GRMFBS CH313

 

Too late.

Gu Jiancheng watched as the space around Zhan Yan warped and distorted, while he was still half a meter away from him.

The shadow beneath his feet abruptly surged forward. Just before Zhan Yan’s silhouette vanished entirely, the shadow stretching from Gu Jiancheng’s fingertips grazed Zhan Yan’s shadow.

The darkness scrambled upward violently, forcefully wrenching the spatial fabric apart and dragging Gu Jiancheng into the breach along with it.

Amidst the swirling nodal points of fractured spacetime, he caught sight of the trajectories of shadows once more.

This sensation was all too familiar—it was the exact phenomenon he witnessed every single time he entered an instance dungeon inside Infinite.

Gu Jiancheng stretched out desperately in the chaotic temporal currents, straining to reach that other figure.

Amidst the dizzying tangle of lines and shifting patches of hue, he faintly glimpsed a hand wearing the sports wristband he had gifted. The shadow coiled tightly around their wrists, undulating against the violent turbulence of the spacetime torrent like ribbons of dark silk.

Just as the temporal vortex finally stabilized, a primordial force bound to rules of the past descended without warning, severing the black silk clean through.

The sky burst into blinding illumination. Tier upon tier of stone steps converged into an elevated dais, upon which a golden balance stood immovably erect. Its towering beam arms and weighing pans jutted out past the dais, suspended over an unfathomable, bottomless abyss.

Gu Jiancheng’s countenance turned profoundly grim.

The Judgment Court. The Supreme Balance.

This was his final dungeon, as well as the sole instance he had left unresolved.

Stationed at one end of the balance, Gu Jiancheng directed his gaze toward the opposite pan.

Another “him” was seated there—the sinister, heavily masked “Deep Shadow” from the days he had walked the corridors of Infinite.

Donning the shell of his past visage, the will of Infinite offered Gu Jiancheng a thin smile: “There is still an unsettled wager between the two of us.”

A sudden surge of feral hostility welled up within Gu Jiancheng’s chest.

Forcibly suppressing the turmoil, his expression turned as cold as forged iron as he sank down heavily.

“Very well. What do you wish to stake?”

He did not know how Infinite had managed to reconstruct the Judgment Court dungeon within this world. Yet regardless of the means, this instance had successfully bound him once more. The archaic rules forcibly shattered in the past were being stitched back together today. With the wager unresolved, he could not step off the Supreme Balance. Furthermore, Infinite had dragged Yan Yan into this quagmire… No, was Infinite’s ultimate objective himself, or was it Bai Ze?

Infinite lowered its gaze, gesturing toward the ascending stone tiers.

Vivid projections flickered to life across every single step, unspooling like strips of vintage film.

Zhan Yan’s figure materialized abruptly within one of those very frames.

“Previously, our wager concerned the human nature of this realm,” Infinite curled its lips into a sneer. “This time, let us wager upon his nature instead.”

“Tell me, once he experiences firsthand what it is like to navigate a dungeon alongside the true, unvarnished you, will he truly remain without grievance? Will he still pronounce you innocent?”

The vicious glint in Gu Jiancheng’s eyes could no longer be contained as his fingernails bit deep into his palms.

The vessel wearing his past countenance continued to smirk, its chosen brooding visage composed and unhurried, reflecting an undisguised, voracious greed right back into Gu Jiancheng’s eyes.

“If I triumph, you shall belong to me.”

The spiritual imprint left by Rong Sui had crippled its ability to harness the power of external worlds to fuel its resurgence.

Yet the power wielded by Deep Shadow had originated from its very core. He was far more compatible with it than any apocalyptic realm could ever be.

Just how many black nests and anomalies had that Sea of Shadows devoured? He would serve as the most magnificent breeding vessel for its resurrection.

…

[Tracing back missing past.]

Chaotic currents of spacetime rushed past him, and the entries dedicated to himself in the Gossip System unrolled automatically before his eyes like an expansive parchment scroll.

…

[Neighbor Fei Xuan gifted you a basin of homegrown cherry tomatoes.]

…

[Though thoroughly disgruntled, Father Zhan Yunkai still prepared breakfast, including a portion for Gu Jiancheng.]

…

[Upon learning of your insomnia, Sister Zhan Suiru compounded a blend of soothing sleep essential oils for you.]

…

[When you ran a burning fever, Brother Zhan Jinli retrieved you from inside the wardrobe and carried you to the hospital on his back.]

