Chapter 553: Tower Reunion

How long had he been advancing through these endless, repeating platforms and staircases?

Yu Sheng felt as if he had lost his sense of time, even his sense of space—the space-time structure within the Broken Tower extended infinitely in a bizarre way. Many areas seemed to repeat over and over, while some other areas didn't seem directly connected to each other; after taking a single step, he would suddenly be 'teleported' to another platform or the other end of a staircase.

The direction of progress seemed to lose meaning, and the time passing during the advance gradually became a concept he couldn't grasp precisely. Sometimes Yu Sheng even had an illusion of 'time jumps'—he felt that his next step had already been taken a long time ago, and his current action seemed to have just repeated itself a few minutes ago.

But he still confirmed that he was moving in the 'correct' direction—in that direction, he seemed to feel some distant... call.

It was the echo left at the end of this tower by 'Aileen' and the 'Omen' three thousand seven hundred years ago.

Yu Sheng raised his head and saw another large open platform ahead. The arc-shaped platform floated in the darkness, surrounded by chaotic mist, with broken steps floating in the chaos, connected to the other side of the platform.

In the distance, massive pillars, grand walls, and arches cut in half by space-time rifts stood faintly in the darkness. Deep within those rifts, the starlight of distant times and spaces shimmered.

Yu Sheng climbed onto the platform, intending to rest a little.

The platform was piled with many oddly shaped 'debris'—'distortions' caused by some cross-world transformation had stripped them of their original forms, turning them into chaotic lumps and colors stacked here. Some lumps flickered like holographic projections with signal interference, emitting faint buzzing sounds.

And among that debris... was something like the remains of a campfire.

Yu Sheng walked over to the pile of campfire embers and sat down on a pile of gray-white matter that had the outline of a book.

He glanced at his palm, seeing the fresh cut slowly healing, while the blood he had spilled along the way was transmitting chaotic, fragmented, and vast information and 'knowledge' to him.

Yu Sheng closed his eyes slightly, carefully letting his mind immerse in that chaotic information, picking up fragments that might be useful.

He was trying to understand this 'tower,' to understand the space-time structure within the Boundary Bridge.

After who knew how long, his heart suddenly stirred, and his eyes snapped open in the dimness.

A small glow flickered in the 'campfire' before him, as if a real flame were burning. A nearly transparent little 'flame' rose from the chaotic mass, bringing a false warmth.

Yu Sheng blinked, and then he saw a small figure appear beside the fire—a petite doll crouched in front of the little flame, carefully poking at the ashes with a stick, staring intently as the flame danced.

"Ai..." Yu Sheng hesitated, then caught himself, "...Omen?"

"The Omen isn't here anymore," the little doll raised her head, her crimson eyes flickering with a faint light like the flame. "She's asleep, sleeping forever and ever..."

Yu Sheng hesitated again, then reached his hand toward the small figure before him. The latter didn't dodge, just stared with wide eyes. When Yu Sheng put his hand on her head, she picked up her little stick and poked his elbow.

The residual blood on his palm touched the doll, and the chaotic 'thoughts' instantly poured into Yu Sheng's mind.

Yu Sheng was dazed for a moment, then suddenly realized that the one standing before him wasn't a complete mind. It seemed to be just a thought echo that had permeated into the Boundary Bridge, whose origin should be the little doll that usually made noise around him.

He made this judgment because in those chaotic thoughts, he saw many memory fragments related to daily life at No. 66 Wutong Road—the remaining roughly half was mainly about passionately arguing with stupid netizens.

"The silly fox stole the succulents that C-buckle was growing on the balcony," the doll's mental projection continued poking Yu Sheng's arm with the stick, muttering dazedly, "so C-buckle secretly smeared chocolate sauce on the succulents..."

Yu Sheng frowned. After a brief shock, he suddenly realized—had Aileen actually been establishing a connection with this 'Boundary Bridge' all along? Had there been some level of communication between the two?!

She occasionally spaced out for no reason during normal times... Could it be that she was reading the data sent from the Boundary Bridge? But she had never mentioned this before... Had she herself not noticed this process?

The little doll poked again: "The silly fox licked your face last time when you were asleep. She told me not to tell you..."

Yu Sheng's expression turned subtle, and then his gaze suddenly fell on the 'little stick' the chaotic mind entity was holding, the one she had been using to poke him.

That wasn't a stick.

It was the tip of a spider's leg!

With a start, Yu Sheng instinctively reached for the leg segment.

The sharp tip of the leg segment easily pierced his finger, and a cold sensation instantly spread from his fingertip. Yu Sheng felt as if half of his arm had been thrown into an ice cube. Then, he saw the 'mind entity' before him blink.

