The wilderness beyond Heaven's Gate Sect stretched endlessly, thick with ancienttrees and tangled vines that whispered secrets long forgotten.
Su Chen moved like a shadow, his steps light but deliberate, every sense sharpened.
The map Lin Xuehai had left in his hands felt heavier with each passing moment.
Jadefall—the ruined city at its heart—was no ordinary place. It was said to be a nexus of time anomalies, a place where the past, present, and future tangled in chaotic loops.
Su Chen's fingers traced the glyphs glowing faintly on the map, his mind already calculating the dangers ahead.
As he neared the borders of Jadefall's ruins, the air grew thick—not just with dust and decay, but with an unsettling energy that tugged at the edges of his soul.
"Time… bends here," Su Chen muttered. "If I'm not careful, I could lose myself in its currents."
The first signs were subtle. A gust of wind that carried whispers, fleeting shadows flickering at the corner of his vision, distant echoes of voices he could almost understand but never quite catch.
Suddenly, the ground beneath him shuddered.
A deep, sonorous hum filled the air.
Su Chen crouched low, eyes narrowing.
Before him, a jagged crack tore through reality itself—a shimmering portal rippling with unstable energy.
He stepped forward cautiously, peering into the abyss.
Within the portal, scenes flickered like fragmented memories: a younger Su Chen training under a stern master, battles fought and lost, faces of friends and foes long dead. Each vision was a piece of his past lives—fragments of pain, regret, and determination.
"It's a… time echo," Su Chen whispered.
His System pinged softly:
> [Warning: Temporal Disturbance Detected. Entering the Jadefall Ruins may trigger echoes of past timelines. Prepare for disorientation.]
Su Chen took a steadying breath.
He had been betrayed, annihilated, reborn—and now forced to confront these echoes, memories that could either unravel his focus or strengthen his resolve.
Stepping through the portal, the world shifted.
He found himself standing in the middle of a battlefield—ruined towers, scorched earth, and the faint scent of blood lingering in the air.
Figures moved in the distance—ghostly silhouettes locked in combat, their faces blurred and their voices distorted by time.
Suddenly, one figure broke from the haze—a younger version of himself, eyes burning with raw, unrefined power.
The echo-Su Chen fought fiercely, but fatigue was evident in his movements. The younger man stumbled, a spear piercing his side.
Without thinking, Su Chen rushed forward.
"Wait!"
The echo-Su Chen turned, eyes wide with confusion.
"Who—?"
"You," Su Chen said, voice firm. "You don't have to die here."
The younger self shook his head.
"This is my fate. My path."
Su Chen clenched his fists. "No. You're stronger than you believe. And you have me—someone who remembers it all."
The echoes around them flickered violently, as if time itself resisted the interference.
A booming voice echoed through the ruins:
"Interfering with the temporal flow is forbidden!"
The ground trembled. Shadows coalesced into a towering figure—an ancient guardian bound to Jadefall, its form shimmering with fractured time energy.
"You cannot change what has passed," the guardian intoned, voice heavy with centuries of duty. "To alter one moment is to unravel the tapestry of existence."
Su Chen stepped forward, aura flaring.
"I'm not here to unravel. I'm here to reclaim what was stolen—from myself and the world."
The guardian's eyes glowed. "Then prove your resolve."
The battle erupted.
Time itself fractured around them—moments sped up, slowed down, and looped unpredictably. Su Chen's body flickered, his attacks phasing through seconds that hadn't yet arrived or had long passed.
He adapted quickly, weaving void Qi with spatialrifts to anchor himself amid the chaos.
The guardian struck with blows that shattered stone and warpedreality, but Su Chen countered with fluid precision, each movement sharper than the last.
The fight was more than physical—it was a battle for control over time's flow.
After a grueling exchange, Su Chen found an opening.
Channeling the Reset System, he activated a temporal anchor—his ability to tether moments in time.
With a surge, he severed the guardian's connection to the fractured time streams, causing the massive figure to waver and falter.
The guardian's form cracked, fracturing into shards of light before dissolving into silence.
The battlefield faded.
Su Chen found himself back at the edge of Jadefall's ruins.
The map's glyphs glowed brighter now—the path to the Third Origin Fragment illuminated.
He sighed deeply.
"That was close. The ruins guard their secrets jealously."
The younger echo lingered in his mind—a reminder of the strength Su Chen had gained through countless lives, and the sacrifices yet to come.
He gathered his belongings and stepped deeper into the ruins, ready to face whatever traps, beasts, or guardians awaited.
"Resetting time won't save me this time," Su Chen thought grimly. "I have to win with this life."
With resolve steeling his heart, Su Chen vanished into the shadows of Jadefall—where the next step of his destiny awaited.