418: Even your fears are part of the plan

"Restrain yourself?" Su Han whispered, repeating Mirror Su Han's words.

The star core, lifted by the tip of his spear, suddenly cracked open, revealing a miniature galaxy rotating inside.

Countless memory fragments fell like a meteor shower—the scorching sensation of gene chains recombining within his flesh at the moment he was struck by a meteorite at the age of seven;

In his past life, at eighteen, the cold sensation of mechanical tentacles piercing his spine when he was injected with nanobots in the laboratory;

Three months ago in front of the bronze gate, the words the Gravekeeper said: "Your blood is eroding the star core in reverse."

The gravity field of the corridor suddenly reversed, and Su Han fell into the center of an altar.

The stone pillars of the altar were carved with star sand patterns identical to his irises, and those patterns flickered with his breathing.

The ground cracked into spiderweb-like fissures, and what surged out was not magma, but liquid memories.

He saw countless versions of himself falling from different timelines.

The body of the Black Armor General version turned into sand upon hitting the ground, yet left behind complete oracle bone script symbols.

"Every method of death is an unfinished equation."

Mirror Su Han's voice came from the bottom of the altar, and at the same time, seventeen identical faces floated up from the star sand.

Their raised long spears wove into a net of light in the Void Realm, but the starlight leaking through the mesh eroded the altar's floor, revealing rotating black gears beneath.

Su Han noticed that the tooth marks on those gears perfectly matched the runes appearing on his back.

Suddenly, viscous tentacles extended from the gaps between the gears, coiling around the nearest Clone.

The Gravekeeper's pale face emerged on the surface of the tentacles.

Her transparent pupils reflected Su Han's expression of shock: "Look, even your fear is part of the plan."

The coiled Clone suddenly revealed an eerie smile, and the blood splashed when the spear tip pierced its chest turned into new gear parts.

The star core beat violently in Su Han's palm, projecting a holographic star map.

The position of a certain blue star in the map flickered constantly, corresponding to the coordinates of every major event in his memory.

When he probed his consciousness into the star map, he was dragged into a torrent of data—he saw himself placed into a culture pod as an infant, with an artificial star core implanted in his chest;

He saw himself dying in various eras under different identities, each death injecting new energy into the giant bronze gate;

Most shockingly, when he traced back to the beginning, he discovered that the so-called "meteorite impact" was actually a precisely calculated gene-triggering event.

The altar suddenly tilted, and as Su Han slid toward the edge, he grabbed a bronze chain.

At the end of the chain was another version of himself—a Su Han ten years younger was tied to a torture rack, with mechanical tentacles bulging under his skin.

The two stared at each other across time and space.

The older Su Han saw a screen floating beside the torture rack displaying a gene modification progress bar, and the younger Su Han suddenly spoke: "You finally remembered? The burning sensation during your first Awakening was actually the star core devouring your pain nerves."

The sound of gears meshing intensified suddenly, and the entire altar began to decompose into quantum states.

Su Han felt his limbs fading, yet clear pain still radiated from his non-existent wrists.

Countless memory fragments condensed into a sharp cry at this moment: "Every choice you make reinforces the System's protective shield!"

This voice came from the resonance of all the Clones, their faces merging in the Void Realm into a single face that combined features of all ages.

The liquid memories suddenly materialized into the form of the Gravekeeper.

Her body was composed of flowing star sand, and every pore was erupting with data streams: "Do you know why your gunshot wounds are never fatal? Because your vital signs themselves are a System error prompt!"

When she passed through Su Han's chest, what she brought out were not internal organs but a constantly refreshing code interface, with the most striking red warning reading: [Subject consciousness pollution level 99%].

At this moment, the star core split into two halves; one half fused into Su Han's spine, and the other embedded into the groove in the center of the altar.

A pipe organ-like roar filled the entire space, and Su Han saw his reflection on all the mirror surfaces simultaneously make the motion of firing a gun.

The moment the bullets traveled through countless parallel worlds, every version of himself died in a different era.

Some were decomposed into light particles by nanobots, some revealed satisfied smiles when run through the heart by ancient swords, and most eerily, one version of him walked calmly into a laboratory and started the brain-computer interface with his own hands.

"This is the true cycle."

The Gravekeeper's voice came from all directions, and her translucent body began to decompose into a rain of star sand.

"Every time you think you are close to the truth, you are actually resetting the System parameters."

Su Han discovered that his memories were being rewritten; the millennium of Reincarnation he had just experienced began to blur, leaving only the scorching heat at the tip of the spear and the sensation of a foreign object in his spine exceptionally clear.

(End of chapter)