The quantum resonance security scanner in the starship's medical bay blared a sharp alarm. The symbiotic patterns on Lin Yue's hand suddenly glowed blue, resonating with the memory candies on the conveyor belt. Xia Zichen pressed her shoulders, and the star-patterned wristband projected a three-dimensional map of Lao Zhang's laboratory. "The core module's antimatter barrier has been disturbed. Those fragments of consciousness are calling us."
The black cat had slipped into Lin Yue's pocket of wind at some point, its claws ripping at the candy wrapper. "Meow! The destruction record from three years ago was forged. Old Zhang planted a 'Sea of Consciousness Nursery' in the core." Before he could finish his words, the emergency lights in the corridor outside the cabin suddenly turned blood-red, and holographic signposts collectively displayed: "Warning! Unauthorized opening of the B12 Consciousness Dockyard."
"It's Xia Zichen in black from the Mirror Universe!" Lin Yue's wind rune swept across the surveillance footage, revealing the dark energy spreading through the ventilation ducts toward the core module. Xia Zichen dragged her into the gravity elevator, his Star Sword carving a temporary positioning array into the metal wall. "Remember the trust barrier from the trial? This time, we must protect both reality and the sea of consciousness."
The core module's titanium alloy gate was cracking, and from behind it came the overlapping whispers of countless "selves." Old Zhang's holographic projection suddenly unfolded in their palms. The old man's temples were more gray than they remembered. "There's a first-generation resonator in the docking bay. Use your symbiotic energy to activate it and prevent the fragments from eroding reality—but the cost is..." The projection was suddenly covered by snowflakes, and the last half of the sentence dissipated into a star-like point of light.
When Lin Yue's Wind Bond entangled the resonator's crystal column, the entire starship's energy system instantly collapsed. Xia Zichen's Star-Embroidered Blood dripped onto the console, unexpectedly activating a century-old log: "Experiment 749 failed. The fusion's consciousness is devouring the observer. We are forced to encode our own genes into the core code..." His pupils constricted, and the soft light of his brow suddenly resonated with the log's author's signature.
"Hold my hand!" Lin Yue's wind spun a protective net around the edge of her sea of consciousness, only to see herself, in countless parallel universes, plummeting towards its core. Before her death, a "her" from a certain magic academy universe folded her wind blade into a paper boat. The words on the boat drifted into reality: "When the dark tide devours the 13th moon, only the tears of the symbiote can nourish the seeds of the sea of consciousness."
The black cat leaped onto the top of the resonance machine, and the gears of the pocket watch in its mouth suddenly projected a space-time sand table. Lin Yue saw that their "first encounter" three years ago was cut by countless red lines. The end of one of the red lines was connected to Lao Zhang, who was adjusting the resonance machine. In his hand, he was holding the memory candy in her pocket.
"This isn't an encounter, it's a cycle of reunions." Xia Zichen's star-patterned light threads penetrated layers of fragmented consciousness, touching a curled cocoon of light deep within its core. It was a protective form formed by "them" from all parallel universes on the brink of collapse. Wrapped in this cocoon were steam gears, magic scrolls, mechanical hearts, and other fragments from different universes, each of which cried like an infant upon contact with their energy.
The alarm in reality suddenly transformed into a chordal sound. Lin Yue discovered that her pocket of wind was absorbing the dark tide of the sea of consciousness. The shadows in the pocket unexpectedly transformed into amulets from different periods of Xia Zichen's life: rusted gears, a charred magic bookmark, and a mechanical pendant engraved with "Waiting for Your Return." When the last fragment embedded in the pendant, the starship's gravity system suddenly reversed, and all the figures were sucked into the center of the sea of consciousness.
Under the gazes of countless "selves," Xia Zichen and Lin Yue's symbiotic connection became a bridge, piecing together the shattered fragments of consciousness into a Möbius strip. Lin Yue finally saw the core module for what it truly was—a library composed of the memories of countless "them," each book's cover bearing the same title: "About My Loving You Across All Time and Space."
The black cat's paw pressed on the resonator's destruction button, while its tail pointed at a point of light in the space-time sandbox. "Meow! The fusion life signs come from here. They can already plant entities in the sea of consciousness." Lin Yue glanced over and saw "them" from a certain universe sitting on a bench under the starry sky. Xia Zichen's mechanical heart and her wind pocket shared the same energy core, and the tombstone behind the bench was engraved with the words: "To our future, which will eventually overlap."
The real-life Old Zhang suddenly appeared at the core module's door, oil-stained wrench in hand. "Only the core shell was destroyed back then. The true consciousness nursery needs living guardians." He lifted his sleeve, revealing a star pattern identical to Xia Zichen's. "My father was the chief researcher of the first-generation resonance device."
The alarm faded, transforming into the rustling of a memory candy wrapper. Lin Yue looked at the new handwriting, which gradually became clearer: "In the 42nd Collapse Universe, we used the last three minutes to exchange a spacetime anchor—it's now hidden in the coffee beans you always buy." Xia Zichen chuckled and fished half a coffee bean from his pocket. Sure enough, it was embedded with a tiny double-helix crystal.
As they stood back on the starship deck, the first rays of dawn's sunlight filtered through the wreckage of the sea of consciousness. A new email popped up on Xia Zichen's communicator. The sender was listed as "Future You," and the attachment was a blurry holographic image: "Them" in a certain universe embraced amidst the ruins, the crumbling walls of space and time behind them. And in Lin Yue's hand, surprisingly, was the intact pocket watch that Black Cat was currently holding.
"Where should we go next?" Lin Yue's wind gently lifted the coffee beans, and the crystal fragments reflected rainbows in the morning light. Xia Zichen sheathed the Star Pattern Sword. The three words "Waiting for Your Return" on the inside of the hilt suddenly glowed, intertwining with the lavender mist in her wind pocket to form a DNA double helix.
The black cat jumped onto the railing and curled up the hands of the pocket watch with its tail: "Meow~ When the sugar in the memory candy is exhausted, the space-time anchor will turn into a bomb." It suddenly loosened its claws, and the pocket watch fell into the depths of the sea of consciousness, but in the process of falling, it split into countless small clocks. The time on each dial pointed to the same moment three years ago - that rainy day that should have been their "first encounter" but was already filled with the code of reunion.
This chapter is not finished yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
