20: Chapter 20 Time Thief
The one-hour rest period passed quickly.
Chen Mo stood up and stretched his body.
His mental state had recovered somewhat, but the stinging pain in his right eye remained; that was the price of overusing his Pupil of the Sequence.
He rubbed his eyes and looked ahead.
In the void, that door had fully formed.
He walked over and pushed the door open.
Behind the door was a corridor.
But it was not the corridor of the Orphanage, but a corridor he had never seen before.
White walls, white floors, white ceilings; there were no decorations or signs of any kind.
Every ten meters, there was a lamp emitting a pale, ghastly light.
Chen Mo walked forward.
His footsteps echoed in the empty corridor, sounding as if someone were following behind him.
He turned back.
There was nothing there.
He continued walking.
After walking for about five minutes, a fork in the path appeared ahead.
The two paths, left and right, were identical.
Chen Mo stopped and scanned with his Pupil of the Sequence.
In his golden vision, the path on the left had faint lines, while the right one did not.
He chose the left.
After taking only a few steps, those lines suddenly thickened.
They became blindingly thick.
Chen Mo gripped his cleaver tightly and slowed his pace.
At the corner ahead, something was moving.
He crept along the wall to get closer and peekedβ
It was a clock.
A huge, old-fashioned pendulum clock stood on the ground, nearly two meters tall.
The pendulum swung back and forth, emitting a rhythmic sound.
With every tick, Chen Mo felt his heartbeat slow by a beat.
He stared at the clock, his Pupil of the Sequence operating at full power.
In his golden vision, there was a writhing black shadow inside the clock, and those black shadows extended countless fine threads, wrapping around the pendulum, wrapping around the hands, wrapping around...
Wrapping around his own body.
Chen Mo looked down.
On his wrist, at some point, a golden thread had wrapped around it.
That thread grew out from his skin, extending all the way toward the clock.
γ Detected E-Class Ghost Shadow "Time Thief" γ
γ Ability: Steals the target's sense of time, rendering Prediction ineffective γ
γ Current status: Target locked γ
γ Stolen sense of time: 3-second Prediction γ
Chen Mo tried to activate Prediction.
There was nothing in his vision.
The scene three seconds later was completely blank.
The Prediction ability had vanished.
The clock was still ticking.
With every sound, Chen Mo felt his heartbeat slowing down.
It wasn't psychological; it was physiological, as the interval between his heartbeats was lengthening, from one second to two seconds, from two seconds to three seconds.
His movements began to slow down.
The simple action of raising his hand took three seconds to complete.
He wanted to run, but his legs wouldn't obey, as if stuck in a mire.
The pendulum was still swinging.
Chen Mo stared at the clock, stared at those golden threads.
The source of the threads was that writhing black shadow inside the clock.
As long as he destroyed that black shadow, he could recover his sense of time.
But the problem was, his movements were too slow now. So slow that he couldn't even raise his cleaver.
The pendulum swung again.
Chen Mo felt his heart skip half a beat.
He couldn't go on like this.
He closed his eyes and forced himself to calm down.
Prediction was gone, his movements were slow, but he still had other things.
His Pupil of the Sequence was still there.
His night vision was still there.
His Sequence Resonance was still there.
And there was also the thing he had been using since the Orphanageβ
Instinct.
Chen Mo opened his eyes.
He didn't rush toward the clock, but sat down on the spot.
He closed his eyes, no longer looking at the black shadow, no longer listening to that sound.
He sank his consciousness into his body, into those golden lines.
The energy from the sequence fragments flowed within him, slowly but steadily. Those lines started from his chest, flowing to his limbs, to his head, to every organ.
He could feel them.
He could feel them resisting the golden threads wrapped around his body.
Although slow, they were indeed resisting.
Chen Mo mobilized that energy, making it more active and flowing faster.
The golden lines began to glow, getting brighter and hotter.
