Arknights: The Life Inside-Chapter 42

Yoren rejected Zhang Yuan's plea but gave him a firm promise—he would return alive.

Zhang Yuan had no reason to stop him. Yoren was already infected. If he stayed in this world, death was inevitable. Only Terra had the means to suppress oripathy.

—

By the time he got home, night had fallen.

He didn't turn on the light. Instead, he sat in silence on the bed, the darkness wrapping around him like a heavy shroud.

The wound on his left hand from crushing the phone had stopped bleeding on its own. He wasn't sure if this rapid healing was due to the mineral disease or the strange powers surging within him. He knew nothing for certain anymore—but it was useful.

However, this ability only seemed to mend superficial wounds. It did nothing for his failing organs. Within a single day, he had suffered two flare-ups, each worse than the last. His body was deteriorating fast. There was no doubt in his mind—if this continued, he would collapse and die at any moment.

He had no choice.

He had to go back.

—

It had been a full day since the disaster struck Terra. By now, the chaos should have settled. Though infected, he wasn't concerned about lingering pathogenic threats in Mandel City.

Ifrit had appeared there. A test subject of Rhine Lab. That meant Columbia had already set its sights on the city.

Yoren hadn't traveled across half the map to northern Ursus just to test some new weapon. If his suspicions were correct, the moment the disaster ended, the Columbian military would move in to seize control.

Two natural disasters in the same location within ten days—

The amount of Originium clusters that would form would be unimaginable.

—

Survival was his top priority now, which meant finding medical treatment to suppress his oripathy.

He wouldn't find it in Ursus. Not in a hospital, not anywhere. As an infected, he wouldn't even be allowed near a city. If he were caught, his fate would be sealed—Ursus had no mercy for the infected.

Victoria was also out of the question. With Mandel City reduced to ruins, everyone likely assumed he was dead. He had barely glanced at a map before—Victoria was too far, and he had no idea where the Glasgow Gang's headquarters was. A place like that would be well hidden.

With his body failing, leaving Ursus was nearly impossible.

After weighing every option, only one remained: Rhine Lab.

There was no doubt in his mind that they would be interested in him. A newly infected individual who had somehow possessed the strength to defeat Red Knife and Big Bob, even leveling an entire building to the ground—

Yoren was curious about it himself.

And he was certain Rhine Lab would be too.

—

He sat on the bed, switched on his phone, and let the dim screen glow faintly illuminate his face.

Arknights was updating. With no other choice, he opened his browser and searched for information on Rhine Lab's operators.

Hemer, Saria, Ifrit, White-Faced Owl, and Mel—the eccentric engineer lost in his own world.

Hemer and White-Faced Owl were both infected. Hemer led the Originium Research Project, White-Faced Owl managed the lab's data, and Saria commanded the entire Rhine Lab Defense Department. These were not just operators—they were key figures in Rhine Lab.

White-Faced Owl had access to all classified data. In other words, she knew everything about Rhine Lab.

Ifrit was another matter entirely. Severely infected, she wasn't a patient receiving treatment—she was an experimental subject. Her operator profile was filled with garbled data. The same went for Amiya. Strange.

It was clear that these records came from Rhodes Island's database, but there were no timestamps.

The current year was three years before the Che City riot.

That complicated things. Without knowing how far along events had progressed, he had no clear timeline.

—

The game update still wasn't finished. Yoren continued scrolling through operator files until his eyes landed on something—a single, seemingly insignificant line in White-Faced Owl's profile.

[Flame Demon Incident.]

Four words. Just four words on the glowing screen, reflecting in his eyes.

White-Faced Owl had refused to let anyone access details about it—including other Rhine Lab personnel.

Clearly, this was something Rhine Lab wanted buried.

But the question remained—

Had the Flame Demon Incident already happened?

And what exactly did "Flame Demon" refer to?

—

Yoren frowned, mind racing back to the visions that had flashed before him that day—the towering spires, the sky-bound city, the war that consumed everything.

For some reason, those images didn't feel like illusions. They felt real. As if they had happened before, somewhere in Terra's past. And somehow, they were connected to the present.

Based on what he knew of Arknights' lore, he was beginning to see threads of a larger pattern. But the pieces were scattered, tangled. He couldn't string them together just yet.

This content is taken from fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm.

—

The update finally finished.

[Akunako!]

The familiar login prompt rang out, and the game's UI appeared.

In the pitch-dark room, Yoren stared at the screen, unmoving.

One thought haunted him.

His phone had hit his face while he was playing Arknights—that was what triggered his journey to Terra.

He never believed it was a coincidence. Someone had orchestrated it.

The phone itself wasn't special. It was just a medium. If the one responsible had wanted, they could have used anything—an alarm clock, a cup, even a pair of slippers.

Which meant things were far more complicated than he initially thought.

If a portal had truly connected two separate worlds—Earth and Terra—then logically, the distance between them had to be at least four light-years apart, beyond the reach of human exploration.

But then came the voice.

The one who had told him to save Amiya. That wasn't a god—it was a person. A conscious mind. Someone who had deliberately brought him here.

But why summon him? And why go to such extreme lengths?

The idea of a dimensional rift spanning galaxies seemed impossible. This wasn't advanced technology. It was something beyond science.

It was like forbidden magic—something only a Grand Mage could wield.

But if that were true, why would someone with such power need an ordinary person like him?

No.

That possibility had to be ruled out.

So did the idea of a stable intergalactic portal.

