A Glitch in Time

Just before activating her Authority, Liuxia instinctively closed her eyes.

Her heart hammered wildly in her chest, terrified that her hypothesis might be wrong.

If it were, the deceased would be eternally lost to the netherworld, with no hope of return.

[Chunsheng, we must meet again!]

She whispered the words to herself, then, with every ounce of her strength, her eyelids fluttered open.

The next second, the young woman beheld a bizarre and fantastical sight unlike anything she had ever witnessed.

The world was rewinding.

No, the entire spacetime continuum was flowing backward, every single thing pulled by an unseen hand, regressing to its position at a specific point in time.

Shattered ground re-formed, scattered dust settled into stillness, and everything felt like a disjointed, hallucinatory dream.

Liuxia watched it all in a daze, feeling as though she were the sole spectator of this dreamscape.

Soon, however, she noticed a jarring discord within the dream.

It was herself.

The young woman lowered her gaze to her hands, then scrutinized her legs, realizing she remained utterly motionless.

In the distance, the dangerously ominous black cocoon rapidly shrunk and dissipated. Li Chunsheng, who should have been reduced to ashes, was visibly re-forming from dust.

‘Everything is rewinding, so why am I the only one standing still?’

[What is the meaning of this? Shouldn’t ‘I’ also be sent directly back to the past?]

[What exactly is the purpose of witnessing the process of time reversal during this phase?]

Wait.

A thought, sharp as lightning, streaked across her mind.

[Which direction did I come from to reach this park just now?]

[The Southern Inner Ring! But Chunsheng’s home is far in the Northern Outer Ring, and this park is located in the Eastern Outer Ring!]

[In my memory, I rushed here to inform Chunsheng only after being attacked at his home… Yet this time, my starting point was the Southern Inner Ring. If it were merely a simple return to the past, I should have appeared in the Northern Outer Ring.]

[To come from home and jump directly from the North to the East… that’s utterly illogical.]

Yet, within that memory, she recalled everything feeling perfectly normal.

A daring hypothesis began to take shape within her mind.

****

Her Authority, she deduced, allowed her to act as an ‘observer’ during its activation. All actions taken during this period would be ‘rationalized’ after the Authority ended, forcibly implanted into her mind as seemingly normal memories. The memories of the actions themselves, however, would be completely erased.

[So, the ‘me’ from the past… the reason I took such wildly divergent actions was to ensure that, in this very moment, I would immediately notice the flaws in my memory.]

[And through these flaws, deduce the true nature of the ability itself…]

[The past me truly had faith in myself, didn’t I?]

Liuxia murmured to herself, yet another question welled up in her heart.

If she could move freely during this period, why didn’t she directly attack Investigator Liao?

After all, in this current world, she seemed to be the only one who could move.

She instinctively walked towards Li Chunsheng, whose form was almost fully re-materialized.

[First, I need to get Chunsheng to a safe place.]

Just as Liuxia bent down to cradle Li Chunsheng’s waist, intending to lift him, a hand suddenly reached out from above.

It gently stroked her head.

Liuxia’s body instantly stiffened.

She slowly looked up, following the familiar sensation, her face etched with astonishment.

“…Chunsheng?”

“Hm?” Li Chunsheng looked at her blankly. “What?”

“You, how can you move?!”

“What ‘can’t move’?” Li Chunsheng seemed utterly oblivious to the strangeness around them.

“Long story short, Chunsheng, this is my Authority…” Liuxia rapidly explained everything she had just discovered, using the most concise language possible.

Li Chunsheng listened with utter amazement, his mind churning with revelations.

[Damn it, looks like I’m not the only one with a cheat in this world… Senior Brother’s ability is actually a time-reversal-level cheat!]

[And Liao Xinyi is that Investigator’s daughter… How could I not have realized? We’ve really stirred up a hornet’s nest now…]

“Don’t talk about that now, we need to leave quickly! When the ability ends, all related memories might disappear…”

She grabbed his hand and turned to run.

“Wait, wait,” Li Chunsheng said, pulling her back with his hand. “Since only the two of us can move right now, why don’t we seize this opportunity to do something to that Investigator? Even if we can’t kill him, weakening his combat power would be good.”

Liuxia’s steps abruptly halted.

[Oh, right. But why did I subconsciously ignore that option?]

A chill, without warning, shot up her spine to the back of her head, and her pupils constricted.

“Watch out! Chunsheng, get down!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Li Chunsheng instantly tackled her to the ground, shielding her with his own body.

The next moment, a searing beam of light grazed his back, striking precisely where they had been standing just moments before, carving a scorched trench into the distant ground.

“Ouch, that’s hot, so hot…” Li Chunsheng grimaced, hissing through his teeth. “That Investigator can move too? Good heavens, I almost died again.”

“What were you thinking?!” Liuxia exclaimed, both anxious and furious, her eyes reddening. “Couldn’t we have just ducked together? If you die again, what will I do?!”

Li Chunsheng offered an embarrassed smile. “It was instinctive, just instinctive… Besides, look, I’m fine, aren’t I? Just a little hot, not even injured.”

He patted his back. “Good thing I always keep ‘Lancelot’ transformation active; I just locked it in and formed a layer of defense. It seems it only grazed me, so it was still defensible… But speaking of which, that Investigator is too strong, isn’t he? Is this level of power truly just that of a regular Investigator?”

Liuxia shot him an exasperated glance, yet she sank into deeper contemplation.

[So that’s it… Is this why ‘the past me’ didn’t choose to directly attack Investigator Liao, but instead took a detour? Because he, too, is unaffected by the time reversal.]

[But… why?]

[And… I can’t shake the feeling that the reason for taking such a detour isn’t quite sufficient.]

Just then, a voice, laced with a hint of mockery, emanated from the black cocoon, seemingly piercing through the frozen flow of time.

“I truly didn’t expect the two of you to survive that last attack.”

“This sight around us is quite uncanny, too. Whose handiwork is it, I wonder? It certainly gave me a fright when I first saw it!”

“The Holy Temple’s Paladins truly live up to their reputation. In that light, failing to kill you both in a single strike seems almost normal.”

“What a pity. I even specifically waited for you two to huddle together, hoping to kill two birds with one stone…”

Investigator Liao continued, talking to himself.

“Oh,” Liuxia whispered, immediately making a silencing gesture to Li Chunsheng. “Don’t mind him, he can’t see us. If we respond, we’ll fall into his trap.”

After speaking, she suddenly froze, her gaze fixed intently on Li Chunsheng.

“Senior Brother, why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my face?” Li Chunsheng felt a prickle of unease under her stare.

“…You might actually have something on your face,” Liuxia replied, her tone unusually grave.

“Really?”

Liuxia didn’t answer. Instead, she keenly picked up on a crucial detail in his previous words.

[Good thing I always keep Lancelot transformation active…]

Repeating the phrase in her mind, she asked with sharp eyes, “Chunsheng, do you usually keep this transformation active all the time? Have you had it on consistently, from before until now?”

“Not usually,” Li Chunsheng answered instinctively. “I only activated it after arriving at the park, feeling that there might be danger… I’ve kept it on ever since.”

Liuxia pressed on. “Why did you feel there was danger?”

“Was there any reason for you to sense danger when you came out this time?”

Li Chunsheng froze at her question. He opened his mouth, intending to say something, but the words died on his tongue, replaced by a look of utter bewilderment.

Gradually, his mouth widened further, his eyes reflecting nothing but disbelief.