Nobita's Time Heist

"No."

“Is that so?” Phoenicia’s tone didn’t sound surprised, but her eyes turned cold in an instant. The dragons outside the window flapped their wings, creating a howling wind, preparing to pounce inside. “Well… it’s not unexpected. Humans are like this. When they’re talking big, they don’t flinch and can spill anything. But once their own interests are involved, their voices go quiet.”

"Since that's the case, there's nothing more to say. Let's make some preparations and do what we need to do."

With unwavering confidence, she slowly rose, brushed off non-existent dust from her body, and sneered, "I'll kill you and then take it from your corpse; it'll be the same."

"I'm afraid it's not that easy. Otherwise, why didn't you make your move sooner?" Da Xiong held up three fingers, a hint of cunning flashing in his eyes behind his glasses. "I haven't finished speaking yet. You're really impatient."

"Three."

Phoenicia's expression changed slightly.

"I am willing to transfer the right to use any three props to you."

Chapter 427: Even you get played one day!

Humans always prefer compromise; they'll only agree to open a window when you threaten to tear down the roof. Thanks to the evolutionary degeneration beam, Phoenicia gained wisdom in deep space, but also developed a thought process similar to that of humans—whether this was a blessing or a curse is unknown. Wisdom is like a whetstone; it needs interaction and constant refinement to progress. In the endless universe, her wisdom had nowhere to be used, stagnating for a long time, forming a fixed mindset, making further progress difficult.

Therefore, despite the passage of time, she did not become particularly shrewd; her emotions, whether joy, anger, sorrow, or happiness, were perfectly displayed on her face.

“Too few!” Phoenicia immediately demanded, “Ten! Give me ten items to choose from, and I will let bygones be bygones regarding our past grievances.”

Nobita forcefully suppressed the corners of his mouth from turning up.

Unexpectedly, the other party fell into his trap so quickly. In this tug-of-war, whoever shows a willingness to back down first loses. At the very least, Nobita has already figured out her bottom line—exchanging items is acceptable, only the quantity matters.

After that, it was like buying vegetables at a market, and everyone started haggling over prices.

"Three." Nobita remained firm, insisting, "I can only give you three, but you can choose whichever you want, how about that?"

Phoenicia gritted his teeth, seemingly pondering for a long time, before finally speaking, "Five, I want five Origin Technology items. The quantity has already been reduced by half, don't be ungrateful."

A willingness to lower the price means there is room for negotiation.

Nobita's face remained expressionless as he persisted, "Three. Or you can start a war with me now and see if these Origin technologies are as powerful as you describe."

“…” Phoenicia fell silent, her gaze towards Nobita filled with complex emotions. Hesitant and unsure of what to do, she also considered the options that could be eliminated from her mind. Outside the window, the dragons fluttered their wings restlessly, flying back and forth, as if reflecting her own anxieties.

After a long silence, she finally made her decision, nodding resignedly, "Three it is, but I need to choose what I want. It has to be my picks before you give them to me."

Which three do you want?

She pondered for a moment, various pieces of information quickly flashing through her mind, and gritted her teeth, "The first thing is a tool that can manipulate time."

Nobita took the "Counterclock" from his pocket and gently placed it on the table.

"The second type is a tool that can manipulate fate."

Nobita took out the "Pre-Event Diary" from his pocket and placed it on the table.

"As for the third one, it's that one. The tool that granted me the power of purification."

Nobita looked at her strangely and couldn't help but ask, "You've already reached the end of your evolution, why do you still need something like this?"

"The end of evolution is self-destruction," Phoenicia sneered. "Thanks to my unique physique, I evolved the ability to suppress evolution before reaching that stage. Now, I'm at a critical juncture, needing not evolution but degeneration. I'm only one step away from self-destruction. If I continue to evolve, death will be my fate!"

"And every shred of reason within me would believe that death was a matter of course, a matter of course."

Counterclockwise, a pre-event diary, and an evolutionary-degenerate ray gun.

The three props were neatly arranged on the table. Phoenicia seemed surprised that things had gone so smoothly. She scrutinized Nobita repeatedly, and after confirming that everything was correct, she quickly pocketed the three props.

"So, is the matter resolved?" Da Xiong further confirmed. "Are we now at peace? If so, please return Asur to me and stop all this crazy behavior."

“Even if I stop, what’s the point?” Phoenicia licked his lips and sneered. “My partner isn’t as easy to talk to as I am. He has nothing to trade with you.”

