Chapter 1637: Chapter 1637: Severed Time
Whether it’s the occasional cries for help and people, or the ever-present bloodstains, none of it might be real.
It’s just unclear why the distance separated by these two barriers is being used for division.
After staying in the same spot for a while, Xu Huo continued forward to the left, but after less than two thousand meters, he encountered another similar barrier!
An odd feeling rose abruptly in his heart, and he quickened his pace forward, only to hit a barrier again after just over a thousand meters.
Could it be that the entire city is divided by such barriers?
Yet, the last two segments of road held nothing special.
After pausing for a few seconds, he did not hurry forward, but instead extended to the left and right, only proceeding through a relatively close barrier upon discovering a prop dropped on the ground, and indeed this time, there was sound again on the inside.
Noises of things falling echoed from a shop beside the street, followed by a weakened man stepping out— this time, Xu Huo saw a person, a player.
After leaning on the door panel to step out of the shop, the player did not glance in Xu Huo’s direction and struggled towards the aquarium, possibly already exhausted, such that each step he took dragged heavily on the ground, seemingly ready to collapse at any moment, indifferent even to the props he dropped from his person.
Watching him inch away step by step, Xu Huo walked back into the barrier, and at the moment he crossed it, the person who should have been struggling ahead vanished.
Merely an invisible barrier, stepping forward, the person stood in front, taking a step back, the person would disappear.
After trying twice, Xu Huo went in, picked up the lost prop, and returned to the barrier’s edge to experiment. The prop he picked up had disappeared from inside the barrier, but outside, it would appear again just like the person holding it.
The lost prop was real, but what he saw was fake. If all his perceptions were interfered with, the scene shouldn’t be half real and half fake.
Suddenly considering another possibility, Xu Huo pushed the position further left, and about ten minutes later, his vision caught a Tan-skinned City Dweller, who was in worse condition than the previous player, collapsing to the ground and stopping breathing after just a few steps.
Almost all clocks in the city had stopped, as if the static buildings lacked anything to distinctly record time, Xu Huo’s watch remained unaffected, so he could only proceed to the next target.
Upon crossing the barrier again, he saw a player. There seemed to be someone behind them, but because the barrier was positioned two or three meters behind their back, he couldn’t see who they were talking to, but could hear clearly what they were saying.
“The Star is just ahead, we’ll definitely make it out alive…”
Before the words finished, the person’s expression turned sorrowful, barely raising a hand to wipe their reddened eyes, turned, and left alone.
Watching them disappear at the opposite barrier’s edge, Xu Huo proceeded forward.
Not every passage through the barrier resulted in encountering images, for a long stretch thereafter, he neither saw people nor anything else, and with the city being so vast, he couldn’t search every street.
But as the distance extended, he noticed a certain temporal relation among the happenings between these barriers. Close barriers might not appear obvious, but with greater spans, it became apparent that the closer to the aquarium, the more the time seemed nearer to him. For this longitudinal street, he and Chi Xian had turned before, and there were traces near the aquarium of this turn, whereas there were none further away.
Within Zone 017’s Spatial Labyrinth, different spatial layers change sizes due to the city’s alterations, but its tiers are based on space, and if the city greatly changes, it affects other areas, precluding a state of stalled segmentation.
And this space seems like events previously occurring, cut into segments capable of repeated play.
Standing in front of the barrier, Xu Huo extended a hand slowly forward, feeling a force passing through his palm. He couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow, “Could it be Time Force?”
Xu Huo didn’t have the time for Evolution, so wasn’t clear if it indeed was Time Force. However, given that the images to the left portrayed a regressive trend, he decided to move to the right.
Returning once more to the aquarium, this time he disregarded the cries for help from the rear, rushing through the space until stopping upon hitting the second barrier.
Looking back, nothing within this stretch seemed to have changed.
After a brief pause, he continued forward, but went a long while without encountering another barrier. Sensing a vague oddity, he turned back to the aquarium, only to find an image of himself looking left and right at its entrance.
He had been recorded.
“Ha!” Xu Huo gently tapped his forehead, now finally able to confirm that his mental state was normal.
Next, he quickened his pace towards the city’s right. On the way, he encountered a few fresh corpses, among them People of Zone 013 and players who participated in this instance, yet all of whom he had never conversed with.
Further ahead, he discovered the frenzied, missing Cannibal Player. Unclear of what had befallen him, but his remains were quite gruesome. Except for his right arm, he had sliced up his other arm and two legs, stacking them neatly in a pool of blood… It’s unknown if he died from excessive blood loss or exhaustion, as there’s a heap of empty Potions beside him.
Clearly, even within this abnormal space, these individuals hadn’t escaped Mental Interference.
Uncertain if a Star truly existed, Xu Huo planned to check by the city’s eastern lake.
He had reexamined the stones within the aquarium, which still remained broken, including the one that brought him into this space, which was also shattered.
If there was no issue with the space’s logic, a similar stone ought not to exist by the natural lake; still, an overwhelming intuition compelled him to check to be sure.
Just past the city’s center, he unexpectedly encountered a living person from Zone 013.
Upon closer inspection, it was the man stuck in a recurring nightmare aboard ship. He was now crawling on the ground, striving forward, muttering, “Star… Star…”
Xu Huo was about to approach and help him up when, upon touching the person, before his eyes suddenly appeared a Star identical to the one in his dream!
The individual from Zone 013, gripped by a surge of strength, broke free from Xu Huo’s grasp to clutch at a dazzling glow creeping ahead, then scooped up water to drink.
Xu Huo wasn’t repelled from the spot due to disconnection. After standing quietly for a few seconds, he realized this person had survived.
“I’m still alive! I’m still alive!” The individual from Zone 013 seemed incredulous himself, looking around. Although he saw Xu Huo, his attention quickly shifted to hastily using his clothes to scoop up the river’s glow, “Everyone can live! Everyone can live!”