The twisting sound of the metal door was like fingernails scraping against a blackboard, making Chu Yao's eardrums ache.
Before her terminal screen went completely black, the last scrambled characters spelled out "SSS-level alert"—the highest rating the system could give for a level of danger.
"Step back behind me." Lin Yi placed his palm on Chu Yao's shoulder, and the warmth from his palm steadied her trembling fingertips slightly.
He stared at the black mist seeping from the crack in the door, his pupils slightly contracting.
The black mist was not a simple gas; each wisp was wrapped in tiny crystals, leaving silvery streaks in the air, much like the nerve synapses of an alien creature.
Long Wu's tail slammed heavily onto the ground, sending pebbles flying and falling back down through the passage. "Brother Lin, this smells wrong!" He sniffed, his dragon scales turning a dark red. "It's like the dragon-eating beast we encountered in the far north, but those things didn't have this kind of frenzy."
Xuanmingzi's Li Fire suddenly surged three feet, condensing into a red wall in front of everyone.
His Taoist robes fluttered without wind, but his eyes, beneath his white eyebrows, narrowed into slits: "It's rule corruption." As the avatar of the game's mastermind, his perception of energy fluctuations was sharper than anyone else's. "Night Owl is shifting the spatial rules of the Mother Nest to another dimension. Any later, and our skills would have been swallowed up by his domain."
"Su Qing." Lin Yi suddenly spoke up.
The girl, who was holding a portable computer, immediately looked up, her forehead glistening with sweat under the light.
Her fingers flew across the virtual keyboard, her hair whipping up in the turbulent energy flow: "Already synchronizing with the core data of the mother nest!"
But the Night Owl's interference was too strong, it could only intercept... Wait! "She suddenly widened her eyes, the data stream in the quantum computer projection exploded into fragments, "He is burning the life energy of the mother nest!"
This is equivalent to... equivalent to a human self-immolating their heart!
"So he's gone mad." The voice of the shadowy figure came from the back of the group.
This high-level civilization law enforcer, always shrouded in a black trench coat, now pressed his palm against the wall, the tracking runes glowing a ghostly blue under his hand. "The annihilation of the Bloodline Guard has touched his sore spot."
The mother nest was his lifeblood, a reproductive entity he had dragged from another dimension over three hundred years—now that someone was tearing apart his lifeline, he would naturally fight to the death.
Before he could finish speaking...
The metal door exploded open with a "bang".
Shrapnel rained down like a storm, but suddenly stopped three steps away from the group—Lin Yi's spacetime power wove a transparent net in front of them.
He stared at the figure outside the door, his Adam's apple bobbing.
The owl is more terrifying than described in the documents.
He was three meters tall, with skin that was bluish-gray like rotting flesh, and blood vessels that writhed beneath his skin like living things. His left eye was a spinning black hole, and his right eye was a burning purple flame.
The most terrifying thing was his mouth, which was split open all the way to his ears and continued to stretch, with each sharp tooth dripping corrosive black liquid, burning small holes in the ground with a sizzling sound.
"Little mice," his voice, like two misaligned phonographs overlapping, crackling with static, "let me see... whose bones are the hardest."
Long Wu was the first to rush forward.
His dragon claws drew golden light through the air, and his dragon roar shook the ceiling of the passage, causing dust to fall: "Grandpa's bones are tough!" But the moment his attack touched Night Owl, it was repelled by a black barrier—the surface of which floated countless faces of Bloodline Guards, emitting sharp howls.
"Long Wu, be careful!" Chu Yao's voice was trembling with tears.
She had just calculated the energy frequency of the barrier through the terminal when she saw the owl's left hand swing out.
A black light blade tore through the air and pierced through Long Wu's left shoulder.
Blood blossomed where the dragon scales shattered, and his massive body was thrown against the wall, causing rocks to fall.
Xuanmingzi's Li Huo immediately wrapped around Night Owl's right leg.
The crimson flames scorched the rotting flesh, emitting a burnt, foul smell, but only made the owl pause for half a second.
