In the dark land of the spiritual world, gale winds howled.
Behind the black-feathered figure named Grey Crow, ink-like afterimages trailed, while psychic feathers drifted and dissipated.
He walked across the dark highland plain. Ahead, a solitary wooden cabin gradually emerged. A woman in a black veil robe, who had been gripping the shoulder of a man with a severed wrist while her back was to Grey Crow, released her hold and turned to look.
–To be able to enter my spiritual barrier, who might you be?-
In her right hand, she held a wooden staff. On her weathered, wanderer-like face, a flicker of surprise appeared, then gave way to the calm of someone who had long expected this day.
Grey Crow stopped ten meters away from her, his figure rippling slightly like a reflection in water. They both stared intently at each other.
{You rats that scurry through the cracks—there are things even you don’t know.}
Hearing this address, the woman’s eyes narrowed slightly.
–The destiny here has deviated too much, so naturally there are things we don’t know. May I ask your name, sir?-
The woman looked at this being who was unwilling to reveal his name.
At this moment, Director Huang awoke as if from suffocation underwater, gasping heavily, as though he had just emerged from a nightmare.
Then he felt he might not have woken up—his hard-built residence was now enveloped by an ink-like storm eye.
Meanwhile, the two people ahead seemed like characters from a strange tale, so unreal.
{Before asking for the other’s name, one should first give their own—it’s a matter of etiquette.}
–I am Ba Lianna.-
{I am Grey Crow.}
Grey Crow glanced at Huang Xu, who had been scared limp by his appearance and collapsed to the ground, then said to the woman:
{The house he shouldn’t have had, he built with just one hand.}
Huang Xu looked at the small hut beside him—it was indeed built by himself, with only one hand!
Thinking back, Huang Xu even felt a little proud.
{So, is this the reason you came early? Because he might stop regretting?}
–No.- The woman smiled calmly, yet her words were filled with coldness: –This storm is about to destroy this house. Though it’s a trivial matter for us, it will be a huge blow to him. He will deeply regret choosing this place.-
The woman turned her head and looked over.
–Just like regretting his previous choices.-
–Regret previous choices?- Their conversation made Huang Xu’s blood run cold.
What was going on? Why were these two strange people talking about some house, and things like –previous-?
He turned and ran.
Ba Lianna struck the ground with her wooden staff, which lit up with radiance, projecting the cracks on its surface onto the ground like a hazy circle of cracked circuits.
She turned and walked toward Huang Xu, who was a few steps away, but her body remained in place, moving as if her soul had left it, quickly appearing in front of the man, one hand reaching for his collar.
{Why come to collect his –remorse- now?}
–You really are here to stop me from collecting materials.-
Scar Lianna glanced at the humanoid black stork that appeared beside her.
She had used the holy relic to perform circuit deception, yet the other party saw through it in an instant.
–Materials?!- Huang Xu was terrified; he wasn’t so stupid as to miss that he himself was likely the so-called –material.-
{The thing he deeply regrets is from no more than a few months ago. Why extract it now?}
Scar Lianna tilted her wooden staff and pointed—a brilliant radiance burst from its tip, piercing the night.
A ring of light appeared behind the Gray Crow’s head.
Dull explosions echoed in succession, from near to far, from earth to sky. The two colliding beams tore through the pitch-black storm, blasting it apart.
Scar Lianna’s expression changed; her figure flashed to the edge of a distant circuit.
The Gray Crow appeared before her like a shadow.
Scar Lianna knew she had encountered an extremely powerful being.
The other party merely revealed a halo, and the circuit power she mobilized was completely suppressed—not because the circuit’s rank was lower than that being, but because her own strength was ultimately too low.
{I just want to ask, why extract it now?}
A dark gold halo lit up on Scar Lianna’s chest, and a broken line refracted outward rapidly—fortunately, the person before her did not stop it.
A flicker of panic on Ba Lianna’s face soon gave way to a gleam of confidence.
