Chapter 133: Entered the Space Beyond the Spacetime Portal

As the Black Sphere turned, a crackling electric sound came from inside the experimental table.

Ning Hai gasped in shock—wasn't the nuclear power plant above blown up decades ago? How could it still be supplying power here?

"Ning Hai, what's going on?" the mercenary captain asked.

Ning Hai calmed down and speculated: "Maybe there's some backup power source in this underground lab, just activated by your people..."

"What exactly is this machine, and what will happen after it starts?" the mercenary captain watched the weird Black Sphere spin faster and faster, a strong unease rising in his heart.

The other mercenaries slowly retreated to the entrance; they'd run at the slightest sign of trouble.

Ning Hai certainly couldn't tell the mercenaries this was a machine related to spacetime travel, but he himself didn't know what would happen after activating it, or whether it could really open a Spacetime Portal.

But he guessed that even if it could be opened, it would require enormous energy support.

Relying only on the residual backup power in this underground lab, it's impossible for the machine to run to an effective level.

"Don't worry..." Ning Hai swallowed and said, "Nothing should happen; once the backup power runs out, it will stop."

As his words fell, the Black Sphere's speed indeed began to slow.

The indicator lights on the Control Panel also dimmed one after another.

Several mercenaries let out a long breath.

Ning Hai also relaxed, giving a cold snort and teasing: "Heh, I said nothing would happen—look at how you're scared, you mercenaries, you don't even have my guts."

Just as the last indicator light was about to go out from insufficient power.

Above the nuclear power plant, the thunderstorm that had built up from daytime to midnight had reached a critical point; any tiny energy fluctuation could trigger a discharge.

Meanwhile, the current generated by the experimental table, due to aging wiring, also leaked part of it into the cables when the Black Sphere was activated.

These cables, as thick as a person's arm, originally connected inside the nuclear power plant; after the explosion, a considerable portion was exposed to the outdoor environment.

Thus, where the exposed cables hissed and spat arcs, they transmitted into the already charge-filled air.

Swish—

A massive lightning bolt was instantly triggered and smashed down from midair.

At that moment, the pitch-black night sky lit up like daytime.

Even the rescue team attempting to save the trapped experts noticed that, outside the collapsed walls nearby, it seemed as if a searchlight had suddenly appeared.

Immediately after, a clap of thunder rang out.

Boom!

The huge sound shook the rescue team's eardrums painfully!

The shockwave from the thunderstorm caused everything around to undergo a noticeable vibration.

And at this moment, two experts still hadn't been rescued.

"Hurry, speed up!" came the urgent voice of the rescue team captain over the Walkie-Talkie.

No sooner had his words fallen than another, even more dazzling lightning bolt tore through the night and struck vertically down!

Boom—

The ground seemed to explode.

The lightning reacted with the accumulated nuclear material scattered here in some unknown way, erupting in terrifying energy—so much that black, web-like lightning even appeared on the ground.

The black lightning flashed and vanished, but wherever it passed, even space became distorted.

A loud bang.

Ning Jinli's headtop suddenly collapsed.

The person who had just been painstakingly hauled up, along with all the rescue team members, instantly fell down.

Ning Jinli could only speed backward, shielding the two experts beside her.

The rescue team members, relying on their extremely fast reflexes, all used their bodies as cushions, grabbing several other experts and hitting the ground hard, then immediately flipping over to use their backs to block the falling debris from above.

All of this happened too fast.

The rescue team members had already erupted with extraordinary response ability.

In an instant, a hole the size of a room opened above everyone, and concrete chunks from the rubble kept falling down.

Seeing that a rescue team member about to be hit couldn't dodge in time, Ning Jinli channeled Internal Strength and lunged forward, leaping two meters high in a single stride, simultaneously punching and kicking to smash the falling stones aside.

At this moment, deep in the underground experimental lab.

Ning Huan and the mercenaries also felt the vibrations coming from above.

Moreover, the machine that had just been about to stop started up again.

Pop pop pop!

A string of firecracker-like sounds rang out.

On the Control Panel beside the experimental table, the indicator lights first flared overload-bright, then exploded one by one.

Even the Control Panel ruptured from energy overload.

