Volume 1: Shadow Egg
Chapter 1: The Echo of the Abyss
1. The reality of lead gray: the last ten minutes
The rain did not fall from the sky, but oozed out of a jar of overturned lead-gray ink.
Lin Che stood by the semi-abandoned reservoir guardrail, and the smell of rust from his fingertips was mixed with the damp soil. His school uniform had already been soaked in the rain and pressed heavily on his shoulders, like a prison uniform that could not be taken off.
"Lin Che, you run, continue to run."
The footsteps behind him were slow, making a slimy squeezing sound on the slippery mud. Wang Hu, the star of the school basketball team, who is 1.85 meters tall, is now approaching from behind with his inseparable followers like a cat and a mouse. A metal bat in Wang Hu's hand knocked silently on the palm of his hand, making a dull rhythm.
"You were very brave when you went to complain to the head teacher the other day." Wang Hu's smile was a little distorted in the rain. "Why are you huddled here like a dog in the water now?"
Lin Che didn't look back, and his thin back swayed in the wind. Seal? He just couldn't stand those people throwing his textbook into the toilet and tearing up the only photo left by his mother. But in this kind of place, the rules are written by the strong, and the "spontanete order" that Hayek said is distorted into the law of the jungle here - the only meaning of the existence of the weak is to be the feed of the strong.
There was no fear in his heart, only an almost barren peace. This kind of calm comes from a long-term, high-pressure alienation. He felt that he was no longer a living person, but a glass bottle filled with negative emotions. With a light knock, it would explode into countless pieces of hurtful people.
"Hey, I'm talking to you!" One of Wang Hu's henchman rushed up and kicked Lin Che's waist.
Lin Che staggered, leaning forward, and holding the guardrail with his hands. The severe pain spread from the spine, but he didn't make any sound.
"Look, he can't even scream." The followers laughed.
Lin Che looked down at the water under the guardrail. The dark green pool water was covered with fine white foam under the impact of the rain, which was as deep as the eyes of a giant beast. Old people often say that the soul of the old era is pressed under this reservoir, which is the entrance to the underworld.
"Since you like to stay by the water so much, we will help you." Wang Hu stepped forward, and a trace of cruel excitement flashed in his eyes. He stretched out his strong arm and pushed it to Lin Che's shoulder.
At that moment, Lin Che did not resist. He even felt a sense of relief.
Gravity took over his body. He leaned back, and the last scene in his sight was Wang Hu's face, which began to turn pale because of fear, and the raindrops like lead bombs falling all over the sky.
2. The Collapse of Physical Limits: Mirror World
The process of falling was much longer than Lincher imagined.
According to the common sense of physics, it only takes two seconds to fall from a height of 20 meters. But in Lin Che's perception, time seemed to become a sticky glue.
He saw the raindrops stagnant in the air, and every drop of water reflected his distorted reflection. He saw that the dark green of the water gradually faded, replaced by a strange black with a faint purple light.
Something even more strange happened.
Lin Che looked at his feet. He should have hit the water directly, but he found that there was also a "Lin Che" in the depths of the water. The shadow is falling up at the same speed, as if the water is a huge mirror across two worlds.
When the fingertips of the two people touched the mirror, there was no water.
The black ink gushed out crazily from the "mirror". Lin Che felt that his shadow suddenly broke out of the ground at this moment, or, out of the bondage of light. It was like a huge net with life, which suddenly opened up and wrapped Lin Che's whole body in it.
"I'm catching you."
A vague voice sounded in the depths of his consciousness, with a pathological sense of intimacy and a chill.
Lin Che let out a short scream, and then the feeling of suffocation came in an instant. He felt that the bones of his whole body were being squeezed by a huge force, as if he was about to be crushed from the three-dimensional shape into a two-dimensional projection. Every blood vessel is beating, and every nerve ending is screaming.
When he passed through the sticky, jelly-like "boundary wall", he heard countless fine whispers. Was it a fragment of the absolute spirit written by Hegel, or some kind of indescribable chaos? He has no way of knowing.
3. Gothic Sanctuary in the Mist: St. Erinius
"Bang!"
Lin Che hit the hard bluestone slab fiercely.
The impact was so real that he had a strong dizziness. He opened his mouth and took a deep breath of air, but he was choked by a smell mixed with a strong smell of sulfur and cold aroma and coughed repeatedly.
He opened his eyes.
No rain, no reservoir, no Wanghu.
There are eternal, thick purple-gray clouds above the head, and the thick fog is like a living creature, slowly flowing and peeping around. And less than a hundred meters in front of him, a breathtakingly magnificent building stood in the fog.
It is an extremely typical Gothic cathedral, but it is several times larger than any other church in reality. Countless sharp tower spikes pierced the sky, as if they were going to tear the cloud. The flying wall supports the gray-black wall like a huge rib, and there is a faint green light in each towering arch window.
"This...where is this?" Lin Che struggled to stand up, but found that his legs were as soft as noodles.
He looked down and his pupils contracted sharply.
