The heat wave, carrying stone chips, hit Lin Yi's face. His golden-purple eyes rippled in the firelight—the core of cause and effect pulsated deep within his sea of consciousness, each tremor like an electric current being injected into his nerves.
The stone tablet in the center of the altar, covered in ashes, was now emitting a ghostly green glow. When the tiny particles of light drifted to the dome, they suddenly condensed, forming a line of crooked ancient characters above everyone's heads.
"Chu Yao!" Lin Yi grabbed Xuan Mingzi, who was nearly hit by falling rocks, his Adam's apple bobbing. "Decipher it!"
The data entity's light spot abruptly shrank into Chu Yao's human form. Her hair tips tinged with an unnatural purple, and her fingertips swiftly traced the void. The projected text, barely appearing, was distorted by the intense heat: "The Third Key... is not in the real dimension..." Her voice suddenly trailed off, and the data stream in her pupils exploded into a jumble of gibberish. "Memory Corridor? A space connecting all the remnants of harvested worlds..."
"What do you mean?" Long Wu's heavy sword cleaved away the last falling rock, the blade humming from the intense heat.
When he turned around, the bloodstains on his face gleamed in the firelight, and the wolf head pendant cast a blurry shadow on his chest.
Xuan Mingzi's translucent wrist trembled slightly in Lin Yi's palm. He stared at the gradually clearing inscriptions on the stone tablet, his Adam's apple bobbing: "That's where advanced civilizations deal with 'failures.' Every remnant of a civilization they rejected is trapped inside, gnawing at the intruder's consciousness like maggots feeding on rotting flesh." His fingertips unconsciously caressed Long Wu's wolf fang pendant. "If you go in, you'll be torn apart by those insane memories."
Lin Yi's thumb unconsciously ground against the hilt of the dagger in the hidden pocket of his tactical belt, the wolf head engravings digging painfully into his palm.
He stared at the incomplete words "Forgotten" at the top of the stone tablet, then suddenly laughed, his golden eyes gleaming with a burning light: "That's why they hid the third key here—the more dangerous the place, the more it can stop those who want to overturn the chessboard."
"But you can't go." The shadowy figure suddenly pressed the particle gun against Lin Yi's chest, with blue-purple energy blades leaping at the muzzle.
His facial features were somewhat blurred in the high temperature, but the undercurrents surging in his eyes were clearly visible. "I was a pawn in the Old God System for three hundred years. There are loopholes in their memory corridor structure." His particle gun slowly dropped, and he took off a badge engraved with gear patterns from his neck. "This is the core of the law enforcement authority, which can locate the exit of the corridor."
"Are you crazy?" Xuan Mingzi's data stream suddenly surged, almost breaking free from Lin Yi's grasp. "Even with the badge, you're just a tool of an advanced civilization! Those remnants could turn even a mythical-level being into an idiot—"
"It's better than letting him go." The shadowy figure interrupted him, the gear badge leaving a red mark on his palm.
When he looked at Lin Yi, a stiff smile tugged at the corners of his mouth, which were made of particles. "What you're going to overthrow isn't just the old gods, but the rules of the entire advanced civilization. Something like me, nurtured by programs for three hundred years, is just dead."
Lin Yi stared at the badge, his Adam's apple bobbing.
He could hear the core of cause and effect buzzing deep within his consciousness, like a warning or an urging.
Long Wu's greatsword suddenly slammed heavily between the two, causing the ground to crack in a spiderweb pattern: "Old Hei is right. If you die here, the Time Legion we painstakingly built up, and all those people in reality waiting for you to save them—" He abruptly turned his face away, the wolf head pendant striking the greatsword with a crisp sound, "will all be buried with you."
"Chu Yao." Lin Yi suddenly turned around, his golden-purple eyes reflecting the purple light at the tips of her hair. "Locate the entrance to the corridor."
Chu Yao's fingers traced a silver path in the air, and suddenly the altar floor cracked open, revealing a dark blue fissure, like a piece of torn silk.
The shadowy figure took a deep breath—though he didn’t need to breathe—stuffed the badge into Lin Yi’s palm, and turned to walk toward the gap.
