The amber dandelion seeds’ awakening
by M1zushiBetween heaven and earth, only endless mirror cracks and gunshots remained.
Wave after wave of orphans and mirror monsters were mowed down like grass, adding a layer of broken glass background noise to the world.
During a pause in the gunfire, Qin Zhilu accessed the terminal’s highest authority, synchronizing everyone’s chip data to the team’s public channel.
An Yu’s health had dropped to 27% and it still didn’t trigger Fengjian’s blood locking protection. The dandelion seeds could only provide a slight buffer, and his survival value continued to drop.
The survival values of the three damage-dealers remained around 70%, and their mental strength was less damaged—high-ranking Protectors generally had good mental stability, and the mirror shattering had minimal interference on their minds.
However, Jiang Xiao was an exception, his mental power had already fallen below the 50% warning line.
The real problem was Fengjian Tianyu. Like all healers, he had sustained almost no damage, and his mental power remained high.
But Fengjian Tianyu’s chip reported a third set of physical metrics. The chip could only detect that it was an important physiological state, and like survival value, it was a consumable indicator. However, it couldn’t yet determine what it specifically represented, so a red question mark appeared on the screen, and it currently showed an 100% status.
“Commander,” An Yu suddenly called out. Qin Zhilu snapped back to attention and his gaze changed from the terminal. He glanced at the fine threads wrapped around An Yu’s wrist, then fired a shot at the gathered mirror monsters.
The world, which had just fallen silent, was once again filled with continuous explosions. The sky-full of shattered mirror fragments made the air seem solid. Sunlight was distorted back and forth by the chaotic air, stinging their eyes painfully.
An Yu pulled off the bandage on his wrist and wrapped it around his eyes. His red pupils stared at the hazy world behind the bandage. After carefully feeling it, he softly said, “About half the mirrors left.”
As his words fell, an invisible pressure enveloped everyone. Half the mirrors remained, but the sound of shattering mirrors kept catalyzing An Yu’s ability.
The acceleration of time was like a snowball rolling bigger and bigger. An Yu’s survival value would drop even faster, making it harder for those slow little dandelions to pull him back.
Fengjian withdrew the dandelion seeds from his other teammates and gathered them all around An Yu and he said with a calm tone. “Corner is at 20%. I’m ready to activate health defense at any moment.”
Qin Zhilu raised his arm and fired, blowing up another string of mirror monsters. After the clamor subsided, he asked in a deep voice, “What does your third value mean? What exactly does the blood locking mechanism consume?”
Fengjian heard this and chuckled. “It consumes dandelion seeds.” He paused, his cat-like eyes narrowing slightly, and whispered, “Actually, I have two kinds of dandelion seeds.”
Qin Zhilu glanced at An Yu’s reaction— after blindfolding himself, AnYu seemed calmer than before, but his chest still heaved violently.
Even with the bandage covering them, one could still feel the crazy red pupils behind it.
He reached out and pulled at the knot of the bandage tied behind An Yu’s head, gently tugging. In the private channel, he said, “Try to control your ability. Don’t let time keep accelerating. Mirrors breaking too fast will only hasten your own death.”
As soon as he finished speaking, there was an unprecedentedly violent fluctuation around them. The orphans stepping out of thin air suddenly doubled!
Slade looked at the mirror monsters pressing down at them like mountains and said hoarsely,. “It seems the Mirror is going crazy too.”
An Yu’s movements didn’t pause. He immediately folded the mirror monsters and orphans together, then Qin Zhilu detonated them with a single shot—
Noise exploded!
Even the other Protectors were almost deafened by the booming sound of shattering mirrors. But immediately after, a new batch of orphans stepped out into the air, doubling once again.
“No, something’s wrong,” Jiang Xiao suddenly realized and exclaimed, “The mirrors behind us are starting to replicate the mirror monsters. If the monsters keep increasing, the damage caused by shattered mirrors to An Yu will multiply. Can Fengjian still hold on?”
Almost simultaneously, An Yu’s health alert was pushed to everyone’s terminal.
—10%.
Countless orphans rapidly approached him, transforming into giant mirror monsters as they got closer. An Yu gazed at them through the bandage. He suddenly stood up from the ground, ignoring the frantic alarms from his terminal, and stepped out of their protective circle.
In the haze, An Yu saw the towering mirror monsters bend down before him, almost touching his nose. They seemed to be clamoring, waiting for him to strike them down, and then retaliate with the sound of shattering mirrors.
He stood straight in the wind stirred by their roars and reached out and picked up a shattered mirror fragment from the wind.
