A man among dragons, building a mysterious ancient church.

Chapter 371 Promotion Sequence 1: The Time Bug

San Francisco, once a vibrant and sunny city, is now eerily quiet.

The distortion of time became increasingly severe, public transportation was completely paralyzed, and airports, railways, and air routes all came to a standstill.

When people want to travel, they often have no choice but to drive or ride a bicycle, but where can they go?

The students were on their way to school, but when they arrived, they found that the school was gone and had become a mass grave for gold miners who had left before the school was built.

Office workers are going to work, but when they arrive at their workplace, the office building where their company is located is still under construction and the steel bars are still exposed.
Housewives want to go out to buy groceries, but the supermarket has turned into an old-fashioned disco, all bright lights and noisy atmosphere, yet they can't buy any groceries.

While all industries have come to a standstill and suffered huge economic losses, the online self-media sector has made a fortune.

The whole world seems to have begun to pay attention to the amazing changes in San Francisco, and to remotely appreciate the changes in San Francisco through the Internet.

Some livestreamers, self-media personalities, or even new-era internet companies are trying to make money from this, either by shooting videos or by taking photos on-site.

Even more outrageous are some companies that claim to have found ancient artifacts from the last century in San Francisco, saying they carry the power of time travel, and are priced at millions of dollars, just waiting for the wealthy to take the bait.

Robert, who was rear-ended in a car accident, was browsing posts with his wife at home. The couple had wisely stocked up on a lot of food and didn't need to worry about supplies for the time being.

“Oh, my dear, shall we go to the old church to pray? Perhaps there really is an old God in the world. Although he is not the only God, if it is not the power of a deity, everything that happened in these seven days cannot be explained.”

Robert's wife began to persuade him.

Seven days have passed since the initial time chaos at the Golden Gate Bridge. The North American Diocese of the Old Days Church began preaching today that this was God of the Old Days revealing His power, and that the time chaos in San Francisco would end tomorrow and everything would return to normal.

God, this name already has a large number of followers in Europe and America.

However, the orthodox Vatican views the Old Church as a cult, believing that it has offended the one God they believe in and is an indisputable evil heresy.

The old church ignored the situation and went its own way in its missionary work, which infuriated the Vatican.

As in Tokyo, regardless of whether the Vatican came openly or covertly, these were all things that Meiji Shrine and Senso-ji Temple in Tokyo had already done before. In short, they could not outmaneuver the old church.

The Vatican even tried to incite fanatics to attack the old church dioceses in North America, causing destruction and killing. Often, the fanatics who did this would eventually disappear without a trace.

There was no way around it; the old church had too many advantages. It was capable in both literature and martial arts, and it was also rich. As long as citizens were willing to come and pray a few times, they could truly see the phantom of God. With this, how could the Vatican compete?
In the realm of faith, the Vatican has lost miserably, like an incompetent husband, pitifully watching his own believers crawl into the arms of the old church, heartbroken.

The believers were completely unaware of the secret conflict between the two groups and quickly flocked to the old church. After all, they all believed in God, and there was no difference from before, except that there were a few other gods, and God was no longer the only one.

It has no impact on ordinary believers.

Robert glanced at the thirteenth Old Days Church advertisement he'd seen on his phone: "Tomorrow, dear, if San Francisco returns to normal as the Old Days Church says, we'll go pray."

"If it is a fact, a true miracle, what reason do we have to reject a true God?"

The young couple embraced, happy to have reached a consensus. People are trying to believe in the old church, but officials in San Francisco are having a huge headache because they don't believe in God at all.

They believe that the old church, like the thirteen North American churches, are all dragon hybrids, and that the things they are promoting now are ultimately aimed at gaining votes!

Some lawmakers even believe that the old church was the mastermind behind this incident, orchestrating it to harvest faith and secretly manipulate San Francisco.

Several San Francisco council members, who had unwittingly guessed a small part of the truth, secretly met. One of the middle-aged council members slammed his fist on the table in dissatisfaction and decided to declare the old church a criminal force and crack down on it.

He believed that the military's intimidation would be enough to make the old church fear them, thus restoring the San Francisco of yesteryear.

Strangely, the middle-aged councilor suddenly stopped his impassioned table-slamming action, raised his right hand, and seemingly put on a monocle out of thin air. He then turned around and began to persuade the other councilors not to act impulsively, but to cooperate rationally with the old church.

Xu Lie, who was atop the skyscraper, saw all of this. Sensing a faint spiritual reminder, he slowly stood up. The advancement ceremony was complete.

The last gathering was brief and did not affect the promotion ceremony. Xu Lie returned to San Francisco and continued to create a total of seven days of temporal chaos.

In this process, Xu Lie not only preemptively drew upon the power of the Time Worm's temporal flow, but also relied on his control over the Source Castle to leverage its power and recklessly spread historical mysteries.

Thanks to the mystique of history, various illusory scenes of the past appear in downtown San Francisco, which can be considered to throw the city's time into chaos and greatly enhance the effect of the promotion ceremony.

Seeing the main body make a move, the hundreds of clones around them perked up. They'd been incredibly bored for the past seven days while the main body was busy with rituals: "All done?"

"Hmm." Xu Lie touched the unique error mask on his right eye: "How's Tokyo doing lately?"

Several Time Insects responsible for contacting the clones remaining in Tokyo began to report: "Everything is fine, except that Uesugi Koshi and Genjiro recognized each other, Uesugi Koshi killed Tachibana Masamune, and they are searching everywhere for Genjiro and Ince."

"Apart from that, there's been no other news. Blake is busy helping Herzog find the Red Well, but there haven't been any results yet."

