Before the smoke of battle had completely dissipated into the clouds, Lin Yi stood up, supporting himself with the Anchor of Time, his knuckles touching the gravel and beads of blood seeping out.
His body, stripped of its divine status, felt as if all its springs had been removed, each step heavy as a thousand pounds. But as he stared at the writhing shadow deep in the starry sky, his Adam's apple bobbed—that thing reminded him of the whispers that came from the rift before he was sealed, like some hungry beast licking glass.
"Host's vital signs 47%." Chu Yao's data stream suddenly solidified, her hair tips glowing a blinding red. "Anomaly energy fluctuations detected in the southwest corner of the battlefield, frequency..." Her voice trailed off for half a second, "...matching Night Owl's chaotic attributes."
Lin Yi looked in the direction she was pointing.
Twenty meters away, in the pile of rubble, a few wisps of eerie green fluorescence darted about like living things, and wherever they passed, black sprouts bloomed on the scorched earth—that was the polluted energy reshaping the form of matter.
His pupils contracted slightly as he recalled that the children's laughter a moment earlier had been mixed with the soft sound of pebbles rolling down; these fragments were greedily devouring the remaining power of faith in the air.
"That's a fragment of his consciousness." His voice was hoarse as he pressed his palm against the Anchor of Time, causing fine lines to immediately appear on the metal surface. "The Chaos Mother Core requires a host's consciousness as a catalyst..."
"Ding—!" Chu Yao's alarm pierced her eardrums. Her body suddenly split into countless light particles, forming a data stream matrix in mid-air. "Mother core connection progress detected: 13%!"
The owl is using the remnants of your faith to build a passage!
"If he connects..." Her light particles trembled violently, "the entire 'Infinite' system will be formatted, and all the data of all job changers will be erased."
The wind carried the smell of scorched earth into Lin Yi's nostrils, and his temples throbbed.
He recalled the cold laugh of Night Owl three days ago when he was pierced by the Sword of Time in the rift: "Even if you seal the rift, my fragments of consciousness will remain like seeds..." It turned out that the old man had already prepared a backup plan.
"Master!" Chu Yao's light particles coalesced back into a semi-transparent human form, the red streaks at the ends of her hair almost dripping down. "Your current state simply cannot withstand the radiation from the mother core. Last time, even your divine essence..."
"But someone has to bear the burden." Lin Yi interrupted her, his fingertips brushing against the newly added scar on his palm—it was from when he was moving rubble earlier, and the pain was real.
He looked up toward the resettlement area, where several soldiers were covering the last body with a white sheet. A girl with a ponytail squatted down beside the body and stuffed a wild chrysanthemum dug from the rubble into the body's hand.
"They're still waiting for tomorrow's sun." He chuckled softly, a metallic taste of blood rising in his throat. "If I retreat now, that thing in the shadows, and the night owl, will extinguish this sun."
Before he could finish speaking, a warm light suddenly rose from his heart.
The patterns on the Anchor of Time shone like stars, revealing a semi-transparent figure—it was Su Qing.
She was wearing the white dress she wore when we first met, and the hair was covered not with data streams, but with real dust. The beauty mark at the corner of her eye flickered in and out of focus in the light.
"You're awake?" Lin Yi's breath hitched. He reached out to touch her fingertips, but his hand slipped through her translucent wrist.
He then realized that her figure was three parts fainter than he remembered, like a painting that had been washed away.
"I never slept." Su Qing's voice was as soft as a sigh, yet it reached his ears clearly. "I used the data entity to seal the rift for you before, and now only this remnant consciousness remains." She raised her hand to his temple, "There's also a key, hidden in your memory."
"Memories?" Lin Yi frowned. His recent memories were all of blood and light. "Which part?"
"The stray cat you rescued during a rainstorm when you were twelve." Su Qing smiled. "When it rubbed against your palm, you said, 'I'll protect you from now on.'"
"That's just..."
"That was the first time you made a promise to life." Su Qing's fingertips lightly pressed against his heart. "The core code of 'Infinite' is the 'power of will' of all those who change jobs."
And you are the purest vessel for these wishes. Her figure began to shimmer with tiny fragments of light. "The Night Owl needs to connect to the Mother Core, which requires destroying this vessel; but if we can activate the final piece of code..."