“He is him, I will find another way.” Da Xiong emphasized, and said in a deep voice, “I just hope you can keep your promise and return Asur to me as soon as possible, so that everyone in this world can wake up from their dream.”

Phoenicia raised the corners of his mouth, a cruel sneer flashing across his face. "Since you're so attached to her, I'll give her back to you."

Like a scene from a horror movie, she tore open her mouth, creating a slit that seemed incongruous with her small, cherry-like lips. This sight truly shocked Nobita. Unlike Gian, who was indifferent to everything, he was actually terrified of all sorts of monsters and demons. Now, seeing Phoenicia's sudden action, he realized that the person sitting opposite him wasn't really a delicate, frail white-haired girl, but a terrifying, monstrous creature.

After digging around in the crevice for a while, all that came out were a few dark red crystals.

Dang Cang——!

The sound of them hitting the ground was crisp, like some kind of blunt instrument. Nobita looked closely and at first, he felt the prismatic red crystals looked familiar, then he realized he had seen them somewhere before, in some fragment of memory!

The Philosopher's Stone...

Above the Atlantic Ocean, the core that makes up the nine-headed Hydra is this thing!

"She looks respectable, but in reality, she's nothing but a phantom. I thought she'd draw blood after one bite, but I was sorely disappointed; it was practically the same as not eating anything at all." She released her mouth, casually picking at her teeth a couple of times, and sneered, "The core of my furnace is hotter than the most intense stellar core in the universe. After she fell, she didn't even leave a last word. All the useful parts have been absorbed; what's left are these meaningless impurities. They say that when you human high monks die, you put them in a fire and they produce relics; this is probably something like that."

"..." Nobita didn't pick up the Philosopher's Stones that were emitting white steam. He just stared at her intently, his tightly pursed lips twitching with anger.

“You asked me to return her to you, and I did.” She smiled radiantly, but to Da Xiong, it was terrifying, as if a chill ran down his spine. “It’s a pity you came a few days earlier; you might have been able to see her whole.”

"Ha...hahahahaha—!!!" She seemed unable to contain her emotions, laughing maniacally, her voice like thunder, instantly shattering the entire church. Her back split open, continuously gushing out a black, oil-like substance, which intertwined and wove together to form a pair of wings. Within seconds, they swelled to the size of the sky, completely engulfing Nobita's vision.

The dragons outside also became excited, soaring up and down as if performing a strange dance.

"I will keep my promise, I assure you. Everyone will wake up from their dream, but..."

"I cannot guarantee what kind of world awaits them after they wake up!"

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

"boom----!!"

With a flap of its wings, blotting out the sun, Phoenicia used the momentum to break through the clouds and fly into the unreachable heights of the sky.

Chapter 428: If you're not mentally sound, go get it treated!

The last attempt at peace ended in failure.

Although he had anticipated it, when the moment finally arrived, Da Xiong felt a pang of reluctance. This meant there was no room for negotiation between them, only naked hostility, and it would inevitably end with one killing the other. Her hatred for him had already clouded her judgment; even if he offered the best solution, he would only become the object of her mockery.

"Well, I did think it would turn out like this..." He took out the [Clam Box], picked up the fragments of the Philosopher's Stone from the ground, and put them into the box. A rare, cold, and ruthless glint flashed in his eyes behind his glasses. "Since that's the case, then let's go!"

With enormous wings cutting through the clouds, her silver hair danced in the air like a fluttering flag. She spread her arms as if to bathe in some kind of light, her head slightly raised, her face full of smiles. The three gadgets she had tricked from Nobita floated in mid-air, supported by a crimson force field, displayed one by one before her.

"That guy's brain is really not working properly. He actually fell for that kind of trick. He's incredibly stupid..."

She grabbed the counter-clock, a crimson light blazing deep within her eyes. The prop emitted a creak of strain under its weight, then disintegrated, shattering into countless tiny parts in mid-air. Surprisingly, this prop, capable of altering time and history, was incredibly simple in its components; these small parts, when disassembled, were not much different from an ordinary clock.

"As expected of Origin Technology, with just a few parts, they can create the effect of time reversal... It's really unreasonable."

With a gentle twist of her wrist, the parts automatically assembled, reforming into a counter-clockwise shape. In just a few seconds, Phoenicia had grasped the basic structure of the device. Through the process of disassembly and reassembly, she was once again certain that this was indeed Origin Technology. With her intelligence, she could understand the operating principles of most machines in a few seconds using this technique, but after just this disassembly, she was only confident that she could put it back together, but she knew nothing about the underlying principles.

