Chapter 102
The rain did not fall from the sky. It rose from the ground, drawn upward by distorted time currents, turning the ruined plains into a mirror of inverted storms. Sangping stood at the center of the anomaly, boots half-sunk into mud that pulsed like a living thing. Each breath tasted metallic, as if the air itself remembered blood.
Around him, the remains of the village lay scattered. Houses had collapsed inward, not outward, as though crushed by invisible hands. No bodies remained. Not even bones. Only shadows burned into stone and soil, frozen in their final positions.
"They were erased," Jian Luo said quietly behind him. "Not killed."
Sangping nodded once. His eyes traced the shadows, calculating trajectories, timing, patterns. "Archivist units don't erase without reason. This was a test."
"A test of what?"
"Of me."
A faint tremor rippled through the air. Sangping felt it immediately, a pressure against his cultivation core, subtle but invasive. Something was watching from outside the present moment.
He stepped forward, placing his palm against a stone wall still warm with residual time energy. The moment his skin made contact, images flooded his mind. Children running. A woman calling out. A man turning, confusion on his face. Then silence. The memory shattered before it could complete.
Sangping pulled his hand back sharply. Blood seeped from his palm, the wound already aging, skin cracking as if days had passed in seconds.
"Don't probe directly," Jian Luo warned. "Your core is unstable."
"It's already unstable," Sangping replied. "That's the point."
Further back, the remaining members of the crew secured the perimeter. Their numbers were fewer now. Too few. Some avoided looking at the village. Others stared too long, eyes hollow.
Yan Chen squatted near a broken well, poking at the stones with a stick. "You know," he said lightly, voice forced, "I always thought erased villages would be cleaner. Less mess."
No one laughed.
Yan Chen's grin faded. He stood, dusting off his robes. "Too soon?"
Sangping turned to him. "You sense anything?"
Yan Chen hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah. Like… like someone just walked over my grave, but forgot to bury me."
"That's them," Sangping said. "They're close."
The sky twisted.
Not clouds. Not light. Space itself folded, revealing a seam running vertically across the horizon. From it stepped three figures, their feet never touching the ground. They wore human forms—two men and a woman—but their movements were wrong, joints bending too smoothly, eyes reflecting no light.
Elite Humanoid Units.
They smiled in unison.
"Temporal anomaly Sangping," the woman said. Her voice carried warmth, almost kindness. "You are deviating beyond acceptable margins."
Jian Luo raised his weapon. "Don't listen."
Sangping stepped forward instead. "You erased this village to provoke me."
"Yes," one of the men replied. "Your response time has slowed by six percent since the last engagement. Emotional degradation confirmed."
"Then you already know my answer."
Sangping activated his cultivation.
The world stuttered.
Time peeled back like bark from a dying tree. For a heartbeat, everything froze. Rain hung midair. The crew became statues. The elite units flickered, their outlines destabilizing.
Sangping moved through the frozen moment, each step tearing fragments from his core. He felt something tear loose inside his mind—a memory, old and fragile. His mother's face blurred, then vanished completely.
Pain followed.
He reached the nearest unit and struck, his palm carrying compressed temporal force. The impact did not explode. It erased. Half the unit's torso vanished, edges dissolving into nothing.
The frozen moment shattered.
The battlefield erupted.
Jian Luo fired first, his weapon roaring as qi-infused rounds tore through space. One unit deflected them with a distorted shield, the projectiles aging into rust mid-flight. Another moved instantly, appearing behind a crew member and piercing his chest with a blade grown from its arm.
The man fell without a sound.
Yan Chen screamed something incoherent and hurled a talisman. It detonated in a burst of light and smoke, forcing the units back momentarily.
Sangping engaged the wounded unit again, but it adapted. Its missing torso reformed, metal and flesh knitting together with a sickening smoothness.
"Erasure insufficient," it said calmly. "Increasing resistance."
"Then I'll erase harder," Sangping muttered.
He forced his cultivation deeper, ignoring the cracking sensation spreading through his core. Time bent sharply around his body, forming a narrow corridor of accelerated moments. He struck again, this time targeting the unit's head.
The blow landed.
The unit collapsed, body unraveling into ash that scattered upward into the inverted rain.
The remaining two reacted instantly. One restrained Jian Luo, temporal bindings locking his limbs in place. The other lunged for Yan Chen.
Sangping turned—
Too slow.
Yan Chen tripped backward, panic clear on his face. The unit loomed over him, expression still smiling.
"Probability adjustment," it said.
A blade descended.
Sangping roared and shattered the corridor, releasing a surge of raw temporal backlash. The force slammed into the unit, warping its form violently and throwing it aside.
Yan Chen scrambled away, shaking, alive.
The last unit stepped back, reassessing. Its eyes flicked to the sky, then back to Sangping.
"Observation complete," it said. "Data sufficient."
"Running already?" Sangping asked coldly.
"Withdrawal," it corrected. "Next encounter will occur under optimized conditions."
The unit dissolved into fragments of light, vanishing into the torn seam in the sky. The distortion sealed behind it, leaving only silence and rising rain.
Sangping dropped to one knee.
The backlash hit him fully now. His vision blurred. Names slipped from his grasp. Faces flickered, some already gone.
Jian Luo rushed to him, cutting the bindings with brute force. "You idiot," he said, gripping Sangping's shoulder. "You burned too much."
"I know," Sangping replied weakly.
Yan Chen hovered nearby, pale. "I thought… I thought that was it."
Sangping looked at him. "You're alive."
"For now," Yan Chen said quietly.
Sangping forced himself to stand, swaying slightly. He looked once more at the erased village, then turned away.
"They're measuring how much I'm willing to lose," he said. "And how much the world will lose with me."
Jian Luo's jaw tightened. "So what's next?"
Sangping stared toward the horizon, where time still felt thin and wounded.
"We keep moving," he said. "Before there's nothing left to erase."