In the darkness of the Forgotten City, seven rhomboid crystals floated in a ring, each flowing spatial light pattern like a snake being gripped by the throat, twisting and licking at Lin Yi's spiritual sea.
He could hear his own heart pounding like a drum—not out of fear, but a roaring sound of boiling spiritual energy.
"Is that all the willpower you have?" The owl's voice seeped from within the crystal, like a rusty knife scraping against glass. "Your mother's tears before she died, your father's forced smile, those tender memories—they're nothing but ropes binding your hands and feet."
Lin Yi's pupils contracted slightly.
He was clearly standing in physical space, but in his mental world, the aroma of his mother's tomato and egg noodles suddenly wafted over, and the warmth of his father squatting on the ground tying his shoelaces crept up the back of his neck.
These memories, which should have been warm, were now wrapped in ice shards, causing a throbbing pain in his temples.
"Enough." He said in a low voice, and the spacetime star ring at his fingertips re-condensed.
But this time the star ring didn't explode. Instead, it wrapped around his wrist like a living thing, and the silvery light penetrated his skin, flowing into his blood vessels like a galaxy.
The black hole within the crystal suddenly contracted—it sensed that this human's mental barrier was thickening at a visible rate.
Just as Lin Yi's mental power was being intensely impacted, a mysterious force tore through the darkness.
"Hey kid, what are you daydreaming about?"
An aged yet powerful voice suddenly rang out.
Lin Yi suddenly looked up, and a crack appeared in the darkness before him, through which a white-bearded figure stepped out.
The old man wore a faded coarse cloth shirt, with a wine gourd hanging from his waist. His silvery-white beard was supported by some invisible force, each hair as distinct as a steel needle.
"The true essence of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit isn't shattering the void," the white-bearded man said, raising his hand. A pale blue energy ball floated in his palm. "It's shattering those timid little knots in your heart." The energy ball suddenly exploded, but without a shockwave; instead, it felt like a bucket of warm water being poured over Lin Yi's head. "That day you asked me why, even though I could shatter an enemy with a single punch, I insisted on teaching you to control the frequency of shockwaves."
Memories flood back like a tidal wave.
Three months ago, on a stormy night, Whitebeard used shockwaves to string twelve floating glass beads into a wind chime in an abandoned warehouse.
Each shockwave precisely avoids the bead, vibrating only the air, causing the bead to dance a waltz with the sound waves.
"Because a true strongman must be able to control his power, and even more importantly, control his heart." The white-bearded man's voice mingled with the sound of rain. "You always think about using the strongest moves to solve problems, but sometimes, taking it slow allows you to see the ghosts lurking in the shadows."
The aroma of tomato noodles in the illusion suddenly faded.
Lin Yi looked at the white beard and suddenly smiled.
He recalled how he always found the old man's teaching troublesome, but now he understood—those repeated vibrational fine-tuning exercises, done hundreds of times, weren't about practicing moves, but about tempering his temperament.
"What a shattering of that little knot in my heart," Lin Yi murmured softly.
He could feel the burning sensation in his mind subsiding, replaced by a clear, refreshing power, like a spring stream breaking through the ice.
Just as Lin Yi was immersed in his memories with Whitebeard, a soft voice came from behind him.
"You're awake?"
Another voice came from behind.
Lin Yi turned around and saw Su Qing standing in the light mist of the spacetime crystal.
She wore a moon-white long dress, with a diamond-shaped silver ornament in her hair, which matched the floating crystal pattern exactly.
He had previously regarded her as an ordinary teammate, but now he discovered that her eyes held a light like a reversed galaxy, as if they held the secrets of the entire universe.
"The illusion is made up of fragments of your memories, but the threads that weave these fragments are your fears." Su Qing raised her hand, her fingertips tracing the nearest crystal, and the light patterns immediately distorted into Lin Yi's face—it was the panic he felt when monsters tore his clothes in the newbie village, the helplessness he felt when he first met Chu Yao, fearing he couldn't protect her, and the trembling he felt under the covers when he learned the truth about his parents' deaths.
