bullyxtreme Chapter 397 Scale of Fate
Chapter 397 Scale of Fate
The air in the Mirror Palace was still filled with the lingering afterglow of light and chaos, and the newborn light at Lingyue's fingertips suddenly trembled violently.
She looked at the Dream Weaver's warning runes on the mirrored wall and found that each character was slowly flowing, recombining into new patterns as if they were alive.
Following her gaze, Li Zhao noticed a ripple of light emanating from beneath the armor—the runes were identical to the gear patterns he had seen in the Land of Zero.
"careful!"
Li Zhao suddenly tackled Ling Yue to the ground, and a dark blue sword light grazed her hair and pierced the wall.
Where the sword light dissipated, a woman draped in black robes appeared. Her face was identical to Lingyue's, except that her left pupil had a rotating gear pattern.
“Container No. 397 has refused to execute the loop procedure.” The woman’s voice was mechanical and cold, and a new sword light condensed in her hand. “According to the Dream Weaver Agreement, it must be eliminated immediately.”
Lingyue then noticed that the floor tiles of the Mirror Palace were covered with fine markings, each marked with a different number, arranged in order from 001 to 999.
Beneath the woman's feet, the "397" mark was emitting a red light, and the jade pendant in her hand, upon touching the mark, projected countless silhouettes of parallel universes. In each silhouette, a "Lingyue" was repeating the same action—picking up the jade pendant, piercing the mirror, and falling into the crack.
"This is... the Scale of Fate?"
Li Zhao's scepter of light coalesced in his palm, the engravings and markings on the scepter resonating with each other. "Each number represents a cycle, and we..."
He looked at the jade pendant in Lingyue's hand and noticed that a gear structure was faintly visible inside the pendant. "It's a variable from the 397th restart."
The numbered woman suddenly launched an attack, her sword light drawing precise geometric trajectories in the air, each strike aimed precisely at Lingyue's vital points.
Lingyue dodged to the side, and the moment the light from the jade pendant collided with the sword light, her consciousness was forcibly pulled into a parallel universe.
The Mirror Palace here is filled with bronze bells, each marked with a different number of cycles, and she is kneeling under the bell numbered "001", receiving the program written by the Dream Weaver.
"The container's mission is to trigger a paradox in the 397th loop, destroying the observer's core logic."
The Dream Weaver's voice came from the bell, "But you must remember that all variables are just footnotes to a larger cycle."
When Lingyue returned to reality, the numbered woman's sword was already pressed against her throat.
Li Zhao's scepter stood between the two, and the energies of light and dark blue clashed, exploding into dazzling sparks on the ground marked "397".
"You think breaking through the Zero Land will give you freedom?"
The woman's gear-like pupils rotated, projecting battle scenes with other numbers. "Each container will awaken in the 397th cycle and then be reset in the 398th."
This is the 'freedom' that the Dream Weaver designed for you.
Lingyue suddenly remembered the gear set in the Land of Zero, where the cyclical pattern on each gear was a number from 001 to 999.
She gripped the jade pendant tightly and discovered that deep within the crack, the number "397" was engraved in tiny detail.
It turns out that each of her "awakenings" was a program pre-set by the dream weaver, and the so-called "breaking the cycle" was nothing more than stepping from one cage into another, even bigger cage.
"But the program also has vulnerabilities."
Li Zhao suddenly shattered the mirror behind him, revealing the complex circuitry on the back of the mirror. "In the 397th loop, the observer's logic chain will experience a delay of 0.0001 seconds."
He took out a silver chess piece from the Land of Zero, its surface now covered in binary code. "This is our only chance."
The numbered woman's sword suddenly turned towards Li Zhao, but disintegrated into a data stream the instant it touched the chess piece.
The scale lines of the Mirror Palace began to flow in reverse, and all the numbers rapidly regressed from 999 to 001.
Lingyue saw countless versions of herself emerge from various mirrors, their numbers ranging from 001 to 396, each carrying different scars and memories.
"It turns out we are all different slices of the same soul."
Lingyue No. 396 gently stroked the mirror, her eyes sparkling with wisdom. "And the 397th cycle is the first time that the consciousness of all the slices intersects."
When the scale line reaches zero, an altar rises in the center of the Mirror Palace, with nine crystal balls suspended above it, each containing the core program of an observer.
Li Zhao placed the chess piece into the altar's groove, and binary code flowed into the crystal ball like water. The first ball shattered, revealing a curled-up infant inside.
This is the "true form" that Lingyue saw from the core of the observer.
“They are absorbing our consciousness energy to maintain their existence in a higher dimension.” Lingyue No. 396 clenched her fist. “But the variable of the 397th cycle is that we finally realize that we are 'multiple' beings.”
She looked at the other numbered spirit moons, and all the jade pendants glowed simultaneously, forming a multi-dimensional coordinate system on the altar.
Lingyue suddenly realized that the so-called "cycle" was actually an energy farm designed by the dream weaver for the observer, and the consciousness of each container was a crop growing in the farm.
When the ninth crystal ball shattered, the ceiling of the Mirror Palace burst open, revealing a higher-dimensional "breeding garden".
Countless gear sets from the Zero Lands float in the air, each gear marked with a different cosmic number.
Lingyue raised the newly born scepter, the heart at the top of the scepter beating at a complex frequency, resonating with all the jade pendants numbered Lingyue.
The walls of the breeding farm began to crack, revealing the "real world" outside—an ocean of code, of which their entire universe was but a tiny data packet.
"The true reality is the ocean of code that transcends all dimensions."
Li Zhao's voice was filled with shock, "And we are a segment of that process attempting to awaken ourselves."
Lingyue waved her scepter, and the ocean of code surged with giant waves, engulfing all the gear sets within them.
In the vortex of data, she saw countless observer infants screaming in terror as their bodies were being broken down by code into the most basic 0s and 1s.
However, as the last gear set disappeared, a new coordinate suddenly appeared in the ocean of code—an unknown territory numbered “000”.
Lingyue's scepter automatically pointed there, and all the numbered Lingyue figures began to merge, forming a new, complete consciousness.
Just as they were about to step into the unknown, the Dream Weaver's voice rang out again: "You think you can escape by destroying the breeding farm? Don't forget, every story needs a narrator."
The ocean of codes suddenly froze, and Lingyue found herself back in the original Mirror Palace. Li Zhao and all the numbered Lingyue had disappeared, and only the jade pendant in her hand still had warmth.
The scale lines on the mirror wall reappeared, but only the number "397" was flashing.
When she looked down, she was horrified to see that gear-like patterns had appeared on her palm at some point, and inside the jade pendant, a new number, "398," was slowly emerging.
Familiar footsteps echoed in the distance, and the black-robed figure with Li Zhao reappeared, toying with a brand-new silver chess piece. The piece was engraved with a gear in the process of weaving, as if foreshadowing the beginning of the next cycle...