhood. It was precisely this deep understanding of the world's hidden machinery that filled him with awe toward the outside world.

"And the Adamas is a creation of the outer realms, capable of shattering space. According to descriptions in ancient texts, an Adamas naturally possesses strength surpassing the Sovereign rank. Its physical form is so colossal that it defies numerical measurement; to it, our Earth is nothing more than a glass marble."

What Tian Xin said today completely shattered the worldview of the Purple Star Academy members. If they had endured a century of the Dark Era without ever discovering aliens, what on earth was that phenomenon just now? What was an Adamas?

Ye Bai did not know how much truth there was in Tian Xin's words, but the anomaly in the sky had been undeniably real.

"If, as you and Lang Xin claim, an Adamas so colossal shattered space, and Lang Xin even saw its foot, wouldn't we have long since been trampled into fine dust?"

It was an obvious logical flaw, one that Bai Wan'er caught without needing much thought.

"Correct." A trace of admiration flickered in Tian Xin's eyes as he looked at Bai Wan'er. When confronted with matters beyond common sense, roughly eighty percent of people would simply be shocked, only slowly allowing their brains to adapt and accept the existence of the new phenomenon later.

"However, have you ever considered why an Adamas, capable of traversing its own space and breaking through Earth's barrier, would stop precisely at this newly formed space, breaching three consecutive layers? What is the strangeness behind this? The space we reside in is nested within Earth's space; why didn't the Sovereigns outside notice when the Adamas attempted to descend into this new space, and why is there still no movement from them?"

Tian Xin's rapid-fire questions left Bai Wan'er somewhat dazed. Indeed, the current situation was like three nested Russian nesting dolls; to reach the innermost doll, one had to pass through all the outer ones. Why hadn't the Sovereigns noticed?

"Perhaps the claws of the Adamas never crossed through the outer space into this one at all. Perhaps we aren't even in the same dimension."

Dimensions had long been an area of continuous exploration for both the Earth-Heart Clan and humans before and after the Dark Era. Yet, the theory of the Adamas's dimension had felt utterly earth-shattering to Tian Xin when he first encountered it.

"A four-dimensional space. The space where the Adamas exists is a tier higher than the one we inhabit. In our space, neither mutated beasts nor humans can enter the fourth dimension—not even Sovereigns."

In Tian Xin's mind flashed the teachings his father had imparted to him. The fourth dimension was the goal his father pursued in this lifetime. As a high-ranking Sovereign and patriarch of the Earth-Heart Clan, his father could instantly materialize anywhere on Earth, yet even that ability merely amounted to entering a sub-four-dimensional space.

Shattering the third dimension did not lead into the true fourth dimension as one might imagine; rather, it was merely space seeking a crossing point amidst spatial turbulence, crossing points that Sovereigns referred to as sub-four-dimensional spaces.

"If the Adamas directly interfered with our space from the fourth dimension, then none of this is surprising. Have any of you ever heard of the Klein bottle? It's a model devised by humans prior to the Dark Era, rumored to hold the water of the entire Pacific Ocean without ever filling up. It is merely a rough four-dimensional model; though no one yet knows what the fourth dimension truly is, that bottle perfectly explains the foot of the Adamas that Lang Xin saw."

The origins of the fourth dimension and attribute-based energy were alike—enigmas known to all yet understood by none in terms of their fundamental cause.

"We and the Adamas are like entities where one exists inside a Klein bottle and the other outside. It is hardly surprising that the colossal body of an Adamas residing in the fourth dimension could be perceived. The real question is: how did it manage to interfere with the third-dimensional space?"

Tian Xin seemed to have a faint understanding of what those red, fluid-like entities were, only to find himself plagued by yet another riddle.

However, there was no time to dwell on such matters now. If even Sovereigns could not thoroughly fathom these mysteries, there was no reason for him, Tian Xin, to torment himself over them.

"Very well. This space exploration has taken an extraordinary turn. I cannot say whether staying together or splitting up is better, but there is safety in numbers. The appearance of the Adamas may have brought lower-level life-forms from another space along with it, so we must proceed with extreme caution."

Tian Xin had possessed an eidetic memory since childhood, capable of retaining almost every book he had ever read. The most prominent warning associated with the discovery of the Adamas remained vivid in his mind.

"Perhaps the Adamas itself will not pay attention to a new space no larger than a speck of dust, but these lower-level organisms that leaked through from the fourth dimension are a different story."

Creatures capable of surviving in the fourth dimension might be as insignificant as dust to entities of their own tier, but to humans in the third dimension, they could very well prove to be unkillable entities.

Just as Tian Xin finished speaking, Huixin, who stood closest to him, abruptly underwent a drastic change in expression. The earth-attribute energy within her erupted instantly, lashing out directly toward Tian Xin's face.

"Tian Xin, watch out!"

Within the Earth-Heart Clan's ranks, everything revolved around Tian Xin. Anyone else could die, but Tian Xin could not. Each generation produced only a single Tian Xin, a vessel into which the previous generation poured virtually all its energy. Every Tian Xin was, in essence, the ultimate hope of the Earth-Heart Clan.

Reflected in Huixin's widening eyes was a green monster clinging to the tree trunk directly above Tian Xin's head, its sharp, sawtooth-like forelimbs slicing downward toward his skull.

"No!"

Huixin cried out. How could her attribute energy possibly—Huixin was the youngest and weakest among all the members of the Earth-Heart Clan, yet she had still attained the Foundation realm.

She watched helplessly as her attribute energy passed harmlessly right through the green sawtooth forelimbs. The attribute energy failed to inflict any substantial damage, as if the monster clinging to the tree trunk was entirely immune to it.

In a fraction of a second—though Tian Xin was usually brimming with self-confidence—he failed to react in time, not until Huixin collapsed directly into his arms.

Nearly everyone was stunned by the sudden turn of events.

"How did it appear? With so many people here, and even Tian Xin, whose strength is unfathomable, failed to sense its arrival."