His right claw reached for the nearest job changer, a warrior wielding a giant axe, who was raising his axe to chop, but was grabbed by the throat by an invisible force—the owl didn't even look at him, it just casually gripped his throat.
"Pfft!" The soldier's sternum made a teeth-grinding cracking sound.
"No!" Su Qing's personal terminal crashed to the ground. She rushed towards the soldier, but Lin Yi grabbed her wrist.
"Now is not the time," Lin Yi's voice was as heavy as lead.
He looked at Night Owl, at the crushed warrior, at Long Wu's bleeding wound, and his Adam's apple bobbed.
The Time-Space Emblem burned on his neck, a resonance of a mythical profession—but this time, it burned his skin red, as if it were about to burn through his flesh.
Night Owl's purple-flamed right eye suddenly turned to Lin Yi: "You're the bug who stole the power of spacetime?" He tilted his head, more black mist surging from his black hole left eye, "Let me see if your bones are this brittle—"
"Time and Space: Rewinding"
Lin Yi's low shout was like a thunderclap.
Suddenly, everything went dark.
The wound on Long Wu's shoulder began to heal, and the shattered dragon scales regenerated; the warrior whose sternum had been crushed coughed up stagnant blood, and his ribs returned to their original positions with a "crackling" sound; the crack in Chu Yao's terminal screen closed automatically, and even the data stream that had just exploded began to flow backward.
Time, within a radius of twenty meters, rewound by three minutes.
"This...this is a mythical-level skill?" Xuanmingzi's Li Huo weakened for a moment.
As the game's mastermind, he was well aware of the terror of time reversal—it was a power that could even alter the laws of nature. However, previous tests showed that Lin Yi could only rewind for a maximum of ten seconds!
The owl stopped moving.
His right eye, a purple flame, shrank to the size of a pinhead, while his left eye, a black hole, frantically devoured the surrounding energy: "So that's how it is... so you were hiding this trick!" His voice finally carried genuine emotion, not anger, but excitement. "Excellent!"
I desperately need fresh flesh and blood to sacrifice to my mother nest!
"All personnel, listen to my command!" Lin Yi's spacetime emblem suddenly glowed with blood-red light.
This was a color he had never seen before, as if it were about to drip blood, but he could feel that more spacetime power was flowing into his body through the emblem.
He looked at Long Wu, who had stood up again, at the warrior wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth, and at Chu Yao's terminal that had lit up again. His eyes blazed with fire. "Long Wu led the job changers into close combat, disrupting his energy gathering rhythm!"
Xuanmingzi used the Li Huo to seal his right leg—the previous burning was effective!
Chu Yao searched for the flaw in his left eye, Su Qing synchronized with my spacetime frequency, the shadow... He turned to the ever-calm enforcer, "Please carve a tracking talisman on his back; I need to know the location of his energy core."
"Understood." The shadowy figure moved faster than it answered.
He had somehow circled around to the side and behind the night owl, the runes on his fingertips flashing before disappearing into the black mist.
"Kill!" Long Wu swung his dragon claws out again.
This time, his dragon scales gleamed with golden light, a result of the bloodline potential being unleashed after being repaired by time reversal.
His roar now carried a hint of dragon's cry, causing ripples to spread across the Night Owl's barrier.
The job changers followed suit and charged forward.
Their weapons glowed with a pale golden light—a mythical buff triggered by "Faith Link," amplifying their power infinitely as they believed Lin Yi could lead them to victory.
Night Owl's men finally appeared.
These alien creatures, even larger than the Bloodline Guards, surged out from the depths of the Mother Nest, only to be torn in two by Long Wu's claw.
Warriors cleaved monsters' skulls with their giant axes, mages' fireballs struck their weak points with pinpoint accuracy, and healers' light spells weaved through the crowd—this time, they were no longer the ones being crushed.
"How could this be... how could this be!" Night Owl's purple flame right eye twitched violently.
Black mucus began to seep from under his skin, a sign of energy overload.
