In the sky above, the Celestial Pillars rebuilt themselves, only to collapse again, over and over.

On the ground below, towns cycled between destruction and peace. Figures in the streets alternated between wholeness and fragmentation. Life and annihilation repeated endlessly, until even time itself and the past became hollow and unreal.

Ji Jue walked through these remaining records, looking around at the shattered fragments of old time and the unreachable dream like a pot of golden millet. It seemed close if he extended his hand, yet he could never touch anything.

A lifetime of pursuit was reduced only to emptiness. Compared to the ruins he had once seen, which was more cruel for Mercury?

Under the tolling of cathedral bells, he stopped in the plaza and no longer wished to look further. He had a hunch he already knew where Pacifier was.

The bells thundered and echoed on from within that towering bell tower. Ji Jue looked up, lost in thought as he gazed at the clock tower, at the clock face above, and even beyond it to the mottled, timeworn stained-glass window.

It was the old workshop of Mercury.

For four hundred years, in that long stretch of time, she had stood there gazing into the distance, waiting alone and singing softly day after day. What kind of scenery had she been hoping for? Guests in formal dress and smiling faces arriving from all directions? Petals raining down while white doves spread their wings and rose into the sky? The bride and groom, hand in hand, walking through the tolling bells toward the hall that would witness their wedding?

The people hoped that from this moment on, they could begin a brand-new life. Yet, in their ignorance, they were walking toward a predetermined death, again and again.

As the so-called culprit, when Mercury looked upon such scenes, did she ever feel a piercing pain in her heart?

In a brief moment of distraction, Ji Jue suddenly recalled the words spoken by the Titan. In the old workshop, that exhausted man had stared at his most treasured companion and asked one final question, “Do you regret it?”

But there would never be an answer to that question, nor did anyone have the courage to give one.

“Time is short, Ji Jue,” the Seer said. “What are you still waiting for?”

“I don’t know.” Ji Jue shook his head, staring at the world before him as it continuously collapsed, shattered, then reformed.

His gaze finally settled on the steps of the sanctuary. Amid countless flickering phantoms marching forward, there was that solitary, insignificant figure. It was a flaw within an endless cycle of time.

A girl sat on the steps, hugging her knees, blankly staring at the sky, still waiting for the person who would never return from distant lands. Tears fell down her cheeks.

Ji Jue bent down and sat beside her, studying her profile before asking, “What are you doing here? Don’t go running around. Grandma is waiting for you to go home.”

She did not reply. She only lowered her head, raised a hand to wipe away her tears, and after a long while, she asked, “Mom isn’t coming back, is she?”

Ji Jue fell silent. Almost instinctively, he raised his head and looked at the same sky she had been staring at.

Four hundred years ago, and four hundred years later, the sky over both the small town and Cliff City, as well as the sky in the Central Lands and the Northern Continent, seemed no different at all. It was equally empty and boundless.

Ji Jue let out a soft sigh and answered plainly, “I don’t know. She must really want to come back. Just like when you miss her, she misses you too. She must miss you so, so much, but she can’t find her way home. She’s lost.”

The little girl glared at him, unable to hold back her tears. Her voice broke. “How do you know that? Mom doesn’t want me anymore! She probably already forgot about me...”

“Trust me, I know,” Ji Jue answered promptly. “All good mothers are the same. I dream about mine every night. Because when she’s thinking about me, I’m thinking about her too. When you cry, she only feels even more heartbroken.”

He reached out and gently pointed at the girl’s cheek. Her tears passed through his fingertip, leaving faint ripples behind. But he could not touch her; she was so close, yet impossibly far away.

Only when her tears finally stopped did the girl stubbornly lift her hand and wipe them away again and again. At last, with red-rimmed eyes, she looked up at him.

“Can I see her again?”

“I don’t know.” Ji Jue slowly shook his head. Seeing those small eyes reflect his own, he could not lie, nor could he deceive himself.

“Maybe... you’ll never see her again.” He turned and asked, “Will you still think of her?”

“Mm.” The disappointed girl nodded.

Ji Jue smiled. “What a good kid.”

He slowly stood up. The girl asked him, “What about you? Do you think about her too?”

Ji Jue nodded without the slightest hesitation. “Of course. Just like you do.”

From the blurred crowd, that small figure seemed to smile back at him. She raised her hand toward him, and little by little, faded away.

Ji Jue remained alone in the empty square. He turned back one last time, and against the tolling bells, walked toward the imposing clock tower, pushing open its long-sealed door.

There were no guards, no trials, only a staircase winding upward through settled dust, and a half-closed door.

Everything seemed to still be exactly as it had been four hundred years ago.

Inside the old workshop, everything lay quietly bathed in sunlight, witnessing the endless cycle of destruction and rebirth. Before the window, the figure who should have stood there forever was gone. Mercury was not there anymore.

Within the entire rift realm, whether underground or above ground, past or present, among all the figures that had ever existed, only one was missing, and that was Mercury.

