NOVEL NEXT Chapter 131: The Broken Nexus
Li Chen's new "throne" sat atop a twisted temple, a monument made from the splinters of every story he'd shattered.
Stone steps melted into circuit-board pathways. The ceiling looped into itself. Gravity bowed to his mood.
Time did not flow here — it curled, stuttered, rewound, and bled.
He called it the Broken Nexus.
And in it, he was God.
Or so he told himself.
He sat with one leg draped over the armrest, hand propping up his head, eyes unfocused as narrative strands floated around him like lazy sparks. Each one was a discarded scene. A failed memory. A stolen monologue. Some glitched, some screamed, some replayed moments from his childhood that never truly happened.
"You made me this way…""You ruined my arc…""This was my story!"
The voices were endless.
He stopped responding hours ago.
Until—
The door opened.
There was no knock.
There was no announcement.
There wasn't even a door before Hei Long walked through it.
And yet… he did.
Because that's what happens when you're the one who writes the door.
Hei Long, Entering the Nexus
He wore simple black robes, sleeves folded. No blade. No army.
Just himself.
He stepped over the threshold, past broken plot threads and twitching illusions, not even glancing at the floating monologues that swirled and hissed.
He looked straight at Li Chen.
As if this place were his.
Li Chen stood.
Slowly.
His corrupted Qi writhed around him like living thorns. The very space behind him cracked with the weight of his instability. The Eye of Reversal pulsed on his chest like a cancerous heart.
But still—
He stepped back.
Just once.
Hei Long smiled faintly.
"That's the second time you've done that."
"I'm not afraid of you," Li Chen hissed.
"No," Hei Long said. "You're afraid of losing to me again."
The Air Splits – Power Tension
Around them, the room began to convulse.
Pillars melted. Time stuttered in place. One side of the chamber sped into tomorrow, the other froze in yesterday.
But Hei Long remained untouched.
Because wherever he stood…
The world chose to remain stable.
Li Chen – Voice Tight with Hate
"You came here to finish me?"
"No," Hei Long replied. "I came to return something."
From his sleeve, he pulled a fragment of silver-glass script.
A thread.
One Li Chen didn't recognize.
But felt in his bones.
"What is that?"
"Your final moment of clarity," Hei Long said. "Before you chose this path."
He dropped it.
It landed with a sound like a memory breaking.
Suddenly—
Li Chen saw it.
The moment from before the Eye.
The night he stood in front of Zhao Yuran's window…
And almost turned away.
The night he could have let go.
Could have walked forward.
Could have healed.
And he chose not to.
"I gave you that chance once," Hei Long said quietly. "And this is all you built on it."
Li Chen's face twisted. "You think you're righteous?"
"I'm not."
"Then what are you!?"
Hei Long stepped closer.
Face to face now.
"I'm the one who doesn't need to be."
Li Chen Strikes First
A bolt of corrupted protagonism roared from his palm, laced with time-shifted rage and logic-inversion runes.
Hei Long didn't move.
The attack stopped a hair's breadth from his face.
Not blocked.
Not absorbed.
Rejected.
The world refused to harm him.
Li Chen snarled and lunged — claws forming, blades blooming from his arms, screams of narrative rejection echoing behind him.
Hei Long caught his fist.
And said:
"You're not the hero."
"You're not the villain."
"You're not anything anymore."
Then he pushed.
Li Chen was launched backward — not across space, but across his own timeline.
He landed in a version of the Nexus from three hours ago, then blinked again into next week, then back into the first day he stepped into the university.
Each time he saw Hei Long.
Each time, Hei Long wasn't trying.
Final Moment – Li Chen's Inner Self
He stood alone in the dark.
A boy again.
Just Li Chen.
No system.
No Eye.
No villain.
Just a scared, forgotten kid staring into a mirror that didn't show anything back.
And then Hei Long's voice echoed:
"You broke the world to become someone."
"But you still chose to become me."
Back in Reality – Hei Long Stands Over Li Chen
Li Chen lay on the floor of the Nexus.
Breathing.
Alive.
