The owl's laughter was still stuck in his throat when Xuanmingzi's words struck everyone's hearts like a heavy hammer.
Lin Yi's silver pupils narrowed slightly, and the spacetime energy that had been gathered in his palm became briefly disordered—he remembered that three days ago in the spacetime rift, Xuan Mingzi suddenly attacked Su Qing's spiritual veins; he remembered that last night by the campfire in the camp, this person used an excuse to distract him and then sent a false intelligence into Night Owl's Shadow Erosion Array.
Those originally glaring "betrayals" now cast new shadows on Xuanmingzi's yellowed Taoist robe.
"Explain yourself." He lowered his voice, his knuckles tapping softly on the Time Emblem.
The star trails on the surface of the emblem suddenly accelerated, a sign of his emotional fluctuations.
Xuanmingzi didn't look at him; his withered fingers were still pressed against the black hole in the shadow's heart.
The shadowy figure's blood-tear ice crystals hung in mid-air, like a torrential rain that had been paused.
“Three hundred years ago, at the altar in another dimension.” His voice was hoarse, like sandpaper rubbing against bronze. “There was a little beggar dressed in coarse cloth and short clothes, who was tied up in the center of the altar. They extracted his blood and bones as a catalyst, saying they wanted to connect the two worlds.”
The ice crystals of the dark figure suddenly trembled, and tiny white lights spilled out from its outline.
Are those fragments of memory?
Lin Yi's pupils contracted sharply—he had seen similar particles of light at the edge of the shadowy figure's sea of consciousness, and at the time he thought they were the intruder's residual energy.
"The little beggar cried out for revenge, his voice hoarse like a broken bellows." Xuan Mingzi's lips curled into a faint smile. "Later, he was rescued by an old Taoist priest, who taught him talisman manipulation and lightning summoning, thinking he could overturn the altar with his magic." The golden patterns on his fingertips suddenly surged, and the ice crystals of the black shadow fell to the ground with a "clink," creating fine ice flowers. "Until he discovered that behind the altar stood a master even more ruthless than Night Owl."
The owl's head suddenly shook violently, black liquid splattering on the ground, the white smoke from the corrosion tinged with dark red blood: "You dare—"
"Dare what?" Xuan Mingzi finally turned to look at Lin Yi, a chill seeping into the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes. "Dare to be a pawn for three hundred years? Dare to let you call me an old scoundrel?" He snapped his fingers, and the distant battlefield suddenly fell silent for a moment—all the extradimensional soldiers froze, as if an invisible hand had gripped their throats. "Lin boy, do you think Night Owl's Shadow Erosion Project can penetrate the game's barriers? Why can his fleet locate ancient martial arts families in reality?"
A glint flashed in Lin Yi's silver eyes.
Chu Yao's notification sound vibrated in his eardrums at just the right moment: "Abnormal energy fluctuations detected, originating from the core of the Night Owl Fleet, highly consistent with the unknown inscriptions found at the East China Sea floating island ruins three months ago."
“Because the master behind him planted the anchor in this world three hundred years ago.” Xuanmingzi pointed at Night Owl. “That old thing doesn’t want to invade, he wants to devour—swallow civilization and rules together. My previous ‘betrayal’ was just to make that old thing believe that I am an obedient dog.”
Long Wu wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and the dragon scale armor made a soft sound.
His dragon-patterned hair, which had been weakened by his serious injuries, suddenly glowed with golden light: "So you deliberately sold false information to Night Owl to lure him out the people behind him?"
"Young friend, you're clever." Xuan Mingzi nodded to Long Wu. "What I sent into the Shadow Erosion Array last night wasn't intelligence, it was a tracking talisman." He slid half a charred talisman from his sleeve, its edges still stained with dark purple blood. "Once that old bastard reaches out, I can..."
“Then we can chop him up too,” Lin Yi replied.
He felt the fire in his chest burn even brighter—not anger, but the burning heat of finally touching the truth.
The bloodshot in his silver eyes completely disappeared, replaced by a stream of light reversing the flow of stars. "So you need my cooperation to use time reversal to pull the battlefield back to before Night Owl deployed his final defenses, maximizing the effect of the tracking rune."
"You understand me best, Lin boy." Xuanmingzi tossed the talisman into the air. The talisman spun around in the owl's black liquid, but remained completely unharmed.
Chu Yao's projection suddenly appeared beside Lin Yi, her pale blue virtual skirt fluttering in the battlefield wind: "The frequency of the tracking runes has been analyzed in sync. Combined with the mythical buffs of all the job changers, the optimal point for time reversal is 3 minutes and 17 seconds before Night Owl releases 'Dark Star Barrier'." She drew a data stream with her fingertips, constructing a three-dimensional battlefield model between the two of them. "At this moment, his fleet's energy core is exposed, and Black Shadow's 'Sky-Splitting Blade' can directly penetrate the main ship; Long Wu's 'Dragon Roar Break' can shatter one-third of the defense matrix; and your 'Time-Space Lock' can lock onto the remaining targets."
Su Qing had somehow ended up standing next to Lin Yi.
Her pristine white magic gloves, still stained with Long Wu's blood, rested firmly on the back of his hand: "I'm using 'Star Orbit Technique' to stabilize the timeline, preventing cracks from appearing during the reversal." The girl's body heat radiated through the gloves, hotter than the gunfire on a battlefield. "Last time you coughed up blood after reversing for ten minutes, this time I..."
