Chapter 45: Rule Erosion, the Secret of the Beginning

Pelican Beak Canyon's fissure was like the closed mouth of a giant beast, burying the relics and final blessing of Luo Ya civilization. The Resonance Squad carried a heavy secret and a new mission, driving that battle-scarred assault vehicle once again into the desolate, ruined world.

Outside the vehicle, the scene grew ever stranger. The sky was no longer a uniform gray haze; instead, occasional patches of twisted color, like splashes of oil paint, would sweep across—visual errors caused by unstable underlying rules during the system update. On the ground, the laws of physics in some areas seemed to loosen, for example, rain in a region drifting upward against gravity, or a massive rock flickering between solid and transparent like a phantom.

"The erosion of rules is intensifying," Li Siwen worriedly looked outside the vehicle, "the system is forcibly overwriting reality, and this process will generate large amounts of 'rule turbulence'."

Chen Mo gripped the steering wheel tightly; although his Rule Analysis ability had weakened with the fading of Luo Ya's blessing, it still let him vaguely 'see' those invisible turbulences. They were like hidden reefs; the vehicle had to avoid them carefully—if entered, minor equipment failure could occur, or majorly it might be randomly transported to an unknown area, or even torn apart by warped physics.

"Turn left fifteen degrees, there is strong rule disturbance 300 meters ahead, likely a spatial fold." Su Yu closed her eyes to sense; her Observer ability was especially important in dealing with this environment.

The vehicle narrowly bypassed an area that looked calm but actually had extremely chaotic data flow. Through the windows, they could see the scenery within that region twisted and distorted like a funhouse mirror.

"Damn, this damned place is getting harder to stay in!" Wang Hu cursed, tightening his gear. The wounds from the battle with the Sweeper still ached faintly, but what frustrated him more was this omnipresent, helpless sense of eeriness.

In Chen Mo's sea of consciousness, the Luo Ya Heritage Mark continued to emit a faint pull, pointing toward the distant destination—the Initial Land. He could feel that the mark and that region shared a connection transcending space, on the level of rules.

Along the way, they encountered several waves of monsters. These monsters were also affected by rule turbulence, their forms more unstable, some even briefly displaying a bizarre amalgam of multiple biological traits. Their attacks also carried slight rule-distorting effects—for example, the spit acid had a mild space-corroding property, or the claw swipe could trigger a small-range gravity anomaly.

To deal with these monsters, the Resonance Squad began consciously employing the gains from Luo Ya's relics.

Han Qing tried to attach his will more finely to the arrows, not merely to increase power but to interfere with the monsters' fragile internal energy-cycle rules. An arrow shot out, striking a leaping claw monster; the will of 'disrupt stability' imbued in the arrow instantly scrambled the monster's internal energy, stiffening its movement for a moment, whereupon Zhang Yang's following hail of bullets tore it apart.

"Effective! We can influence the 'rules' they rely on to exist!" Han Qing's eyes flashed with excitement.

Zhang Yang no longer fired blindly; instead, following brief instructions from Chen Mo or Su Yu, he attacked the most unstable nodes of the monsters' rule structures, often achieving twice the result with half the effort.

Wang Hu and Li Siwen coordinated: one would frontally restrain to draw attention, the other would seek an opportunity to strike the rule turbulence in the environment with energy weapons or specially made explosives, using the turbulence's power to backfire on the monsters. Once, Li Siwen precisely threw an electromagnetic pulse grenade into a small patch of warped gravity field; the burst pulse interacted with the field, instantly crushing several monsters within range into pulp.

Chen Mo and Su Yu were the core of the team. Chen Mo handled macro rule analysis and route planning, avoiding major turbulences and pointing out the weak points in monster groups' rules. Su Yu performed micro observation, precisely locating individual monsters' fatal flaws and predicting instantaneous changes in rule turbulence.

Their mutual understanding also reached a new height. Often without words, a glance, a slight fluctuation of the mental link, sufficed to convey information and devise tactics. Their consciousness, under the resonance of the Primordial Origin Proof and Luo Ya's legacy, seemed woven into an invisible net, capturing every ripple of rules on the battlefield.

During a brief rest, Chen Mo sought to deeper understand the Basic Compilation Technique. He picked up a stone, focused his mind, and attempted to compile its material structure, making it temporarily as light as a feather. The drain of mental power was like opening a floodgate; sweat instantly appeared on his forehead, and the stone in his hand merely flickered slightly, its weight hardly changing.