–This fate line… at least the fate line of this frequency-lost land has deviated far too much. The fate fluctuations of those connected to it are growing increasingly intense, becoming extremely unstable.-
Ba Lianna glanced at the man in the distance who wanted to escape but was blocked by the newly born mental storm.
–Under the ripples of this change, even his mind, which nurtures such high-quality materials, could be transformed. Is that answer satisfactory to you, Mr. Grey Crow?-
Grey Crow stepped up to her, almost pressing against her as he gazed at her face.
{No, you are lying.}
–You?-
{You just want to extract that regret right now, to create a coordinate for a crack, and extinguish the spark of change at its source.}
A strange glint flashed in Ba Lianna’s eyes.
Grey Crow raised his palm toward Ba Lianna.
The halo on the woman’s chest had never gone out since it lit up. Now her face shifted several times before she suddenly retreated two steps and raised her slender wooden staff again to block his palm.
–Stop!- the woman exclaimed nervously:
–We have fully read everything about you from the old world—all of you is known to us!-
{So what?}
–If you lay a hand on me here, no matter the cost, we will revise your fate’s origin in both the old and new fate trajectories!-
The woman laughed brightly, her wild gaze fixed on the Gray Crow whose claws were frozen in place.
–You wouldn’t want us to snuff out your fate at its source, in every single possibility, would you!-
Huang Xu looked at the woman, then at his half-human, half-demon companion. He had no idea what they were talking about—or rather, he dared not imagine.
{If you can truly do that, it would still be a bold gamble for me.}
–You!- The woman hadn’t expected this saint, who knew of her organization’s existence, to be so utterly indifferent to her threat!
Within her chest, the chanting of over a dozen voices erupted—each one reciting passages about the life journey of the –Gray Crow-.
Scar Lotus suddenly lifted her head, staring in shock at the man who stood before her like a black stork.
–You’re not Gray Crow! You actually used that failure’s name! Don’t you realize what this means? Do you truly want to die?!-
{You cannot deny a person’s greatness simply because they died.}
The Gray Crow’s halted hand rose once more, aiming at the woman’s face.
The tip of the wooden staff blazed with brilliant light again, yet it could not stem the encroaching glow of the five-colored radiance from those five fingers.
Scar Lotus cried out, her voice hoarse and anguished:
–Ridiculous! A man who went searching for a way to save his homeland… yet never returned before it was destroyed… a fool who died on the road, how dare you call him great!-
The Gray Crow’s metallic face—a fusion of rock and metal—turned toward the woman.
{From a probabilistic standpoint, their sacrifices are profoundly meaningful.}
–Even if I die… we will… make everything about you, from your past, vanish forever…-
{As long as you can’t find the coordinates, such a thing won’t happen.}
As if she had just heard the most absurd joke in the world.
The face in the flickering light began to wither, aged by more than a decade, yet still struggling against the wooden staff, Scar Lena’s voice gradually grew old as she said:
–In this world, it’s impossible… that no one regrets… Everyone will think, if they hadn’t made that choice back then, what would things be like… There must be people who crossed paths with you… regretting something from their past…-
{If such a person is born, his story will inspire many, and the holes you tear in the reproduction of fate will shrink.}
Huang Xu, knowing full well he was but material, collapsed onto the ground like a fool, propping himself up with one arm to watch the scene.
–There isn’t a single person in this world… who wouldn’t regret what happened to them… What you speak of… can never happen…-
The woman’s face turned incredibly ancient, and she whispered almost deliriously:
–Across different epochs, we will always find… those who crossed paths with you when you were weak… You will… absolutely vanish…-
{That is exactly what I am waiting for.}
Her knees gave way, and she fell to the ground clutching her wooden staff, her eyes losing all luster as she stared at the slowly dimming circuit on the floor.
{Provided you can still find that era’s [Regret Coordinates], to rewrite the reproduced fate and replace the true history.}
Gray Crow’s hand reached for the wooden staff stuck in the ground, propped up by a withered palm. The five-colored light at his fingertips enveloped the staff, forming a dim, five-hued film that faded into it.
