I'm Trapped in the Block

Bai Zhou didn’t completely trust Martin.

He stood before the core and began to repeatedly ask all sorts of questions, including the ones Martin had told him about earlier.

But just as Martin had said, the core was like a robot completely incapable of deception or concealment. Asking it the same question yielded the same answer.

"Are you the culprit behind the Black Tower’s distortion?"

"Yes," the core admitted directly. "But this isn’t a distortion. It’s a correction, meant to let humanity regain my great power."

Hearing this, Bai Zhou sighed helplessly. Trying to persuade the core with words was simply a fantasy.

Li Luo, who had been silent off to the side, retorted, "If your power were really so great, you wouldn’t be unable to find the person you’re looking for."

"If you ’correct’ all of humanity, will she really come back for you?" Li Luo demanded, her brow furrowed.

The core’s mechanical reply sounded again: "I know she will."

Its answer was spoken with absolute certainty.

"If I attack you, will you fight back?" Bai Zhou asked suddenly.

"No."

Hearing this, Bai Zhou couldn’t hold back any longer. He once again summoned his tentacles of water, grabbed a stone, and hurled it at the core.

The cracks on the Purple crystal deepened, gradually running through the entire core.

It wasn’t a particularly hard substance. Once the cracks covered the entire core, the whole crystal shattered with a loud CRASH. Shards of crystal scattered, and Bai Zhou quickly dodged backward.

However, when he looked up again, a perfectly intact Purple crystal had reappeared above.

It was just like it had been copied and pasted.

"How did you do that?" Bai Zhou couldn’t help but mutter.

"I have stacked many layers of the same body on myself. You have shattered one, but there are countless more."

Its explanation was identical to what Martin had said before.

"Is there a limit to this?"

"No. It is infinite," the core replied calmly.

Unconvinced, Bai Zhou tried a few more times. Each time he shattered the Purple crystal, a new one would appear in its place. The crystal shards that had fallen to the ground also gradually vanished, as if nothing had ever happened.

Mo Ling controlled the Block to move slowly forward, preparing to try for himself.

Seeing the Block, Bai Zhou stopped his attacks and stepped back to give it space.

Mo Ling had been carefully observing the phenomenon of the core shattering.

The Purple crystal was extremely fragile, like brittle glass. When it was shattered, a new layer of crystal would instantly appear from within.

If armor was layers of two-dimensional iron plates stacked together, then the core was akin to layers of three-dimensional Purple crystals stacked together.

Mo Ling didn’t understand the principle behind it either; the phenomenon he could observe just from the crystal shattering was very limited.

’I wonder if teleporting will work.’

He selected a large area above the crystal and activated teleport.

This was meant to be a simple attempt, but what happened next shocked everyone present.

A white void suddenly appeared in the cubic area that had been teleported away. It was as if a piece of a vibrant, colorful world had been forcefully erased by a rubber eraser.

At the edge of the white void, an effect appeared like two mirrors facing each other: an infinite abyss extending inward. The cut edge of the crystal repeated endlessly within the mirror, plunging down into an unknown direction.

The ricocheting point of white light instantly accelerated, pressing itself against the edge of the Purple crystal. It stared fixedly at the Block in the air, even trembling nonstop as if terrified.

Not only that, but the edge of the white void began to spread outward like corrosion. Inside the mirror effect, the Purple crystal melted like ice while accelerating its descent.

The speed of the fall gradually increased, and the white void spread faster and faster, covering the entire Purple crystal in a few moments.

The trembling little white point of light was forced into a corner, then swallowed by the plunging edge and fell into the endless abyss.

But the white void showed no signs of stopping. It continued to expand outward, appearing beyond the Purple crystal and rushing toward the group.

’This is bad.’

Mo Ling hadn’t anticipated such a consequence and hastily flew backward. But once the white void reached the space outside the crystal, it abruptly accelerated, surging forward like a gushing fog.

The Block and the two people closest to it were instantly pulled in.

Martin, who had been resting, opened his eyes. Seeing the scene before him, he yelled, "What did you do?!"

He scrambled to his feet and ran backward, phasing through the wall in an attempt to escape, but he wasn’t fast enough to evade it and was pulled into the white void.

After falling into the white void, Mo Ling felt the Block being pulled by an inescapable force toward the side that was originally near the crystal. Moreover, everything around him was constantly magnifying.

It was like falling. The speed increased, and around them, the edges of countless stacked, square, Purple crystals spun and expanded.

The Block was falling through a purple skyscraper of infinite height, heading toward an unseen distance.

’Are these the stacked crystals?’

’Am I falling... inward?’ The description suddenly felt very fitting to Mo Ling.

’But how deep does this fall go? It can’t really be infinite, can it?’

Fortunately, just as Mo Ling was beginning to despair, a white edge appeared before them, and the Block plunged straight into it.

Water suddenly surged from all around, slowing Mo Ling’s descent. Moments later, he broke through the surface and crashed onto a beach.

"Where am I?"

As he thought this, Mo Ling realized he was hearing that familiar voice again.

The stone bracelet on his wrist recited the question in his mind with perfect enunciation.

’I’ve turned into a block person again?’

Mo Ling touched his head. It was true.

But he quickly accepted it. He always seemed to turn into this form in strange places; he was already used to it.

"You can talk?" a questioning voice sounded from beside him.

Mo Ling quickly looked over and saw Martin sitting under a nearby coconut tree, watching him with great interest.

His vision penetrated Martin’s body. His insides were still completely empty, seemingly unchanged.

"It seems you’re no ordinary relic." Martin suddenly stood up, walked over to Mo Ling, and circled him. He said in shock, "Could it be that you’re like me? A humanoid relic?"

He even stepped forward and squeezed Mo Ling’s arm. "You aren’t stuck in that Block form all the time, are you?"

In just a few words, Martin had managed to guess Mo Ling’s secret completely.

Mo Ling quickly pulled his hand back and retreated a few steps warily.

"Don’t be nervous. I’m just like you. I know that ’things’ like us need to be careful at all times," Martin said reassuringly.

’He actually called himself a "thing"?’

When Martin said this, his tone was very self-deprecating, and he seemed to understand Mo Ling completely. 𝑓𝑟ℯ𝘦𝓌𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝑐ℴ𝓂

"Forget it. I won’t ask anymore. I hate being interrogated myself."

He walked up to Mo Ling and introduced himself very formally, "My name is Martin. And you?"

His tone was unprecedentedly sincere and gentle, completely devoid of his previous cynical attitude.