Chapter 213

Chapter 213

Luo Lin tucked the blanket tighter around Eve before leaning out of the room and said expressionlessly to Lorca, who was standing guard by the door, "If you have something to do, you can go ahead. I'll watch over things here."

"Thank you," Lorca, already changed into dry clothes and examining the butterfly-shaped crystal he had just taken from Eve's hand, looked up and replied, "Well..."

"I won’t let anyone unfamiliar or potentially dangerous in, especially Yan Ning. I’ll also keep an eye on Zhou Huixue."

Luo Lin snapped her fingers, and her Spiritual State emerged rootlessly from the floor—lush green vines shrouded in a milky mist.

According to the existing Spiritual State genealogy, the Zhou family shares some bloodline connection with the Medici family, and the Mist Raven also belongs to the Medici family's Mist Moon lineage. Though both are S-class Spiritual States, the Mist Raven is lower in ability level than the Mist Cloud Vine. Having Luo Lin guard against her was a fitting choice.

"But there’s one thing I don’t quite understand," she said, directing the Spiritual State to grow until it enveloped the entire room like a fairy-tale dreamscape, with shimmering white and verdant green hues arranged entirely to her aesthetic taste. Luo Lin remarked casually, "You could have just eliminated them. Keeping them around is nothing but trouble. Their points are more than enough to advance anyway."

Lorca knew she wasn’t just referring to Yan Ning and Zhou Huixue but also the remaining seemingly compliant students from other schools. In the past, Lorca would have agreed with her, preferring to eliminate all unstable factors as early as possible. But now—

He shifted his gaze, looking for a moment at the black-haired girl resting peacefully in the vine-covered kingdom.

"Forget it. The Ark is already in our hands. They’ll know what to do. And since Eve didn’t eliminate them earlier, it means keeping them around is useful," Lorca sighed before speaking gently, "May I go in and see her?"

Luo Lin studied him probingly for a moment, as if seeing him for the first time, then snapped her fingers again. The tightly woven vines rustled and squirmed, parting to create a narrow path just wide enough to step through.

"Fifteen minutes at most. Get out before Tachibana Maki comes here throwing a fit."

"...Understood."

The silver mask of the divine messenger had long been lost somewhere. His appearance modification was still in effect. Lorca sat by the bedside, gazing for a while at the unfamiliar yet delicate face. After thinking for a moment, he placed the butterfly crystal in his palm back on the nightstand.

As the former owner, he knew all too well under what circumstances this blue crystal would glow on its own.

Could it be that Eve truly has the talent to become a Five-Star Alchemist?

He never doubted Eve’s abilities, but the title of Five-Star Alchemist seemed too remote from the lives of ordinary humans. Whether it was immense power or endless wealth, these were things humans could achieve through their own intellect and effort. But an alchemist of this caliber... could they still be considered human?

The obvious non-human mutations, the eternally abundant yet stagnant fountain of life—Lorca found it difficult to imagine these traits one day manifesting in Eve.

He pressed his hand against Eve’s neck, feeling the warm, strong and steady pulse beneath her skin, as firm and rhythmic as the knocking at the door.

"I know it hasn’t been fifteen minutes," Luo Lin’s almost perpetually monotone voice sounded, "but sorry, Tachibana Maki is already charging over."

"—Chief Tachibana’s screeching ability is remarkable, so you’d better come out and deal with it ASAP."

Lorca’s eyelid twitched. Logically, alchemists are supposed to be highly perceptive—how could this person not even know how to steer a ship?

He truly couldn’t understand how Tachibana Maki managed to pass the exam to become a Three-Star Alchemist.

"Got it, I’ll be right there."

He replied dismissively, withdrew his hand, and before leaving, couldn’t resist gently pinching Eve’s faintly blushing cheek. It was unclear whether he was speaking to the sleeping girl or just muttering to himself: "Do you think I’d get caught if I stole a kiss from you right now?"

Probably not.

After dragging his feet for another two minutes, Lorca was finally thrown out of the room by the Mist Cloud Vine. Just what had he been lingering about in there? Luo Lin’s suspicious gaze swept over his face, but he was too good at disguising his feelings—she couldn’t detect anything.

