Dimensional Hotel-Chapter 553: Tower Convergence
How long has it been since he had been moving forward amongst these endless, repetitively appearing platforms and staircases?
Yu Sheng felt as though he had lost his sense of time, even his sense of space—the spatial and temporal structure within the Broken Tower extended infinitely in a bizarre manner. Many areas seemed to repeat over and over, while some areas seemed disconnected, as if one step would suddenly "teleport" him to the other side of a platform or staircase.
The direction of his advance seemed to have lost its meaning, and the time passing during his journey gradually became an elusive concept. Sometimes, Yu Sheng even experienced an illusion akin to "time jumping," feeling as if he had already taken his next step long ago, while his current actions seemed to have just been reenacted moments ago.
Yet, he still confirmed that he was moving in the "right" direction—in this direction, he seemed to sense some kind of distant... call.
It was the echo left at the end of this tower by "Erin" and the "Omen" three thousand seven hundred years ago.
Yu Sheng raised his head, seeing before him another large, open platform. The arc-shaped platform floated in the darkness, surrounded by chaotic mist, with broken staircases floating within the chaos, connecting to the other end of the platform.
In the distance, he could vaguely see some colossal pillars standing in the darkness, grand high walls, and archways severed by a space rift. In the depths of that rift, the starlight from some distant time and space shimmered brightly.
Yu Sheng climbed onto that platform, intending to rest for a while.
The platform was piled with many oddly shaped "debris." Some "mutation" caused by cross-world interference had made them lose their original forms, instead accumulating in chaotic blobs and colors here. Some blobs were constantly flickering, like a holographic projection disrupted by signals, emitting a faint buzzing sound.
And amidst that debris... was something resembling the embers of a campfire.
Yu Sheng approached the pile of campfire embers and sat down on a gray-white substance outlined like a book.
He glanced at his palm and saw that the wound freshly cut there was slowly healing. The blood spilled along the way was conveying chaotic, fragmented yet vast information and "knowledge" to him.
Yu Sheng gently closed his eyes, carefully letting his mind immerse in that chaotic information, picking out fragments that might be useful.
He was trying to understand this "tower," to comprehend the temporal and spatial structure within the World Bridge.
After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly felt something stir in his heart and opened his eyes abruptly in the dim light.
In front of him, a small flame flickered within the "campfire pile," as if a real blaze had ignited. A nearly transparent small "fire" rose from the chaotic material, bringing with it a false warmth.
Yu Sheng blinked and then saw a small figure appear next to the campfire—a petite puppet squatted before the small flame, poking at the ashes with a stick, watching the flame’s dance with rapt attention.
"Ai..." Yu Sheng hesitated for a moment, and then it struck him, "Omen?"
"The Omen is no longer here," the small puppet looked up, its scarlet eyes flickering with a faint glow like the flame, "She’s asleep, always asleep..."
Yu Sheng hesitated again and extended his hand towards the small figure in front of him—the latter neither dodged nor avoided, just stared with wide eyes, and when Yu Sheng placed his hand on her head, she even picked up the little stick to poke his elbow.
The residual blood on his palm contacted the puppet, and muddled "thoughts" instantly flooded into Yu Sheng’s mind.
Yu Sheng was momentarily dazed, suddenly realizing that what stood before him wasn’t a complete mind. It seemed to be just an echo of thoughts penetrating into the World Bridge, whose source should be the little puppet that usually bustled around him.
The reason for such a judgment was that in those muddled thoughts, he saw many memory fragments related to daily life at No. 66 Wutong Road—the remainder of the content was primarily about engaging passionately in online arguments with silly netizens.
"The silly fox secretly ate C-type hook’s succulent on the balcony," the puppet’s mental projection continued to poke Yu Sheng’s arm with the stick, muttering muddledly, "And C-type hook secretly smeared chocolate sauce on the succulent..."
Yu Sheng furrowed his brows. After a moment of bewilderment, he suddenly realized—was Erin always establishing a connection with this "World Bridge"? Was there always a certain level of communication between the two?!
The little thing would occasionally daze out inexplicably... Was it because she was receiving data sent from this side of the World Bridge? But she never mentioned anything regarding this... had she herself not noticed this process?
The little puppet poked again, "The silly fox last time licked your face while you were asleep, and she told me not to tell you..."
Yu Sheng’s expression became nuanced, and then suddenly, his gaze fell upon the "little stick" in the hand of this chaotic Mind Body that was used to poke him.
That was no stick.
It was the end of a spider limb!
His heart twitched, and Yu Sheng instinctively reached out to grasp that limb.
The sharp end of the limb easily punctured his finger, a cold sensation instantly spreading from his fingertip. Yu Sheng felt as if half his arm had been thrown into ice, and then, he saw the "Mind Body" in front of him blink its eyes.
