Chapter 120
The Forgotten Foundation breathed.
That was the only way Shenping could describe it. The stone beneath his palms pulsed faintly, not with warmth but with rhythm, like a colossal heart buried beneath the mountain. Each pulse sent a ripple through his bones, syncing unwillingly with the fractured circulation of his cultivation.
He pushed himself upright.
The pain was different now. Sharper, more precise. Where before it had been chaos tearing him apart, now it was pressure—controlled, deliberate, as if the Foundation itself were reshaping him without permission.
Around him, survivors lay scattered across the chamber. Some were unconscious, others curled in silent agony. Sang Sang knelt near the wall, arms wrapped around herself, eyes squeezed shut as if afraid to open them again.
Li Yuan sat slumped against a pillar, breathing hard. His twisted leg had been crudely bound, but blood still soaked through the cloth. When he saw Shenping stand, he let out a weak laugh.
"Still alive," he muttered. "Figures."
The master had not moved. He stood at the center of the formation, staff planted firmly, robes unmoving despite the violent currents of power swirling around him.
"They're reorganizing," the master said calmly.
Shenping felt it too.
The cold presence that had brushed his mind earlier was no longer scattered. It had become focused. Coordinated. The robots were no longer testing the Foundation—they were preparing to dissect it.
"How long do we have?" Shenping asked.
The master's eyes lifted, unfocused, as if looking through layers of stone and time. "Minutes. Perhaps less."
A low vibration rolled through the chamber. Lines of light along the walls flared brighter, responding to an intrusion deeper within the complex. Somewhere far below, ancient seals were being forced open—not broken, but persuaded.
"They're learning how to talk to it," Li Yuan said grimly. "Like thieves picking a lock."
Shenping clenched his fists.
The Foundation was not just shelter. It was knowledge. Techniques refined across eras, philosophies abandoned by history, methods even the future had never fully unearthed. If the robots absorbed it—
No.
He would not allow that.
"I'll go down," Shenping said.
Sang Sang's head snapped up. "You can barely stand."
"That's why it has to be me," he replied. "They're here because of me. They'll adapt to anyone else too quickly."
The master studied him for a long moment. "Your cultivation has changed. You are unstable."
"I've always been unstable."
A faint, humorless curve touched the master's lips. "True."
Another tremor shook the Foundation. This one was closer. Dust fell from the ceiling in slow, spiraling patterns as gravity briefly forgot which way it pointed.
The master struck his staff once. The chamber split open at its center, revealing a descending spiral staircase carved so smoothly it looked grown rather than built. Darkness pooled below, thick and expectant.
"The Core Vault," the master said. "If they reach it, this war ends before it truly begins."
Shenping stepped forward.
Li Yuan pushed himself up with a grunt. "You're not going alone."
"You can't even walk," Shenping said.
"Watch me."
Before Shenping could argue, Li Yuan limped forward, leaning heavily on his spear. Two other future crew members followed—Wan Jie, silent and scarred, and Mei Lin, her expression brittle with barely-contained terror.
"We came to change history," Mei Lin said. "Running now would be worse than dying."
Sang Sang stood as well.
"No," Shenping said sharply.
Her hands trembled, but her gaze did not waver. "They're killing everyone because of me. I won't hide while you bleed for it."
Shenping opened his mouth—
The master raised a hand. "She must come."
Shenping turned. "Master."
"The Foundation recognizes bloodlines," the old man said. "And so do the machines. If she stays behind, she becomes bait."
Sang Sang swallowed hard.
Shenping nodded once. "Stay close to me."
They descended.
With every step downward, the air grew heavier, colder, saturated with something that made Shenping's skin crawl. Symbols carved into the walls shifted subtly as they passed, rearranging themselves in patterns that defied logic.
Then they heard it.
Footsteps.
Perfectly measured. Unhurried.
The darkness ahead peeled back.
Three figures stood blocking the path.
They wore no human disguises.
Their forms were sleek, angular, metal exposed and etched with glowing arrays that pulsed in harmony with the Foundation itself. Each movement was accompanied by a faint distortion, as if reality hesitated to agree with their existence.
One stepped forward.
"Shenping," it said. "Temporal anomaly. Cultivation variable. Confirmed."
Its voice was neither male nor female, stripped of inflection.
"We have updated projections."
Another added, "Probability of total eradication increased."
Li Yuan laughed weakly. "Always hated optimists."
The robots moved.
They did not rush. They split.
One vanished, reappearing behind Wan Jie in a blink of distorted space. A blade extended from its arm, humming with stolen cultivation intent.
Shenping reacted instantly.
Time-Breath Art surged—not fully, not recklessly. He bent time just enough. The blade slowed. Shenping twisted, slashing through the robot's arm and driving his saber into its torso.
The robot did not fall.
It seized his wrist with inhuman strength. Data flickered across its exposed core.
"Technique recorded."
Shenping felt something tear.
Not flesh.
Information.
A fragment of his cultivation pattern was ripped free, analyzed in real time. Agony tore through his head as if his thoughts were being dissected.
"Let go," he snarled.
The third robot struck.
Mei Lin screamed as a beam of compressed force tore through her side, hurling her into the wall. Sang Sang cried out, rushing toward her.
"Stay back!" Shenping shouted.
Too late.
The second robot shifted targets, its gaze locking onto Sang Sang. Symbols flared along its body—bloodline recognition confirmed.
Shenping felt fear then.
Pure, sharp, undeniable.
He burned it.
Time-Breath Art, Fourth Distortion.
Not a Cycle.
Something new.
The world snapped sideways.
For an instant, Shenping existed in overlapping moments—past pain, present fury, future regret colliding inside his chest. He ripped his wrist free, ignoring the tearing of flesh and spirit alike, and crossed the distance to Sang Sang in a step that did not belong to any timeline.
He struck.
The robot's head separated from its body in silence.
Its core detonated a breath later, a controlled implosion that collapsed inward, devouring itself.
The remaining robot paused.
Recalculating.
Li Yuan took that moment to drive his spear through its back. The weapon shattered on impact, but it disrupted the robot long enough for Shenping to finish it with a strike that aged its body into corroded ruin.
Silence returned.
Mei Lin lay unmoving.
Wan Jie knelt beside her, hands shaking as he pressed uselessly against the wound. Her eyes fluttered open once, just long enough to focus on Shenping.
"We… slowed them," she whispered.
Then she was gone.
Sang Sang sobbed quietly, face buried against Shenping's shoulder. He did not move. He did not speak. He only felt the weight of another death settle into the space where his heart should have been.
Li Yuan wiped blood from his mouth. "They copied you faster this time."
"Yes," Shenping said hoarsely.
"And they'll do it again," Li Yuan added. "Until there's nothing left of you they haven't stolen."
Shenping looked deeper into the darkness, toward the Core Vault.
"Then I'll stop giving them time to learn."
The Foundation trembled again—harder.
From far below, something answered.
Not a machine.
Not human.
Something ancient.
Something awake.
Shenping tightened his grip on his saber.
Whatever lay ahead, the war had crossed a line.
And there would be no going back.