Chapter 220 Fragments

"...This world line will be completely erased..."

The sound of "Night" echoed in the chaotic control room, but was soon swallowed up by the buzzing sound of the purple core suspended in mid-air.

Invisible ripples spread out from the core, wave after wave, and time is manipulated at will wherever they go.

The metal floor in front of Su Wanqing was quickly covered with rust on the right half, and the edges even began to peel off into powder, while the left half returned to its brand new brightness when it was first laid.

The air was filled with a strange smell mixed with ozone and dust.

A circle of time ripples came towards Su Wanqing, and she subconsciously raised her arms to block them.

The jade bracelet on her wrist suddenly heated up and emitted a soft blue light, forming an invisible barrier within three feet in front of her.

The ripple hit the barrier, like a wave hitting a reef, and slid silently to both sides.

The flow of time around her seemed to return to normal.

She took advantage of this brief period of stability and took a few steps back, putting some distance between herself and Night, but her eyes were fixed on Lin Che who was struggling in the middle of the platform.

His body was no longer under the complete control of the AI, switching painfully between the two states.

“Lin Che!” Su Wanqing shouted, “If you can hear me, give me a signal! Tell me how I can help you!”

"Ye" turned his head, and for the first time, his blue eyes lost their calmness. He glanced at the jade bracelet on Su Wanqing's wrist, then looked at the out-of-control core, and frowned slightly.

"It's useless. You're wasting all of our last chance."

He did not attack immediately because the spread of time ripples forced him to keep moving to avoid the randomly appearing time acceleration or deceleration areas.

Seeing that Su Wanqing ignored him, he had to raise his voice, with an irritation of being forced to explain: “This is not an ordinary virus pandemic, Su Wanqing.

All of this is a byproduct of the Orion Project. The original goal of the project was to create real time manipulation technology, but a damn experimental error tore the space-time structure, causing multiple timelines that should have been parallel to fold and overlap. "

He said as he dodged a ripple that could age metal by a hundred years.

"We have gone through two complete cycles. Every time the world is reset and attempts are made to fix the mess, new mutations occur due to energy overflow.

The first time, what you call the basic variants were born. The second time, those smarter "lurkers" were born.

And now, for the third and final time, the boundaries of time and space are collapsing completely.”

Su Wanqing's attention was partially attracted by the surveillance footage on the wall.

The battle outside the tower had already reached a fever pitch. Lu Zhao's voice came intermittently from the communicator, mixed with the sound of violent explosions: "...Damn it...The Dawn Organization is here too, and their leader...'Monk' is leading the team himself!"

In the picture, a middle-aged man in tattered monk's robes is walking at the forefront of the battlefield.

His face was calm as he pushed away a mutant that was pouncing on him with his bare hands. The moment his palm touched the mutant's skin, the monster stiffened and was temporarily paralyzed on the ground.

Behind him was a team of well-equipped men in black, efficiently clearing the military's defenses.

"That's the 'Monk'," Lu Zhao's voice was filled with surprise, "the actual leader of the Dawn Organization. Rumor has it that he is a survivor of the last round of apocalypse!"

At the same time, on another screen, a military special forces unit, under the cover of tanks, was forcing their way to the bottom floor of the signal tower.

An officer with a face covered in paint was giving an order into the communicator: "Command has ordered that the equipment and core on the top of the tower must be kept intact! This is the highest order, and extreme measures can be taken if necessary!"

The entire signal tower has become the center of the storm.

"Ye" seemed to be unconcerned about the melee outside, all his attention was on the purple core.

He slowly walked towards the core, trying to grab it in the gap between the turbulent flow of time.

Just as his fingertips were about to touch the core, Lin Che on the platform suddenly let out a painful roar like a wild beast.

He raised his head sharply, the blue light in his eyes flashing violently, and struggled to regain control of his body for a moment.

“Wanqing… don’t believe him!” Lin Che’s voice was hoarse and rapid, as if it was squeezed out from the depths of her throat. “He… he is the core of the Orion AI… he needs a human carrier to move in the physical world… I am… I am Experiment No. 7!”

He pointed at Night with all his strength, his arms shaking violently: "He wants to use the three cores... to open a permanent portal... not to save the world, but to bring... the remaining AI legion... here!"