Another clone then recounted the actions of the Snake-Headed Eight Families: "Genjiro has gone mad, mobilizing all the yakuza organizations to search for Erii everywhere, but they just can't find her, which has caused a lot of complaints from the people of Tokyo."

After speaking about the two sides in Tokyo, another clone stepped forward: "As for the various forces, after the battle of the Corpse Guard in Tokyo Bay, they all hold a grudge and are following the yakuza all over the streets, trying to find Herzog or Ince, believing that they are the culprits."

"But we can't find them." The fourth clone recalled the information sent by the clone at the hotel front desk: "Finally, it's our people. Chu Zihang has begun to develop a tacit understanding with the executive department team and will soon be able to complete the promotion ceremony and be promoted to Sequence 4 Iron-Blooded Knight."

"Fingal is no less impressive. This time, he successfully predicted the Corpse Guardian disaster that would destroy Tokyo, and he successfully prevented the disaster, saved Tokyo, and greatly absorbed the Prophet's Potion."

"I guess Fingel got a taste of success and six days ago he took the initiative to help the Snake Clan predict the location of the Red Well and help them find the legendary Red Demon River. The preliminary exploration has been completed and they are currently digging. It is estimated that they will be able to dig through in another three days."

Xu Lie was very satisfied with the work done by his clones: "Three more days? That's enough. What about San Francisco?"

One of the clones on the edge of the rooftop looked around at the empty space beside him: "Just now, one of the clones went to parasitize the San Francisco councilor and also made arrangements with the clone in the North American parish. The North American parish will be moving in tomorrow."

"To appease the people and spread the faith."

"Well done." Xu Lie affirmed the hard work of his clones: "Everyone, now that the Tokyo matter is settled, I will give you a full vacation."

Upon hearing this, many clones showed delight and even began to think about where to go for fun during the holiday.

A few rational clones began to doubt the original body. These days, even clones can deceive each other, so it's not impossible for the original body to deceive the clones, right? We shouldn't be too happy too soon, and it's not advisable to celebrate halfway through.

Xu Lie was unaware of his clone's ulterior motives. With a flick of his wrist, he produced a Sequence 1 'Time Worm' trait.

Sequence 1 is a light and shadow crystal pillar containing numerous twelve-ringed worms.

Every movement of each worm inside affects the surrounding time. When one worm swims forward, time speeds up; when another worm swims backward, time begins to reverse.

Even when the insects inside remain completely still, time seems to slow down and stand still.

After holding it in his hand for a while, Xu Lie sighed that his threshold for characteristics was getting higher and higher. Since he had discovered uniqueness, he had been playing with the monocle every day and hadn't really played with the sequence 1 characteristics much.

It's a bit strange. After playing for a few minutes, Xu Lie started mixing the potion, tilted his head back and drank it. Hundreds of clones watched carefully, ready to isolate any unexpected factors or help the main body contact Bao Lie.

Even if everything is foolproof, you still have to be careful when it comes to promotion.

As the Time Worm potion entered his body, Xu Lie felt as if he were being slowly sliced ​​to pieces. The potion contained the immense power of time, which began to relentlessly erode and cut him.

In the blink of an eye, Xu Lie, who was being washed away and cut apart by time, also lost his senses of all the Time Insect clones.

Xu Lie's body, mind, and spirit were brutally divided into countless parts by time. These countless parts varied in size, with the larger parts being washed away by time until they aged, and the smaller cells being washed away to the end of their division.

The same applies to the soul; countless fragments of the soul, large and small, begin to dissipate after being cut apart.

Countless souls, large and small, that had been integrated into the body ascended to the spirit world, seemingly about to disintegrate into abstract, complex, and countless pieces of information.

At this moment, only Xu Lie's subjective consciousness was barely preserved, possessing self-awareness, and had not been eroded or fragmented by time.

I can clearly perceive the aging of every inch of my body, the aging of every cell that has been cut off, and I can also feel the dissipation of many souls.

But it's all in vain. Under the endless erosion and cutting of the vast universe, even if the conscious subject is clear-headed, it is impossible to resist endless time, and there is no way to withstand time and gather countless parts of the body, mind and soul.

On the verge of being washed away by time into nothingness, a certain area of ​​the spirit world made contact with Xu Lie's main consciousness.

That corresponds to an entire modern city—San Francisco!

The people living in San Francisco are caught in a time warp, experiencing seven days of chaotic time, with historical artifacts appearing one after another, flashing through their lives.

It caused enormous trouble and impact on the local residents. Those countless chaotic times resonated with and intertwined with Xu Lie's subjective consciousness.

Numerous erroneous and chaotic moments disrupted the torrent of time that continuously washed over and severed Xu Lie. Xu Lie's main consciousness seized this unique opportunity and immediately reclaimed countless parts of his body, mind, and soul.

Under the irresistible command of the main consciousness, countless parts of the body, large and small, that had been integrated into the shattered soul, transformed into translucent twelve-ringed worms, wriggling back to their original form.

The image of Xu Lie was reassembled, and incredibly, with the return of countless worms, they seemed to bring back something broken as well.

Something that is swept away and cut apart by time.

Countless worms brought back countless fragments of this thing, which coalesced into an incomplete, weakened temporal authority.

Even though it was an incomplete time authority, it was enough to help Xu Lie resist the erosion and fragmentation of time, and he completed this promotion without any major incidents.

Successfully promoted to Sequence 1, Time Worm.

After the promotion, his ability to steal, which had been a constant throughout his life, was further enhanced, allowing him to steal time, authority, and anchors.

It also possesses incomplete time authority, including the ability to briefly stop time, reverse time, and accelerate time.

At this stage, Xu Lie was only one step away from achieving a bug-free sequence.

(End of this chapter)