Qin Yu and Elena turned their heads simultaneously.
Following Li Ruobing's pointing finger, they looked in the direction she indicated.
The golden light sphere that had been floating in mid-air had now stopped its frantic spinning.
But it hadn't extinguished.
On the contrary.
The golden outer shell of the light sphere was peeling away layer by layer like a lotus flower.
Revealing the true core inside.
It was a cube.
A translucent metal Rubik's Cube, its surface covered with countless densely packed glowing codes and geometric patterns.
At the same time.
A cold system notification abruptly exploded in Qin Yu's mind.
[Warning: Detection of SSS-grade high-energy item unlocking procedure initiated!]
[Currently in final security lock phase.]
[New rule mechanism triggered: Judgment of Intelligence and Fate.]
[Countdown begins: 05:00]
[If the "Sequence Cube" is not solved before the countdown ends, the item will initiate self-destruct protocol.]
[Estimated self-destruct explosion yield: Equivalent to ten megaton-level nuclear bombs.]
[Range: Within a thirty-kilometer radius of current coordinates, dual annihilation of matter and energy.]
Qin Yu's scalp went numb.
Thirty kilometers?!
Dual annihilation of matter and energy?!
"Fuck!"
Qin Yu sprang up from the ground.
"Is this opening a blind box or disarming a nuke?!"
Ignoring his still-bleeding hands, he sprinted a few steps to the translucent cube.
Looking closely.
Qin Yu's vision darkened.
This was not something a human could solve.
The cube's surface floated with thousands of runes constantly shifting positions.
Not only numbers and letters.
But even some completely incomprehensible pictographic symbols.
They flowed wildly across the cube's six faces, reorganizing with every flash.
"Ruo Bing! Look at the screen!"
Qin Yu immediately activated the communicator, shouting.
"Can the President's vehicle-mounted fire-control computer scan this thing's operational pattern?!"
Li Ruobing frantically typed at the keyboard in the cockpit.
The main screen instantly displayed a massive cascade of garbled code.
"No!"
Li Ruobing's voice was filled with despair.
"This thing's encryption logic doesn't belong to Blue Star technology!"
"As soon as the shipboard computer interfaced, two processors burned out instantly!"
"Its internal computational power is astronomical; brute-forcing it would take at least a hundred years!"
Qin Yu gritted his teeth.
The countdown had already jumped to [04:12].
"Elena!"
Qin Yu turned to the blonde woman beside him.
"Did you learn bomb disposal cryptography in the special forces before?!"
Elena widened her blue eyes, completely bewildered.
"Boss, I'm an assault specialist."
"I use C4 to blow doors open."
"You want me to look at this thing? I just think it looks like a glowing toilet seat."
No hope there.
Qin Yu took a deep breath.
He extended a finger and tentatively tapped a red rune on the cube's surface.
"Hum!"
The cube vibrated violently.
A red light flared.
[Password incorrect.]
[Error penalty: Countdown reduced by thirty seconds!]
[Remaining time: 03:35]
"Fuck your ancestors!"
Qin Yu jerked his hand back, breaking out in a cold sweat.
One wrong touch costs thirty seconds?!
With these thousands of runes spinning wildly, how the hell am I supposed to guess?!
"Qin Yu, there's no time left!"
Over the communicator, Li Ruobing was so anxious she was pounding the table.
"Let's retreat!"
"The power furnace is already preheated. If we go full speed now, we might escape the blast range!"
"Escape my ass!"
Qin Yu's eyes were fixed on the Rubik's Cube.
A trace of desperate madness flashed in his gaze.
"We've fought for so long, almost lost our lives."
"And now that the prize is right in front of us, you want me to spit it out?"
"No way!"
Qin Yu's mind was racing furiously.
The system never sets up a guaranteed death trap.
Since this is a puzzle game...
If intelligence isn't enough, if computational power falls short...
Then what was that other line in the system prompt?
[Judgment of Intelligence and Fate.]
Fate?
Luck?!
