Chapter 159: Dark Boundless Realm 14
Kui Xin immediately clicked on the second post about Time Flow.
First Floor: Since entering the Second World, I’ve developed a habit of setting an alarm clock every Return Day. I listen to the sound of the alarm as I enter the Second World, and when the Second World returns to our world, the alarm is still ringing. My alarm has always played a specific children’s song, and every time I return, I hear the song reaching the same words. However, this Return Day, when I came back, I noticed that the lyrics had shifted by two words.
5L (Original Poster): Either my phone has a problem and the time isn’t synchronized, or it’s what my title suggests—time has begun to flow. I checked my phone, and the time synchronization function was not turned off, but I don’t quite believe the latter possibility. I need more verification to prove my hypothesis.
7L (Original Poster): The purpose of posting this is simple. I want everyone to check the time and prove that my hypothesis is false.
12L: How can we verify this? It’s been a long time since the time travel, and we cannot perceive errors of one or two seconds ourselves!
13L: According to the original poster, the changes in time are extremely subtle, making verification even tougher.
17L: Next time I travel, I will use a stopwatch in my hand, and once I return to our world, I’ll stop the stopwatch immediately. That’s the only way I can think of. Another method is to set an alarm like the original poster, listening to the lyrics to confirm the time.
19L: I also set an alarm to remind myself that it’s time on Return Day, but I set it to a vibrating ringtone, so it’s hard to detect changes in time.
20L: To verify, we still need time—the minimum requirement is to travel two more times to prove that time is indeed flowing. Thanks to the original poster’s attentiveness, there will surely be many people verifying this next time we travel. With more people verifying, we can confirm whether time has flowed or not.
Kui Xin looked at the players’ guesses and countermeasures in the post, and her expression darkened.
For other players, a few seconds difference in each travel meant nothing; at worst, it was just a moment of daze. However, for Kui Xin, it was different. During the first week of the travel, facing the attack of the Xenomorph Scythe Demon, Kui Xin returned to the First World during the battle. Later, when she went back to the Second World, she managed to adjust quickly and defeated the Scythe Demon.
If that scenario were to play out again, if she were to be dazed for one or two seconds upon her return, the Scythe Demon would have decapitated her on the spot.
Even with Death Rebirth, it wouldn’t help. Death Rebirth has side effects. If Kui Xin dies and then rewinds time, she would faint for several minutes. The time she faints is increasing, and when she loses consciousness, she is essentially at the mercy of her enemies.
Death Rebirth cannot cross the world barriers. If Kui Xin dies at the instant of traveling to the Second World, then Death Rebirth would at best rewind her time by just a few seconds.
If someone were to kill her during that time, continuously killing her several times would reset the available uses of Death Rebirth to zero, resulting in her complete death, with no chance to resist.
Kui Xin felt a chill run through her, and terrifying conjectures flooded her mind.
Adam.
That name popped into her head.
She realized she wasn’t cautious enough; she could be more careful. Adam, as an AI, had its eyes everywhere—a presence wherever there was a network. It didn’t need to hear from Kui Xin that time might have begun to flow; it could easily obtain that information from elsewhere, like the Investigation Bureau. As the number of players increased, the Investigation Bureau also began to take on arresting tasks, which was not just the job of the TQC.
Kui Xin maintained a tacit understanding and balance with Adam, but now that time was flowing, the players would be at a disadvantage. Every day was a matter of life and death for Kui Xin; she couldn’t guarantee that she was in an absolutely safe environment whenever she traveled. If someone were to attack her during the time delay of a few seconds, she would definitely be unable to react.
The crises she faced were not just external but also internal.
Kui Xin bit her lip and picked up her phone to set a new alarm, changing it to a song with lyrics instead of just a vibrating mode. She had always had the habit of setting an alarm, but the last two travels had been relatively stable, so she had turned it off temporarily while traversing space-time in her sleep.
It seems she wouldn’t be able to sleep the night before a Return Day anymore; she needed to keep herself alert to respond to any sudden situations.
Kui Xin refreshed the thread about time once more.
In the thread, various discussions about time flow and world fusion had emerged.
45L: Although the hypothesis of time flow hasn’t been fully proven true, and we need a lot of evidence to confirm it, I’d still like to make a hypothesis based on this point. If later it is proven that the hypothesis of time flowing is false, just take what I said as nonsense. The following is purely speculative.
49L: To get to the conclusion—two worlds are merging. This theory has been discussed ad nauseam in the forum and is the mainstream view among people. The flow of time proves that the degree of merging is increasing, and the overlap between the two worlds is becoming deeper. From the initial sky phantoms to the current hypothesis of time flow, the merging of the two worlds has progressed gradually.
51L: My main speculative direction is about what the two worlds look like after merging. We can use listing methods to identify what the Second World has that the First World doesn’t.
Below, players quickly began to respond.
59L: High technology, a highly centralized government, oligarchic politics, superpowers, xenomorphs, secret cults… gods!
