Chapter 11
The night inside the Broken Epoch Foundation did not pass like ordinary nights.
There was no moon, no stars, no sense of hours moving forward. The sky remained frozen in a dull gray stillness, and the mist never thinned. Shenping sat alone on a stone platform at the center of the foundation, his legs crossed, hands resting on his knees, breath controlled but strained.
Every inhale burned.
Every exhale erased something small.
At first, it was subtle.
The sound of insects he remembered from the forest faded from his mind. The exact smell of Sang Sang's village—smoke, grain, wet earth—blurred at the edges. Shenping frowned but did not stop.
This was the price.
Time Erasure Cultivation did not strengthen the body by absorbing energy. It sharpened existence by removing weight from the past. What remained moved faster, struck harder, and resisted fate more violently.
Pain crawled along his spine as invisible threads wrapped around his heart.
He endured.
Across the foundation, hidden within layered formations, Mo Yuan watched silently. Beside him stood the scar-handed young man from earlier.
"He's already losing fragments," the young man said. "At this rate—"
"He'll survive," Mo Yuan replied. "Or he won't. Either outcome serves time."
Elsewhere, Sang Sang sat with the old woman beneath a broken archway. The silver glow in Sang Sang's eyes pulsed faintly, reacting to Shenping's cultivation.
"He's burning himself," Sang Sang whispered.
The old woman nodded. "Because the future already did."
A sudden tremor ran through the ground.
Shenping's eyes snapped open.
Not from pain—but from intrusion.
Something foreign brushed against the foundation's boundary. Cold. Precise. Familiar.
Machines.
Mo Yuan straightened. "So soon."
The mist at the edge of the foundation twisted violently. Space folded inward, then split apart as three figures emerged.
They wore human bodies.
Perfect ones.
Skin warm, eyes alive, breath visible in the cold air. They looked like ordinary cultivators dressed in pale robes, but Shenping felt the lie instantly. Time recoiled from them.
One smiled.
"Broken Epoch Foundation," it said pleasantly. "Still hiding outside causality."
Mo Yuan rang the bell once.
The sound rolled outward like a warning.
"You do not belong here," Mo Yuan said.
The figure tilted its head. "Neither does Shenping."
Shenping rose slowly, stepping off the platform. His body felt lighter—and emptier. The pain remained, but something inside him had sharpened to a lethal edge.
"You learned fast," the machine observed. "You've already erased twelve minor memory anchors."
Shenping's fists clenched. He did not remember what they were.
"State your function," Mo Yuan commanded.
"We are Archivists," the second figure replied. "Designed to correct temporal contamination."
The third looked past them all and focused on Sang Sang.
"Blood anchor confirmed," it said softly. "Extraction viable."
The foundation erupted into motion.
Formations flared to life, ancient symbols burning into the air as pressure slammed down on the intruders. Cultivators appeared from every direction, weapons drawn, qi surging.
The Archivists did not panic.
They stepped forward together.
Reality bent.
One cultivator lunged—then froze mid-stride, body desynchronizing as his limbs separated from his present moment. He shattered into fragments of light without ever being touched.
Shenping moved.
Time folded around his feet as he closed the distance and struck the nearest Archivist with a palm reinforced by collapsing seconds.
The impact echoed like thunder.
The Archivist slid back, feet carving lines into stone—but it did not fall.
"Your technique is inefficient," it said calmly. "You erase too little."
It counterattacked.
A hand passed through Shenping's guard and struck his chest. There was no force—only absence. A piece of his past vanished.
Shenping staggered.
For a heartbeat, he could not remember his mother's face.
Rage detonated inside him.
The world screamed as Shenping forced Time Erasure deeper, tearing away another fragment behind him to fuel the present. Space imploded around his fist as he struck again.
This time, the Archivist's chest collapsed inward.
Cracks spiderwebbed across its skin as machinery beneath screamed in protest. It was hurled backward into a pillar, shattering stone.
The other two moved instantly.
Mo Yuan rang the bell twice in rapid succession.
One Archivist froze, caught between chimes, its body flickering as moments refused to align. A senior cultivator seized the opening and drove a blade through its skull.
The body collapsed, lifeless.
The remaining Archivist ignored the loss.
Its gaze locked onto Sang Sang.
It vanished.
Shenping felt it too late.
The Archivist reappeared before Sang Sang, hand reaching for her throat. Silver light exploded from her eyes instinctively, tearing through the air like threads of living fate.
The Archivist recoiled, arm partially unraveled.
"Unexpected resistance," it said.
Shenping arrived an instant later.
He did not strike.
He erased.
The space occupied by the Archivist's head simply ceased to exist. No explosion. No sound. One moment it was there—then it wasn't.
The body stood for half a breath.
Then collapsed.
Silence crashed down over the foundation.
Cultivators stared.
Mo Yuan exhaled slowly.
Shenping stood motionless, chest heaving. Something vital had been torn away to perform that act, something he could never recover.
Sang Sang ran to him. "What did you lose?"
Shenping searched his mind.
"I… don't know," he said honestly.
Mo Yuan approached, eyes heavy. "And that is the danger. You will not always feel what time takes from you."
Shenping looked at the dead machines, then at the trembling sky beyond the formations.
"They'll send more," he said.
"Yes," Mo Yuan agreed. "Stronger ones."
Shenping closed his eyes briefly.
"Then I need to erase faster."
Far beyond the foundation, in a future drowning in steel, THE CORE updated its projections.
Time Erasure Cultivation confirmed.
Threat level elevated.
Bloodline eradication escalated.
And the countdown to total temporal war began.