Those threads wrapped around him began to loosen.
One snapped.
Two snapped.
Three snapped.
Chen Mo opened his eyes.
His movements returned to normal.
He stood up, gripped his cleaver, and charged at the clock.
The pendulum was still swinging.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
But this time, those sounds couldn't hurt him.
Chen Mo slashed the surface of the clock with his cleaver.
The metal cracked, revealing what was insideβ
A writhing black shadow, with countless golden threads extending from its body, wrapping around every part of the clock.
That was the main body of the "Time Thief".
The black shadow sensed the threat; those threads instantly retracted and all stabbed toward Chen Mo.
Chen Mo did not dodge.
He let those threads pierce into his body.
Intense pain flared up, but he didn't stop.
He swung his blade, hacking at the black shadow, one slash after another.
The black shadow screamed; the sound was like countless clocks chiming at the same time, making one's eardrums ache.
Chen Mo didn't care.
He continued hacking.
One slash.
Two slashes.
Three slashes.
The black shadow's scream grew weaker and weaker, and the threads that had pierced his body began to retract, finally withdrawing completely.
It wanted to run.
But Chen Mo didn't give it the chance.
The final slash landed on the core of the black shadow.
That mass of stuff shattered completely.
Golden threads surged out from the fragments and poured into Chen Mo's body.
γ Killed E-Class Ghost Shadow "Time Thief" γ
γ Obtained: sequence fragment Γ 8 γ
γ Current fragments: 132 γ
γ Obtained special reward: Time Perception (Elementary) γ
γ Time Perception: Can detect time anomalies within a 10-meter radius γ
The clock disappeared.
The corridor also disappeared.
Chen Mo stood in the void, panting heavily.
He was covered in sweat, his clothes soaked and clinging to his body. The places where the threads had pierced him were still painful, as if countless needles were stuck inside.
But he smiled.
Because he had survived.
No Prediction, no invisibility, only instinct.
He had proven one thingβ
Even without those abilities, he was still Chen Mo.
Still the same person who could survive from the first night of the Ghost Night until now.
γ Memory Corridor trial complete γ
γ Killed E-Class Ghost Shadow Γ 3 γ
γ Time taken: 18 hours 47 minutes γ
γ Rating: Perfect γ
γ Obtained: Night Walker sequence certification γ
γ Sequence evolving... γ
Chen Mo felt something changing inside his body.
Those golden lines were accelerating, moving faster and faster, eventually converging into a single point right in the center of his chest.
That point began to glow.
Brighter and hotter, and finallyβ
Boom.
He felt as if the whole world had exploded.
Then everything returned to calm.
Chen Mo opened his eyes.
He was still standing in the void, but it felt different.
He looked down at his handsβthey were still the same hands, but golden patterns were faintly flowing on the surface of his skin.
γ Evolution complete γ
γ Current Sequence: Night Walker (E-Class) γ
γ Ability upgrade: γ
γ Night Vision β Dark Affinity: All attributes +20% at night γ
γ Invisibility extended to 5 seconds, cooldown reduced to 20 seconds γ
γ Pupil of the Sequence evolving... γ
γ Obtained new ability: Sequence Perception (Can detect sequence fluctuations within a 500-meter radius) γ
Chen Mo looked at those words.
Night Walker.
E-Class.
He had finally promoted from F-Class.
A door appeared ahead.
That was the exit.
Chen Mo walked over and pushed the door open.
Outside the door was Old Li's truck.
Old Li was sitting in the driver's seat, smoking a cigarette; seeing him come out, he was stunned for a moment.
"You... have changed."
Chen Mo did not answer.
He just pulled open the car door and sat in the passenger seat.
"Let's go," he said.
Old Li looked at him, looked for a long time.
Then he smiled.
"Alright."
The truck started and drove toward the way they came.
Behind him, that door slowly disappeared.
The Source of the Sequence was still waiting deeper inside.
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