142: Unknown area

Early morning.

If there were still such a concept as "early morning" on this ice sheet of polar day.

Last night's magnificent yet eerily stuttering aurora feast had dissipated, and the sky had returned to that despairing, ghastly white.

The sun was like a pale eyeball that could never close, staring fixedly at this white land.

Jiang Yuan stepped out of that crystalline Crystal Palace.

His expression was not relaxed. That millisecond-level "screen tearing" from last night was like a thorn, deeply embedded in his heart.

To verify the conjecture in his mind, he decided to go to one place.

The Southern Pole of Inaccessibility.

This is a geographical concept referring to the point on the Antarctic continent furthest from all coastlines. It is absolute inland, absolute loneliness, and the most difficult coordinate for humans to reach on this planet.

There are no research stations, no penguins, and even bacteria struggle to survive there.

"Recycle."

At Jiang Yuan's command, that magnificent ice Crystal Palace instantly disintegrated amidst a distortion of light and shadow, turning into countless ice crystals that dissipated in the wind, as if last night's luxury were merely a dream.

This time, he did not choose to fly.

Flying too fast makes it easy to miss details.

He flipped his wrist and tossed out that familiar capsule.

Click, click, click—

Accompanied by the precise sound of mechanical reconfiguration, a wildly styled, pitch-black 【Fenrir Type-0 Polar Assault Snowmobile】 appeared on the ice.

It was not as cumbersome as ordinary snowmobiles. It possessed a streamlined Kevlar armored body, the tracks at the bottom had been replaced by four 【Small Anti-Gravity Maglev Thrusters】, and the rear featured a massive ion jet port.

This was not just a vehicle; it was a beast of steel.

"Let's go."

Jiang Yuan straddled the motorcycle, and the black nano-helmet automatically covered his face, with the HUD interface lighting up before his eyes.

"Target set: Southern Pole of Inaccessibility."

"Distance: 870 kilometers."

"Estimated time of arrival: 2 hours."

Boom—!!!

The ion engine erupted with a low roar, and the black snowmobile, like a missile flying low over the ground, instantly tore through the still air and raced into the depths of the white wilderness.

For the first one hundred kilometers, everything was normal.

Aside from the monotony, it was just monotony.

In his field of vision, there was only eternal white.

A white sky, a white earth; even the horizon was blurred.

This "whiteout" phenomenon easily causes a sense of spatial disorientation and can even lead to mental collapse.

But Jiang Yuan's will was as firm as a rock; this minor visual interference meant nothing to him.

However.

When the journey exceeded five hundred kilometers and he penetrated deep into the true no-man's-land.

Things began to feel wrong.

The initial feeling was the sound.

The snowmobile's engine roar was originally deep and powerful, but gradually, the sound became muffled.

It was as if it were covered by a thick quilt, or as if the medium for sound transmission had changed.

Jiang Yuan tried calling out: "Zero."

The sound reached his ears with a strange sense of delay. It was like when a network lags, and the voice packet arrives half a beat late.

"I am here, Master."

Zero's voice remained calm, but this time, Jiang Yuan keenly noticed a trace of barely perceptible static mixed into her synthesized electronic voice.

"Detect environmental parameters." Jiang Yuan slowed down.

"Scanning... Warning. Environmental data abnormal."

On the HUD interface, the previously stable values began to fluctuate.

【Magnetic Field Strength: Extremely Unstable】

【Atmospheric Density: Fluctuating】

【Gravitational Constant: 9.80... 9.72... 9.85...】

The gravitational constant was fluctuating?

Jiang Yuan's pupils constricted sharply. Gravity is the cornerstone of physical laws; how could it jump around like an ECG?

He continued forward.

The further he went, the more intense that eerie feeling became.

The electronic compass on the handlebars, which had originally pointed fixedly to the Magnetic South Pole.

But now, the red needle began spinning wildly.

It wasn't swaying left and right, but spinning like a helicopter propeller, dozens of times per second!

Whoosh, whoosh—

It seemed to have lost its direction. Or rather, here, the concepts of North, South, East, and West were collapsing.

"Warning. Satellite signal lost."

"Warning. GPS positioning system failure."

"Warning. Connection interrupted."

Red alert pop-ups exploded before Jiang Yuan's eyes one after another.

