The fluorescent lights in the abandoned laboratory crackled overhead, and pale blue data streams danced in Chu Yao's electronic pupils as her fingertips flew across the holographic projection keyboard, leaving afterimages in their wake.
She used a laser scanner to disassemble the dark gold symbols on the wall into millions of pixels, and then reassembled them according to the cryptographic rules of twenty known civilizations—but each reassembly resulted in a tangled mess, unable to even connect the most basic logical chains.
"The core algorithm of the mainframe, the ancient Mayan astronomical code, the Cthulhu script translation... I've tried them all." Chu Yao bit her lower lip, her hair falling down to cover half her face. "The arrangement of these symbols doesn't conform to any known information encoding rules, and the energy fluctuations don't resemble the trigger mechanism of a trap." She looked up at Lin Yi, the tips of her ears slightly red. "Perhaps I need a more... more unconventional approach?"
Whitebeard slammed the "Tales of the Strange" onto the dusty lab table, and the parchment scroll unfurled with a clatter.
The white-haired old man's knuckles, calloused from years of wielding a sword, now gripped a magnifying glass, its fingers tracing the yellowed pages: "The Bronze Gate is mentioned on page three of volume three, described as 'the cage of witnesses'; but the word 'witness' doesn't appear once throughout the entire book." He suddenly looked up, a flicker of alertness in his cloudy eyes, "Xiao Yi, I've been playing this game for twenty years, and any clue that's too coincidental—"
"They're all traps." Lin Yi finished the sentence and gently tapped the hot symbols on the wall with his finger.
He could feel the wall beneath the symbol vibrating, the frequency perfectly matching the spacetime primordial fragment in his pocket. "But traps and guidance are sometimes separated by only a thin veil."
The wind in the lab suddenly changed direction, making the scraps of paper on the table rustle.
Lin Yi stared at the long, thin shadow cast on the ground—it was a symbol, and it really did look like a door.
In a daze, his thoughts drifted back to the ruins of the beginner village three days ago. The last words Su Qing uttered before disappearing echoed in his mind: "Go to the cracks in time to find the answer." Thinking of this, his gaze returned to the symbol in front of him, and a sense of enlightenment dawned on him.
"Chu Yao, bring up the energy fluctuation diagram of the symbol." He suddenly spoke, his voice carrying a certainty that made everyone's breath catch in their throats.
In the holographic projection, the dark golden light bands twisted as if they were alive.
Lin Yi reached through the projection, and the moment his fingertips touched the light strip, the fragments of the origin of spacetime burned so hot in his pocket that they almost burned through the fabric.
Intricate star charts emerged deep within his pupils, the patterns that embodied the laws of spacetime—since awakening as the [Master of Spacetime], his way of seeing the world had changed: all energy flows had become disassembled timelines, and all spatial structures had become reconstructable coordinate networks.
"It's not a password," he said softly, his fingertips tracing the path of the light. "It's the coordinates of a spacetime anchor point."
Chu Yao's electronic eyes suddenly lit up: "A spacetime anchor point? That's..."
"Connecting nodes across different timelines." Lin Yi's voice grew faster and faster. "Look, the starting arc of this symbol corresponds to the Earth's rotation angle, and the ending point is exactly the point of gravitational equilibrium between the Earth and the Moon." He suddenly turned around, pointing to the spiral symbol at the bottom of the wall, "And this one, it perfectly matches the spatial folds I saw in the spacetime rift in the beginner village!"
Previously, they had heard that the Shadow Force had been operating in the shadows, seemingly searching for something important.
At that moment, the white-bearded man's beard twitched, and he suddenly grabbed the "Tales of the Strange and Unusual" and turned to the last page.
A crooked spiral pattern was drawn on the yellowed page, and next to it, written in blood: "Beneath the crack, lies a truth forgotten by time."
"Underground." Lin Yi and the white-bearded man spoke at the same time.
Chu Yao's fingers traced afterimages on the keyboard, and three seconds later, a map of the city's underground pipe network appeared in the holographic projection.
A dark golden light seemed to come alive as it emerged from the symbol, crossed the laboratory floor, and marked a red dot on the pipeline diagram—that was the abandoned terminus of Metro Line 3, a "restricted area" that collapsed twenty years ago for unknown reasons.
"Go now." Lin Yi pulled off his tactical belt, and the silver-black Space-Time Blade automatically leaped into his palm. "Chu Yao, take the locator; Elder Bai, take the emergency talisman; Akai, deploy the drone swarm." He looked out the window; the dark purple light in the clouds had intensified. "The Shadow Force has been eyeing this place for a while now; their movements are becoming more and more frequent. They're probably looking for this too."
The musty smell in the underground passage was stronger than I had imagined.
The group walked down the steps with flashlights in hand, the rusty steps groaning painfully under their feet.
Lin Yi walked at the front, the heat of the fragments of the origin of time and space burning his lower abdomen through his clothes—this was the closest he had ever been to a crucial truth.
"We've arrived." Chu Yao's voice suddenly softened.
The flashlight beam swept across the last step, and everyone's breath caught in their throats.
It was a bronze door.
The door is five meters high, and its surface is covered with dark gold patterns that are the same as those in the laboratory. A piece of dark blue crystal is embedded in the center of the door, and it is humming as people approach.
But what truly makes your heart stop is the space around the door—the air is like crumpled cellophane, rippling with eerie waves, and even the beam of a flashlight is distorted into a serpentine shape.
"Spatial Containment." Whitebeard's hand rested on the hilt of his sword. "At least a legendary forbidden technique."
Chu Yao's scanner emitted a piercing alarm: "Energy intensity is rising!"
Dark matter disturbance detected... Dark matter disturbance detected, possibly...
"Step back." Lin Yi suddenly raised his hand.
He could sense that this blockade was not a simple defense, but more like a kind of "screening"—only those with sufficient control over time and space could touch what was behind the door.
He took three steps forward and stood three meters away from the bronze door.
The fragments of the origin of time and space were burning hot in his pocket. He could clearly hear his own heartbeat, each beat resonating with the buzzing sound inside the door.
"Master of time and space, expand your domain," he whispered.
Silver light spread out from beneath his feet, and wherever it passed, the distorted space slowly unfolded like fabric that had been ironed.
As everyone watched in astonishment, the Milky Way seemed to reverse itself in Lin Yi's pupils. He raised his right hand, and a vortex of starlight appeared in his palm—the prototype of the [Space-Time Rift].
The moment the vortex touched the spatial seal, the entire underground ruins suddenly trembled.
The dark gold patterns on the bronze door were as bright as day, and the deep blue crystal in the center of the door emitted a dazzling light, forcing everyone to raise their hands to shield their eyes.
When the light dimmed slightly and everyone lowered their hands, they saw that Lin Yi's palm was already pressed on the bronze door.
His forehead was covered in a fine sheen of sweat, and the veins in his temples throbbed, but a smile played on his lips—the smile of prey finally running into a trap.
"Interesting," he said softly. "This blockade...is welcoming me."
A deep rumble came from inside the door, like some sleeping beast being awakened.
In a dimension unseen by the crowd, a dark purple shadow was approaching along the underground river. On the shadow's forehead was a dark pattern identical to the one on the rags in the laboratory.
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