405: Firewall Arrives

That deep and drawn-out hum was like the pulse of the entire world.

It replaced the sharp alarm, announcing the arrival of a higher-tier existence.

In front of Lin Fan, the rigid Purifiers, their head's red lights completely extinguished, floated motionlessly like dolls with their power cords unplugged.

An absolute silence enveloped this ocean of data.

The originally ceaseless torrent of data visibly slowed, eventually almost freezing.

It was as if time itself had been set to slow motion.

A cold, majestic, and unquestionable will, far surpassing anything before, slowly rose from the end of the optical network.

It was not merely a program like the Purifiers.

Nor was it a pure processing core like the distant matrix core.

This will was filled with purpose.

It was an 'antivirus software' with the highest authority, existing solely to handle 'anomalies'.

In Lin Fan's vision, the ice-blue code warning box's text was rapidly refreshing.

[...Deploying 'Eradicator' protocol.]

[Protocol deployment complete.]

[Designated unit: [firewall - Guardian Sequence - 01], activated.]

The moment the words fell.

Directly in front of Lin Fan, at the core of the distant optical network, a node suddenly lit up with a white light as scorching as the sun.

That light had no temperature, yet it stung Lin Fan's Perception.

The next moment, countless pure Law runes and massive amounts of light energy data were extracted from that node, beginning a three-dimensional construction at an inconceivable speed.

A cold and precise tunnel, composed of countless glowing geometric lines, appeared out of thin air.

At the other end of the tunnel, a silhouette was rapidly forming.

It was a gigantic humanoid silhouette.

Its body was composed of pure, shimmering energy, covered by a constantly changing layer of Law runes emitting a blue glow.

Behind it, a pair of immensely huge light wings unfurled.

They were not wings made of feathers, but two flowing data matrices constructed from countless tiny codes and logic gates.

It had no facial features.

Its face was an absolutely smooth mirror, with only a single, giant eye in the center, emitting a pure blue light.

[firewall - Guardian Sequence - 01].

It took a step, walking out of the optical tunnel and descending before Lin Fan.

Its colossal body brought an unparalleled sense of oppression.

The surrounding stagnant data streams trembled slightly due to its presence.

Its blue single eye stared coldly at Lin Fan.

A perfect tone, devoid of any emotion and synthesized from countless voices, directly sounded in Lin Fan's consciousness.

[Anomaly logic singularity detected.]

[Defined as: Logic Cancer Cell.]

[Judgment: Contamination Source.]

[Executing command: Existential Correction.]

Before the words finished.

The firewall raised its arm.

Its palm opened, with no energy gathering, no precursor to any attack.

But Lin Fan's heart suddenly constricted.

An unprecedented, indescribably strange and terrifying sensation seized his Soul.

He felt his 'existence' being modified.

He tried to raise his left hand; the moment the thought arose, he found that his definition of the concept 'left hand' was being forcibly twisted.

He looked down.

His left arm was disintegrating.

Not pixelation, not data deletion.

But being rewritten on the level of physical Laws and concepts.

Skin, muscle, bone—the substances composing his arm—were forcibly transformed into meaningless, cold binary gibberish made of 0s and 1s.

Then, this gibberish was recompiled into a brand new 'existence'.

A cold stone, devoid of any life characteristics.

His arm turned into a stone, detached from his shoulder, and floated in the Void Realm.

He felt no pain.

He didn't even feel loss.

Because in his cognition, the concept of 'arm' was being overwritten by the concept of 'stone'.

'Existential Correction'.

This was not an attack at all.

This was modifying the definition of an existence from its most fundamental layer.

For the first time, a trace of genuine horror appeared in Lin Fan's eyes.

He was confined within a cage constructed of logic.

He wanted to resist, but the code for the action 'resist' was being deleted.

He wanted to revive after dying, but the definition of the concept 'death' was being twisted into 'permanent dormancy'.

He couldn't even self-destruct.

Because all the physical Laws required for 'self-destruction' were locked down by the firewall's authority within this small area.

The firewall's blue single eye watched him silently.

Like a programmer calmly modifying a piece of erroneous code.

Lin Fan's right arm began to twist, stretch, and eventually transformed into pure light.

