Chapter 121
The trembling of the Forgotten Foundation deepened, no longer the distant shudder of pressure but the deliberate movement of something vast adjusting its posture after a long sleep. Dust did not fall this time. Instead, it flowed upward, curling into slow spirals that traced invisible currents through the air.
Shenping felt the change immediately.
The pain inside him dulled, replaced by a strange clarity, as though the Foundation itself had acknowledged his presence and decided—reluctantly—not to crush him yet. The fractured pathways of his cultivation stabilized, not healed, but reinforced, like cracked stone bound with iron.
Mei Lin's body lay still at the base of the staircase.
Wan Jie did not move from her side.
No one spoke.
Death had become too frequent to interrupt the silence every time it appeared.
Li Yuan broke it first, his voice rough. "That thing you used just now… that wasn't the Time-Breath Art."
Shenping shook his head slowly. "No. It was… instinct."
The master's words echoed in his memory. You are carving a path no human was meant to walk.
From the depths below, a low sound rolled upward—not mechanical, not organic. It was closer to resonance, like a bell struck deep within the mountain. Symbols along the walls flared brighter in response, rearranging themselves into new formations.
The Foundation was opening.
"Core Vault is responding," Li Yuan muttered. "Or resisting."
"Both," Shenping said.
They continued downward.
The staircase ended in a cavern so vast its ceiling disappeared into darkness. Stone pillars rose like frozen waves, each etched with cultivation arrays layered atop one another in impossible density. At the center floated a massive sphere of translucent crystal, suspended by nothing, slowly rotating.
Inside it, light churned.
Time churned.
Shenping's breath caught. He felt it pulling at him, not physically but conceptually, tugging at his memories, his future, the thin thread of causality tying him to existence.
"The Chronal Core," the master said from behind them.
Shenping turned sharply. "You said you wouldn't follow."
"I lied," the master replied calmly. "This place answers only to those who have already broken time. I had to see if it recognized you."
"And?" Shenping asked.
The master looked at the floating sphere. "It does."
Before Shenping could respond, the air split.
Six figures emerged around the cavern's edge, stepping out of fractured space like reflections peeling off a mirror. These robots were different—larger, heavier, their metal frames reinforced with pulsing arrays that bled cultivation intent.
Each one radiated authority.
"Core Vault located," they spoke together. "Extraction sequence initiated."
The Chronal Core flared.
Reality screamed.
One robot advanced, extending both arms as the space between it and the Core compressed unnaturally. The Foundation resisted, symbols blazing as ancient countermeasures activated.
Too slow.
Shenping moved.
He did not rush forward.
He stepped sideways.
The world shifted.
He felt it clearly now—the thin seam between moments, the place where cause hesitated before becoming effect. He slipped into it, bypassing distance entirely, and appeared directly in front of the lead robot.
Its eyes flashed.
"Adaptation—"
Shenping struck.
Not with speed.
With denial.
His saber cut through the robot's torso, not slicing metal but severing its presence from the current moment. The body froze, then faded, erased from the now and cast into a fraction of a second that would never arrive.
The remaining robots reacted instantly.
Two redirected toward Shenping. Two accelerated toward the Core. The last split its form into mirrored duplicates, flooding the cavern with false trajectories.
Li Yuan roared and charged, hurling himself at one of the advancing units. His spear was gone, his body broken, but his will burned fiercely. He slammed into the robot, triggering a crude explosive seal strapped to his chest.
The blast tore the machine apart.
Li Yuan did not rise.
"Li Yuan!" Shenping shouted.
There was no answer.
Another life gone.
Another weight added.
Sang Sang cried out, collapsing to her knees as bloodline pressure surged violently around her. The robots targeting the Core locked onto her instantly, arrays shifting.
"Anchor interference detected," they intoned. "Secondary extraction authorized."
"No," Shenping whispered.
He felt something snap.
Not break.
Snap into place.
The Chronal Core pulsed once.
Shenping understood.
He turned, placing himself between Sang Sang and the advancing machines. The Foundation's symbols crawled across his skin, burning but not rejecting him. The Core responded to his presence, light spiraling faster.
The master's voice cut through the chaos. "If you do this, there is no return."
Shenping did not look back.
"I passed that point long ago."
He reached inward—not into his cultivation, not into time, but into the accumulated weight of every loss he carried. He offered it up, willingly, as fuel.
The Core answered.
Time folded inward.
The robots froze mid-step, their calculations collapsing under contradictory futures. Shenping moved through them like a phantom, each strike severing not bodies but probabilities. One by one, the machines unraveled, their forms collapsing into inert metal that clanged uselessly against the stone.
Silence fell again.
This time, it held.
Shenping staggered, falling to one knee as the Core dimmed, its rotation slowing. Blood streamed freely from his nose and ears, vision blurring at the edges.
Sang Sang crawled to him, gripping his robes desperately. "You're disappearing," she sobbed.
He looked down at his hands.
For the first time, parts of him were faintly translucent.
The master stood before him, expression grave. "The Core has marked you. You are becoming… unanchored."
Shenping forced a weak smile. "Good. Makes me harder to kill."
But inside, he understood the truth.
Each time he defied time this way, he erased a piece of himself.
And when there was nothing left to erase—
The Foundation shuddered once more, deeper and heavier than before.
From beyond the cavern, something answered the destruction of the robots.
A signal far more refined.
Far more dangerous.
The true commanders had noticed.
And they were coming.