60L: The items listed in 59L are quite comprehensive, but please delete the first three. Our First World’s technology may also develop to the level of the Second World in the future. As for the political groups and oligarchs of the Second World, certain forms existed in our First World as well; I can only say that, based on what we can see, the Second World does not exceed the First World. What I want to say is, if the two worlds overlap, and their similarities increase, will some things from the Second World come to the First World?
61L replies to 60L: No way, are you implying that…
62L replies to 60L: Don’t say that, I’m already starting to get scared.
67L: Superpowers, xenomorphs, gods. With the emergence of players, we now have super-powered individuals in our First World. Currently, extraordinary abilities are limited to the player group, but in the near future, during the public test, will everyone have a chance to awaken extraordinary powers? Will awakenings occur not just within the player community?
68L: Think deeper. With the increasing degree of world fusion, phantoms have appeared in the sky. Long ago, some speculated that those phantoms would become real and officially descend into this world. But aside from phantoms, will xenomorphs and gods also properly invade our world?
72L: Saying this is not just speculation; it’s also to alert everyone. The world is no longer what we know. The game is still changing, the world is still evolving, and every step we take leads us into the unknown. No matter how crazy things become in the future, we will have to face them. In fact, we may be among the first to confront those madnesses, being pioneers and leading figures, because we chose this game, and the game chose us; being in this environment means we must prepare to ride the tide of the times.
73L: Do not become a victim of the waves of time; don’t move forward passively. Be proactive in embracing the waves of the era. Only active individuals can ultimately laugh last. That’s what I really want to say.
Kui Xin’s expression was complex. There were plenty of players within the group who thought deeply about the existence of the game, and these ideas were things Kui Xin had also pondered, as she had experienced much and thus thought more.
The invasion by xenomorphs and gods might have already become a foregone conclusion.
Fang Zhi, the heterogeneous blooded man, had many unexplained mysteries surrounding him. During the escort of He Kangshi, Kui Xin had also encountered an attack from heterogeneous blooded beings. He had said, “The gods are watching you.”
The gods of the Second World truly exist. Would their powers infiltrate into the First World?
Those things that originally only existed in conjecture began to surface gradually, but beneath the surface lay many more secrets.
Kui Xin exited the thread and opened the post about Remover 777.
The original poster, who claimed to have been attacked by Remover 777, described the incident in the first post. This poster was a foreigner, and the post was written in English, causing Kui Xin difficulty with some words.
First Floor: On August 21 in the Second World, Remover 777 suddenly came to the residence of me and my companions and launched an attack on us. The result of this attack, as I said, my friend died, and I injured Remover 777 with a bomb, but he fled.
You might be wondering how I know the attacker was Remover 777. That’s because my companion and I exchanged player IDs, and his Proxy ID was on the list of deceased players. It was obvious who killed him, so when I returned, I immediately checked the death list and confirmed the identity of the attacker.
I want to reveal the characteristics of Remover 777 in this thread.
He is male, possesses at least two extraordinary abilities, one of which is related to mind control and has very strong control, likely around level C. Another ability is quite bizarre; I saw him fire a bullet from a handgun that could curve! However, this ability may have limitations, as the mechanical limb installed on my chest blocked that bullet, and he did not fire another curving bullet at me thereafter.
This is the intelligence I gathered during the fight with Remover 777. I analyze that his second ability is related to “absolute hit,” but absolute hit comes with a condition, which is that after a hit fails, he can’t shoot another bullet with an absolute hit at the same target. So, he didn’t use that ability again afterward. But this is just speculation; the real conditions for activating extraordinary abilities are known only to the owner of those abilities. Stay alert, everyone!
scrolling down the thread, the replies had exceeded eighty in just five minutes.
The earlier posts were mostly expressing gratitude to the original poster for the intelligence and asking about his safety, while more people analyzed the identity of Remover 777. Shortly thereafter, the original poster revealed the location where Remover 777 had appeared—the Federal Administrative Central City—and stated that he had escaped there in the night after the attack.
This poster clearly had considerable strength, given that he managed to fend off Remover 777.
However, once it reached the fiftieth floor, the tone changed.
50L (Original Poster): During the battle, I angrily questioned Remover 777 about why he killed players. He said he had made a bet with Remover 233 about who could kill more players.
As soon as this statement was made, the forum erupted, and everyone began to denounce Remover 233 again.
51L: A madman paired with a madman, freaks gathered together.
52L: Let those players who worship Remover 233 see what good deeds he has done. To agree to such a bet, what good could Remover 233 possibly be?
53L: But this time, Remover 233 didn’t kill a single compatriot.
54L replies to 53L: That must have been because he didn’t have the chance; maybe when we come back next week, we will see a few more lines on the deceased list.
Kui Xin’s heart remained unperturbed as she skimmed past these comments when her phone pinged with a new message.
He Kangshi: “Boss, Augus contacted me.”