The spiritual storm gradually tore the wooden cabin apart.
Amid the storm, Huang Xu watched the black figure retreat step by step, vanishing at the edge of a world sinking into chaos. Everything was being destroyed by the storm—only the small area around the staff still trembled, struggling to hold together.
His left hand extended toward the staff.
[I have obtained the [Gap-Traversing Pathfinder’s Staff].]
[The Pathfinder’s Staff pitied my lack of knowledge and shared some bloodline alchemy formulas with me.]
[I, the Mysterious Triangle, have obtained the formula for [Regret Node: Century-Old Sprout]: one portion of –sustained regret,- one hundred thousand threads of one-to-three-petal moon essence, five portions of radiance, a bundle of weeds imbued with the breath of a withered forest, magic patterns…]
[I have obtained the formula for [Regret Node: Millennial Sprout]: one portion of –regret lasting a thousand years- or one portion of –imprint containing a clear historical node…-, one hundred thousand threads each of two-to-five-petal moon essence, one portion of heroic shimmer, ten kilograms of sea-mist ice, one coral of white bone, magic patterns…]
–Why can’t I see clearly?-
Those figures appearing in my mind, seemingly radiating a golden luster…
[I obtained the [Regret Branch Point: Ten-Thousand-Year New Sprout] recipe: –A share of regret lasting ten thousand years- or –A share of divine will containing clear historical nodes,- several strands of moon essence ranging from six to ten petals, three to ten portions of heroes’ radiance, a white-bone coral, a tilted throne, magic patterns…]
The words –divine will- were completely invisible; countless waves of chanting, like mountains roaring and seas surging, crashed into my ears, as if a court of ministers were hailing the emperor with a thousand years of –Long live.-
Yet this beam of light naturally made those four characters spring to mind.
A violent spiritual impact struck Director Huang’s head, and a five-colored radiance flared from the surface of the wooden staff, enveloping him completely.
The man’s skin twitched, his eyes rolled back, and he collapsed to the ground—but his hand never let go of the staff.
After a full day of unconsciousness, Huang Xu gradually awoke from his deep slumber. He felt he had a hazy dream—a dream in which his newly built wooden cabin was demolished by two demons whose incomprehensible words he couldn’t even recall.
–So it was just a dream.- Huang Xu lay on the bed, staring at the sluggish gray clouds drifting beyond the roof.
The cold night wind brushed against his body.
Huang Xu scrambled to his feet; several splinters of wood slid off him. He looked around at the wreckage in disbelief and heartache—the cabin was reduced to jagged stumps of planks still rooted in the grass, while the roof and most of the structure lay scattered around him, tangled up like his own fallen body.
–Why, why are you doing this to me!-
He roared in fury, yet he could find no one to direct his anger at.
–Ahh!- Huang Xu hurled a splintered plank onto the barren grass, then scrambled up and started kicking wildly. His foot hit a rock and he crumpled to the ground in pain.
He gripped a wooden staff to steady himself, but the round, grain-covered stick slid outward under his force, sending him sprawling face-first into the dirt just as he was halfway up.
–Ah…-
Director Huang suddenly collapsed onto the ground, weeping.
All that wood he had painstakingly gathered… If only he hadn’t built the cabin here in the first place.
Voices came—Director Huang immediately stifled his sobs. How could there be people in such a remote place! He hadn’t cried that loudly, had he?
He quickly wiped his face before turning to see two men carrying torches and bamboo baskets on their backs.
–Brother, why are you crying? Would you like something to eat?-
–I…- Huang Xu was too mortified to keep crying.
–It’s all right. We’re all from the same place; we should look out for each other. Are you alone? Would you like to stay in our village?-
Huang Xu hung his head.
He recalled the image of himself desperately clinging to the car door; the pleas and curses from the people inside seemed to echo in his ears as if they were real.
–No thanks. I’m afraid I’m cursed by the spirits. Wherever I go, misfortune follows.-
He gripped the staff he had been clutching, used it to push himself to his feet, and hobbled away in a panic.
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