OBS Chapter 380 Shadow of the Time Rift
Chapter 380 Shadow of the Time Rift
Yuan Bao carefully placed the jade box deep into the drawer—a space she had quietly reinforced with her newly comprehended spatial mysteries, forming an invisible spatial fold that isolated the inside from the outside world and prevented any probing.
She pushed open the door and went downstairs with light steps, as if she had really only dealt with some trivial matters.
The steamed dumplings on the table had lost some of their heat, but their delicious aroma remained.
Xiao Zhi has finished eating and is playing with his toy car on the carpet.
Lin Qing gently pushed a bowl of warm soy milk in front of her, while Aunt Yuan chattered on about how difficult the community dance team's new dance was to learn.
"Why does Bao'er look a little pale? Did you not sleep well?" Lin Qing asked carefully.
"Maybe, I stayed up a bit late reading last night." Yuan Bao naturally picked up his chopsticks, took out a glistening shrimp dumpling, and the sweet taste soothed his tense nerves and masked the weakness from mental exhaustion. "Mom's fillings are so fresh, and Qingqing's cooking skills are getting better and better."
"That's right, look who taught her!" Aunt Yuan proudly raised her chin, her face beaming.
Yuan Bao smiled and agreed, but his mind was like a probe sinking into an icy sea, racing beneath a warm and peaceful exterior.
The eldest brother, Yuan Baoguo, returned from the clinic shortly afterward and joined the breakfast. The conversation revolved around medicinal herbs, patients, and everyday matters in the community.
Yuan Bao played the role of a qualified listener and occasional participant, with gentle eyes and no flaws.
It wasn't until breakfast was over that Yuan's mother took Lin Qing to study new dance steps, her eldest brother went to the front hall to see patients, Xiao Zhi was attracted by cartoons, and Yuan Bao quietly returned to his room.
The moment the door closed, the gentle mask vanished, leaving only a cold solemnity and a barely perceptible weariness.
She locked the door, drew the curtains, and the room was filled with soft light.
Carefully, he took the jade box out of the spatial folds.
Upon opening the box, a pure and soft light flows out, bringing a refreshing and comforting atmosphere.
The miniature crystal shards floated silently. At their core, the guardian spirit phantom, which Yuan Bao had named "Little Echo," remained curled up and asleep, but the cracks on its body seemed to be healing extremely slowly, and the light had become much more stable.
"Little 9, initiate the highest level microscopic scan! Target: the Crystal Song Forest fragment itself! Search for any unnatural imprints, residual energy, or traces of spatial interfaces!" Yuan Bao commanded in a deep voice, his mental energy highly concentrated, his fingertips shimmering with silver-blue light, coordinating with Little 9's data stream to begin the most thorough "physical examination" of this recovered fragment.
The space inside the jade box was magnified and analyzed by an invisible force.
Every inch of the fragment's crystal-clear surface, the subtle spatial structure contained within it, and even the faintest energy fluctuations emitted by the Small Echo during its slumber, were amplified to the extreme under the combined effect of Yuan Bao's MAX-level mental power and the profound meaning of "Weaving the Void".
Time passed by minute by minute.
The bedroom was so quiet you could hear your own heartbeat.
Apart from being slightly weakened after being purified and suffering minor injuries from imprisonment, no obvious abnormalities were found in the fragments themselves.
Xiao Huixiang's condition also slowly but steadily improved under the nourishment of the spiritual spring water's original essence.
"No direct space interface found... The pollution source residue has been completely eliminated..." Xiao 9 reported smoothly in its data stream.
Just as Yuan Bao thought the clues had run dry and her brows were furrowed, her "sense of emptiness" caught a very subtle "sense of foreign object" that was almost integrated with the spatial pulse of the fragment itself.
It's not pollution, not residual energy, but a kind of... artificial imprint with a specific spatial frequency!
It was cleverly "woven" into the core spatial structure of the fragment, like a barely perceptible mark embroidered on a fine brocade with silk thread of almost the same color!
If Yuan Bao hadn't reached the level of "perceiving emptiness" in his perception of spatial structure, and hadn't just personally purified and deeply contacted the origin of the fragments, it would have been extremely difficult for him to discover this!
"Lock it in!" Yuan Bao's spirits lifted, and the silver light at his fingertips became incredibly refined, like the most precise carving knife, carefully peeling away the spatial texture around the mark.
The mark gradually became clear—it was not text or a pattern, but an extremely complex dynamic geometric structure composed of countless tiny spatial nodes!
It's like a miniature, constantly spinning, cold gear, exuding an aura of absolute order and ruthless extraction that clashes with the ethereal rhythm of Crystal Forest!
"Analyze the structure! Trace its spatial frequency characteristics!" Yuan Bao held his breath.
Xiao 9's data stream instantly surged: "Structural analysis in progress... Matching the Mysterious Hall Space Law Database... Matching failed! This spatial imprint structure is not included! Feature analysis... It has strong 'directional anchoring' and 'energy siphon' characteristics! Its core frequency... Highly matches the residual fluctuations of the channel from which the 'time echo' was previously stolen! Confirmed as the core imprint of the target 'anchor point'!"
Yuan Bao's eyes were sharp as knives: "That's it! This is the 'key' the enemy used to locate the fragments and establish extraction channels! Try to trace its spatial frequency source in reverse!"
