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[Urgent Mission: Intercept the enemy in conjunction with members of the Dimensional Alliance]
[Mission Reward: Unknown]
Lin Ye gripped his straw hat tightly, turned, and rushed towards the teleportation chamber. Sunlight streamed through the space station's porthole, casting a long shadow behind him. The light of the dimensional network flickered in the starry sky, like countless eyes watching the battlefield.
"Luffy, it's our turn to help you this time."
Chapter 357: A Battle Across Time and Space
The arena of the Tournament of Power trembled violently from the energy surge. Suspended debris, like stardust manipulated by an invisible giant hand, traced eerie trajectories against the crimson sky. Lin Ye's silver hair danced wildly in the shockwave, his unrestrained silver-white aura colliding with Jiren's blazing golden light to create a ring-shaped shockwave, forcing the Gods of Destruction in the stands to simultaneously erect protective shields. Beerus nearly crushed the planet model in his hand with the destructive energy at his fingertips, while Champa cursed as he used an energy shield to protect his pile of snacks.
“Your rhythm is off.” Jiren’s voice was like the clash of metal. He stood on a floating rock a hundred meters away, slowly retracting his right fist. The golden energy remaining on his fist burned black marks in the air. “Since just now, your attack intervals have been 0.3 seconds longer.”
Lin Ye wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, the system interface flashing wildly on his retina. He suddenly grinned, a hint of deep blue flashing in his silver hair: "That's because I'm calculating how much force it will take to send you back to the eleventh universe."
Before he could finish speaking, his body had already transformed into a silver meteor, plunging downwards. This time, he deliberately slowed his movements, letting Jiren's fist graz his left shoulder, while his right palm, condensing into a "Space-Time Collapse Fist," slammed towards his opponent's chest with a distorted airflow. Before the fist even arrived, the rubble on the ground began to float in reverse, forming a strange anti-gravity zone.
"In vain." Jilian blocked with his left arm, and golden flames suddenly expanded. The moment the two forces collided, Lin Ye's pupils shrank. The opponent's aura actually completed three density transformations at the instant of contact, changing from a viscous, liquid-metal-like state to a thin, quantum-state state, perfectly dissipating the force of spacetime distortion.
"Playing phase shifting?" Lin Ye grunted, using the recoil to leap back ten meters, blood gushing from the wound on his left shoulder. "You're still too green to learn Champa's tricks of destroying energy."
Jiren suddenly lunged forward, his knee striking Lin Ye precisely in the abdomen. The excruciating pain made Lin Ye's vision blur, but he used the momentum to forcefully twist his body, his right leg sweeping towards Jiren's throat with a silvery-white aura. This whip kick contained the instinctive anticipation of the Free and Ultimate Technique, and should have been unavoidable, but Jiren dodged it by leaning back at an angle that defied the laws of physics, his nose even brushing against the tip of Lin Ye's shoe.
"Among all the strong in the universe, you are indeed special." Jiren's fists rained down like a storm, each strike precisely hitting the gaps in Lin Ye's defense. "But a warrior who relies on the system can never become a true strongman."
Lin Ye suddenly unleashed a burst of energy that blasted his opponent away, his silver hair turning a touch of crimson in that instant: "System? You think I'm like you, able to comprehend the power of a God of Destruction on my own?" He abruptly ripped open his collar, revealing the system core on his chest radiating a ghostly blue light. "Look at this! This core was forged from the remnants of 'me' from thirty-seven parallel universes! Every failed Lin Ye helped me remember how to become stronger!"
Jiren's pupils flickered for the first time. In that instant of hesitation, Lin Ye's figure suddenly split into nine, each wielding a different weapon: the sharpness of the Supreme Kai Sword, an ice spear formed from Namekian magic, and even the Saiyan sword given to him by Vegeta. This was his new technique, created by fusing "Skill Copy MAX" with Ultra Instinct: "Nine Styles: Ultra Instinct".