His particle body vanished as soon as it touched the blue light, like a crushed star.
"Wait!" Xuan Mingzi suddenly grabbed Lin Yi's arm, his data stream revealing an unusual anxiety. "The lingering resentment of the Memory Corridor can disguise itself as..."
"boom--"
The last boulder of the dome crashed onto the edge of the altar, causing everyone to stagger.
Once the dust settled, the dark blue crack had disappeared, leaving only the lingering blue light on the ground, like an unhealed wound.
Chu Yao's voice suddenly became hoarse: "The corridor entrance is closed, real-time location... disconnected." Her data began to flash, "The temple's self-destruct program is in its final thirty seconds, we must evacuate."
Lin Yi clenched the gear badge in his hand, his body heat seeping into his skin through the metal.
He stared at Long Wu's bloodstained canine teeth and at Xuan Mingzi's hesitant data stream, when suddenly he heard a faint vibration coming from afar.
The sound was very much like the hum of some ancient machine starting up, mixed with a faint, whistling shriek.
"Let's go." He put the badge into his hidden pocket, placing it next to the dagger against his chest. "Let's get out of here first."
Long Wu picked him up and carried him on his shoulder, his heavy sword carving a deep trench in the ground.
Xuanmingzi's data stream enveloped everyone, tearing a path to survival through the collapsing rain of stones.
The moment they burst out of the temple gates, a deafening roar like an avalanche came from behind them—the entire temple was reduced to ruins in the flames.
Deep within the ruins, unseen by them, ripples suddenly appeared in the gap of the closed corridor.
A kind of scalding light, with a burnt smell, was slowly seeping out from the crack.
The mountain wind, carrying the smell of scorched earth, blew into his collar after the evacuation. Lin Yi stood on a high slope a hundred meters away from the ruins of the temple, his boot heel crushing half a charred brick.
His golden-purple eyes remained fixed on the still-smoking pile of rubble—the core of cause and effect in the depths of his consciousness was like a plucked string, continuously vibrating and conveying some kind of subtle warning.
Long Wu's heavy sword slammed into the ground with a "clang," causing the wolf head pendant on his shoulder to sway and leave afterimages: "Old Hei has been inside for three minutes..." Before he could finish speaking, a blinding blue light suddenly rose from the center of the ruins.
The light was even more dazzling than the previous crack, as if someone had stuffed the sun into a fissure in the ground, causing everyone to instinctively raise their hands to shield their eyes.
\"boom!\"
Amidst the explosion of flying debris, a figure was thrown out.
The shadowy particle body was shattered, half of its torso resembling a torn star map, yet it still clenched something tightly with its remaining right hand.
He slammed heavily onto the sand at Lin Yi's feet, a faint blue light seeping from between his fingers, which were made of particles, and even the speed at which it dissipated was a few degrees slower.
"Old Black!" Long Wu strode over, swinging half of his heavy sword from its scabbard, and gently lifted the slumped shoulder of the shadowy figure with the spine of the sword.
Lin Yi knelt on one knee, the ripples in his golden eyes almost overflowing.
He saw a fragment of a key lying in the palm of the shadowy figure. The blue light flowing on its surface perfectly matched the ancient script patterns he had seen on the stone tablet before, but the edges had fine serrations, as if it had been forcibly pried open by some force.
Chu Yao's data body pierced through Long Wu's arm with a "whoosh," and the purple light at the tip of her hair almost solidified.
The moment her fingertips touched the fragment, a string of exclamation marks exploded from the data stream in her pupils: "Energy frequency matching the third key!"
But... is this only half?
"What the heck?"
"A key can be split in two and sold?" Long Wu's canines clenched so tightly they clicked, his greatsword twirling in his palm. "Back in my day, fighting bandits on the border, I've seen bomb disposal experts dismantle C4, but I've never seen anyone dismantle a key!"
The shadowy figure managed a forced smile, his broken voice crackling with the crackling of burning electricity: "The corridor... is more insane than I thought." His fingers loosened, and fragments "clinked" into Lin Yi's palm. "The remnants... want to melt the key... into their madness."
