Chapter 551: Time Stolen in the Marsh

What kind of ability can steal time?

Lu Xin could never have imagined it.

Yet, deep down he felt that his time had been stolen.

It was like being swallowed by a marsh: as the surroundings turned into a quagmire, his feet began to sink slowly, while skeletal, branch-like arms emerged around him, reaching out from afar, grabbing and wrapping him tightly. Every moment of that process demanded time.

With that time, he could have mounted a counterattack.

But now, he had no time to react; his opponent seemed to have skipped several steps.

Before he could recover, his feet were engulfed by the marsh and those withered arms had already coiled around him.

In the realm of time, his foe possessed an overwhelming advantage.

……

……

“Clack, clack, clack…”

In the midst of his frantic thoughts, Lu Xin found his body completely ensnared by withered arms, and the marsh had risen up to his lower abdomen.

The creaking sound of those dry, trembling arms was crisp yet parched, filling the air with oppressive irritation.

The marsh’s enormous suction locked his arms in place, making it nearly impossible to muster the strength to break free.

A cold glimmer crossed Lu Xin’s face. He had no time to decipher how his time was stolen—only that his mental power erupted. Its massive, twisting force snapped those withered arms into pieces, scattering them like damp kindling across the marsh, each fragment writhing on its own.

In the next moment, Lu Xin would have to use the force of Mental Impact to escape the marsh.

But then his eyes caught another sight: more withered arms were coiling around him, layer upon layer.

Their sharp claws dug viciously into his flesh.

Meanwhile, the marsh deepened its grip, now submerging him from his lower abdomen up to his waist.

Had his time been stolen once more?

……

……

“So, your awakening is even weaker than I had imagined…”

“You’ll never be it, so you can’t disregard logic as if you were it…”

“…”

On the face of the Administration Hall building, tremors of mental power surged, driven by sheer will.

The voice of that great serpent—the Mental Monster—rang out from high above, dripping with disdain as it coldly scrutinized Lu Xin.

The two windows positioned like eyes shone with an unnaturally dazzling light.

Startled, Lu Xin looked up to see that the brightness from those windows was almost unreal.

“So, that’s how it is…”

Facing the intense lights, a flash of joy suddenly lit up his face.

The Nightmare Serpent fell silent, as if Lu Xin’s unexpected expression had caught it off guard.

“Do things from the abyss always have to put on such a show?”

Lu Xin’s voice even carried a trace of mirth.

Even as countless withered arms tangled around him and the marsh steadily swallowed his body, he exhibited not a hint of panic.

It was as if his injured body was all there was to lose; even if he were consumed by the marsh, nothing would truly harm him. He remained unnervingly calm and composed, his rationality intact.

This clarity allowed him to quickly deduce the nature of his enemy’s power.

From intelligence gathered earlier from Black Jack, he already knew that the mental monster in Ghostfire Marsh was a mysterious creature tied to sleep and nightmares—and that as soon as it emerged from the abyss, it seized control.

It had the power to counter him, naturally wielding abilities of nightmares.

It wasn’t about stealing time at all—it was subtly inducing sleep.

……

……

The investigation into the stolen sleep of Black Marsh City’s residents had been following this very lead.

They had discovered that one reason for the loss of sleep was to nurture a specific mental monster; unexpectedly, these stolen sleeps were not just nourishment, but also a form of power—or even a weapon.

To unknowingly send someone to sleep was effectively to steal their time.

That’s when Lu Xin realized it.

In his mind, he was just standing in the marsh, confronting an overwhelming force.

Yet, his own time seemed to accelerate in irregular spurts.

Even though his opponent’s attack was still en route, it suddenly struck him with no warning.

With every dizzying flash, the enemy’s assault quickened several beats.

It was because he was unknowingly succumbing to sleep.

As vast waves of sleep crashed over him, his sense of time became choppy and fragmented.

But how could he resist this sleep?

For a brief moment, Lu Xin felt as if he had returned to his early days in Black Marsh City.

He recalled a girl strumming a guitar, singing a song called ‘Childhood.’

Perhaps the cicadas and butterflies in the pondside trees were everyone’s cherished memories of youth…

Yet, for Lu Xin, most of his memories were of dozing off during class—one moment nodding off, and the next, the Old Director’s face was looming right in front of him…

Who can resist the sudden drowsiness of a childhood lesson?

……

……

……

“What’s happening?”

Up on the building’s edge in the office, Han Bing, Gecko, and the others watched in deep worry as they stared wide-eyed at the plaza below. Even they could clearly see a massive python slithering along the ground and over the wall, the plaza transformed into a dark marsh, and Lu Xin being dragged headlong into its depths by countless arms…

But the crucial question remained…

“Why hasn’t Mr. Single Soldier fought back?”

“…”

In their view, after Lu Xin had fired his gun to repel the mental monster, something in him had changed.

He simply stood there, calmly allowing countless hands to emerge from underground and seize his body.

He let those hands drag him into the marsh.

Throughout the ordeal, he had lifted his head several times, as if contemplating a counterattack.

But in the end, he did nothing.

“Is it that even the Captain must sometimes exude the air of a big boss…?”

Gecko couldn’t help blurting out, “Let the villain strike first, and when he’s done, flash that wicked smile…”

“Hey, is it my turn now?”

“…”

Gecko’s words sent a jolt through their hearts.

It sounded utterly perverse, yet somehow it did resemble Mr. Single Soldier’s style.