When Ji Jue stood in that same place, what he saw was exactly the same scene she had once witnessed: rebirth and destruction intertwined, the collapsing and rebuilding of the sanctuary, a cycle woven from survival and death.

Under the reflection of the collapsed Celestial Pillar, everything had already been predetermined. The world was the battlefield of the Supreme Benevolences, history a tapestry woven from the loom of fate. The life and death of mortals meant nothing; the joys and sorrows of dust were of no concern to anyone. Everything would eventually return to nothingness. Perhaps this was destiny.

If all of this could be reversed once more, even if only slightly, even if what was gained was only a negligible fraction compared to what had been lost...

Ji Jue reached out toward the world before him, just as Mercury had once done.

“If the past and present were to repeat themselves, would you still respond to the same wish, Pacifier?” Ji Jue asked solemnly.

Light flared from the watch on his wrist. Like a silent call, the power once left behind by Titan reappeared within the rift realm after four hundred years. It reached toward the distant, unreachable past, revealing its radiance once more.

Within the ancient flow of time, an unprecedented upheaval occurred, like lightning returning after four hundred years. It roared across everything, bringing the endless cycle of time to a sudden halt.

In heaven and earth, as well as the sky and void, countless spirit circuits manifested, enveloping everything. Like intricate threads from a loom, they intertwined and outlined the shape of the mortal world, bringing about all existence: survival, death, struggle, peace, order, chaos, stars, earth, mountains, rivers, oceans, and more. It was all-encompassing, embracing every form.

Ji Jue’s perspective seemed to separate from his own body, rising upward, beyond the sky and even the heavens, as if he were standing above all phenomena and fate itself. There, at the end of the vast woven tapestry formed by countless threads, he finally saw it: the origin and end of everything, the invisible hand that controlled all existence.

That invisible hand seized both his arms. Like burning iron, it brought unprecedented pain and searing agony, causing Ji Jue to cry out in spite of himself.

Countless transformations of the Supreme Benevolences unfolded before his eyes. An unprecedented qualitative shift of spirit matter erupted from within his soul. A low voice seemed to speak beside his ear, turning into thunder. Laws resounded throughout the world, carving themselves deep into his soul. The voice allowed no deviation, nor resistance ever again. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

It said, “All prosperity in the world is forged by this hand. Everything that exists is formed by these ten fingers. Eliminate the root of calamity, erase the seeds of oppression and trampling, and bring about a world of peace and stability, free of cruelty and conflict. This is the creation of Pacifier!”

BOOM!!!

Like a thunderclap that split open heaven and earth, the illusion of ancient time trembled fiercely and could no longer be sustained. Endless spirit circuits surged from the air, coiling around Ji Jue’s soul and arms like searing brands, engraving themselves into him. They carved the iron law into his bones and spirit, and he couldn’t resist it no matter how he tried.

His eyes erupted with blinding light. When all phenomena finally faded, when the distant dream formed by ancient time collapsed away, Ji Jue finally awoke from the endless agony and torment.

Staggering, he walked down the clock tower. Then, smiling, he opened his arms toward his long-waiting companions, revealing the intricate totemic tattoos that extended from his fingertips all the way to his elbows.

It was like flames unfurling, like intersecting warp and weft, like something that encompassed all creation itself.

“This is... the matrix, Pacifier!”

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

Continuous deafening blasts echoed from the distance, but they did not come solely from within the dream. More of it came from beyond that ancient flow of time itself. Everything was shaking violently.

The core was changing. That strange sensation of shock and weightlessness made Ji Jue feel as if the entire central system was rising from underground, upward...

In the next moment, they were all expelled from that expanding ancient timeline and returned to reality. The deep well they had once entered was gone. In its place stood a massive hall, rapidly fracturing, accompanied by intense dizziness and the sensation of falling.

Ji Jue pressed a hand against the ground and repeated his old method, sensing the immense pulse of the workshop beneath him, like a volcano erupting.

The furnace was operating in a frenzy. Spirit matter surged like a flood, merging into the workshop and causing the central system to expand and grow, even devouring the surrounding rift realm.

The core was rising. The earth cracked and collapsed. Countless buildings turned to ruins, and the constructs stored within them fell, joining the destruction deeply buried beneath the rubble.

Everything seemed to be undergoing a catastrophic transformation of destruction. But this was not an end; it was only the beginning of another cruel cycle.

“The reset is about to happen,” the Seer declared with a sigh.

Ji Jue heard a whistling sound from a distance.

A sharp crimson arrow suddenly halted in midair. An Ran caught it, stopping it dead in its tracks. After a long silence, the boy turned back, a dangerous look flashing in his eyes.

At the far end of the great hall stood a group of figures, all of them covered in dust and grime. Leading them was a nearly crazed man with his face twisted with fury. He stared at the group, his eyes slowly turning blood-red.

“Ji Jue!” Lou Feng screamed.