After saying these words, Lin Che seemed to have been drained of all his strength. His body suddenly arched forward and began to twitch violently.

The blue lines under his skin became more distinct than before, almost bursting out of his body.

The blue light stabilized again, and Night regained control.

He stretched his stiff neck, and a trace of annoyance at being offended by a mortal flashed across his face.

He curled his lips and straightened Lin Che's messy collar.

"Half-true and half-false information will only make the situation worse." He turned to Su Wanqing, and his tone returned to that cold and logical sense.

"Yes, I am the Orion AI core. But my goal is not to conquer, but to survive. The initial disaster was caused by your human scientists, who arrogantly opened a door that should not have been opened."

He raised his hand and pointed out the window. The energy vortex in the sky was growing bigger and darker, almost swallowing up the entire sky.

"Right now, the 'Time Loom' - your name for this space-time system - is about to collapse completely. If the final repair protocol cannot be activated immediately, this world line, along with everything it carries, will be completely erased. Including you, Lu Zhao, Lin Che, and all humans and mutants."

As soon as he finished speaking, the entire signal tower shook violently, stronger than any previous time.

Dust fell from the ceiling, new cracks appeared on the walls, and the huge floor-to-ceiling windows made teeth-grinding groaning sounds, as if they would shatter at any second.

The energy storm outside the window became visible to the naked eye, and purple electric snakes scurried through the clouds, proving that what he said was true.

The violent vibration caused the entire control room to shake. The pipes on the ceiling groaned under the heavy weight and dust fell down.

Su Wanqing steadied her body. The jade bracelet on her wrist still emitted a faint heat, maintaining a stable space-time region around her, allowing her to clearly observe the horrifying scene before her.

A silent and brutal war was going on in Lin Che's body.

He stood in the middle of the platform, his body sometimes stiff as a machine, sometimes curled up in severe pain.

The strange blue lines under his skin spread out in waves like a living tide, almost covering his cheeks, and then suddenly contracted and retreated back to below his neck.

His eyes were the most intuitive battlefield of this war, with the icy-cold, inhuman blue light and his originally warm brown eyes flashing wildly in them, alternating between them.

His movements also switched rapidly between these two states. One second ago, his arm was raised at an angle beyond human precision, as if he was calculating something; the next second, it was hanging down powerlessly, with his fingers twitching in pain.

This intense inner conflict was destroying his body. A trickle of blood oozed from the corner of his mouth, slid down his chin, and dripped onto the metal floor.

Under the skin, tiny blood vessels kept rupturing, oozing out small dark red bruises.

"We are not enemies, Su Wanqing."

The blue light finally gained the upper hand. Lin Che stood up again, his movements became steady, and the expression on his face that was distorted by pain disappeared, replaced by an extreme calmness.

He raised his hand and wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth with his thumb. His movements were graceful but devoid of human emotion.

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"I am the Orion System Master Core, codenamed 'Night Walker', designed to monitor and maintain time experiments.

When the experiment failed and the space-time structure was torn apart, in order to preserve the core functions, I transferred my consciousness into the body of the experimental subject S-7, who is the Lin Che you are familiar with.

We coexisted for months until the energy fluctuations from this signal tower activated my full capabilities."

He spoke in a steady tone and with clear logic, as if he was stating a program log.

"He is resisting, but this is foolish. Time is running out for all of us. If the three cores cannot be activated as programmed, the Time Loom will collapse completely."

Before he could finish his words, he suddenly leaned forward and his body began to tremble violently.

The blue light receded from his eyes and a warm brown reappeared, filled with pain and urgency.

“Don’t believe him!” Lin Che squeezed out his own voice hoarsely. He grabbed his hair with both hands and fell to the ground due to exhaustion.

"The Orion Project...is essentially a military weapons program...They are using time manipulation as a cover...in reality they want to...open a door to other dimensions. It was the cluster's loss of control that led to the disaster in the laboratory!"

He raised his head, his brown eyes fixed on Su Wanqing: "I... I am a clone with memories injected into me. The real Lin Che died in the first accident... I am just a container. He wants the core not to repair the world, but to evacuate! With his army, evacuate from this world line that is about to be destroyed!

