Departure Day.
Inside the Skyrealm's third command center, a colossal system projection displayed the current temporal coordinates. People bustled about in an orderly manner, much like countless previous endeavors of the guardians.
With only eight minutes until the mission officially commenced, all members of the Skyrealm Guardians Seventh Team had donned the unified black combat suits. They were each undergoing personal assessments by medical inspectors again to ensure no adverse reactions during the journey.
Song Qinglan had already completed his inspection and was now checking on all team members as customary. Upon noticing Ji Yushi, he furrowed his brow and patted the shoulder of the teammate beside him, "Go take a look."
Among the group of burly guardians, there was a slender figure. Ji Yushi had an subcutaneous communicator implanted in his neck the previous day, now being connected to his control bracelet by a dispatcher. Being slightly taller than the dispatcher, he lowered his head, his long eyelashes concealing his expression, giving an aloof and solitary demeanor.
"Recorders undertake missions alone and don't require teammates, but it's the opposite for guardians," the dispatcher kindly informed him. "Ji Consultant, this is your first time with a communicator implant. You might feel uncomfortable initially, and hearing your teammates' voices for the first time might startle you. But don't worry, with time, you'll get used to it and forget it's even there."
"Understood," Ji Yushi replied.
After the dispatcher left, Ji Yushi heard someone ask him, "Ji Consultant, how are you feeling? You don't look too good today."
The question came from one of his twin teammates.
Ji Yushi did indeed look pale, but his eyes were still bright. "No problem, just slept late last night."
"Oh, I see." Due to unfamiliarity, the teammate's response was somewhat dry. "Well, Ji Consultant, don't be too nervous. The sensation of jumping this time will be similar to your previous missions. And this mission is particularly straightforward; we'll be back tomorrow."
Ji Yushi appreciated his teammate's concern and nodded, "Thank you, Tang Le."
Tang Le's expression was rather strange as he left.
Song Qinglan asked, "What's wrong?"
"Captain Song!" Tang Le exclaimed as if seeing a ghost, "He actually distinguished between me and my brother! He called me by my name! Many people in the department haven't been able to tell us apart for years! Just today, just now! Zhou Mingxuan even mistook me once!"
Tang Qi and Tang Le were identical in height, weight, and appearance, to the extent that anyone who didn't spend much time with them couldn't tell who was who.
But remembering Ji Yushi after just one introduction, especially in identical attire, surprised even Song Qinglan.
"Coincidence," Song Qinglan said nonchalantly. "Is he alright?"
Tang Le replied, "He's fine! Just didn't sleep well."
Song Qinglan said, "Good, just afraid he'll lag behind once we're out there."
Three minutes left.
Everyone entered the vast teleportation platform, with interconnected silver-white capsule cabins resembling lotus seeds on a lotus.
Ji Yushi entered his capsule cabin, took his seat on the safety chair, and closed the cabin door.
[Welcome, Ji Yushi, you are about to depart for your first A-level mission.]
The bustling voices in the command center were completely cut off, leaving only the sound of his own breathing and heartbeat.
Ji Yushi allowed the locking mechanism on the safety chair to envelop him from his calves, waist, and shoulders in turn. Then he saw the control bracelet on his left wrist emit a green light.
It displayed the current positions and physical conditions of his six teammates.
Ji Yushi realized that this time he wasn't alone in traversing through time and space; he had six teammates by his side.
[You are now connected to the public channel.]
After a brief prompt, the Skyrealm Law appeared on the transparent panel.
"I am a Time Witness, I hereby swear."
"Never to alter the past!"
"Never to discuss the present!"
"Never to yearn for the future!"
The voices of his teammates echoed uniformly and forcefully in the public channel.
This oath was already familiar to Ji Yushi, but making it alongside so many others seemed to add a few more layers of solemnity.
The countdown was down to the final ten seconds.
Ji Yushi was caught off guard as a deep male voice suddenly intruded into his mind, momentarily numbing his auditory nerves.
Song Qinglan's tone was relaxed, "Everyone, prepare. Skyrealm Guardians Seventh Team, thirteenth A-level mission, depart!"
*
The melodious voice of the young man still lingered in his ears.
As with many previous time jumps, Ji Yushi took a deep breath. About two to three seconds later, the capsule cabin, which should have been calm and quiet, suddenly began to violently shake!
[Warning! Warning! You have deviated from the target coordinates! You have deviated from the target coordinates!]