On the bluestone slab under him, his shadow was squirming uneasily like boiling magma. It is no longer just the lack of light, but has a certain sense of reality, and even corroded a small white smoke on the slate.
"It is longing."
A female voice.
Lin Che turned his head in horror. Behind a marble pillar on the left, a girl in a silver-gray battle windbreaker walked out slowly. Her long hair is tied into a high ponytail, and her face is as delicate as an emotionless marble sculpture, but the most eye-catching thing is her right hand--
A chain with the thickness of a thumb and a dark golden light circled on her arm like a snake, and a diamond-shaped spike at the end of the chain scratched Mars on the ground.
"If you don't learn to control it, your shadow will eat your ankle in three minutes, and then your internal organs." The girl said coldly.
"Who are you? Where is this place?" Lin Che subconsciously retreated, but found that the shadow under his feet suddenly rushed up, like a black hand, pulling his heel.
"St. Erinius College, commonly known as the 'Ember Sanctuary'." The girl Erin raised her hand, and the chain in her hand made a crisp explosion. "I'm the duty student in charge of cleaning up 'illegal immigrants', Irene. As for you--"
Her wrist shook, and the golden chain came out of the hole like a dragon, instantly wrapping Lin Che tightly.
"You are the third accident to fall from the 'boundary crack' today. Su Lian is right. The rules are getting more and more chaotic recently.
4. The Game of Order and Chaos: Hospitalization
Lin Che was dragged by chains and glided on the hard ground. Although Erin looked slender, the force from the chain was like a runaway crane, which made him unable to resist at all.
"Let go of me! I'm not an entrant. I fell into the reservoir..."
"The reservoir is just a projection point." Erin's voice came from the front, without waves. "Here, the logic of the real world is not applicable. You have awakened the 'shadow embers', which is an extremely dangerous and unstable sequence in the college's evaluation. According to the Basic Law of the Sancture, I have the right to Execue you directly.
Lin Che felt that the chain wrapped around his body was tightening. The burning pain made him realize that the chain seemed to have some sacred attribute, which just restrained the stupid darkness in his body.
They walked through the huge oak gate.
Behind the gate is an endless corridor. Portraits of powerful killers of all generations were hanging on the walls on both sides, and their eyes looked down coldly at the tied teenager. At the other end of the corridor, Lin Che saw a completely different scene--
After the gloomy church structure, there is a garden villa area full of life. White walls, red tiles, and even exquisite fountains. This strong sense of misplacement made him almost crazy.
"Irene, you are too slow."
A cold voice sounded in front of us.
At the corner of the corridor, a girl wearing single tactical glasses and short hair is sitting on a suspended control chair. The electronic pen in her hand quickly crossed the virtual screen in the air.
"Su Lian, test this sample." Erin threw Lin Che in front of the girl.
Su Lian pushed her glasses, and a blue scanning beam of light swept past Lin Che.
"Lin Che, male, 17 years old, from the old world. Emotional threshold: extremely low. Oppression index: extremely high." Su Lian read the data on the screen and frowned slightly, "His shadow fusion has reached a critical point. Irene, his shadow personality has begun to become conscious now. If he learns to fly, he will become a moving black hole in an instant.
Su Lian looked at Lin Che as if she was looking at a broken precision instrument.
"Suggestion: Scrap it immediately. The cost of repair is higher than the cost of destruction.
Lin Che lay on the cold ground and listened to them discussing his life and death. His inner anger finally broke through the critical point. He thought that time travel was salvation, but he found that it was just jumping from one hell to another.
"Kill me?" Lin Che suddenly laughed, and his voice was extremely harsh because of the dryness. "In that world, I can't die even if I want to. Come here, and you also want to control my life?"
With his roar, the shadow under his feet suddenly expanded, cracking the marble floor into spider web-like lines. The black fog began to spread up along the chain.
"Warning: Energy Runaway." Su Lian calmly operated the screen, "Irene, suppress him."
A trace of impatance flashed in Erin's eyes, but the movement of her hand did not hesitate. She was about to urge the inscription on the chain when a crisp and untimely sound of flip-flops hitting the ground came from the depths of the corridor.
"Tsk tsk, such a good blank, you actually want to scrap it? Su Lian, your reason is the same as Hegel's logic, and it is always easy to fall into stiffness.
A decadent voice sounded.
The fog dissipated, and a man in a wrinkled shirt and a beard appeared in front of the crowd. He staggered over with a bottle of cheap liquor in his hand, but the moment he stepped into the shadow range, he gently stepped on the runaway shadow with one toe.
A miracle happened.
The originally violent shadow, under the step of the flip-flop, unexpectedly let out a low cry of fear and instantly retracted to the soles of Lin Che's feet.
The man lowered his head, looked at Lin Che, who was covered in cold sweat, and grinned.
"Boy, do you want to fly? Do you want to drag those who step on you into the shadows?"
The man stretched out a hand covered with calluses:
"My name is Ska, and I will be your future hell mentor. Welcome to the real college.