The air pressed against Lin Yi's eardrums, creating a dull drumbeat.
When he raised his arm, the sensation of his sleeve brushing against his wrist was like that of wet cotton wool, and every nerve protested against this elongated sluggishness—in Xuanmingzi's slow domain, the flow of time was compressed to one-third of its normal speed.
"Is this the answer that advanced civilization gives you?" Lin Yi's voice was two octaves lower than usual, not because of fear, but because he was getting used to this distorted rhythm of speech.
He stared at the dark hourglass mark on Xuan Mingzi's chest, the unique energy resonance of a mythical-level profession coursing beneath his skin. "By wrapping yourself in a cocoon of rules, can you forget the eyes of that girl from five hundred years ago?"
A sharp, tearing sound came from outside the hatch.
Long Wu's furious roar pierced through the soundproofing: "Lin Yi!"
"I counted to three—one!" The force of the kick sent dust flying from the ceiling, and the edge of the door frame was bent into a grotesque arc.
But when that jet-black data stream overflowed from Xuanmingzi's fingertips and condensed into a semi-transparent barrier in front of the hatch, Long Wu's dragon roar suddenly got stuck in his throat.
"Dragon Pattern - Crack!"
Dragon scales, interwoven with crimson gold and dark purple, climbed from the back of Long Wu's hand to his neck. The moment he clenched his fist and slammed it into the barrier, a dark golden world-destroying dragon pattern appeared in his palm.
The shockwave overturned the fire extinguisher box in the corridor, but upon touching the barrier, it was like an arrow hitting a quagmire, only creating a faint black ripple.
Long Wu's temples bulged with veins, and his molars clenched so tightly they made a grinding sound: "Old man!"
If you're so capable, trap me too!
But Lin Yi's attention was no longer on the door.
He could clearly perceive the thirty-seven points of light pulsating deep within his sea of consciousness—the power of faith linked by the members of the Time Legion through mythological imprints.
The medal that Whitebeard gave him before his death was still hot, and tiny starlight seeped from the scratches on the metal surface, as if someone had gently pushed him across five hundred years of time.
"Cause and Effect Reversal: A Local Perspective."
With a low shout, the hourglass key on Lin Yi's left wrist suddenly shattered into millions of stardust.
Instead of drifting outwards, these stars traveled back into his veins against the flow of time.
His pupils turned a golden color in an instant, and his originally sluggish movements began to accelerate—not because time had been restored, but because his nerve reactions, muscle explosiveness, and even cell metabolic rate were all forcibly boosted by the power of faith to a level that could offset the slowed-down state.
Xuanmingzi's eyelashes trembled slightly.
He saw the youth's previously elongated figure suddenly become clear, like a mountain peak suddenly emerging from the fog blown away by the wind.
What made him even more uneasy was that aura—not just pure power, but a belief forged from the burning of thirty-seven souls, imbued with the warmth of human life.
"Space distortion."
Lin Yi flicked his finger.
The space within five meters of him suddenly rippled like water, and the hem of Xuanmingzi's Taoist robe was caught in the distorted space, causing him to stagger for half a second despite his rock-solid stance.
That half-second was enough for Lin Yi to close the distance. He pressed his palm into the air, and his second skill was unleashed like a sharp blade: "Time Freeze."
Time completely solidified within a two-meter diameter area.
Xuanmingzi's raised right hand stopped in mid-air, the cloud patterns on his Taoist robe stopped moving, and even the data stream surging in his eyes became a still star map.
Lin Yi's breathing remained steady. He drew the Blade of Time, forged from fragments of spacetime, from the spatial rift. The blade sliced through the solidified air, leaving a faint golden mark on the hourglass mark on Xuan Mingzi's chest.
\"bite--\"
The frozen spacetime suddenly shattered.
Xuanmingzi took three steps back, and a three-inch tear appeared on the front of his Taoist robe. A pale blue data stream seeped out from the tear, a sign that his mythical-level energy body was damaged.
When he looked up, the storm in his eyes had transformed into a complex light: "Indeed, it can break my stillness."
"That's not all." Lin Yi's chest heaved violently, and a thin layer of sweat beaded on his forehead—the continuous use of high-level spacetime skills had greatly depleted his mental energy, but his eyes were brighter than ever. "What you lost five hundred years ago, we will now take back with our own hands."
Xuanmingzi's fingertips traced the wound on his chest.
The data stream condensed into a new hourglass in his palm. This time, the color was no longer pitch black, but rather had a very faint bluish-gray tint.
He looked at Long Wu, who was still frantically bombarding the barrier outside the hatch, and then at the Time Blade in Lin Yi's hand, which was still dripping with starlight, and suddenly smiled.
The smile no longer held the coldness of before; instead, it seemed to convey a sense of relief, as if someone had finally received an answer.
