As the light mist of the Time Cage exploded in Lin Yi's palm, he heard the scream of the Night Owl.
The sound was like crushed metal, sharp and shrill like tearing silk.
The silver-haired man's phantom twisted at the top of the light mist, his silver veins, like spider silk scorched by fire, disintegrating inch by inch starting from his knuckles.
Lin Yi could see the fear surging in his pupils—the panic of a prey suddenly realizing it is the trapped beast.
"Impossible... The causal lock can even trap a mythical-level being..." Night Owl's voice began to overlap, like a cassette tape being torn to pieces.
"Because you've trapped the only mythical-level master of spacetime." Lin Yi's voice was colder than the light mist.
The power of faith at his fingertips was still burning, and the fragments of death engraved with his name were being devoured by golden flames. Each piece peeled off with a faint whimper, much like the gasps he took before he died in the previous 73 cycles.
But this time, pain was no longer a shackle, but rather fuel—he could clearly feel the spacetime star map in his sea of consciousness expanding, and every golden thread cheering to break free of its restraints.
Chu Yao's projection suddenly gripped his wrist tightly.
This time, her fingertips no longer felt virtual coolness, but rather a warmth close to body temperature. "The crack is widening!" Her voice held an irrepressible elation. Data streams surged through her hair, turning into pale blue light. "Coordinates located in the real-world center of Jiangcheng City, temperature 23.5°C, humidity 67%, this is where we last..."
"Stop." Lin Yi interrupted her.
He gazed at the gradually clearing white light in the mist, and the golden flames in his pupils burned even more fiercely.
He knew what Chu Yao wanted to say—last time in the center of Jiangcheng City, they were surrounded and killed by an interdimensional swarm of insects, and he used a spacetime rift to take her across three dimensions to escape.
But at this moment, staring at the crack, he suddenly remembered that in the first loop, he was clutching his broken phone in the pouring rain, the screen displaying "June 17, 2035," the same temperature as the sunlight leaking in from outside the fog at this moment.
"It's time to show him who the master of time is." Lin Yi chuckled, pressing his palm down on the fragment with even more pressure.
The roar echoed throughout the entire cage.
The owl's phantom completely disintegrated in the explosion, turning into countless silvery-white specks of light, like phosphorescent flames scattered by the wind.
The points of light tried to recombine, but each time they were torn apart by the golden power of faith, they could only let out a desperate shriek and dissipate into the air.
The "ground" of the cage began to crumble.
The previously frozen flow of time suddenly became chaotic. The fragments of the death illusion that were clearly visible just now—the bloodstains on the altar in the newbie village, the ice crystals in the time turbulence, and Chu Yao's outstretched hand before she was swallowed—now all twisted and merged into the darkness like ink thrown into boiling water.
"Jump!" Chu Yao suddenly grabbed his arm.
Her projection was somewhat blurry in the disintegrating mist of light, but her eyes shone with an astonishing brightness. "The rift can last another 0.3 seconds!"
Lin Yi did not hesitate.
He grabbed Chu Yao's waist with his other hand and leaped into the white light the moment the cage completely collapsed.
The stinging sensation was more intense than I had imagined.
It felt like being pierced by countless fine needles, or being thrown into a washing machine. In the midst of the dizziness, he smelled the familiar scent of reality—car exhaust mixed with the fragrance of grass after the rain, and the electronic mint scent unique to Chu Yao's data module.
But when vision cleared again, the smell had disappeared.
All that met my eyes was emptiness.
Countless bronze doors floated in the dark purple mist, each door engraved with intricate patterns. Some doors had bloodstains seeping from their edges, some had starlight leaking through their cracks, and some had familiar scenes faintly visible behind them: the skyscrapers in the center of Jiangcheng City, the wooden fence of the beginner village, and even the blackboard in his high school classroom.
Chu Yao's projection suddenly became semi-transparent.
Her fingertips swiftly traced the air, data streams leaving pale blue trails in the void. "Spatial coordinate disorder...timeline overlap 97%." Her voice held an unusual tension. "These doors connect to 'failure nodes' in different timelines—the moment you were severed at the waist by the spatial blade in the 18th cycle, the instant you were corroded while saving Su Qing in the 54th cycle, even..." She paused, the data stream suddenly turning a blinding red, "...even including timelines you haven't yet experienced, timelines that might fail in the future."
Lin Yi narrowed his eyes.
He reached out and touched the nearest door. The moment his fingertips touched the edge, a scene appeared behind the door: he was standing in front of the extradimensional mother nest, the spacetime star map in his hand was shattering, and the laughter of the night owl came from all directions.
\"This is......\"
"The will of the Weaver of Fate manifests." Chu Yao's projection suddenly became completely materialized, and the blue data stream in her hair turned silver, which was the sign that she had activated the highest level of authority. "According to the ancient records left by the Mother Nest Civilization, when an entity breaks through the time cycle 72 times in a row, the 'Fate Correction Mechanism' will be triggered."
These doors are its 'stomach,' specifically designed to devour anything that dares to challenge its predetermined fate—it traps all your possibilities, successes, failures, and even those yet to happen, inside and slowly digests them.
