The figure at the center of the purple light trail suddenly solidified.
The moment Long Wu's dragon scale armor came into contact with that aura, it all shattered. He staggered and knelt on one knee, scalding dragon blood dripping from between his fingers onto the ground, but he didn't even have the strength to lift his head—not because of the pressure, but because some ancient resonance was washing over his bloodline. "It's... the Overlord." A broken roar escaped his throat, and the time totem on his bronze bracers spun wildly, imprinting the same star trail patterns as Lin Yi's pupils on the back of his hand.
Ivan's hive communicator cracked open with a "snap," and pale golden liquid gushed out from the crack, condensing into a translucent butterfly in his palm.
He stared at the butterfly, suddenly recalling the last light he saw three hundred years ago when the Mother Nest invaded, before his humanity was stripped away—a light seven-tenths similar to the radiance emanating from Lin Yi at this moment. "This is impossible..." he murmured, raising his head to meet a pair of eyes deeper than the universe itself.
Chu Yao's holographic projection instantly appeared as a double image, her data link flashing frantically with warning red light, only to turn a soft pale blue the instant it touched Lin Yi. "Detected 87% completion rate of spacetime law reconstruction." Her voice, unusually tinged with emotion, emanated a rare warmth, and the data streams at the ends of her hair automatically wove into a star map. "The original destiny system anchor point is dissolving... Your confirmation is required, sir."
Standing at the center of the light trail, Lin Yi felt as if billions of threads were piercing through his very bones.
Those fragments of memory that were once crushed by the abyss of time are now being reassembled in his sea of consciousness in a completely new order—he finally sees the truth about "another self": it is the "humanity" that was eliminated by the system, and the collection of all the "wrong choices" that were erased by the perfect trajectory.
Now, this humanity, bearing a gilded contract, lies quietly deep within his soul, its cover bearing the inscription "The Book of Re-establishing Destiny."
"Chu Yao, grant core access." As he spoke, the flow of time in the entire space seemed to freeze.
In a laboratory three kilometers away, the pointers of all the precision instruments simultaneously turned to zero. "Give me the test data from just now."
"Synchronized." Chu Yao's projection solidified beside him, her fingertips tracing through the air, and a world structure model composed of stardust appeared before him.
Lin Yi saw that the chains of rules, which had been woven into a spider web by the Fate System, were breaking, and wherever his spiritual power reached, emerald-colored new veins were growing from the broken points—those were the laws that truly belonged to this world.
"Xuanmingzi." He suddenly turned his head.
The gray-robed man, who had been standing silently in the shadows, trembled slightly.
The system chains around his neck had long since broken, but a pale purple stream of data still flowed beneath his skin—the last remnants of the Fate System's poison. "I'm here." He took a step forward, the judge's sword at his waist automatically drawing, its blade reflecting his sickly pale face. "What do you need me to do?"
Lin Yi looked at the struggle surging in his eyes—it was the program implanted when he was the system avatar, fighting against his awakened self-awareness.
He recalled that three years ago at the Tower of Judgment, Xuan Mingzi used his mental power to crush half of the system core in order to protect the Time and Space Legion; he recalled that last month at the Moon Sea Ruins, the other party secretly stuffed the "Destiny Anchor" that should have been handed over into his pocket, saying, "Keep it for those who need it."
"You know what to do," Lin Yi said, his voice as soft as a feather.
Xuanmingzi suddenly laughed.
His smile was slow, as if he were recalling some long-forgotten emotion.
He unfastened the jade pendant from his waist—a token exchanged by all core members three years ago when the Time Air Force Legion was established; it remained as cool to the touch as ever. "I was once the system's blade," he said, placing the pendant on the data tray Chu Yao handed him. "Later, I became your shield."
"Now..." He raised his hand to his chest, and a stream of pale purple data suddenly poured out from his seven orifices, condensing into a phantom image of the system core above his head. "I want to become the cornerstone of your new world."
Chu Yao's fingertips tapped rapidly in the air, a protective force field unfolding around Xuan Mingzi. "Self-formatting program initiated, 30 seconds remaining." For the first time, her voice held warmth. "Do you need me to adjust your pain threshold?"
"No need." Xuan Mingzi's figure began to become transparent. His gaze towards Lin Yi was like snow on a winter night. "Give Xiao Nian a hug for me." She was the healing apprentice he had raised for two years, and she was currently treating the wounded on the front lines.
Lin Yi's Adam's apple bobbed.
He raised his hand, and light patterns from a spacetime rift appeared on his palm.
Just as Xuan Mingzi's fingertips were about to touch the crack, the system core phantom suddenly emitted a piercing shriek, and a stream of purple data coiled around his neck like a venomous snake. "Traitor!" a mechanical voice tore through the air, "You will be crushed by the laws—"
"Then crush it." Xuanmingzi's voice suddenly became clear and bright, like the "Qingjing Jing" he used to recite in the Taoist temple when he was young.
His figure completely turned into stardust, but before dissipating, he shattered the system core.