…

[Mother Ji Yueming gifted you a small silver longevity lock, wishing you peace and health.]

…

[You were placed before the gates of the Starlight Orphanage.]

…

The scroll scrolled rapidly past his sixth year, rolling right past the point where it had remained stalled for so long, into territory he had never unsealed before.

…

[Gu Jiancheng raised a little moth.]

…

[A star from beyond the boundary collided into your destiny.]

…

Zhan Yan reached his hand out amidst the shifting folds of spacetime. The fractured light of information and temporal drift veiled his vision, but the blood coursing toward his chest thrummed with a steady pulse. He did not know toward where he was reaching, yet he intuitively felt that his star resided there.

The temporal turbulence receded, and the rippling streams of information pulled taut.

Lifting a hand, Zhan Yan touched his head.

Two massive antlers had sprouted atop his crown.

It truly was his missing past—and quite a massive chunk of it at that!

He had genuinely spent all this time believing he was merely human.

The memories predating his mortal life were far too vast to assimilate in a single breath; he had only recovered a meager fraction for now.

Furthermore, why did he feel as though he had brushed past Xiao Gu a moment ago? Had he tumbled into another one of Candle Dragon’s temporal remnants? Had Xiao Gu been swept inside as well?

Just as Zhan Yan prepared to inspect his surroundings, an ear-splitting alarm shattered the quiet, making him jump.

The minimap feature deployed on its own accord, flooding his entire field of view.

The map was dyed entirely in crimson, leaving only his solitary, pitiable white marker stranded dead center.

Zhan Yan: … ?!! Where in the world had he transported himself to?! The heart of Infinite’s lair?

As the final remnants of the spacetime vortex dissolved, Zhan Yan could at last discern the landscape before him.

He took in the sight of spiral tiers of stone steps towering like a mountain, each level housing a distinct seat—was he perched upon a judicial bench?

Before he could properly orient himself, his body sank abruptly, plummeting straight into the imagery cast upon the stone steps.

In a breath, he shifted from the stone bench onto a precarious, swaying suspension bridge. Ghastly, unearthly shrieks echoed from behind, while bubbling grey-black miasma drifted up from the abyss below, looking profoundly ominous.

Ahead of him, a group of eccentrically dressed individuals was sprinting frantically for their lives.

[Assuming the role of the Inquisitor, you have fallen into the trial subject’s past-reflection playback within the Judgment Court dungeon.]

The miniature golden balance that had commandeered the star slots in his “Objects” tab was flashing erratically, indicating it was actively in use.

“Xiao Zheng has fallen behind,” someone shouted from up ahead.

A tall man in an outdoor windbreaker turned to look back at him. His face was fiercely handsome, possessing sharp brows and deep, bottomless eyes that resembled two stagnant pools of freezing water.

Zhan Yan froze.

Those were Xiao Gu’s eyes.

Though he hadn’t seen them like this in ages, he distinctly recalled Xiao Gu revealing glances of that nature back when they had first met.

Is this Xiao Gu? No. The minimap was still a field of unbroken red; besides himself, there were no allied markers anywhere. These weren’t flesh-and-blood beings, but shadows of the distant past.

Was this a retrospective of Xiao Gu’s history? The Inquisitor, the glowing Supreme Balance, the regression into past shadows… This was the Judgment Court dungeon. By rights, all of Infinite’s dungeons should have collapsed alongside Infinite’s downfall, unless Infinite had painstakingly rebuilt it from scratch.

All that expenditure of anomalies to harvest reserves earlier was likely orchestrated specifically to reconstruct this very instance.

He had been pulled inside the moment he filled the “Anomalies” tab with “Infinite.” Sigh, careless… Who would have anticipated the system laying down such a pitfall?

Infinite likely held fragments of his divine abilities in its possession. Using his divine abilities to unearth evidence, the Supreme Balance to pass judgment, and Infinite’s stockpiled reserves to hold the space together—it was tailored specifically to fashion the “Judgment Court” dungeon.

The synergy between his abilities and the Supreme Balance would prove exceedingly thorny. Still, thankfully, he was outfitted with the amulets bestowed by his family; holding out until reinforcements arrived should be entirely manageable.

Speaking of which, Xiao Gu had been right beside him earlier—he had been at the kitchen door while Xiao Gu was in the dining area, a mere few meters apart. That tactile brush against Xiao Gu during the transit hadn’t been an illusion.

If Xiao Gu had been dragged in alongside him…

Zhan Yan pressed his lips together, irritation gradually mounting between his brows.

