Chapter 182: The Next World on the List

Liam watched the two worlds through his consciousness space, his attention fixed on the enormous globe rotating beneath the gentle light of the white space. One represented the planet he had inhabited since his reincarnation, while the other belonged to the world he had connected to through a skill called, Astral Gate.

The name had initially seemed straightforward enough. It allowed him to establish a connection between distant locations, creating a passage that linked places that would otherwise remain separated by an enormous distance, but his experiments had revealed something far more interesting.

The skill did not necessarily have to remain a passage.

Liam remembered the experiment that had led him to this discovery. He had been examining the connection between the two worlds, testing the limits of Astral Gate and observing how the surrounding space reacted to its presence, when he decided to try something different.

Instead of treating the gate as a temporary connection between two locations, he attempted to link the corresponding regions of both worlds more directly.

The result had been unexpected.

At first, the changes were subtle enough that he almost dismissed them as an ordinary consequence of the gate’s activation. The boundaries surrounding the connected regions began to behave differently, and the space between them gradually lost the distinct separation that had previously defined the passage.

Then the two regions started merging.

Not through a violent collision, nor through the destruction of one world to make room for the other, but through a gradual process in which their boundaries began to align. It was as though the portal had never existed in the first place, leaving the two connected regions to become parts of a single continuous environment.

Liam had immediately stopped treating the phenomenon as a simple experiment.

He had spent the following period observing the changes, carefully monitoring the connected regions and checking whether the process remained stable. What began as a small test had developed into something much larger, and the consequences were now visible across the two worlds.

"They’re actually merging."

He spoke quietly, his attention following the boundaries as they continued to align. The process was neither instantaneous nor perfectly uniform, but it had progressed far enough that the distinction between the connected regions was becoming increasingly difficult to identify.

Liam could not help finding the result fascinating.

He had expected Astral Gate to provide transportation, perhaps even a means of connecting distant civilizations, but he had not anticipated that linking two regions could cause them to merge as though the connection had always existed.

The skill had effectively become a tool for changing the relationship between worlds, and he still did not know where its limits lay.

Naturally, he wanted to find out.

He had attempted to examine Astral Gate several times, searching for an explanation of the merger or an indication of how far the skill could be pushed. Unfortunately, the information available to him did not provide a satisfying answer.

The system could identify the skill, but it could not explain everything the skill was doing.

Liam stared at the interface for a few seconds before closing it.

He had grown accustomed to that silence, though he still disliked working without reliable information. Before becoming an anomaly, he could usually use the system’s records to understand his available options, evaluate his progress, and make decisions with at least some degree of certainty.

Now, he often had to rely on experimentation.

Fortunately, experimentation was something he understood.

He returned his attention to the merger and examined the regions where the two worlds had first become connected. The boundaries had already changed considerably, and the process appeared to be continuing without requiring him to maintain a conventional portal between them.

That was the most important discovery.

If the merger depended entirely on an active portal, then maintaining the connection might require his constant attention or expose the worlds to disruptions whenever the gate was disturbed. Yet the regions continued to align even after the initial passage had ceased to function as an ordinary gateway.

The connection had become something more permanent.

Liam considered what would happen if he repeated the process elsewhere. Could he connect additional regions and cause them to merge as well, gradually bringing more of the two worlds together? Or would attempting to expand the process create instability that could threaten the progress already made?

He did not know.

For the moment, he decided against conducting another large experiment. The existing merger was already providing enough information, and there was little reason to risk disrupting it simply because he wanted to see what would happen.

He could always experiment again after understanding the current process more thoroughly.

His attention drifted toward the surrounding darkness beyond the globe, where countless other worlds remained beyond his immediate reach.

Every planet was different, and every player had their own abilities.

Speaking of which, Liam had recently decided on his next target.

It was Leo.

The name brought his attention back to the question of planetary strength, something he had struggled to evaluate since his transformation into an anomaly. The system could no longer provide all the information he wanted, and relying entirely on its incomplete records would be an unnecessary risk.

Perhaps there was another way.

Liam considered using Astral Projection to observe Leo’s world directly. The ability would allow him to extend his consciousness beyond his immediate surroundings, potentially giving him a closer look at the planet and the civilizations living upon it without announcing his intentions through a conventional invasion.

It would not necessarily reveal everything.

He opened the relevant function and prepared to extend his consciousness toward the distant world, intending to gather whatever information he could before committing himself to the next stage of his plans. He had no reason to rush into an invasion without first examining the target, particularly when he could use his available abilities to reduce some of the uncertainty.

Liam glanced at the globe one final time before shifting his focus.

The merger would continue while he investigated Leo’s world, and he would return to monitor its progress afterward. For now, the experiment had already taught him something valuable about Astral Gate, even if it had left him with more questions than answers.

A portal did not always have to remain a portal.

Under the right conditions, it could become the beginning of a permanent connection, one that gradually erased the distinction between two previously separated regions.

Liam intended to learn just how far that principle could go.

But first, he needed to understand the strength of the player whose world he planned to invade next.