Which left only one explanation.

—

A cold sweat broke out on Yoren's forehead as he pieced it together.

Maybe this wasn't another world at all.

Maybe it was the same world.

Then why were there such drastic differences between countries, races, and even the environment itself?

There was only one answer.

Time.

—

It was only a theory. A guess, based purely on instinct.

But even so, the conclusion sent a chill down his spine.

If he was right, the one behind this wasn't a god, a mage, or some celestial being.

It was someone from this planet.

From his own era.

Someone had built a time machine.

And his phone—

It had been bound to it.

Holding the phone, Yoren felt like he was standing before an illusory door.

What lay on the other side?

There was no time travel between Terra and the real world.

But time travel?

No. No, Yoren quickly realized something was wrong.

He immediately discarded that theory.

This was definitely not the same world. Perhaps these two worlds weren't even in the same dimension.

Because there was something inescapable—the butterfly effect.

If Terra was simply the future of the real world, then everything he did now would affect what was to come. Just as his actions in Terra could prevent the riots in Che City three years later, anything he did here should also shape the future.

If the two worlds were truly the same.

Then, every time he crossed over, there should be subtle changes in Terra. A blood sample left behind, for example—such a thing could trigger unpredictable chain reactions.

A drop of cold sweat slid down Yoren's cheek.

If he returned to Terra now and found the world drastically altered, it would prove his theory right.

If nothing changed...

That wouldn't necessarily mean he was wrong.

Because there was another possibility.

A singular event at the divide between the real world and Terra—something massive enough to sever all butterfly effects.

Like how no matter how high a dinosaur leaped or how fast it ran millions of years ago, its actions couldn't change the 21st century.

As if the world had been reformatted, wiped clean. No matter what had happened before, it was erased, leaving the present untouched by the past.

But something still didn't sit right.

Yoren's mind twisted itself into knots the more he thought about it.

It was too complex. He simply didn't have enough information to draw a conclusion.

He swallowed hard.

No matter what, he had to return to Terra first.

Everything was ready.

He wrapped his mother's red Hengyuanxiang scarf around his neck. A spiritual tether, grounding him to this world.

Lying flat on his bed, he opened Arknights and stared quietly at Amiya's face on the UI screen.

Holding his phone tightly, he prepared to toss it into the air and perform the classic phone-smashes-into-face maneuver.

At that moment, a line of text suddenly appeared on the screen.

The current mass of the object has exceeded the carrying density. If you proceed, this trip will have no return conditions. After execution, this program will be automatically destroyed.

Yoren froze mid-throw, eyes locking onto the words.

What?

Mass exceeds carrying density?

A program?

Before he could process it, the text changed.

The channel has been opened. Please choose whether to proceed with this trip.

Yes / No

What the hell?

Panic clawed at his chest. Had he become too heavy due to his infection? No—maybe it was because of the two inexplicable forces within him. The energy surging inside his body was simply too great to be transported anymore.

Was he only able to hop back and forth before because he had been nothing but an ordinary, useless guy?

The channel will close in 30 seconds. Due to insufficient energy, it cannot be reopened. Please choose.

Damn it. Why was this suddenly so nerve-wracking?

Yoren's gaze darted around his room.

If he chose "Yes," he would never be able to return.

A countdown began on the screen.

He hadn't expected this. He knew he had to go back, but if it meant severing all ties with this world...

It was like a teenager determined to run away from home. He knew he had to leave to chase his dreams. But if, at that moment, someone told him that once he walked out that door, he could never come back—not after failure, not after success, not even when he was old and longing for home—wouldn't he hesitate?

Anyone would.

Yoren gritted his teeth. Even though he had always felt like an outsider in this world, the moment of farewell still stung.

But he had no choice.

If he wanted to survive, he had to return to Terra. If he lost this chance, he would die of organ failure. And his corpse would become a catastrophe.

Yoren clenched his fists.

Screw it. As long as he was alive, anything was possible. Maybe, one day, he would find a way back with his own hands.

Once Terra was settled, he would return. Definitely.

His thumb pressed firmly against the "Yes" button.

He tossed the phone into the air, closed his eyes, and shouted.

"Fuck, Akunako!"

Bang!

The phone smacked him square in the face.

A blinding blue light exploded, engulfing his entire body, illuminating the dark room. Then, he shattered into fragments of light, which funneled into the phone.

Plop.

The phone landed on the bed.

The room was empty.

The Arknights app had been automatically deleted.

—

Yoren's head spun violently. This time, it was worse than before. The sensation dragged on and on.

He couldn't see. Only a deafening buzz filled his ears. His body spun endlessly, his consciousness barely holding together.

In the darkness, he felt countless things pass through him, like his very soul was being pulled apart.

It was unbearable.

Just as he reached his limit, the buzzing faded, and his body regained weight, sensation—reality.

Then came the heat, thick and suffocating.

His feet touched solid ground.

The final jump had been made.

Opening his eyes, he was back in Terra.

—

He had landed at the exact point where he had last left—the heart of Mandel City.

Or what remained of it.

This historic Ursus trading hub had been wiped off the map. Forgotten by the world for the past 27 years, but now... there wasn't even anything left for archaeologists to find.

The sky burned red, waves of heat rolling in.

Standing atop a massive slab of sunken rock, Yoren took in the aftermath of the catastrophe.

Total devastation.

Staring at the ruin before him, he couldn't help but feel his own insignificance in the face of such absolute destruction.