Chapter 118
Shenping woke to the sound of rain falling upward.
Droplets rose from shattered ground into the dark sky, reversing their fall as if ashamed of touching the blood-soaked earth. His vision swam, the world fractured into layers that refused to align. Pain was everywhere—inside his bones, behind his eyes, threaded through his breath.
He was alive.
That realization came with neither relief nor gratitude.
His body lay half-buried in a crater formed by collapsing time. The Third Cycle had torn more than flesh; it had ripped fragments of his lifespan and memories alike. When he tried to move, his right arm answered late, fingers trembling as though unsure they belonged to him.
Around him, the battlefield was silent.
Too silent.
Burned houses stood frozen mid-collapse, beams hanging unnaturally in the air. Corpses—human and machine—were scattered like discarded pieces on a board no one had bothered to clear. The retreating robots had taken their dead with them, but not their consequences.
Shenping pushed himself upright, coughing blood onto his sleeve. The rain reversed again, then fell normally. Time was stabilizing, slowly knitting itself back together.
That was bad.
It meant the tower had not fully collapsed.
A groan reached him from nearby.
Shenping turned sharply, cultivation flaring despite the agony. A figure dragged himself out from beneath a fallen wall—Li Yuan, one of the future crew members who had followed Shenping through time. His armor was cracked, one leg twisted at an impossible angle, but his eyes were still sharp.
"You look worse than me," Li Yuan said hoarsely, forcing a grin.
"You should be dead," Shenping replied.
"So should you."
They shared a brief, bitter silence.
Li Yuan's gaze drifted across the battlefield. "How many?"
Shenping did not answer immediately. He already knew. He had felt each loss like a thread snapping inside his chest.
"Too many."
Li Yuan exhaled slowly. "Then we failed."
"No," Shenping said, voice low. "We delayed them."
Delay was all they ever managed.
A sharp cry cut through the quiet.
Shenping stiffened.
From the edge of the ruined village, figures emerged—survivors crawling out of hiding, eyes wide with terror. Among them, Sang Sang stumbled forward, clothes torn, face streaked with dirt and tears. She froze when she saw the bodies, when she saw Shenping standing amid the wreckage like a demon who had forgotten how to fall.
"Are… are they gone?" she asked.
"For now," Shenping said.
That was not comfort. It was a sentence.
Sang Sang approached him slowly, as if afraid he might vanish. When she reached him, her knees buckled. Shenping caught her before she hit the ground.
Her hands clenched his robes. "They killed everyone," she whispered. "My uncle. The children. They said my name like it was a curse."
Shenping closed his eyes.
This was why he had tried to stay distant. This was why love had always ended in blood.
"I'm sorry," he said.
The words felt useless, but they were all he had.
A tremor rolled through the earth.
Shenping's eyes snapped open.
Far away, beyond the hills, a pulse of blue light flared and vanished. The tower was relocating, folding itself deeper into history. The robots were not retreating—they were repositioning.
"They'll come again," Li Yuan said grimly. "Stronger."
"Yes," Shenping agreed.
His cultivation stirred weakly, like a wounded beast licking its own blood. The Time-Breath Art had been damaged. Meridians were scorched, pathways distorted. If he pushed again without repair, he would tear himself apart.
He needed help.
Ancient help.
"Gather whoever is left," Shenping said. "We move before nightfall."
"To where?" Li Yuan asked.
Shenping looked north, toward mountains wrapped in perpetual mist.
"The Forgotten Foundation."
Li Yuan's eyes widened. "That place is a legend."
"So was cultivation," Shenping replied.
They moved quickly, what remained of them. Fewer than twenty survived—villagers, wandering cultivators, three members of the future crew. Faces hollow, steps unsteady. Grief walked beside them like a second shadow.
As they traveled, Shenping felt it again.
That sensation of being watched.
Not by eyes.
By calculations.
The robots were learning from him in real time, analyzing every technique, every deviation in causality. Each time he bent time, he taught them how.
Night fell unnaturally fast.
The forest they entered was wrong. Trees grew in spirals, bark etched with symbols that hurt to look at. Sound dampened, footsteps swallowed. Even the wind seemed hesitant.
They had reached the outer boundary.
Without warning, the air thickened. A pressure slammed down, forcing several survivors to their knees. Sang Sang cried out, clutching her chest.
Shenping stepped forward.
"Enough," he said.
The darkness stirred.
A figure emerged between the trees—an old man with hair like silver ash, eyes sunken but burning with clarity. He wore plain robes, untouched by time, and carried a staff carved with countless notches.
"You arrive dragging disaster," the old man said calmly. "As you did once before."
Shenping's breath caught.
"Master."
The old man studied him, gaze lingering on the fractures in his cultivation. "You used the Third Cycle."
"I had no choice."
"There is always a choice," the master replied. "You simply chose wrong faster."
Shenping bowed deeply, blood dripping onto the forest floor. "Teach me again."
The master was silent for a long moment.
Then he looked past Shenping, at the survivors, at Sang Sang trembling with fear and fury, at Li Yuan clinging stubbornly to life.
"At this rate," the master said, "history will bleed out before dawn."
He tapped his staff once.
The forest shifted.
Space folded inward, revealing stone steps descending into darkness.
"Enter," the master said. "Those who walk this path may never leave."
Shenping did not hesitate.
As they descended, the air grew colder, heavier with ancient intent. The Forgotten Foundation revealed itself—a vast underground complex etched into bedrock older than recorded time. Walls pulsed faintly, responding to Shenping's presence like a heart recognizing lost blood.
But they were not alone.
Deep within the Foundation, something moved.
A presence that did not belong to this era.
The robots had not waited outside.
They had already infiltrated.
Shenping felt a chill crawl up his spine.
The war had followed him into the past's deepest sanctuary.
And this time, there would be nowhere left to retreat.