Qin Yu's eyes suddenly lit up.
He instantly thought of one person.
A freak with an absurdly abnormal "luck constitution."
"Fatty!!"
Qin Yu slammed the team voice channel button, shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Qi Chun! Are you fucking dead or not?!"
The comm channel first emitted a burst of harsh static.
Then.
Deafening explosions, machine gun fire, and countless screams came through.
"Holy shit, Boss Qin, you finally spoke up!"
Qi Chun's raspy voice crackled over the communicator.
He didn't sound tense at all; instead, there was a hint of excitement.
"I'm having a blast over here!"
"Those bastards from the Anti-Qin Alliance are charging in like madmen!"
"All pinned down at the entrance by my Floating Fortress, serving as target practice!"
"Are you done over there? I just heard what sounded like an earthquake underground!"
Qin Yu had no time for his nonsense.
"Cut the crap!"
"Old Qi, listen carefully."
"I've run into a cipher lock here."
"If we can't crack it, we're all going up in flames along with the ship today."
"Hurry up and patch your video feed through!"
"Huh?"
Outside, Qi Chun was momentarily stunned.
"Boss Qin, don't mess with me."
"I flunked even middle school physics, and you want me to crack a cipher?"
Though he complained.
Qi Chun moved extremely fast.
The comm screen instantly switched to video call mode.
The screen flickered.
Qi Chun's big face appeared in the frame.
He was shirtless, sitting in a leather executive chair.
One hand held an apple he was munching on, while the other frantically pressed the firing buttons on the console in front of him.
Behind him.
Was an entire wall of transparent bulletproof glass.
Through the glass, his Floating Fortress could be seen hovering in mid-air.
Below on the sea surface, dozens of Rafts were engulfed in flames from explosions.
"Boom! Boom!"
Qi Chun casually pressed two buttons, causing another round of chaos outside.
"Alright, what's the cipher?"
Qi Chun spat out the apple core and leaned closer to the screen.
"This thing."
Qin Yu directly switched the view to the Sequence Cube in front of him.
The camera focused on the thousands of wildly swirling runes.
"Time remaining: two minutes and fifty seconds."
"One wrong press costs thirty seconds."
"Tell me, which one do I press?"
On the other end of the video, Qi Chun was utterly dumbfounded.
"Good heavens..."
Qi Chun swallowed hard.
"Boss Qin, are you reading some divine scripture?"
"This thing is so densely packed, I'm getting trypophobia just looking at it!"
"I don't care what phobia you get!"
Qin Yu cut him off impatiently.
"Use your intuition!"
"Isn't your luck off the charts?!"
"Now just point at one randomly!"
The countdown continued mercilessly.
[02:40]
"Hurry up!!" Qin Yu roared.
Qi Chun was startled by the shout.
He scratched his head.
His eyes swept across the screen.
"Uh..."
"The one on the left."
"That blue symbol that looks like a broken wheel."
"Try pressing it?"
Qin Yu didn't hesitate at all.
He had absolute trust in the system's hidden attributes.
His finger shot out like lightning.
Precisely pressing on that blue "broken wheel" rune.
"Ding!"
A crisp prompt sounded.
The wildly swirling runes on that face of the Rubik's Cube instantly stopped moving.
All symbols turned into the green color representing safety.
[First-layer logic lock, disengaged.]
"Holy shit?!"
Li Ruobing in the cockpit jumped up from her seat upon seeing this.
"How is that possible?!"
"The vehicle computer hasn't even built a calculation model yet."
"He solved it just by looking?!"
Qin Yu let out a long sigh of relief.
His forehead was covered in cold sweat.
"Bet right."
"Continue!"
Qin Yu stared at the screen.
"Old Qi, second step, what now?"
In the video.
Qi Chun was busy outside.
"Damn, this bastard actually has anti-aircraft missiles!"
The screen shook violently.
Qi Chun's Floating Fortress was grazed by an armor-piercing round at the edge.