The moment the stardust merged into the core of spacetime, the "Book of Re-establishing Destiny" in Lin Yi's hand automatically opened, and the name Xuan Mingzi slowly appeared on the blank page of the last page.
"Structural reconstruction complete 99%!" Chu Yao's voice suddenly rose, data surging wildly from the tips of her hair. "But the reality dimension's tolerance has reached its critical point; we must stabilize it for these three minutes!"
Lin Yi looked up at the window.
In the real world sky, the star clusters that were originally distorted by the fate system are returning to their original positions, while the aurora borealis appears eerily blood red due to energy leakage.
Long Wu had appeared beside him unnoticed, his dragon scales now covering his entire body, his massive tail slamming into the ground and creating a deep crater, his body forming a barrier of dragon breath for them. "Boss, need me to break down the Northern Lights's protective formation?" He grinned, dragon blood still smeared on his canines. "Back in the newbie village, I could withstand three hits from a boss, now... ten should be manageable, right?"
"No need." Lin Yi's fingertips pressed on the "Book of Re-establishing Destiny," and the pages shimmered with a soft golden light.
He could clearly perceive the patterns of every law of spacetime, as if he were touching his own veins.
As he read the first line of the contract, the flow of time across the entire Earth suddenly slowed down—not paused, but gently lifted, like a mother cradling a toddler's hand.
The blood-red hue of the aurora borealis began to fade.
In the laboratory, all the instruments that had gone out of control due to the deviation of the star's orbit simultaneously emitted a soft "ding" sound, and the pointers returned to their positions.
Chu Yao's projection finally stabilized. She looked at the data panel, and for the first time, the data stream in her pupils showed a fluctuation similar to "reassurance".
"It's done." Lin Yi closed the contract and looked up to see Ivan staring at his palm.
The mother butterfly had landed on the back of his hand at some point, and the patterns on its wings were exactly the same as the gold-embossed patterns on the "Book of Destiny Re-established".
"What's wrong?" Lin Yi asked.
Ivan looked up, and something dormant was awakening in his eyes.
His mother nest totem suddenly emitted a warm light, a light that no longer carried the aggressive heat of the past, but rather... the final tenderness before some connection was severed. "I think..." he paused, his fingertips gently touching the butterfly, "I heard the sound of flowers blooming."
Outside the window, the last streak of purple light disappeared below the horizon.
Meanwhile, in the wreckage of the Mother Nest starship thousands of miles away, a core that had been dormant for three hundred years was cracking with spiderweb-like fissures.
The laboratory glass suddenly shattered, revealing spiderweb-like patterns.
The mother butterfly on Ivan's fingertip fluttered its wings, the dark patterns on the wings resonating with the "Book of Re-establishment of Destiny." Pale golden liquid flowed backward along his veins, condensing into a translucent diamond-shaped mark between his brows.
His previously cloudy pupils suddenly became clear and bright, as if a galaxy was flowing in his eyes.
“I heard it…” he said softly, swallowing the gasp that rose to his lips as his Adam’s apple bobbed – it was not a simple “flower blooming”, but three hundred years of memories sleeping in the core of the mother nest, being rearranged in the rhythm of life.
Those memories of his home planet, Spring Cherry, that had been covered by aggressive data, the tremors of his first touch of starlight, now flowed through his consciousness like a thawing stream.
“The Mother Nest consciousness… has completely vanished.” Ivan raised his hand, the diamond-shaped mark gleaming with a gentle light. “Replaced it… is the independent consciousness of each individual Mother Nest member. They are saying they want to see the moon on Earth.” He turned to Lin Yi, his eyes slightly red, yet with a relieved smile. “I want to be a bridge, sir. To connect those lives torn apart by war, to let them know… that conquest is not the only answer.”
Before the words were finished, a thunderous roar, like that of a dragon, came from outside the window.
Dragon Five's tail suddenly slammed heavily onto the ground, and the time totem on the bronze wristband burst forth with a dazzling blue light.
He looked up at the sky, where the dragon scales that had been repaired were cracking apart, revealing new scales underneath that shimmered with a golden-red luster—a form that was even closer to the true form of a dragon than before.
"Boss!" His voice was filled with suppressed rage, "The fragments of the Destiny System are the culprits! This piece of junk copied me seventeen times!"
The holographic projection in the laboratory suddenly switched, and Chu Yao drew a red warning line in the air with her fingertips.
"Residual data from the Destiny System has been detected solidifying into 17 Long Wu clones, distributed in the four cardinal directions." The data stream at the tip of her hair pulsed rapidly. "The clones possess 80% of the original's combat power, but lack self-awareness and have a clear objective—"
“They’re interfering with your embedding of the ‘Book of Re-establishing Destiny’,” Chu Yao’s voice turned cold. “They’re calculating the time difference, trying to tear this space apart before you finish.”
Lin Yi's pupils contracted slightly.
He could clearly sense the existence of those clones: each one carried Long Wu's aura, yet was mixed with distorted purplish-black data streams.
That was the final madness of the fate system, using the person it knew best to create flaws.
Before he could speak, Long Wu had already flung off his sleeve, and his dragon claws dug deep trenches in the ground.