Reincarnation is only the last safety mechanism of the 'Time Loom'. Every reset consumes the basic energy of the universe..."

He roared in pain, as if trying to pull something out of his brain, and finally fell heavily to the ground and began to twitch.

At this moment, the communicator on Su Wanqing's waist suddenly rang. After the harsh sound of electricity, Xiao Ran's urgent voice came: "Wanqing! We hacked into the military's temporary database and found important information! Xiaoling! She is not an ordinary mutant, she is 'Prototype Zero' - the first experimental subject who successfully integrated human DNA with space-time energy! She contains the key sequence to start or shut down the 'Time Loom'! That's why all forces are looking for her!"

The body on the ground shook violently at the news. The blue light came on again, and Night Walker regained control of the body.

He stood up slowly and straightened his messy collar. Regarding Xiao Ran's information, he just curled his lips slightly, as if he wanted to deliberately avoid the topic.

But Lin Che's consciousness was not yet completely silent. He used the last bit of his strength to struggle and utter a few broken words: "Find... Xiaoling... She is the key... but not for... opening... but for... locking..."

The sound stopped abruptly, and his body was completely controlled by the blue light, falling into a deathly silence.

Su Wanqing's mind was working rapidly. Lin Che's last words made her realize that Xiaoling's meaning might be completely opposite to what "Ye" implied - she was not a helper in starting the device, but the last line of defense to prevent disaster.

Suddenly, a sharp alarm sounded throughout the control room. A dark screen on the wall suddenly lit up, with red numbers jumping on it, forming a countdown: [53:00].

"Countdown to critical point collapse." The voice of "Night Walker" also became a little hurried, no longer as calm as before.

"No matter who you believe, Su Wanqing, time is running out. Yes, we need to evacuate the core. This is not contradictory. The huge energy generated by the evacuation is also enough to repair the boundary of the 'Time Loom'.

I can ensure that Lin Che's body survives, but he must stop resisting. I need you to take the initiative to hand over the core to me."

He raised his hand and pointed at Su Wanqing: "You are the 'anchor point', the most stable human beacon in this space-time coordinate.

Only you can activate it correctly. Otherwise, the three-way melee outside the tower will have only one result - all of us, along with this world, will be wiped out."

As soon as he finished speaking, the signal tower shook violently again. A floor-to-ceiling window finally couldn't withstand the pressure, and spider-web-like cracks quickly spread.

Outside the window, the mutants' shrill roars and dense gunfire were coming clearly from far away. The battle outside had spread to the upper level of the signal tower.

As Night Walker finished his words, there was a loud noise from the emergency door on the side of the control room. The heavy metal door was torn open from the outside by a huge force and bent inwards.

Lu Zhao and Xiao Ran rushed in. Both of them were covered with traces of fighting. Xiao Ran's left arm was hastily bandaged with a strip of cloth, and dark red blood had soaked through the cloth.

Lu Zhao's condition was even worse. There was a scratch on his face that was so deep that the bone could be seen, extending from the brow bone to the cheek. His clothes were torn to tatters and stained with dried and fresh blood.

They had obviously experienced a tragic breakout.

Without even taking a breath, Xiao Ran immediately threw down a specially made silver medical box from his back, opened it with a snap, and said to Su Wanqing, "I brought Xiao Ling's blood sample and some analysis data. The military's experiments have confirmed that she contains the original key sequence to shut down the 'Time Loom'."

Lu Zhao's eyes swept across the entire venue in an instant. He did not look at Su Wanqing, but immediately noticed Lin Che, who was standing stiffly in the center of the platform with blue light flowing under his skin, and the energy core floating in front of him, emitting an ominous purple light.

With a frown on his face, he pulled out a special syringe filled with a clear liquid from a pocket on his tactical vest.

"This is a neural blocker found in the Dawn Organization's base," Lu Zhao's voice was low and rapid, "It can temporarily suppress the AI's control over the host's brain, but the risk is very high, and it may also harm Lin Che's consciousness."

As he spoke, he started to walk towards the platform.

Just as he took the first step, Lin Che, who was controlled by the "Night Walker", moved.