The runes on the golden portal flowed with a honey-colored halo in the air, each line like a living golden snake, leaving a burning mark on everyone's retinas.
Su Qing, nestled in Lin Yi's arms, was breathing steadily, but he could clearly feel his heartbeat resonating with the seven keys on his chest—a rhythm older and more powerful than a heartbeat, like the tolling of a bell from the beginning of the universe.
"Try it." The shadowy figure's metallic fingertips gently tapped his back.
This usually composed law enforcement officer's Adam's apple bobbed slightly, and a barely perceptible urgency crept into his mechanical voice: "The Seven Keys have recognized their master; you are the only one who can reach them."
Lin Yi took a deep breath and gently placed Su Qing in Long Wu's arms.
His hand paused three inches from the door, the warmth of his palm making the starlight of the Seven Keys shine even brighter, and even the air rippled with fine waves.
When my fingertips finally touched the gold pattern with its grooves, it felt like touching a high-voltage power grid.
\"laugh--\"
An electric current shot up his arm and up his spine, sending him staggering backward, his hand splitting open and drawing tiny beads of blood.
Long Wu swiftly caught him, the cracks on the broken blade gleaming coldly in the golden light: "What the hell is that?"
"Barrier." The shadowy figure stepped forward, its metal finger hovering three inches above the grooves. A beam of pale blue detection light shot out from its palm. "The seven grooves correspond to the energy frequencies of the seven keys."
"You only have five now." As he turned his head, a red light from a gap in his mask swept across Lin Yi's chest. "The two missing ones don't have enough resonance."
"Five?" Lin Yi looked down at himself.
Seven keys floated before his chest, five of them shimmering with starlight, while the other two seemed shrouded in a layer of gray mist. "When I obtained the third key in the Time-Space Maze, the system notification was 'Current collection progress 5/7'..."
"Because the other two are not physical objects."
A hoarse voice came from the left.
Xuanmingzi had appeared beside them at some point, the runes under his Taoist robe still flickering like dying embers.
His fingernails dug deeply into his palms, and drops of blood seeping from between his fingers froze into ice crystals the moment they touched the ground: "Advanced civilizations have used the most insidious methods—the key is a 'fragment of will.'"
"Willpower?" A-Jie gripped his assault rifle tightly, the tactical light on the stock casting flickering spots of light on the door. "Old man, explain yourself!"
"It's the sealed will of a civilization." Xuan Mingzi suddenly coughed violently, blood splattering onto the golden door, making a hissing, corrosive sound. "The core of the mother nest... an ancient civilization destroyed by a higher civilization, their resistance, their resentment, their..." He suddenly grabbed Lin Yi's wrist, his nails almost piercing the skin. "Why do you think I betrayed you?"
Because inside the game's mainframe, I heard the screams of those crushed civilizations!
Long Wu's broken blade slammed against Xuan Mingzi's neck: "The old bastard's gone mad again—"
"Shut up." Lin Yi pressed down on Long Wu's wrist.
He could feel the temperature emanating from Xuan Mingzi's palm; it wasn't human-like, but rather like some kind of forcibly suppressed energy burning him. "Continue," he said.
Xuanmingzi's pupils suddenly contracted to slits. He looked up at the runes at the top of the door and his voice suddenly lowered: "The last two keys are hidden in the annihilation zone of the core of the mother nest."
"There..." His Adam's apple bobbed. "There are guards erected by an advanced civilization, waiting specifically for greedy scavengers."
"Go." Lin Yi released Xuan Mingzi's hand, turned around and took Su Qing from Long Wu's arms.
He lowered his head and gently kissed her forehead. Su Qing's eyelashes brushed against his lips, making him feel a ticklish sensation—this reminded him of the cup of hot cocoa she handed him during the downpour in the newbie village, the water droplets condensed on the cup gently touching his fingertips in the same way.
"Are you crazy?" A-Jie's gun barrel dropped slightly. "The Mother Nest Core is the intruder's lair!"
Last time we went to the outskirts, three of our brothers were killed!
"Because Su Qing's life lies within the Seven Keys." Lin Yi handed Su Qing to the medic behind him, his movements as gentle as if placing a fragile treasure. "Because behind this door might lie the answer to waking her up." As he turned, the seven keys formed the Big Dipper shape on his chest. "And also because..." He looked at the shadowy figure, "The Guardian is coming, isn't she?"
The shadowy figure slowly lifted its mask, revealing the lower half of its sharply defined face.
His lips twitched, but he only managed to say, "I'll clear the way."
The journey was more difficult than expected.