The warning lights inside the capsule cabin kept flashing, and countless colorful images flashed rapidly on the transparent panel in front, surreal and bewildering.
A white light flashed before his eyes.
Sharp ringing suddenly filled his ears, accompanied by dizziness, nausea, and a strong sense of weightlessness that almost engulfed him!
[Illegal jump detected!]
[Illegal jump detected!]
Something went wrong!!
Ji Yushi clenched his teeth, attempting several times to press the warning button, but the capsule cabin spun wildly, shaking violently.
Amidst the warning tones, he had to exert all his strength to grasp the armrest of the safety chair, and the safety locks firmly secured him in place, protecting him from being thrown out of his seat and hitting the cabin wall, risking injury.
It felt like an eternity, perhaps even a century, before the capsule cabin gradually stabilized.
As soon as the capsule cabin entered a complete state of stillness, Ji Yushi quickly seized the nutrient solution passed to him by the mechanical arm and gulped down a few mouthfuls, taking a good dozen seconds to barely recover.
[??p0754%$#37]
[:""LRR"/'l'89'']
The panel displayed unreadable garbled characters, as if it had completely crashed.
Without temporal coordinates, Ji Yushi couldn't confirm the current year or the situation they were facing. But through the glass window of the capsule cabin, he could see that their landing point was in a forest. Through the dense canopy, he could vaguely see the deep gray sky.
Ji Yushi released the safety seat lock and stepped out of the cabin door.
"Ugh—"
A teammate vomited in the wind.
The one who started vomiting as soon as he stepped out of the capsule cabin was the youngest teammate, Li Chun. He had been recruited as a guardian for less than a year, a robust young man with usually excellent physical fitness, except for one issue: he suffered from motion sickness.
Upon hearing him vomit, the teammates, as if well-trained, dispersed around him instinctively.
Song Qinglan also stepped back a few steps due to the stench. "I told you to ride the giant pendulum ten times before going on another mission. Be honest, how many times did you actually ride it?"
Li Chun hadn't even finished speaking before he vomited again. "Twice... Ugh—"
The teammates expressed their shock one after another.
"Is this something a grown man does?"
"You had such a long vacation, and you spent it flirting with girls?"
"The simulator couldn't help you anymore, yet you still dared to neglect the giant pendulum?"
Li Chun finally finished vomiting and weakly said, "It's not... didn't you guys smell it? The air here is so foul."
Duan Wen handed him an open bottle of water, pinching his nose. "Chun'er, don't make excuses, rinse your mouth first."
Li Chun said weakly, "Thanks, Wen-ge... Huh? Where's Ji Consultant?"
Ji Yushi's capsule cabin was closest to Li Chun's, but there was no sign of him when the cabin door opened.
Just as everyone worried that he might have been thrown into some other time and space, a cold, clear voice came, "I'm here."
Ji Yushi didn't know when he had already stood four or five meters away from Li Chun, illuminated by the glow emitted by the capsule cabin, revealing a trace of discomfort on his fair face.
Everyone: "..."
Was it necessary to keep such a distance?!
Civilized people were indeed the cleanest!
Song Qinglan glanced at Ji Yushi, showing no concern for the faint camaraderie displayed by the new teammates.
The situation encountered by everyone in the capsule cabin was almost identical. The transparent panel displayed gibberish characters. Song Qinglan opened the communicator on his wrist and found that the time had been updated to the current time: [1470.8.0504:41:31]
This obviously wasn't the temporal coordinates for this A-level mission, nor was it their original time period. With the intense turbulence accompanied by the prompt of "illegal jump," Song Qinglan judged that they had likely encountered some kind of malfunction—this was the first time he had encountered such a situation in his two years of mission execution.
"Duan Wen." Song Qinglan commanded clearly, "Check the main control panel to see if there are any data leaks or information hijacks, and immediately contact the command center."
"Yes." Duan Wen quickly operated and soon reported, "Captain Song, our equipment seems to be locked."
Song Qinglan frowned. "How is it locked?"
Duan Wen said, "The main control panel is offline, and we can't contact the command center. The capsule cabin isn't functioning. It seems that the electromagnetic waves and magnetic fields here are somewhat different, but it's uncertain. Maybe the previous jump and this are related. Now only the communicator is functional, and we're trapped here."
Upon hearing this news, everyone expressed their frustration.
"What should we do about the mission?"
"I said I'd take the girl I just met on a date after this mission."
"You've messed with so many, will you ever stop?"
