Doomsday Jigsaw Puzzle

Chapter 518: Chapter 135: The Masked Man Who Was Sealed for 700 Years

(Unable to use additional updates randomly for the Silver Alliance, progress 76/100.)

Jiang Yimi stood frozen in place.

This familiar figure caused countless emotions to surge instantly.

It took a long time for her to collect herself and rub her eyes.

Xu Wei looked at the man at the end of the street and at Jiang Yimi’s reaction:

"You know him? An old acquaintance?"

"Yes... An old acquaintance..." Jiang Yimi’s voice choked up.

She had many doubts in her heart, why was this person appearing here?

The masked people numbered three: Bai Wu, Lin Rui, and the uncle.

But each one had a distinctly different aura.

Jiang Yimi would never forget how someone had brought her out of despair and curses seven hundred years ago.

Xu Wei felt that this person in front of him was quite formidable, perhaps even more so than himself, especially the aura the other person exuded, which finally reminded him where that familiar feeling came from—

The aura of time and space.

Although one could not see the expression of the person wearing the mask, when he saw Jiang Yimi, his eyes softened noticeably:

"I can think of few acquaintances, there’s one in Baichuan City, but I didn’t expect Baichuan City to be this lively now."

"There have indeed been big changes here, haven’t there?"

No one responded, Jiang Yimi was still stiff in her spot, and Xu Wei was still observing the Masked Man.

It wasn’t until the Masked Man suddenly disappeared and reappeared two meters in front of them:

"Not long ago... the barrier that bound me was suddenly lifted, and I need a guide to tell me about what has happened over the past seven hundred years. Jiang Yimi, you haven’t forgotten me, have you?"

"I haven’t... forgotten..." Jiang Yimi didn’t know how to face this person.

Seeing the person she had long missed, joy was not the most outward emotion.

The Masked Man spoke:

"If you have any questions, ask."

"Then I will ask, who are you, where are you from, and why is your aura so close to mine? Why is little Jiang crying? You wouldn’t happen to be her ex-boyfriend, would you?"

"How about taking off your mask? Just a glance. You don’t have any unsightly secrets, do you?"

"Why are you only appearing now, where have you been before? You didn’t get into a fight and get hurt, did you? That’s not right, we people with Temporal Power, how could we get hurt?"

Xu Wei’s incessant chatter once made Bai Wu want to throw this man into the sixth floor of High Tower for his destruction.

So Jiang Yimi knew very well that if no one interrupted this talkative man... he could probably go on forever.

"Uncle Xu!" Jiang Yimi shouted to stop Xu Wei.

Xu Wei smiled and stopped talking, but his interference had significantly diffused the tragic atmosphere of their encounter.

Jiang Yimi appeared considerably more composed.

As for the Masked Man, after seriously considering Xu Wei’s questions, he turned to Jiang Yimi and said:

"Do you still remember why I told you I wear a mask?"

"I remember... you said you were too handsome."

"Hahahahaha... I really am shameless, hahahahaha..."

The hearty laughter rang out, and Xu Wei also laughed along, not knowing the reason but feeling like he couldn’t lose in spirit.

Two old men, each more than seven hundred years old, just laughed like that until... suddenly, the laughter stopped.

Because the Masked Man, he took off his mask.

A familiar yet somewhat weathered face appeared in Jiang Yimi’s sight.

The tears she had barely stopped came flooding out again.

Jiang Yimi, regardless of everything else, lunged forward and hugged the man, crying loudly.

Despite the grey blemishes on the man’s face making it look extremely unsightly, as if one side was human and the other was a lifeless ash, Jiang Yimi still recognized him through his features.

She had heard Bai Wu mention it before, about Lin Rui, about The First Generation...

Now, she finally witnessed it with her own eyes.

"Don’t cry, don’t cry, I’m back, aren’t I? Let me think... ah, I remember now, it must have been hard for you back then, right?"

"The evilest principal had appeared, and I just vanished suddenly..."

Jiang Yimi cried even louder, The First Generation’s eyes were full of tenderness:

"A lot of things happened after that... but I should have seen it through to the end, I’m sorry."

After the onset of the fusion illness, The First Generation did not choose to go back to Jiang Yimi, because at that time, other things just happened to be occurring.

Fortunately, seven hundred years have passed, and Jiang Yimi was no longer the Jiang Yimi of the past.

Lin Rui, The First Generation, they were the same person.

