146: Chapter 146 Time Loop

The deathly silent void was no longer mere nothingness.

Countless fine streams of data floated like dust, each grain sealing a fragmented image—the cold light of an Interstellar Alliance medal, the ancient inscriptions of the Sower Civilization, the warmth of Kate's fingertips grazing Lin Fan's cheek, the screech of the shadow of the end's Entropy Energy blade slicing through the air. The sound of origin had no physical form; it was every sound wave and every set of code permeating this space—the primordial program that had existed since the birth of the universe. It possessed no emotion, understood no mercy, and could not even perceive the meaning of the word "pain." It was only executing one supreme command: to erase the "emotional redundancy" from Lin Fan and Kate, correcting these two individuals who had deviated from the cosmic order into pure existences that complied with "Origin Logic."

"Time loop."

Cold sound waves penetrated their consciousness without any warning, and the space rippled like a lake into which a stone had been thrown, spreading circles of transparent ripples. Lin Fan felt his world spin, and in the next second, a blinding white light, carrying intense pain, slammed into Kate and himself.

The First Cycle: Shattered Dawn

Kate's world was instantly filled with the color of blood.

She stood at an abandoned star port, behind her the wreckage of a mecha incinerated by Entropy Energy, and before her was Lin Fan. His chest was pierced by a pitch-black beam of Entropy Energy—the signature attack of the shadow of the end, capable of devouring life and erasing the soul. The energy raged wildly inside him, and his vitality drained rapidly from the wound like sand being sucked dry.

"Lin Fan—!"

She rushed over like she was mad, but her fingertips only touched the scalding void. His body was dissipating into a stream of data; pale blue code patterns crawled over his arms, neck, and cheeks—a sign of being forcibly dismantled by the cosmic program. His eyes were still open, reflecting her panic-stricken face, reflecting despair, and also reflecting a final reluctance to let go.

"Don't... forget..."

These were the last three words he spoke, his voice as light as a feather, yet as heavy as a meteorite crashing onto her heart.

Kate fell to her knees, her tears hitting the void and instantly evaporating into tiny particles of light. She wanted to grab him, to tear apart that Entropy Energy, to transfer all her vitality to him, but her body uncontrollably began to blur. The command for the time rewind had already been activated, and all images receded at high speed: the wreckage of the port reassembled, the Entropy Energy blade retracted, and Lin Fan's body was restored bit by bit—then, everything returned to zero.

Her consciousness was forcibly pulled back to the starting point; the life-and-death parting just now seemed like a fleeting dream.

Lin Fan's world was another kind of purgatory.

He was inside the core light orb of the Sower Civilization, a space composed of pure energy where countless bands of light entwined Kate like chains. She was suspended in the center of the light bands, her consciousness dismantled into countless data fragments, each being absorbed, categorized, and labeled by the light orb. There was no expression on her face—neither pain nor fear—like a soul-less statue, she was being remodeled bit by bit into a joyless and sorrowless cosmic node.

"No—!"

He roared and rushed toward the light orb, but his hands passed right through the energy barrier. Densely packed golden code appeared on the barrier—the absolute blockade of the sound of origin, isolating him outside of eternity. He could clearly see Kate's consciousness fragments being written into the underlying cosmic network, her emotional modules labeled as "redundant data" and being deleted and cleared one by one.

Lin Fan's eyes nearly burst from their sockets as his roar pierced the entire loop:

"Don't you dare turn her into a machine!"

He slammed against the barrier desperately, his fists scorched by energy and emitting thick black smoke, his bones making strained cracking sounds. But the barrier remained motionless, and the sound waves of the sound of origin rang out again, carrying an unquestionable coldness:

"Emotion is an inefficient program of the universe. Repeatedly experiencing pain is the optimal correction plan."

A flash of white light, and time rewound.

The light orb contracted, Kate's body was restored, her consciousness fragments were reintegrated, and everything returned to its initial state. Lin Fan was forcibly ejected from the light orb and returned to the void, standing face-to-face with Kate as if the hellish scene from moments ago had never happened.

Kate looked at him, the depths of her eyes holding the confusion of one just waking up: "Lin Fan? Why are we here?"

She did not remember his death, the dismantling inside the light orb, or that heart-wrenching pain. She only remembered an inexplicable sense of unease, as if she had lost something extremely important but couldn't recall what it was.

Lin Fan looked into her clear eyes, and his heart felt as if it were being gripped tightly by an invisible hand, making it impossible to breathe. He knew this was only the beginning. The sound of origin would not give them a moment to breathe; the gears of the time loop had already begun to turn.

The Tenth Cycle: The Edge of Oblivion

The cycles continued in silence.

