The moment the spacetime rift closed, Lin Yi's shoe soles slammed heavily onto the rusted metal floor.
The abandoned 719 signal tower was more dilapidated than he remembered—the bombing of the Mother Nest twenty years ago had torn a huge gap in the dome, and moonlight poured down like shattered silver, casting spiderweb-like cracks on the broken walls.
But what made his pupils shrink the most was the faint sandalwood scent in the air, swirling around the center of the tower along with the silvery-gray mist. It was the agarwood incense that Li Mu always liked to burn, mixed with the scent of his usual minty wristband balm.
"Chu Yao, scan results." Lin Yi's Adam's apple bobbed, his fingertips unconsciously digging into his palm—the burning pain of the spacetime emblem had spread to his forearm, a resonance of the primordial rules.
"Analyzing." Chu Yao's projection rose from his shoulder, and a stream of pale blue data slithered into the mist of light like snakes. "High concentration of residual soul energy detected, fluctuation frequency perfectly matches Mr. Li Mu's..." Her voice suddenly paused for 0.3 seconds, "But the energy structure shows that this is a compressed fragment of consciousness, similar to..."
"The Corridor of Memories." Xuanmingzi's voice came from behind.
The avatar of the original game mastermind has now concealed all its phantoms, its white hair gleaming coldly in the light mist. "The Mother Nest is most adept at weaving cages with the power of faith."
They may not have completely erased Li Mu's consciousness, but rather trapped him in the cracks of time, treating him as... His gaze swept over Lin Yi's tense back, and he suddenly stopped speaking.
Lin Yi had already raised his hand.
Seven blades of time and space coalesced into silver chains at his fingertips, piercing precisely into the densest part of the light mist—the air there churned like boiling water, teeming with tiny golden particles, the embodiment of faith. "You stay outside." As he turned, the spacetime vortex in his pupils spun rapidly. Long Wu was about to step forward, but he was gently pushed back by a spatial barrier. "The rules here are unstable; I'm safer alone."
"But the Mother Nest might have set a trap!" Xuan Mingzi exclaimed anxiously, his Daoist robe fluttering in the air. "Back then, they specifically developed..."
"If it's a trap, then it's set for me." Lin Yi interrupted him, his voice as soft as a sigh, yet carrying an undeniable firmness. "He's waiting for me."
The light fog suddenly trembled violently.
The moment Lin Yi's toes stepped into the light mist, all his senses were stripped away—he couldn't see the broken wall, hear his companions' exclamations, or even feel his own breath.
Only a pure white space unfolded before his eyes, and countless fragments of light and shadow surged in from all directions: the hidden arrow that Li Mu blocked for him outside the newbie village, the two figures back to back wielding swords in the other-dimensional battlefield, and the words that Li Mu shouted with a smile when he was entangled by the tentacles of the mother nest at the last moment: "Boss, I'll hold it off for three seconds for you."
"Lin Yi..."
The familiar voice, like a fine needle, pierced precisely into his mind.
Lin Yi suddenly looked up.
At the end of the pure white space stood a figure wearing faded camouflage tactical clothing.
His right shoulder still bears the scar from when he was scratched by a monster, but the mint wristband on his left wrist is faded white from washing—it was a birthday gift from Lin Yi last year, and he said he would wear it until he retires.
He was facing away from the light, half of his face hidden in shadow, but the half of his eye that was visible was exactly the same as the one in his memory.
"You..." Lin Yi's throat tightened, and he was stopped by an invisible barrier as soon as he took a step.
He then discovered that countless translucent chains floated between the two of them, each chain engraved with the unique faith runes of the Mother Nest.
"Don't come any closer." Li Mu turned around, his smile still as cheerful as he remembered, but a misty light floated in his eyes. "This is the Mother Nest's consciousness prison. They used my soul imprint as bait, trying to fish..." His words were suddenly interrupted by the vibration of the chains, "cough...fishing for the primordial power of the Time-Space Ruler."
Lin Yi's spacetime emblem exploded with dazzling light in his palm.
He finally saw clearly that the other end of those chains was connected to Li Mu's heart—the soul fire there was as weak as a candle flickering in the wind, ready to be extinguished at any moment. "I'll take you out," his voice trembled, his fingers pressing on the nearest chain, "With time reversal, with eternal reset, I..."
"It's too late." Li Mu suddenly reached out, his fingertips passing through the barrier, and gently touched his forehead. "I held on until now to tell you..." His figure began to blur, the runes on the chains flashing wildly, "The Mother Nest's faith network has a vulnerability, in..."
