Before the morning mist had dissipated, the marching troops of the Time and Space Legion had already trampled the dewdrops on the grass.
Long Wu carried a two-zhang-long black iron spear and walked at the front, his dragon-patterned war boots leaving deep marks on the muddy ground with every step.
He turned around and grinned at the gray falcon behind him: "Old Gray, take your lame falcon away. If you let it burrow into my neck again, I'll roast it for breakfast."
Just as the grey falcon was about to beak back, a dull thud came from the very end of the column as something heavy fell to the ground.
"Old Zhou!" Xia, the medic, exclaimed, piercing the morning mist.
Everyone turned around and saw Zhou Meng, the soldier in charge of covering the rear, kneeling upright on the ground, veins bulging on his forehead, as if his ankle was being gripped by an invisible hand—his right leg was "frozen" at a visible speed, his skin covered with deep purple lines, and even the movement of raising his gun was as slow as a movie in slow motion.
"Something's not right," Chu Yao's voice rang in Lin Yi's ears.
The AI assistant, in her girl form, appeared beside him unnoticed, her hair shimmering with pale blue data streams. "In the past half hour, the average movement speed of legion members has decreased by 23%, and their reaction time delay has increased to 0.8 seconds." She tapped her finger, and a holographic data screen appeared in the air, a green curve visibly descending. "Energy monitoring shows abnormal dimensional folds in the surrounding space, as if affected by some force..."
"It's stuck." Lin Yi continued, his pupils gleaming.
He raised his hand to press his temple, and his sense of time and space spread like a spider web—in the timeline that should have flowed smoothly, countless tiny “barbs” appeared, like rusty gears stuck on the time axis, requiring three times the effort to move each step.
"Night Owl's methods." He snorted, his gaze sweeping over the increasing number of "Frozen" warriors in the ranks.
"interesting."
A clear, melodious male voice suddenly came from the side.
Xuan Mingzi, who had been secretly observing the legion's movements, stood with his hands behind his back on an old locust tree by the roadside, his blue robe fluttering in the morning breeze. "An 'interdimensional time anchor,' using cosmic dust to solidify the flow of spacetime. However, this thing should theoretically require at least ten archmages to chant for three days to set it up, but that old bastard Night Owl seems to have used a defective product from an advanced civilization to set it up so quickly." He suddenly narrowed his eyes.
Lin Yi looked up at him: "You know quite a lot."
Xuanmingzi chuckled: "I'm just an observer." He flicked his fingertips through the air, and a membrane of light unfolded between the two of them, reflecting the figure of Night Owl—the black-robed man stood on a blood-red altar, with a mountain of mutated beast crystal cores piled at his feet. Each crystal core was oozing black mist that merged into the bronze compass floating in his palm.
"He's accelerating the deployment of anchor points." Chu Yao's voice suddenly turned cold. "According to calculations, in three hours, the spacetime flow velocity of the entire legion will drop to one-tenth of normal. At that time..."
“We’re even ten beats slower than the enemy when it comes to swinging our swords.” Lin Yi gripped the Time Blade at his waist, the blade humming and gleaming with a silver-blue light.
"Report! The supply truck is on fire!"
A piercing alarm ripped through the air.
Everyone turned their heads and saw that the three supply trucks of the logistics team were billowing thick black and red smoke. The fire was spreading in a "slow motion" that could be seen with the naked eye—the moment the oil drums cracked, the splashed oil droplets lingered in the air, like amber beads.
"Shadow Assassin!" Gray Falcon suddenly drew his bow and nocked an arrow. The arrow pierced the air a beat slower than usual, but it precisely pierced a faint black light in the shadows under the car.
The black light emitted a sharp shriek, revealing a human form—skin with a deathly gray hue, eyes that were two bottomless black holes, and bone blades at the fingertips stuck in the fuel tank's fuel line.
"It's Night Owl's 'Time Lag Assassin'!" Long Wu's pupils instantly turned into vertical slits, and the world-destroying dragon pattern on his neck glowed with a golden-red light.
He flung his spear aside, and the dragon claw-shaped gauntlets popped out with a "click." "These bastards always choose to cause trouble when things are slow. Today I'll show them whether dragon blood is hot or not!"
Before he finished speaking, he had already dashed out.
This time, Long Wu's speed was completely unaffected by the time-space anchor!
The doomsday dragon pattern appeared on his back, transforming into the phantom of an eight-clawed golden dragon.
The explosion of the dragon claw tearing through the air was louder than usual. Just as the time-lapse assassin was about to retreat, the dragon claw had already gripped his throat—not in slow motion, but with true thunderous force!
"Dragon pattern awakening?" Xuan Mingzi raised an eyebrow. "Interesting. The dragon bloodline can indeed resist dimensional interference."
"Awooo—!" The time-delay assassin let out a metallic scream as his body began to disintegrate into black mist.
But golden flames erupted from Long Wu's dragon claws, burning the black mist to ashes as soon as it dissipated. "Trying to run? Your dragon grandpa's fire is only good for burning evil spirits from other dimensions!"
He shook the ashes off his hands and grinned at Lin Yi: "Boss, these things are really brittle, give me ten more!"
"Watch out behind you!" Chu Yao's alarm blared.
As Long Wu spun around, he saw three bone blades piercing from the shadows behind him.
Without dodging or evading, he took the three blows head-on to his dragon-patterned back, and amidst the flying sparks, grabbed the assassin's wrist and ripped his arm off.
"That's awesome!" he laughed. "Again!"
