Chapter 260: Rewind

In a black-and-white world, everything is frozen.

Raindrops suspended in midair, motionless thunderclouds, and the nuclear bomb about to detonate, representing humanity's final decision.

Then, a weird scene unfolded.

The whole world was like a videotape whose reverse button had been pressed.

The missile tail flame that had ripped through the night sky, in a manner that defied all physical laws, slowly, inch by inch, reversed back to ten thousand meters altitude, ultimately slipping into the launch silo, where the heavy lid sealed silently.

The suspended raindrops hurriedly returned to the rolling dark clouds.

The building ruins that had been leveled began to reassemble; the steel bars and concrete fragments rose from the ground, restoring the brightly lit shops and residential towers.

On the ground, the Special Forces members that had been devoured by Bone City, their bodies stripped from the black swamp, recondensed in the air into fresh bodies and flew back into the armored vehicle.

Even Nie Yang's severed head flew back onto his neck, the wound healing perfectly.

Time is flowing backward.

The wildly expanding Bone City is rapidly contracting, the snarling bone spikes retreating underground, the writhing flesh membrane vanishing into nothing.

In the end, the monster that had devoured the entire city reverted to the unremarkable Tongzi Lou.

And Ouyang Feng, who had merged with the monster and become a deity, also returned to his form as the Federation's ace agent standing in Room 502, holding a Wish Bottle.

The black and white gradually fade.

Color returns to this world.

Hoo—ha—ha—

Liang Wen sprang up from the bed.

He gulped breath after breath, his chest heaving violently, his forehead drenched with pea-sized cold sweat that instantly soaked the strands of hair on his forehead.

His heart hammered in his chest as if trying to break through the rib cage prison.

He looked around.

This is not the belly of Bone City; there is no foul, sticky digestive fluid, no pain of being crushed and dissolved.

This is his single room in the Investigation Bureau.

Outside the window, there is no torrential rain or purple lightning, only a soft orange‑red glow—the afterglow of sunset.

From afar, a few crisp bird calls can be heard.

Everything is excessively quiet.

The serenity feels unreal.

Is it a dream?

That battle in which the entire army was annihilated, that Bone City that devoured everything, and Nie Yang's desecrated corpse… were all just an overly vivid nightmare?

Liang Wen trembled as he reached out to touch his own neck, but his hand met a slick, warm liquid.

He brought his hand before his eyes.

It was blood.

Bright red, blinding blood.

Nosebleed.

It streamed down his nasal passage drop by drop, unstoppable, landing on the white sheet and spreading into tiny, desperate flowers.

Every cell in his body emitted sharp alarms, shouting weakness and fatigue, while deep in his brain came repeated tearing pains, as if a dull knife were scraping his brain matter.

Liang Wen's movements froze.

He slowly turned his head toward the electronic alarm clock at the bedside.

The bright red numbers on it clearly displayed—

6:00 PM.

His pupils suddenly contracted to a most dangerous pinpoint.

Three whole hours remain until Bone City fully forms and devours the entire city.

Heh…

Hehe…

Liang Wen collapsed backward as if exhausted, crashing heavily onto the soft mattress, his eyes blankly staring at the ceiling, a meaningless dry laugh escaping his throat.

Relief?

No.

What he felt was more a soul‑sucking terror.

It is not a dream.

It is an inevitable, irreversible ending that will arrive if he does nothing.

It is the hell he once personally experienced.

In his mind, scenes flash back uncontrollably.

The gruesome sight of comrades pierced by bone spikes.

Nie Yang's lifeless, puppet‑like face.

And the overwhelming darkness and despair before he was swallowed by the massive maw.

Liang Wen closed his eyes, covering them tightly with the back of his hand.

Yet those images became even clearer in his mind.

Only Wei Gong knows.

He is another trump card of the Federal Weird Investigation Bureau.

Codename "Abyss Walker".

Not because of his fighting style, but because of the weird device he wields, whose true ability—

Rewind.

To let the symbiotic weird entity devour one's own life force as the price, one rewinds time to a certain point before the disaster occurs.

So he became this weak.

This is the second time he has used this ability.

The first time was at Fog Mountain Sanatorium.

At that time, he also encountered a powerful and terrifying weird entity, and relying on the rewind ability and an information gap, he managed to defeat the opponent.

"Three hours......"

Liang Wen muttered to himself, wiping a handful of nosebleed from his face, but the more he wiped, the more there was.

He knew that conventional means could no longer stop Ouyang Feng.

He had personally witnessed Bone City's evolution speed.

Any attack would only become nourishment for its growth.

That was something human weapons could not contend with.

He must...... must stop him before Ouyang Feng uses the Wish Bottle, before he completely merges with that monster!

But how could one stop an ace agent who is dead set on pursuing power, even willing to degenerate into a monster?

Persuasion?

That's nothing short of a fantastical tale.

Liang Wen struggled to sit up from the bed, fresh blood already staining half of his collar.

He looked at his pale face in the mirror, those peach-blossom eyes that always carried an adolescent delusional smile now left only with an indelible solemnity and resolve.

Time is running out.

He had to make the most difficult decision, which was also the only correct one.

Liang Wen grabbed the encrypted phone by the bedside, his fingers turning white from the force.

He took a deep breath and dialed the number he only contacts in the most urgent situations.

The call was connected almost instantly.

From the earpiece came Lord Wei's voice, steady as a mountain.

"Liang Wen?"

"Lord Wei......"

Liang Wen spoke, his voice hoarse to the point of feeling unfamiliar even to himself.

He paused, then with all his strength spoke word by word, his tone carrying an unprecedented solemnity and heaviness.

"Listen to me."

"We might...... have to kill Ouyang Feng within three hours."

Jiang Hai City, a senior executive apartment residence.

Chu Che held a cup of steaming Longjing tea, leisurely standing by the floor-to-ceiling window, overlooking the city's dusk.

Before him, the translucent panel of the Weird Editor hovered in midair.

On the panel, a video had just finished playing.

The video's content was exactly the hellish battle Liang Wen had endured, and finally the miraculous sight of the entire world flowing backward.

"Interesting."

Chu Che pushed up the gold-thread glasses on his nose, a faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

"Such a perfectly balanced, extraordinarily coincidental equilibrium is what makes a script most aesthetically pleasing."

He took a sip of tea, his gaze turning to the sky outside the window dyed red by the sunset, his eyes deep.

"Is it choosing to save companions with humanity, or choosing to eliminate threats with rationality?"

"Let me see, then...... you will next put on a wonderfully exciting drama for me."