The moment the gates of destiny opened, Lin Yi's consciousness seemed to be forcibly pulled from his body by an invisible giant hand and thrown into a bizarre and surreal void.
His body, like a weightless drop of water, hovered above the altar in the center of the ruins, lifeless.
His soul, meanwhile, was rapidly falling in a river of time composed of countless fragmented images.
He saw it.
Seeing that at a certain point in time, he had spared his nemesis out of a moment of compassion, ultimately leading to the massacre of the entire shelter, Chu Yao's cold corpse gradually stiffened in his arms.
In another timeline, in pursuit of ultimate power, he made a deal with the abyss, transforming into a world-destroying demon god who personally crushed the heads of Long Wu and Ivan, laughing maniacally on the wasteland.
Every choice, every fork in the road, leads to a completely different and devastating end.
Despair, regret, madness... billions of negative emotions surged like the most turbulent waves, threatening to completely overwhelm his mind.
Just as he was about to be swallowed by this ocean of memories, that cold yet familiar voice rang out again in the deepest part of his consciousness, carrying a hint of condescending mockery: "You really think you're the first 'Lin Yi'?"
Meanwhile, outside the ruins, the atmosphere inside the temporary command center was as heavy as iron.
"Warning! The target's vital signs have fallen below the critical threshold; heartbeat, respiration, and brainwaves have all dropped to zero!" The cold, electronic voice ruthlessly declared the fact.
Chu Yao stood in front of the huge holographic projection, her usually calm eyes now churning with turbulent waves.
But her voice grew even colder and more resolute, without the slightest tremor: "What's the panic! Activate the [Space-Time Anchoring Protocol] immediately, with the highest privileges!"
Her slender fingers danced rapidly across the control panel, producing a stream of complex commands.
Using the last trace of spacetime fluctuations remaining in Lin Yi's body as coordinates, an incredibly complex matrix composed of pure energy began to construct in the void, attempting to build a bridge that could transcend dimensions and guide consciousness.
"Ivan!" Chu Yao hissed without turning her head, "Use your life resonance frequency to assist the resonance and stabilize the coordinates! His consciousness is being washed away by the high-dimensional information flow, we must give him an 'anchor' to return!"
"Understood!" The blond-haired boy, Ivan, was as pale as a sheet, and beads of sweat rolled down his forehead.
He closed his eyes, placed his hands lightly on the energy amplifier in front of him, and a warm and resilient life force emanated from him, resonating faintly with the crumbling spacetime coordinates.
"Long Wu!" Chu Yao's gaze turned to the man beside her, who was as silent as a mountain. "Seal off the entrance to the ruins, and activate the energy shield to its maximum. From now on, any abnormal energy fluctuations could be a precursor to higher-dimensional infiltration. Kill them without exception!"
"Yes." Long Wu replied succinctly, then turned and strode away, his metal arm, crafted with the latest technology, gleaming with a chilling light under the lamplight.
At this moment, in the consciousness space behind the Gate of Destiny, Lin Yi finally saw the owner of that voice.
That was someone exactly like him.
The same eyebrows and eyes, the same figure, even the habitual, slightly unruly smile at the corner of his mouth is exactly the same.
The only difference was the other person's eyes, which were a place of eternal ice and death, left behind after endless cycles of reincarnation and the burning away of all emotions.
He wore a set of time-space armor that was already tattered and riddled with cracks, each crack emanating a chilling, dark aura that did not belong to this dimension.
"You..." Lin Yi's voice was a little dry, as if his heart was being gripped by an icy hand.
“Me?” 'The other Lin Yi' laughed sarcastically. He pointed at Lin Yi, then at himself. “I am you, and you are me. To be more precise, I am the failed product of the sixteenth reincarnation, and you,” he looked Lin Yi up and down as if examining a flawed product, “are a defective product in the seventeenth reincarnation that has not yet completely collapsed.”
Before he could finish speaking, a torrent of even clearer and more brutal memories rushed into Lin Yi's mind without warning.
That was the final vision of the first sixteen cycles of reincarnation.
Every "Lin Yi," after opening the door of destiny, is captured by the higher-dimensional will as an "anchor" due to an unyielding obsession deep in their heart—whether it be the protection of their companions, the desire for power, or the adherence to justice. They are instantly assimilated and become pioneers who erode the real universe.
With all their memories and power, they transformed into the most terrifying natural disasters, personally destroying everything they had once sworn to protect.
The excruciating pain and the bone-deep despair seemed to transcend the boundaries of time and space, dragging Lin Yi, in his seventeenth reincarnation, into the abyss as well.
Lin Yi bit his tongue hard, the intense pain instantly pulling him out of that terrible empathy.
His brain was working frantically under extreme conditions, and his back was soaked with cold sweat.
