I Forged the Myth of the Ancient Overlords
Chapter 461 - 461 460. Time Worm_1

Chapter 461: 460. Time Worm_1 Chapter 461: 460. Time Worm_1 “…”

Shia felt a sudden, intense buzzing in her brain, as Laika’s identical actions carried inherently different meanings.

The first time, it crossed through time and barked three times at Lu Ban on January 5th.

The second time, it also crossed through time and barked three times at Lu Ban, who was sitting next to the bench, on January 6th.

Both actions occurred at the same moment.

So, was it now January 6th, or January 5th?

Where had time gone?

“This is the peculiarity of this amusement park I should have thought of earlier.”

Lu Ban’s speech sped up a bit, as if something was chasing him.

“Laika, if I’m about to repeat an attraction I’ve already experienced, bark five times at me.”

“Woof!”

Laika barked once in acknowledgement.

Immediately after, Lu Ban turned to Shia and Feng Yu.

“We’ve already suffered cognitive disruption, but I’m not sure of the means or how to avoid it. I think we will soon be disrupted again and forget all of this.”

He said, then asked Feng Yu,

“You mentioned before there were two methods for one to travel through time; one is the Hunter, what’s the other?”

Hearing Lu Ban’s question, Feng Yu suddenly looked enlightened.

“It is a species that feeds on stealing others’ time, if touched, a certain duration of time is taken, ranging from a few seconds to one to three years.”

Before Feng Yu had finished speaking, she felt a toy bear standing beside her, its unchanging smile suddenly enlarging.

“Their name is Time Worm…”

…

“Which attraction should we go to first?”

Lu Ban inquired.

“The merry-go-round?”

Feng Yu glanced at the most soothing ride.

“Is this supposed to simulate horseback riding?”

Shia laughed a little looking at the colorful unicorns, horses, and vehicles.

“Let’s go take a look.”

Lu Ban said, preparing to walk toward the merry-go-round.

But suddenly, Laika, sitting on the ground beside him, barked several times.

“Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof! Woof!”

It barked five times, causing Lu Ban to stop in his tracks.

“If Laika barks, it means we might have already fallen into cognitive disruption, and something is amiss.”

Lu Ban thought of the cognitive anchor Feng Yu had mentioned before.

He quickly noticed the snow on the rooftops and the cheerful visitors around him.

“These visitors are all genuine humans, and they haven’t undergone serious Mutation, indicating they have not been exposed to severe Pollution, or rather, their level of Pollution is very low.”

“Snow only fell tonight, yet the amusement park’s rooftops are covered with snow, which means it snowed last night and our perception was obstructed, implying that today might not be January 5th but January 6th, and our awareness has been altered, still lingering on the 5th.”

“But if we encountered such a situation, Laika would have alerted us by now, which means that, to it, our cognition hasn’t been tampered with.”

“This means… we have spent an entire day unwittingly… Laika, go find me at 12:15 pm on January 5th and bark three times at me.”

Lu Ban immediately commanded, while observing his surroundings. He saw tourists laughing and chatting, yellow-clad staff making ice cream for sale, and toy bears being surrounded by children, handing out balloons.

The next moment, Laika suddenly vanished and reappeared, barking three times at Lu Ban.

“Woof! Woof! Woof!”

Seeing this, Shia and Feng Yu were shocked and thoughtful, respectively, both remaining silent.

“The current me is from January 5th, but now it is no longer January 5th, it’s January 6th. Our cognition hasn’t been confused or manipulated because to our bodies, it is indeed January 5th.”

Lu Ban explained.

“This is a problem with the observer’s frame of reference. We entered the amusement park and encountered something that caused our own time to retrograde for a period, while the world outside the amusement park continued to progress normally, and that’s why our awareness stayed on the same day.”

“These tourists might be in the same boat. In their eyes, they are always just at the moment of entering the amusement park, hence they don’t know what has happened outside. To them, it’s just an ordinary day.”

“External communications can’t reach here because for those inside this amusement park, all outside communications are ‘future’ events, and those in the ‘past’ certainly cannot receive them. Moreover, since the tourists’ time has been nearly frozen, they have no future, so they are weakened and erased from others’ perception. This might be how this amusement park hides itself.”

Hearing Lu Ban’s words, Feng Yu suddenly had an epiphany and spoke up.

“Your explanation reminds me of a creature from the Foreign Domain. Do you remember I told you about it? In the Foreign Domain, besides Hunters, there’s an entity that can enable people to traverse time, called the Time Worm.”

Feng Yu glanced around and saw the toy bear had left the encirclement of children and moved near a streetlight.

“The Time Worm steals other beings’ time, causing them to disappear from the present and return to the past, swallowing up that part of the future. These creatures have two special survival mechanisms to protect themselves.”

“The first is that when they are noticed by other beings, they become a harmless object in the cognition of that being, substituting such objects without attacking other beings.”

“The second mechanism is…”

Before Feng Yu could finish, she was patted on the shoulder by Lu Ban.

“Was that thing not here just a moment ago?”

Lu Ban pointed at the toy bear standing next to Feng Yu.

“That toy bear seemed to be under the streetlight just now.”

Shia said nervously.

“Toy bear… You just called it a toy bear?”

Lu Ban sensed that something was off.

“It is… just a toy bear…”

As Shia spoke, she too realized the issue.

“What did you say just now? When we notice it, it won’t attack us, right?”

Lu Ban widened his eyes, staring intently at the toy bear whose benign smile now took on a sinister cast. It stood quietly beside the three of them, like a dear friend.

“Right…”

Feng Yu also turned her head to look at the toy bear.

“Shia, I have something to tell you, toy bears in this world don’t look like this.”

At that moment, Lu Ban’s True Sight got feedback, and in his vision, the “toy bear” transformed.

A humanoid creature made up of mucus, bone, and a keratinous shell, with hundreds of eyes on its head and a ghastly gray-white hue, stood next to them. From its orifice, a slender tongue protruded, attempting to entwine the three of them.

*

Please vote for recommendation tickets, for monthly tickets!