“Interesting.” Jiren’s body erupted with an unprecedented golden light, and spiderweb cracks appeared in the energy shield of the arena under this aura. “Then I’ll show you just how strong true will can be.”
Nine Lin Ye launched their attacks simultaneously, their sword energy, magic, and energy blasts weaving together in the void to form a three-dimensional cage. Ji Lian, however, stood motionless until the very moment the attacks were about to hit him. Suddenly, transparent ripples spread across his body, and all the attacks pierced through his body, slamming into the energy barrier behind him and exploding into dazzling bursts of light.
"You're trying to squeeze into a narrow dimension, huh?" Lin Ye's clone frowned simultaneously, a blue light flashing in his left pupil. "Each time lasts a maximum of 0.7 seconds, and your cell activity drops by 1.2% after using it up. How many more times can you last?"
"Now it's my turn." Jilian's voice came from behind Lin Ye. Lin Ye instinctively turned around to block, but was forced back by an unexpectedly strong force. He then realized that tiny spatial rifts surrounded his opponent's fist, and those rifts were frantically devouring the surrounding light, forming miniature black holes.
"Cough..." Lin Ye crashed into the broken stone pillar, feeling that at least three of his ribs were broken. "Distorting the physical constants? Your move is much more insidious than Vegeta's Ultimate Flash."
Jiren pressed on relentlessly, golden flames condensing into a small sun in his palm: "Give up. No matter how fast you grow, you can't keep up with the absolute gap in strength."
Lin Ye coughed up blood, but suddenly laughed. He looked at Ji Lian's increasingly serious face, raised his hand to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth: "You're scared. That punch just now, you used 80% of your strength, didn't you?"
Jilian didn't answer, but his clenched fist betrayed his thoughts. He was indeed wary. Every time Lin Ye was injured, his aura not only didn't weaken, but instead surged in stages. This unlimited growth physique was precisely the ability he feared most.
"The essence of the Tournament of Power is the struggle for the authority of the Gods of Destruction," Lin Ye suddenly spoke, his silver-white aura mixed with the purple unique to the Gods of Destruction. "Beerus told me that he made a bet with Champa, not about which universe was stronger, but about which will would prevail in the end." His figure began to blur, and he broke through the realm of Ultra Instinct once again on the edge of life and death. "Your will is 'Absolute Justice,' while my will is... to live and protect everyone I care about!"
[Ding! Emotional outburst value exceeds 120%, triggering the "True Ultimate Freedom" state!]
Lin Ye's figure left afterimages in place, and the next second he appeared above Jiren's head. This kick was imbued with the power of spacetime; the moment it landed, the golden flames on Jiren's body reversed, as if time had rewound for a moment. The instant the previously impenetrable defense showed a flaw, Lin Ye's fist was already imprinted on his chest.
"Pfft—" Jiren spat out golden blood for the first time, his body flying backward like a kite with a broken string, crashing into seven floating rocks before barely coming to a stop. He looked down at the fist mark on his chest, where his combat suit had turned to ashes, and spiderweb-like cracks appeared on his skin.
"This is impossible..." Jiren's voice was filled with disbelief, "How could Ultra Instinct be..."
“This is not ordinary Ultra Instinct.” Lin Ye slowly approached, his silver hair fluttering in the wind. “This is a path that combines system analysis, Saiyan bloodline, and even the authority of the God of Destruction… It is my own path.” He suddenly raised his hand, and a black and white energy ball condensed in his palm. “This move is called ‘Chaos Tri-Blast,’ a ‘gift’ made from the remnants of the 73rd Universe that you destroyed.”
Jilian looked up abruptly, a deep pain flashing in his eyes: "You investigated me?"
"The files of Universe Eleven aren't that hard to find." Lin Ye flicked his wrist, and the energy ball's rotation suddenly accelerated. "Back then, for the sake of so-called 'absolute justice,' you personally blew up the universe you were protecting. Did that feel good?"