After all, he hadn’t actually done anything. One-sided intimacy was meaningless except to move himself.

Lorca met her scrutiny frankly, then, just before Tachibana Maki’s rage could ignite the entire area, promptly covered the other’s noisy mouth.

"Have you lost your mind... Mmph!"

Tachibana Maki's originally narrow fox-like eyes widened as Lorca forcibly dragged him by the neck and walked out. Only after leaving the corridor did Lorca release his grip over his mouth and nose. Irritated, he shook off the hand still resting on his neck. Tachibana Maki couldn’t be bothered to dwell on his disrespectful behavior and cut straight to the point: "What’s your relationship with her?"

"None of your business," Lorca shot him a glance. "Have you figured out a way to get out of here?"

"No, but I’ve learned how to steer the ship."

Lorca didn’t respond, merely looking at him with an expression of pained complexity.

The world was completely submerged by the flood, yet the torrential rain showed no signs of stopping. For students who had grown up with the belief that "the world is round," this scene was utterly counterintuitive.

No one knew where all this water would eventually flow—so vast and endless, like the boundless power of a deity. But from the shrinking peaks of the sacred mountain, it was clear that the water level was indeed rising.

The gloomy sky pressed down, dark clouds gathering into the shape of a giant bending over. The starlight was faint, and in the pitch-black world, only this ancient ark remained. A three-legged bird struggled to glide across the water’s surface, searching for a glimmer of hope.

"Head upward."

After a long pause, Lorca spoke, his fingers tapping idly on his arm.

"Huh?" Tachibana Maki was stunned. "What do you mean, 'head upward'? You don’t expect me to steer this ship into the sky, do you?"

"What else?"

It wasn’t as if he meant for him to tilt the ship vertically and sail upward.

Cursing under his breath, Tachibana Maki had no other choice but to follow Lorca’s instructions. As they spoke, they returned to the wheelhouse. A massive wooden helm stood in the center of the spacious room, with an old-fashioned telescope hanging from the ceiling, resembling a periscope commonly used in submarines. In Tachibana Maki’s absence, Zhou Huixue had temporarily taken over steering the ship, while Ludwig stood watch nearby, arms crossed, watching her warily to prevent any tricks.

It seemed she had cut a deal with First Empire Academy—offering her labor in exchange for temporary shelter. Luo Lin really ought to see this. Useful people prove their worth everywhere. The only question was what benefits the remaining students from other schools could offer First Empire Academy.

Lorca mused calmly. If nothing else, they could always contribute their points.

After exchanging words with Zhou Huixue, Zhou Huixue’s expression shifted from calm to gradually furrowing her brow, as if she had been asked to do something difficult.

"I can ride the waves and steer the ark upward with the surge," she said. "But I’m not sure if that counts as 'heading upward' as you described."

Lorca still trusted her problem-solving ability. "Might as well give it a try."

Just then, a monstrous wave surged, roaring with terrifying power. The students on board feared the ship would break apart at any moment. Two bird-like Spiritual States darted through the storm and across the water, desperately relaying the turbulent conditions to their respective masters.

Inside the ark, a single person couldn’t possibly turn such a heavy wooden helm. Tachibana Maki and Zhou Huixue strained together against the helm, their faces pale, managing to steer the ship just as it crested the wave, catching the violent surge toward the low-hanging sky.

Crack.

Crack, crack.

Lorca detected something, tilting his head to listen for a moment before calmly addressing Ludwig, who stood nearby. "Light a fire under them."

Ludwig: "Wait, you want me to help?"

"No," Lorca said succinctly. "Fear can also boost adrenaline."

Ludwig: "..."

An inexplicable dread seeped into the hearts of the two at the helm. Feeling their muscles tense and spasm unnaturally, their faces went from pale to ghostly white.

"You know," Zhou Huixue bit out each word, "some folks at your school are just too harsh. Even if they’re from another school, you should at least treat them like human beings."

Is this how First Empire Academy operates?

Tachibana Maki gave a hollow laugh, unsure if this counted as her attempt at comfort: "Uh, I'm here too, you know."

