area51novel Page 79
Page 79
In the center of the oasis, the giant wishing star crystal began to vibrate.
Jirachi, who had been sleeping within, slowly opened his eyes.
An overwhelming, indescribable fear instantly consumed the explorer's sanity. It wasn't the fear of facing a powerful Pokémon, but an absolute terror born from instinct—a complete and utter crushing of one's life force, a trembling of the very soul!
He wanted to escape.
But his legs felt like lead, and he couldn't move.
He wanted to resist.
But all his Pokémon trembled under that invisible aura, unable to even stand up.
The shadow of death descended with unprecedented speed.
In that one-ten-thousandth of a second, a split second between life and death, his mind went blank, and all his survival instincts, combat skills, and life experience turned to ashes.
Only one thought remained.
A most humble, and most desperate thought.
"Let us...stay here...forever, safely!"
He didn't say it aloud.
He didn't even actually "make a wish".
This thought was merely a fleeting spark in his mind, crushed by fear.
then.
Jirachi, now awake, heard it.
It satisfied him.
An incomprehensible and unobservable force of law descended upon Jirachi.
It did not destroy the explorer.
It simply... solidified him.
It transformed the explorer, all his Pokémon, and his wish to "stay forever" into part of this oasis of time.
The explorer's body, starting from his feet, gradually lost its color, turning into gray stone. The fear in his eyes, his desire to escape, and his desperate wish were eternally, thoroughly, and solidified here.
It has become part of the scenery.
Chapter 76 The Awakening Wishing Star, an Unsolvable Crisis! Spacetime Collapses! Protection from the Laws!
That torrent of memories from the petrochemical explorer was not a washover, but an infusion.
Fragmented, desperate images exploded in his mind, mixed with the most intense regret and resentment before his death.
He saw how the man was overjoyed to discover this oasis, how he knelt devoutly before the wishing star crystal, and how, driven by a sliver of greed, he tried to pry open a corner of the crystal... and then, there was eternal silence, turned into a stone sculpture.
That was not death, but a punishment far more cruel than death.
Consciousness is forever imprisoned in cold stone, watching time pass by, watching the oasis become more and more beautiful, and feeling endless loneliness.
Lin Che's back was instantly soaked with cold sweat, the sticky fabric clinging to his skin, bringing a chill that went straight to his bones.
He finally understood.
This seemingly peaceful and beautiful oasis is not a paradise at all, but an absolute forbidden zone where no mortal creature is allowed to set foot!
That so-called Stardust of Fate is nothing but bait.
It was this sleeping "god" who laid the trap.
Greed.
The word echoed wildly in his mind, burning his nerves.
He dared not harbor any more illusions and immediately wanted to take the deadly "stardust" he had already collected and escape from this hell silently.
However, it was all too late.
Perhaps it was his arrival, an intruder who didn't belong here.
Or perhaps it was his act of collecting stardust of destiny, each touch of which felt like plucking a string connected to destruction.
Ultimately, it accumulated to that critical point.
The existence that had been dormant for countless "June 17th" millennia was disturbed.
“Buzz——!!!”
There is no source, no direction.
A deep and majestic hum suddenly erupted from the center of the oasis, shaking the entire space.
The ground beneath Lin Che's feet undulated, and the pool water surged with violent ripples.
His gaze was fixed intently on the center of the oasis.
The enormous, perfectly cut wishing star crystal, resembling a diamond, is vibrating violently!
Every facet of the crystal refracts and distorts light, emitting a dazzling yet terrifyingly eerie halo.
The petite figure sleeping within the crystal core—Jirachi—slowly, very slowly opened its innocent eyes that had been tightly closed.
No.
wrong.
Lin Che's pupils contracted to their maximum size.
It wasn't those eyes that were open.
It was its belly, the area covered by three blue paper-like objects!
A rift, a rift made entirely of light, tore open its lower abdomen.
That was an eye.
An eye that cannot be understood using any known biological concepts.
It represents truth and can fulfill all desires, yet it exudes the deepest evil and the ultimate purity.
—The Eye of Truth!
The moment that eye fully opened, all the sounds of the world vanished.
The buzzing, the sound of water, the sound of wind... all returned to nothingness.
An absolute power, indescribable by any language, incomprehensible by any science, and transcending all known laws, swept across the entire oasis like an invisible tide!
This is not energy.
It's not mental strength.
It is not a move from any Pokémon.
This is a "definition".
A power that can rewrite reality itself, a power that only gods are worthy of!
At this moment, time is frozen.
Space was frozen.
The wind stopped.
The swaying of the leaves was frozen in its final moment.
The pollen floats in the air, suspended motionless.
The whole world transformed into an absolutely still, lifelike three-dimensional painting.
Lin Che was horrified to discover that all his Pokémon were firmly pinned to the spot by this force.
Arcanine maintained a wary, low growl, its muscles bulging, ready to pounce at any moment, but its majestic mane remained frozen in the wind, not a single hair trembling.
The elegant body of the dragon, coiled around its head, was now as stiff as an ice sculpture, the last glimmer of light in its eyes sealed off by an invisible membrane.
Whether it's Arcanine, powerful enough to instantly kill an elite-level Golem, or Dragonair, possessing the inherent power of the Dragon type, they are like fragile insects sealed in amber before this power that is almost at the level of "creation".
They couldn't even convey the slightest bit of emotion.
Suppressed.
It was sealed away.
They were deprived of all possibilities that existed outside of "this moment".
I can't even move a single finger!
This force also gripped Lin Che.
His brain felt as if it were being gripped tightly by an invisible hand, the gears of his thought groaning under the strain, before slowly and laboriously coming to a halt.
Even thinking has become incredibly difficult!
The Eye of Truth system, his greatest reliance since transmigrating, is now unleashing an unprecedented hysterical storm in his mental world!
The field of vision was stained the purest scarlet red.
That wasn't a warning, that was a wail!
【warn!warn!warn! 】
[Power of 'Wishing' at the Authority level detected!]
This power belongs to the realm of world laws!
[Unable to analyze! Unable to analyze! Unable to analyze!]
[Unavoidable! Unavoidable! Unavoidable!]
[Unable to fight! Unable to fight! Unable to fight!]
A series of desperate, repetitive, and fragmented prompts, like the sharpest alarm, bombarded his consciousness, which was on the verge of collapse.
For the first time since the system's inception, such a top-level, desperate crimson alert has been issued!
Immediately afterwards, a cold, numb sensation began to spread from the soles of his feet.