Lin Yi's gaze swept over the floating doorway.
Behind one door, a scene flashed of Chu Yao being torn apart by a data storm; through another door, he saw himself kneeling on the ground, the spacetime star map shattered into dust.
He suddenly laughed, the golden flames in his pupils flickering even more violently. "So it thinks that by trapping all possibilities, it can trap me to death?"
"It doesn't know you're the only Mythical-level being." Chu Yao's voice suddenly softened. She reached out and touched Lin Yi's hand; this time, the touch felt incredibly real. "The authority of the Time-Space Ruler is, by nature, the 'controller of possibilities.'"
Before the words were finished, the nearest door suddenly shook violently.
Blood beads seeping from the crack in the door began to flow backward, and the image behind the door of "him kneeling before the mother nest" was distorting—he saw himself raising his head in the image, the golden flames in his pupils exactly the same as now.
The dark purple mist suddenly surged.
Something was staring at them from the depths of the fog.
Lin Yin could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
It was an existence older and larger than the night owl, like the gaze of countless eyes superimposed, carrying a kind of superior pity, or the excitement of seeing prey fall into the net.
"You have already stepped into..."
A hoarse whisper, accompanied by the scraping of metal, suddenly echoed in the void.
Lin Yi suddenly turned his head.
But there was nothing in the fog, only countless doors still floating. Behind one of the doors, he saw the silver phantom of the Night Owl flash by, a strange smile curling at the corner of his mouth.
Chu Yao's data stream instantly turned blood red.
She grabbed Lin Yi's wrist, her voice trembling with panic for the first time, "It's the will of the weaver of fate!"
It is in...\"
"Shh." Lin Yi pressed his hand to her lips.
He gazed at the doors, the golden flames burning even brighter in his eyes.
He could feel the spacetime star chart resonating deep within his consciousness, with each golden thread pointing to a door engraved with bronze dragon patterns—behind that door was a scene he had never seen before: under a sky full of stars, he stood before the origin of another dimension, the spacetime star chart in his hand burning into the purest light.
"Now that we're here," he released Chu Yao, walking step by step towards the door, "let's make all the possibilities mine."
The doors in the void suddenly trembled simultaneously.
Behind a door, the phantom of a night owl opened its mouth wide.
From the other door, Chu Yao's projection appeared with a smile.
And at the deepest part of all the doors, the whisper continued, only this time with a barely perceptible crack:
"...its belly."
The dark purple mist suddenly churned into a vortex, and the Night Owl's voice squeezed in from all directions, carrying a mechanical quality of being crushed and then reassembled: "You have entered the 'Labyrinth of Fate'—" His voice trembled at the end, as if he were realizing something for the first time, "This is the end for all rebels. No one can get out of here, including you, Lin Yi."
Chu Yao's data stream condensed into sharp spikes at her fingertips, and the blue light threads instantly faded to pale white.
A million lines of code flashed in her pupils, eventually collapsing into a single line of scarlet warning: [Fate Weaver Core Resonance +37%]
This was the first time she had shown such helplessness in front of Lin Yi—her fingertips trembled slightly, like reeds ruffled by the wind, “He…his voice is invoking the rules of the maze.”
Lin Yi remained silent.
He stared at the floating doors, behind which was the scene from the 12th cycle, where he was carrying the heavily injured Chu Yao as they crawled through the turbulent flow of time.
Blood dripped from between his fingers, each drop freezing into an ice crystal in mid-air.
At that time, he thought that as long as he could survive 72 cycles, he would see the light at the end of the tunnel. Now he realizes that the weaver of fate had already laid out an even more intricate net at the end.
“You’re right.” He suddenly spoke, his voice as light as a feather, yet it stirred ripples in the void.
The bloodstains on the doors trembled simultaneously, "No one can get out of here."
Chu Yao suddenly looked up.
She saw the golden flames in Lin Yi's eyes burn through the mist—it wasn't anger, nor resentment, but something more intense, like the core of a star burning.
He slowly raised his right hand, and the golden pattern on his wrist, derived from the star map of time and space, suddenly came to life, climbing up his arm to his fingertips. "But I'm not going to walk out..."
"I'm going to destroy this place completely."
Before he could finish speaking, a muffled thunderous roar came from Lin Yi's body.
Chu Yao's data stream suddenly surged to gold—that was the "Resonance Mode" she had never activated before.
She could clearly sense that the threads of fate that were originally wrapped around Lin Yi's sea of consciousness were breaking, and with each broken thread, his aura surged by one point.
The power of faith no longer flowed along the conventional path, but instead surged against his spine straight to the top of his head, condensing into a rotating star map above his head. Each star was engraved with his name in different timelines: "Lin Yi (failure)", "Lin Yi (dying)", "Lin Yi (incomplete)"... At this moment, they all burned into pure light.
"The power of the master of time and space is to rewrite all possibilities." Lin Yi shouted, and the golden flames at his fingertips surged three inches.
