Chapter 231 Final Decision

The golden halo supported by Su Wanqing's life energy was shrinking rapidly.

She leaned against a broken block of concrete, her face as pale as paper and her breathing becoming heavy.

With every heartbeat, I felt like the life force was being sucked out of my body.

Lin Che used the brief respite he gained from the confrontation with Night to quickly return to her side.

The tacit understanding that had just been established through the memory fragments saved him the trouble of all preparation.

"I know what to do!" He looked at Su Wanqing, his voice hurried but clear, "I have an Orion sequence in my body, which can serve as a container for the three cores. If I integrate them all into my body, I can isolate their energy and meet the minimum synchronization requirements..."

"This will kill you!" Lu Zhao immediately retorted, his hand subconsciously tightening around his weapon, "No human can withstand the direct impact of so much energy!"

Lin Che smiled bitterly. "I am no longer completely human. And... I have seen this ending in my memory. This may be the only way."

Before he finished speaking, Night's patience had run out. He roared with rage and paranoia, waving the core he had seized, creating a tsunami of pure violent energy that rushed straight toward everyone in the stabilization field.

"Stupid! The core is the key to rewriting reality! No one needs to sacrifice, I'll just be in control!"

Lin Che and Lu Zhao immediately joined forces to resist. The power of the Orion Sequence and Lu Zhao's tactical equipment burst out at the same time, barely withstanding the first wave of the energy tsunami.

But Su Wanqing's stabilization field was already shaky, and at this moment it made a shattering sound under the heavy weight, and cracks spread across the golden light curtain.

The Weaver Vanguard in the center of the bridge seized this opportunity, and dozens of silver energy tentacles stretched out like poisonous snakes, trying to invade the interior of the stabilization field along the cracks.

At this critical moment, Xiaoling, who had been silent all the time, suddenly walked to the center of the venue.

She raised her head, and a dazzling purple light radiated from her eyes that should have been innocent.

"stop!"

A majestic voice that did not belong to her age, as if composed of countless voices superimposed on each other, came out of her mouth and echoed throughout the viaduct.

A strange scene happened. Both the surging energy tsunami of "Night" and the silver tentacles of the Forerunner paused for a moment, as if a pause button was pressed by an invisible hand.

Xiao Ling looked around at everyone, and the voice continued to echo in everyone’s mind: “Everyone only sees part of the truth.

Cores are neither weapons nor keys, they are boundary markers!"

She first looked at the Pioneer: "You collected time samples not for preservation, but to establish a complete 'eternal model' before the universe enters heat death. But you never sought the consent of those being collected."

Then, she turned her gaze to Night: "You tried to use the core to rewrite reality, but this would only completely mess up the timeline of this dimension and eventually tear apart the entire space-time structure."

Finally, she looked at Lin Che, her purple pupils seemed to reflect the past reincarnation: “And your sacrifice plan is just another incomplete solution.

The past three reincarnations have proven that individual sacrifice cannot create a permanent barrier."

During this brief pause created by Xiaoling, the Weaver Pioneer actually took the initiative to show his willingness to communicate for the first time.

It slowly walked to the edge of the stabilization field, its silver halo flickering, and projected a huge holographic image of the city in front of everyone.

"Sample collection is nearly complete. The final stage requires the independent selection of core holders."

The voice of the pioneer was cold and objective. "You can hand over your core and become a part of eternity; or, resist to the end and let the long river of time erase all traces of your existence. This is not destruction, but sublimation. The Orion civilization chose to resist, and in the end, they only became a piece of dust recorded in history."

The projection screen changed, and more silver spaceships were approaching the earth in space.

At the same time, in the real world, a huge clock shadow made of energy suddenly appeared in the sky above the city.

Every time its second hand moves one grid, an area of ​​the city disappears abruptly in the distorted space, as if erased by an eraser.

The time collapse has begun.

Just when the situation became extremely tense, the jade bracelet on Su Wanqing's wrist suddenly burst out with an unprecedentedly dazzling golden light.

The system interface in front of her was forced to refresh, and the voice of the Guardian AI became extremely urgent.

[Conditions for unlocking the ultimate authority confirmed: Three cores + life energy resonance of five key figures. This is the backup plan you designed in your last reincarnation!]

The system projected five vague human silhouettes, each with the same word labeled below it: Anchor.

Su Wanqing looked at this plan she had never seen before, and her mind went blank: "What...what is this?"

[It is neither the eternal imprisonment of the Weaver nor the reality rewriting of 'Night', but a third way.] The Guardian quickly explained, [Creating a partially open time barrier.

It allows us to both resist the Weaver's complete collection and maintain our own dimension's fundamental connection to the universe.

But the price is that five key figures must become living anchors, using their own life energy to permanently maintain the stable structure of the barrier. 】

Su Wanqing's eyes swept across the people in front of her: Lin Che who proposed sacrifice, Lu Zhao who had been guarding by his side, Xiao Ling whose identity was mysterious... Finally, her eyes fell on the "Night" not far away, who looked exactly like Lin Che and represented paranoia and destruction.

We need his cooperation...but will he agree?

She thought. And the huge second hand of the clock above her head jumped forward one more tick.

The huge energy clock phantom above my head, with every tick of its second hand, brings a heart-pounding sense of heaviness.

After walking one grid after another, an area of ​​the city in the distance seemed to have been eaten by an invisible object and disappeared silently in the distorted light.