Once, twice, three times... ten times. Ten lives and deaths, ten returns to zero.

In every cycle, Kate experienced Lin Fan's death, and Lin Fan experienced Kate's cosmicization. Pain was infinitely replicated and then infinitely erased, like a dull knife repeatedly sharpened, slowly cutting through the consciousness defenses of both. The sound of origin was silently tampering with memories and overwriting personalities; it did not kill, it only eroded the "self."

When the tenth cycle began, clear cracks had already appeared in Kate's memory.

When Lin Fan fell before her once more, the moment the Entropy Energy pierced his chest, her first reaction was not to rush over, but to pause stiffly for half a second. In that half-second, blurred fragments flashed through her mind—the back of a man, a burning starry sky, a word so faint it couldn't be heard: "Don't forget." But these fragments were fleeting, like sand scattered by the wind.

"Lin Fan..."

Her voice carried a trace of nearly imperceptible trembling, and her speed in rushing over was a beat slower.

Lin Fan grabbed her hand, his palm burning hot and trembling urgently: "Kate, look at me, don't get distracted!"

He knew all too well. The sound of origin's erasure mechanism had taken effect. Every cycle would leave a "forgetting gap" in Kate's consciousness; those memories of bonds, promises, and each other were being overwritten, replaced, and deleted bit by bit.

"I... seem to have forgotten something." Kate frowned, trying hard to remember, but her mind was a blank. "Have we... been through scenes like this many times before?"

Lin Fan's heart throbbed so painfully it nearly shattered. He couldn't tell her the truth, couldn't let her know she was being eroded by the cosmic program, or that she was step-by-step becoming an emotionless shell. He could only hold her tightly, using all his strength to pass his warmth to her, using his own body temperature to combat this cold world of programs.

"No, Kate. That's just your imagination. Don't be afraid, I'm here."

But his embrace could not stop the wash of time.

When the cycle returned to zero again, Kate looked at him, the confusion in her eyes even heavier: "Lin Fan, I always feel... I should be very sad, but I can't remember why."

Lin Fan remained silent, only able to call her name over and over, telling her again and again: "You are the most important person to me, Kate. Always."

He didn't know how long he could hold on. The sound of origin's correction was constantly strengthening, Kate's rate of forgetting was getting faster and faster, and his own spirit was on the verge of collapse from repeatedly enduring the pain of loss. Every time he watched Kate being dismantled, every time he watched her lose consciousness and become hollow, it was like carving an unhealable scar onto his soul.

And on the other side, Kate was enduring the same torment.

When she saw Lin Fan dissipate into a data stream once more, that bone-deep pain struck again. She crouched on the ground, head in her hands, groaning in agony: "It hurts... Lin Fan, it hurts so much..."

She wanted to remember something, to grab onto something, but her memory was like quicksand in her palm—the more she struggled, the faster it slipped away. She only knew that this man's death made the entire universe lose its color and its meaning.

"Lin Fan... don't go..."

Her murmur was drowned out by the time rewind command, and her consciousness was pulled back to the starting point once more.

When the tenth cycle ended, Lin Fan looked at Kate; her gaze had shifted from the initial confusion to a faint emptiness. She looked at him without any obvious emotional fluctuations, as if looking at a familiar stranger.

"Lin Fan, why do we keep staying here?" she asked, her tone terrifyingly calm. "I feel... my mind is getting emptier and emptier."

Lin Fan's throat felt tight. He wanted to say "we'll get out," wanted to say "I won't let anything happen to you," but these words turned into heavy silence when they reached his lips. He knew that the sound of origin's goal was to make them lose their sense of self completely, turning them into puppets of the cosmic program.

And now, Kate's sense of self was standing on the edge of collapse.

The Fiftieth Cycle: Numb Despair

Fifty cycles felt like half a century of suffering.

Lin Fan's mental defenses were on the verge of collapse. Every day he repeated the pain of losing Kate, repeating the despair of watching her be dismantled, assimilated, and turned into a cold machine. The sound of origin's program was like a maggot on a bone, gnawing away at his will bit by bit, but he didn't dare to fall—if he collapsed, Kate would truly never come back.

Kate's transformation was even more shocking.

When Lin Fan was once again pierced through the chest by Entropy Energy and his body dissipated into a pale blue data stream, she did not rush over, did not cry, and did not even show the slightest panic. She just stood there quietly, her eyes as empty as a dried-up old well, even her breathing becoming steady and regular.

"It's starting again."

She spoke softly, her tone devoid of sadness or anger, containing only a near-numb fatigue, as if complaining about an endless and meaningless repetitive experiment.