For Jiang Yimi, the encounter of this day had almost swept away all the gloom of those days.

Xu Wei looked down:

"I should be under the car."

Jiang Yimi blushed, no longer embracing The First Generation:

"I... you... I..." She hesitated, stopping and starting.

The First Generation wasn’t in a hurry, and after a while, Jiang Yimi said:

"How should I address you, uncle?"

Jiang Yimi had it figured out, even though Lin Rui and The First Generation were the same person, and Lin Rui came before the other in the order of things.

Even so, the two of them, despite many similarities, led entirely different lives.

"Keep calling me uncle, but you can also call me K. My old friends all call me that." K put his mask back on.

Xu Wei observed K with seriousness, as the owner of Temporal Return, he was curious to know whose Temporal Power was stronger, his or that of the person in front of him?

This question was something K had also pondered.

However, Jiang Yimi asked another topic of great concern:

"How come... you disappeared for seven hundred years and then suddenly appeared?"

Bai Wu had once promised to break that cycle.

Could it be that the cycle had been broken just like that?

Was it Bai Wu who achieved it?

K’s wry smile was concealed by the mask, then he said:

"It is indeed... a very strange thing. In my memory, it’s as if I experienced countless deaths. But later..."

Before a certain person appeared, the correct history was like this.

The First Generation, on the brink of death from a grave injury, encountered Lin Rui under the guidance of Jing Liu.

Thus, before dying, he passed his power on to Lin Rui.

Lin Rui obtained the power and eventually became the new Masked Strange Person, and after seven hundred years, in the process of fighting Jing Wu, triggered his Temporal Power, ultimately dying at the hands of Jing Si.

Then he went to the farm—becoming K.

K met Lin Rui again before his death, thus creating a closed loop.

To change cause and effect, whether by stopping K or Lin Rui, might cause massive changes in the entire world.

"What happened next, uncle? Please, tell me quickly, I’m dying to know."

Xu Wei had been babbling on these past few days, successfully accelerating Jiang Yimi’s conversation-catching speed.

It was like someone who got used to watching TV shows at double speed, suddenly switching to normal speed would feel unusually slow.

K said:

"Someone told me that my fate and another person’s fate have formed a closed loop, and the cost of breaking that closed loop is extremely high."

"That person... all shiny with gold, sometimes I think Bai is just a person with special light effects, although he’s not. I digress, but anyway, this person is very shiny, and so is that bald head."

Jiang Yimi knew only one bald guy, but her imagination, as well as everyone else’s, couldn’t equate Qian Yixin with the bald guy mentioned by K.

"So, what then?" Jiang Yimi urged.

K’s pace of speech remained unhurried: freёwebnovel.com

"This person told me that although the closed loop is difficult to break, because of my final choice... there’s actually a perfect entry point to this loop."

"After I met my successor, I left, finding a place to die in silence alone."

"The Bald Guy told me, if I died, it would be a closed loop, but if I didn’t die... the loop would be broken."

Jiang Yimi found it a bit confusing.

But Xu Wei, who had always been adept at controlling time, understood:

"Brilliant!"

"Indeed, it’s brilliant," K admitted to this point as well.

The so-called closed loop began first with: passing one’s power onto Lin Rui.

Next was the separation from Lin Rui and one’s death.

Then Lin Rui eventually appeared at the farm, in the form of a baby, becoming oneself.

Lastly, oneself met Lin Rui again... On the surface, it was a cycle.

But in reality, this cycle was not stable; there was a breakthrough point.

Seeing that Jiang Yimi didn’t understand, K started to slowly explain the encounter he had with the Bald Guy seven hundred years ago.

Back then, the Bald Guy said to K:

"What if, after you’ve passed on your power to Lin Rui, you don’t die?"

K remembered the conversation from that time very clearly.

He was on his deathbed when he suddenly met the Bald Guy and heard these words. Naturally, he didn’t believe them, and it seemed impossible.

"I am critically injured now... even Temporal Power can’t save me. If my fate is really as you say... I cannot change any of this."

"Temporal Power can’t save you, but I can."

The indifference with which the Bald Guy spoke these words remained in K’s memory, even after seven hundred years. Although it should have sounded like wild boasting, K inexplicably perceived it as an insouciance that seemed to say "nothing much," "just like that."

"Who are you?"

"I am a friend of Bai Wu, the son of an old acquaintance of yours. One day, Bai Wu will need your help. You must promise me that you will help him."

