The stone walls of the labyrinth of fate shattered the moment Lin Yi's fist swept across them.
The first gate of destiny—the colossal bronze gate engraved with twisted patterns of cause and effect—cracked the moment he clenched his fist.
Lin Yi stared at the writhing black runes on the door, his knuckles turning white from the force he exerted.
In 73 cycles, this door once held the ecstasy of his first awakening as the master of time and space, the heart-wrenching pain of watching Chu Yao's data stream collapse amidst the temporal turbulence, and the memory of him kneeling before the ruins of the Reality Alliance, his fingertips stained with the still-wet blood of his comrades...
"Break." He hissed.
The moment his fist collided with the door, golden flames shot out from his palm as if they were alive.
That was no ordinary energy; it was the faith that all those who trusted him poured into him throughout the 73 cycles—the statue erected for him by members of the Reality Alliance in the Doomsday Fortress, the "Commander Lin will win" inscribed on the inside of the armor by soldiers of the Time Legion, and even the half-piece of energy stone that the old leader of the Extradimensional Resistance Army placed in his palm before his death.
These fragments condensed into liquid slurry deep within his soul, which then gushed out from his arm, burning the distorted timeline sealed behind the door to ashes.
The entire maze suddenly trembled violently.
A dark blue crack seeped from the gaps in the stone wall, and countless doors simultaneously emitted sharp, mournful cries, like vengeful ghosts whose souls had been ripped out.
Chu Yao's hair suddenly flared three inches with golden flames, her pupils swirled with green data streams, and her right hand quickly formed a hand seal—her signature move when connecting to the maze's main brain.
"A reverse energy tide has been detected!" She turned and grabbed Lin Yi's wrist, the data stream at her fingertips burning hot. "Behind each door lies not just a failed timeline, but erased 'possibilities'! They're backfiring, using our faith as fuel!" Her voice carried the high-frequency tremor characteristic of mechanical speech, yet a hint of emotion lingered at the end—much like the way she marveled at the snowflakes when he first took her to see them three years ago. "If this continues, the labyrinth will become a giant furnace, consuming our very existence..."
"Where is the master node?" Lin Yi interrupted her.
His gaze swept across the collapsing gates, and he noticed that the scenes behind a few gates suddenly became clear: there was the scene of him summoning the spacetime rift for the first time in the newbie village, the scene of Chu Yao showing her first human-like smile, and even the scene of Night Owl tearing his heart out in front of the core of the mother nest—those "possibilities" that he had forgotten were now desperately trying to squeeze out from behind the cracks in the gates.
Chu Yao pressed her fingertips to her temples, and the data stream suddenly solidified, projecting a 3D energy map between the two of them.
“The area with the most chaotic energy…” Her virtual finger traced the brightest red dot on the map, “is at the bottom of the maze, locked by twelve causal chains. But—” Her projection suddenly flickered, “Night Owl!”
The hoarse laughter sounded like rusty gears grinding against my eardrums.
The owl's phantom appeared simultaneously from behind the three doors. This time, his silver veins were no longer ashen, but instead tinged with an eerie purple—a sign of burning primordial energy.
"So, little bugs, you finally know to look for the heart?" His voice was sharp as shards of broken glass. "Too bad, by the time you find the node, this damned maze will have already squeezed your souls to dust and fed them to the true weavers of fate!"
Before he finished speaking, several black chains emerged from the cracks in the doors from all directions.
The chain's surface was covered with barbs, each barb hanging with a translucent soul—the lingering remnant of a former class-changer who had died in the labyrinth.
The chains hissed as they scraped through the air, and when they were three steps away from Lin Yi, they suddenly accelerated, coiling around his neck, wrists, and ankles like hungry venomous snakes.
Lin Yi looked at the approaching chains and suddenly smiled.
He recalled that in the 73 loops, every time he reached this point, the Night Owl would bind him with the same chains and watch him despair as the timeline collapsed.
But this time was different—he could clearly feel the power of faith in his palm still surging, Chu Yao's data stream flowing into his body through their clasped hands, and most importantly…
"Chu Yao." He turned his head to look at her, the star map in his pupils suddenly began to reverse, "Help me stabilize the energy tide."
Chu Yao's golden flames instantly enveloped the two of them.
