The first snow in the town came silently, yet it carried an undeniable chill.
Snowflakes, like torn letters, fall heavily from the dim sky, trying to cover a world that has just recovered from its pain.
Lin Yi gripped the broom and cleared a path in front of the door.
The cold touch of the wooden handle gave his chaotic thoughts a sense of calm.
Not far away, a few bonfires flickered, illuminating several young faces.
Those were the town's children, sitting together, using stories to dispel the loneliness of the cold night.
"...Just then, the world darkened, and a hideous rift threatened to devour us all!" A chubby-faced boy stood up, spread his arms, and mimicked the grand scene he had imagined. "Then, Lord Lin Yi appeared! He was like a giant who stepped out of mythology. With one step, golden light shone forth, and with both hands... he tore it apart!"
The boy made a tearing motion with all his might, a hissing sound coming from his throat, as if he were tearing open not the air, but the real door of destiny.
"Wow—" The children around exclaimed in amazement, their eyes filled with pure awe and worship.
“That’s not true at all!” A little girl with pigtails puffed out her cheeks and retorted loudly, “Teacher Alice said that on that day, it was the resonance of three hundred Awakened Ones with their will that brought their power together and barely held up the crack. Lord Lin Yi was just… just in the most crucial position.”
The boy's heroic spirit was shattered, and he lost face. He scoffed and waved his hand dismissively: "Those are all supporting characters! Without Lord Lin Yi, three hundred people? Three thousand people! They're just filling the monster's teeth! The one who truly made the final decision and opened the door is him!"
"You..." The little girl was so angry she couldn't speak.
"That's exactly right!"
The wooden handle of the broom tapped lightly on the snow, making a dull thud.
Lin Yi stopped what he was doing, his gaze piercing through the wind and snow, landing on the small campfire.
He didn't correct the boy.
Because what the boy said was "truth" in a certain sense—the truth that people yearn for.
People are always accustomed to simplifying the complex greatness, which is composed of countless sacrifices and coincidences, into a single, radiant name.
They don't need three hundred blurry faces; they only need one idol to whom they can place all their hopes and fears.
Just then, a barely perceptible whisper, like the sigh of the wind and snow itself, entered his ears.
That was Chu Yao's voice, transcending the barriers of space and pinpointing him precisely.
"Did you feel it? The residual fluctuations of the seventh node have not completely disappeared. It's like a drop of ink, sinking into the vast ocean of 'collective narrative'. The scavenger's remains do not need physical resurrection. As long as humanity continues to sing its praises and place its hopes on 'that name,' the template called 'savior' will be automatically nourished, repaired, and ultimately rebuilt by the thoughts of countless people."
Lin Yi's breath hitched slightly.
He understood.
The most terrifying trump card of an enemy is not the ultimate weapon hidden in some other dimension, but the ideological imprint rooted in human nature.
As long as the symbol "Lin Yi" still represents omnipotent miracles, this heavy "faith" will sooner or later become the breeding ground for the next "seventh node".
He cannot deny his past of fighting bloody battles; that would be a betrayal of all those who sacrificed their lives.
But he must personally end the continuation of a myth, allowing this world, which has just gained a breath of fresh air, to learn to stand on its own, instead of living forever in his shadow.
After a moment of silence, he leaned the broom firmly against the wall, brushed the snow off his shoulders, turned around without a word, and walked into the increasingly violent snowstorm.
His silhouette was no longer that of a towering giant from legend, but that of an ordinary person determined to go against the tide.
A night of wind and snow seemed to reshape the world; beneath the silver-clad landscape, the lurking crises would not fall asleep.
The next morning, the tranquility of the town was shattered by the piercing sound of an alarm.
"Level 1 Alert! Spatial disturbance detected at the edge of the elementary school playground! Repeat, spatial disturbance detected at the edge of the elementary school playground!"
A visible crack suddenly appeared at the edge of the concrete playground, only as thick as an arm but bottomless.