His legs, on the other hand, disintegrated into countless jumping characters, forming a long string of never-repeating, never-ending pi digits.

π=3.1415926... His body, his existence, was being completely formatted.

He was turning into a pile of meaningless, chaotic junk data, discarded in a corner of the world.

'Damn it...'

'Is this... the true method of a god?'

His consciousness, like a candle in the wind, was about to be completely extinguished by this irresistible logical torrent.

Just as he was about to be completely 'rewritten' into meaningless data, at the very last moment.

Lin Fan made his final struggle.

He couldn't mobilize any power, but he could still activate his most core Origin.

That trace of divinity, mixed with gold and Chaos colors, that remained after his last self-detonation of the world Origin.

He actively detonated it.

Boom!

No sound.

No light.

But on the logical level, a miniature big bang occurred.

Lin Fan's 'divinity' Law from another world clashed most violently with this world's 'Existential Correction' Law.

It was like two completely incompatible operating Systems being forced to run the same program.

The result was a blue screen.

It was a System crash.

In the flawless blue single eye vision of the firewall, a minute, almost imperceptible, colorful 'noise' abruptly burst forth on Lin Fan's body, which was about to be completely rewritten.

A logical paradox.

A System BUG.

And for Lin Fan's System, this 'Logical Collapse' caused by the Law conflict was judged as a death of the highest caliber.

[You have died.]

[Method of death: Executed by [firewall - Guardian Sequence - 01] with the [Existential Correction] command.]

[Death assessment: Conceptual Erasure · Law Conflict · Epic Death-seeking.]

[Drawing death reward...]

[Congratulations, you have received the unique reward — [firewall Core Driver Code (Fragment)]!]

[Congratulations, your Godhead Rank has increased, current: Lv.7.]

[Congratulations, your Godhead Rank has increased, current: Lv.8!]

[Resurrection protocol complete.]

[Body reconstruction complete.]

[Current Godhead Rank: Lv.8.]

[Warning: Resurrection anchor stability has dropped to 4%. Host, please proceed with caution.]

Lin Fan's consciousness returned with a roar from the grave of concepts.

He opened his eyes.

Before him, the firewall, as majestic as a god, still floated silently.

Its giant blue single eye stared unblinkingly at the spot where Lin Fan had just 'died'.

There, nothing remained.

Its core logic was performing calculations at maximum speed.

[...Target 'Logic Cancer Cell' has been corrected to invalid data.]

[Command complete.]

[Confirming...]

[Error! Error! Homologous 'Logic Cancer Cell' re-detected in the corrected area!]

[Impossible!]

['Existential Correction' is irreversible!]

[Requesting main brain adjudication...]

The firewall's synthesized voice, for the first time, showed a trace of chaotic static.

And the reborn Lin Fan looked at it, the world in his eyes now completely different.

In his vision, the firewall was no longer a pure energy body.

He could clearly see that its colossal body was constructed from lines of extremely precise, blue-glowing underlying code.

He could see that the flowing data on its light wings were the authority commands that maintained its existence.

He could even see that within its giant blue single eye, various 'functions' for attack were being called, compiled, and prepared for execution.

[Function: Existential Correction (Enhanced)]

[Target: Logic Cancer Cell #Alpha-001#]

[Execute!]

A cold arc curved on Lin Fan's lips.

He raised his hand, facing the impending attack that could once again erase him conceptually.

He summoned the [firewall Core Driver Code (Fragment)] he had just acquired from his System space and merged it into his Divine Soul.

The next second.

He lightly snapped his fingers at the firewall.

Snap.

A crisp sound, one that absolutely should not have appeared in this data world, rang out.

The firewall, in the midst of executing its attack command, its colossal body suddenly stiffened.

Its impending, world-destroying conceptual attack abruptly ceased.

In its giant blue single eye, a human-like, incredulous shock flashed.

Its core code had been invaded.

In that very instant, a 'pause' command with higher authority had been directly written into its underlying logic.

"I've seen through your attack pattern."

Lin Fan floated before it, a crazy and delighted smile on his face.

He looked at this giant 'antivirus software' that couldn't comprehend the situation before it, and slowly spread his arms.

"Now, it's my turn."

Now, it's my turn.