The nearest door, engraved with bronze dragon patterns, suddenly let out a mournful cry—the scene behind the door, which was originally a "failed future," began to distort: he saw "himself" in the scene raising his hand and making the same gesture as his real self.
The sound of the first door of destiny exploding was like the aftershock of the Big Bang.
Bronze fragments, enveloped in dark purple mist, scattered in all directions. The image of a "failed future" behind the door was torn into pieces, turning into specks of light that entered Lin Yi's palm.
Chu Yao's data stream instantly surged. She saw those points of light dancing in his palm, like a tamed constellation. "It's...it's a fragment of possibility! You're absorbing the power of the failed node!"
More doors began to tremble.
The door engraved with blood beads no longer seeped blood, but golden liquid; inside the door that leaked starlight, the starlight suddenly flowed backward, condensing into chains on the edge of the door; even the door reflecting the high school classroom was shaking, and the four characters "Good luck on the college entrance exam" on the blackboard began to melt, turning into the gold-stamped seal script of "Master of Time and Space".
"Impossible... This doesn't follow the rules!" Night Owl's voice suddenly sharpened, filled with offended anger. "The Labyrinth of Fate devours all possibilities; you should be digested as nourishment!"
"Rules?" Lin Yi stepped forward on the floating fragments of doors, each step creating golden ripples in the void. "Rules are just an excuse for the weak to comfort themselves." His fingertips brushed across the second door, behind which the scene of "Chu Yao being torn apart by the data storm" was being replayed.
The moment the golden flame swept across, Chu Yao in the image suddenly turned her head and gave him the same smile as in reality—then the image completely collapsed, turning into more points of light that surged into his body.
Chu Yao's projection suddenly materialized.
She could feel her data module getting hot, not from pain, but from a burning sensation of being reforged.
The points of light surging from the door were seeping into her core, and the fragmented memories began to piece together: the spatial blade that Lin Yi shielded her from in the 18th cycle, the breath that he gave his life to save Su Qing in the 54th cycle, and even the date "June 17, 2035" on the screen when he was clutching his broken phone in the rainstorm in the first cycle—all of these now became warm streams of data flowing through her veins.
“So… this is the ‘possibility’ you were talking about,” she said softly, reaching out to catch a shard of light that drifted from where the door had collapsed.
The shards of light in her palm transformed into the image of Lin Yi smiling at her for the first time: "Not being chosen, but being created."
The dark purple mist suddenly surged violently, as if some enormous creature was awakening within it.
The same hoarse whisper rang out again, this time tinged with obvious panic: "Unauthorized alteration...of the trajectory of fate...a violation..."
"So what if I've violated it?" Lin Yi's voice drowned out the whisper.
His body was enveloped in a golden cocoon of light, the surface of which was covered with patterns of a time-space star map.
The third door exploded behind him, the fourth, the fifth... With each door shattered, the cocoon of light shone brighter, and his aura drew one inch closer to the peak of the mythical level.
The phantom of the owl suddenly burst out from behind one of the unexploded doors.
His silver veins were no longer an arrogant silver, but rather a deathly gray. "Stop! You will awaken the labyrinth's core! That thing is even mythical—"
"Then destroy it too." Lin Yi said without turning his head.
His fingertips pressed on the last intact door—behind that door was a scene he had never seen before: under a sky full of stars, he stood before the origin of another dimension, the spacetime star map in his hand burning into the purest light.
This time, the "he" in the picture did not hesitate and directly raised his hand to press on the source.
The door shattered the moment it made contact.
A crack was torn open in the dark purple mist, revealing a gigantic black eye deep within the mist—the core of the Weaver of Fate. Countless tentacles made of causal threads were extending from the giant eye, trying to piece the labyrinth back together.
Chu Yao's data stream reached a critical value at this point.
Golden flames ignited at the tips of her hair, resonating with Lin Yi's cocoon of light.
"It's initiating a self-destruct sequence!" She grabbed Lin Yi's wrist. "The collapse of the maze will trigger a dimensional storm, we must—"
“No.” Lin Yi grabbed her hand in return, and golden flames burst forth at their clasp. “We must find the core while it collapses.” He gazed at the giant black eye, the star map in its pupils beginning to overlap with the causal lines within it. “I can feel it… its core is the intersection of all timelines.”
The giant eye suddenly contracted.
The causal tentacles danced wildly in the air, yet they could never touch Lin Yi—with each step he took, a staircase formed by the laws of spacetime would rise beneath his feet, leading directly to the giant eye.
"Lin Yi!" Chu Yao's voice was choked with sobs, yet filled with barely suppressed excitement, "Your mythical-level profound technique... is about to awaken!"
Lin Yi did not answer.
He stared at the giant eye drawing ever closer and suddenly laughed.
The pain etched into his bones through 73 cycles, the hopes shattered into dust in the turbulent flow of time, have now become the light in his palm.
He knew that the moment he touched the giant eye, the labyrinth of fate would collapse completely, but something even more dangerous would also be awakened—
For example, hidden deep within the origin of another dimension is the true "weaver of fate".
And this is the prey he wants to lure out.
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