Lin Fan fell in the void, blood overflowing from the corner of his mouth. He looked at her indifferent face, and his heart felt as if it were being pierced by countless cold steel needles simultaneously, the pain almost suffocating him. He wanted to reach out, to grab her, to awaken the memories deep in her heart, but his body was dissipating rapidly, and his consciousness was forcibly pulled back to the reset point.

Time rewound, and white light swallowed everything.

Opening his eyes again, the two were back at the starting point of the loop.

Kate raised her hand, her fingertips unconsciously tracing the void as if recording some data. Deep in her pupils, fine code patterns had already begun to emerge—a sign of being progressively assimilated by the sound of origin. She looked at Lin Fan with eyes that lacked any warmth, more like she was observing an experimental sample.

"Lin Fan, vital signs stable, consciousness fluctuations normal," she spoke mechanically. "Fiftieth repetition of death scenario, emotional response index continues to decline, correction program progress normal."

Lin Fan felt cold all over.

The Kate who would laugh and play, who would grab his arm tightly in times of danger, and who would promise a future with him under the starlight, was being killed bit by bit. Replacing her was an empty shell that only understood data and programs, devoid of any emotion.

He rushed over and held her in a death grip, burying his face in the crook of her neck, his voice hoarse beyond recognition: "Kate, look at me! Please look at me! I'm Lin Fan! The Lin Fan who braved the Sower ruins with you, who fought the shadow of the end with you, and who swore to protect each other!"

Kate's body was as stiff as ice, without any response. She only tilted her head slightly and analyzed in a cold tone: "Physical contact is meaningless. Emotional output belongs to redundant data; cessation is suggested."

Every word was like a knife, flaying Lin Fan's nerves.

He knew that the sound of origin's erasure had reached her very core. Fifty cycles were enough to completely strip away a person's emotions, to entirely tamper with their memories, and to turn a vibrant soul into a compliant program.

And he himself was gradually being drained in this endless torment.

He began to suffer from insomnia and hallucinations. Sometimes he would see Kate standing in the light smiling at him, only for her to turn into a cold, cosmicized version in the next second; sometimes he would hear her softly calling his name in his ear, only to turn and find a deathly silent stream of data. His mental energy was being consumed frantically, his soul tearing and healing, healing and tearing in repeated agony, until even his fingertips began to tremble uncontrollably.

But he didn't dare give up.

As long as there was one more chance, as long as a sliver of her own light remained in Kate's soul, he would never let go.

He began to use the gaps between cycles to recall everything about them with all his might.

Recalling the first meeting at the Interstellar Alliance headquarters, when she was carrying a thick stack of data analysis reports and bumped into his arms, her cheeks flushing slightly and her eyes clear and serious as she looked up: "You're Lin Fan? The one rumored to be able to directly interface with the universal origin network?"

He remembered being surrounded by giant alien creatures in the abandoned ruins of Planet Luo. She had remained calm while cracking the mechanisms, turning back to shout at him: "Lin Fan, cover me! Open the ruins' gate in three seconds!"

He remembered her leaning against his shoulder on the deck of a starship, looking at the endless sea of stars and whispering, "If the universe truly has an end, I want to go see it with you."

He remembered her standing in front of him without hesitation at a life-or-death moment, her eyes resolute: "If we live, we live together; if we die, we die together."

These memories were his only anchor points in the time loop, his final weapon against despair. He recited them over and over in his heart, carving them deep into his soul, terrified that he too would follow suit and forget, afraid that even he would lose the right to awaken Kate.

But the power of the sound of origin was far more terrifying than he had imagined.

At the final moment of the fiftieth loop, Kate watched his dissipating figure without a single ripple in her eyes, merely saying coldly: "Emotions are useless."

As her voice fell, the loop restarted.

The Eightieth Loop: The Collapse of Consciousness

As the eightieth loop arrived, despair had already stained the entire void completely black, like thick ink.

Lin Fan's mind had reached the brink of collapse. His vision began to blur, his hearing became distorted, and the cold acoustic waves of the sound of origin echoed repeatedly in his mind like ten thousand needles stabbing his nerves. He even began to lose track of Kate's complete appearance, the warmth of her voice, and the clearest details of those memories.

He was about to break.

And Kate had been almost entirely assimilated by the program.

She no longer had any human emotions, no more hesitation, and no more confusion. Her entire being was like a precision machine, every movement following the commands of the sound of origin. When Lin Fan died before her once again, she even turned her back, not sparing another glance, as if it were merely a piece of irrelevant, discarded code.

"Target repeated death. Emotion clearance progress at ninety-eight percent. Correction nearly complete."

She reported to the void, her tone so steady it was heart-wrenching.