Not that she'd gone easy on her own schoolmates, either.

Zhou Huixue was left speechless.

It was impossible to tell how many times the world had crashed toward the sky, but by now more than just one or two people could hear the unexpected cracking sound. The sound of the world’s boundaries shattering was so clear that people in different rooms all looked up at the same time.

Some were filled with confusion, while others wore thoughtful expressions.

Luo Lin, resting her chin on her hand and sitting with her legs crossed on a rattan chair by the bed, listened to the crisp, shattering sounds like breaking glass. Her expression remained unreadable, her focus entirely on the one person she was responsible for—until the person on the bed began to stir, eyelids fluttering in response to the relentless cracking.

Her Spiritual State moved according to her will; slender vines dipped their tips into a basin of water on the table and then gently patted Eve’s face with meticulous care. The cool, damp sensation spread across her skin, and Eve let out a long, exhausted sigh, finally shaking off the grogginess of oxygen deprivation.

Still slightly dizzy upon opening her eyes, she blinked a few times before making out the wooden ceiling above and realizing she was lying in a warm bed somewhere.

"You’re finally awake," Luo Lin said. "You woke up so late—humanity is extinct. Only the two of us are left in the whole world now."

"Don’t joke around with that cold expression of yours, Lin."

Eve helplessly burrowed deeper into the soft blankets, leaving only her round head exposed. "Besides, I know I’m on the ark—"

Before she could finish, the entire ship suddenly shook violently. A sharp, brief, high-frequency screech swept through, ringing in her ears. By the time she regained her senses, Eve had nearly forgotten what she was about to say.

"...on the ark," she finished, her head, still fuzzy from sleep, throbbing faintly. She took a steadying breath under the vine’s attentive head massage before continuing, "What was that just now? Is leaving a dungeon supposed to be this dramatic?"

"Maybe it’s more than just leaving a dungeon," Luo Lin replied.

The same phenomenon wasn’t limited to just this one enclosed world. Countless similar yet distinct worlds simultaneously witnessed the cracking and shattering of the sky, revealing the dark, mysterious void behind it.

A massive ship emerged from the void, like a celestial being emerging from distant waters, vast and impossible to see in its entirety.

In one such world, Luo Wenzhou was crouching in his spiritual realm, watching in terror as Dragon Maiden manipulated his body to take down one Holy Mountain divine envoy after another. Braving the drizzling rain, Dragon Maiden nimbly dashed the body up the mountain, all the while Luo Wenzhou muttering anxiously, "What do we do? What do we do? All my teammates drowned—how are we supposed to complete the rest of the mission?" The incessant fretting from within gave Dragon Maiden a headache, and she snapped impatiently, "Stop whining, you fool. Look up at the sky."

"The sky? What about it?"

Luo Wenzhou temporarily regained control of his body and looked up. His jaw dropped so wide he could’ve fit a fist in it. "My god... What is this?!"

Not all worlds progressed at the same pace. For some, the apocalypse had only just begun.

Grace lay comfortably on the sloping roof of a small church on a floating hill, enjoying the feeling of light rain pattering on her face. Even though the hem of her clothes was soaked through, she giggled and said to Dick, who was cautiously observing the rising water levels beside her, "Relax, stop staring down there. The water will rise eventually anyway."

"And you’re still this calm?" Dick was nearly frantic. "I don’t want to drown!"

"Why are you still so timid? You haven’t changed a bit since we were kids. Since there’s no escaping it anyway, why not take this chance to appreciate the world falling apart?"

"No way," Dick insisted, clinging tightly to the roof’s cross-shaped pillar, determined that if he had to die, it would be after Grace. "That sounds seriously messed up. I refuse."

"You’re such a..."

Grace whistled dismissively and stopped paying him any mind, turning her gaze instead to the world beyond the floating hill.

The Day of Divine Birth had completely turned into the final Day of Judgment. The celebratory bonfires were extinguished by the rain, and even from a distance, the mournful wails and prayers of people seemed to carry on the wind. Occasionally, a low-flying, snow-white figure would flash by. Grace didn’t know what it was but guessed from its shape that it wasn’t a divine envoy—and probably not anything good, either.

