Legend of the Embroiderer

Chapter 416 Quantum Games

A gigantic chessboard floats in the center of the spacetime rift, like a death net that covers the heavens and the earth.

Each cell is enveloped in a dark blue energy field, gleaming with a cold metallic luster, like countless vigilant eyes.

The fireflies trapped in the chessboard all looked up at the same time, each with a different posture but full of struggle and resentment.

The baby, numbered - 999th in the cycle, lay in the incubator model, its mechanical cries echoing throughout the space. The chip on its neck flashed wildly, and the data cable, like greedy tentacles, grew rampantly along the gaps in the swaddling clothes.

The gear-like body of the 414th cycle is fiercely fighting with the afterimage of the woodcutter. When the mechanical joints collide, what bursts out is no longer machine oil, but a memory fluid that gleams with silver light. Each splash seems to tell the story of the altered past.

At the edge of the chessboard, countless young woodcutters held broken pens, their tips connected to the chess pieces, forming a precise and terrifying network of control. The upward curve of their lips was identical, and their eyes revealed a chilling indifference and a desire for control.

"This is your very own Truman Show."

The woodcutter closest to Xiaoying slammed his broken pen against the chessboard, the resulting ripples like surging waves that shattered Xiaoying's newly formed consciousness.

His voice, laced with the static of the data stream, was filled with sarcasm and smugness: "From your very first cry, every act of resistance you've shown has been part of a pre-programmed sequence."

As he flipped his wrist, Hotaru, in the 317th cycle, suddenly raised the scissors uncontrollably, the blade pointing at her own heart.

The blade reflected countless grinning faces of young woodcutters, as if mocking her powerlessness and insignificance.

The girl who awoke in the incubation chamber suddenly narrowed her eyes. A sharp data cable suddenly extended from the chip on the back of her neck, like a pair of cold hands, forcibly pulling her into the nearest chessboard.

The zero-dimensional seed suddenly burst forth with blinding light, condensing into an ancient and mysterious compass amidst the turbulent flow of consciousness.

The pointer spun wildly, making a teeth-grinding metallic scraping sound, and finally trembled as it pointed to the "forbidden square" at the deepest part of the chessboard.

Xiaoying's quantum state fragments struggled to converge along the light, and while passing through layers of defense, they were attacked by countless memory traps.

Some fragments are sucked into false, beautiful memories, while others are trapped in an endless cycle of fear.

But with their unwavering will, the fragments finally pierced through the fog and witnessed a heartbreaking scene: Lingyue was imprisoned in a cage made of chains of memories.

Her consciousness was dim as a candle flickering in the wind, yet it continued to release encrypted signals, each glimmer like a flame of hope swaying in the darkness.

"The firewall... in your memory of your first lie!"

Lingyue's voice, mixed with static, was filled with anxiety and anticipation.

Her body suddenly exploded into countless butterflies, each wing reflecting scenes from Xiaoying's childhood—scenes filled with laughter, tears, and the purest of hearts.

The giant chessboard began to spin at high speed, emitting a breathtaking roar, and all the chess squares turned into a vortex of data streams.

The young woodcutters simultaneously wielded their pens, and blood-red game rules appeared in the void: "Movement is alteration, resistance is verification."

"These cold words are like a verdict of fate, plunging the trapped fireflies into despair."

Xiao Ying, trapped in the 13th cycle, tries to jump across the chessboard to escape this terrible constraint, only to find that her memories are being formatted, and those precious memories are slipping through her fingers like sand.

As the observer form, Xiao Ying, in the 289th cycle, gathered energy and prepared to resist, she was decomposed into narrative code by the broken pen ray and dissipated into the merciless spacetime.

The girl in the incubation pod dug her fingernails deep into her palms, and where the blood dripped, thorny binary vines sprouted from the ground. These vines, carrying her anger and resentment, grew wildly.

The nanobots left behind by Li Zhao suddenly awoke in her blood, like a sleeping warrior being awakened.

They transformed into silver threads that wrapped around her arms with a do-or-die determination, the ends of the threads piercing into the gaps in the chessboard.

This action successfully activated the virus program hidden deep in her memory, the spark of hope that Li Zhao had painstakingly planted for her.

Just as the woodcutter's broken pen was about to touch the baby chessboard numbered -999, the virus spread like wildfire, turning the control threads into a dazzling gold with overwhelming force.

"This is impossible!"

The woodcutter closest to the camera staggered backward, a look of panic appearing on his face for the first time. Cracks began to appear on his mechanical body, as if announcing the failure of his operator.

The compass in zero dimension suddenly rotated in reverse, projecting Xiaoying's memories from when she was seven years old.

In the scene, sunlight streams through the classroom window onto the desks. In class, she tells her first lie to protect a bullied classmate.

At that moment, her eyes were full of determination and courage.

Deep within her memory, Li Zhao's nanobots are quietly rewriting her brainwave frequency, planting seeds of truth within the folds of her lies.

At this moment, the virus program surged along the memory channel, melting all the woodcutter's broken pens into molten iron. Those weapons that once symbolized control and oppression have now become scrap metal.

But the crisis was not over. The chessboard suddenly began to collapse, and each square turned into a black hole that devoured consciousness, as if it would engulf everything in endless darkness.

"It's time to end this farce." The real woodcutter emerged from the core of the chessboard; his body was pieced together from the remains of countless experimental subjects, emanating a nauseating stench.

The heart beating in her chest was made from fragments of Xiaoying's memories, and each beat was accompanied by her pain and struggle.

With a wave of his hand, all the black holes merged into a giant gear. The gear turned with a deafening sound, trapping the consciousness of the fireflies between its teeth.

The girl in the cultivation pod suddenly ripped open her clothes, revealing a glowing zero-dimensional seed at her heart.

Its root system has spread to the blood vessels throughout the body, like the veins of life.

"You've forgotten, the real firewall... is the moment I chose to believe."

Her voice was firm and powerful, and her eyes shone with an indomitable light.

In the burst of light from the Zero-Dimensional Seed, all the Fireflies from parallel universes simultaneously raised their weapons.

The baby, numbered - 999th in the cycle, grabbed the data cable and pulled it backward, demonstrating the primal power of life.

In the 414th cycle, the geared body used its mechanical skeleton to pry open the gears, producing a deafening roar.

The girl in the incubation chamber injects the virus program into her heart, using herself as a catalyst, determined to break this cruel situation.

When the light reached its peak, the chessboard exploded, and the woodcutter's body fragments scattered like stardust.

But deep within the ruins, the sound of gears meshing again could be heard, and an even larger figure emerged from the shadows.

It was a gigantic observer formed by the fusion of all the woodcutter youths. Its body blotted out the sky, and its pupils flashed with a scarlet light. It was generating the initial code for the 417th loop, foreshadowing a new crisis that was about to descend.