"Wait!" Lin Yi tried to grab his hand in a hurry, but only touched nothingness.
The Blade of Time and Space automatically unsheathed behind him and began to cut the chains, but the runes seemed to be alive, eroding his spiritual power along the blade.
"Remember..." Li Mu's voice grew softer and softer, the last few words, tinged with the scent of sandalwood, reaching his ears, "Su Qing's background, and..."
The pure white space suddenly collapsed.
Lin Yi stumbled into reality, his back slamming heavily against the broken wall of the signal tower.
He coughed violently and looked up, only to see that the light mist had dissipated, and Chu Yao's projection was flashing a red alert: "Abnormal fluctuations detected in the Mother Nest Faith Network!"
The original timeline entry point...
"Boss!" Long Wu's voice came from behind, clearly urgent.
The dragonblood warrior, his palms ablaze with crimson flames, warily watched the area outside the tower—a vast expanse of black mist had gathered there, writhing like living things. "Something's approaching!"
Lin Yi wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, but his gaze fell on the back of his left hand.
There was a pale golden mark there, shaped like a crumpled maple leaf—exactly the same as the scar on Li Mu's right shoulder.
A metallic hissing sound suddenly came from within the black mist.
He stood up, and the Blade of Time and Space materialized at his fingertips.
But when his gaze swept over the remaining light and mist at the heart of the tower, he inexplicably recalled Li Mu's last, unfinished words.
What else is there about Su Qing's background?
Suddenly, a piece of paper was swept up by the wind and floated to his feet.
He bent down and picked it up. On the yellowed page was a line of small handwriting in fountain pen, the ink still carrying the damp scent of sandalwood: "If I don't make it back, tell the eldest brother that I drank the bottle of Erguotou he hid under his bed in the dorm for him."
The hissing of the black mist grew closer.
But a smile slowly crept onto Lin Yi's lips.
He carefully put the paper into his spatial ring, and as he turned around, the silver light from the spacetime rift re-condensed at his feet—this time, he was taking his brother home.
In the unseen depths of the void, a soul fire bound by chains finally extinguished completely, and then gently curled the corners of its lips.
"Boss, it's my turn this time. I'll take three seconds for you." The hissing sound coming from the black mist was like rusty gears grinding against his nerves. Just as Lin Yi was about to summon the spacetime rift, a sudden, excruciating pain exploded in his temples.
Those fragments of memory sealed by the mother nest, following the maple leaf imprint left by Li Mu, flooded into his sea of consciousness like a tidal wave—
He saw the alternate-dimensional battlefield from twenty years ago.
Under the blood-red sky, Li Mu's tactical uniform was already torn to shreds, and the wound on his left shoulder festered with blackish-purple pus, yet he still managed to shove the last spacetime amplification potion into Lin Yi's palm. "Boss, you go break the core!" He grinned, his blood-stained lips parting slightly, and as he turned, the tactical backpack on his back suddenly emitted a blinding golden light. "I still have some left!"
That was the light of faith.
As the tentacles of the mother nest burst forth from the ground, Li Mu was pressing his palm against his chest.
His soul fire flickered beneath his skin like a candle wick blown by the wind: "Don't they want an anchor of faith?"
"I'll give it to you!" Before he finished speaking, his whole body suddenly expanded into a golden ball of light, shattering all the tentacles within a thirty-meter radius.
But the consciousness of the mother nest also manifests at this time.
It was a black mist enveloping countless eyeballs, one of which suddenly snapped open, shooting out a silver chain that pierced through the light. "Such a pure remnant of faith..." Amidst the piercing mental fluctuations, Li Mu's scream was drawn out infinitely, "Perfect as a new anchor point."
The scene abruptly ended.
Lin Yi staggered and grabbed the broken wall for support, his knuckles digging deep marks into the metal surface.
His breathing was rapid, like a broken bellows, and his eyes burned with two flames—it turned out that Li Mu had not died on the battlefield at all, but had been captured alive by the Mother Nest and had his faith power extracted in the most cruel way for a full twenty years.
"His soulfire is nailed to a node in the faith network," Ivan's voice came from beside him, unusually hoarse.
The core host, who had been modified by the Mother Nest, now hung his head, the tips of his ears beneath his blond hair tinged with an unnatural bluish-white. "I've participated in similar experiments... using the consciousness of high-level job changers as anchor points, we can stably create interdimensional portals."
Lin Yi suddenly turned his head.
Ivan's pupils were rippling with pale gold, the residual power of the Mother Nest awakening.