The once familiar maternal nest passage was like a crumpled piece of paper, with spatial folds appearing every ten meters. Tiny fragments of light floated in the air, and stepping on them produced a crisp sound similar to shattering glass.
A-Jie's tactical map was flashing red dots wildly, and the waveform on the radar screen was twisted into a strange spiral.
"Stop." The dark figure suddenly raised his hand.
His metal left hand pressed against the wall, and the surface immediately rippled like water. "There's a spatial anchor point ahead."
Before the words were even finished, the air in front of everyone suddenly glowed blue.
Three figures emerged from the light—the man in the lead wore a blood-stained combat uniform, had a scar on his left cheek running from his brow bone to his jaw, and wore a badge that read "Night Owl Special Operations Team" on his right shoulder.
"Old Zhou?" Long Wu's broken blade clattered to the ground.
He staggered forward two steps, then abruptly stopped. "Impossible... Old Zhou was on the battlefield in the ruined capital last month..."
"He's dead." The shadowy voice pierced to the bone like an ice pick. "This is the Mirror Warrior."
The Mother Nest extracted your memories, a weapon of replication.
Mirror Image Old Zhou grinned, revealing fangs identical to the real one: "Long Wu, your gunshot wound is still in your right abdomen, right?" As he raised his hand, a cyan energy blade, exactly like Long Wu's broken blade, condensed in his palm. "I remember you always said that this 'Sky-Splitting Slash' technique needs to be coordinated with breathing—"
"Watch out!" Lin Yi grabbed Long Wu and rolled backward.
A cyan blade flashed past his ear, leaving a half-foot-deep cut on the wall.
Mirror Image Old Zhou's attack didn't pause for a moment. The second slash was aimed at A Jie's throat. The movement was clean and neat, just like the Old Zhou in my memory who took three slashes to save his teammates.
"They know our weaknesses!" A-Jie scrambled into cover, assault rifle bullets hitting Mirror Image Old Zhou in the chest, but it was like hitting water. "This thing is completely immune to physical attacks!"
Lin Yi leaned against the wall, panting, sweat dripping from his forehead into his collar.
He watched the mirror warriors work together seamlessly—one of them was approaching the medical team behind them in the posture of a medic, while another was holding a particle cannon identical to the shadowy one, even their loading gestures were exactly the same.
"Time and space..." he murmured softly, his fingertips gently pressing against his temples.
The resonance of the Seven Keys suddenly became sharp, as if someone was beating a war drum in his mind.
He could see the subtle stutters in the Mirror Warriors' movements; they were the time differences left when the Matrix copied memories—like the sprocket holes in a film reel, revealing flaws during high-speed operation.
"Boss!" Long Wu finally gripped his broken blade again, wiping the blood from his face. "These bastards even stole the sword techniques I taught Old Zhou!"
Lin Yi looked up at the chaotic crowd.
The Mirror Warriors' every move was terrifyingly precise, yet there was no light in their eyes—a darkness more hollow than death itself, like puppets controlled by a program.
His fingers slowly pressed against the seven keys on his chest.
The key's heat burned through the clothes and skin, and a dormant power awakened in the blood vessels, like a sleeping dragon opening its eyes.
"Time-space shattering..." he murmured the skill name, a faint purple light shimmering in his pupils. "It's time to try it." Lin Yi's Adam's apple bobbed, and he pressed his fingertips on the Seven Keys with even more pressure.
The resonance of the seven keys exploded in his eardrums, like ancient war drums piercing through time and space, making his temples throb.
This was the first time he had actively invoked the deep abilities of the [Time and Space Dominator]—all previous battles had been like being separated by a thin veil, but now he was about to truly tear off that mask.
"Space-time shattered!"
A pale purple light burst forth from the depths of his pupils, like two invisible blades slicing through the air.
Centered on him, the space within a radius of twenty meters suddenly began to twist and fold, and the originally clear walls, ground, and the outline of the mirror warrior all turned into melting wax figures.
Long Wu's broken blade was slashing toward Old Zhou's shoulder and neck, but the blade seemed to have cut into glue, and the movement suddenly slowed down by three beats; A Jie's assault rifle bullet hovered in mid-air, with pale purple light spots condensed on the surface of the bullet, and even the tail flame solidified into a translucent tongue of fire.
The Mirror Warriors' pupils were the first to crack.
The mirror image disguised as a medic, which was originally approaching the medical team behind it with a poisoned syringe, now had spiderweb-like lines crawling across the whites of its eyes, and the curve of its mouth began to distort—like a low-quality holographic projection that had been paused.
"Seize the opening!" The shadowy figure's metal arm suddenly expanded into a particle cannon, and a ghostly blue beam pierced through the frozen mirror warrior's chest. "Their core is between their eyebrows!"
