The Creatures That We Are

Chapter 109: Truth

“Gah, my head, it hurts...” Old Wang’s pain and confusion intensified, and he held his head with both hands as he groaned.

Gao Yang didn’t have the time to worry about him. He rattled off, “Teacher, I believed Cheng Xin and his team entered the tree hollow and got the Time-Space Rune Circuit. Be it they used it wrong or some other reason, they twisted the time and space in this area into the chaotic mess it is now. As a result, five of them entered the tree hollow, but more than five walked out. They were joined by themselves from other timelines.”

“Something like Triangle?” White Rabbit was reminded of a sci-fi movie she had watched.

“Yes!” Gao Yang’s thoughts needed some sorting out as well. “There are many versions of Cheng Xin. Perhaps from a minute ago, from three minutes ago, and maybe from five minutes ago. Basically, all the different Cheng Xins have entered the timeline we are in now.”

“Here, there is only one Rune Circuit, and there is only one true version of each individual.” War Tiger followed the train of thoughts. “So different versions of yourself from different timelines would always kill each other.”

“That’s right!”

At Gao Yang’s explanation, a bone-chilling fear crept up on everyone.

Thank god the five of them hadn’t entered the tree hollow, or the consequences would be unbearable.

Gao Yang couldn’t imagine how he would react to another version of him, but he knew that he wouldn’t give up this world to his other self. In the end, a fight to the death would seem inevitable.

“Yes, that’s what happened. That’s true...” Old Wang seemed to have regained his senses. “Gao Yang’s right. I can see all of it. I can see everything...”

“See what?” Officer Huang asked anxiously.

“What came before and what will come after!” Old Wang shouted, his expression darkening. “Run! Run at once! The space is collapsing into itself! We’ll all die—no, worse than that. We’ll all get trapped in the twisted space-time...”

“Where’s the exit?” Qing Ling demanded.

“Above us! There’s an exit up there!” Old Wang looked up. “Once all the energy in the tree reaches the roots, everything will reset! Come on! Let’s go!”

Everyone climbed up the maze of branches without hesitation.

It was getting dark. The intensifying light below them seemed more like a strange, chilling abyss of whiteness threatening to devour everything, and the space itself felt heavier and heavier. When they talked, it sounded like their voices were wading through impure substance, distant and faint.

“Almost there! It’s right above...”

Taking point, Old Wang kept panting heavily.

“Wait.”

War Tiger grabbed Old Wang. On the branch stretching above them at a diagonal angle were two figures. And they were both Cheng Xin!

Both were covered in injuries. One Cheng Xin tackled the other to the ground and strangled him with both hands, while the one being strangled struggled with all he got.

“Die! Die already! I’m the real Cheng Xin...”

The Cheng Xin strangling the other had the upper hand, his face twisted with violent urgency, but suddenly, the Cheng Xin struggling on the ground reached out and poked his other self in the eyes.

“Ah!”

One Cheng Xin screamed as his two eyes started bleeding profusely, blinded, and the vise-like grip he had around his other self’s neck loosened.

The other Cheng Xin seized the opening and hit his opponent in the injured abdomen.

“Ahhhh!”

Another scream.

The Cheng Xin who had been on the losing side flipped over and grabbed the waist pack from his assailant before kicking him away. The blinded Cheng Xin rolled off the branch screaming and fell to his death.

Panting, the surviving Cheng Xin wiped the blood off his face. When he looked up, War Tiger had already gotten to him, the man’s figure towering with light illuminating him from the back. The pressure felt like death itself.

It only took a second for Cheng Xin to realize what was going on. His brain could access all the memories of his other selves.

“Don’t! Don’t kill me!” Cheng Xin immediately dropped to his knees and begged, voluntarily offering the waist pack he had just gotten. “The Rune Circuit! It’s inside! I’ll give it to you. Please don’t kill me...”

“Give it here,” said War Tiger.

Cheng Xin gingerly threw the waist pack to War Tiger, who threw it to White Rabbit.

White Rabbit opened it with caution. Inside was a Rune Circuit made of Black Gold. Under the firelight Gao Yang conjured, she could make out the pattern of an hourglass.

White Rabbit threw War Tiger a glance. “What do we do with this guy?”

“I wasn’t the one who lied to you! It was him!” Cheng Xin pointed at the abyss below them. “I killed him. There was no bad blood between me and you! I just want to leave this damn place. Please, please have mercy on me...”

“Have it your way.” War Tiger didn’t have the time to waste on the man. “Show the way, Old Wang!”

“Okay, we’re almost there...”

His sentence was interrupted by the sudden appearance of another man. He tackled Old Wang to the ground, and the two grappled and rolled twice on the branch before falling off.

“Old Wang!”

Officer Huang leapt toward them and grabbed Old Wang just in time, while Gao Yang did the same and grabbed the other. The other man was also Old Wang!

“Don’t let go! It’s me!”

The one Gao Yang had just saved started shouting. There was an obvious trail of blood on his forehead. It seemed to have been left by a bullet.

The one Officer Huang had saved was still dangling in the air. After getting a closer look at his other self, he shouted at Gao Yang, “Let go, Gao Yang! He’s fake. I’m the real one!”

“Don’t listen to him, Gao Yang!” The Old Wang with a wound on his forehead argued. “I’m the Old Wang of this timeline! He’s not! He’s the Old Wang from five minutes later! That’s why he got headaches, and his memory is a mess...”

Gao Yang was going to let go, but he hesitated when he heard that.

It made sense. It was their presumptions making them see the Old Wang coming out of the tree hollow first as their companion. However, Old Wang had said that he was inside the tree hollow for a few minutes, while Gao Yang and the others had only waited for two seconds before that version of Old Wang showed up.

The Old Wang they saw then must be the one from five minutes after, while the Old Wang with a wound on his forehead was the one of their timeline.

“What’s the difference?” the Old Wang held up by Officer Huang shouted. “I’m you, and you me. There only needs to be one of us.”

“Then why can’t it be me? And this is my world!” The Old Wang with a wounded forehead raged. “I won’t die here! My wife and daughter are waiting for me to go home!”

“They’re waiting for me too!”

Officer Huang and Gao Yang couldn’t make a decision. After sharing a look, they nodded at each other.

They both pulled the man they were holding onto up.

The two Old Wangs rolled to their feet, their eyes bloodshot as their gazes met. Before they could rush at each other, a man quickly stepped between them, clutching the uninjured Old Wang’s neck with one hand and pressing a shortsword to the throat of the other Old Wang.

“I don’t have time to differentiate between you too,” War Tiger said with a steely look on his face. “Lead the way, or I’ll kill both of you.”

Both men fell silent. Then after two seconds, they said at the same time, “Fine!”