I can rewind time to prevent death

Chapter 223 The Exorcist Is Missing

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Originally, the Atlas indicated that within Butterfly Effect Stabilization, if more than three strange events were caused, they would need to be handled personally, rather than being stabilized by the Atlas itself.

Now it seems that with Jiang Yinan and the old woman's feigned death, this is already the fourth strange event.

Fortunately, Yan Junze's strange baby body is not weak either, and even though the old woman bit his foot, he still wielded the mallet deftly.

After wiping out the shadow hiding inside Jiang Yinan, he once again aimed a blow at the struggling old woman's head without holding back.

After all, a dead person wouldn't know pain, and he struck as hard as he could; at this moment, Yan Junze, in order to thoroughly eliminate Cheng Jingting, couldn't afford to consider too much.

A few blows from the mallet later, Cheng Jingting's shadow was once again driven out of the old woman's body. The old woman's corpse lay motionless on the ground, while Yan Junze turned his attention to the shadow.

After beating the shadow for about a minute, Yan Junze felt hopeful.

Because the previous shadows had dispersed quickly, taking no more than a dozen hits to vanish, but the current shadow had endured a minute of fierce pounding and was still stubbornly clinging on.

It seemed this one was likely the last.

Although Yan Junze didn't know how Cheng Jingting could possess four corpses at the same time, it wasn't possible for him to have infinite avatars.

Suddenly, Cheng Jingting's unconscious scream pierced through, and the shadow in front of him shattered and dissipated like fragments.

Having just died recently, Cheng Jingting's soul was in its most fundamental weak state. Facing Yan Junze's Black Spirit Mallet, it hardly had any resistance and inevitably perished under the strikes, each hit depleting its energy.

A message immediately popped up following that.

[The 4th Butterfly Effect has stabilized, the remaining minor ripple effects have been corrected by the Atlas.]

[You will automatically leave the current spacetime after the countdown ends, 5...4...3...2...1]

The scene before his eyes began to change again.

Yan Junze felt as if he were being pulled back by a great force. When his vision cleared, he found himself standing in the space-time rift just like before.

The prompt that appeared before him was simple.

[Butterfly Effect Stabilization has ended, Spacetime Fixed Point Insertion has ended, locating the previous spacetime, returning...]

Everything blurred before his eyes, and Yan Junze felt the sensation of being sucked away again. After stumbling forward, he steadied himself and found he was standing in the pine forest behind the academy's back gate.

Turning his head, he saw no sign of the space-time rift.

"Is it over?" Yan Junze felt like he was dreaming, checked the time on his phone, and it was still the same as before—as if he had never left.

"Well then, in the blink of an eye, history has been rewritten by me."

Yan Junze mused to himself, then stood still for a moment as he felt some memories being crammed into his mind. These memories had not mixed with the ones he had before but formed two distinct pathways.

One was from before the "Great Rewind," and the other was from now.

Before the Great Rewind, the peephole strangeness was killed by Shen Wanqiu, but in this spacetime, Shen Wanqiu had been killed by the suicide explosion of Cheng Jingting, and therefore she could no longer kill the peephole strangeness.

That is to say, the peephole strangeness...

Yan Junze accessed the new memory in his mind and slowly revealed a bitter smile.

In this new memory, the peephole strangeness indeed had not been killed by Shen Wanqiu, but neither was it in the No. 4 laboratory building anymore, because in the new timeline, it had been exterminated by an exorcist from an exorcist team.

Nonetheless, Yan Junze still did not receive the Different Dimension Energy from that mission.

What is not meant for him was always out of reach.

Returning to his dormitory, the "Laboratory Spirit Exploration Trip" by Chen Kun and Guo Jintao did not happen in this new timeline, so the other roommates had already fallen asleep.

And Chen Kun and Guo Jintao on the floor above never came down.

All was quiet.

The campus life in college also began to calm down.

Yan Junze attended classes and conducted experiments with fellow students on a regular schedule, and with members of the Strangeness Association, he used his knowledge of physics to reveal various strangenesses. Though his motives differed from others, he still found unexpected benefits in the process.

To date, Yan Junze's Spacetime Atlas had illuminated 65 different spacetime nodes, storing a total of 11,000 points of Different Dimension Energy, meaning, a rewind time span of 1,100 minutes, just over 18 hours. Find your next read on My Virtual Library Empire

Of course, reaching a 24-hour cover range doesn't mean an infinite loop is possible. 24 hours is a collective term for a day. After those 24 hours, for Yan Junze, it's just 25 hours or more.

Rewind time, unlike a 24-hour cycle, can't be endlessly looped.

The Atlas's current benefits to Yan Junze were not only rewind and "Great Rewind" but also "Strangeness Detection," "Automatic Rewind on Near-Death," "Evil Spirit Solid Lock," "Spacetime Fixed Point Insertion," and "Butterfly Effect Stabilization."

Of course, Yan Junze didn't believe those were the only features in the Atlas, he was certain more would be revealed as more nodes were illuminated.