"Shut up!" Jiren's aura surged again, golden light interspersed with black lightning. "That's to stop the spread of the Void! What do you, an outsider, know!"
He crossed his arms in front of his chest, his muscles began to ripple and swell, and his bones emitted a teeth-grinding grinding sound. The gravity on the field suddenly increased a hundredfold, and Lin Ye's knees bent slightly under the pressure, but his eyes grew even more determined.
"Stop the void? I think you're just afraid of facing failure." Lin Ye's silvery-white aura suddenly surged, and he stood up straight despite the hundredfold gravity. "Jilan, your greatest strength isn't power, it's self-deception."
[Jiren has activated "Forbidden Potential Unleashed," current combat power exceeding 3000 million units.] The system issued its highest-level alert. [Support signal received from Ark Space Station; Vegeta and Goku have broken through the dimensional barrier.]
"No need," Lin Ye said softly, slowly pushing the Chaos Chi Cannon toward Ji Lian. "This battle must be ended by myself."
Just as the energy cannon was about to strike, Jiren suddenly smiled. It was a smile of relief. He dissipated all his energy and opened his arms to welcome death: "You're right. A true strongman is not one who upholds absolute justice, but one who acknowledges his past."
The Chaos Chi Cannon transformed into a shower of light the moment it touched Jiren's body. Lin Ye stood in the rain of light, watching Jiren's body gradually become transparent, and suddenly realized that his opponent had deliberately surrendered.
“Tell the Omni-King…” Jiren’s last words were tinged with laughter, “The key to fighting against ‘Nothingness’ lies hidden in the ruins of Universe 73…”
As the light faded, only Lin Ye remained on the field. Beerus's voice echoed in his mind: "Well done, kid. But don't get too excited. Jiren's 'nothingness' is the real trouble."
Lin Ye looked up into the depths of space, where absolute darkness was slowly expanding. He clenched his fist, and a new notification popped up on the system interface: [Victory in the Tournament of Power, reward: "Fragment of the God of Destruction's Authority x1", unlocked access to the Sixth Universe]
In the distance, Vegeta and Goku's figures broke through the clouds, and the Saiyans' roars shook the heavens.
"Hey! Lin Ye!" Wukong's loud voice came from afar, "That move you just used was amazing! Teach me!"
Vegeta followed closely behind, his expression unfriendly, but the approval in his eyes was unmistakable: "Hmph, you only won by luck, don't get carried away."
Lin Ye smiled slightly and turned to face them. He knew that the mystery of "nothingness" left behind by Jiren, as well as the so-called 73rd Cosmic Key, would be new challenges. But at this moment, he was clearer than ever about the path he had to take.
The contest among the gods has only just begun. And his battlefield extends far beyond the arena of this Tournament of Power.
Chapter 358: The Crack of Resonance
At three in the morning at the Mars base, only the low hum of the holographic screens filled the metal corridors. Lin An rubbed her sore eyes, her fingertips hovering over the energy graph of the bronze bell. The green patterns, which should have been as smooth as a stream, suddenly trembled violently, as if thrown into molten lava. She slammed down the save button, but before she could examine the chaotic data stream, a piercing alarm slammed into her eardrums like an ice pick.
"Captain! The energy field in the ruins area has exceeded the safety threshold!" The static from the communicator almost tore apart Xiao Li's scream, while a sickening metallic groan echoed in the background. "Exploration vehicle number three... it's gone! The energy field has completely engulfed it! Professor Zhang is still inside, and we can't contact him!"
Lin An grabbed the protective suit floating in mid-air; the zipper stung her collarbone as it scraped against her collarbone. She rushed out of the lab, the sharp sound of her boots hitting the metal floor jarring in the empty corridor. As she passed the infant pod, a heart-wrenching cry suddenly erupted from within... It was Lin Wang.