The miraculous civilization that developed the earliest technology has a foundation of 3 million years in the universe. This level of expertise is not something that can be easily claimed.

"It's okay if you don't understand. Don't just talk about me; there are many ancient races in the universe, and they may not all understand it either."

She comforted herself, casually remarking on the attitude of most people in the Doraemon universe towards secret gadgets: "Origin technology doesn't need to be understood; just know it's amazing and use it, and that's it."

Press the button.

The imagined reversal of time did not occur; she remained under this chaotic sky, with nothing but the cacophony of dragons and the howling winds high above. Phoenicia's expression shifted slightly. Incredulously, she grabbed the counter-clock and turned the knob back and forth, but time neither sped up nor slowed down—completely different from her expected effect.

"how come……"

She used her telekinesis once again to disassemble the device, scanning each part with her eyes. Logically, she found no flaws in the assembly. Once reassembled, every part fit together perfectly. It seemed that activating the device should be no problem. But the reality was that the device, in her hands, could not function as intended.

"You even took it apart, how naughty!" Da Xiong's voice came from the front, drawing her gaze and attention. Her crimson eyes narrowed slightly as she re-examined the person she had described as "dull and stupid."

"This reminds me of the past... I took this prop apart once too. Back then, I would get carried away easily when I got something new. I would use the power to manipulate time to play tricks on my friends, like drawing on their faces with watercolors after time stopped, then suddenly appearing in front of them to give them a big scare. They were all low-class little tricks."

"While playing with it, I broke the counter-clockwise clock. Time in the whole world stopped, which scared me half to death. I took it upon myself to take it apart with a screwdriver, but I don't have your skill level. I couldn't even put it back together."

Nobita shook his head helplessly, a smile still on his face, seemingly lost in his memories. But Phoenicia did not take this opportunity to attack; instead, he hovered quietly in place, observing and waiting to hear him finish speaking.

"The world was frozen in time, and the only person who knew how to repair this device was also stuck. I cried for a long, long time, when suddenly a brilliant idea flashed into my mind!"

"I'll take a time machine back to before I borrowed this gadget and find Doraemon from that time to fix it for me. Then I remembered that when I excitedly walked out of the room with the gadget, I did hear a familiar 'Doraemon~~~' behind me. But I was in a hurry to play, so I didn't pay much attention to it."

Nobita stared into Phoenician's eyes. His recollection ended, and he adopted an enemy-facing stance, his tone suddenly turning cold. "You want to use reverse clockwork to go back to that point in time and change the past, right? Ha..."

"If you're even slightly smarter, you'd better give up on this idea."

"..." Phoenicia's gaze turned cold as he looked at him, his emotions becoming increasingly intense, and sparks of hatred began to ignite within him.

“My understanding of the universe is certainly not as good as yours, but I definitely understand more about the workings of time. To try to change the past means that your past has already been changed. If your attempt today succeeds, then, in theory, you wouldn’t have been banished to the universe by us in the past, and you wouldn’t have experienced those things… Spacetime is like a closed loop; moving one part affects the whole thing.”

"Changes in the present mean changes in the past."

“Once the past changes, everything that makes up your ‘present’ will cease to exist.”

……

The earnest explanations didn't seem to have much effect.

Nobita, the savior, has caused quite a bit of trouble, and there have been instances where he nearly caused the extinction of humanity. Compared to him, the Apairon Foundation is nothing; his understanding of the laws of time is actually more profound than that of many frontline workers at the Time and Space Administration Institute.

It's not impossible to save the past from the future. For example, when Nobita and his friends were in the Wangwang Lake Kingdom in the Congo Basin, Shizuka used the "Result Guarantee Machine" to ensure that the five members from the future would go back to the past to carry out the rescue operation that they were bound to do.

In this way, the prophecy of the "ten foreigners" was perfectly fulfilled. It was precisely because they were saved in the "past" that they had the opportunity to go back alive and travel to the "future" again to save their past selves.

The snake bites its own tail, and spacetime completes a self-consistent cycle.

Phoenicia did not understand this; in her eyes, all of this could be summed up in one sentence.

"So, you deliberately gave me this defective product, right?"