A faint but highly corrosive gray mist emanated from it, and wherever it went, whether it was snow or a rubber track, it made a "sizzling" sound and quickly melted away.
Panic spread through the crowd.
"Quick! Activate the resonance array!" a teacher shouted.
Three teenagers who had just graduated from the basic academy immediately rushed forward.
They were among the best of the town's new generation, their faces still showing a hint of youthful naiveté and nervousness, but their movements were anything but hesitant.
They quickly took their positions, formed hand seals, and chanted incantations.
A pale blue energy barrier quickly formed between them, like a fishing net, and moved towards the rift.
"A three-person resonance formation! It's the standard formation from the textbook!" Someone in the crowd recognized it and breathed a slight sigh of relief.
However, there is always a gap between theory and practice called "experience".
The mist escaping from the crack seemed to have its own will, suddenly contracting and then expanding violently.
That seemingly weak impact struck precisely at the weakest point of the energy barrier.
"puff!"
The leading boy turned pale and spat out a mouthful of blood.
The entire formation flashed with light, its energy instantly becoming chaotic and surging back. The other two teenagers also trembled violently, and the formation was on the verge of collapse.
"No! They're too young! We can't stop them!"
"This energy... feels much stranger than what's described in textbooks!"
"Quickly! Go and fetch Lord Lin Yi! Only he can stabilize time and space! Only he can do it!"
It's unclear who first called out that name, but instantly, as if they had found their anchor, the crowd began to stir, shouts rising and falling, merging into a huge wave of sound, filled with reliance and anticipation.
Where is Lord Lin Yi?
"Go to his cabin quickly!"
Lin Yi was actually already on his way.
He set off the moment the alarm sounded.
But when the overwhelming shouts echoed down the street, he stopped at the entrance to the town.
The wind and snow had stopped, and the sunlight pierced through the clouds, shining on the snow and reflecting a dazzling light.
Lin Yi's shadow was stretched long; he stood there like a silent boundary marker.
He took out an antique-style brass pocket watch from his pocket.
The patterns on the watch cover have long been worn away and blurred, and the hands on the dial are forever frozen at a certain moment.
This is the only relic he has kept, a relic from his past known as the "Master of Time and Space".
He didn't even need to open it to clearly perceive the extremely pure "reverberation of time" sealed within.
If he so desired, with just a thought, this wisp of power could easily smooth out spatial rifts a hundred times larger than this one, restoring everything to its original state, calm and undisturbed.
But he didn't.
He glanced silently at the distant gray mist, then resolutely turned and walked toward the towering radio tower on the other side of the town.
A few minutes later, a calm, steady, yet incredibly clear voice rang out through the public address system in every corner of the town.
There was no divine pressure or the exhilaration of a savior in that voice, only an unquestionable calm.
"Dear classmates and fellow villagers, I am Lin Yi."
The noisy shouts fell silent instantly.
Everyone was stunned, looking up at the loudspeakers that usually only broadcast weather forecasts and town announcements.
“I’m not here to save the day,” the voice paused, then continued, “I’m here to be the proctor.”
Invigilator?
Everyone was stunned.
On a high slope on the edge of the town, Lin Yi held a very ordinary military communicator, his eyes like an eagle's, locking onto the three swaying boys on the playground.
"Third group, listen to my instructions." His voice was broadcast precisely to everyone's ears, including the three boys who were struggling to hold on. "Your energy axis is off by fifteen degrees. Look at your feet, you are standing on your own shadows. Energy is not brute force, it is a lever. Find the fulcrum."
The leading boy was taken aback upon hearing this, and subconsciously looked down, where he indeed saw his shadow distorted by the chaotic energy halo.
He gritted his teeth and, following Lin Yi's instructions, forcibly adjusted the flow of energy surging within his body.
"Li Na!" Lin Yi's voice rang out again, this time calling out the only female team member. "Don't panic, your hands are shaking. You're not using brute force to support the formation, you're guiding it. Remember how your mother taught you to chop vegetables: be light, be precise, don't rush. Find the weakest line in the mist's flow, and 'attach' your energy to it, instead of crashing into it."
