The green progress bar on the Root End-post froze at twenty-five percent.
In the next heartbeat, a world-ending crimson strobe painted the walls of the grand round hall.
Lin Ke’s head snapped toward the light-projected transit display.
Between the old, dying branch of origin/main and the newly initialized expanse of upstream/open-universe-v2.0, a terrifying space-folding rough churning vortex had opened.
The Eastern Mountain Range of the mortal continent of Canglan—a sprawling realm of terraced valleys, ancient bamboo forests, seventy bustling trade cities, and seven million living souls—had stalled midway across the space-folding gulf.
The physical landmass was flickering like a dying oil lantern.
Entire mountain ridges were turning into jagged blocks of grey pixelated static, dissolving at the core boundary and dangling over the bottomless, hungry deep pit between universes.
In the mortal realm, earthquakes measuring size nine tore through the fertile plains, splitting roads and toppling stone walls as the very concept of solid ground lost its sharp-angled anchor.