Long Wu's broken blade finally broke free from the spatial constraints.
He roared and the blade grazed Lin Yi's ear as it slashed down, striking the dark purple orb between the eyebrows of the mirror image of Old Zhou.
With a crisp "crack," the mirror image of Lao Zhou's head shattered like broken glass, breaking into thousands of fragments of memories that gleamed coldly—there were images of Lao Zhou taking a knife for him on the battlefield of the ruined capital, scenes of the two sharing roasted chicken legs by the campfire in the newbie village, and even Lao Zhou's dying words as he coughed up blood, "Take care of my mother for me."
"Fuck your clones!" Long Wu wiped the blood from his face, and the cracks on his broken blade suddenly glowed with golden light. "My brothers are none of your business!"
A-Jie's bullets also returned to their original trajectory.
He fired three shots at the mirror image of the disguised medic, each bullet piercing the orb of light between the medic's eyebrows with pinpoint accuracy.
The mirror image disintegrated amidst the explosion, and a yellowed photograph floated out from the debris—a photo of A-Jie and the real medic at the base entrance, with the medic's handwriting on the back: "Brother A-Jie, don't mistake painkillers for candy next time."
The last mirror image is a copy of the shadow.
It held up a particle cannon identical to the original, with the muzzle pointed directly at Lin Yi's back.
The real shadowy figure had already flashed to its side, its metal fingers directly inserted into the interface at the back of the mirror image's neck.
“Data vulnerability.” He chuckled, and the energy circuit of the particle cannon suddenly reversed, with blue light flowing into the core of the mirror body through the interface. “You will never learn how to adjust the particle deflection angle in 0.3 seconds.”
The mirrored shadow vanished amidst a violent explosion, and among the floating fragments of memory, the shadow was revealed to be the first partner of the enforcer—the girl who was devoured by extradimensional energy while trying to save him.
As the last fragment of memory dissipated, Lin Yi felt the seven keys in his chest suddenly become hot at the same time.
Of the two keys that were originally shrouded in gray mist, one suddenly lit up with starlight, like a gem that had been wiped clean of millennia of dust.
He looked up following the key's pull and saw a crack that had appeared in the wall in front of him. A key, shimmering with starlight, was floating in the center of the crack, and the key's teeth perfectly matched the key on his chest.
"It's the first fragment of will." Xuan Mingzi suddenly staggered forward, the runes on his Taoist robe almost bursting into flames. "Quick, grab it! The Mother Nest's defense mechanism is about to activate!"
Lin Yi did not hesitate.
He rushed forward, stepping over fragments of memories scattered on the ground. The moment his fingertips touched the key, a sharp pain exploded from between his eyebrows.
Countless images flooded my mind like a tide—collapsed starships, burning embers of civilization, banners of resistance crushed by advanced civilizations, finally settling on a figure draped in a silver robe.
The man stood with his back to him at the edge of the universe, stardust condensing into a galaxy around him, yet his voice seemed to drift from the farthest reaches: "The key is just the beginning; the true destiny has only just begun..."
"Bang!"
A violent tremor suddenly came from underground, and the entire mother nest was like a block that had been stepped on by a giant.
Lin Yi staggered and grabbed the wall for support. When he looked up, he saw a golden crack appear in the once dark horizon, and a giant steel city floating above the clouds was slowly emerging.
The city walls were covered with runes he had never seen before, each rune releasing oppressive energy, and even the air itself was distorted into a blurry double image due to the high temperature.
"That is..." The shadowy figure's mask closed automatically, and an unusual tension was revealed in the metallic sound. "The central hub of an advanced civilization. They have finally made their move in person."
Xuan Mingzi suddenly coughed violently, and the blood he coughed up condensed into ice crystals before it hit the ground: "They sensed the resonance of the key... Lin Yi, take the key and leave quickly! That city..." His voice was suddenly interrupted by another vibration, and the alarm of the mother nest sounded from all directions, and the red warning light was so bright that people could not open their eyes.
Lin Yi gripped the key in his hand and turned to look at the team.
Long Wu was using his broken blade to protect the medical team. A-Jie gave him an "OK" sign while reloading his assault rifle. The shadowy particle cannon had been recharged.
Su Qing was still fast asleep in the medic's arms, her eyelashes casting small shadows under the light—exactly the same as the water droplets on the cup of hot cocoa in the newbie village.
"Let's go." He put the key into the spatial rift, his voice so firm that even he was a little surprised. "We need to get the remaining keys before that city completely descends."
The floating city in the sky sank another ten meters.
The runes on the city wall began to flow, like some kind of ancient countdown.
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