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Chapter 231 The Final Choice

The golden halo created by Su Wanqing's life energy was rapidly shrinking.

She leaned against a broken concrete block, her face as pale as paper, and her breathing heavy.

With each heartbeat, I feel as if my life force is being drained from my body.

Taking advantage of the brief respite he gained after confronting "Night," Lin Che quickly returned to her side.

The tacit understanding he had just established through fragments of memory saved him from all preamble.

“I know what to do!” He looked at Su Wanqing, his voice urgent but clear. “I have the Orion sequence within me, which can serve as a vessel for the three cores. If I integrate them all into my body, I can isolate their energy while simultaneously meeting the minimum synchronization requirements…”

“This will kill you!” Lu Zhao immediately retorted, his hand instinctively tightening its grip on his weapon. “No human can withstand such a direct impact of energy!”

A bitter smile appeared on Lin Che's face. "I'm no longer entirely human. And... I've seen this ending in my memories; this might be the only way."

Before he could finish speaking, "Night's" patience had run out. He let out a roar filled with rage and obsession, wielding the core he had seized, unleashing a tsunami of pure, violent energy that crashed down on the crowd trying to stabilize the situation.

"Foolish! The key is the key to rewriting reality! No one needs to sacrifice themselves, as long as I control everything!"

Lin Che and Lu Zhao immediately joined forces to resist. The power of the Orion Sequence and Lu Zhao's tactical equipment burst forth simultaneously, barely managing to withstand the first wave of the energy tsunami.

However, Su Wanqing's stable field was already on the verge of collapse, and now it emitted a cracking sound as it was overwhelmed, with cracks spreading across the golden light screen.

The Weaver Pioneer at the center of the bridge seized the opportunity, and dozens of silver energy tentacles, like venomous snakes, reached out and attempted to invade the interior of the stable field along the cracks.

At this critical moment, Xiaoling, who had been silent all along, suddenly walked to the center of the field.

She raised her head, and her eyes, which should have been innocent, radiated a dazzling purple light.

"stop!"

A majestic voice, seemingly composed of countless superimposed voices and not belonging to her age, emanated from her mouth and echoed throughout the overpass.

A strange scene unfolded: both the surging energy tsunami of "Night" and the silver tentacles of the vanguard paused for a moment, as if an invisible hand had pressed the pause button.

Xiaoling looked around at everyone, her voice continuing to echo in everyone's minds: "Everyone only sees part of the truth."

The core elements are neither weapons nor keys; they are boundary markers!

She first looked at the advance team: "You collect time samples not to preserve them, but to build a complete 'eternal model' before the universe heads towards heat death. But you have never sought the consent of the subjects whose data were collected."

Then, her gaze turned to "Night": "You are trying to rewrite reality with the core, but this will only completely mess up the timeline of this dimension and eventually tear apart the entire spacetime structure."

Finally, she looked at Lin Che, her purple pupils seemingly reflecting the cycle of the past: "And your sacrifice plan is just another incomplete solution."

The past three cycles have proven that individual sacrifice cannot create a permanent barrier.

In this brief pause created by the bell, the weaver pioneer surprisingly demonstrated a willingness to communicate for the first time.

It slowly walked to the edge of the stable field, its silver head halo shimmering, projecting a huge holographic image of the city in front of everyone.

"Sample collection is nearing completion. The final stage requires the core holders to make their own choices."

The pioneer's voice was cold and objective: "You can surrender your core and become part of eternity; or resist to the end and have all traces of your existence erased by the river of time. This is not destruction, but sublimation. The Orion civilization chose to resist, and in the end, they only became a recorded speck of dust in history."

The projected image shifts to show more silver spaceships approaching Earth in space.

Meanwhile, in the real world, a huge, energy-based clock-like phantom suddenly appeared in the sky above the city.

With each tick of its second hand, a section of the city disappears abruptly into the distorted space, as if erased by an eraser.

The collapse of time has begun.

Just when the situation was at its most tense, the jade bracelet on Su Wanqing's wrist suddenly burst out with an unprecedentedly dazzling golden light.

The system interface in front of her was forcibly refreshed, and the voice of the Guardian AI became extremely urgent.

[Ultimate access unlock conditions confirmed: Resonance of life energy from three cores and five key figures. This is the backup plan you personally designed in the previous cycle!]

The system projected five blurry human silhouettes, each labeled with the same word: anchor point.

Su Wanqing stared blankly at this unprecedented plan: "What...what is this?"

"It is neither the Weaver's eternal imprisonment nor a rewriting of 'Night's' reality, but a third path," the Guardian quickly explained. "Creating a partially open time barrier."

It allows us to both resist the Weaver's complete collection and maintain our fundamental connection to the universe.

However, the price is that five key figures must become living anchors, using their own life energy to permanently maintain the barrier's stable structure.

Su Wanqing's gaze swept over the people in front of her: Lin Che, who offered to sacrifice himself; Lu Zhao, who had been guarding her side all along; Xiao Ling, whose identity was mysterious... Finally, her gaze fell on "Night," who was not far away and looked exactly like Lin Che, representing obsession and destruction.

We need his cooperation... but will he agree?
She thought. And the second hand of the huge clock above her head jumped forward another notch.

The enormous phantom of the energy clock overhead carried a chilling heaviness with each tick of its second hand.

As I passed another square, a distant urban area seemed to have been bitten by something invisible, disappearing silently in the distorted light.