But blank.
Eyes wide.
Broken.
"Kill me," he whispered.
"No," Hei Long replied.
"Then what…?"
"I'm going to leave you here," Hei Long said, stepping away. "Alone. With everything you thought you wanted."
He paused at the threshold.
"And if you ever come back?"
He turned his head just slightly.
"I'll make sure the story forgets you."
The door closed behind him.
And didn't exist after that.
The sealed fragment sat on the center table.
Thin.
Delicate.
Silver-threaded glass wrapped in an envelope made of stasis silk. Hei Long had given it to her two days ago — without explanation. Just his usual unreadable gaze and a single sentence:
"You deserved to know who you were before he broke the world."
Zhao Yuran hadn't touched it at first.
She was afraid.
Because something in her heart already knew.
This wasn't a secret.
It was a truth.
One she had once lived… and forgotten.
Now, as incense curled in the corners of the chamber and night pressed softly against the windows, she sat cross-legged before the fragment.
No system prompts.
No time locks.
Just choice.
She unwrapped it.
And the world blurred.
Memory Fragment Activated
The light dimmed.
Wind whispered with someone else's voice.
She was no longer sitting in her room.
She was standing in a memory.
Her memory.
But not from this timeline.
Scene: The Garden Before the Reset
It was dusk.
Gentle wind swept through an apricot grove.
And she saw herself.
Younger. Smiling. Happy.
Sitting beside Li Chen, laughing softly, a warmth in her voice she hadn't heard in years.
She leaned against him, speaking softly:
"If we ever leave this place, let's travel to the north. I want to see real snow, not illusion talismans."
He had nodded. Held her hand. Called her "his future."
It was innocent.
Real.
Then — the moment changed.
The sky dimmed further.
A second version of Li Chen entered the scene — from the future, clad in corrupted qi, eyes brimming with fury.
She watched herself scream in fear as the future-Li Chen struck the original down.
"You made me weak," he snarled. "You kept me small. You never understood me."
"I'm not meant to love. I'm meant to rule."
Zhao Yuran — the Zhao in the memory — reached for him.
And he pushed her away.
Hard.
The Scene Collapses
The garden fell apart into flickering pixels.
Zhao Yuran gasped and staggered back into the present.
The fragment dimmed.
But its message stayed:
Li Chen chose his path long before Hei Long arrived.
She hadn't been abandoned.
She'd been discarded.
By someone who couldn't love her and have the world at his feet.
Present – Zhao Yuran's Chamber
Tears welled at the corners of her eyes — not from pain, but from the ache of clarity.
She had told herself for so long that Hei Long had stolen everything.
That Li Chen was a tragic figure.
But the truth…
The truth was far colder.
Li Chen had sacrificed her willingly. As a stepping stone. A fuel source. A name to forget when the lights came on and the audience started cheering.
And Hei Long?
Hei Long had never lied.
He had never pretended to be good.
He simply was.
Unforgiving. Cold. Calculated.
But honest in a way that no one else had dared to be.
She lit the incense again.
And this time, her thoughts didn't turn to Li Chen.
They turned to Hei Long.
And the quiet moments in between the chaos.
The single time he looked at her and said:
"Don't look at me like that. I'm not the answer."
Now, she understood.
He wasn't the answer.
But he never lied about the question.
Meanwhile – Hei Long, Alone in the Library Tower
He stood staring at a scroll with missing text.
It had once been the story of Li Chen.
Now it was blank.
Erased.
Deliberately.
The Archivist had done it.
And Hei Long knew what that meant.
Zhao Yuran would soon remember everything.
And when she did—
Her story would finally be hers.
Meanwhile – Leng Qingxue, Watching the Stars
She stood beside the rooftop bell shrine, staring up at the broken constellations.
She hadn't seen Li Chen in days.
The world was holding its breath.
But her thoughts were not on war.
They were on a girl in a memory garden.
One who once smiled.
She whispered into the wind:
"What will you do with the truth, Yuran?"
Because truth was not a weapon.
It was a mirror.
And mirrors… cut deep.