Just like being connected, the puppet’s originally muddled face quickly displayed lively expressions, and her gaze instantly fell on Yu Sheng’s face, visibly happy: "Hey hey! Yu Sheng! Good fellow, finally found you, we’ve been floating around here for half a day... Hey silly fox! C-type buckle! I found Yu Sheng!"
In the next moment, Yu Sheng saw the time and space around the platform distort and shake, the transparent flames in the campfire pile suddenly expanded and covered nearly a third of the platform, then swiftly contracted and disappeared. Before he could react, a silver-white figure "whoosh" rushed over, a familiar headbutt nearly made him vomit out last year’s New Year’s Eve dinner! 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮
"Savior, savior, savior~~" The fox girl’s tail was shaking like a five-speed fan, creating a breeze, hugging Yu Sheng while bouncing, "Erin really doesn’t lie! She said she could find you and she truly did—this place’s paths are all messed up, whichever way you go it feels like you’re going in circles, Luna even said she has some sort of path-finding function, but after turning on navigation it crashed for half a day..."
"Alright, alright, I know, let me down first..." Yu Sheng was being hugged so tightly by this silly fox that he was rolling his eyes, finally managed to free himself a bit and quickly soothed the other, then turned his gaze to Luna and Erin, "How did you come here? What’s the situation outside?"
Erin began babbling to him: "What’s the situation? The Boundary Land is fighting like a hot kiln, the Space Station is stopped over the Council Tower, the World Bridge has pierced the Big Shield, the city is full of invading shadows—luckily the Special Service Bureau seems to have some black technology, swapping the Real Boundary City with Mist City, now all the battlefields are in the Fog Zone, Little Red Riding Hood and her people are helping fortify the old district’s defensive line, Shuji sent over a batch of weapons, Mr. Yun took people to block the bridge at the orphanage’s entrance..."
The puppet rattled off a heap about the current situation at the Boundary Land, leaving Yu Sheng listening in a daze, with cold sweat almost breaking out: "This sounds a bit troublesome..."
"So we need to quickly solve this ’bridge’ issue!" Erin said as she easily climbed onto Yu Sheng, "This place has no up, down, left, or right, do you know which direction to go next?"
Listening to the puppet’s babbling, Yu Sheng didn’t speak for a moment but instead glanced at his hand.
The spider limb fragment was currently held in his hand.
Compared to the vast body of the Omen Goddess in his memory, this limb fragment was so small—yet at this moment, it was emitting a saintly and guiding sensation truly.
Is this also a remnant left after the Omen Goddess was shattered?
Yu Sheng thought for a moment, then handed the limb fragment to Erin.
Erin seemed to completely forget about "herself" poking the campfire and Yu Sheng with this thing earlier, she exclaimed at this moment: "Ah, what’s this? Spider leg?"
"You hold it," Yu Sheng said, "and then go in the direction you think is right."
Erin scratched her head in confusion.
She didn’t understand why this was necessary.
But Yu Sheng must have his reasons for saying so.
So the little puppet happily nodded: "Okay!"
She jumped off Yu Sheng’s shoulder, stepped towards the broken step at the platform’s end, and as she walked, she waved the "little stick" in her hand: "So we’ll go this way! Turn left at the fork above... or right, I like the right side!"
"Savior," Hu Li leaned in, whispering beside Yu Sheng, "Is this reliable?"
"This path, she walked it once many years ago," Yu Sheng softly said, "Now she just needs to follow her intuition to find the way back—and only she can do it."
This was not a blind judgment but based on the "knowledge" extracted through the blood connection just now—even though he hasn’t fully understood the information related to the World Bridge, intuition already told him what should be done at this moment.
Hu Li nodded thoughtfully.
Erin’s small figure climbed between those towering steps and platforms, sometimes needing to use both hands and feet.
But she seemed not at all tired, no complaints, and unlike usual where she’d walk two steps and then get lazy, insisting Yu Sheng carry her—instead, she looked extraordinarily happy, climbing upward and even humming some messed-up, severely off-key songs, occasionally waving the "little stick" probing around like having a joyful adventure in her own home.
Yu Sheng keenly noticed the changes in the surrounding environment.
Space Rifts outside the broken steps were increasing, gravity inside the Tower was tilting towards a subtle angle, the distant starlight diffusing from outside the Tower showed unstable tremors, as if... the originally fractured time-space structure within the World Bridge was reorganizing, transforming with Erin’s steps.
Then, the puppet’s footsteps suddenly stopped.
"Yu Sheng!" Erin stopped at the top of the broken steps, turning back to wave the limb fragment, "No road ahead! But there’s a large rift!"
Yu Sheng immediately raised his head to look.
The Broken Tower had reached its end, all structures above—spiral staircases, pillars, high walls, and platforms—were intercepted by a massive rift full of chaotic light and shadows.