"Still too much of a strain," Chen Mo gasped, giving Su Yu a wry smile, "without Luo Ya's blessing, compiling real-world matter is as hard as climbing to heaven."

Su Yu grasped his hand and whispered, "But on the data and spiritual levels, we have already made a breakthrough. Moreover, the mark is guiding us; the Initial Land surely holds something that will let us advance further."

Chen Mo nodded, feeling the direction transmitted by the mark. That feeling grew ever clearer, as if piercing through layers of rule mist, pointing straight to the source.

After several days of arduous trek, dodging several near‑miss rule storms and reinforced monster squads from system patrols, they finally reached the outskirts of the area indicated by the mark.

Here, it was no longer the Initial Land they remembered.

It was a vast region shrouded by a gigantic, semi‑transparent curtain constantly flowing with 0 and 1 code. On the curtain, faintly visible were familiar sights—the ruined novice‑spawn town, the winding practice trail, and far off the towering, originally the players' first team dungeon, the 'Wailing Cave'. Yet all of this seemed packaged inside a massive, unstable data amber.

Outside the curtain, the earth was cracked, vegetation withered, and rule turbulence flowed like ribbons, forming a natural barrier. Inside the curtain, the scenery was relatively 'stable,' but this stability carried a suffocating sense of falseness.

{Warning: Entering high‑rule‑stability zone—'Origin Seal Zone'.

{Description: A special zone used by the system to contain, analyze, and isolate 'abnormal variable sources'. Internal rules are highly solidified, system monitoring level: extreme.

{Detection: Special key (Luo Ya's Heritage Mark) held…… authorization verification in progress……}

{Verification passed. Temporary access permission granted. Warning: Any abnormal disturbance at the rule level will trigger the highest‑level purge protocol. }

The cold system prompt echoed in everyone's minds, carrying an indisputable authority.

"Origin Seal Zone…… the system has completely sealed off this place," Han Qing said, his face solemn.

"The Source Code Fragments are in there?" Zhang Yang stared at the massive data curtain, swallowing.

Chen Mo stared at the curtain, his Rule Analysis ability pushed to the limit. He could see that the curtain itself was an extremely complex rule barrier, imbued with strong repulsion and purification power. But thanks to the Luo Ya Heritage Mark, he could feel a tiny 'backdoor' on the barrier opening for them—an extremely unstable, temporary passage.

"The entrance is here," Chen Mo pointed to a spot on the curtain where it rippled like water, "the passage won't stay open long, and once inside we are as if entering a domain wholly led by the system, where every step must be taken with utmost caution."

He turned to look at his companions behind him. Every face bore fatigue, but their eyes were like tempered steel—determined and sharp. The trials of this journey, the several clashes with the system, especially the baptism in Luo Ya's relics, had already transformed them.

"We haven't come all this way to back down at the final step," Su Yu's voice was calm yet full of strength.

Chen Mo took a deep breath and nodded.

"Check your gear, keep the mental link running at minimum power draw. Once inside, everything follows my command—without my signal, absolutely do not lightly use rule‑level abilities."

Everyone nodded silently, performing a final check of weapons and supplies.

Chen Mo led the way to the rippling 'water', placing his hand on it. The mark emitted a faint glow, resonating with the curtain. A distortion just large enough for one person to pass through slowly appeared; inside was a phantasmagoric channel with streaming data.

Without hesitation, Chen Mo stepped in. Su Yu followed closely, then Han Qing, Zhang Yang, Li Siwen, Wang Hu, Zhao Lei, and Liu Qian.

When the last person entered, the aperture quickly sealed, and the curtain returned to its original state.

They passed through a brief but dizzying data corridor, as if undergoing countless coordinate transformations. When their feet finally stepped onto 'solid' ground, they found themselves inside the Initial Land.

The sky was a false azure, the sunlight warm yet unfelt. The surrounding vegetation was lush, but on closer look the leaf veins bore faint code‑like patterns. The distant ruined town was eerily silent, even the wind carrying a synthetic electronic quality.

Everything here resembled a meticulously built model sandbox by the system for research. And they were the unstable factor intruding into that sandbox.

Chen Mo could clearly feel the mark in his chest emitting a hot pulse, pointing toward the towering 'Wailing Cave'.

The first 'Source Code' fragment was right there.

But at the same time, he also sensed countless cold, malicious 'gazes' from every corner of this false world, simultaneously focusing on them.

The system's net of heaven and earth had been spread. The true test was only now beginning.