The other party possesses all his memories, knows all his combat techniques, and understands the essence of his power even better than he does himself.
A head-on confrontation would be futile; there's no chance of victory.
But...where is the flaw?
Lin Yi's gaze was fixed on the other person's cold eyes.
Memories can be copied, power can be inherited, but what about emotions?
Can that kind of heartfelt, unique bond be perfectly imitated?
A thought flashed through my mind like lightning.
He suddenly spoke, his voice not loud, but it echoed clearly in the empty space of consciousness: "Do you remember? In order to save me from the mouth of 'Leviathan,' Long Wu sacrificed his right arm to buy me 0.3 seconds of breathing time. When that arm, made of a special alloy, exploded, the sound it made was not a boom, but a kind of... a shriek similar to the mournful cry of metal."
He stared intently at the other person's reaction.
really!
The ever-present mocking expression on 'the other Lin Yi's' face froze slightly, almost imperceptibly.
That's not thinking, but a delay that inevitably occurs when searching and comparing based on a massive memory database.
Now!
"【Time Freeze - Micro-domain】!"
Lin Yi roared inwardly, and an invisible force suddenly erupted from him.
The flow of time in this consciousness space was forcibly reduced to one-thousandth!
The world instantly transformed into a still oil painting.
The subtle expression on 'the other Lin Yi's' face was frozen in time, and the shattered shadows of time around him became as thick as amber.
Lin Yi gained a precious respite.
He was panting heavily, frantically trying to think of a way to break the deadlock.
persuade?
impossible.
The other party is a collection of failures, the embodiment of pure despair.
wipe out?
It's even more impossible; the other party is essentially himself, possessing everything he has.
So... the only way is to prove that you and he are different!
In the real world, Ivan suddenly opened his tightly closed eyes, his pupils filled with horror.
"No!" he exclaimed in shock. "Sister Chu Yao, this pulsation... this isn't erosion! Its frequency, its pattern... my god, this is... gestation! That higher-dimensional will is using the enormous energy generated when the laws of our real universe collapse, using the entire ruins as a breeding ground, to incubate... a 'divine embryo' of a new dimension!"
"What?!" Chu Yao's expression changed drastically, and she immediately pulled up all the relevant data models.
On the screen, the entropy curve, representing the stability of the real world, is climbing at a terrifying exponential rate, and there are less than 48 hours left before reaching the critical point representing "heat death of the universe"!
Once the divine embryo is born, the entire world will become its nourishment and be completely devoured!
The crisis arrived in an unprecedented manner.
Within his consciousness, Lin Yi no longer tried to sway that "self" with words.
He closed his eyes, delved into the deepest recesses of his memory, and deliberately unlocked a seal he had never mentioned to anyone, one that he himself had deliberately forgotten.
That was a similarly dark memory.
Not long after he awakened his power of spacetime, he accidentally stumbled into a parallel world that was extremely similar to the main world.
The "Lin Yi" of that world is about to bring about a massive disaster that could destroy two timelines because of a wrong choice.
With no other choice, the young Lin Yi personally and ruthlessly erased the "self" of that parallel world, sacrificing one world to ensure the stability of the main timeline.
That cold-blooded decisiveness, that sin stained with the blood of his "kind," was the deepest secret in his heart.
When this sealed memory was fully released, the entire space of consciousness trembled.
Lin Yi slowly opened his eyes. His gaze was no longer filled with confusion and struggle, but instead showed an unprecedented sharpness and determination.
He looked at "another version of himself" who had fallen into a prolonged stagnation due to the impact of massive data, his voice as cold as ancient ice.
You're saying I'm a defective product?
"But it is precisely because I dare to sever ties with my past self that I am not a pitiful creature bound by obsessions and endlessly going through cycles of reincarnation."
"You are merely the past I have abandoned. I, on the other hand, am the future I have chosen for myself!"
"I am not a slave to reincarnation!"
The moment he finished speaking, the tightly closed door of destiny in his heart, symbolizing the ultimate and the unknown, suddenly swung open amidst a dazzling golden light!
Endless light devoured everything.
When Lin Yi opened his eyes again, the blinding light made him squint slightly.
A strange scent, faintly reminiscent of starlight, filled the air, and beneath one's feet lay a solid, cold crystal floor.
He... succeeded.
He stood in the real world behind the door.
He instinctively turned around to look.
Behind them, the magnificent gate of destiny, composed of light and shadow, was slowly and irreversibly closing.
Space twisted and collapsed before it, emitting a dull, deafening roar.
Just as the door was about to close completely, a hand, a pale, bloodless, and bony hand, suddenly reached out from the crack, its five fingers spread wide in pain, like a drowning person desperately trying to grab onto something, trying to crawl out of the endless darkness inside the door.
Lin Yi was extremely familiar with that hand.
It was his own hand.
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