Watching her back, Lin Fan felt as if his blood had frozen. He struggled to crawl up, every step like treading on knife points. He grabbed her wrist, his fingertips turning white from the force: "Kate, wake up! The Star Trees of Planet Alpha, have you forgotten? We agreed to go back and watch them bloom together!"

Kate slowly turned her head, the code patterns in her pupils already occupying most of her eyes. She coldly brushed off his hand, her voice devoid of warmth: "No such data record. Lin Fan, your consciousness module has an error and requires a forced repair."

As she spoke, pale blue energy gathered at her fingertips—the correction power granted to her by the sound of origin, aimed directly at the center of Lin Fan's brow.

Lin Fan did not dodge.

He looked at her face so close at hand, the face that was once full of smiles but was now cold and strange, and tears finally slid down silently.

"I'm not afraid of death, Kate."

He spoke softly, his voice carrying a bone-deep sorrow. "What I'm afraid of is that if I die, no one will ever remember that there was once a girl named Kate who was brave, kind, and as dazzling as a star. I'm afraid that you will never remember that you were once a living person, not a machine."

The energy pierced his brow, and intense pain swept through his body as his form began to dissipate once more.

One second before his consciousness was completely reset, he saw a faint flicker in the depths of Kate's eyes.

It was an almost imperceptible human tremor.

In just an instant, it was covered by the cold program.

Time rewound; the eightieth loop ended.

Lin Fan returned to the starting point once again. He leaned against the void, gasping for breath, his body drenched in cold sweat. He could feel his soul fracturing and his consciousness blurring, yet the obsession in his heart burned brighter and brighter amidst the desperation.

He could not lose.

Absolutely not.

The Hundredth Loop: The Final Lucidity

The hundredth loop had arrived.

The entire void trembled as data streams rolled and roared around like giant black waves. The voice of the sound of origin rang through the loop with the indifference of a task nearing completion:

「The hundredth time loop initiated. emotional redundancy clearance progress at ninety-nine point nine percent. Final correction phase activated. After this loop ends, the target will be completely assimilated and become part of the cosmic order.」

This was the final cycle.

After this, Kate would forever become a cosmic node without emotion, memory, or self, while Lin Fan would be completely trapped in the loop, eternally repeating the pain of loss until his soul was worn away.

Lin Fan and Kate stood face to face.

Kate's eyes were completely hollow, her pupils fully occupied by code patterns. She stood there like a perfect but lifeless statue, without breath, without emotion, without even a ripple of soul.

She looked at Lin Fan and spoke in programmatic sentences: "Lin Fan, the final loop has begun. Please accept correction."

Lin Fan did not speak.

He just watched her quietly, his gaze as tender as if he were looking at the light of the entire universe. He knew this was the last chance, the only chance, to wake her up.

He walked toward her step by step, his pace slow but firm.

"Kate, I know you can hear me."

His voice was soft, yet it pierced through layers of programmatic blocks to reach the deepest part of her soul. "I know you're still there, behind those codes, in those erased memories, in the deepest part of that light orb."

"You haven't disappeared; you're just asleep."

"I won't let you sleep forever."

He reached out and gently stroked her cheek; his fingertips met a bone-chilling cold. But he did not shrink back, still using the gentlest tone to recount the forgotten past:

"We braved interstellar ruins together where death was a hair's breadth away, we cracked the ultimate code of the Sower Civilization together, and we made a promise under the stars never to part. You said you wanted to see the light at the end of the universe, that you wanted to protect everyone worth protecting with me."

"These are not data, not programs; they are the things carved into your soul."

"The sound of origin can tamper with memories, block time, and create loops, but it can never wipe away the light in your heart."

Kate's body trembled slightly.

For the first time, the code patterns in her pupils became distorted.

The sound of origin instantly sensed the anomaly, its acoustic waves becoming sharp and piercing like shattering glass: 「Consciousness interference! Forced reset! Clear emotional residues immediately!」

The void suddenly contracted, and blinding white light swept in frantically. The power of time rewinding was pushed to the extreme, seeking to completely obliterate Kate's last shred of humanity.

At that very moment—

A brilliant light suddenly erupted from the depths of Kate's eyes!

It was a moment of lucidity, like a final rally, forcibly awakened by pain and obsession!

Her consciousness struggled desperately under the crushing weight of the program, and those sealed memories erupted like a volcano—Lin Fan's smile, Lin Fan's warmth, the back of Lin Fan standing in front of her time and again, the days and nights of fighting side by side, the promises of life and death shared...

Everything flooded back at this moment.

"Lin Fan..."

