Chapter 468: It’s Him?
The man who currently looked like a homeless, unwashed mountain bandit.
The man who had a thick, grease-stained beard, routinely burped loudly in public, threw empty clay wine jugs at her head, slept in ditches, and communicated almost exclusively through grunts and demands for roasted bear ribs.
THIS WAS HIM?!
"NO!" Ji’an screamed, her voice cracking, echoing hysterically down the dark hallway. She grabbed her own silver hair, pulling at the roots, her brain incapable of reconciling the visual data. "NO! ABSOLUTELY NOT! THAT IS A LIE! THAT IS A COSMIC ILLUSION!"
She pointed a trembling, accusatory finger at the ethereal beauty in the vision.
"THAT IS A K-POP IDOL!" Ji’an roared at the darkness, completely losing her mind. "WHERE IS HIS BEARD?! WHERE IS THE GREASE?! HE IS HOLDING A DELICATE JADE FLASK WITH HIS PINKY EXTENDED! MY MASTER DRINKS FROM A BUCKET! THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE! WHAT HAPPENED TO HIM?!"
The revelation was so devastating that it actually distracted her from the crushing emotional trauma of the timeline.
’He used to be so handsome and pretty,’ Ji’an’s transmigrator soul wept, staring at the vision. ’He used to be a graceful fairy-man. And now he looks like a feral badger who lost a fight with a lawnmower. The cultivation world ruined him! The stress of the plot literally destroyed his skincare routine!’
In the vision, the ethereal, flawless past-version of Master Jiu Zui offered Yan Zhaoge a serene, melancholic smile.
"Someone has to offset your ruthless pragmatism, Zhaoge," past-Jiu Zui murmured, his voice smooth and melodious, entirely unlike the raspy, alcohol-soaked growl Ji’an knew. "The girl’s soul is fracturing. The boy offers an anchor. Have you prepared the array?"
"The Karmic Siphon Array is primed," young Yan Zhaoge stated, his amber eyes gleaming with a terrifying, rebellious intellect. He looked at Lin Feng. "Understand this, Young General. You are not healing her. We do not have the power to stop the timeline from resetting. The World Will is determined to force this narrative to its conclusion."
Yan Zhaoge walked up to Lin Feng, poking him hard in the center of his chest.
"What this array will do," Zhaoge explained, his voice dropping into a harsh, clinical register, "is establish a sympathetic bypass. Every time your sister dies, every time her soul is violently ripped from the timeline and forced to restart... the chronological friction, the ’backlash’ that is currently cracking her soul... will be routed directly into you."
Lin Feng did not flinch.
"You will become her shock-absorber," past-Jiu Zui added softly, his liquid eyes filled with pity. "You will bear the damage of her resets. But a mortal soul is not designed to absorb cosmic friction, Feng’er. With every timeline, with every death she suffers... a piece of your consciousness will be ground into dust. Your memories will fade. Your personality will erode. You will slowly hollow out until nothing remains but a blank vessel."
Transmigrator Ji’an, kneeling in the dark corridor, clamped her hands over her mouth.
The comedic shock of Jiu Zui’s past appearance was instantly incinerated by the crushing horror of the truth.
’Shen Zechuan,’ Ji’an sobbed, tears spilling over her hands, her shoulders shaking violently.
Shen Zechuan wasn’t just born an abyssal airhead.
He wasn’t just a quirky, void-like prodigy who liked skipping stones and chewing jerky.
He was Lin Feng, in a way.
He was her brilliant, devoted, fiercely protective older brother. And he had physically ground his own soul into cosmic dust, timeline after timeline, death after death, just so her soul could survive long enough to reach the present day.
The reason Shen Zechuan was a blank slate, the reason he had no desires, no fears, no memory of his past, was because he had spent eight timelines absorbing the apocalyptic trauma of her murders.
He had let the universe hollow him out so she could keep fighting.
"I accept the terms," Lin Feng said in the vision. His voice was steady. There was no hesitation.
There was only the unyielding love of an older brother. "Do it. Anchor her with my soul."
