Exploring the Cracks of the World

At the Qi Family villa in Jidu,

Qi Yuan entered the kitchen with steam rising from his body, roughly toweling his short hair before leaving it unattended.

After taking a refreshing shower, Qi Yuan felt every cell in his body relaxed.

He took a cola from the refrigerator, letting the cold liquid slide down his throat before letting out a burp.

In one word: awesome!

Except for some fresh beer that tasted decent, Qi Yuan was generally indifferent to alcohol. He preferred the happiness water more.

Just as he stepped out of the kitchen, Mother's piercing gaze fell upon him.

"You stepped out of the kitchen with your left foot, I'm going to get angry."

Uh...

Aren't you already angry?

Qi Yuan resigned himself and sat beside her with his cola.

Since earlier, Mother had been using the phrase "you..., I'm going to get angry" in her sentences - this was her habit when angry.

Even when furious, she couldn't bear to hurt family members. Through this method, she constantly reminded those around her that her emotions were unstable and might lead to misplaced anger.

As for the effectiveness...

Seeing Little Brother hunched behind the sofa, covering his mouth with both hands, face red from holding back laughter, it was clear that Mother's anger was less damaging than her usual unconscious ways of causing trouble.

When the Shared Runner incident became such a big deal, Mother took leave from work the next day and brought Little Brother back to see him.

The memories from his remaining avatar clearly showed that Mother hadn't dwelled on whether the Shared Runner was actually her son, and had happily called her sister-in-law to brag about it.

So why, as soon as he returned, did Mother puff up like a blowfish with anger at first sight?

Mother's inner thoughts were just a jumble of code, clearly showing she didn't know what she was angry about either.

Qi Yuan thought for a moment and recounted the fabricated Shared Runner incident, but it had little effect - apparently not the source of Mother's anger.

This left him quite puzzled, as aside from breaking the law or not taking care of one's health, Mother never got angry about being kept in the dark about things, her attitude leaning more towards believing everyone was an independent individual.

He death-stared at Little Brother, who understood and shook his head to indicate he didn't know either.

"Before I decide who to be angry with, if you don't let me calm down, I'm going to get angry," Mother said quite frankly.

Well, alright then.

Faced with Mother's logical approach to anger, Qi Yuan gave up, switched the TV to her favorite fruit channel, and went upstairs with his cola.

He'd first try to find the killer from outside the world, then check on Mother's situation later.

...

He locked the door after entering his room, preventing Little Brother from sneaking in and crying out, "Big brother is dead!"

Qi Yuan could barely contain his excited and nervous emotions, very eager to risk his life... ahem, to explore.

He lay on the bed, gradually letting his consciousness leave his body. With experience in using spatial abilities, he quickly figured out how to reach the space outside the world.

As his conscious form carefully entered the World Crevice, Qi Yuan felt emptiness all around him. Looking... or rather, sensing in all directions, he could detect almost nothing except the world behind him.

The void was pitch black, and he could only rely on his dispersed consciousness to sense the surrounding areas.

To prevent losing his way back, Qi Yuan didn't dare venture too far from the world. He left a thread of consciousness constantly sensing the world's presence before moving forward along this enormous entity.

Before long, Qi Yuan noticed his dispersed consciousness used for exploration showing signs of becoming uncontrollable, and quickly recalled them.

At this moment, Qi Yuan, whose vigilance had been deceived by the seemingly harmless void, suddenly realized that the World Crevice harbored hidden dangers.

It was silently decomposing everything that entered the crevice.

The world fragments he encountered next confirmed all this, as they continuously dispersed energy that then disappeared into this space.

Qi Yuan wrapped his consciousness around the energy, and was amazed to discover that the world's energy slowly merged into his conscious form. Though very subtle, consciousness was more sensitive to measurement than the physical body, and he clearly sensed his conscious form growing stronger.

This was the Shared Runner's ability - to obtain energy from the World Crevice to strengthen oneself, and also to give back to the world.

After several experiments, Qi Yuan confirmed his hypothesis.

Since the world's people had no clear concept of the energy in the crevice, he could acquire any energy within the World Crevice.

After understanding all this, Qi Yuan proceeded to the next experiment, attempting to share energy with the world to see if the holes would repair faster with sufficient energy.

With a strand of consciousness constantly attached to the world, Qi Yuan discovered numerous holes. Though called holes, they were just relatively weaker compared to other areas - breaking through the world's barrier to enter still wouldn't be simple.

As expected, when the world received supplementary energy from the fragments, the repair speed increased significantly.

This way, if he couldn't defeat the invaders, he could at least slow down their invasion by repairing the holes.

That is, assuming breaking through the barrier consumed a lot of energy from the invaders; otherwise, patching things up would be meaningless.

Judging from the fact that they hadn't launched a full-scale invasion, holding them back shouldn't be a problem.

As he pondered, Qi Yuan discovered a blind spot.

Why did he assume there must be invaders?

It was just speculation without evidence. The fact that unknown substances had thrown the world into chaos and produced monsters didn't necessarily mean there were invaders.

His earlier speculation about deities had also been unusually certain.

Qi Yuan stopped exploring his surroundings and tried to think about things he didn't know that were happening in his world.

Sure enough, answers soon arose in his mind.

Qi Yuan was overjoyed - he had previously thought without a world consciousness, the vague connection wouldn't be useful.

So, he silently asked in his mind about the invaders' location.

To his surprise, the answer that arose wasn't outside the world, but rather - the Ancient God Cult!

They had already entered the world?

No wonder the Ancient God Cult had been spreading information about monsters - so they were the invaders.