“This time, there’s a faith link with all the job changers.” Lin Yi took her hand in return, and the spacetime emblem on his palm suddenly lit up with a warm light. “Chu Yao said that the mythical-level buff can reduce my skill consumption by 80%.” He looked at the job changers in the distance, enveloped in golden flames—the miner wielding a giant axe was smashing the muzzle of an interdimensional spaceship, the girl in the nurse’s uniform was using healing spells to create spikes that pierced the enemy’s throat, and even the mage who usually stayed in the back row was charging forward with a burning staff.
"Their beliefs are my blue bar." He smiled at Su Qing, his silver eyes gleaming with eager anticipation. "Ready to take the challenge?"
Su Qing's blush spread from the tips of her ears to her neck, but she nodded vigorously.
A pale purple spiritual pattern lit up at her fingertips, drawing an intricate star map in the air, as if weaving a protective net for time that was about to turn.
Long Wu flicked his dragon tail on his shoulder, the sound of scales rubbing together like the clinking of metal: "My dragon breath has been burning hot for a while now, go ahead and reverse it!" He snapped his fingers at the members of the Time-Air Force in the distance, and the team members wearing cross-dimensional equipment immediately spread out in a triangular formation, all the runes on their weapons activated.
The silhouette of the shadowy figure suddenly solidified.
He reached out and caught the falling ice crystal, which melted into a blue liquid in his palm. "I can delay Night Owl for three seconds." He looked at Xuan Mingzi, his eyes reflecting the image of the little beggar from three hundred years ago. "Three seconds, is that enough?"
"Enough." Xuanmingzi's Taoist robe fluttered without wind as he caught the falling tracking talisman. "Lin boy, make your move."
Lin Yi took a deep breath.
He could hear his own heartbeat, like war drums, like thunder, like the cries of millions of job seekers echoing in his ears.
The galaxy in the silver eyes began to reverse, and the star trails of the spacetime emblem overlapped with Su Qing's star map, forming a pale purple cocoon of light around the two of them.
"Time reversal—"
His voice was torn apart by the turbulent flow of time and space.
The colors of the battlefield began to distort, the missile's exhaust plume flowed back to the launch port, the wounds of the alien soldier returned to their intact state from festering, and the owl's black liquid receded back into his shattered throat.
The owl's head at the very center suddenly widened, its dark pupils reflecting the light of Lin Yi's silver eyes: "You dare—"
"Three, two, one!" Chu Yao's countdown exploded in everyone's ears.
When time began to flow again, the Night Owl's "Dark Star Barrier" had not yet been deployed.
His fleet's core resembled an exposed heart, its hue a nauseating purplish-black against the cosmic backdrop.
"Dragon Roar Break!" Long Wu roared, looking up.
The dragon's breath transformed into a golden sonic wave, crashing into the nearest spaceship. The metal hull shattered like paper, revealing the struggling extradimensional creatures inside.
"Sky-Splitting Blade!" The black figure flung out ice crystals.
A blue-white light blade sliced through space, piercing directly through the energy bays of the three main ships.
In the flames of the explosion, one could see inscriptions on the walls of the energy capsule identical to those on the floating islands of the East China Sea—marks from an even more ancient existence.
"All job changers, attack freely!" someone shouted.
Thousands of beams of light pierced the sky: the miner's giant axe cleaved through the airship's armor, the nurse's healing spikes transformed into armor-piercing bullets, and the mage's fireballs triggered a chain reaction of explosions in the energy bay.
The attack, enveloped in golden flames, landed on the extradimensional unit as easily as a hot knife through butter.
Lin Yi's figure flashed in front of Night Owl's head.
His fingertips were brimming with spacetime energy, a "spacetime blade" capable of tearing through space itself.
"Now, it's time to settle our score."
The owl's head suddenly trembled violently.
The black liquid no longer corroded the ground; instead, it frantically absorbed the surrounding dark energy.
Black tentacles crawled out of his eye sockets, drawing out huge vortexes in the void—the center of the vortex was blacker than the night, while dark red blood vessels were wrapped around its edges, like the pupils of some living creature.
"You thought..." Night Owl's voice grew hoarse, as if another, older voice resonated in his throat, "that you could win..."
The vortex suddenly expanded.
The previously heavily damaged fleet began frantically repairing itself, and even new spaceships were being squeezed out of the vortex, their metal hulls glowing with a bloody light.
Lin Yi's silver pupils suddenly contracted.
He could sense that the energy within this vortex was greater than all the other-dimensional threats he had encountered before combined—it was the true mastermind, finally reaching out from the shadows.
"Watch out!" Su Qing's star chart suddenly distorted.
She coughed up blood, but gritted her teeth and maintained her spiritual runes: "This vortex is devouring the timeline..."
Cracks appeared on Long Wu's dragon scales.
He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and the golden light of the dragon pattern began to dim: "My dragon breath... has been absorbed?"
The golden flames emanating from the job changers were also waning.
The miner wielding the giant axe suddenly staggered, the axe clattering to the ground: "My power... is flowing into the vortex!"
The owl's head grinned, this time with a laugh that carried two overlapping voices: "This is... the true Shadow Eclipse Project..."
Black mist seeped from the center of the vortex.
Wherever the mist passed, the spacetime rifts began to crumble, and even Lin Yi's spacetime emblem showed fine cracks.
Lin Yi gripped Su Qing's hand tightly.
Her palms were covered in cold sweat, yet she persisted in channeling spiritual energy.
He looked at Xuanmingzi, who was staring at the blood streaks in the vortex, his fingers digging deeply into his palm beneath his Taoist robe—there, the golden patterns of the tracking talisman were flashing wildly.
“Young Lin…” Xuanmingzi’s voice trembled slightly, “That old bastard… is here.”
The vortex suddenly emitted a deafening roar.
Black mist condensed into a gigantic hand, carrying an aura powerful enough to crush stars, and pressed down on Lin Yi and his group.
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