It was a rather cryptic statement, yet K sensed that this person’s strength was extraordinary:

"If what you’re saying is true, then for the next seven hundred years, I simply won’t exist. But if I don’t die... any random action I take in the next seven hundred years can change causality."

With a slight smile filled with divinity, the Bald Guy replied:

"Indeed, for the upcoming timeline, up until my death, if you appear during this time or even if someone knows you are still alive, it will cause causality to shift. Under the butterfly effect, it’s very likely that reality will undergo drastic changes."

"So, the solution is simple. From this moment on, act as though you are already dead. I will banish you to a place no one can find. A portion of your power will be passed on, but with my help, it will ultimately be restored."

"For the next seven hundred years, you will cultivate in peace at the location I find for you. Until the appointed time arrives, you won’t be able to leave that place."

Could such a thing really be achieved? Seven hundred years ago, K was considered one of the most powerful beings.

Upon suddenly meeting this Bald Guy, he felt as if the other party might be boasting too much.

But at that moment, with just a snap of the fingers, the residual Inverted Well aura on K that not even Temporal Power could expel... vanished in an instant.

"You needn’t doubt my power. Before I crossed time and space to find you, the person who grievously injured you had already been defeated by my hand."

When K heard this sentence, he felt it was very surreal.

Everything in front of him didn’t seem real.

It was as if the world was distorted, and he could accept many strange people, powerful creatures.

But the bald guy in front of him still exceeded his imagination.

Jing Si had been defeated?

Could such a creature really exist?

If there really was such a powerful entity, would it need to save him? It could solve all chaos on its own.

Even himself, Bai, Xiaoyugan, and the Ten of Spades, as well as the presence that had given him and his companions revelations before... all the efforts they had made seemed like a joke in front of this kind of power.

In front of absolute power, it seemed as if everything lost its meaning.

Of course, K would not know that something like the World Will would converge on a mortal.

He would be even less aware that no matter how powerful the bald guy in front of him was, he couldn’t change anything.

The fireworks in the night sky were indeed splendid, but all they could do was prove that they had existed.

After they went out, the darkness remained.

The Bald Guy didn’t explain too much, and afterwards, he proved to K with actions—gods really existed.

In the subsequent seven hundred years, his strength gradually recovered, even surpassing his former peak state.

But, no matter how hard K tried over seven hundred years, he was never able to break through that golden space.

He was never able to go to the real world.

He tried many times to break apart space, to operate Temporal Power, to cross over to other times.

But no matter how he tried... he always ended up back at the beginning.

So for seven hundred years, K was always in this vast yet monotonous space, constantly improving himself.

This was undoubtedly a torturous process, akin to countless Evil Fallen being trapped in one place for seven hundred years.

But K had great endurance, and in the end, he made it through the seven hundred years.

When the golden barrier broke, the world had changed its appearance.

K went to many places, including Denglin City.

There were only endless ruins in Denglin City, and many powerful Evil Fallen; not long before, it seemed as if a war had broken out in Denglin City.

K didn’t delve deeper, and the next place he went to was Baichuan City.

So, at last, at this moment, he met with Jiang Yimi.

Seven hundred years had passed since he disappeared due to the fusion illness in Baichuan campus, Jiang Yimi and the First Generation Masked Strange Person finally met again.

After hearing the whole story, Jiang Yimi finally understood the logic within.

But all of it was simply too incredible to believe.

Xu Wei was even more dumbfounded:

"I know this world has people who can use origin power to change the rules of time and space, and not be limited to certain abilities like the Sequence... but traverse seven hundred years through time?"

"And to traverse accurately... are you making this up? How could a bald guy be so powerful?"

K could understand the reaction of these two, but this topic was one he needed to turn the page on:

"We should have many topics to talk about. As a person... who has been offline for seven hundred years, I believe there must be a lot of things over these seven hundred years that I need to know."

K patted Jiang Yimi’s shoulder: freēwēbnovel.com

"As for my experiences, it’s still the same saying, heroes never die, Jiang Yimi, I have returned."

"Now, I need to know what exactly has happened to this world."

(The dramatic point in the plot to come involves the assembly of the last generation’s Dragon Slayer and this generation’s Dragon Slayer, but some parts are still being sorted out. Then, today counts as an additional update. There won’t be one at twelve tonight, but there will be two updates tomorrow.)