The golden stability field that Su Wanqing stretched out was being compressed by this force, and its range was shrinking.

Her body was almost transparent, and the last trace of blood in her body faded away.

She leaned against the broken concrete block, adjusted her breathing, then straightened her almost bent back and walked step by step towards the "night" not far away.

The "Guardian" system projected the last stream of information into her mind, and a code name that had never been activated emerged.

"You are not the complete Dr. Morris, but your consciousness still retains his original essence."

Su Wanqing's voice was very soft, but very clear. "In my system, your code name is 'Retrograde'. This is the plan we designed together in the last reincarnation."

She stopped in front of "Night" and stretched out her hand which was still trembling slightly.

The light of the jade bracelet has become very dim.

"We need you. Not as an enemy, but as a fifth link."

Ye curled his lips and took a step back. "Ridiculous. Why should I give up the opportunity to control the core and reshape everything by myself to participate in your plan that is bound to fail and send me to death?"

Lin Che covered his chest, enduring the severe pain caused by the resonance between the Orion Sequence in his body and the external time field, and walked forward.

The blue light pattern on his right arm flickered. "Because you know very well that your own plan will not work at all. Look around!" He pointed at the swallowed city, "Time is collapsing! What you want is to change it, not to completely destroy it. The Core has never been a tool for violently rewriting reality..."

Before he finished speaking, Lin Che suddenly raised his right hand, which was glowing blue. A vague fragment of memory was stripped from his consciousness and projected into the air between the two of them.

In the picture, it is Dr. Morris, who has not yet fallen into madness. He is facing a data tablet, designing a special anchor character.

“…there must be a counter-anchor point to provide a counterforce, maintain the dynamic balance of the barrier, and prevent the system from going to either extreme of absolute closure or absolute openness. It will be a check and balance, a…retrograde.”

Lin Che retracted her arm, and the projected image disappeared. "This is your real purpose.

Become the reverse anchor of the barrier and maintain the balance of the entire system, rather than becoming a dictator. "

The Weaver pioneers at the Viaduct Center seemed to have lost interest in their internal debates.

It released a stronger time fluctuation, pure and cold, which directly hit the edge of the golden stability field.

Several cracks visible to the naked eye immediately appeared on the light curtain.

"The time to choose has come." The voice of the Forerunner was emotionless and echoed in everyone's mind. "Hand over the core, and your civilization will be fully recorded and become a part of eternity. Or, resist to the end and be completely erased by the long river of time."

The second hand of the giant clock in the sky suddenly sped up. The collapsed area expanded at an alarming rate and had already spread to the edge of the area where the viaduct was located.

"No!" Lu Zhao had been operating his portable device. At this moment, he suddenly raised his head, his face showing despair derived from data analysis. "The time stability is only 8%! We must act immediately!"

At this moment, Xiao Ling, who had been protected by him, suddenly covered her head in pain, and the purple light in her eyes flashed violently.

"Fork in the road... All the forks in the road are converging... There is only one road left... The five points must be connected at the same time, otherwise... everything will disappear..."

On the screen of Lu Zhao's portable device, the holographic projection has already calculated the result.

On the wreckage of the viaduct, five light spots were precisely marked, forming a standard pentagram array.

He frowned slightly and found that the locations of these five points were not random. They just corresponded to the forgotten energy network nodes deep underground in the city.

"This is not a coincidence." He muttered to himself, "The layout of the entire city... In the last reincarnation, we had already prepared the chessboard."

He immediately picked up the suffering Xiao Ling and took her to one of the marked points.

As they moved, he discovered that the girl's skin began to take on a crystalline, translucent purple color, and beneath her skin, it seemed as if tiny starlight was flowing.

After being placed in the designated position, Xiaoling's pain was relieved.

She looked at her changing body calmly and gave Lu Zhao a smile with a relief that went beyond her age.

"I remember... I'm not just 'Xiao Ling'. I'm the guide of the gate of time. At the end of the last reincarnation, I chose to be reborn in this form in order to become a bridge connecting the present and the future."

She raised her hand, which had become somewhat transparent, and gently touched Lu Zhao's arm.

"Don't be afraid. This is an inevitable transformation. Each of us will change and become an integral part of the barrier. This is the true price of the third way."

Lu Zhao's eyes were a little moist, but he just nodded vigorously and placed her firmly at the top of the pentagram.

On the other side, "Ye" stared at the approaching, all-consuming distorted space, then looked at Su Wanqing and Lin Che, his expression changing in a complex manner.

Finally, he made a decision, waved his hand, and the core that belonged to him slowly rose into the air.

"If this is the only way..." His voice was hoarse, and his sharp eyes swept over everyone present, "But I have a condition. If the plan succeeds, I must retain partial control of the core.

I want to make sure that the humans of this new world do not repeat the mistakes of Orion.

I don’t trust a completely closed system, or a completely open system.”

Su Wanqing nodded weakly and raised the jade bracelet on her wrist.

The bracelet projects a complete and complex picture of the energy structure.

"That's the design. Five key figures surround three cores to form a pentagram structure, and each of them takes on a part of the time anchoring function."

There was determination in her voice, "Once you start, there's no turning back."

The moment they reached a consensus, the Weaver Vanguard noticed their intention.

It no longer waited, the silver substance in its body boiled violently, turning into a destructive torrent of energy, rushing straight towards the center of the pentagram.