The cold wind whipped up snowflakes that lashed against the walls of the Forgotten City, and the icicles that had formed in the cracks of the bluestone bricks gleamed coldly in the moonlight.
Lin Yi stood in the center of the underground secret chamber of the city lord's mansion, with seven spacetime star cores floating above his head, shimmering with silver light—these were the primordial crystals he had collected from twelve spacetime rifts over three months.
"Chu Yao, synchronize your neural connections." He closed his eyes, his fingertips pressed against his brow, and the veins on his temples throbbed slightly.
The dark attribute source energy fluctuations that had just come from the northern border were still churning in his mind, like a red-hot iron rod constantly pricking his nerves.
Night Owl's "Shadow Erosion Project" was launched 48 hours ahead of schedule, leaving them with less than three days to make a breakthrough.
"Connected."
"Currently, the consistency of the fundamental nature of spacetime is 89%, and the neural tolerance threshold is 92%." Chu Yao's voice transformed into a pale blue data stream flowing across his retina, "It has been detected that your understanding of the laws of spacetime is stuck at the 'causal closed loop' node, requiring a concrete spacetime coordinate axis as an anchor point."
Lin Yi took a deep breath and let his consciousness sink into his sea of consciousness.
Countless golden particles of light floated there, each one a fragment of time and space he had experienced—the shattered classroom when he first awakened, the child he saved when he first used time jump, the bronze compass he first found in the interdimensional rift... These particles of light suddenly began to spin wildly, weaving a shimmering grid deep within his consciousness.
"Ouch!" He staggered, slamming his left hand heavily on the stone table.
The ancient runes on the stone table surface suddenly lit up in blood red; they were the spacetime confinement array he had copied in the Death Desert ruins three years ago.
At this moment, these runes, like living snakes, burrowed into his skin along his arm and burned in his veins.
"Backlash from the source!" Chu Yao's alarm shrieked, "Immediately interrupt your cultivation; your cell necrosis rate is exceeding the critical threshold—"
"No." Lin Yi gritted his teeth, blood seeping from the corner of his mouth.
He could clearly sense that in the center of those wildly spinning particles of light, a more dazzling light was gathering, which was the "mystery of time and space" that he had been pursuing for more than three hundred days and nights.
As long as he grasps that light, he can control the essence of spacetime, instead of being pushed around by it.
The air in the sealed room suddenly became viscous.
The previously suspended spacetime core began to tremble violently, its silver light tinged with a deep blue, resembling seven small suns.
Lin Yi's pupils gradually turned into a transparent, glassy color, allowing him to see the movement trajectory of every molecule in the stone wall, hear the soft sound of Long Wu wiping his Tang sword three kilometers away, and touch the patterns of time flowing—a ribbon with a pearly luster, gently trembling at his fingertips.
"So that's how it is..." He chuckled softly, blood splattering onto the stone table.
The ribbon of time and space suddenly bloomed in his palm, splitting into countless thin streams that entered his seven orifices.
The pain vanished instantly, replaced by a sense of grandeur, as if one were one with the universe.
He saw his past, present, and future intertwined on a ribbon to form a cocoon of light, and his consciousness was breaking out of the cocoon.
\"bite!
"Detected that the Mythical-level class [Time and Space Dominator] has broken through to the second tier." Chu Yao's voice carried an unusual fluctuation, "Time and Space Profound Truth - Initial Unlocked activated. Current abilities: Time Slowdown (can reduce the flow of time within a ten-meter radius to one-tenth), Space Collapse (can compress a space with a diameter of five meters to form a black hole), Causal Reversal (can trace the target's movements over the past seventy-two hours)."
Suddenly, spiderweb-like cracks appeared in the dome of the secret chamber, and the seven spacetime star cores exploded simultaneously, pouring down a rain of silver-blue light.
Lin Yi opened his arms, letting the light rain penetrate his body.
As the last speck of stardust entered his heart, his figure suddenly vanished from the spot—three seconds later, he reappeared five meters away in front of the stone gate, and then instantly returned to the starting point.
"Is this the power of the mysteries of time and space?" He flicked his finger, and the bronze candlestick on the stone table suddenly began to flow backward: the melted wax retracted into the wick, and the extinguished flame rose again.
The soft sound of Long Wu's Tang sword suddenly became a hundred times clearer, and he could even detect every slight vibration from the friction between the blade and the scabbard.
"Lin Yi!" The door to the secret room was suddenly kicked open, and Long Wu rushed in, carrying a Tang sword, his hair still covered in ice shards. "The northern defense line is in dire need of attention!"
Night Owl sent a horde of Shadow Eaters to probe the area; their numbers were at least three thousand!