He saw the other man's Adam's apple bob, his fingers unconsciously clutching the fabric of his shirt, as if resisting some kind of physiological rejection: "Back then, I was in charge of recording data... They called these anchor points 'living batteries.'"
"So you can help him get out of this?" Lin Yi's voice was like ice, but it trembled slightly at the end.
When Ivan looked up, a flash of pain crossed his eyes.
He raised his right hand, and a translucent rhomboid crystal floated in his palm—a fragment of the core of the Mother Nest. "My soul still retains the Mother Nest's parsing code."
"If we use it as a medium..." His fingertips began to bleed, and spiderweb-like cracks appeared on the surface of the crystal. "Perhaps it could guide his consciousness away from the anchor point."
"What price is required?" Xuanmingzi suddenly interjected.
The original game mastermind avatar had somehow appeared beside Long Wu, his fingers forming hand seals beneath his Taoist robe. "The rules of the Mother Nest will not allow for easy separation."
"The purity of my soul." Ivan forced a bitter smile, drops of blood trickling from his palm onto the crystal. "Back then, they used my soul as a vessel, and now..." His gaze swept over the maple leaf mark on Lin Yi's left hand, "Now, we can use this corrupted vessel to exchange for his freedom."
Lin Yi suddenly grabbed Ivan's wrist.
The silver light of the Time-Space Emblem spread along their touching skin, and he could clearly sense the surging undercurrents within the other's soul—the fierce struggle between the erosion of the Mother Nest and self-awareness. "Was it worth it?" he asked hoarsely.
"He shielded you for three seconds." Ivan gripped his hand, the crystal's light suddenly intensifying. "I shielded him once; it was only right."
Chu Yao's projection lit up at this moment: "Loose anchor detected!"
Lin Yi, prepare to receive the fragment of consciousness!
Lin Yi immediately closed his eyes.
The spacetime vortex in his sea of consciousness spun wildly, condensing all spiritual power into a funnel-shaped channel.
He could hear the crisp sound of chains snapping, like countless silver needles piercing his temples; he could feel a warm, sandalwood-scented stream of consciousness flowing into his sea of consciousness—Li Mu's memories: the Erguotou (a type of Chinese liquor) under his dormitory bed, the hidden arrows outside the newbie village, the warmth of their bodies pressed back to back on the battlefield in another dimension...
\"boom--\"
The entire signal tower suddenly shook violently.
From the cracks in the dome overhead, countless black tentacles pierced through the clouds and descended, the roar of the mother nest making one's eardrums ache.
Long Wu's crimson flames instantly engulfed everyone, and true dragon scales spread from his neck to his cheeks: "Boss, I can't hold on for three minutes!"
"Quickly!" Xuan Mingzi's Daoist robe billowed like a sail as his hands formed intricate hand seals. "The Mother Nest is reclaiming its anchor point!"
Lin Yi's forehead was covered in cold sweat.
He could sense that Li Mu's last fragment of consciousness was being torn apart by the tentacles of the mother nest.
The Blade of Time and Space automatically unsheathed behind him, shattering the approaching tentacles, while simultaneously opening the passage in his sea of consciousness to its maximum—
"Come in!" he roared inwardly.
The last wisp of consciousness finally rushed into the sea of consciousness.
At the same time, the crystal in Ivan's hand shattered with a "bang," and shards pierced his palm like sharp arrows.
He staggered back two steps, covered his mouth, and black blood seeped from between his fingers: "It...it was a success?"
Chu Yao's projection stabilized: "Confirmed that the fusion of Li Mu's consciousness fragment with the host's soul is complete."
New mark detected: [Faith Resonance], allows sharing 10% of a teammate's Faith Power.
When Lin Yi opened his eyes, the maple leaf mark on the back of his left hand was gleaming with a warm golden light.
He looked at Ivan and saw that the other man's face was as white as paper, the veins on his forehead were throbbing, and there were faint blue lines running under his skin, like some kind of sealed incantation.
"Ivan?" He frowned and reached out, but was gently pushed away by the other's blood-stained hand.
"I'm fine." Ivan forced a smile, his steps unsteady as he turned, as if he were walking on cotton. "It's just..." His voice suddenly lowered, his fingertips unconsciously pressing against his chest, "...a little tired."
The tentacles in the black mist drew closer.
Long Wu's flames began to flicker, and cracks appeared in Xuan Mingzi's magic seal.
Lin Yi summoned a spacetime rift and, as he turned around, caught a glimpse of Ivan's hand hanging by his side—those pale blue lines were slowly but firmly spreading towards his heart along his veins.
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