"Reverse tracking initiated... The spatial frequency signal is extremely weak and encrypted... The tracking path is distorted by multiple dimensional barriers... Warning! The tracking algorithm has encountered an unknown spatial maze! Forcibly breaking through may trigger self-destruction of the imprint or a reverse alarm!" Little 9's warning voice was urgent.
Yuan Bao decisively stopped: "Stop tracking! Protect the integrity of the imprint structure!" She stared at the tiny, rotating, cold gear imprint in the jade box, a chill rising from the bottom of her heart.
The enemy was not only ruthless, but their space technology also far exceeded her expectations!
The complexity and encryption methods used in this mark are by no means ordinary!
Just then, under Yuan Bao's intense gaze, the core of the rotating geometric structure of the mark flickered extremely subtly, revealing a fragment of spatial information so faint yet chilling that it chilled Yuan Bao's very soul:
“...Coordinates...Calibration...Anchor point number: Shadow-Seven...'Shadow of Time Slot'...Record...Time Echo...Purity...Qualified...Prepare...Next stage...Harvest…”
“Shadow of Time…” Yuan Bao murmured the name, each word seemingly carrying shards of ice.
Anchor point number: Shadow-Seven! This means that there are at least six more such polluted fragment "anchor points," like malignant tumors lurking in the dimension of reality (and possibly other dimensions), continuously stealing the life essence of Crystal Song Forest!
"Harvesting"?
"The next stage"?
These chilling words foreshadow an even more terrifying plot!
Meanwhile, in the distant Crystal Song Forest.
After Yuan Bao successfully purified the fragments and interrupted the extraction, the light domain at the core of the Annihilation Storm was revitalized.
The little sprite stood guard beside the Crystal Song Core, exhausted, but the anger and vigilance in its emerald eyes remained undiminished.
She was also busy.
The moment the core of the forest stabilized, she activated the highest authority of the Crystal Song Guardian Spirit's symbiotic resonance with the forest's origin—the Forest Time Reversal Perception!
Her hands rested on the core of the Crystal Song, and the ethereal aria transformed into a grand and tragic epic that traced back to the past.
The newly formed crystal veins emitted a gentle yet powerful wave, like invisible ripples, sweeping across all the "time imprints" recorded in the core of the woodland about that polluted fragment!
Countless fragments of light and shadow flashed rapidly through her consciousness: the agonizing tearing as the fragments were ripped from the woodland, the despair of being enveloped and eroded by the filthy dark purple energy, being forcibly dragged by an irresistible spatial force with a cold sense of order, passing through dimensional barriers, and finally being "nailed" to that warehouse corner in the real world...
The retrospective "lens" ultimately focuses on the last moment before the fragments were released!
In a twisted, desolate, dark dimensional rift, a hand covered in a strange dark silver metallic glove is pressing this corrupted fragment, like placing a chess piece, towards the center of an ancient and eerie bronze compass that floats in the void!
The compass was not round, but consisted of multiple nested metal rings engraved with unknown symbols, and the pointer was a solidified shadow!
The instant the fragment was pressed into the center of the compass, Yuan Bao noticed the cold gear mark, which flashed clearly on the back of the dark silver metal glove!
Although the full appearance of the hand's owner could not be seen, only the cold metal glove and part of the dark sleeve, the gear mark that briefly appeared on the back of the glove and the cold, orderly aura emanating from the compass, which shared the same origin as the fragment mark, were branded into the little elf's perception!
“Shadow of Time Rifts… Dark Silver Hand… Bronze Compass…” The little elf withdrew his consciousness, his body trembling slightly, a mixture of anger and lingering fear.
She immediately transmitted the key information she had gleaned from this retrospective perception—the hand covered in a dark silver metal glove, the eerie bronze compass, and the name "Shadow of Time Rift"—to Yuan Bao through the link of the spiritual spring water, disregarding the energy consumption involved!
The real world, the bedroom.
Yuan Bao stared at the cold mark on the core of the fragment in the jade box, analyzing the meaning of "Shadow-Seven" and "Harvest".
The message from the sprite exploded in her mind like a thunderclap!
Dark Silver Hand!
Bronze compass!
The direct perpetrators of the release of polluting debris!
The name "Shadow of Time" perfectly matches the message conveyed by the sprite!
The clues have finally converged!
The enemy is no longer a vague concept, but a mysterious organization called "Shadow of the Time Rift" with sophisticated spatial technology, a ruthless order, and the goal of "harvesting" the time essence of Crystal Song Forest!
They used fragments of polluted woodland as "anchor points," employed the eerie bronze compass for positioning and deployment, and then had members wearing dark silver gloves carry out the operation!
Yuan Bao slowly closed the lid of the jade box and sent it back into the depths of the spatial folds for safekeeping.
The soft light in the room illuminated her cold yet resolute profile.
Home is safe for now.
The small echo is recovering.
Clues have emerged.
But an even bigger storm is brewing.
"Shadow-Seven" is just one of them; the shadow of "Shadow of the Time Rift" has already loomed over it.
The boundary between reality and the game has been maliciously broken. Beneath the calm of daily life, a silent, cross-dimensional war revolving around the origin of time has begun.
Yuan Bao walked to the window and gently pulled open a small gap in the curtains.
The morning light was still warm, and pedestrians hurried along the street below, creating a scene full of ordinary, everyday life.
Her fingertips unconsciously brushed against the cold window frame, her eyes deep and unfathomable.
“Shadow of the Time Rift…” she murmured to herself, her voice calm yet containing the power of an impending storm, “Whoever you are, if you want to touch my home, if you want to uproot my allies… be prepared to pay the price.”