At this moment, footsteps suddenly came from the forest.
Who would come to such a remote part of the forest at 4 am?
Everyone instinctively fell silent.
Adhering to the low-profile principle that time travelers should not be discovered by indigenous people, Duan Wen, who was in charge of control, immediately closed the glowing holographic map through his wristband, and the seven capsules standing still in place entered a concealed state under his control, completely invisible.
The last rays of light disappeared, and the deep forest fell into darkness and silence, so quiet that you could hear a pin drop.
Perhaps he had taken the wrong path.
With the crisis averted, everyone seemed like a group of ghosts under the cover of the forest, silently waiting for the intruder to leave the forbidden area.
The vagabond spotted them.
In the pitch-black forest, a group of mysterious figures suddenly appeared. Ordinary people should have been startled, but the vagabond showed no surprise at all, nor did he stop. On the contrary, upon seeing the group of people, he suddenly became excited and accelerated towards them!
Li Chun stood at the forefront, having just vomited and feeling a bit weak.
The foul stench hit him, and Li Chun cursed and quickly reacted. He grabbed the man and threw him to the ground.
"Ugh!! Ugh!!"
The vagabond emitted strange screams from his mouth, and in an instant, he lunged again.
"What the hell?!" Li Chun hadn't expected the other party to attack again. He felt a flash of stench, and just as he caught a whiff of an extremely nauseating odor, he felt a sharp pain in his shoulder. "Damn it!"
The vagabond had viciously bitten Li Chun's shoulder!
With a "bang," Song Qinglan kicked the vagabond three or four meters away!
Duan Wen pulled up Li Chun. "Chun'er! Are you okay?!"
Li Chun gritted his teeth in pain. Fortunately, the guardian's combat suit had an armor layer on the shoulder, so this bite only left a tooth mark and didn't injure his flesh.
If an ordinary person had been kicked by Song Qinglan, they probably wouldn't have been able to get up. However, the vagabond, with "Ugh, ugh" sounds in his mouth, stood up again!
This time, his target was Song Qinglan.
Facing another fierce attack, Song Qinglan remained calm. In the darkness, his figure moved like an agile black panther, and in the blink
of an eye, he dodged behind, delivering a swift elbow strike that knocked the man to the ground, completely subduing him silently.
Perhaps dealing with civilians was too easy for him. Song Qinglan didn't even pant, only raising his chin slightly. "Chun'er, another new conquest of yours? She followed you all the way here."
A teammate chuckled, "Pfft."
Ji Yushi nearby: "..."
This team seemed a bit different from what he had imagined.
Both the captain and the teammates didn't seem like ordinary people.
After being teased, Li Chun didn't dare to retort. He endured the foul stench and tied up "his conquest" with a rope. This was his retribution for not being able to hold back his vomiting earlier, polluting his teammates' nostrils.
After the vagabond was restrained, he continued to roar and struggle wildly, seeming to have lost his sanity. His hoarse and eerie screams echoed in the silent forest, sounding nothing like a human, more like some primitive beast from a low-grade horror movie.
Song Qinglan sensed something was wrong and tersely ordered, "Flashlight."
But this call summoned Ji Yushi.
Seeing him approaching with a flashlight, Song Qinglan remembered that this airborne team's special consultant was actually the observer in their team.
But the new observer's mental resilience wasn't great. Just one glance at the vagabond, and he immediately averted his gaze.
It was evident that Ji Yushi, the cultured and clean-loving consultant, was really about to vomit this time.
Seeing him, Song Qinglan said, "Can you handle it? If not, let them do it."
In the darkness, Ji Yushi's fair neck formed a stubborn curve, showing that he was trying hard to endure. "I'll try my best."
Song Qinglan remained noncommittal. "Just make sure you endure it."
In the pitch-black darkness, the strong light of the flashlight allowed everyone to see the appearance of the vagabond.
It was a pale face, the skin covered with dark blue network-like blood vessels. The eye sockets contained a pair of grayish-white cloudy eyeballs, devoid of focus, showing no trace of humanity. What was even more horrifying was that the vagabond's mouth and his clothes were covered in dark red bloodstains, even adorned with some small pieces of flesh!
Not only Ji Yushi but also the teammates had various expressions.
Those pieces of flesh carried characteristics, faintly discernible as human tissue.
Li Chun, with a strong survival instinct, said softly, "I told you guys the air here smells awful."
The stench emanated from the bloodstains on his body.