Lin Yi wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and glanced behind Long Wu—Su Qing was standing in the shadows of the corridor, the hem of her moon-white dress lifted by the breeze, her right hand loosely clenched, with tiny golden spots of light shimmering at her fingertips, like some kind of deliberately suppressed power.
"Let's go." He grabbed the black cloak by the wall, and wind-elemental energy condensed into a vortex beneath his feet.
When the three rushed onto the city wall, the sky over the North was completely shrouded in black mist, the moonlight was dyed an eerie purple, and on the plain below, countless Shadow Devouring Beasts were surging in like a tide.
Those beasts had the bodies of wolves and the wings of bats, with translucent gray-black skin through which one could see the dark elemental energy surging within.
The leader at the very front was three meters tall, with a twisted horn on its forehead, and every step it took left charred, corroded marks on the ground.
"Long Wu, hold the leader back." Lin Yi leaped onto the parapet, the essence of time and space roaring within him. "Su Qing, use your abilities... break their Dark Corrosion Barrier."
Su Qing was taken aback, then nodded.
She raised her hands, and the previously suppressed golden light spots suddenly erupted, condensing into a six-pointed star array in mid-air.
The black mist on the Shadow Erosion Beasts began to dissipate, revealing the rotting flesh beneath—it turned out that the so-called "Dark Erosion Barrier" was nothing more than an illusion created by them using source power.
"Excellent technique!" Long Wu's eyes lit up, and the moment his Tang sword was drawn, crimson-gold dragon flames rose around him.
He raced along the city wall, leaping into the air ten meters from the leader, his blade flashing like a cascading silver river: "The dragon soars too high, it will regret it!"
The leader let out a piercing scream, and a dark purple beam shot out from its horn.
But as soon as the beam of light was shot out, it slowed down as if it were sinking into a quagmire—Lin Yi's time slowdown covered this area.
Long Wu's blade easily pierced through the beam of light, slicing a deep, bone-revealing wound into the leader's neck.
"My turn." Lin Yi pointed his fingertip into the air, and the spatial collapse was activated.
The Shadow Eaters within a five-meter radius were suddenly sucked into the black vortex, letting out desperate cries.
The moment the vortex shattered, these beasts were compressed into pieces of flesh the size of fingernails, which fell to the ground and hissed in black smoke.
"The master of time and space... truly lives up to its name." Su Qing gazed at the battlefield, the six-pointed star array at her fingertips spinning faster and faster. With each golden ray of light that swept across, the Shadow Devouring Beast's source power weakened by three points.
The beasts, which had been roaring, began to panic, and many even turned to flee.
"Trying to run?" Lin Yi sneered, raising his hand to unleash a silver light blade.
Wherever the light blade passed, time reversal was activated—the wounds of those Shadow Erosion Beasts healed instantly, only to be completely torn apart by the light blade in the next second.
This is not a simple attack, but rather erasing their existence from the timeline.
The three thousand Shadow Devouring Beasts were mostly wiped out in just three minutes.
The last remaining leader barely managed to get up, the dark purple light from its single horn shining even brighter than before, clearly indicating that it was about to self-destruct.
"You're asking for death." Lin Yi took a step in front of it and placed his palm on its head.
The causal regression was activated, and his consciousness instantly penetrated the beast's memory—in the scene, the figure of the night owl was faintly visible, injecting dark attribute source power into its core.
"Enough." Lin Yi clenched his fist, and the origin of spacetime erupted like a volcano.
The leader's body began to twist, first his fur peeled off, then his bones shattered, and finally even his source energy core was pulverized.
The battlefield suddenly fell into dead silence.
Beneath the city walls, only scorched earth and scattered pieces of flesh remained, and the north wind carried the stench of blood into everyone's nostrils.
Long Wu flicked the blood off his blade and raised an eyebrow at Lin Yi: "Your new skill is ten times stronger than before."
"Not enough." Lin Yi gazed at the increasingly thick black fog in the north, his pupils reflecting the surging dark purple.
He could sense that a more powerful being was staring at this place from the depths of the black mist, and the oppressive feeling was more than a hundred times stronger than before.
"Interesting." A hoarse male voice suddenly rang in everyone's ears, like rusty gears rubbing against each other.
A figure emerged from the black mist, standing at least two and a half meters tall, wrapped in a black robe embroidered with dark patterns. His face was hidden in the shadows, with only a pair of scarlet eyes gleaming with a sickly light.
"I am Night Owl." His voice was like a viper's hiss. "It seems I underestimated you before, but..." He raised his hand, and countless skeletal arms emerged from the black mist, each arm clutching a pulsating ball of dark-attribute energy. "From now on, you won't be so lucky."
Lin Yi clenched his fist beneath the cloak, the essence of time and space surging within his body.
He could sense that the real battle had only just begun.
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