This battle was like water thrown into hot oil, completely igniting the morale of the legion.
The originally slow-moving warriors roared and drew their weapons. Although their movements were slow, with Long Wu's high-speed suppression, they gradually forced the infiltrated assassin into a desperate situation.
"Chu Yao, locate the source of the interference." Lin Yi's voice was as calm as ice.
With a light tap of his fingertip, the flow of time around him suddenly reversed—within a ten-meter radius of him, spacetime returned to normal, and even the ashes floating in the air flew back to Long Wu's fist.
"The source of the interference is thirty kilometers to the northwest." Chu Yao's projection unfolded a map beside him. "There is an abandoned nuclear power plant there, and abnormal spatial fluctuations have been detected."
Lin Yi gave a few brief instructions to the legion members, telling them to continue holding their ground, before his figure transformed into a streak of light and disappeared from the spot.
On his way to the nuclear power plant, he constantly sensed the fluctuations in spacetime around him.
In the ruins of the nuclear power plant, metal debris solidifies into sculptures over time.
Lin Yi's spacetime perception swept across every inch of space, finally stopping at the core of the reactor—where seven dark silver rhomboid crystals floated, each connected to an invisible dimensional line, continuously drawing spacetime energy from the surroundings.
These crystals exude a mysterious aura, seemingly hiding untold secrets.
“This is…” He reached out and touched the nearest crystal. As soon as his fingertips touched the surface, a powerful energy fluctuation came, and then a fragmented memory suddenly flooded into his mind.
"Twilight Protocol activation conditions: Triggered by a mythical-level professional when a civilization faces annihilation..."
"The seventh key to creation is hidden in the deepest part of the spacetime rift..."
"Xuanmingzi's stance depends on whether civilization can..."
As the fragments of memory receded like the tide, Lin Yi abruptly pulled his hand back, blood seeping from his palm—dark golden runes had appeared on the surface of the crystal at some unknown time, as if warning him of crossing the line.
"So you were also looking for the seventh key."
A familiar voice sounded from behind.
Xuanmingzi arrived silently at the broken wall, moonlight shining through his translucent body onto the ground. "What you just saw was part of the rules of the 'Civilization Trial'."
"You knew about Night Owl's plan all along?" Lin Yi stared at him.
Xuanmingzi smiled without answering, his fingertips tracing the surface of the crystal, the runes instantly extinguishing. "The privilege of a mythical-level professional is the ability to glimpse more of the truth. But the truth..." He suddenly looked up at the sky, "Night Owl's second attack is coming."
Before the words were finished, a rumbling sound like muffled thunder came from the sky.
A dark, shadowy cloud, obscuring the sky, pressed in from the northwest. Within the cloud, countless distorted human faces could be vaguely seen, each emitting a piercing shriek.
Wherever the cloud passed, the suppression of the spacetime anchor suddenly intensified. Warriors who could barely move before all knelt on one knee, and even Long Wu's dragon pattern darkened a bit.
"This is a Shadow Energy Storm!" Chu Yao's voice was filled with rare anxiety. "The energy intensity is five times that of a normal interdimensional attack. The spacetime barrier can only last for three minutes at most!"
Lin Yi looked up at the dark cloud, the Time-Space Blade in his hand radiating a dazzling silver light.
He could feel his mythical profession resonating—the power of the master of time and space was beginning to boil in the crisis.
"Everyone, retreat to the center of the barrier!" His voice boomed like a bell, causing dust to fall from the ruins. "Long Wu, hold the east side; Gray Falcon, lead the crossbowmen to focus fire on the weak points of the cloud formation; Chu Yao, turn the barrier up to its maximum strength!"
Long Wu wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and the dragon pattern on his face lit up with golden-red light again: "Boss, even if this piercing cloud presses down on the sky, I'll still make a hole in it for you!"
The grey falcon suddenly let out a clear cry, flapping its wings and soaring into the clouds. Its sharp cry tore open a gap: "Brothers, let these extradimensional scum see what the bones of an Earthling are like!"
The shriek of the shadow cloud grew louder, but it stirred up a blinding blue light the instant it touched the spacetime barrier.
Lin Yi stood at the very front of the barrier, his spacetime blade drawing a silver arc—he was cutting through time, forcibly extending the barrier's support time from three minutes to five minutes.
"Hold on," he murmured, his gaze piercing through the churning clouds, as if he could see the distorted face of the Night Owl. "Once I tear apart your conspiracy, it will be the beginning of your demise."
From within the shadowy clouds, the night owl's laughter pierced the dimensional barrier: "Lin Yi, you think you can win with this little struggle? Once my spacetime anchor is fully formed, the entire legion will be at my mercy—"
"shut up!"
A loud shout interrupted him.
Long Wu's world-destroying dragon pattern suddenly surged, and the phantom of an eight-clawed golden dragon burst out of the barrier, its claws directly grabbing into the dark cloud.
Amidst the crackling of the burning dragon flames, a huge gap was torn open in the cloud, and sunlight poured down through the gap, illuminating Lin Yi's tense face.
"Do you see that?" He gazed at the gradually brightening sky, a cold smile curling at the corner of his lips. "This is our light."
The owl's laughter stopped abruptly.
In a higher-dimensional space, Xuanmingzi gazed at the people fighting bloody battles in the light screen, his fingertip lightly touching the mark of "Ragnarok".
"A mythical-level professional..." he murmured softly, "as expected, he didn't disappoint me."
The shadowy clouds continued to churn, but the blue light of the spacetime barrier grew ever brighter.
This battle is far from over.
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