With a flick of his finger, the barrier trapping Long Wu shattered instantly.
Long Wu staggered into the cabin and looked up to see Xuan Mingzi retreating to the stern, tearing open an even larger spacetime rift.
"Very good." Xuan Mingzi's voice mingled with the rumbling from the crack. "But this is only the first test." He gazed at Lin Yi's bloodstained knuckles, then at the thirty-seven faintly visible soul phantoms behind him, a half-smile playing on his lips. "Next, I'll show you... the true laws of spacetime."
Before he finished speaking, the air in the entire cabin suddenly began to flow backward.
Lin Yi's pupils suddenly contracted—this was not a simple acceleration or deceleration of time, but a sign that even the spatial dimensions were being rewoven.
He gripped the Blade of Time tightly, feeling the mythical mark burning beneath his skin—a reminder that the real battle had only just begun.
Xuanmingzi stood before the spacetime rift, his Daoist robes billowing in the reverse airflow, yet he never retreated even half a step.
He gazed at the prepared young man, a faint warmth suddenly flickering in the data stream within his eyes: "Remember, kid—" His voice was torn apart by the spatial turbulence, "You've never been fighting against me."
As the last word dissipated into the crack, Xuanmingzi's figure had completely merged into that chaos.
The flow of time inside the cabin is being rearranged in an even more bizarre way.
Lin Yi gripped the medal on his chest, and could hear thirty-seven voices resounding in his mind—these were the beliefs transmitted by his teammates through the mythical link, like sparks of fire, like war drums, like all the reasons he had to protect.
Long Wu wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and stood up unsteadily.
He looked at the now calm cabin door, then at Lin Yi's golden pupils, and suddenly grinned: "The old man ran away."
"That's perfect—" He flexed his aching wrists, the World-Destroying Dragon Mark glowing again in his palm. "Next time we meet, I'll rip his Taoist robe off!"
But Lin Yi did not respond.
He gazed in the direction where Xuanmingzi had disappeared, the blade of the Time Blade slowly rotating at his fingertips.
The scratch he just saw allowed him to detect an energy fluctuation that didn't belong to this dimension—it was the aura of an advanced civilization, the driving force behind all the trials.
"It's time to prepare," he said softly, his voice filled with unwavering determination and burning fighting spirit. "Our opponents have never been just the game's AI."
Suddenly, hurried footsteps came from outside the cabin.
Chu Yao's voice drifted in down the corridor: "Team Leader Lin!"
Enhanced interdimensional energy fluctuations detected —
Lin Yi turned to look at the cabin door, a confident smile playing on his lips.
He raised his hand, the cold light of the Blade of Time swirling in his palm, as if responding to some challenge from a higher dimension.
At this moment, in a space that does not belong to Earth, Xuanmingzi stood in front of a floating star map.
The hourglass mark on his chest still seeps pale blue data, but the storm in his eyes has long since subsided.
He stretched out his finger and gently touched the dot marked "Earth" on the star map.
"It's time to wake up," he said to the empty space, his voice carrying the tenderness of the girl from five hundred years ago on her deathbed. "Your children have learned to wield swords themselves."
Deep within the star map, a slumbering being finally stirred.
Suddenly, silver lines, like cracks in glass, appeared in the air inside the cabin.
Just as Lin Yi was about to respond to Chu Yao's call, goosebumps suddenly rose on the back of his neck—it was the stinging pain unique to the period before the spacetime disorder.
As he spun around, Long Wu's figure suddenly overlapped into three or four afterimages in his vision, and even Chu Yao's footsteps turned into a phonograph playing on a loop, "Team Leader Lin!"
"Another dimension detected—" The last syllable was cut off, and it started again from "Team Leader Lin!" three seconds ago.
"Time loop?" Lin Yi pinched his palm with his fingertips. The moment the blood seeped out, he saw the drop of red freeze in mid-air before flowing back into his skin.
Long Wu was throwing a punch at the air when his movement froze in mid-air, and even the bloodstains at the corner of his mouth were starting to seep back up.
The young man's pupils contracted slightly, and the thirty-seven points of light deep within his consciousness suddenly trembled violently—the link to the mythical imprint was not broken, but the teammates' sense of conviction became blurred, like a light shining through frosted glass.
"This is a mirror battlefield." Xuanmingzi's voice surged from all directions, his originally clear tone now tinged with a metallic echo, "A perfect trap built by the Infinite System using five hundred years of data."
Every attack you make will be replicated a hundredfold in retaliation; every line you utter will become a blade aimed at yourself.
Long Wu's movements suddenly restarted with a "click".
His eyes widened, and the World-Destroying Dragon Mark exploded with crimson-gold light in his palm: "Damn it!"
"I just punched that old bastard in the face!" Before he could finish speaking, his own fist came crashing down from behind, the dragon pattern carrying the same force, slamming solidly into his lower back.