"Boss, hold on!" He grinned, his canines gleaming coldly in the light. "Back in the newbie village, I got rubbed into the ground by the boss, but now I can rub the boss into the ground—let alone a bunch of brainless imposters?"
Before he could finish speaking, Long Wu's figure had already burst out of the window.
The temperature in the laboratory plummeted.
Lin Yi walked to the window and saw seventeen dark figures falling from the clouds. Each one looked exactly like Long Wu, even the bloodstains at the corners of their mouths were identical.
The lead clone raised its dragon claw, its tip crackling with purple plasma: "Annihilate target, master of spacetime."
"Bullshit!" Long Wu's roar shattered three layers of clouds.
His dragon tail swept out, colliding head-on with the nearest clone.
With a piercing metallic scraping sound, the replica's dragon scales instantly crumbled, revealing the surging data flow inside; while Long Wu's new scales only had a small dent, with golden-red blood seeping out from the wound, but condensing into tiny dragon crystals the moment it came into contact with the air.
"It hurts!" Long Wu laughed instead. "It's been a long time since I've felt this much pain! This means my bloodline is awakening!" He tilted his head back and let out a dragon's roar. A semi-transparent dragon shadow appeared behind him—a five-clawed golden dragon that was clearer than before, with light bands of the laws of time wrapped around its horns.
The clones froze simultaneously, as if suppressed by some higher bloodline.
“The Reverse Scale… is coming.” Long Wu’s voice suddenly became low and hoarse.
A crisp sound of bones reassembling came from his chest cavity, and the dragon scale closest to his heart began to heat up, its color changing from golden red to molten gold, with ancient runes appearing on its surface.
The seventeen clones simultaneously let out shrieks, their attacks no longer orderly, but frantically rushing towards Long Wu, as if they had a premonition of something.
"Break for me!" Long Wu ripped open the dragon scales on his chest.
The moment the reverse scale leaped out, the entire sky was dyed a molten gold.
It was a palm-sized scale, with starlight flowing around its edges, and the word "Guardian" engraved in the center—it was carved for him by Lin Yi in the newbie village three years ago, when he laughed and said, "Boss, your handwriting is as ugly as an earthworm."
At this moment, the two words shone with golden light, perfectly matching the runes of the Reverse Scale.
Seventeen attacks simultaneously struck Reverse Scale.
The golden light shield instantly unfolded, devouring all the purplish-black energy.
The clones slowed down, their bodies became transparent, and the mechanical red light in their eyes gradually faded.
Before the last clone dissipated, it revealed a silly grin identical to Long Wu's: "Boss... I think... I also want to protect something."
Long Wu bent down, picked up the reverse scale, and gently pressed it back to his chest.
He looked up toward the lab, blood smeared at the corner of his mouth, but his smile was brighter than ever: "Boss! It's done! These imposters... they haven't even learned my protective instincts!"
Lin Yi looked at the mess outside the window, his throat tightening.
He touched the spacetime rift on his chest—where the dragon scale fragments that Long Wu had given him in the beginner village were still stored, and they were now slightly warm with the resonance of the reverse scale.
“It’s my turn,” he said softly, turning and walking toward the spacetime intersection point in the center of the laboratory.
Chu Yao's projection instantly froze beside him.
"The coordinates of the world's origin have been locked, and the 'Book of Re-establishing Destiny' is 100% compatible with the laws." Her voice unusually warmed. "Would you like me to activate a protective force field for you?"
"No need." Lin Yi opened the "Book of Re-establishing Destiny." The blank space on the last page was already densely filled with names: Xuan Mingzi, Long Wu, Ivan, Chu Yao... and all those who had risked their lives for this world.
He pressed his palm onto the pages of the book, and the gold-embossed patterns suddenly came to life, creeping up his arm and covering his entire body.
"They have built the strongest barrier for me."
The moment he embedded the book at the intersection of time and space, the entire Earth vibrated like a tolling bell.
The laboratory instruments simultaneously emitted blinding white light, shattering Chu Yao's projection, but revealing a smile before dissipating.
Thousands of miles away, Xiao Nian, who was treating the wounded, suddenly looked up, and the healing light in her hand became even warmer; in the wreckage of the Mother Nest Starship, the core with fine cracks suddenly emitted a soft light, shining on a piece of broken armor—it was Ivan's breastplate from three hundred years ago.
A whisper echoed in the minds of all humanity: "Destiny is malleable."
Some were pleasantly surprised to find that their job change interface had a new "custom branch" option; some players trembled as they touched their job badges and discovered that their previously fixed skill trees were sprouting new branches; even the most ordinary office workers felt that the sky above their heads was brighter—it was the real starlight that had been obscured by the Fate System for three years.
Lin Yi raised his head.
He saw a line of words slowly emerge from the light trail at the intersection of space and time, as if written with stardust:
"Welcome to the true infinite world."
Below these words, an even deeper rift is quietly opening, and deep within it, a pair of eyes similar to his but even more ancient are gazing upon this reborn world.
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