The morning mist had not yet dissipated, and the bluestone bricks of the Forgotten City were still covered with night dew.
Lin Yi knelt on one knee, Su Qing's weight pressing against his arm, her hair carrying a faint scent of ambergris—this was the third time he had smelled this fragrance, the first two times being in the space-time rift in the newbie village and in the library on a rainy night last month.
"Chu Yao, how is the chip status?" He looked up at the silver-haired girl beside him.
Chu Yao's originally bright blue pupils were now filled with snowflakes, and half of a charred chip was visible behind her right ear, like a circuit board struck by lightning: "The main brain's spatial law interference is beyond expectations, and it will take seventeen minutes for computing power to recover." She paused, and lightly touched Lin Yi's hand with her fingertips, "But your emotional fluctuation value has exceeded the danger line."
The white-bearded old man clutched his chest and coughed, blood still dripping from his bronze sword. "That old bastard... I told you not to trust the game's AI. I saw his avatar in the Buzhou Mountain dungeon back then. He claimed to be a guide, but he was actually more cunning than the boss." He suddenly squinted at Su Qing in Lin Yi's arms. "Young friend, this girl's heartbeat has been off since she came back from the altar."
Heartbeat?
Lin Yi lowered his eyes.
Su Qing's eyelashes cast butterfly-wing-like shadows under her eyes, and her pale face resembled a faded silk painting.
He pressed his finger against her wrist—her pulse was unusually regular, sixty beats per minute, a full twenty beats slower than normal.
"Let's go." He suddenly stood up and picked Su Qing up in his arms.
The jade pendant was burning hot in my palm, and the engraving of the two characters "Xingyuan" made my tiger's mouth go numb.
The Forgotten City shrouded in mist is like a lurking beast; they have only just touched its fangs.
As you pass through three archways covered in barnacles, the smell of decay in the air suddenly intensifies.
Ahead appeared a stone gate as tall as two people, its surface uneven. Upon closer inspection, it was revealed to be a relief of countless distorted, pained human faces, with eerie green fluorite embedded in the eye sockets, flickering in rhythm with each breath.
“The rune frequency is 117 Hz.” Chu Yao’s voice regained a third of its strength. “It’s the same as the ‘Time Lock’ resonance wave you encountered in the spacetime rift last time.” She pointed her fingertips, and pale blue rune projections appeared in the air. “But there are seventeen more spatial anchor points here, like… a double insurance made with the laws of spacetime.”
Lin Yi gently leaned Su Qing against the stone statue by the door.
The statue's face bears a striking resemblance to the night owl, but its lips curl into a sorrowful smile that is entirely different from the night owl's.
He reached out and touched the stone door. The moment his palm touched the stone surface, all the fluorite suddenly went bright, so bright that it was impossible to open one's eyes.
"Warning! Mythical-level professional energy detected!" Chu Yao's voice rose. "The runes are being reconstructed, current progress is 23%...5%...negative growth?"
Lin Yi's pupils contracted to thin slits.
He could clearly sense that the space behind the stone gate was repelling his power—not an ordinary energy barrier, but a suppression similar to the law of "like repels like."
Like two parallel timelines suddenly intersecting, his spacetime abilities were torn to shreds the moment they reached his fingertips.
“Try the Reverse Time Flow.” The white-bearded man suddenly spoke, pulling out half a tortoise shell from his robes. “My master once said that the greatest fear of ancient formations is ‘reversal of time’. Use your power in reverse, like… like wringing out a towel.”
Reverse time flow?
Lin Yi closed his eyes.
He recalled his first awakening, when he restored a broken water glass in his dormitory—not by turning back time, but by using his own power to reshape the timeline of matter.
He took a deep breath, formed a strange hand seal with his left hand, and defied the norm with his right palm, changing the flow of time from one breath per second to half a breath per second.
The stone gate suddenly emitted a muffled sound.
The green light of the fluorite began to distort, and three of the runes in the clockwise rotation group suddenly began to rotate counterclockwise.
Chu Yao's projection flickered, and the progress bar began to jump: "47%...62%...89%!"
"Now!" Lin Yi shouted, pressing his palms against the stone door.
His pupils glowed with a golden light, and a semi-transparent hourglass-like image appeared behind him.
This is the exclusive domain of the [Time and Space Dominator], "Cocoon of Time," which allows one to temporarily bring any laws they come into contact with under their control.
boom--
The stone gate suddenly burst open.
A musty smell mixed with the smell of rust hit them, and a circular stone chamber appeared before them.
A crystal ball, a full meter in diameter, floats in the center of the stone chamber. Inside, there are bands of light like the Milky Way, each ray of light corresponding to a timeline.
“Fragments of the origin of spacetime.” Chu Yao’s voice trembled with a rare tremor. “According to the database, there are only three records of this in the entire ‘Infinite’—the last time it appeared was in the ruins of Atlantis three hundred years ago, when it was taken away by twelve legendary professionals who joined forces, resulting in a spacetime turbulence that lasted for ten years.”
Lin Yi approached the crystal ball step by step.