Her projection solidified into a shield the instant the chains touched her, while she muttered curses, "Idiot! Don't you know these chains are coated with an interdimensional corrosive agent? If you even scratch them—"
"That's why we need to resolve this all at once," Lin Yi interrupted her.
He slowly raised his right hand, his index and middle fingers joined together, drawing a semi-transparent arc in the air.
That was the prototype of a spacetime rift, like an invisible knife, which was being sharpened more and more with his movements.
Recently, chains have been wrapped around his ankles.
The moment the barbs pierced his boots, Lin Yi smelled a burnt odor—the smell of his skin being carbonized by the corrosive agent.
But his gaze remained fixed on the owl's phantom, and the smile on his lips grew wider.
"You call me a loser?" His voice was colder than chains. "Then guess who will be locked in time this time, forever watching others triumph?"
The owl's phantom suddenly froze.
He saw a faint blue light emanating from the crack at Lin Yi's fingertip, saw Chu Yao's shield forming an energy vortex around the crack, and saw those "possibilities" that were originally going to backfire now drilling into Lin Yi's body along the crack—like birds returning to their nests.
The moment the chains wrapped around Lin Yi's neck, his fingertips finally completed the final arc.
"Click".
That was the soft sound of space tearing apart.
The chains exploded into black fragments as they were cut by the spacetime rift.
The corrosive agent burned a bloody mark on Lin Yi's neck, but he didn't even flinch. He grabbed Chu Yao's wrist and, just before the maze completely collapsed, crashed into the second Gate of Destiny.
The airflow inside the door was like a blade chilled by ice.
When Lin Yi landed, he staggered half a step, and his pupils reflected a gray-white battlefield—broken halberds were stuck in the scorched earth, tattered flags were half-buried in the rubble, and most strangely, countless translucent light spots floated in the air, each light spot locking a distorted face, some male and some female, some were job changers wearing modern tactical uniforms, and some were warriors wearing ancient armor.
Their mouths opened and closed, but no sound came out, like a silent film with the mute button pressed.
"This is..." Chu Yao's projection appeared beside him, the golden flames dimming slightly. "Data scans show that this is a 'graveyard of possibilities' abandoned by an advanced civilization. All unselected timelines are compressed into fragments of consciousness and sealed here." Her fingertips gently touched the nearest point of light, which suddenly trembled violently, and the face inside instantly became ten years younger—a girl holding a medical kit, with tears still wet in her eyes.
Lin Yi's breathing suddenly stopped.
He smelled rust, not from the wound, but seeping from the air, like someone had sprinkled crushed blood into his nostrils.
Even clearer was a certain resonance, a warm current rising from the depths of his soul, rushing down his spine to the back of his neck, causing his fingertips to tremble uncontrollably.
"The power of faith is boiling." He uttered a low shout, and the liquid light in his palm suddenly detached from his body, condensing into a rotating golden vortex in mid-air.
Those fragments of consciousness, like iron filings attracted by a magnet, rushed to drill into the vortex.
As a few shards grazed his cheek, he heard fragmented voices: "Lin Shuai, hold on!" "Mom, I think I see light..." "This damn maze can't hold us!"
The vortex spun faster and faster, finally exploding in front of him.
The moment Whitebeard appeared, the entire devastated battlefield roared.
It was an old man nearly three meters tall, with long silver hair that reached his waist. He had a scar on his left cheek that ran from his brow bone to his jaw, and a black cloak embroidered with faded star patterns.
His right hand held a non-existent longsword, and with each step he took, bright red spider lilies bloomed on the scorched earth beneath his feet.
“Good lad, using faith as the key.” The white-bearded voice rolled through the clouds like muffled thunder, making Lin Yi’s eardrums ache. “I’ve been lying in this graveyard for three hundred years, just waiting for someone who can understand the cries of ‘possibility’.” His gaze swept over the bloodstains on Lin Yi’s neck, and he suddenly grinned, revealing two gold teeth. “Pain? That’s good, it means you’re still alive—the dead don’t even have the right to feel pain.”
Lin Yi's Adam's apple bobbed.
He recognized the face—in the ancient texts of the Time Legion, Whitebeard was the chief councilor of the previous era's "Starry Sky Council," who led 100,000 warriors into the core of the Mother Nest during the first invasion from another dimension, and was never heard from again.