"As I was grabbing it..." His particle body suddenly flickered violently, "I heard... the key calling out the other half's name..."
"Enough." Lin Yi grabbed the shadowy figure's wrist with his other hand, and the heat from the Core of Cause and Effect surged into the figure's body through his arm, temporarily stabilizing the particles that were about to dissipate.
He looked down at the fragment in his palm, and the light surging in his golden eyes suddenly resonated with the blue light of the fragment—three images flashed through his mind: the first key was in the bronze box in the real dimension, the second key was in the Starfall Lake in the game world, and the fragment of the third key was now emitting a buzzing sound, as if responding to some kind of transdimensional call.
"This isn't a split," his voice suddenly deepened, his fingertips tracing the jagged edges of the fragments. "It's the pain before fusion."
The key was originally one piece; separating it allows for a more complete resonance.
"How did you know?" Long Wu's wolf head pendant suddenly burned, making him shrink back. "Could it be that the Core of Cause and Effect taught you how to read the key's instruction manual?"
"Because they speak within my consciousness." Lin Yi raised his head, his golden-purple eyes reflecting the setting sun. "The first key said, 'I am waiting,' the second key said, 'I am searching,' and now the third key says..." His Adam's apple bobbed, "...'I want wholeness.'"
"What a farce."
The chilling words were like icicles piercing the back of everyone's necks.
The temple ruins suddenly trembled violently, and rubble rose up again like a torrential rain, condensing into a huge phantom in mid-air—a face covered in scales, with two dark green ghost flames burning in its eye sockets, and each eyelash like a poisoned steel needle.
"You think you can tip the scales of fate by getting half a key?" The illusory voice shook the ground, causing spiderweb-like cracks to appear. "Three hundred years ago, I personally crushed seven civilizations that dared to rebel; three hundred years later, you ants who can't even get the whole key, what makes you think you can?"
Lin Yi released the shadowy figure and slowly stood up straight.
He could feel the core of cause and effect boiling deep within his sea of consciousness, and the light in his golden and purple pupils converged into two small suns.
He took a step forward, and the pebbles crushed by his heel suddenly hovered in mid-air—fragments frozen in time.
"Because I stand here." His voice wasn't loud, but it struck the phantom's heart like a hammer blow. "Because of every rift my legion has torn in reality and the game, because of every stubborn rock Long Wu's sword has shattered, because of this half of the key that Lao Hei traded his life for." He opened his hand, blue light fragments swirling in his palm, "And even more so because—" His pupils suddenly contracted to pinpoints, "Fate is never a pre-written script; I must rewrite it, stroke by stroke."
The phantom's pupils contracted violently, and black mucus seeped from beneath its scales.
It raised its claw-like hand, and the pebbles in the air suddenly turned into sharp arrows that shot towards everyone—but the next second, all the arrows stopped in front of the silver data barrier that Chu Yao had deployed, like a rainstorm that had been paused.
"Interesting." The phantom suddenly laughed, the sound so loud it cracked the clouds. "Then I'll let you live a few more days."
"When the three keys are united as one..." Its figure began to dissipate, and its last voice, carried by a putrid wind, pierced everyone's ears: "I will personally watch you dance on the gallows of fate."
As the last wisp of shadow disappeared, a faint "clicking" sound suddenly came from the ruins.
Lin Yi looked down and saw that the fragment of the Third Key in his palm was getting hot, with pale golden light seeping from the serrated edges—the direction of the light was exactly the same as the engraving on the dagger in the hidden pocket of his tactical belt.
Long Wu's wolf head pendant suddenly emitted a piercing screech. He yanked the pendant off and discovered that a new engraving had appeared on the silver chain, identical to the pattern on Lin Yi's dagger.
Xuan Mingzi's data stream suddenly solidified into a semi-transparent hand, pointing to the distant sky dyed red by the setting sun: "Look."
Everyone looked up and saw three faint streaks of light appearing on the originally azure sky—the location of the first key was on a deserted island in the East China Sea, the second key was in the far north ice plains of the game world, and the third key... was overlapping with the fragment in Lin Yi's palm.
In the center of those three streaks of light, a shadow darker than the night was slowly opening its eyes.
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