Chapter 136
The Arbiter did not move.
It expanded.
Space around it inverted, not collapsing but redefining itself, as if the concept of distance had been deemed inefficient. Shenping felt his weight vanish, then multiply, then vanish again. His feet no longer stood on metal or air, but on probability compressed into something solid enough to resist him.
The machine's voice sharpened. "Causality fracture escalating. Defensive noise failing."
"I know," Shenping said, teeth clenched. "It always does at this stage."
The Arbiter's presence pushed forward, rewriting the pocket's rules line by line. Systems failed silently. Timelines peeled away like skin, revealing deeper layers where nothing lived long enough to leave a name.
This iteration has reached its termination threshold, the Arbiter impressed into Shenping's mind. Yield. Erasure will be painless.
Shenping laughed, the sound jagged. "You've never understood pain."
He stepped forward.
The moment he crossed the final boundary, the Arbiter reacted—not with speed, but with authority. Reality buckled, and Shenping felt his memories strain as if unseen hands were rifling through them, cataloging failures, pruning hope.
Images flooded him.
Sang Sang dying in fire.
Sang Sang dying in silence.
Villages spared, futures sterilized.
Himself erased, clean and efficient.
His knees buckled.
The machine surged power again, burning through reserves. "Warning. Memory integrity compromised."
"Let them look," Shenping growled. "They'll miss something."
He reached inward, past the cultivated cores and engineered safeguards, down to the thing the Arbiters could never model properly: irrational attachment.
He thought of Sang Sang's eyes. Not fear. Not awe. Recognition.
He pushed back.
The Arbiter recoiled for the first time—not physically, but conceptually. The pressure stuttered, convergence wobbling as an unquantifiable variable injected itself into the system.
Impossibility detected, the Arbiter conveyed.
"Good," Shenping said. "I specialize in that."
He lunged.
The clash was silent.
No explosion, no flash—just a sudden tearing sensation as two incompatible truths collided. Shenping felt his body stretch across multiple outcomes, muscles burning as if he were being pulled apart by invisible hooks. Blood blossomed in his mouth, metallic and hot.
The Arbiter fractured.
Not destroyed. Split.
Fragments of it peeled away, collapsing into collapsed futures and dead-end possibilities, scattering like shrapnel across the pocket. The remaining core convulsed, its authority flickering.
The machine screamed—not in sound, but in data. "Critical breach. Pocket integrity at twelve percent."
"Open a path," Shenping shouted. "Anywhere unstable."
"Compliance risks total desynchronization."
"Do it!"
The machine obeyed.
The world twisted, a raw corridor tearing open through the layers, leading not forward or backward, but sideways—into a turbulent stretch of unfinished history.
The Arbiter surged, trying to seal the breach, but Shenping was already moving. He threw himself into the corridor as the pocket collapsed behind him, the machine latching onto his neural spine like a parasite of light.
They fell.
Not through space, but through unfinished moments. Shenping glimpsed half-formed wars, abandoned civilizations, timelines aborted before birth. Each brushed against him, threatening to imprint, to overwrite.
"Stabilize me!" he roared.
"I am attempting," the machine replied. "Host degradation accelerating."
Pain became abstract. His limbs felt distant, his thoughts slipping, edges fraying. He sensed something else too—a pull, subtle but insistent.
A beacon.
Sang Sang.
Not her body. Not her mind.
Her future.
"She's anchoring me," Shenping gasped. "She shouldn't be able to—"
"She is not anchoring," the machine corrected. "She is resonating."
The corridor shuddered as something followed.
The Arbiter was not gone.
What remained of it bled through the layers, stripped of authority but burning with correctional intent. It could no longer erase cleanly.
So it hunted.
"Then we end this dirty," Shenping said.
The corridor spat him out violently.
He slammed into earth.
Rain hit him seconds later, cold and heavy, soaking into torn flesh. Mud filled his mouth. He coughed, rolling onto his back as the sky above cracked with thunder.
A village.
Not the one he left.
Older. Rougher. Houses half-buried, wooden frames warped by flood and time. Torches flickered in the distance, voices shouting.
The machine stabilized weakly. "Location uncertain. Temporal index unstable."
Shenping pushed himself up, body screaming. "Can you mask me?"
"Partially," the machine replied. "Your visibility remains elevated."
Shenping staggered toward the tree line as screams erupted from the village.
Too late.
Figures emerged from the rain.
Not villagers.
They wore human forms, but their movements were wrong—too smooth, too synchronized. Their eyes glowed faintly, reflecting torchlight with mechanical precision.
Prototypes.
Early-generation manipulators.
Shenping's breath caught. "They're already here."
"Yes," the machine said grimly. "This era contains developmental fragments."
The figures turned as one.
One stepped forward, mouth opening.
"Target confirmed," it said, voice hollow. "Anomaly Shenping. Termination authorized."
Villagers screamed as the things moved, tearing through homes with inhuman strength. Roofs collapsed. Fire spread. The rain hissed as it struck flame.
Shenping moved.
He drew on what little cultivation remained, forcing damaged channels to comply. Power surged unevenly, tearing skin, but it was enough.
He slammed into the first construct, shattering its chest. Metal and flesh sprayed together, indistinguishable. Another struck him from the side, ribs cracking, sending him skidding through mud.
Pain roared.
He laughed through it.
"Come on," he snarled. "You want Sang Sang's future? You go through me."
More constructs poured in, herding villagers with precise cruelty. Some killed efficiently. Others inflicted terror deliberately, recording reactions.
Data collectors.
Shenping rose again, vision blurring red. He fought like a cornered animal, breaking bodies, ripping cores, drowning the ground in oil and blood.
But there were too many.
And then—
A scream cut through the chaos.
Not mechanical.
Human.
Shenping turned.
A small figure stood frozen near a burning hut, eyes wide, rain plastering hair to her face. She couldn't be more than six.
Not Sang Sang.
But close enough.
The Arbiter's influence rippled.
One construct pivoted, raising its arm.
"No," Shenping whispered.
He moved.
Too slow.
The construct fired.
Shenping threw himself between them, the blast tearing through his shoulder, spinning him into the mud. He hit hard, breath driven from his lungs.
The child screamed.
The construct advanced.
Shenping tried to rise.
His body refused.
Then the air changed.
Pressure rolled outward from the village center, subtle but absolute. The constructs hesitated, systems stuttering.
A woman stepped from the rain.
She wore plain robes, soaked through, her face calm despite the destruction around her. Her eyes glowed faintly—not mechanically, but with something older.
She raised her hand.
Time slowed.
The constructs froze mid-step, rain hanging suspended around them.
The woman looked at Shenping.
Recognition flared.
"You don't belong to this age," she said softly.
Shenping coughed blood and smiled. "Funny. People keep telling me that."
She turned her gaze to the frozen machines, disgust flickering. "They followed you."
"Yes," Shenping said. "And they won't stop."
The woman's expression hardened. "Then neither will I."
She clenched her fist.
The constructs shattered as one, collapsing into lifeless debris.
Time resumed.
The rain fell.
The woman approached Shenping, kneeling beside him. Her eyes searched his face, something like sorrow in them.
"This path ends in loss," she said.
"I know," Shenping replied. "It always does."
She studied him for a long moment, then nodded. "Then get up. History doesn't survive cowards."
Shenping laughed weakly and forced himself upright, leaning on her offered arm.
Behind them, the village burned.
Ahead of them, the future twisted.
And somewhere far away, a girl named Sang Sang dreamed of storms she did not yet understand.