But at this moment, his eyes were so vivid, so vivid that Lin Yi could see the campfire dancing in his pupils, just like the way Old Chen from the Alliance talked about war history in reality.
"Where is the energy center?" Lin Yi asked directly.
He could sense that the appearance of the white beard was no accident—he had never seen this will in the 73 cycles, which meant that the timeline of the previous 73 failures had finally given him enough time to be "seen" on the 74th time.
Whitebeard's left hand suddenly pressed down on Lin Yi's chest.
A sharp pain shot through Lin Yi's body like an electric current, and countless images flashed before his eyes: the burning council hall, the starship torn in two, and Whitebeard himself kneeling before the shattered crystals, stuffing the last energy stone into the communicator.
“Head southeast, through the twelve turbulent streams of consciousness.” His voice suddenly became hoarse. “The central hub is hidden in the ‘most unlikely’ place—you think it’s the heart? Wrong, it’s the tombstone of this graveyard.”
"and you……"
"Me?" The white-bearded man threw his head back and laughed, the sound shattering fragments of consciousness. "I was buried here by my own people. They said I was too stubborn, insisting on smashing through fate with my own flesh and blood, and that it would be better for me to witness all the possibilities of failure here, to smooth out my rough edges." His fingers suddenly gripped Lin Yi's nape, the force almost crushing bones. "But guess what? Three hundred years have passed, and my rough edges are still there! A true hero doesn't change fate—" His figure began to become transparent, and with each word he spoke, the star totem on his body dimmed a little more, "...he shatters fate!"
As the last word faded away, Lin Yi felt something crash into his soul.
It was a scorching hot sword, with the words "Starry Sky" engraved on the hilt, and the blade was still dripping with blood from the previous era.
He touched his chest, where a pale gold scar had appeared out of nowhere, its shape exactly the same as the scar on the white-bearded man's chest.
"Hurry!" Chu Yao's voice suddenly rose. "The turbulent flow of consciousness is beginning to coalesce; in three minutes, this place will collapse into a black hole!" Her projection was almost disintegrating into a stream of data. "Southeast! I'll clear a path for you with an energy barrier—"
Lin Yi didn't wait for her to finish speaking.
He ran wildly across the scorched earth, each step sending sparks flying.
Fragments of consciousness exploded beside him. When a fragment of a little girl in a red dress grazed the back of his hand, he heard a childish voice saying, "Go, big brother!"; a fragment of an orc carrying a giant axe crashed into his back, and suddenly a beast pattern appeared on his boots—a blessing of power.
He knew he had arrived when the fog in the southeast suddenly billowed up.
A hand reached out from the mist.
It was a hand exactly like his, with a bronze wrist guard he had picked up in the newbie village three years ago, and calluses on his knuckles from years of holding a sword.
As the fog dissipated, "Lin Yi" appeared, dressed in a black outfit. Below his left eye was a bloodstain identical to the one on his neck, and he was staring at him with the eyes of someone eyeing prey.
"The 74th cycle." The past version of Lin Yi spoke, his voice like it had been pulled from an ice cellar. "You think you can succeed this time?" His right hand rested on the hilt of the sword at his waist, the patterns on the scabbard identical to the "Starry Sky" sword within Lin Yi's soul. "Let me teach you what true—"
"Crush fate." Lin Yi interrupted him.
In his pupils, the star map reversed faster than ever before.
The power of faith in his palm surged once more, this time mixed with the white-bearded man's battle cry, the little girl's cheers, and the shouts of all the "possibilities" he had forgotten.
For the first time in the past, Lin Yi's expression showed a crack.
He watched as the surging fragments of consciousness behind Lin Yi suddenly solidified into a golden battle flag, embroidered with the words "Space-Time," fluttering in the wind; he watched as Chu Yao's data stream solidified again, weaving a net of light around Lin Yi; and he watched as Lin Yi raised his right hand, the space-time rift at his fingertips gleaming with an even more dazzling light than before.
"You've changed," Lin Yi whispered.
"No." Lin Yi's lips curled up. "I just... finally see things clearly."
His fingertips traced an arc once more.
This time, what flowed out of the crack was light.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com