417: Reverse erosion of the core

When Mirror Su Han's voice echoed within his skull, the entire inverted sea of stars suddenly solidified into a viscous black liquid.

The moment those falling stars touched the ground, they turned into slime, crawling up Su Han's combat boots along the rock crevices and etching dark red patterns onto the metal surface.

More black vines stretched out from the fissure in the center of the bronze giant gate, and this time, each vine was wrapped around a humanoid object.

Those bodies, pierced through the chest by the vines, were still breathing, their embedded Star Cores flickering with the rhythm of their pulses like a string of firefly lanterns.

Su Han noticed that the left eyes of the few corpses closest to the fissure had turned into starry vortices, with the same star sand texture as his own spear rotating within their irises.

The Gravekeeper suddenly grabbed his wrist, her carbonized wounds oozing fluorescent blue blood.

"Your blood is reverse-eroding the Star Core!"

Her voice carried a metallic tremor, and her translucent right arm suddenly materialized into countless star sand spikes.

"Look at the eyes of these corpses! The prophecy passed down through generations of Gravekeepers is coming true—when the child of the Erosion Abyss reaches Awakening—"

The vines suddenly surged collectively, and tentacles made of slime coiled around the Gravekeeper's waist, lifting her up.

Su Han saw that the runes appearing on her back were the exact opposite of the oracle bone script on the bronze pillars; those burning characters burrowed into the vines like living snakes.

The central black vine suddenly split open, revealing a crystal-like network of pipes inside, where countless Star Cores collided at high speeds, emitting a roar like a pipe organ.

"Hold onto me!"

Mirror Su Han's voice suddenly turned sharp, and Su Han felt his shadow detach from the ground and float into the air.

That black shadow suddenly expanded into a body identical to his own, reaching out to pierce through its own chest—there was no pain, only a cold sense of familiarity spreading from the fingertips, as if touching an organ that had existed long ago.

The entire space began to disintegrate into quantum states, and Su Han saw countless versions of himself from parallel worlds falling from the cracks.

The ancient general version wearing black armor burned to ashes in mid-air, the laboratory version in a white coat had a catheter inserted into his left eye while recording data, and the youngest version of himself was already gazing into the Void Realm with bloodshot eyes while still in swaddling clothes.

As each Clone landed, it would transform into a new bronze pillar, with the oracle bone script emerging on it, recording the manner of his death at different stages of his life.

The Gravekeeper's translucent arm suddenly pierced into Su Han's back, connecting a glowing conduit to his spine.

"Now!"

She shouted as she pushed Su Han toward the central fissure, while she herself was dragged into the abyss by the surging vines.

During the fall, Su Han saw Mirror Su Han appear atop countless bronze pillars; those Clones simultaneously raised their blood-stained spears, and the positions pointed to by the spear tips formed a constantly shifting geometric pattern in space-time.

The Star Cores in the Void Realm suddenly all changed direction, forming a bridge of light leading to an unknown dimension.

Mirror Su Han's voice surged from all directions: "Every branch of choice is creating a new cage; the truth of the Erosion Abyss is not ahead, but in the shadows you ignore every time you raise your spear."

The light bridge began to collapse into countless glowing grains of sand; Su Han grabbed a grain of sand during his fall and discovered that it held his infant self sealed inside—the baby, still in swaddling clothes, was smiling at the Void Realm, its eyes reflecting the entire galaxy.

The bronze giant gate had now completely transformed into a massive mechanical device, with purple arcs of electricity constantly bursting from where the gears meshed.

The moment Su Han's spear tip touched the central Star Core, he saw the Gravekeeper pinned to a space node, her chest cavity turned into a translucent energy core, with countless runes moving under her skin like blood vessels.

Most terrifying of all, she maintained a conscious smile, her lips moving as she recited the same oracle bone script as that on the bronze pillars.

"The time anchor has shifted."

Mirror Su Han's Clones suddenly appeared on the surface of all the gears, "You think you are fighting the System? In reality, you are the lubricating oil keeping the gears turning."

His voice carried an eerie echo, and every syllable corroded tiny star sand holes into Su Han's skin.

Viscous liquid starlight oozed from those holes, forming dynamic scenes—the young Su Han having the first rune carved into him on an altar, his youth self Awakening his star sand ability for the first time on an ancient battlefield; at every key node, an invisible hand was pushing the plot forward.

The entire space began to collapse into a Mobius strip structure, and Su Han saw himself running along an infinitely extending corridor.

The left wall reflected his back as he fought valiantly, while the right wall displayed the same scene occurring on an ancient battlefield a thousand years ago, and his enemy's face bore the same gold markings as the Gravekeeper.

"Every cycle produces new variables."

Mirror Su Han suddenly appeared at the end of the corridor, a weeping Star Core floating at the tip of his spear, "But in the end, it will all converge to the same solution."