I'm Not a Flame-Chaser - Chapter 596

"I will always be here."

Neither memory nor time can separate us.

New Testament: Afterword of the Dirac Sea: Chapter 119 Restoration

Standing beneath the tower and before the building, Lin felt a sense of déjà vu as he looked at what he saw.

... That's right, I was here before.

Lin banished the strange feeling from his mind. He turned back one last time and looked at the people standing behind him. Even though the memories of the people he had spent with them were gone, some things, even without the ties of memory, still lingered on his fingertips.

"Let's go."

The others stepped back, and Lin and Seele arrived in front of the stone gate. He took out the remaining four Poké Ball and pressed them into the grooves one by one.

"Click".

That strange feeling welled up in my heart again.

Is this really the right thing to do? Is it really correct to give the snake what it needs?

But no matter how deep Lin's suspicions were, he had already put the last Poké Ball into the slot. Then the stone door shook heavily and slowly opened to both sides.

Meanwhile, apart from Lin and Seele, everyone else's watches displayed the word "eliminated," and only members of the Riding Fish Team were allowed to enter the central building.

Seele nodded to Lin, who calmly looked ahead, then took a step and walked into the unfathomable darkness.

Within it, sinister snake eyes shone through the darkness.

"Have a safe journey, Captain."

The man stepped into the darkness without looking back, and the stone door behind him slammed shut the moment they entered.

"Bang!"

"I remember once during a PE class, you were sitting under the shade of a tree reading a book while I was playing basketball. That day, the heat was intense, and my clothes were soaked with sweat. I laughed and made one shot after another. The only sound on the court besides the cheers was the sound of my shots."

"I have to admit that I was proud back then. Even though it was just a group of students having an informal sports activity during their free time, I could feel that I was different from the others. I could see their movements clearly, and they couldn't catch up with my speed no matter how hard they tried. I could easily jump over the tallest person."

"As I was sweating and dunking, enjoying the cheers and praise of others, I caught a glimpse of you out of the corner of my eye. I wanted you to make friends with more people, so I invited you to join me."

"But you refused, and the way you refused was to pick up the basketball that had fallen off the court, toss it across most of the court without looking back, and make a swish."

"It might have been just a trivial matter that you wouldn't have thought about, but that night, I didn't sleep a wink."

"I thought of many possibilities. Maybe you've been secretly practicing basketball, or maybe your family is a sports family, but the only conclusion I can draw is... there's no other reason than that you're very strong."

"You're strong, that's why you're reading alone in the corner. You're strong, that's why you can score goals so easily, proving you don't need to play around with us."

"Just as the sun is simply there, it is an insurmountable end point, and even the 'Icarus' that flies to the heavens will fall under its power."

"Therefore, what can persuade others is not morality and ideas, but strength."

"Now, prove your strength to me, Lin."

"Brother Lin... Brother Lin?"

"..."

A delicate, childlike hand waved in front of the blurred vision, and the man leaning against the wall had his unfocused pupils clearly refocused in the darkness.

His chilling expression when he raised his head startled the girl with the dyed hair, almost causing her legs to buckle and she to collapse to the ground.

"... What's wrong?" Lin relaxed the muscles on his face and asked the frightened Seele coldly.

"Your expression just now... was terrifying..." Seele's slender body trembled slightly. She didn't dare to look into Lin Yilei's Prismatic Eyes, and lowered her head timidly, saying, "Brother Lin has been standing still ever since he came in..."

"...It's nothing." Lin reached out to pat Seele's head, but stopped halfway through. In the end, he just straightened up and said casually, "I just suddenly remembered something."

"Oh..."

Did you think of something...?

Lin turned around indifferently, glanced at the road they had come from, and then looked ahead into the darkness where no one knew where the road would lead.

Indeed, it brought back many memories.

The two of them got off and then stopped talking. They started exploring little by little. But surprisingly, Seele was probably frightened by Lin's private actions just now. She kept a little distance from him than before, and she would steal glances at Lin's profile from time to time, as if she was very afraid that he would suddenly get angry like before.

Whether it was her imagination or not, Lin's expression became even colder after she entered the room, like an ice sculpture. For a moment, she even thought she had been cleaved in two by a knife.

"How much longer... do we have to walk from here..."

They had already covered a distance far exceeding what was visible from the outside, yet they still hadn't reached the end. Coupled with the pitch-black environment, it made one wonder if they were really moving forward.

Lin did not answer. He had become very silent since entering the central building, and just walked forward without saying a word.

The moment the words left her lips, the darkness before her eyes vanished, and a wide, open corridor appeared before them. The futuristic decor made Seele's eyes widen in surprise.

"W-Where is this...?"

Lin paused for a few seconds, staring at the corridor in front of him, before walking forward again. "Follow me."

"Oh... okay..."

Seele quickly followed behind Lin.

The scene before me was intricate and complex, seemingly a very large base, but there was not a single person in the huge building; it was eerily quiet.

Kelin didn't stop at any of the forks in the road. He walked through each corner as if he were a familiar person, leading Seele into the deepest part of the place.

"Brother Lin, have you been here before?" Seele asked softly.

"..."

Lin still didn't answer. The shadows in his eyes deepened, and the muscles in his arms tensed. As he went deeper, the feeling of being watched by the snake's eyes became more and more obvious.

Of course he came.

He lived here for a full ten years; all the hardships, all the pain of parting, all the despair and collapse had existed here.

Lin remembers every corridor here. He can even tell with his eyes closed that if he walks forward ten meters, turns right, walks forward fifty meters, and then turns left, he will arrive at the door of someone's laboratory.