Just as his fingertips were about to touch the sphere, a soft sound of porcelain shattering came from behind him.
It's Su Qing.
She had stood up at some point, her left hand supporting her against the wall, her right hand clutching a half-broken piece of porcelain—it had fallen from the base of the stone statue when she leaned against the door.
She looked up at Lin Yi, her pupils reflecting the light of the crystal ball, yet it was as if she were looking through him at a more distant place: "Don't touch it."
Her voice was soft, yet carried an undeniable air of command.
Lin Yi stopped moving.
This was the first time Su Qing had spoken to him in this tone.
Previously, she was either a smiling bystander or a vulnerable woman in need of protection, but now her eyes were so unfamiliar, just like the woman standing in front of the spacetime rift in the "Project 0927" file that he had accidentally seen in the laboratory last month.
"Why?" He didn't turn around, but seventy percent of his attention was on Su Qing.
Su Qing took two steps forward, the shards of porcelain leaving red marks on her palm: "Because it will make you see... the truth you don't want to see." Her voice began to tremble, as if two souls were fighting for control of her vocal cords, "You think you're the chosen one? No, you're just... just..."
"Just what?" Lin Yi turned around, and the phantom of the hourglass of time instantly enveloped Su Qing.
He could sense that Su Qing's time flow had been secretly slowed down tenfold—this was a precaution to prevent her from launching a sudden attack.
Su Qing's words stuck in her throat.
She looked down at her hands, as if she were seeing this body for the first time.
For a fleeting moment, her nails turned as black as ink, and golden veins emerged beneath her skin, like some kind of pattern not belonging to humankind.
But the next second, all the strange phenomena vanished completely. She slumped to the ground, covered her face, and sobbed softly, "I'm sorry... I didn't mean to..."
Lin Yi stared at her trembling shoulders, his Adam's apple bobbing.
He could smell that the faint scent of ambergris in the air suddenly became stronger, resonating with the light bands inside the crystal ball.
At that moment, Chu Yao's voice suddenly rang in his ear: "Abnormal biometrics detected in Su Qing! Her DNA is being reconstituted, and the current match rate... 97% matches the 'Observer' template in the 'Star Abyss' database!"
Observer?
That was mentioned in the game's mastermind document; it was a higher life form responsible for recording the trials of civilization.
Lin Yi's breath hitched.
He looked at the crystal ball and finally reached out his hand—
The moment my fingertips touched the sphere, countless images flooded my mind.
He saw a pair of golden eyes watching him from the clouds when he awakened in the newbie village; he saw Su Qing saying "He's here" to the air in the library on a rainy night; he saw Xuan Mingzi sighing in front of the altar, with half a jade tablet peeking out from his sleeve, exactly the same as the one at his feet.
In the deepest part of the image, there is a woman wearing a white coat.
She had her back to him and was injecting a blue-glowing liquid into the culture chamber.
Floating inside the incubation chamber was a face exactly like his.
"bite--"
The crisp notification sound pulled him back to reality.
The light from the crystal ball completely entered his body, and an hourglass-shaped tattoo appeared on the back of his right hand, with each mark flowing with galaxies.
[You have acquired the Mythical-level skill: Time Reversal (allows a designated target to rewind to any point in time; the cost is proportional to the rewind duration)]
Your spacetime domain has expanded to a radius of three kilometers; you can currently control three timelines simultaneously.
Power surged through his veins, and Lin Yi felt he could easily crush the stone door in front of him.
But his gaze remained fixed on Su Qing—who was currently huddled in a corner, drawing strange symbols on the floor with shards of broken porcelain, muttering, "I can't say it... if I say it, it will be erased... Daddy, I miss you so much..."
"Su Qing?" Lin Yi walked over and squatted down in front of her.
She looked up abruptly, and the mist in her eyes instantly dissipated.
Those were completely unfamiliar eyes, pitch black, with no whites: "You shouldn't have gotten this skill." Her voice was like the scraping of metal, "The advance team from another dimension has located this place, and they will arrive in three minutes."
Before he finished speaking, the entire stone chamber suddenly shook violently.
Stone chips fell from above, and Chu Yao's projection suddenly turned completely red: "Spatial tear fluctuation detected! An abnormal energy reaction has occurred at coordinates (112,345,78), intensity... exceeding that of an SS-level dungeon boss!"
Lin Yi picked up Su Qing and rushed towards the door, with the white-bearded old man holding a bronze sword blocking the way.
Outside the stone gate, the mist that had once shrouded the Forgotten City was now spinning wildly, forming a massive vortex.
At the center of the vortex, several dark figures could be vaguely seen, their outlines resembling distorted human figures, with fragments of spacetime floating around each figure.
"Go!" Lin Yi shouted, and the phantom of the hourglass of time and space instantly unfolded.
He could feel his newly acquired "time reversal" skill burning within him, as if it couldn't wait to tear open the impending crisis.
Behind them, shards of Su Qing's porcelain quietly fell to the ground.
On the back of the porcelain shard, a line of small characters was written in blood:
"Don't believe me. They planted observation anchors inside my body."
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