484: Chapter 484 The Unification of the Five Realms (Part 1)

"800 meters?"

Tao Zhe's hand gripping the communicator tightened, his brows knitting into a knot.

"In such a short time, it's increased by 200 meters? This speed is too fast."

At the Tianmen Base duty room, the speed at which the numbers were jumping up was as if someone had stepped on the gas pedal.

The duty officer stared at the screen, palms sweating, his voice cracking.

"Dr. Tao! It's at 900 meters, and it's still rising!"

Tao Zhe stood in the corridor of the medical ward, back against the wall, the communicator pressed tightly to his ear, but his eyes were fixed on Su Mingyuan lying on the hospital bed through the half-open door crack.

"Keep a close watch, report any changes immediately."

Just as he finished speaking, the voice on the other end shouted again.

"Dr. Tao, it's already 1,000 meters!"

Tao Zhe's heart leaped into his throat.

"Is it still rising?"

There was a two-second pause on the other end of the phone.

"...No. It's stabilized. Height 1,000 meters, width 500 meters, the data isn't moving. I'll confirm again, restarting the detection System to see if it's an instrument error."

"Go ahead, report back to me once you've confirmed the data."

Tao Zhe had just tucked the communicator into his pocket and turned to check Su Mingyuan's monitoring data.

The beeping of the monitor suddenly went out of rhythm.

Chen Rong was the first to react, springing up, his chair legs scraping against the floor with a harsh screech.

"Group Leader Su is showing signs of life!"

Lin Wan rushed over too, Sun Liang following closely behind, clutching the unused test report, the paper crumpled in his hand.

Su Mingyuan's eyelids fluttered twice, then slowly opened.

The first thing he saw was the shadowless lamp on the ceiling, blindingly white; he squinted his eyes to adjust.

He didn't rush to speak, nor did he rush to move.

Instead, he looked into his Sea of Consciousness using his Divine Sense.

He saw that deep in his Sea of Consciousness, that gray-white skull was still floating quietly in its original position, not having moved an inch from where he had last seen it.

Su Mingyuan pondered for a moment, confirming there was no abnormality, and then withdrew his focus back to reality.

The feeling in his body returned bit by bit, first his fingers, then his toes, and finally his neck and waist.

"Group Leader Su!"

Chen Rong's voice was choked with tears, but he forced it back, a muffled sound escaping his throat.

"Group Leader Su, you've finally woken up!"

Lin Wan's eyes were already red, but she didn't say anything, just stared at him fixedly.

Su Mingyuan moved his lips; his throat felt dry, as if he had a mouthful of sand.

"Give me water."

Sun Liang hurriedly poured half a glass of warm water and handed it over, supporting the back of his neck to prop him up a little.

Su Mingyuan took two sips, and the empty feeling in his stomach finally eased a little.

"How long have I been in a coma?"

"Two days." Dr. Tao walked in quickly, his voice trembling. "Two whole days. Brain experts from all over the country have been dragged here; people from the four major hospitals in the capital were snatched away by military vehicles. We tried every method, fed you three types of Medicinal Pill—rejuvenation pill, ningshen pill, and youth-preserving pill—but there was no reaction at all. Elder Qin was about to smash the walls of the medical ward."

Su Mingyuan was stunned for a moment, then tried wiggling his fingers and moving his neck to confirm his body was fine.

"I'm fine, my body is perfectly normal."

He scanned the room, seeing the pile of test reports in the corner, half a person high, and the brain scans covering the walls, and felt a little amused.

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the people in the room, finally landing on Dr. Tao's face.

"Has anything happened recently?"

Dr. Tao opened his mouth but didn't speak, his fingers rubbing the edge of his tablet.

Su Mingyuan stared at him, his brows slightly raised.

"What happened? If there's something, say it quickly."

Dr. Tao looked down at the tablet in his hand, then up at Su Mingyuan, gritting his teeth as if he had finally made up his mind.

"The portal, there's a problem."