"You think you can become stronger by running away from these emotions?" Su Qing's voice was like a morning bell. "You're wrong."
"These aren't weaknesses, they're proof you've lived." Her fingertip touched the trembling shadow, and the light patterns suddenly exploded into golden dust. "Catch them, and tell yourself—I've survived all of this."
Lin Yi's breathing suddenly became rapid.
He recalled the AI girl's erratic crying voice when he first used the power of time and space to save Chu Yao; he recalled the white-bearded man who stayed by his side for three days and three nights while he was unconscious, the gourd containing not wine, but a sedative; he recalled Su Qing slapping a blood-stained mission scroll into his palm and saying, "I believe in you," when he was at his most desperate.
Those images that he had buried deep in his memory all surfaced at this moment.
It wasn't the dagger the owl used to hurt him, but the bricks he built into his mental fortress.
"I see." Lin Yi suddenly laughed, a laugh filled with the lightness of emerging from a cocoon. "I've always treated my memories as a weakness, forgetting that they've long been my armor."
He raised his hand, and the spacetime ring in his palm suddenly expanded into a halo with a diameter of two meters.
Countless tiny gears appeared on the surface of the star ring, and with each rotation, a stream of light disappeared into the suspended crystal.
The owl inside the crystal finally panicked.
He could feel the illusion he had woven being dismantled—not violently torn apart, but like unraveling a sweater, pulling away the negative threads he had planted one by one.
Those distorted memories are regaining their original warmth. Mom's "Xiao Yi, time to eat" is no longer a death knell, but the warmth of cooking in the kitchen in the early morning; Dad's tearful admonitions are no longer pressure, but a mountain-like support.
"Impossible!" Night Owl's voice began to distort. "How could human will possibly..."
"Because I have someone to protect." Lin Yi interrupted him, the light wheel spinning faster, the sound of gears meshing echoing throughout the Forgotten City. "Whitebeard taught me to control my power, Su Qing awakened me to face my inner self, Chu Yao..." He paused, his fingertip lightly touching the microchip hidden behind his ear—Chu Yao's core program. "She taught me that living isn't about fighting against anything, but about letting the people I care about live in peace."
The seven crystals simultaneously emitted a blinding white light.
Lin Yi saw that deep within his spiritual sea, the cracks that had been scorched were healing, and silver thorns were growing from each crack—seeds of will forged with memories, trust, and countless days and nights of perseverance.
The owl's black pupils began to blur, and he let out a final shriek: "You think you can do this..."
"That's enough." Lin Yi's voice was filled with unwavering certainty.
He flicked his finger, and seven streams of light flew out from the light wheel, precisely piercing the core of each crystal.
boom--
The light patterns on the crystal surface instantly reorganized, and the originally distorted spacetime forces became docile, like a tamed wild horse.
Lin Yin could clearly sense that these crystals were no longer obstacles, but rather keys to a deeper level.
The darkness of the Forgotten City began to recede, and the morning light leaked through the cracks in the dome above, spreading a golden carpet at his feet.
Chu Yao's voice suddenly rang out in the communicator, trembling with relief: "Master!"
The mental interference wave has disappeared!
Resonance frequency of the spacetime crystal detected... matching your genetic code!
Lin Yi looked up and saw seven crystals slowly rotating, their light patterns beginning to intertwine into some kind of ancient runes.
He could sense that an even greater test awaited him, but at this moment he was more composed than ever before.
"The game has only just begun?" He chuckled softly at the gradually stabilizing crystals, his fingertips gently tracing the nearest one. "Then this time, it's my turn to set the rules."
Outside the crack in the dome, the morning light suddenly flickered violently.
A kind of dimensional fluctuation is approaching, like a sleeping behemoth opening its eyes.
Lin Yi simply straightened the hem of his clothes, which had been ruffled by his mental energy, and turned to walk towards the light array composed of crystals.
Nothing can hold him back anymore.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com