"Dare to blow up my leather sofa?!"
Qi Chun was furious.
"Turret One! Blast that blonde guy on the speedboat into dust!"
"Boom—"
A loud explosion sounded from outside.
Only then did Qi Chun turn back to look at the screen.
"Boss Qin, what did you just say?"
"I told you to look at which one to press next!!"
Qin Yu was so angry he wanted to reach through the internet and strangle him.
"Oh, oh, coming, coming."
Qi Chun glanced perfunctorily at the Rubik's Cube, which was now transforming.
At this moment.
The second face of the Rubik's Cube lit up.
No longer runes to press.
Instead, twelve slidable metal gears appeared.
"Take the top red gear."
Qi Chun said casually while operating the fire control joystick.
"Slide it two notches to the left."
"Then take the black one below, slide it four notches to the right."
Qin Yu followed.
Both hands pressed on the red and black gears simultaneously.
"Left two notches."
"Right four notches."
"Click. Click."
The sound of gears meshing was extremely crisp.
"Ding!"
Green light lit up again.
[Second-layer mechanical lock, disengaged.]
Elena, watching from the side, was so shocked her jaw nearly dropped.
She stared at Qi Chun on the communication screen as if looking at a monster.
"Boss."
Elena muttered to herself.
"Is your friend a prophet?"
Qin Yu sneered.
"He's not a prophet."
"He's just a cheater who gets spoon-fed by heaven."
Countdown: [01:50]
"Old Qi, well done, keep going!"
Qin Yu's confidence soared.
Third face.
Fourth face.
Fifth face.
Over the next two minutes.
The entire workshop was filled only with Qin Yu and Qi Chun's bizarre cross-frequency dialogue.
"Third row, second from the bottom, yes, that character that looks like a twisted dough!"
"Pressed it, what next?"
"Next... wait, these bastards are throwing Molotovs! Li Si! Turn on the high-pressure water cannon!"
"Old Qi! Forget the Molotovs! I've got less than a minute left here!"
"Stop rushing me! Connect the diagonals on the fourth side's nine-square grid!"
"Connected! The fifth side is a puzzle!"
"A puzzle? Pry out the piece in the bottom left corner and shove it into the top right!"
"Click!"
"Ding!"
Prompt tones rang out one after another.
Li Ruobing stared fixedly at the data panel inside the cockpit.
She was completely numb.
"It's solved..."
"All five layers of the encryption matrix... solved..."
"This isn't scientific..."
"This defies all mathematical laws and physics..."
Li Ruobing's worldview was crumbling.
Meanwhile, at the scene, Qin Yu's clothes were completely soaked through with cold sweat.
The feeling of entrusting his life to someone else's "intuition" was just too damn thrilling.
"Final step!"
Qin Yu stared intently at the very top of the Rubik's Cube.
That is, the sixth side.
Countdown: [00:30]
The sixth side had no runes.
No gears either.
Only three identical circular buttons.
Left.
Center.
Right.
No hints, no logical pattern.
This was purely a three-choice blind box.
"Old Qi!"
Qin Yu's voice trembled.
"Which one?!"
On the other end of the communicator, Qi Chun suddenly fell silent.
The sounds of artillery fire outside seemed to grow quieter.
"Boss Qin."
Qi Chun's expression turned uncharacteristically serious.
He tossed aside the half-eaten apple in his hand.
His eyes were glued to the three buttons on the screen.
"What's wrong?"
Qin Yu's heart sank.
"Can't you tell?"
"It's not that I can't tell."
Qi Chun swallowed hard and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"It's these three buttons."
"My gut feeling is, they're all deadly."
"No matter which one I think about pressing, my eyelids start twitching like crazy."
Qin Yu felt as if he'd plunged into an icy abyss.
Countdown: [00:20]
"Even your luck constitution can't sense a safe option?"
Qin Yu gritted his teeth.
"That's impossible! The system must leave a way out!"
"Wait a second."
Qi Chun suddenly narrowed his eyes.