Xiao Gu’s Judgment Court dungeon had been interrupted midway in the past, torn apart by the war between two realms. Now, Infinite had the gall to reconstruct this repulsive trial.

Judging by its present state, had Infinite stitched the old playthrough right back onto the board? Did it intend for him to sit in judgment over Xiao Gu?

Judge this, trial that. Judge, judge, judge—judge your own empty head! He desperately wanted to curse out loud!

Upon the Supreme Balance, Gu Jiancheng’s expression had turned exceedingly taut.

Seeing this scenario, the memories of that dungeon flooded back to him. Recollections buried for years washed forth with pristine clarity.

It was a dungeon he had traversed midway through his progression. At the time, an invincible monstrosity was pursuing them from the rear of the suspension bridge. “Xiao Zheng” had lagged behind, and because Gu Jiancheng was the most powerful person present, the others had clamored for him to save Xiao Zheng. But he hadn’t lifted a finger. He was long past the naive stage of wanting to rescue everyone.

Yet Infinite was forcing Yan Yan to experience the scenario through Xiao Zheng’s perspective…

The suspension bridge began violently oscillating without warning.

Zhan Yan flicked his wrist, and countless fine metallic threads erupted from the bracer, interlacing across his hand to swiftly form a sword with a fully enclosed handguard.

His divine abilities could not be left under Infinite’s manipulation alongside the Supreme Balance. He did not know how Xiao Gu was faring, nor did he know whether Infinite had made moves against the others. He had no way of knowing if Infinite possessed the means to haul everyone into this domain. If Infinite sought to weaponize “Omniscience” alongside the Supreme Balance to pass judgment on every single soul…

Waiting passively was a gamble. Gambling that the others were unharmed and could rescue him, or gambling that they had already met with misfortune, while every passing second allowed Infinite to integrate this dungeon with greater cohesion.

It didn’t matter.

Zhan Yan drew in a deep breath.

So what if he was ensnared in a projection of the past?

Zhan Yan blocked out the grotesque howling in his ears, disregarded the unsettling visuals before him, and paid no mind to the alarms shrieking through his senses.

He kept his focus solely upon the minimap.

Infinite was notoriously difficult to pin down; even now, the melon entries regarding it were choked with [***Loading...***]. The map inside the Judgment Court was completely washed in red, unable to outline the contours of the environment. Sight was his only reliance.

Yet that was irrelevant. If he could not map out Infinite, could he not map out his own divine abilities?

Aided by the five-star Information Correlation in his “Organizations” tab, the map traced out delicate, fine white filaments before him. So that was it. Infinite had deployed a psychic scalpel to reshape the fragments of his divine ability into the foundational bedrock of this dungeon.

Zhan Yan noted the disruptions in the flow of those white threads—the structurally weak seams left behind from Infinite’s forced appropriation of his divine authority.

Shutting his eyes, he pivoted and charged straight toward the monstrosity.

Aligning his blade with the fractured seams of the white threads, a razor-sharp arc of sword qi cleaved right into the beast’s gaping maw.

Without his divine fragments to anchor it, this dungeon would collapse on its own.

Infinite’s pupils dilated in shock. Has Bai Ze gone mad? That is his own divine ability, an intrinsic piece of his soul. The soul was not a uniform construct that could simply regenerate no matter which segment was lost. If several critical nodes of the soul were severed, even if he did not dissipate entirely, he would hardly remain sound of mind.

Gu Jiancheng began to laugh.

The phantom projection wavered like a bursting bubble, and the stone tier bearing that specific memory fractured and crumbled into rubble.

Zhan Yan felt merely a slight wave of dizziness. Opening his eyes, he braced himself against the stone judicial bench, his brow furrowing.

Something was off.

He had pulled back his blow midway. The instant his strike landed, he had sensed something amiss. Shattering one’s divine ability did not feel like this. It shouldn’t have been this… faint.

Zhan Yan looked down toward his wrist. Sliding the sports wristband aside, he discovered an unfamiliar black mark stamped upon his skin.

High atop the Supreme Balance.

Gu Jiancheng lowered his head to wipe away the trace of blood at the corner of his lips, his smile radiant and sharp.

“I’ll be waiting for you to lose.”

He knew it. Yan Yan was just like him. He had known it ever since the day he witnessed Bai Ze self-destruct his divine abilities right within the heart of Infinite.

[Gu Jiancheng concealed his Reverse Shadow Substitute within the sports wristband and gifted it to you.]