The fragment spun in his palm. An Yu’s fingers moved slightly, creating ripples of space distortion, and rapidly folded the roaring, colossal monsters into that small shattered mirror fragment.
The teammates standing behind him pulled each other amidst the space tremors.
In the cacophony of roars and the booming sound of mirrors being crushed, the white-haired young man with bandaged eyes stood at the center of the storm, yet he was as calm as if he weren’t the one who had unleashed it.
After the last mirror monster was absorbed into the shattered mirror fragment, An Yu didn’t immediately act. This caused the noise to abruptly cease for a moment.
However, the silence was fleeting. Immediately after, [Guardian]’s blade was unsheathed. He raised his blade in the air, his arm tensed, and plunged it down hard! The shattered mirror fragment splintered into pieces with a faint cracking sound.
Then, the clamor of all the mirror monsters exploding within the mirror erupted, wave after wave, resounding throughout heaven and earth.
An Yu had personally acted, shattering the mirrors on this level!
And he actually stood firm amidst the intense pain, raising a hand to pull down the bandage.
His red pupils burned like fire and no longer retained any hint of gold.
Jiang Xiao and Slade, who had been about to stop him, instantly fell silent. They felt an anger emanating from a silent and terrifying entity, an anger so profound that even bystanders found it unbearable.
A new batch of mirrors appeared. In An Yu’s perception, this was the last batch. And the number of orphans emerging from this last batch of invisible mirrors was countless.
The transformed mirror monsters had become much smaller and weaker—
The Mirror had completely understood his weakness and wanted to instantly drain his life by increasing the number of mirror ruptures.
The terminal shrieked.
“5%.”
Fengjian Tianyu stood behind An Yu, holding his breath.
Although he dared not look directly at An Yu, his voice remained steady. “Please shatter the mirrors without worry. I will hold the blood line for you.”
“Thank you,” An Yu said softly. He paused, then added, “I’ll look out for you too.”
While Fengjian was momentarily stunned, An Yu casually picked up another shattered mirror fragment. He held the fragment between his fingers and took two steps forward.
The mirror monsters also bypassed the other Protectors and surrounded him. The wind’s rough wheezing and impact lashed against him. His orphanage uniform was almost torn to shreds by the wind. From head to toe, only his red pupils remained unperturbed.
Qin Zhilu pulled the bolt of his gun and then took off his trench coat to drape it over An Yu.
“Come on.”
The next moment, everything in everyone’s vision began to rapidly twist.
Countless spaces folded, pulling the surroundings into bizarre fluctuations.
An Yu absorbed the giant monsters one by one, as if emotionlessly tidying a cluttered desk.
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He looked back at Fengjian, pulled up the black trench coat on his shoulders, and stepped forward to place the shattered mirror fragment on the ground in front of Qin Zhilu.
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Gunshots rang out, mirrors broke and the overwhelming clamor tore at everyone’s sanity.
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Amidst the extreme clamor, An Yu’s health flashed continuously, but each flash still only displayed 2.5%!
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Everyone was stunned for a while before they immediately understood. Slade grabbed Fengjian’s wrist.
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The chip never reported this value because it should normally not fluctuate and wouldn’t decrease due to physical exertion or combat damage.
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But these captivating amber seeds were the result of genetic overexpression.
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Healers were always the most stingy in using their abilities. Even if it didn’t shake the foundation of their power, a large consumption of healing would make them feel very insecure. They would carefully calculate their remaining healing capacity in a single mission, privately evaluate other Protectors’ “blood reserves” and combat habits, and then carefully select “sensible” teammates.
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An Yu was the first, and perhaps he would be the last.
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The freshly grown poppy broke under the space fluctuation.
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On An Yu’s terminal, the 2.5% figure kept flashing. Large clumps of amber dandelions rapidly rushed towards him, while the pale purple and white small dandelions that had been floating in the air were disappearing in swathes.
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He opened the channel again. “Fengjian, the third value.”
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Qin Zhilu looked at him. “Let Jiang Xiao rotate. His mental power can still hold on for a while.”
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Fengjian’s face was almost completely white. He smiled faintly and whispered, “I am prepared.”
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Just as everyone was about to breathe a sigh of relief, An Yu’s health value on the terminal abruptly flashed again. Correspondingly, Fengjian’s value dropped once more, leaving only 3%.
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An Yu withdrew his hand. On the terminal, Fengjian’s third physiological number remained at precisely 1% and no longer dropped.
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Almost simultaneously, An Yu’s terminal flashed for the last time, dropping from 2.5% to 1%. And then, it stopped changing.
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The shattered mirror fragments were still airborne and mixed with the snow, rapidly accumulating on the black trench coat draped over him, coating it with a layer of frosty white.