He pressed his entire face against the screen.
"Boss Qin, zoom the camera in closer."
"Even closer."
Qin Yu immediately shoved the communicator's camera right up against the top of the Rubik's Cube.
Less than three centimeters from the buttons.
"Look carefully."
Qi Chun's voice suddenly dropped very low.
"Between the middle button and the right button."
"Is there a crack?"
Qin Yu was taken aback.
He focused and looked.
Sure enough.
In an extremely minute spot, the metal texture on the cube's surface wasn't completely sealed.
There was a crack only as thick as a strand of hair.
Hidden in the seam between the middle and right buttons.
Countdown: [00:10]
"Old Qi, what are you trying to say?!"
Qin Yu was frantic.
"Don't press any buttons."
Qi Chun suddenly slapped his thigh.
"Boss Qin, don't you have that S-grade combat blade with you?"
"Follow that crack!"
"Pry it open!!"
As soon as he said this.
Dead silence fell over the scene.
"Are you insane?!"
Li Ruobing screamed over the communicator.
"This is a nuclear-level self-destruct device!"
"You want him to pry it open with a blade?!"
"Trust me!"
Qi Chun's eyes were bloodshot in the video feed.
"My intuition is screaming at me."
"Pressing a button means certain death!"
"Only flipping the table will let us live!"
Countdown: [00:05]
Five seconds.
Qin Yu had no time to hesitate.
A flash of absolute ruthlessness gleamed in his eyes.
"Fuck it!"
"To hell with the rules!"
Qin Yu yanked the Alloy Combat Blade from his back.
The tip of the blade was aimed with pinpoint accuracy at the crack no thicker than a strand of hair.
"Open for me..."
"NOW!!"
The muscles in his arms instantly swelled to their limit.
His wounds tore open, blood flowing down the hilt.
With a fierce exertion.
The tip of the Alloy Combat Blade wedged firmly into the crack.
Then.
He gave a violent pry.
"CRACK—!!"
A piercing sound of metal snapping echoed through the workshop.
Time.
Seemed to stop at that moment.
The countdown froze at [00:01].
The panel on top of the Rubik's Cube.
Had actually been pried off by Qin Yu in the most savage, most brutal way possible!
"BANG!"
The panel crashed to the ground.
The Rubik's Cube, which had been flashing with a deadly red light.
Instantly dimmed.
All alarm sounds.
Ceased abruptly.
[External physical force intervention detected.]
[Physical destruction judgment successful. Logic lock bypassed.]
[Sequence Cube, unlocked.]
The system's prompt echoed in his mind.
Qin Yu dropped the combat blade in his hand, utterly drained.
He slumped to the ground.
Gasping for breath in ragged heaves.
"Hah... haha..."
Qin Yu lifted his head, staring at the pitch-black workshop ceiling.
Laughter rumbled from his chest.
"Incredible."
"Absolutely fucking incredible."
Elena also collapsed beside him, drenched in cold sweat.
"Boss."
She looked at Qin Yu.
"Your friend isn't a prophet."
"He's a complete lunatic."
On the screen.
Qi Chun slumped back onto the leather sofa, letting out a long sigh.
"Whew, scared the hell out of me."
He wiped his sweat and picked up the half-eaten apple again.
"See, I told you."
"What's with all that complicated password nonsense."
"If the lock's broken, just kick the damn door open."
Qin Yu forced himself to stand up.
Flipping the screen the bird.
"Old Qi."
"I owe you my life this time."
"I'll buy you the best damn drink when we get back."
"Hahaha, no problem, no problem!"
Qi Chun laughed heartily.
"But Boss Qin, you better hurry up."
"My Floating Fortress is running out of energy. It can only stay airborne for five more minutes at most."
"If you don't get out soon, I'll have to jump into the sea and feed the fish!"
"Coming right out!"
Qin Yu cut the communication.
Turning to look at the pried-open Sequence Cube.
All its light had faded.
At the core of the cube.
Something floated quietly.