His left hand was pressed against his chest, where a bulging lump of flesh rose and fell violently with his heartbeat—that was the core energy source of the mother nest, which he had just burned.
Lin Yi's pupils shrank to slits.
He could sense that the owl's energy was rising at an alarming rate.
With each twitch of the tumor, Night Owl's aura intensified by three points, and even his spacetime power began to spiral out of control.
"Lin Yi!" Chu Yao's terminal emitted a piercing alarm, "His core energy conversion rate exceeds 200%!"
If this continues, he'll blow the Mother Nest, along with us, into cosmic dust!
"I know." Cold sweat beaded on Lin Yi's forehead.
The crimson light of the Time-Space Emblem grew stronger and stronger, even leaving red lines on his skin.
This was a state he had never experienced before, as if another consciousness was whispering in his mind, telling him how to mobilize a more powerful force of spacetime.
The owl suddenly laughed.
His mouth split open to his ears, revealing gums corroded by the black liquid: "You think you're so great for holding on this long?" His left hand slammed into the fleshy tumor on his chest, and black energy erupted like a volcano. "Now, give it to me—"
\"boom!\"
A loud bang interrupted him.
Everyone looked toward the source of the sound.
That's Lin Yi's spot.
His body was glowing, not with the transparency of spacetime, but with a blood-red hue.
His time-space emblem had become one with his skin, red lines crawling all over his body along his blood vessels, and even his pupils had turned the color of blood crystals.
"This is..." Xuanmingzi's Li Huo was completely extinguished.
He looked at Lin Yi and suddenly remembered the ancient records of advanced civilizations—when a mythical profession resonates absolutely with its host, it will trigger "divine manifestation".
The owl's laughter stopped abruptly.
He stared at Lin Yi, at the even stronger energy fluctuations emanating from him, and finally revealed genuine fear: "You...you can't be..."
Lin Yi raised his hand.
This time, he didn't use time distortion or time reversal. He simply gave a gentle squeeze.
The sound of shattering glass filled the air.
Cracks began to appear on the owl's body, like porcelain being crushed by an invisible hand.
His purple flame in his right eye went out, and his black hole in his left eye was filled with red patterns.
He tried to speak, but could only let out a weak, hissing sound.
"It's not over yet." Lin Yi's voice was no longer his own, but carried an ancient and weathered echo. "Your mother nest, your invasion, your...everything."
The owl's body completely disintegrated into black mist.
But in the last moment before he dissipated, his consciousness surged into Lin Yi's mind: "You think you've won?"
The core of the mother nest has initiated its self-destruct program. In three seconds—
\"bite.\"
Chu Yao's terminal suddenly beeped with a notification sound.
She stared at the screen, her eyes wide: "The self-destruct program...was overwritten by time travel?"
Lin Yi's red markings are fading.
He staggered and grabbed the wall for support, sweat dripping from his forehead onto the ground.
The power he had just used up far exceeded his expectations, but what made him even more uneasy was—what exactly were those blood-red patterns, that consciousness that did not belong to him?
"Lin Yi!" Su Qing rushed over to support him.
Her fingertips touched the time-space emblem on his neck, and she suddenly froze.
"What's wrong?" Lin Yi looked up.
His face was reflected in Su Qing's eyes.
Such blood-red patterns had never appeared in the fragments of her memory.
Even more strangely, she could sense that within those patterns lay fragments of another soul, dormant yet poised to awaken at any moment.
A deep rumble echoed from the depths of the tunnel. It was the sound of the Mother Nest core restarting.
But at this moment, Lin Yi looked at his pale red palm and suddenly remembered what the shadowy figure had said—the selection mechanism of advanced civilizations is never a simple battle.
Unbeknownst to him, in a higher-dimensional space, a stone tablet covered with runes suddenly lit up.
Below the four characters "Master of Time and Space" on the stone tablet, a new line of smaller characters appears:
"The manifestation of divinity has been activated. Candidate Lin Yi has passed the third stage of the Civilization Trial."
Deep within his consciousness, the dormant soul finally stirred.
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