"Ding—Connection progress 21%!" Chu Yao's alarm blared again, and blue sparks began to seep from her data stream. "Master, three more minutes and it will be too late!"
Lin Yi suddenly grabbed Su Qing's hand—this time he actually felt real warmth, with the dryness of old book pages.
There was a faint white scar on the palm of her hand, left from when she shielded him from an attack last time.
"What are you going to do?" he asked, his voice tense.
Su Qing looked up at him, the beauty mark at the corner of her eye shimmering in the light: "I'll help you find your keys."
"But I have to..." she paused, "leave you for a while."
The wind suddenly picked up, whipping up wisps of light from the hem of her skirt, like a fine snowfall.
Lin Yi stared at her wrist, which was gradually becoming transparent, and recalled how, three days ago, when she was sealing the rift and the data stream had faded to just half of her face, she was still saying, "Hold on for three more seconds."
His throat tightened, but he heard himself say, "It's worth it as long as I can protect them."
Su Qing smiled and gently touched his brow with her fingertip.
A warm current surged through his body, and he suddenly saw himself at twelve, crouching in the pouring rain, tucking a shivering kitten into his school uniform; he saw himself at seventeen in the hospital, holding his grandmother's hand and saying, "When I make money, I'll take you to see the sea"; he saw yesterday in the rift, Long Wu limping towards him, shrapnel clinging to his armor like medals...
"These are all keys." Su Qing's voice mingled with the sounds of rain, heartbeats, and her comrades' panting from her memories. "Now, use your willpower to burn through the Night Owl's tunnel."
Her figure began to disintegrate piece by piece, like dandelions scattered by the wind.
The last sliver of light landed on Lin Yi's nose. It was her voice, carrying the familiar gentleness he knew: "Don't be afraid, I'll be watching over you from within the code."
"Su Qing!" Lin Yi reached out to grab her, only to touch a patch of warm air.
"Master!" Chu Yao's data stream suddenly wrapped around his wrist, "Connection progress 37%!"
Your faith is stirring, now you can...
Lin Yi took a deep breath, gazing at the smoke rising from the resettlement area, at the makeshift hospital bed formed by the soldiers' bodies, and at the girl who had stuffed wild chrysanthemums into the body, looking up at him—her eyes shining like stars.
He smiled, the Anchor of Time burning in his palm. This time it wasn't the power of divinity, but the burning, vibrant, human light formed by countless gazes.
"Chu Yao, open the data interface." His voice wasn't loud, but it was like thunder splitting the clouds. "I'm going to feed all this willpower into Night Owl's broken passage."
Chu Yao's data stream instantly condensed into silver chains, which wrapped around his arm.
In the southwest corner of the battlefield, the eerie green glow suddenly contracted violently, as if sensing some danger.
At the same time, the fragments of light from Su Qing's decomposition were drifting towards the starry sky with the wind. Each grain carried her remaining consciousness, passing through the atmosphere and penetrating into the deepest sea of code in the "Infinite" system—where a forgotten key was awakening.
As the warm light particles penetrated Lin Yi's pores, he was staring at the last vestige of fluorescence that Su Qing had lost.
The shavings, carrying the scent of old books, seemed to breathe as they seeped into his skin, first causing a tingling sensation in his fingertips, then his chest—where the sweetness of orange soda suddenly surged, the canned drink Su Qing had given him last week, she always said, "Replenishing sugar will help you fight a long battle"; then his neck, where he touched the rough texture, like touching the spine of "A Brief History of Time," a book she always flipped through, its edges curled up from being turned so many times.
"She chose the purest way to fulfill her mission."
A deep voice cleaved through the clouds overhead.
Lin Yi looked up abruptly and saw a silver-line-like crack tearing through the sky. A dark figure stood in the crack of light, his black robe billowing like waves, but the shadow on his face had faded, revealing a well-defined jawline.
This was the first time a law enforcement officer of a highly civilized society had revealed himself in human form before him. His Adam's apple bobbed: "You should hate me."
"Hate?" Lin Yi wiped his face, his palms damp and salty, only then realizing he was crying.