The little guy was kicking and thrashing about in the transparent capsule. The pale blue bell mark on his forehead, left three days ago in the ruins area, was now glowing with an eerie red light. The beeping of the monitor perfectly matched the vibration of the bronze bell fragment in his pocket. Lin An touched her son's burning forehead through the capsule wall, and the cool glass reflected the bloodshot eyes.
"Wang'er, be good," her voice was a little hoarse, five consecutive nights of staying up had made her throat feel like it was stuffed with sandpaper, "Mommy will be right back, you play with the caregiver robot for a while, okay?"
Lin Wang's crying suddenly changed tone. Her little finger pointed towards her pocket, uttering a few syllables indistinctly. The sound wasn't like a baby's babbling, but rather like some kind of ancient humming, strikingly similar to the "watchman's whisper" recorded in her father's diary. Lin An's heart sank. Her fingertips touched the inside of her protective suit; the "Eternal Heartbeat" chip, which had suddenly become hot last night, was now pressed against her skin like a branding iron.
"Captain! If you don't come up soon, the energy field will cover the entire Western Hemisphere!" Xiao Li's urgent voice, tinged with tears, came through the communicator.
Lin An glanced one last time at her son, who was gradually calming down in the nursery, then turned and rushed into the elevator. In the reflection of the elevator wall, she saw the dark circles under her eyes like two ink stains, and her wrist, burned by the energy field in the ruins area three days ago, still throbbed faintly. Professor Zhang had been standing behind her then, holding half a bronze fragment in his hand, muttering to himself, "This isn't ordinary energy radiation; it's the 'Watcher' breathing."
The moment the shuttle burst through the base's dome, the Martian sunrise melted the thin clouds into flowing gold leaf. Lin An stared at the wildly fluctuating numbers on the instrument panel, her knuckles turning white from the pressure. The energy field of the ruins had expanded into a pale purple sphere of light. The silent, vine-like black energy bands from the excavation three years ago were now churning like boiling lava, each pulsation sending shivers down her spine as she tried to control the console.
“Eight hundred meters to go! Radiation dose… triple! Three times the critical level!” Xiao Li’s fingers trembled like leaves in the autumn wind on the control panel, cold sweat dripping from his forehead onto the keyboard. “Captain, we should turn back! Professor Zhang said yesterday that forcibly breaking in would trigger the ‘Watchers’ defense mechanism…”
"Will the defense mechanism kill its own people?" Lin An's voice was as cold as the temperature outside the cabin, but his gaze never left the waveform diagram of the energy field. His father's diary pages flipped through his mind, and a certain passage circled in red was particularly clear: "The bronze bell is the key, 'Eternal Heartbeat' is the lock core, and when the two resonate, the sine wave of the energy field is a confession, and the sawtooth wave is a warning."
But the waveform on the screen now looks like torn pieces of paper, with sharp edges that are almost piercing the display.
"How long can the radiation-resistant layer of the protective suit last?" Lin An suddenly asked.
Xiao Li paused for a moment, then quickly typed out a series of commands: "Ten minutes at most... Captain, what do you want to do?"
"Save him." The two words struck the cabin with an unwavering resolve. Lin An touched the hot bronze fragment in her pocket. Three days ago, deep within the ruins, it was this very thing that had suddenly sprung out from a crack in a stone pillar, leaving a burn mark on her palm. At the time, Lin Wang was in an incubator, and even through three layers of protective shields, the bell mark still appeared out of nowhere on his forehead.
As the shuttle made an emergency landing at the edge of the energy field, Lin An finally understood why Xiao Li was afraid. The No. 3 exploration vehicle was like a piece of tin foil crushed by a giant; its originally smooth metal shell was covered with spiderweb-like cracks, and the silver liquid seeping from those cracks was meandering across the sand, turning the red sand into a dark purple wherever it passed.
A corner of Professor Zhang's white coat peeked out from under the deformed car, lifted up and then fell back down by the energy field's airflow, like a white bird with broken wings.