Streams of current shot out from the cables, as if strongly sucked by the Black Sphere, rushing together at high speed.

In the blink of an eye, the dense cables lining the underground lab's walls, overwhelmed by the surging energy, began to melt and smoke as their thick insulation broke down.

The Black Sphere on the experimental table spun so fast it became a blur, faintly forming fleeting black currents around it.

Several mercenaries, having never seen such a scene, froze in place for a moment.

"Run!" the mercenary captain shouted.

Only then did they come to their senses, turning and diving into the iron door.

Ning Hai stood still, eyes wide locked on the black sphere, seeing that as the black currents increased, the scene around the sphere became distorted.

The mercenaries had already run out; the mercenary captain looked back, saw Ning Hai still inside, and shouted from the round doorway: "Ning Sir! Run!"

Ning Hai seemed not to have heard at all, standing there muttering: "Could it... could this thing really open a Spacetime Portal?"

Boom—

Strong tremors appeared again around.

The mercenary captain saw Ning Hai standing there like he'd lost his soul, not moving a muscle, so he simply couldn't be bothered with him, and together with the team members he fled madly along the route they had come in.

This situation had already exceeded their knowledge and abilities; they had only taken a job to earn some money, it wasn't worth risking their lives here.

On the other side, Ning Jinli had just knocked away the fallen debris, hadn't even had time to catch her breath, when she sensed the surrounding nuclear radiation energy surging, as if all the radiation in the restricted zone were converging toward this spot.

Moreover, increasingly blinding light shone down from above.

Ning Jinli looked up.

Originally she, the rescue team, and the trapped experts were all inside a ruined building that had not yet completely collapsed.

But now, with the continual collapses around her, she could already see the sky directly above.

Only saw the clouds surging with electricity, condensing into a huge vortex.

The closer to the vortex's center, the more blinding the light became.

Ironically, her position happened to be exactly directly beneath the vortex's center.

In midair, terrifying lightning energy continued to build up, while large amounts of radioactive energy surged and gathered around.

The two energies intertwined and fused, as if they could grind this place into powder.

Not only had she never seen such a situation, but even those several experts had never heard of it, each staring dumbfounded at the sky.

At that moment, the thunderstorm in the sky condensed together, already showing signs that it could pour down at any time!

Ning Jinli didn't know what this was, but it was clear without thinking that if struck by this unprecedented thunderstorm, everyone present wouldn't even leave ashes behind!

In the flash of lightning and flint.

Ning Jinli, quick-witted in desperation, exerted all her strength to absorb the nuclear radiation energy, and at the same time circulated the Tian Xuan Heart Method, transforming that massive energy into internal strength.

At this moment there was no way to escape.

She could only gamble, trying to see if she could open an entrance to a spacetime portal here and bring the rescue team members and the several experts away together!

Before this, she had not yet opened a second portal entrance in this world.

Even if newly opened, they all led to the parallel universe ancient world where Xiao Qidi was, and in this world they could only connect to her factory warehouse.

Moreover, before this, no living person other than her and Xiao Qidi had ever been able to pass through the spacetime portal.

Boom!!

The thick clouds in the sky suddenly exploded.

A sky‑filling thunderstorm poured down, the light stabbing everyone's vision into a blank white.

In that instant, the rescue team and the experts seemed to lose all sensation.

Eyes could see nothing, ears could hear nothing.

Immediately afterward, it felt as if nothing remained around them.

Their bodies seemed to float in midair.

"How are you? Can you hear me speaking?" Ning Jinli's voice gradually began to sound in their ears.

Before everyone's eyes, the expanse of white like a dissipating fog slowly faded away.

When they could see the situation before them clearly, everyone was instantly dazed, full of disbelief.

"Where is this?"

"I... I... have I... already died?"

"I died too? We all died?"

"After dying... did we enter outer space?"

Whether rescue team members or the several experts, they could no longer make sense of the current situation.

They drifted within an environment that resembled outer space.

Looking in any direction, no horizon could be seen; everywhere was a gray, chaotic haze.

"Not dead, not dead! We're still alive!" Ning Jinli's voice sounded again.

Only then did they come to their senses; looking toward the sound, they saw Ning Jinli floating behind them, gripping a safety rope in her hand, the rope linking all of them together, which kept them from drifting apart.

