235: Chapter 236 Zero! Did he lose his gamble?

Cloud Top Palace, Monitoring Center.

Dead silence.

You could hear a pin drop.

The fanaticism and excitement on Old Mo's face seemed to have been wiped away by an invisible hand, leaving only a deathly pallor.

His eyes were glued to the main screen. The curve representing the energy fluctuations in the Dragon Tomb core area, after one final, insane, and illogical vertical spike, plummeted straight down and finally settled steadily on the number "0".

It wasn't a decrease in fluctuations, nor was it signal attenuation.

It was zero.

It was as if someone had pulled the plug.

"What is going on?" Instructor Su Qing's voice broke the frozen air. She didn't even notice the tremor she was desperately trying to suppress leaking into her voice.

"The signal... has disappeared." Old Mo, as if he hadn't heard her, subconsciously repeated the fact displayed on the screen.

His fingers trembled, wanting to touch the screen, but stopped in mid-air.

A scholar, a scholar who studied the theories of the martial arts era like a madman, found all his theoretical knowledge turned into waste paper at this moment.

What did zero mean?

"It means... the target's life signs have completely disappeared." A young monitor added in a small voice.

This was the standard answer from the textbook.

In all the subspace exploration missions they had monitored, when an explorer's life signal hit zero, it only meant one result—death.

And it was an instantaneous, absolute death. Without even a trace of energy dissipation, existence was directly erased by a higher-dimensional force.

Instructor Su Qing's face also turned pale.

She stared at that glaring "0", her mind completely blank.

Dead?

That guy who pinched a legendary dagger in two with two fingers, the guy who swore to her that he could break all Laws with his Physical Body, just died like that?

She refused to believe it.

But the data before her, cold, cruel, and devoid of any emotion, told her that this was the truth.

"Impossible." Instructor Su Qing shook her head, less as a rebuttal and more as if convincing herself, "You all saw the strength of his Physical Body. It is impossible for him to just disappear without a sound..."

"That is different." Old Mo finally found his voice, though it was as dry as sandpaper rubbing together, "Girl Su, that is different. That is the Primitive True Dragons Bloodline! It is ancient, high-dimensional energy with one hundred percent purity, undiluted by any System data!"

He turned his head and looked at Instructor Su Qing, his eyes filled with unprecedented gravity.

"Let's use an analogy. The water we drink is treated tap water. But he jumped directly into a pool of pure sulfuric acid!"

"No matter how strong a body is, it cannot withstand this level of energy pouring directly into it! His body would be instantly burst, dissolved, and vaporized by the energy! Not even a speck of dust would remain!"

The more Old Mo spoke, the uglier his expression became.

He had just been excited to witness an unprecedented miracle, and in the blink of an eye, this miracle was shattered before his eyes in the most tragic way.

This feeling of falling from the clouds made his heart clench into a ball.

"He was too impatient... too arrogant..." Old Mo closed his eyes in pain, "He thought his Physical Body could oppose everything, but he forgot that a Mortal body ultimately has limits. This time, he gambled too much."

Instructor Su Qing did not speak.

She just stared at the screen, her nails digging deep into her palms.

Law curse...

Was her only hope severed just like that?

The excitement and anticipation that had just ignited were now like a basin of ice water poured from head to toe, making her shiver all over.

Despair.

This word she had carried for many years once again pressed heavily back onto her heart.

Tianhai City, Huichun Hall underground vault.

Zhang Wei's prayers hadn't ended yet.

On the communication terminal screen in front of him, that string of numbers he couldn't understand, after a frenzy of erratic jumping, also turned into a big, round "0".

The fatty was stunned.

He didn't understand what those complex energy readings represented.

But he knew the number "0".

Zero meant gone.

Everything was gone.

He held up the communication terminal and shook it hard, even wiping the screen with his sleeve, thinking his eyes were playing tricks on him.

But that "0" remained motionless there.

"Hello? Hello? Is the signal cut?"

Zhang Wei shouted at the terminal twice, but there was no response.

He tried to call Lin Qi's number, but all he heard in the receiver was a series of "unable to connect" busy tones.

A bad premonition, like a tide, slowly submerged his heart.

He remembered the tone Lin Qi used when he was giving instructions... no, when he was discussing subsequent work.

He remembered the expression in Lin Qi's eyes before he entered the Dragon Tomb, which was excessively calm.

The fatty's hands began to tremble, and the color drained from his face bit by bit.

"No... that can't be..."

"Brother Qi is so fierce, how could something happen to him... It must... it must be that the signal inside is bad!"

He told himself this, but the conviction in his voice grew weaker and weaker.

Those six hundred billion cold Federation Credits suddenly became meaningless in his eyes at this moment.

He would rather use all this money to trade for that Brother Qi who could return safely.

But now, he couldn't do anything.

He could only stare blankly at the signal that had zeroed out, his whole body slumped on the cold floor as if his bones had been pulled out.

Dragon Tomb core, inside the Blood Pool.

Lin Qi felt himself sinking.

Endless darkness.

All senses had been stripped away.

He couldn't hear sounds, couldn't see light, and couldn't even feel the existence of his own body.

Pain?

No more pain.

Because even the nerves that could feel pain seemed to have been completely destroyed.

His consciousness was like a wisp of smoke, drifting in this void, ready to dissipate completely at any moment.

"Is this... death?"

A thought slowly emerged in his remaining consciousness.

He remembered his past life.

In the "martial arts era", he had also died countless times.

Being surrounded and killed by players, being insta-killed by the ultimate BOSS, losing levels, losing equipment—all were commonplace.

But that kind of death had a "System prompt".

[You have died. Do you wish to respawn at the nearest resurrection point?]

But now, there was none.

There was no System here, no panel, no resurrection point.

To die was to be truly gone.

His consciousness was becoming blurry bit by bit.

He could feel his thinking slowing down, and those martial arts memories solidified in the depths of his Soul began to become mottled and dim.

Just like a computer running out of battery, the screen was slowly turning black.

"Damn it... what a huge loss..."

This was his last clear thought.

Those unpaid IOUs.

The over six thousand E he hadn't finished spending.

And the truth of this world...

He hadn't even had time to explore, and he had just fallen into a pool like this.

He was truly unwilling.

Just at the moment his consciousness was about to sink completely into darkness and dissipate entirely.

In the deepest part of his Soul, that ocean of memory solidifying his "Martial Saint" experience suddenly lit up with a glimmer of light.

That light was very weak at first, like a candle in the wind.

But it did not extinguish.

Instead, it became brighter and brighter in that ocean of consciousness about to be swallowed by darkness.

That was not the light of energy, nor the light of True Qi.

It was a kind of pure, unyielding "Intent".

Martial Intent!

That was what Lin Qi, in his past life, after experiencing billions of life-and-death battles, having tempered his martial arts to the Peak, had finally condensed—a thing that transcended technique and power itself.

It was his Dao!

This glimmer of "Martial Intent" was like a spark, falling into his consciousness that was about to be extinguished.

Boom! Instantly, it set the prairie ablaze!