Chapter 429: Time Travel is Prohibited Here

"You think too highly of yourself." Nobita pushed up his glasses, revealing a rare disdainful smile. "Didn't you just say that I wasn't qualified to use Origin Technology gadgets? It seems that even if the secret gadgets are in your hands, they might not be that effective. What I gave you is definitely not the problem. Since I dared to give it to you, I have a way to make sure you can't use it."

"As I just mentioned, there are actually many ways to influence counter-clockwise. For example... using the same time-related items to interfere."

He leisurely took another clock from his pocket and waved it in front of her. "【Crazy Time Watch】, a tool for manipulating time, bordering on madness. It can do everything the tool in your hand can do, and as long as it's activated simultaneously with you, it's enough to cancel it out..."

"boom----!!"

Phoenicia did not allow him to continue speaking. Her eyes gleamed with a crimson light, and she dismantled the clock in Nobita's hand into pieces.

But things did not get better.

Nobita looked at her with a half-smile, as if he could express many things with just his eyes.

"Of course, this method requires strong observation skills and the ability to press the button simultaneously with you to counteract your interference with time... It's not that it's impossible, but as you said, I'm a very lazy person. If there were a way to solve the problem once and for all, I would definitely choose it."

He pulled a miniature prop from his pocket, and shouted, "[Prohibition Sign]—!!"

[Prohibition sign: A mark with a "prohibition symbol" written on it. Simply writing down what is prohibited on it completely prevents a person from doing that thing. The prohibited item is absolute, and can even interfere with physiological responses. It requires appropriate forceps to remove it to restore its original state.]

“I put a prohibition sign on the church floor. At least, time travel is prohibited in this area until you get my permission.”

"boom----!!!"

An atomic breath, compressed to its limit, erupted from her mouth, piercing through the clouds and striking the ruins of the church on the ground. The temperature exceeded the limits that the surface materials could withstand; at the moment of impact, the entire city above the ground swayed like a mirage and vanished instantly, vaporized. Afterward, the vacuum created by the immense heat began to draw in surrounding air, forming a powerful convective hurricane. Explosions grew louder and louder, rolling in with devastating force.

Not a single speck of dust was stirred up.

After everything was over, a bottomless crater appeared on the ground. Beneath the abyss, swallowed by darkness, only soft hissing sounds could be heard—the hissing sound of fluid, transformed by the high temperature and radiation, gurgling within the crater. If a picture of this crater were taken and posted online, claiming it was a re-enactment of the Tunguska event, many would probably believe it.

As if showing off his strength, Phoenicia cracked his neck, making a snapping sound, but only earned him a look from Nobita as if he were an idiot.

“It’s no use,” he asserted.

"..." For the first time, Phoenicia showed a somewhat doubtful expression. Looking down again, with her incredibly sharp eyes, she saw clearly that small protrusion—the prohibition sign was still firmly planted in the ground, and the breath that was enough to evaporate everything had failed to do anything to it.

"This tool requires special pliers to pull out; otherwise, no method can budge it."

She was angry.

Nobita was incredibly sensitive to changes in other people's emotions, especially those of Phoenicians, who were guileless and displayed almost animalistic, primal emotions. Looking at Andrew City, now a deep crater beneath his feet, Nobita felt uneasy. He was about to face the wrath of the monster capable of such destruction. His strategy was to walk a tightrope; any mishap at any point would lead to utter defeat.

But he had everything in his pocket except a way to undo his mistakes.

The game begins.

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

"boom------!!!"

Her face split open, and an atomic breath erupted without warning. From a four-legged lizard that could only spew fireballs, she had evolved into a monster capable of causing immense destruction. It was a mystery what she had endured. The dense breath pierced through Nobita's body, merely brushing the ground before obliterating distant mountains from the horizon. After a brief pause on the horizon, the fireball extinguished, and the shockwave reflected off the ground near the epicenter, creating a massive dust column. The rising dust column merged with the smoke cloud, forming a magnificent mushroom cloud that defied description.

The techniques honed using the universe as a battlefield possess astonishing destructive power. According to Phoenicia herself, to date, this technique's penetrating power can pierce through any material defense. If she so desired, she could keep the core powered, continuously releasing its breath, making it possible to pierce through a planet. Even with Origin Technology, it wouldn't be so easy to block.

Nobita was nowhere to be seen in the scorching air; the path of the atomic breath spray was always free of any residue.

died?

"Do not……"

She turned around abruptly, her right hand outstretched, her five fingers spread wide like steel, and suddenly grabbed at the air, managing to seize his neck.