"Miss Ning, what place is this?" the mercenary captain asked.

Before Ning Jinli could answer, an expert exclaimed: "What are those?"

Several people suddenly saw that not far away, several fluorescent vortices were floating.

Moreover, visible streams of energy could be seen shuttling between those fluorescent vortices, like a tangled net linking multiple fluorescent vortices together.

As the energy surged and spread, it even tore open rifts in some places of chaos like void.

But these torn rifts could exist only briefly, almost disappearing in the blink of an eye.

"If I'm not mistaken..." Ning Jinli stared fixedly at the fluorescent vortices drifting around, "those... are the entrances and exits of the spacetime portal; we are now in a chaotic space located outside the spacetime portal and belonging to no world."

"Spacetime portal entrance? You mean... the Time‑Space Gate?" everyone exclaimed in astonishment.

Ning Jinli fixed her gaze on the blurry scene of the other side appearing inside the vortex, muttering to herself, "Yaowang Gu, Wang Palace Storehouse, Yuqi Mountain training hall... and... oh, Zhuiyingjian, and my factory's small warehouse."

She remembered that after successfully opening a new portal entrance in desperation, she had pulled everyone inside.

But she hadn't expected that they would enter such a place.

At that same moment, she saw that energy linked those spacetime gates together; initially, the four openings on the parallel‑universe ancient world side were all connected to the spacetime gate of her factory's small warehouse.

But those four openings were not linked to each other.

That is to say, before this she could go from her factory's small warehouse to Yaowang Gu, the palace, Yuqi Mountain, and Zhuiyingjian, but could not travel directly back and forth among those four places—this was the reason.

However, this situation might be about to change.

Because now she saw that the spacetime gates outside her factory warehouse had also begun to link with each other.

This perhaps meant that in the future she would no longer need to use her factory warehouse as a transfer hub—for example, she could go directly from Yaowang Gu to the palace, or from the palace directly to Yuqi Mountain or Zhuiyingjian.

Those four spacetime gates located in the parallel‑universe world could now reach each other as well.

"Wait…" Ning Jinli snapped back, "Where is the Time‑Space Gate I just opened?"

She couldn't bother explaining to the others, hurriedly turned her head and looked around searching.

At that moment, she saw, far behind her, black lightning‑like energy surging; the black energy was so strong it obscured a Fluorescent Vortex.

That was precisely the new passage Ning Jinli had opened in the nuclear power plant ruins.

When she led the group into this chaotic space, a massive surge of high‑intensity energy rushed in together, causing energy links to form between the original Time‑Space Gates.

"Not good!" Ning Jinli's expression suddenly changed.

She realized the huge energy from the power‑plant ruins was still spreading toward here.

If it got close, even she would be torn to pieces.

She immediately tightened the safety rope, activated Internal Skill, and "swam" toward the Time‑Space Gate of the factory warehouse.

Rescue team members and several experts, as if they were kites, were tugged by her rope, wobbling through the void, then one by one passed through that Fluorescent Vortex.

When everyone reached the small warehouse of the factory, Ning Jinli finally breathed a sigh of relief.

The rescue members and the experts collapsed onto the ground, panting heavily, eyes wide open.

Everything they had just experienced in such a short time gave them a dream‑like feeling.

No, it's more surreal than a dream.

Even these research experts' minds couldn't keep up.

"Everyone," Ning Jinli said after catching her breath, "you are all safe now. This is domestic, Xinghan City, and it's my factory. Captain, please contact Ying to report the situation to her, and promptly send these experts to the hospital."

The captain steadied himself, stood up, "Yes, Miss Ning!"

At this very moment.

Inside the secret laboratory deep beneath the Kucherberg Nuclear Power Plant ruins.

The Black Sphere, after absorbing enough energy, emitted a vortex‑shaped Fluorescent glow.

Ning Hai plopped onto the ground, staring blankly at the Fluorescent glow expanding before them, where vague scene images began to emerge.

In the scene, there was a riverbank.

A bonfire was lit on the riverbank.

Next to the fire, a grotesque figure knelt—hair dirty and long, clothes tattered, and an arm broken…