As Lin Xiao readied himself for the confrontation, the dark void in the center of the room suddenly pulsed with a violent energy.
The figure's glowing eyes flickered as it raised its hand, and without warning, a wave of force ripped through the air. Lin Xiao felt the ground shift beneath him, and before he could react, the pull of the rift yanked him off his feet.
He was dragged toward the tear, his body weightless as the world around him blurred. He reached out instinctively, trying to grab onto anything, but the force was too strong.
His vision filled with a blinding light as the rift swallowed him whole, and everything went silent.
For a moment, there was nothing—just a void of endless darkness.
Then, a familiar voice echoed in his mind.
[Ding! Emergency Mission Activated!]
Lin Xiao's heart skipped a beat as the system's monotone voice filled his head.
[Mission Objective: Survive the Rift of Time, Rewards: 1000 EXP, Random Silver Chest Box.]
Lin Xiao's eyes widened in disbelief. Survive the rift of time? What in the world had he gotten himself into? He floated in the empty void, his body feeling weightless and disoriented. The surroundings were incomprehensible, an endless expanse of swirling darkness mixed with flashes of light that seemed to stretch infinitely in all directions.
Before he could process what the system had just announced, the rift around him began to change. The darkness shifted and warped, giving way to a chaotic whirlpool of fractured images—some familiar, others completely alien.
Lin Xiao tried to regain his footing, but the force of the rift was relentless, dragging him deeper into its swirling abyss. He could feel his strength draining as time itself seemed to distort around him. His vision blurred, and a strange sensation gripped his chest—like being squeezed from every direction at once.
"This is insane! I need to get out of here!" Lin Xiao yelled in his mind
He activated his Power Burst skill, attempting to stabilize himself, but the rift's energy swallowed his efforts. The skill gave him a brief surge of strength, but it was fleeting, quickly consumed by the overwhelming force of the rift.
As panic began to creep in, the system chimed in again, cold and emotionless.
[Survival Tip: Focus on stabilizing your mana flow to resist the temporal distortions.]
Lin Xiao clenched his fists. Stabilize my mana flow... He didn't have much choice. Closing his eyes, he focused inward, trying to steady the chaotic energy swirling inside him. He visualized his mana like a river, willing it to calm and flow steadily. The overwhelming pressure around him began to ease, though only slightly.
Just as he thought he was gaining control, the rift shifted again. A violent gust of energy crashed into him, sending him tumbling through space.
Lin Xiao floated helplessly as the void twisted and churned around him, endless images flashing before his eyes. Each glimpse was like a doorway to another reality—timelines splintering, merging, and shattering in chaotic patterns. It was disorienting, and Lin Xiao's mind struggled to comprehend the sheer vastness of what he was witnessing.
One moment, he saw himself as a noble king, ruling over an empire built on peace and prosperity. The sky above that world was golden, with two suns shining down on the harmonious lands.
The next moment, the image fractured, and Lin Xiao was a lone warrior on a battlefield, blood-stained armor reflecting a moonlit sky, with thousands of corpses littering the ground. A cold wind swept across the desolate wasteland, and the air was thick with the stench of death.
Another flash, and Lin Xiao was a child, playing in a village he had never known, laughing with strangers that felt eerily familiar. Yet, the warmth of that world quickly dissolved into another, where he was nothing but a ghost—an unseen specter wandering through a city of towering glass structures, unable to interact with the people who moved around him like shadows.
The timelines collided and diverged again—he saw worlds where technology reigned supreme, with humans and robots living in symbiosis, and others where magic was the foundation of all existence, dragons and mystical creatures soaring through crimson skies.
Each world was distinct, yet connected by the same thread—him. Lin Xiao existed in all these realities, but in each one, he was a different version of himself, molded by the circumstances and choices unique to that world.
"This is too much!" Lin Xiao winced.
Just as he thought he couldn't take any more, Lin Xiao's hand brushed against a faint light—a shimmering orb that appeared out of nowhere in the swirling chaos of the rift. He didn't know what it was, but the instant he touched it, everything around him shifted.
The light expanded, enveloping him in a warm glow, and before he could react, he was yanked out of the rift. The chaotic timelines, the endless void, the fractured realities—they all vanished in a blink, and Lin Xiao felt himself falling through space.
When he landed, the ground beneath him was solid—real.
Lin Xiao opened his eyes to find himself standing in a strange world. The sky was a deep indigo, dotted with stars that twinkled like diamonds, yet the landscape was completely alien. Tall, twisted trees with glowing blue leaves lined the horizon, and the air was filled with the soft hum of unknown creatures.
The ground beneath his feet was covered in smooth, obsidian-like stones, reflecting the eerie glow of the sky above.
"Where... am I?" Lin Xiao glanced around in confusion, his heart still racing from the chaos of the rift.
This world felt real, but it was unlike anything he had ever seen before.
The energy in the air was foreign, yet strangely familiar at the same time, as if this place was a part of a reality that existed parallel to his own.
As he took a hesitant step forward, a strange, pulsating light appeared in the distance, drawing his attention. It was faint, but it had the same hue as the light he had touched in the rift.
"Did I accidentally... teleport here?"