Netherworld, First Research Institute (formerly the Bridge of Helplessness Maintenance Department).

  If the demons in the Abyss are monsters that don't need sleep, then the Ghost Messenger engineers of the Netherworld now looked even more like monsters than the demons.

  *Beep—Beep—Beep—!!!*

  The piercing, highest-level red alarm flashed madly on the dome of the research institute.

  Dozens of Ghost Messenger engineers, who had just finished the "Bilateral Portal Permanent Solidification Project" and were collapsed in various twisted postures at their workstations to catch up on sleep, bounced up as if struck by high-voltage electricity. Their eye bags were sagging down to their cheekbones, and their hands were still tightly gripping empty cans of "Special Refreshing Edition Aunt Meng's Soup."

  "What's going on?! Did the portal collapse?!" an engineer grabbed his thinning hair in despair.

  "No! It's not the portal!"

  Daoist Singularity rushed into the main control room like a whirlwind, the hem of his Daoist robe even carrying sparks because he was running so fast. He shoved aside a Ghost Messenger blocking the way and slammed his hands onto the massive holographic console.

  "Hurry! Cut off the sleep mode of Reactor Number Two! Pull the power of all the 'Sky Eye' arrays to the maximum! Aim them right above the Abyss Outpost!" Singularity's voice changed pitch due to extreme tension.

  The engineers wore miserable faces and could only throw themselves back in front of the consoles like a group of walking corpses, their fingers tapping out desperate afterimages on the keyboards.

  "Boss, what exactly happened? We just closed our eyes for three minutes..."

  "Shut up! Look at the screen!" Singularity pointed at the originally calm Abyss energy topology map on the large screen.

  Right in the center of that map, above the low-entropy green dot representing the Slayer, a massive energy vortex expanding exponentially suddenly appeared.

  But what made Singularity's blood run cold was not the magnitude of the energy, but the "color" of this energy.

  ...

  Abyss Outpost, Portal Vault.

  The Slayer still stood atop that hundred-meter altitude.

  Originally, the sky (or rather, the dome) of the Abyss was always an oppressive dark red, filled with rolling toxic clouds and lightning.

  But now, the void directly above the Slayer had changed.

  That was not the blood-red rift resembling a rotten wound that commonly occurred when Abyss demons tore through space, nor did it have that nauseating stench of sulfur and viscera.

  The dome of the Abyss was like a dirty black cloth, slashed straight open from the outside by an extremely sharp, extremely precise blade.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The edges of the rift flashed with a blinding "Mystic Gold Color."

  It was a blackness profound to the extreme, yet its edges were inlaid with pure, dazzling golden light that carried a kind of high-and-mighty oppressive might. This golden light was not warm; instead, it exuded a "sense of solemnity" that was freezing to the bone, almost mechanically ruthless.

  As this mystic golden light leaked into the Abyss, the surrounding raging spatial turbulences were actually forcibly suppressed and smoothed out. There was even a faint resonance of an extremely low-frequency, grand bell-like sound.

  To ordinary people, this light might represent the descent of the sacred.

  But to the Slayer.

  This smell... was too disgusting.

  It made him feel even more disgusted than the Patriarch of the Blood Sea's straightforward stench of rot. This was a hypocritical, high-and-mighty aura, attempting to use so-called "order" to cover up its arrogance.

  The Slayer's chest heaved violently once.

  His actions held not the slightest hesitation.

  He didn't retreat to find cover, nor did he wait for Singularity's intelligence analysis.

  He took a large stride forward, half of his combat boot's sole directly suspended over the edge of the hundred-meter-high vault.

  *Clack.*

  His gauntlets, covered in black Demon Dragon scales, gripped the handle of the Super Shotgun dead tight. The force was so great that the Demon Steel-reinforced gun stock emitted an extremely faint sound of deformation.

  The auto-targeting shoulder cannon on his left shoulder popped up instantly, the red laser designator nailed dead onto the center of that expanding mystic golden rift.

  The Tiger Soul Chainsaw at his waist also seemed to feel its master's uncontrollable urge to slaughter, letting out a "vroom," emitting an extremely low, bloodthirsty tiger's roar.

  Impatient.

  The Slayer's body leaned forward slightly, knees slightly bent.

  He was waiting.

  Waiting for that guy peeking from behind the mystic golden rift to poke its head out. As long as the other party dared to reveal a slight physical outline, he would pull the trigger without hesitation, or directly use his thrusters to charge into that rift and tear the opponent to pieces.

  His entire body entered a state of extreme tension, like a fierce beast lowering its body, ready to pounce on new prey at any moment.

  No more boredom.

  Prey had arrived at the door.

  ...

  Netherworld Control Center.

  Singularity looked at the eerie mystic golden rift on the screen, then looked at the Slayer who had completely entered a frenzied state of combat readiness, and cold sweat dripped down his forehead onto the keyboard.

  "This energy spectrum... is absolutely not a product of the Abyss! There's no baleful aura, no demonic energy..."

  An engineer who had worked overtime until his eyes were bloodshot tremblingly raised his head: "Lord Singularity... this purity of golden light... and this geometric regularity of spatial folding... we've only seen it once in the Netherworld..."

  Singularity, of course, knew where that came from.

  His Adam's apple bobbed.

  "Concealment vs Exposure."

  "The Great Hero's previous commotion was too big, especially that Ultimate Overload BFG shot that evaporated the Blood Sea; it definitely pierced through some higher-dimensional monitoring network..."

  "Someone 'up above' has cast their gaze down along the channel we opened."

  Singularity stared fixedly at the screen, completely oblivious to the fact that in the bottom right corner of his chaotic Heavenly Dao Tablet desktop, which was filled with monitoring windows, a small, golden-flashing envelope icon quietly popped up.

  It was a new text message:

  *[Celestial Court Heavenly Dao Bank Friendly Reminder: Respected King Qinguang (and Guarantor Singularity), the fees incurred for the Celestial Court computing power and Nine Heavens Mysterious Lightning and other materials you borrowed are severely overdue, and late fees are accumulating by the hour. Our bank has dispatched a special commissioner to the lower realm to verify assets. Please keep your communication lines open...]*

  This debt collection message, enough to give King Yama a cerebral hemorrhage, was thus completely ignored by Singularity.

  In Singularity's eyes, there was only that slowly opening mystic golden rift.

  He took a deep breath and grabbed the communicator broadcast microphone.

  "Next Chapter: The Celestial Court's Tremor. Great Hero, looking at these mystic gold special effects and this annoyingly arrogant pageantry... I think the one knocking on the door this time is probably not an Abyss local specialty."

  "But those self-proclaimed, high-and-mighty... 'Gods'."