"Professor!" Lin An grabbed the magnetic gun and jumped out of the car, his boots crunching on the gravel. The edge of the energy field felt like an invisible wall, and the places his skin touched it felt like being pricked with needles. The alarm on his protective suit shrieked more and more urgently.
She suddenly remembered a holographic image she had seen twenty years ago: a young Wen Wan standing in front of a crystal in the Land of the End, a green energy field flowing over her ankles like water, her father explaining from outside the image: "This is a bloodline contract. The 'Guardians' only open the passage to those with the mark of the bronze bell."
At that time, she didn't understand why her mother's pupils turned emerald green in the energy field. It wasn't until three days ago, when the mark appeared on Lin Wang's forehead, that she saw the same green lines deep in her iris in the reflection of the nursery.
"Captain, watch out!" Xiao Li's shout came from behind.
Lin An abruptly turned to the side and saw the bronze fragments in her pocket suddenly break free from gravity, piecing together into a complete ring within the energy field. Within those flowing green patterns, clear images emerged: blue-skinned humanoid beings injecting silver liquid into stone pillars; their chest cavities were embedded with glowing crystals, identical to the "Eternal Heartbeat" chip her father had left her; an array of countless bronze bells unfolded in the starry sky, the sound waves emanating from them like a giant hand, forcefully pushing the shockwaves of exploding stars towards black holes…
“This isn’t a defense mechanism.” Lin An’s voice trembled behind his mask as images flooded his mind. “The Watchers aren’t warning us; they’re… giving us a warning.”
As soon as he finished speaking, the "Eternal Heartbeat" chip on his wrist suddenly hummed. The jagged waveform on the screen began to smooth out, like a wound being soothed by a gentle hand.
"Captain, look!" Xiao Li pointed in the direction of the exploration vehicle, his voice trembling with disbelief, "What's that?"
Lin An looked in the direction he was pointing—Professor Zhang's hand was slowly emerging from under the car, a half-piece of bronze protruding from his clenched fist. The patterns on the fragment perfectly matched the bronze bell floating in the air, as if they were originally one piece.
"Throw the magnetic gun over here!" Lin An shouted to Xiao Li, while simultaneously pressing the emergency oxygen supply button on her protective suit. She knew she was running out of time; the radiation dose from the energy field was skyrocketing by the second.
The hum of the magnetic gun pierced the airflow of the energy field, and Lin An pulled the trigger the instant she caught the gun. The deformed car door emitted a piercing metallic scraping sound as it slowly rose upwards. She saw a diamond-shaped silver crystal embedded in Professor Zhang's chest, flashing green light with his faint heartbeat. The silver liquid seeping from the cracks in the exploration vehicle was flowing from this crystal.
"Professor!" Lin An knelt down, trying to drag him out, but Professor Zhang's withered hand grabbed his wrist. The old man's skin was alarmingly hot, and the shadow of the bronze bell in the air was reflected in his pupils.
“Don’t touch… the ‘seed’…” Professor Zhang’s lips moved, each word seeming to drain all his strength. “The… purifying… radiation left behind by the Watchers…” His finger trembled as he pointed to the group of stone pillars, where the energy field was coalescing into a blinding beam of light that pierced the sky. “They are waiting… waiting for humanity to learn… to listen…”
The last word dissipated into the hum of the energy field, and Professor Zhang's hand fell limply to his side. Lin An watched as the silver crystal on his chest gradually lost its luster, and suddenly remembered the illustration in his father's diary: at the core of the End Land, there was an identical crystal embedded in it, with three words written next to it: "World Tree".
The bronze bell suddenly vibrated violently, and a piercing static came through Lin An's earpiece. She removed her helmet; the sand and dust stung her face, yet she clearly heard certain syllables—not human language, but instantly understood: "The balance has been broken... pollutants are spreading..."