He turned the tablet around and pulled up the monitoring curve from the past 48 hours. A line shot diagonally from the bottom left to the top right, almost vertically, making one's scalp tingle just looking at it.

"The light screens of the five portal are constantly expanding, and since last night, the speed has been getting faster and faster. In the last half hour, it went from 600 meters all the way to 1,000 meters before stopping. Now all five portals are stable at 1,000 meters high and 500 meters wide."

Su Mingyuan frowned, slowly sitting up, leaning against the headboard, the blanket sliding to his waist.

"1,000 meters, 500 meters." He recited it, not feeling anything wrong, and instead, his eyes brightened. "Isn't this a good thing?"

The whole room was stunned. Several medical experts still guarding the door looked at each other, none of them interjecting, as such topics were beyond their cognitive range.

Su Mingyuan leaned against the headboard, reaching out to rub his temples, clearing his thoughts bit by bit.

"Think about it, the bigger the portal, the more things we can transport over." The more he said it, the more he felt it was good news. "Currently, with the size of the Xuan Bird, it's a struggle to squeeze through the original 300-meter gate; it has to carefully weave around the edges, with barely any room to spare on either side of the fuselage. If the gate becomes 1,000 meters, the Xuan Bird can fly through sideways without any problem, no need to slow down at all."

He spoke very seriously, his tone carrying a sense of taking it for granted.

"In the future, transporting crystal core from the Zombie World to the Main World, or medicinal herbs from the Skeleton World to the Main World, the efficiency will increase dozens of times, and transport time will be cut by more than half. Isn't this a huge piece of good news?"

Dr. Tao didn't share his joy; instead, he took a step forward and pushed the tablet a few inches closer to Su Mingyuan.

"Group Leader Su, I thought the same thing at first."

"His voice was very low, but his eyes didn't dodge. When the duty room first reported the data, I was actually quite happy, thinking it was a windfall. But then I stared at this curve for nearly an hour, and the more I looked, the more I felt something was wrong."

"What's wrong?"

"The speed at which the portal is expanding is abnormal." Dr. Tao pointed to the almost vertical curve on the tablet, his fingers trembling slightly. "Over the past year, the area of the five portals only expanded by 10% in total, slow as a snail crawling. Now, in less than 48 hours, it has increased by more than two times. This isn't a normal expansion trend; this is out of control."

The ward was silent for two seconds, with only the monitor beeping rhythmically.

"What if it keeps growing like this?" Dr. Tao stared into Su Mingyuan's eyes, saying each word clearly. "Will the five Otherworld connect with the Main World?"

He paused, his throat moving, and found a more direct way to phrase it.

"Or rather, are the five Otherworld going to Fusion with our Main World?"

This sentence was like a stone thrown into a calm surface; the whole room instantly fell silent, even the sound of breathing becoming light.

Chen Rong was the first to frown; he was a top combatant, and his reaction was faster than anyone else's.

"Fusion..." He repeated the word, suddenly realizing, his face changing. "Then what about the Zombie World? What about the Yao Beast from the Yaowu World? What about the bugs from the Zerg World? If they really fuse, won't these things appear directly on Blue Star?"

Lin Wan's face also paled, and she subconsciously took half a step back, her fingers unconsciously clutching the corner of her clothes.

"And those skeletons from the Skeleton World, although the Blood Moon is gone, but what if..."

The report in Sun Liang's hand fell to the ground with a slap, the papers scattering on the floor. He didn't even notice, his whole face frozen there.

"Good heavens, that's not playing around."

Zhang Dabiao didn't know when he had squeezed in, but after hearing the cause and effect, he gasped. "By then, it won't be cars running on the road, but zombies; it won't be drones flying in the sky, but Yao Beast. That's not a sci-fi movie; that's a horror movie."

Su Mingyuan's brows furrowed even tighter. His mood, which had lightened because of the portal expansion, instantly sank again, as if he had fallen from the clouds back to the ground.

"And this isn't the worst-case scenario! You have to know, the Gu Mother of the Zerg World hasn't been dealt with yet!?"