In any corner of this planet, even the Mariana Trench or the Bermuda Triangle, Jiang Yuan would never lose signal thanks to Eternal Star City's black technology.

But now.

The signal bars had turned directly into a red "X."

His connection to the world was severed.

Jiang Yuan stopped the bike.

At this moment, he was less than fifty kilometers away from that "Pole of Inaccessibility."

He took off his helmet and stepped off the bike.

The air here...

Viscous.

Yes, that is the only word to describe it.

There was no wind here. Not a single breeze.

The air was no longer a flowing gas, but like a stagnant pool of water, or even like transparent glue.

Jiang Yuan waved his arm and could actually feel obvious air resistance, several times greater than normal.

He took a deep breath.

His lungs felt a dull pressure, and the oxygen molecules seemed to have become lazy, unwilling to enter his bloodstream.

"What on earth is this place..."

Jiang Yuan frowned and looked around.

The scenery before him was also changing.

The snowfield and sky, which should have transitioned smoothly, now showed an eerie angularity on the distant horizon.

It was like an early 3D game; because there weren't enough polygons, the distant mountains looked like angular geometric objects.

The edges of those snow dunes were not smooth, carrying a harsh, cutting sensation.

Jiang Yuan bent down and grabbed a handful of snow from the ground.

He tried to shape the snow into a ball.

But the snowflakes in his hand did not melt or bind together as usual. They were loose, dry, and... extremely granular.

Jiang Yuan activated 【Eye of Truth: Micro Mode】.

When his vision magnified that tiny snowflake crystal, he discovered with horror that this was not a hexagonal ice crystal structure at all.

It was a cube, as standard as a cube could be!

Countless tiny, invisible-to-the-naked-eye white cubes had piled up to form this seemingly real snowfield.

"Pixel blocks..."

Jiang Yuan's fingers trembled slightly, and the "snow" in his hand slipped away.

The speed at which they fell was slow.

Not slow motion, but that kind of... linear descent that did not conform to the gravitational acceleration formula.

Plop.

The snow hit the ground, not splashing up, but, as if programmed, instantly came to a halt.

"Alert! Alert!"

In his mind, Zero's voice suddenly became hurried and sharp; this was a tone Jiang Yuan had never heard before.

"Detected severe collapse of physical laws ahead!"

"Warning! Approaching simulation boundary!"

"Warning! Forward area not loaded!"

"Warning! Please turn back immediately! Please turn back immediately!"

Red warning characters overwhelmed Jiang Yuan's retina, attempting to stop him from moving forward.

"Simulation boundary."

"Not loaded."

These two terms, like a thunderbolt, split open the last mist in Jiang Yuan's mind.

So that's it.

So that "stutter" was not an illusion. So that "pixelated sensation" was not just his eyes playing tricks.

This world, this continent, had... cut corners here.

Perhaps it was because the designers believed that humans could never reach this absolute dead zone with their mortal bodies, so they couldn't be bothered to render those detailed physical laws or construct real micro-structures here.

This was the edge of the map. It was the buffer zone before the "invisible wall" in the game.

Jiang Yuan stood where he was, his heart beating violently.

It was fear, and also excitement.

It was an extreme craving for the unknown truth.

He ignored the system's near-manic warnings and did not turn back to flee.

He climbed back onto the black snowmobile and put on his helmet.

Illuminated by that red alert light, Jiang Yuan's eyes became more determined and crazed than ever before.

"Zero, deactivate all safety protocols."

"But Master..."

"Deactivate!" Jiang Yuan roared.

"...Command confirmed. Safety protocols deactivated."

All the red pop-ups instantly vanished.

His vision became clear again.

Jiang Yuan looked at the white horizon ahead that looked somewhat blurry, somewhat fake, and even somewhat distorted.

That was the end of the world. It was also the entrance to the truth.

Jiang Yuan twisted the throttle to the limit.

Boom—!!!

The ion engine spewed out blinding blue flames.

The Fenrir snowmobile let out a tearing roar, carrying this madman who was attempting to challenge the Creator, and charged unhesitatingly into that chaotic realm where physical laws had failed.

Whether it was a cliff, an abyss, or nothingness ahead, he was going to touch that wall with his own hands.