Moreover, Yan Junze had no doubt about the future potential of the Atlas's capabilities, as the "Spacetime Fixed Point Insertion" and "Butterfly Effect Stabilization" alone seemed immensely powerful for now.

At least, individuals like Cheng Jingting had virtually no chance of fight back under these two functions. All their escape routes were tightly sealed until they were finally extinguished.

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After spending a comfortable two weeks on campus without any strangeness to disturb me, life felt as if it had returned to the spacetime before my rebirth, giving a sense of stability.

My roommate introduced me to a girl in the same grade and insisted on dragging me to treat her to a meal.

Of course, everyone from our dorm joined in on the meal.

The girl was very cute, but it seemed like I wasn't too interested.

"What type of girl do you like? Sister will find one for you," Huahua said to me after the meal.

In the dorm, he always referred to himself as "sister", and everyone had grown accustomed to it and didn't find it as strange as before. It was the people from other dorms who would occasionally give Huahua odd looks.

I just smiled and said nothing.

"Do you like that... what's her name... Zhang Ying?" He Bishou stuffed some potato chips into his mouth and asked.

"You know Zhang Ying?" I was puzzled.

Zhang Ying was the vice president of the Strangeness Association. Among the girls I had met, she was one of the braver ones.

However, in this era where strangeness roamed freely, being brave was not necessarily a good thing. Those who were timid and careful, who fled immediately upon seeing any strangeness, were more likely to live longer.

After all, not everyone could rewind.

Zhang Ying had come to look for me a few times during the few days I had joined the association. Each time, she seemed very proactive. Any observant person could tell that the girl had a bit of interest in me.

Even if that interest wasn't romantic, it at least signified her strong curiosity about me.

Of course, after going out twice, I began to refuse.

"Zhang Ying is not Junze's type," Huahua declared, as if an expert on the matter, climbing into bed and adding, "Don't worry, no rush, sister is applying to join the Rainbow Girls Friendship Association. Once I'm in, I'll introduce you to tons of girls."

Pfft!

Zhao Zheng, who had been silent, was drinking water and upon hearing this, he spluttered it all over the wall.

These past days, I had called Zhang Xiaomo, but no one answered. There was always no response.

After lying in the dorm for a while, and with no classes in the afternoon, I wandered around the playground alone. As I was considering whether to visit the exorcist team in the east of the city to inquire about Zhang Xiaomo, my phone rang. It was He Yun, my contact from the event team, calling.

"Is it time to collect my salary?" I answered the phone with this first question.

This almost confused He Yun completely, who after a few seconds of silence said, "Don't joke. You can collect the salary, but you must first complete a task."

I frowned, "What task?"

"I'll send the task information to your phone," He Yun said. "It's issued based on the basic data we have on you, so there's a high probability that you won't encounter something you can't handle. From the moment you receive the task, you have three days to complete it. If it's not done by then, the event team will send another exorcist."

"Alright," I nodded, "Can I ask if the three-star exorcist Zhang Xiaomo has returned to the event team these past few days? I have been unable to reach her."

"No," He Yun replied, "It's not just her, more than thirty exorcists we sent to handle the Spirit Bridge incident have gone missing, and so far only very few can be contacted."

"Why?" I was surprised.

I had expected He Yun to avoid discussing the Ghost Bridge, but she didn't hide anything and told me straightaway.

"Because a special magnetic field area has been formed there, signals can't get in. We can only make contact once they leave the Spirit Bridge area," He Yun explained.

"I see, send me the task information, and I'll go check it out in the next two days," I said and hung up.

Soon a text message alert sounded on my phone. Upon opening it, the task information was concise.

"Address: Crown Furniture City 'Bedroom Companion' store in North City District Xinmin Street;

Supernatural: Currently, only 1 identified;

Witness description: This supernatural entity is temporarily referred to as 'Person in the Mirror', appearing in various mirrors in the furniture store such as dressing mirrors, makeup mirrors, etc. It can interact with people, alter their images, and make bizarre requests. At least two people have disappeared, and the store has been closed;

Event level: D;

Treatment suggestions: It's recommended to freeze its escape route with the Chilling Hidden Buckle upon discovering the Person in the Mirror. If necessary, use Semi-spirit power to eliminate it."

Reading this task summary reminded me of the first time I heard about Granny Ren killing her son and daughter-in-law from Huang Chen. He had also said that the incident was classified as D level.

Now it seemed that only events leading to more than two deaths were likely to be classified as D level.

So, it's highly probable that the two missing people in the Person in the Mirror task were already in grave danger.

Regardless, with almost all of Tianmeng's exorcists from the eastern, southern, western, and northern cities currently at Spirit Bridge and not knowing the current situation there,

Should a few significant strangeness incidents suddenly erupt within these four cities, it would indeed be a challenging situation for the exorcist teams to handle.

If I have the chance, after dealing with the Person in the Mirror, I plan to go and see what's happening at Spirit Bridge.