The black-haired man's right iridescent pupil emitted a faint light, which appeared particularly dazzling in the quiet lighting environment.

"Brother Lin, where are we going?"

"Huh?"

Suddenly, Seele covered her mouth. She frantically tried to explain to Lin that it wasn't her who said it, but then she saw two people walking towards her from the end of the corridor on her right.

A pink-haired girl and a man wearing a helmet.

P. S.: Something came up tonight, so the update will be slower. I won't be sleeping; I'll be adding an extra chapter.

New Testament: Afterword of the Dirac Sea: Chapter 120 Kevin's Reunion

A girl with short pink hair and a man wearing a helmet walked from the end of the corridor. Seele glanced nervously at Lin, but he didn't make any move, just quietly watching the two approaching.

"Brother Lin, where are we going?" The girl with short pink hair asked timidly, following behind the helmeted man.

Forest?

Seele paused for a moment, then looked at the helmeted man's physique and compared it to Lin beside her, noticing that the two men had strikingly similar builds.

Could this be... another World Bubble?

The two men seemed not to see Lin and Seele, and walked straight past them without either of them glancing at each other.

"Brother Lin, where are we going?"

The pink-haired girl repeated the same sentence, like a broken radio, constantly asking the helmeted man the same question.

This is also the question that someone else wanted to ask Lin.

Where did he take the pink-haired girl back then, what did he take her to do, and why did he do it?

"Da... da..."

Footsteps?

After the pink-haired girl and the helmeted man completely disappeared, footsteps sounded ahead in the empty space, and in the dim light, a shadow gradually emerged from the darkness.

It was a huge snake shadow.

Seele's pupils dilated, and she took two steps back, staring at the snake shadow in utter terror.

"Snake".

The mastermind behind the Great Elf Tournament, the monster that Welt and Bronya fought against to prevent it from invading reality, the man who pulled people Lin knew into the World Bubble, lingered in the inky black shadows, his breath almost stopped, his pair of azure pupils piercing through time, meeting Lin's black and rainbow eyes.

Like old friends who haven't seen each other for ages, or like mortal enemies who have parted ways.

"Clatter."

The twisted, enormous serpentine shadow transformed into a silver figure the instant it crossed the night.

A cold, silver-haired man dressed in a black and white combat uniform with blue stripes, whose serpentine features were completely obscured, stood quietly in the spotlight that illuminated his entire body.

This is... a snake?

"He is the snake," Lin said, revealing what Seele was thinking.

The white-haired man and the black-haired man stood in the light and the darkness respectively, neither of them pondering nor hesitating.

They know each other better than they know themselves.

"May I say, 'Long time no see, Lin?'"

He spoke.

Accompanied by a chill that penetrates to the bone.

Seele looked at Lin in confusion, then at the "snake." All her thoughts were now disrupted by the "snake's" words.

"We met just a few days ago," Lin replied indifferently. "Kevin."

After entering the central building, Lin's memories returned.

Those seven Poké Ball actually contain Lin's memories.

Four days ago, Lin led the Hyperion here, but he did not follow the route given by the previous captain. Instead, it was his own decision... or rather, a plan he had already devised when he first entered the Quantum Sea.

Rita used the container to heal Lin, and Lin remembered everything that was inside it when his consciousness was restored.

After collecting enough Aether Anchor, he found the World Bubble that had been created in the Previous Civilization era. What he needed to do was to use a huge number of Aether Anchor to create a World Bubble that would not dissipate, and the blueprint was the World Bubble of the Great Elf Tournament.

Upon arriving at this World Bubble, Lin discovered that a Herrscher Core existed within it, and he even reunited with Kevin here after ten thousand years.

But it wasn't a pleasant reunion.

Because Lin discovered that Kevin's responsibilities and tasks ran counter to Lin's ideals.

"You used your own memories as a price to separate me from the Herrscher Core, splitting me into seven parts, and I cannot personally collect your memories to break the separation." Kevin crossed his arms, facing his former best friend without changing his expression.

This soldier once saved countless lives.

This is the demon that killed everyone in the Previous Civilization.

Even now, Kevin still doesn't know why Lin took Rin away back then, or why she joined forces with the Herrscher of Reason and the Herrscher of Erosion to kill all the remaining humans.

But after seeing Lin alive again, Kevin understood Lin's plan and realized that the humans had not been killed by Lin.

"Then I will find the people in the Quantum Sea who are related to you and use this competition to collect their memories."

Ironically, it was Lin who isolated Kevin, but it was also Lin who released Kevin.

He realized Kevin's intentions, so when his memories were fading rapidly, he returned to the Hyperion and brought everyone into the World Bubble, hoping to prevent Kevin from collecting all of Qilin's memories.

But in the end, it was all in vain.

"Lin, you no longer need to participate in my plan. Just stay in the Quantum Sea until the plan is completed." Kevin extended his hand to Lin and said coldly without any mercy, "Hand over the core of the Herrscher of Reason to me."

After entering the central building, Lin could already sense where the Herrscher Core was.

But Lin ignored Kevin and stared at the stern-faced silver-haired man from afar, his knuckles clenched tightly, a rare occurrence for him.

Everything from the past is gone.

Without exchanging a single unnecessary word of pleasantries, they stood on opposite sides of each other.

"That plan, was it yours, or Mei's?" Lin's voice was unhurried, his hands at his sides, his eyes closed, then slowly opened again. "Standing here, is it Kevin, or an extension of Mei's will?"

Lin could no longer see the shadow of the boy from the past in Kevin.