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After a long while, An Yu slowly opened his eyes. His red pupils didn’t change, but were calmer than before. Those pupils contracted steadily with his breath. He turned around and his gaze swept over everyone.
Slade realized that his taut muscles were shrinking uncontrollably, and he was almost completely returning to his human state. Pat unconsciously took two steps back, lowering his head in silent submission.
Fengjian remained frozen. He was too tired, it seemed impossible to compel his body to move again.
He thought he must have preserved his ability. At 1%, as long as it wasn’t completely depleted, he could recover with proper rest and treatment from Brain researchers.
But he hadn’t fulfilled his promise to the Corner—he hadn’t held out to the very end, and now he was completely useless in this mission.
A sense of loss, like a vast and heavy, ethereal mountain, pressed down hard on his shoulders.
Under the scrutiny of those red pupils, his knees almost trembled, yet he dared not avert his gaze, simply because An Yu was staring at him.
A moment later, An Yu walked towards him and stopped in front of him. Just as Fengjian finally couldn’t bear it and was about to lower his head to avoid eye contact, An Yu reached into his pocket and offered him an opened energy bar.
It was an unremarkable energy bar.
Although the developers thoughtfully made them sweet and developed rich flavors, many Protectors felt nauseous just looking at them because they ate them on every mission.
But at this moment, perhaps it was the cold wind of the orphanage that made the sweet and sour scent waft into his nostrils, giving him an instant sense of relief, as if he was returning to reality.
Seeing that he didn’t take it, An Yu glanced at the energy bar and said, “Raspberry chocolate.”
He paused, then added, “There’s also a honey oat one, which I prefer.”
His tone was devoid of emotion.
Fengjian slowly raised his hand and took the energy bar. Before he could express his thanks, An Yu spoke first. “Thank you.”
His tone was calm, but not perfunctory, “You worked hard.”
The moment An Yu turned, a murmur from not far away suddenly reached his ears.
Jiang Xiao whispered, “He’d rather risk death than use me once.”
An Yu’s steps paused, but he didn’t turn back, continuing forward.
All the invisible mirrors had shattered. No new orphans or mirror monsters appeared. The world seemed to have returned to how it was when they first stepped onto this level.
Only the subtle sensation of fluctuation in the air had vanished.
An Yu stared at the air directly in front of him and softly said, “It’s here.”
There was nothing where he pointed.
“The last invisible mirror, the last folded space.”
He put his arms into the sleeves of the trench coat one by one and properly wore the Commander’s clothes.
His red pupils were calm and resolute.
“A-Ji’s mirror coffin is here. Kill her, enter the next level, and find Bai Jing.”
Author’s Note:
Snowflake fragments
[Fengjian Tianyu (2/3)]
[Strong Determination]
I am a person who strives for strength and admires it.
Who on the Ladder is not like this?
When I first became an aberrant, I was troubled by my slow healing speed and felt that I was destined to be a lower-level nurse.
But the people from Brain quickly told me about my unique ability.
That day, I was both surprised and melancholic.
The surprise was because no other healer could achieve instant blood locking. In a sense, I stood at the pinnacle of the healer pyramid.
But the melancholy was because using this ability carried extremely high risks—if I depleted my healing capacity I only required a few nights’ sleep to recover. But overdrawing the cell’s gene expression, to its very limit, would render me useless.
No Protector could accept that.
I used this ability to sign up for many missions, but I cunningly never truly used it.
Frankly, before fighting alongside the Corner, I was only manipulating him.
But later, I learned that a person could submit so quickly.
Perhaps it was only because I had seen him control time and space, and also seen him collapse into a coma.
Seeing him haggle over a few percentage points of survival value, and I also saw him persevering without fear of explosive damage.
In that moment, I understood Grape, An, and even Jiang Xiao.
No healing type could resist the urge to protect the Corner.
Or rather, protecting the Corner’s safety is our strongest determination.
Snowflake fragments
[Fengjian Tianyu (3/3)]
[Used by Him]
That nutrient bar was already opened.
Though it didn’t look bitten, it was clearly not fresh.
Yet, it held a profound meaning.
When he opened his eyes, I knew I had finally glimpsed the “Advent State.”
Without experiencing it firsthand, no one could understand that cold and powerful oppression.
He walked towards me, but only offered that nutrient bar, and to my useless self, he said, “You worked hard.”
I liked being used by him.
He looked at me before turning and leaving.
Though utterly emotionless, I inexplicably felt controlled, and also comforted.
That gaze seemed to tell me—he would use me to the absolute limit.
But, he would never let me touch the abyss for him.
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