The voice was exactly the same as Lin Wang's unconscious murmurs in the incubator. Three days ago in the ruins area, she was drawn by this voice, which led her to venture deep into the stone pillars and discover the bronze fragment.
"Captain! The radiation dose is too high!" Xiao Li's voice was trembling with tears. "Come back quickly! The protective suits will become ineffective if we don't leave now!"
Just as Lin An dragged Professor Zhang's body to the shuttle, he saw the silver crystal on his chest suddenly shatter, turning into countless points of light that flew towards the stone pillars. The purple of the energy field faded at a visible speed, revealing the flowing green within—the exact same color as the energy field of the End Land.
"So the Watchers' native language is the frequency of their heartbeats." Lin An looked at the bronze bell in her palm, which had shattered into several pieces again, the green patterns alternating in light and dark with her pulse. "They are not invaders, they are calling for help."
The "Eternal Heartbeat" chip left by her father was burning hot, leaving a circular mark on her chest through her protective suit. She suddenly understood why the chip had been so hot last night, and why the resonance data of the bronze bell could not match the spectrum of the End Land—it was because it lacked a "seed," lacked this silver crystal that could purify radiation.
"Captain! Get in the car!" Xiao Li waved frantically from the driver's seat.
Lin An had just stepped onto the gangway carrying Professor Zhang's body when her communicator suddenly beeped with a sharp alarm. The emergency communication window at Earth headquarters popped open automatically, and she saw Wen Wan lying on the laboratory floor, her white lab coat stained dark with blood, the straight lines from the electrocardiogram monitor stinging her eyes.
In the lower right corner of the screen sits a twin of the "Eternal Heartbeat" chip, its green veins fading inch by inch.
"Mom...!" Lin An's roar was swallowed up by the energy field.
The fragments of the bronze bell suddenly burst forth with intense light in her palm, enveloping the entire shuttle. In her last second before losing consciousness, she saw the beams of light from the stone pillars align with the Martian moons, like a bridge spanning heaven and earth. The last page of her father's journal unfolded in the void, the handwriting on it illuminated with exceptional clarity by the green light:
"When the blood pact takes effect, the heartbeat will traverse the stars. But the price is that the Watcher's curse will be passed down through generations..."
Lin An's gaze fell on his wrist, where a bell mark identical to Lin Wang's forehead had appeared at some point, emitting a scalding buzzing sound in sync with the frequency of the "Eternal Heartbeat" chip.
Chapter 359: The Contract in the Stardust
As the hibernation fog in the medical pod dissipated, Lin An first smelled disinfectant, followed by a familiar scent of locust blossoms. She abruptly opened her eyes, the ring-shaped light above her head making her squint. This was a tranquilizer specially supplied to the Mars base, its formula derived from the century-old locust tree in her old house on Earth.
"Awake?" Xiao Li's voice came from the side, thick with a nasal tone. Lin An turned his head and saw that the young man's dark circles under his eyes were even darker than his own, and he had bluish stubble on his chin. "You've been unconscious for seven hours. The base doctor came to check on you three times and said that you're just overexerted, nothing else serious."
Lin An struggled to sit up, but tripped over the safety lock of the medical pod. Xiao Li quickly pressed the release button, and with the crisp click of the metal latch opening, she heard her own hoarse voice: "Professor Zhang's body..."
“It’s already been sent to the cryogenic chamber.” Xiao Li’s Adam’s apple bobbed, and his gaze drifted to the control panel. “The message came from Earth… Earth at 3:15 AM, Academician Wen…”
She didn't say the rest, but Lin An understood. Her fingers unconsciously dug into the anti-slip texture of the medical pod's inner wall, pressing the raised diamond-shaped patterns until they turned white. Images from a video call with her mother three days ago suddenly flashed before her eyes: Wen Wan sitting in a swivel chair in the Earth Laboratory, her white hair at her temples looking like a layer of snow under the light, her cough sounding jarring even through the communication signal.