The golden stable field that Su Wanqing had created was being compressed by this force, and its range was constantly shrinking.

Her body was almost transparent, and the last trace of color in her body had faded.

Leaning against the broken concrete, she caught her breath, then straightened her almost bent back and walked step by step toward the "Night" not far away. The "Guardian" system projected its final stream of information into her mind, and a code name that had never been activated before emerged.

“You are not the complete Dr. Maurice, but your consciousness still retains his original essence.”

Su Wanqing's voice was soft, yet exceptionally clear, "In my system, your codename is 'The Retrograde.' This is a plan we designed together in the last cycle."

She stopped in front of "Night" and stretched out her hand, which was still trembling slightly.

The jade bracelet's luster had become quite dim.

“We need you. Not as an enemy, but as the fifth key point.”

"Night" curled her lip and took a step back. "Absurd. Why should I give up the opportunity to personally control the core and reshape everything to participate in your doomed, suicide plan?"

Lin Che clutched his chest, enduring the excruciating pain caused by the resonance between the Orion sequence within his body and the external time field, and stepped forward.

The blue light patterns on his right arm flickered. "Because you know very well that your own plan simply won't work. Look around!" He pointed to the swallowed city. "Time is collapsing! What you want is to change it, not to destroy it completely. The Core was never meant to be a tool for crudely rewriting reality..."

Before he could finish speaking, Lin Che suddenly raised his right hand, which was glowing with blue light. A blurry fragment of memory was detached from his consciousness and projected into the air between the two of them.

The image shows Dr. Morris, who has not yet gone mad, designing a special anchor character in front of a data panel.

"...There must be a reverse anchor point to provide a counterforce, maintain the dynamic balance of the barrier, and prevent the system from going to either extreme of absolute closure or absolute openness. It will be the check and balancer, the...reverse agent."

Lin Che withdrew his arm, and the projected image disappeared. "This is your real purpose."

Become the reverse anchor point of the barrier, maintaining the balance of the entire system, rather than becoming a dictator.

The weavers at the center of the viaduct seemed to have lost interest in their internal debates.

It released a stronger temporal fluctuation, pure and cold, which directly impacted the edge of the golden stable field.

Several visible cracks immediately appeared on the light screen.

"The time for choice has come." The vanguard's voice, devoid of any emotion, echoed in everyone's minds. "Hand over the core, and your civilization will be fully recorded and become an eternal part of you. Or, resist to the end and be completely erased by the river of time."

The giant clock in the sky suddenly accelerated its second hand. The collapsed area expanded at an alarming rate, already spreading to the edge of the area where the viaduct was located.

"No!" Lu Zhao, who had been operating his portable device, suddenly looked up, his face filled with despair derived from the data analysis. "Time stability is down to only eight percent! We must act immediately!"

Just then, Xiaoling, who had been protecting him, suddenly clutched her head in pain, and the purple light in her eyes flashed intensely.

"Fork in the road... all the forks are converging... only one path remains... five points must be connected simultaneously, otherwise... everything will disappear..."

On Lu Zhao's portable device screen, the holographic projection had already calculated the result.

On the wreckage of the viaduct, five points of light were precisely marked, forming a standard pentagram.

He frowned slightly, realizing that the locations of these five points were not random; they corresponded precisely to forgotten energy network nodes deep underground in the city.

“This is no coincidence,” he muttered to himself. “The layout of the entire city… in the last cycle, we had already prepared the chessboard.”

He immediately helped up the aching little bell and led her to one of the marked points.

As he moved, he noticed that the girl's skin began to take on a crystal-like, translucent purple hue, with what appeared to be tiny starlight flowing beneath it.

After being placed in the designated location, Xiaoling's pain subsided.

She calmly watched her changing body, and smiled at Lu Zhao, a smile that carried a sense of relief beyond her years.

“I remember now… I’m not just ‘Little Bell’. I am the guide of the Time Gate. When the last cycle ended, I chose to be reborn in this form in order to become a bridge connecting the present and the future.”

She raised her hand, which was already somewhat transparent, and gently touched Lu Zhao's arm.

"Don't be afraid. This is an inevitable change. Each of us will change and become an integral part of the barrier. This is the real price of the third way."

Lu Zhao's eyes were a little moist, but he just nodded firmly and placed her steadily at the top of the pentagram.

On the other side, "Night" stared intently at the approaching, all-consuming distorted space, then glanced at Su Wanqing and Lin Che, her expression shifting with complex emotions.

Finally, he made a decision, and with a wave of his hand, the core that belonged to him slowly rose into the air.

“If this is the only way…” His voice was hoarse, his sharp gaze sweeping over everyone present, “but I have conditions. If the plan succeeds, I must retain partial control over the core.”

I want to ensure that humanity in this new world does not repeat the mistakes of Orion.

I don't trust a completely closed system, or a completely open system.

Su Wanqing nodded weakly and raised the jade bracelet on her wrist.

The bracelet projects a complete and complex energy structure diagram.

"That's how design works. Five key figures surround three core elements, forming a pentagram structure, with each person taking on a part of the function of anchoring time."

Her voice was resolute: "Once you start, there's no turning back."

The moment they reached a consensus, the Weaver Pioneer realized their intentions.

It waited no longer; the silvery substance all over its body boiled violently, transforming into a destructive torrent of energy that rushed straight toward the center of the pentagram.