On the surface of the new planet, liquid time was like a tranquil lake, gently rippling with a mother-of-pearl iridescence. These lights, like dreamlike ripples, slowly spread across the void.
Lin Yue's figure gradually emerged from this rainbow light, as if summoned from the abyss of time. Her body was entangled in threads of time's origins, threads that, like the veins of the universe, intertwined with fragments of seventeen-colored gemstones.
The surface of the gem is covered in cracks, yet within these cracks flows a galaxy of light. Each line is like a trace of time, recording the memory of the struggle against entropy.
At this moment, Lu Li's golden codes surged in like a tide. As if guided by some force, they quickly gathered at Lin Yue's feet to form a spiral teleportation array.
The teleportation array shone with dazzling light, and six afterimages emerged from the light at the same time. These six afterimages were exactly the same as Lin Yue, but their expressions were different: some were surprised, some were happy, and some were in disbelief.
There was a look of surprise in their eyes, as if they couldn't believe what they saw.
"I thought..." Lu Li's voice abruptly stopped. Uncontrollably, the golden code condensed into a butterfly of light from his fingertips, landing gently on Lin Yue's shoulder. The calico cat's damaged collar suddenly hummed cheerfully. It leaped from the folds of spacetime, its gear-shaped tail lashing out a stream of sparks before slamming precisely into Lin Yue's arms. Liquid time surged around the three of them, reflecting the ring-shaped core of the Emerald Dream universe, the mechanical heart of a steampunk world. The remnants of those saved civilizations converged here through the ripples of time.
However, the calm was fleeting. A sudden, resounding sound of dislocated gears echoed from the planet's core, and the entropic energy, just sealed, surged back like a black tide. Lin Yue's threads of time automatically coiled into a shield, but smoke billowed the moment it came into contact with the energy. "Something's wrong! This entropic energy carries... the aura of the future!" Seventeen shimmering patterns appeared in her pupils. The gem fragments vibrated violently in her palm, projecting a chilling image—in some twisted future, the Entropic Shadow Colossus reorganized into a vaster form, its mechanical wings pulverizing galaxies with every beat.
Lu Li's golden code constructed a defense matrix in mid-air, and six afterimages simultaneously activated their attack routines. "Calico Cat, scan for energy fluctuations! Lin Yue, can your gem locate future coordinates?" Before he finished speaking, spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the planet's surface, and countless mechanical tentacles burst forth. Crystal eyes atop these tentacles played a loop of apocalyptic scenes from various universes. The calico cat's gear collar reassembled, and blue light seeped between the gears. "The energy comes from... the anti-entropy furnace at the planet's core! Someone has tampered with the furnace's underlying protocol!"
Lin Yue's notebook's fragments suddenly combusted, their ashes forming a warning totem in the air, symbolizing the First Guardians. She finally saw clearly that, in the process of reversing entropy, an unknown entity had implanted the future's entropy virus into the core of the furnace. "We've become accomplices..." her voice trembled, the thread of time growing stronger. "But this is also an opportunity—since we can touch the future, let's stop it at its source!" The seventeen-colored gem fragments suddenly merged, tearing a silver rift in the void. From deep within the crack came the roar of meshing gears.
Without hesitation, the three leaped into the rift, only to find themselves in a maze of time fragments. Each fragment represented a slice of a universe: the gears of a steampunk city spinning into dust, the floating islands of a magical continent consumed by entropic vines. Lin Yue's thread resonated with the fragments, extracting crucial information: in a future timeline, a being calling itself the "Entropy Weaver" gathered the narrative debris of all destroyed civilizations and reshaped the Entropic Shadow Colossus.
"The Entropy Weaver... could it be the mastermind behind the remnants of the Black Robe Men?" Lu Li's golden code transformed into a probe, piercing the fragments of time. Suddenly, the maze's walls began to collapse, and mechanical guards emerged from the cracks, their armor etched with the same heraldry as the Entropy Weaver. The calico cat's geared collar unfolded into a chainsaw, slicing through the oncoming mechanical wave. It was discovered that the guards' core energy source was actually transformed from fragments of Lin Yue's time thread.
"They're harnessing my power!" Lin Yue's gem fragments erupted with intense light, and the threads wound around the guards' joints like serpents. A strange memory flashed through her mind: in some distant time and space, a figure clad in black robes stood at the center of the Entropy Altar, clutching the complete form of the seventeen-colored gems. "So the true power of the gems is the key to unlocking all timelines..." She stabbed the threads into the ground, and the entire maze began to spin in reverse, the mechanical guards' bodies disintegrating into data particles in the reverse flow of time.
As the maze crumbled, the three finally arrived at the future battlefield. The sight before them took their breath away—the Entropic Shadow Colossus's torso pierced multiple star systems, its mechanical wings studded with the wreckage of countless civilizations, and within its chest, the entropic core pulsed with the despair of the entire universe. Above the Colossus, a black-robed figure manipulated a massive astrolabe. With each revolution of its gears, a new rift in space-time opened.
"Welcome to the end of the world." The voice of the man in black robe was like sandpaper rubbing against metal. He lifted his hood, revealing half of his mechanical face. "I am the Entropy Weaver, the executor of the law of increasing entropy in the universe. Do you think that reversing the mirror image can change your destiny? You are just collecting more narrative fuel for me." He raised his hand and summoned black vines, and twisted clones of Lu Li, Lin Yue, and the calico cat grew from the tips of the vines.
Lin Yue's seventeen-colored gem fragments automatically combined, illuminating the Entropy Weaver's astrolabe. She saw that at its core, sealed were the final consciousnesses of the original Guardians of Time. "So you've been waiting for this moment," she whispered softly, interweaving the threads of time's origins with Lu Li's golden code and the energy of the calico cat's gears. The moment the tricolor light touched the astrolabe, the Guardians' consciousnesses transformed into a silver torrent, rushing towards the core of the Entropy Shadow Colossus.
The Entropy Weaver roared in anger, commanding its clones to attack. Lu Li's six afterimages transformed into blades of light, severing the entwining vines. A calico cat leaped onto the mechanical wings of the Entropy Shadow Colossus, disrupting its energy systems with its gear collar. Lin Yue pierced the star disk with silk threads, attempting to awaken the Guardians' power. In the aftermath of the battle, she suddenly discovered that the eyes beneath the Entropy Weaver's mechanical face bore the same pattern as her own seventeen-colored gemstone...
Meanwhile, at the core of the new planet, the abnormal fluctuations of the Anti-Entropy Furnace continued to intensify. Deep within the furnace, the remaining half of the Entropy Core was absorbing the energy of future Entropy. The incantations on the surface gradually pieced together into the complete "Entropy Hymn." The moment the song began, the timeline of the entire universe began to distort. The boundary between reality and the future was completely blurred by the conspiracy of the Entropy Weaver.
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