It was like a connection being established. The previously dazed doll's face quickly took on vivid color. Then her gaze fell on Yu Sheng, visibly delighted: "Hey, hey! Yu Sheng! Wow, finally found you. We've been drifting around this place for ages... Hey, silly fox! C-buckle! I found Yu Sheng!"

The next second, Yu Sheng saw the space around the platform twist and shake. The transparent flame in the campfire suddenly expanded to cover nearly a third of the platform, then instantly shrank and dissipated. Before he could react, a silver-white figure lunged over with a 'whoosh,' and a familiar headbutt nearly made him vomit up last year's New Year's Eve dinner!

"Benefactor, benefactor, benefactor~~" The fox girl's tail wagged like a five-speed electric fan, whirring as she hugged Yu Sheng, hopping and skipping. "Aileen wasn't lying! She said she could find you, and she actually did—the paths here are a mess. No matter which way you go, you feel like you're spinning in place. Luna said she has some kind of navigation function, but when she turned it on, it crashed for half a day..."

"Okay, okay, I get it, put me down first..." Yu Sheng rolled his eyes under the fox girl's iron-grip-like arm strength. He barely broke free a bit, then quickly calmed her down, turning his gaze to Luna and Aileen. "What brings you here? What's the situation outside right now?"

Aileen started babbling to him: "What else? The Borderland is fighting like a hot kiln. The space station is parked right above the Council Tower. The Boundary Bridge has already pierced through the great shield. The city is full of invading shadows—but it seems the Special Services Bureau has some black tech that swapped Real Realm City and Mist City, so all the battlefields are in the Mist Zone now. Little Red Riding Hood is leading people to help stabilize the defense line in the old district. Shu Ji sent a batch of weapons over. Uncle Yun took people to block the bridge at the entrance of the orphanage..."

The doll rattled off a bunch of information about the current situation in the Borderland. Yu Sheng listened, stunned. Finally, cold sweat almost broke out: "This sounds a bit dire..."

"So we need to solve the problem with this 'bridge' quickly!" Aileen said, nimbly climbing onto Yu Sheng as she spoke. "This place has no up or down or left or right. Do you know which way to go next?"

Listening to the little doll's muttering, Yu Sheng was silent for a moment, then glanced at his hand.

The spider leg segment was now held in his grasp.

Compared with the colossal body of the Omen Goddess in memory, this limb fragment was so tiny—but at this moment, the divinity and sense of guidance it emitted were genuine.

Was this another fragment left behind after the Omen Goddess shattered?

Yu Sheng thought for a moment, then handed the leg segment back to Aileen.

Aileen seemed to have completely no memory of 'herself' poking the fire and Yu Sheng with it earlier. She exclaimed in surprise: "Ah, what's this? A spider leg?"

"Hold it," Yu Sheng said. "Then walk in the direction you think is correct."

Aileen scratched her head in confusion.

She didn't understand why she should do this.

But since Yu Sheng said so, there must be a reason.

So the little doll nodded happily: "Okay!"

She jumped down from Yu Sheng's shoulder and strode toward the broken staircase at the end of the platform, waving her 'little stick' as she walked: "Then we'll go this way! At the fork above, go left... or maybe right. I like right!"

"Benefactor," Hu Li sidled up next to Yu Sheng and whispered, "Is this reliable?"

"This path... she walked it once many years ago," Yu Sheng said softly. "Now she just needs to follow her intuition to find the way back—only she can do this."

This wasn't a blind judgment, but based on the 'knowledge' he had extracted through the blood connection just now. Although he still hadn't fully understood the information related to the Boundary Bridge, his intuition told him what to do at this moment.

Hu Li nodded thoughtfully.

Aileen's small figure climbed among the towering steps and platforms, sometimes even needing to use both hands and feet.

But she didn't seem tired at all, nor did she complain, nor did she, as usual, get lazy after walking a few steps and insist on Yu Sheng carrying her. On the contrary, she looked especially happy, humming a messy, terribly out-of-tune song as she climbed, occasionally waving her 'little stick' to poke here and probe there, as if she were on a fun, grand adventure in her own home.

Yu Sheng, meanwhile, keenly noticed changes in the surrounding environment.

The space rifts outside the broken staircase were increasing. The gravity inside the tower was tilting at a subtle angle. The distant starlight filtering in from outside the tower began to flicker unsteadily, as if... the space-time structure that had been fractured throughout the interior of the Boundary Bridge was undergoing a reorganization with Aileen's footsteps, reconstructing into a whole.

Then, the little doll's steps suddenly stopped.

"Yu Sheng!" Aileen stopped at the top of the broken staircase and turned back, waving the leg segment. "There's no path ahead! But there's a huge rift!"

Yu Sheng immediately looked up.

The Broken Tower had reached its end. All the structures above—spiral staircases, pillars, high walls, and platforms—were cut in half by a massive rift, shimmering with chaotic light and shadow.