The shattering of laws, the collapse of order—everything was irreversibly hurtling toward destruction.

Faced with such a hopeless apocalyptic scene, Grace watched for a while and actually began to sense undercurrents of emotion swirling beneath the surface.

A rich floral fragrance quietly permeated the air. Dick’s voice was full of disbelief. "Wait, you’re having some kind of epiphany now?"

"Mhm," Grace hummed, swinging her crossed leg lazily. "Naturally gifted. Don’t be too jealous."

Dick made a face as if he’d bitten into a sour lemon.

It was Dick who noticed first when the endless shadow of a ship suddenly spanned the sky. "Hey, look up there. Is that... a ship?"

"What the heck?" Grace followed his pointing finger. "Why’s it showing up now?"

She hadn’t even finished digesting her new insights into her Spiritual State Ability!

"Not sure, but I think we might be saved," Dick said, his emotions completely out of sync with the despair around them. He was on the verge of tears of joy. "Get your Spiritual State to make some noise, attract that ship’s attention."

"Hey..."

Similar events were unfolding in almost every enclosed world. The shadow of the ark drifted through these worlds, gathering up the remaining survivors.

Onshore, Anthony set down his compound bow. Not far away, a human-faced fish was pinned to the ground.

Ever since he and his team dug out the mechanism on the ice island, the ghost ship had refused to take on any more passengers. But what surprised him more than the anxiety of being stranded on the island was the elimination rate underwater. In less than two days, nearly twenty to thirty names had abruptly vanished from the leaderboard, almost all of them lost to the ghost ship within a concentrated timeframe.

What was happening on that ship?

Wasn’t this supposed to be a puzzle-oriented competition? How could so many people have been eliminated?

Based on his experience of being forcibly eliminated by Zhou Huixue, if someone failed a challenge on the ghost ship, they should’ve been sent back ashore, not outright eliminated from the third round of the FiveSchool League... Though, speaking of Zhou Huixue, he was reminded that he hadn’t managed to take her out on the island—she’d escaped.

People accustomed to leadership generally fell into two categories: those who delegated tasks and then stepped back, and those who wanted to micromanage everything from start to finish, worrying about their subordinates’ competence if they weren’t overseeing every detail.

Anthony sighed deeply. He undoubtedly belonged to the latter.

"Ch-Chairman! Look over there—the ice cracked!"

In the freezing snow, someone shouted. Anthony turned toward the voice, his red hair whipping against his face in the cold wind. Squinting, he strode toward the student waving him over. "What cracked?"

"The ice in the center of the island—there’s a huge fissure," the student on observation duty handed him a telescope. "It wasn’t obvious this morning, so we didn’t pay much attention, but now the crack has grown four or five times larger."

It was more than just a few times larger.

The moment Anthony raised the telescope, he understood why they’d called him over. Cracks were spreading across the frozen ground at an an alarming rate, and the central ice was shaking and collapsing, as if something beneath was persistently ramming upward.

Thump. Thump. Thump. Like an ancient heart reviving, beating with heavy, powerful rhythm.

With a thunderous roar, the ice shattered completely.

Anthony lowered the telescope, his mind struggling to process what he was seeing. He stared in astonishment as an enormous ship leaped out from under the sea, its hull draped with clusters of seaweed and coral anemones. Countless human-faced fish jumped out from the massive fissure in the ice, scrambling frantically in all directions. Amid their tiny, shrill cries, the ghost ship, surging forth like a swordfish breaking through the waves, settled steadily back onto the sea’s surface.

In the hazy morning mist, the wrist devices of all surviving students vibrated simultaneously.

"The final round of the FiveSchool League has concluded.

Each participant has ten minutes to submit their answer sheet for the mission 'The Final Truth.' Online communication is prohibited. Answers will be collected immediately after the time limit.

This mission is an open-world puzzle-solving task, so there is no absolute correct answer. Please reason based on the information you’ve gathered. Steps may not be skipped. The organizing committee will uniformly grade all submissions. The final rankings will be released in three days, with the top thirty advancing to the supplementary league.

Note: Answering time is limited. You have only one chance. Please answer carefully."