"Cough!" Long Wu staggered and knocked over the control panel. The blood droplets that spilled from the corner of his mouth were about to fall to the ground, but then "whoosh" they bounced back into his mouth.
He wiped his face and noticed that the dragon pattern on his palm was fading. "Lin Yi!"
This wretched place is draining my power!
Lin Yi didn't speak.
He closed his eyes, letting his senses permeate the folds of time.
The loop started three seconds ago: Chu Yao called out "Team Leader Lin," Long Wu threw a punch, and spun around—with each repetition, several strands of data that did not belong to this dimension would appear in the space, wrapping around his ankles like spider silk.
"He's testing my limits." Lin Yi's nails dug deeply into the hilt of the Blade of Time. "The mirror image replicates the appearance, but... the power of faith is alive." He suddenly opened his eyes, stardust dancing in his golden pupils—thirty-seven points of light burning in his sea of consciousness, the heat of the white-bearded medal burning his heart through his shirt. It was the power transmitted by his teammates through their soul links, carrying body heat, the smell of sweat, and the curses from Long Wu when he stole his instant noodles yesterday.
"Space-Time Anchor Point - I am the Coordinate."
As Lin Yi shouted, countless cracks suddenly appeared on the blade of the Blade of Time, with pale golden light flowing out from each crack.
Instead of spreading outwards, these streams of light reversed the cycle of time, wrapping around his wrists, ankles, and heart—using his life energy to tie a knot in this tangled mess.
Long Wu's pupils suddenly contracted.
He saw Lin Yi's hair begin to turn white and fine lines creeping up the corners of his eyes, but the young man's aura was surging wildly, like a spring compressed to its limit.
As the thirty-seventh cycle began, just as Chu Yao uttered "Team Leader Lin," Lin Yi suddenly raised his hand, and the Blade of Time slashed open his palm.
"Cause and effect substitution!"
No blood dripped.
They reverse the cyclical trajectory, drilling into each replicated data stream.
Long Wu's fist stopped bouncing, fragments of the control panel hung in mid-air, and even Chu Yao's voice became clear for a moment: "...The energy fluctuation has increased to a critical point—"
\"break!\"
Lin Yi's roar made the glass inside the cabin vibrate.
The pale golden light surrounding him suddenly exploded, like a miniature supernova.
A stream of eerie blue data seeped from the silver cracks in the mirrored battlefield—the lament of a collapsing system.
Long Wu felt the excruciating pain in his lower back instantly dissipate. When he looked down, the dragon pattern on his palm was reforming, shining three times brighter than before.
"How did you do that?" Xuanmingzi's voice finally cracked.
His figure materialized from the void, and the cloud patterns on his Taoist robe were no longer a fixed silver-gray, but rather rippled with fragmented light spots as the battlefield collapsed.
"A mirror image cannot replicate a person's heart." Lin Yi wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth; his graying hair was visibly returning to black—the power of faith had not only healed his life but also nourished him with even more immense energy. "You can imprison time, but you cannot imprison thirty-seven people who want to go home alive."
Xuanmingzi stared at the medal on his chest, the metal plate engraved with the character "Zhen" was emitting starlight, as if responding to a promise that transcended life and death.
He suddenly smiled, raised his hand to wipe his brow, and several dark purple runes emerged from beneath his skin, swirling around him to form an ancient star map: "Very good...this is the answer I've been waiting for for five hundred years."
The moment the rune touched the air, Lin Yi's breath hitched.
It was a fluctuation even more ancient than mythical energy, carrying a kind of oppressive feeling that made time and space kneel in worship.
Long Wu's world-destroying dragon mark trembled violently in his palm, as if he had encountered a natural enemy. He subconsciously stood in front of Lin Yi, but was gently pushed away by the young man.
"This is the deepest forbidden power of the Infinite System." Xuan Mingzi's voice deepened, each word like a hammer blow to their eardrums. "The zeroing code used by advanced civilizations to erase failed civilizations..."
A piercing screech suddenly came from outside the cabin.
Chu Yao's exclamation pierced through the soundproofing: "Captain Lin!"
All the monitoring devices exploded!
The star chart shows... the entire Orion Arm is twisted!
Lin Yi gripped the Blade of Time tightly.
He could feel the ground beneath his feet shaking, not in a physical sense, but as if the space itself was being reshaped by some force.
The runes around Xuanmingzi spun faster and faster, and in the dark purple light, his face began to blur, as if he were merging with some larger being.
"Now," Xuanmingzi's voice was laced with countless overlapping electronic tones, "let's see if your faith... can stop the final chapter of civilization."
Before he finished speaking, the air in the entire cabin was suddenly drawn into a vacuum.
Lin Yi's clothes fluttered in the wind, and the blade of the Time Blade hummed—a warning that the real killing move had only just begun.
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