……

……

“I…I have to help my brother…”

At that moment, at the edge of the plaza, his Sister, overcome with worry, called out and quickly began climbing forward.

But after a few meters, seeing that Mom and Father weren’t following, she turned back.

With a puzzled look, she asked, “Why aren’t you helping my brother?”

Mom remained silent, and Father, watching her in mute concern, also fell silent.

“It’s not that we don’t want to help him.”

Unable to bear her pleading gaze, Mom softly sighed and murmured, “He’s rejecting our help.”

“……”

Father seethed in cold silence for a while before muttering, “Was this what you expected?”

Mom turned to look at Father with a stern expression; after a moment, she softly said,

“We can only foretell the general trend, but no one can predict every detail of how things unfold.”

“And it’s the details that often hold the power to change everything.”

“……”

“Heh heh heh, so you weren’t so confident after all…”

Father’s laugh was hollow and cold. “Had I known, I would have seized every chance to leave…”

After a pause, Mom slowly turned to face Father and gently raised two fingers.

Father instantly became alert, his anger simmering as he snapped, “What do you want? What are you trying to say?”

“What I’m saying is that you might feel you have plenty of opportunities to leave.”

Mom whispered, “But that’s just an illusion.”

Father’s face contorted with fury, as if he were about to lunge at her.

Yet, he restrained himself and, with lingering anger, asked, “Then what should we do?”

“Do what?”

Mom slowly turned away and replied, “Why be in such a hurry?”

“Even a young lion might tumble under a hyena’s grip, but those tumbles are exactly what help it grow.”

……

……

“So frustrating…”

Black, gnarled, branch-like arms coiled around his entire body, while sticky marsh had risen to his chest.

Those withered arms reached for his face and even tried to probe his mind, causing an agony so intense that he could neither effectively counter nor resist.

Because at the level of mental power, any form of resistance or counterattack required his will to marshal his strength.

In other words, he needed to concentrate.

But the overwhelming drowsiness that crashed over him forced him to awaken repeatedly; each time he snapped back to full consciousness, there was a fleeting moment of disorientation before he remembered what he was doing, and that pause created an opening.

“Even if you unveil this logic, what then? I’ll drown you with the sleep of an entire city.”

On the Administration Hall building, the lights grew even brighter.

Those searing, almost blinding lights bestowed upon him vast amounts of sleep.

Truth be told, the sensation of being pulled into a sleep so deep that not even dreams could intrude was oddly comforting.

Especially for an adult who had endured years of relentless work and seldom experienced a dreamless night, Lu Xin found an inexplicable solace in that profound sleep…

But now wasn’t the time for comfort—this was serious business.

Gradually, he grew increasingly impatient.

Problems, after all, had to be solved…

Finally, as he woke once more, he gently bit his lip; his sharp teeth sliced through skin in an instant.

The salty, brackish blood overran his tongue, jolting his senses.

Using the pain as a spark, he looked up at the Administration Hall building.

The face of that monster still loomed on the building, its haughty demeanor utterly detestable.

Looking down, he saw that the marsh had reached his neck.

And countless hands, like shackles, wrapped around him, binding his body and even his will.

The overwhelming drowsiness enveloped him, making everything seem insignificant except for sleep.

At its peak, that drowsiness could weigh down like a mountain, crushing everything in its path.

Except…

Lu Xin, having bitten his lip, suddenly saw black particles boiling in his eyes.

As those bizarre hands began creeping into his mind, something deep within him stirred—the endless ripples of mental power surged, rapidly spreading outward.

The surrounding marsh churned even more violently, with waves crashing in layers.

Around Lu Xin, it was as if an immense ocean had appeared.

Furious, like a raging tempest, his mental power unleashed gigantic waves that swallowed every ounce of drowsiness, and in that ocean, the sleepiness on his face vanished as he calmly regarded the Nightmare Serpent.

“How is this possible…?”

A presence atop the Administration Hall building subconsciously emitted waves of mental power: “You do not wield such authority…”

“Nor should you ever possess such a formidable ocean of mental power…”

“…”

He couldn’t help but panic—as it seemed the monster had control over everything, he felt his own pollution being diluted. The sleep that could engulf an entire city, which even a Mental Overlord might not withstand, was now being rapidly diminished.

Lu Xin, with his strong authority, understood this concept.

Yet he couldn’t fathom why he possessed such an immense magnitude of mental power.

It was like an ocean of mental power.

……

……

“A city’s sleep returns to the city.”

“Such a simple principle…”

Amid the monster’s terror, Lu Xin stepped out of the marsh, his tone laced with disbelief: “You really don’t understand, do you?”

Beside him, an eerie sound began to swell—like a tsunami surging forth.

It was the unmistakable sound of snoring.

Even though nothing could be seen, layers of loud snoring erupted, so overwhelming that even Mizang couldn’t conceal it.

Lu Xin returned sleep to this sleepless city, using the inhabitants to dilute the oppressive drowsiness.

“But you shouldn’t have such authority…”

The mental oscillations of the Nightmare Serpent still carried its will, within which a palpable sense of panic resounded.

……

……

“I don’t know what you call authority…”

“But lately, I’ve felt a deep discomfort—almost a sense of fear…”

“If that is divine power…”

He slowly explained, glancing forward as the black particles in his eyes churned more violently, deepening into darkness.

“Then I can only say—you know nothing about divine power.”

“…”

As he finished speaking, countless black particles swirled around him, unleashing towering waves.