That girl named Li Na, chopping vegetables?
The metaphor was so simple, yet it instantly struck a chord with her chaotic thoughts.
She took a deep breath, no longer resisting the recoil, but instead learning from her mother's skillful handling of stubborn ingredients, making her energy as thin and flexible as a blade, carefully cutting into the edge of the gray mist.
"And you, Wang Hao. Your task isn't to output damage, it's to stabilize. Lower your resonance frequency and synchronize with the earth. Right now you're like a deflated tire; don't think about rushing forward, just stabilize yourself first."
Every word he uttered was like a precise scalpel, peeling away the ornate yet fragile outer shell of the three people's formation to get straight to the core issue.
There was not a single wasted word, not a single miracle, only pure experience, skill, and reassuring patience.
On the playground, the three boys gritted their teeth and, following the guidance that seemed to resonate deep within their souls, clumsily but firmly adjusted themselves.
The blue light screen, which was on the verge of collapse, miraculously stabilized little by little.
The originally violent energy backlash was cleverly guided and diverted, transforming into tiny energy ripples that merged into the formation itself.
The gray, corrosive mist seemed to have lost its target and began to become chaotic, but was eventually slowly suppressed and bound by the energy net that had become tough again.
Under the tense gaze of countless people, the cracks in the ground slowly closed inch by inch at a speed visible to the naked eye.
When the last wisp of gray mist was completely sealed and the crack disappeared, the entire playground erupted in deafening cheers.
The three boys' legs went weak, and they collapsed to the ground, panting heavily, but their faces were filled with unprecedented excitement and pride.
They... succeeded.
Rely on your own strength.
Afterwards, the boy named Wang Hao, still pale from the ordeal, ran all the way to the high slope and found Lin Yi, who was about to leave.
"Lin Yi... my lord." He gasped for breath, his eyes filled with confusion and a hint of resentment. "Why... why didn't you take action yourself? That would have been much faster and safer."
Lin Yi turned around, looked at the face that was much younger than his own, and a gentle smile appeared on his face.
He reached out and patted the boy's shoulder heavily.
"Because the next crack may appear while I am asleep, may appear while I am traveling, or may even appear after I am dead."
His voice was soft, yet it made the boy's body tremble violently.
“And you,” Lin Yi’s gaze swept over the bustling town below the hillside, “must wake up even earlier than me.”
After saying that, he turned and left without lingering, leaving the boy standing there, pondering the profound meaning of those words.
That night, the darkness was as black as ink.
Lin Yi returned to his wooden cabin, but before he could even turn on the lights, Chu Yao's warning came again, this time with an unprecedented solemnity in her voice.
“The residual fluctuations of the seventh node are beginning to dissipate, and your method… is effective. People’s ‘dependence’ is crumbling.”
“But,” she changed the subject, “the situation is worse than we imagined. A wisp of the core consciousness hasn’t dissipated with the fluctuations. It… is tracing back! It’s tracking the name 'Lin Yi' in the past and present, every time it’s been called, every time it’s been prayed for, every time it’s been recorded…”
Lin Yi's heart sank.
What does it want to do?
"It wants to gather all the 'faith' in you scattered among the people, all the legends about you, all the hopes placed on you... and forge them into a new... door."
Before he could finish speaking, Lin Yi's pupils suddenly contracted.
He pushed the door open abruptly and looked around the silent house.
Everything was as usual: the tables and chairs, the bookshelves, and the broom that had been used that afternoon.
However, there was one more thing on the wooden table where he usually sat.
It was a folded white strip of paper, as if it had appeared out of thin air.
Lin Yi walked over, his fingertips carrying a hint of coldness, and unfolded the note.
There was no signature, no superfluous words, only a line of strong, powerful handwriting that also conveyed a certain fervor.
It says on it:
"You may escape the divine throne, but you cannot escape the hearts of men—we are still waiting for you to return."
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