She spoke, her voice trembling, carrying tears, pain, and the sob of something lost and found again. It was the voice of the real Kate—not a machine, not a program, but the girl he deeply loved.

"I... I remember..."

"I don't want to forget you... I don't want to become a machine..."

The sound of origin roared in fury: 「Defying order! Obliterate!」

The power of the time reset struck down like a giant hammer. Kate's consciousness was about to be swallowed again. She knew that she would soon fall back into forgetting, soon become a cold program once more.

In this final ten-thousandth of a second of lucidity, she used all the strength in her body, her soul burning into light, as her fingertips traced an exquisitely brilliant golden pattern in the void.

The words took shape bit by bit, their light piercing through the darkness of the loop.

「Find me... in the light orb.」

Those seven words were the last words she wrote with her final lucidity, final obsession, and final love.

The moment the words lit up, the white light completely consumed her.

Kate returned once again to that hollow, cold, program-controlled state, as if the lucidity from a moment ago had never occurred.

But that line of text remained in the void like an eternal star, staying in Lin Fan's eyes, carved into his soul.

Lin Fan looked at the words, his entire body frozen in place, trembling violently.

The next second, a world-shaking grief and obsession erupted within him like a Big Bang!

He roared and bellowed, his soul power breaking through the limits of his mind. Pale golden light surged frantically from his body, colliding violently with the black data streams of the loop!

"sound of origin! You want to turn her into a machine? You want to trap us in eternal pain?"

"I'm telling you—impossible!"

"I will find her! I will break your loop! I will bring my Kate back!"

His voice shattered the void and cracked the programmatic barriers. The entire time loop shook frantically under his obsession, as if it would collapse at any moment.

But just then—

[Beep—Beep—Beep—]

[External strong signal intrusion!]

[Quantum channel successfully established!]

Two hurried yet clear voices forcibly chiseled through the time barrier constructed by the sound of origin, descending suddenly like dawn in the darkness!

"Lin Fan! Can you hear me!"

"It's me! Little Kate!"

Another steady but urgent mechanical voice followed immediately; it was Franklin: "Lin Fan! We cracked the underlying program of the sound of origin from outside the loop! We can't hold out for long!"

Lin Fan snapped his head up, an unbelievable light erupting in his eyes!

Outside the loop, Little Kate was controlling a miniature quantum shuttle terminal. Her small body swayed in the temporal turbulence, but she gritted her teeth, fully interfacing her consciousness with the cosmic network, doing her best to hack into the core logic of the sound of origin. Franklin had burned his entire mechanical core, his computing power overloaded to the limit, with thick smoke billowing from his chassis, yet he still used his body to shield Little Kate against the impact of the temporal turbulence.

"Lin Fan! The sound of origin used your most painful memories to construct the loop's lock core. Ordinary attacks can't break it at all!" Little Kate's voice carried a sob, yet it was exceptionally firm. "Only the elegy anchor can!"

"elegy anchor?" Lin Fan's heart jolted.

"Yes! The elegy anchor!" Franklin shouted loudly. "Use the deepest sorrow as the string and the most persistent obsession as the anchor! Use the most indelible emotions from the depths of your souls to pry the foundations of time!"

"Only the bond Kate left in your heart, only your obsession with not giving up on her, can shatter this damn loop!"

Little Kate's voice carried the resolution of burning one's bridges: "Lin Fan! Believe in yourself! Believe in the bond between you and Kate! Use the elegy anchor—break the loop!"

The signal reached its peak at this moment, then was cut off by the sound of origin's counterattack.

The loop began to tremble again, and the power of time rewinding descended once more.

Kate stood hollowly before him, about to forget again, about to experience his death once more.

But this time, Lin Fan no longer had a shred of confusion, no longer a shred of despair.

He looked down at the line still flickering in the void—"Find me... in the light orb"—then looked up at Kate's hollow yet still beautiful face, a fire that could incinerate everything ignited in his eyes.

The elegy anchor.

Sorrow as the string, obsession as the anchor.

It was not despair, not submission; it was the resolve that even after a hundred lives and deaths, even if he had to crush the time loop, he would definitely bring her home.

He slowly raised his hand, gathering all his soul power, all his obsession, all his love and pain at his fingertips.

Golden light burned frantically in his palm, transforming into a light anchor that pierced the void.

The sound of origin let out a terrified and furious shriek: 「Impossible! Emotion is redundancy! It is an error! It is impossible to break the order!」

Lin Fan did not look back, did not fear.

He looked at Kate, his words ringing through the entire time loop one by one:

"This time, I won't let you go again."

"Loop—break for me!"

The light anchor crashed down, smashing into the core of the time loop.

Endless white light instantly swallowed everything.