90: Chapter 90 What Blows Me Away Is Never Fate

When Chen Fan's back slammed against the bluestone wall, the air in his chest hadn't fully settled.

Ignoring the pain, he scrambled and tumbled toward Su Shuang, his knees slamming heavily onto the gravel without him noticing—her fox ears were visibly fading at an alarming rate, like snow powder blown away by the wind, threatening to extinguish even the trembling light on her eyelashes.

"Su Shuang?" He grasped her icy-cold hand; the temperature in his palm felt like it was burning. "Hold on, I... I'll find a way right now..."

Before he finished speaking, her fingers suddenly twitched in his palm.

Chen Fan's Adam's apple bobbed, and when he looked up, he crashed into a pair of flowing galaxies.

Su Shuang slowly opened her eyes. The fox tattoo at the corner of her eyes glowed faint gold, and tiny specks of starlight swam in the depths of her pupils, as if the entire night sky had been crushed and embedded there.

"I saw it..." Her voice was as light as a feather, yet it made Chen Fan's spine tense. "The book of fate isn't in the heavens; it's beneath the foundation of the Seven Towers—every tower presses down on a graveyard of names."

She raised a hand and pointed at his chest. Her fingertip was still trembling. "Luo Yan isn't dead; he entered your system."

As soon as she finished speaking, Chen Fan's temples throbbed.

A hoarse voice shot into his mind through the nerves, like old tree roots scraping against a rock face: "Kid... your critical hit is as noisy as an unearthed grave."

The system notification instantly exploded, blue light flashing across Chen Fan's retina: [Star Speaker Remnant Consciousness Inhabits: Activating "Dual Source Resonance - Alternating Lock": Can actively switch between "Flame Burst" or "Frost Devour" supplementary effects, increasing Critical Hit Rate by 5% with each switch (Max 50%)]

Chen Fan stared at his own fist.

Stardust from the shattered Life Plate still clung to his knuckles, flickering now with his heartbeat.

He remembered how the foreman at the construction site always scolded him, "Stubborn, switch shoulders faster!" Driven by an impulse, he silently muttered, "Flame."

The heat wave carried by his punch shot out first.

Orange-red flames wrapped around the blast, hitting the stone wall. The moment gravel scattered, he gritted his teeth and cut in, "Frost"—as his second punch was delivered, the moisture in the air condensed into ice crystals. Ice shards wrapped in a cold wind stabbed into the previous fire pit. Ice and fire collided, sending up white mist that drew a hazy band of light between the two of them.

The system notification sounded again: [Alternating Mode operating stably, cooldown reduced to 3 minutes]

Chen Fan wiped the sweat from his face and grinned, showing his white teeth: "Before, I got gear from lucky drops; now, I drop whatever I want."

He flexed his aching wrists, about to try again, when his chest suddenly tightened, as if someone had grabbed his heart and given it a hard wrench.

The interface of the critical hit system instantly turned bright red, blood-red warnings scrolling across his vision: [External tampering instruction detected, Source: Starlight Tower - Life Recording Division]

"The seventh one."

The hoarse voice came from above him.

Chen Fan looked up. The Tombstone Guardian was standing amidst the pile of Life Plate fragments, his figure two-tenths fainter than before, like a painting about to dissolve in the rain. "After Luo Yan, you are the seventh Star Speaker to step here... the previous six were all erased by the book of fate."

He raised a hand, pointing toward the top of the tower.

Chen Fan followed his gaze. In the fractured indentation of the character "Luo," golden lines were climbing like living things, reconnecting the broken strokes.

"But what they left behind wasn't corpses; it was echoes," the Tombstone Guardian's voice began to waver. "Every 'name' you hear is them knocking on the door of the book of fate."

Before he finished speaking, his body scattered into specks of starlight.

Chen Fan instinctively raised his hand to catch them, but the stardust passed through his fingers and merged into the calluses on his fists—calluses honed by three years of hauling cement and two years of carrying steel bars, which now shone with a faint golden light.

A muffled sound came from underground, like the final chime of an ancient bell.

Stone Throat's voice drifted up mixed with the echo: "Luo Yan's last words... 'Don't let them turn remembering into a crime.'"

Chen Fan squatted down, shielding Su Shuang behind him.

Her starry eyes were still bright, but her breathing was as light as paper. He could feel her fingers clutching his coat corner, once, twice, as if counting heartbeats.

"I need to master the new mode," he gritted his teeth, recalling what the master builder at the site taught him about carrying beams: "Strength in the waist, power in the shoulder, switching force must be like breathing—inhale to gather, exhale to explode."

This switch between Flame and Frost now felt very much like that subtle technique.

He closed his eyes, treating every switch like a breath: Inhale—frost energy surged from his feet, crawling up his spine, and ice shards formed on his fingertips; Exhale—flames burned up from his dantian, the ice shards hissed and melted, and heat waves rose from his punch.

The first time, the cooldown jumped to four and a half minutes; the second time, three minutes and forty seconds; by the seventh cycle, the system notification sounded almost triumphantly: [Critical Hit Rate increased to 50%]

Chen Fan suddenly opened his eyes.

When he threw this punch, two afterimages trailed in the air—one orange-red like molten iron, one deep blue like a dark pool—twisting together mid-air into a bi-colored flame.

"You're afraid of being remembered?" He looked down at the closed eyes of Su Shuang behind him, then looked up at the newly written character "Luo" on the tower top. His Adam's apple bobbed as he laughed aloud, "Fine—now, I'll take down one name per punch, striking right at your book of fate."

"The direction of the Starlight Tower..."

Su Shuang's voice suddenly cut in.

Chen Fan turned his head and saw her starry eyes narrow, the fox tattoo at her eye corners flushing blood-red. "Someone is writing a new fate pattern, and the brushstroke is stained with blood."

She raised her hand and pointed at the sky. The previously clear heavens were churning with purplish-black clouds. "They are... changing your name."

Chen Fan stood up, the wind whipping the corners of his coat stained with stardust.

He clenched his fist, feeling the remnant consciousness of Luo Yan burning in his palm. Su Shuang's fingers still clutched his coat corner, like a thread connecting all his ferocity and his soft spots.

"The fate pattern was written by you, but the critical hit—" He tilted his head back, bi-colored flames rising from his fist, reflecting brightly in his eyes, "—I earned myself."

He held nothing back in this punch.

Flame and Frost twisted into a vortex at his fingertips. The moment it blasted toward the firmament, the sky looked like a piece of cloth being torn apart. Light streaks, like cracks, shot from east to west, revealing the churning dark purple behind—that was the color of the book of fate. Chen Fan suddenly recalled what Xiao Ma said, "The peach blossoms must be dazzlingly red," and what Yan Li said, "She must shine blindingly when she smiles."

At the apex of the Starlight Tower, The Fate Official, wearing a bronze mask, was bent over his desk writing.

The vermilion brush hovered above the characters "Chen Fan." Just as the tip was about to descend, he suddenly heard the sky explode.

He looked up sharply, just in time to see the light leaking from the rift, stabbing and contracting his pupils.

"Snap."

The vermilion brush broke in two in his grasp.

Chen Fan's fist was still raised in mid-air, the bi-colored flames still dancing.

He looked at the lingering rift in the sky, and his chest suddenly jolted—it felt like a needle, following the lines of the critical hit system, had pierced his heart.

He looked down at his own palm. The golden lines there were twisting at a visible rate, as if someone had grabbed the thread end, intending to drag all the names into the darkness.