Young Yan Zhaoge nodded.
He didn’t offer fake sympathy. He respected the sacrifice too much for platitudes.
"Step into the magma ring," Zhaoge commanded.
Lin Feng stepped into the center of the glowing runic array.
Past-Jiu Zui and Yan Zhaoge took their positions on opposite sides of the array. The ethereal fairy-master and the Overtime Boss, two Sovereigns who had already decided to rebel against the Stargazing Tower and the World Will, began to channel their immense, combined power.
"The Heavens demand balance, Zhaoge," past-Jiu Zui whispered, his hands weaving complex seals.
"The Heavens are a poorly designed spreadsheet," Yan Zhaoge sneered, his purple robes billowing as he slammed his hands down onto the obsidian floor. "Let’s rewrite the code."
The array activated.
A blinding, deafening pillar of pure, crimson and gold light erupted from the floor, engulfing Lin Feng.
The young General threw his head back and screamed, a sound of unimaginable, soul-tearing agony as the Karmic Siphon forcibly bound his spiritual core to his sister’s timeline loop.
The light in the vision flared to a blinding crescendo, completely whitening out the forge.
And then, the peripheral scroll vanished.
Ji’an was left alone in the pitch-black silence of the Corridor of the Eclipse.
She remained on her knees on the invisible floor.
The darkness swirled around her, heavier and more oppressive than ever before.
It didn’t need to conjure phantom voices or illusions anymore. The truth was infinitely more devastating than any nightmare the corridor could invent.
Ji’an’s chest heaved.
She gasped for air, but it felt like she was drowning.
The weight of it all, the crushing, monumental gravity of the sacrifices made to keep her alive, pressed down on her shoulders until she felt like her spine might snap.
Xie Wangchen, bound by a desperate mother’s blood magic, dying over and over in the snow, his mind fracturing into madness because he was biologically incapable of saving her.
Lin Feng, her brother, volunteering to have his soul put through a cheese grater for eight lifetimes, sacrificing his brilliant military mind and his very identity just to act as her cosmic shock-absorber, becoming the empty void of Shen Zechuan.
Master Jiu Zui, the beautiful, ethereal fairy, who had clearly suffered some unimaginable, devastating fall from grace after helping Zhaoge perform the forbidden ritual, turning into a broken, drunken recluse on the Drunken Peak just to keep an eye on her.
And Yan Zhaoge.
The Overtime Boss.
The man who had been playing a long, dangerous, incredibly rebellious game against the Stargazing Tower for centuries, waiting for the "glitch" to finally reach the server room.
’It’s all on me,’ Ji’an realized, the tears streaming freely down her face, splashing onto the dark, unseen floor. ’They gave up everything. Their sanity. Their souls. Their beauty routines. All of it, just to give me a chance to break the loop.’
The darkness whispered, sensing her emotional collapse.
"You are too heavy, Lin Ji’an. The debt is too large. You cannot pay it back. Just look behind you and surrender. The void is peaceful."
Ji’an stared into the pitch-black space in front of her.
She slowly reached out her hand in the dark. Her fingers brushed the cold, heavy cast-iron handle of her spatula.
She gripped it.
She didn’t wipe her tears or try to suppress the grief.
She let it burn.
She let the agonizing, horrific tragedy of the nine timelines fuel the fiery, unyielding furnace of her Body Fusion core.
She pushed herself up from the floor, her red leather boots finding purchase.
"I am not surrendering," Ji’an whispered into the void, her voice raspy, trembling, but laced with a terrifying resolve.
She raised her head, staring straight forward into the oppressive dark.
"My brother gave up his soul so I could walk. My Master gave up his dignity so I could cook. My Ice Demon gave up his sanity so I could live."
Ji’an took a step forward. The darkness screamed, resisting her with the force of a hurricane.
She took another step.
"I am going to finish the service," Ji’an roared, her voice echoing down the corridor, her silver-flecked eyes burning with the blinding light of a supernova. "I am going to walk through the Tenth Timeline! I am going to walk through the Eleventh Timeline as well!"