He remembered Su Qing always saying she was an "accident in the data," and now he understood how precious that accident was—she used her consciousness as a spark to burn through the calculations of all the filtering mechanisms. "She taught me that what's more important than hatred..." He clenched his fist, his knuckles white, "is that they deserve to be protected."
The shadowy figure's fingertips curled slightly at his side, and his eyes, hidden in the shadows, flashed with a tremor.
He had witnessed too many civilizations collapse in the process of selection, through violence, betrayal, and self-destruction, but the light in this human's eyes at this moment was very much like the code surging in Su Qing's fragments of consciousness—all of it was the obsession to "live".
"Ding—Mother Core Connection Progress 59%!" Chu Yao's data stream suddenly solidified and rushed over, the red at the ends of her hair fading to a warm orange. "But the Seven Keys Resonance triggered the hidden protocol!"
"Master, your vital signs..." Her voice trailed off as Lin Yi's pupils changed—the original amber color was tinged with golden-red, like molten gold flowing in his eyes.
The eerie green glow in the southwest corner suddenly exploded into black mist, and the owl's shriek pierced the air: "Impossible!"
"You have clearly lost your divine status!" A semi-transparent hand emerged from the black mist, its nails as black as blades, piercing straight into Lin Yi's heart.
The Anchor of Time took flight automatically.
The moment the golden-red light swept across, the hand, like ice falling into a furnace, hissed and turned into wisps of smoke.
Lin Yi looked down at his palm. The patterns on the metal anchor were being reassembled, the silver-white background being covered by gold and red, and each engraving was shimmering with starlight—the last piece of the Seven Keys of Creation was drilling up his spine to the top of his head, bringing scalding information: about the screening loopholes of advanced civilizations, about Su Qing's true purpose in using consciousness as a key, and about how the willpower of all the job changers condensed into the sharpest sword within his body.
"Because I've never relied on divine power." Lin Yi looked up at the black mist, his voice as soft as a sigh, yet it made the wind on the entire battlefield stop. "It's them." He pointed towards the resettlement area—the girl with the ponytail was still stuffing wild chrysanthemums into the bodies, the beds the soldiers had made of their bodies were gilded by the sunlight, and even the black sprouts in the scorched soil had a strange white tinge, growing upwards against the flow of time.
The owl's black mist trembled violently and began to shrink wildly, trying to burrow into the ground.
But the instant the ground cracked open, countless points of light surged forth from the fissures—not the polluted, eerie green, but pure white—it was the power of will purified by Su Qing's consciousness, supporting the black bud as it grew towards the sky. Each leaf was engraved with the name of the job changer: Long Wu, Uncle Lin, Xia Xia...
"Enough!" Night Owl's scream changed tone, and his distorted face emerged from the black mist. "You have no idea what this will cause!"
Advanced civilization...
"I know." Lin Yi interrupted him, walking step by step into the black mist, each step leaving a golden-red mark on the ground.
Su Qing's voice echoed softly in his mind: "Use your willpower to burn through the passage." And he finally understood that the so-called Seven Keys of Creation were never the legacy of advanced civilizations, but rather the glimmer of light that every job changer chose to believe in even in dire straits.
The Anchor of Time suddenly emitted a buzzing sound.
Chu Yao's data stream exploded before his eyes, displaying a line of code: [Core console positioning complete, Seven Keys resonance 100%].
The owl in the black mist suddenly fell silent. Staring at the golden-red in Lin Yi's eyes, it suddenly laughed: "So that's how it is... You are more terrifying than those gods." Before it finished speaking, the black mist began to dissipate in patches, revealing the ground below, which was riddled with holes from being gnawed at. There, a portal glowing with blue light was taking shape, and the outline of a metal control panel could be vaguely seen behind the portal.
Lin Yi stood in front of the teleportation portal, the Anchor of Time burning in his palm.
He gazed at the flickering blue light inside the door, recalling Su Qing's last words, "Watching you through the code," the smoke rising from the resettlement area, and all the eyes that looked up at him.
"It's time to end this," he said softly, as golden-red light rose from beneath his feet, enveloping him like a small sun.
Inside the portal, all the indicator lights on the core control panel suddenly lit up, and seven key-shaped light spots converged from different directions—the brightest one of them, following Lin Yi's footsteps, penetrated the portal and merged into the groove of the control panel.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com