Lord of Prayer

「Year 234 of the New Calendar. Late at night.」

Inside a safe house, a replay of the Hong City Fashion Lingerie Show played on the television. Yang sat on the sofa, drinking a beer and eating freshly cooked noodles. He sighed as he watched the succession of fiery models on the screen.

‘All I wanted was to come to Hong City and see a lingerie show. How did I end up in all this crap… The good news is, I’m watching the show now. The bad news is, it’s just a replay.’

What was even more frustrating was that because he’d been on the run and a wanted man for the past few days, his two tickets, worth a hundred thousand US dollars, had expired without a refund. A complete waste.

The moment he thought of that hundred thousand US dollars, Yang’s heart ached. He finished his noodles, then chugged his beer, trying to drown the sorrow of his financial loss in alcohol. Suddenly, an urgent, piercing alarm blared across the city. He shot up from the sofa on pure reflex. ‘It’s a red alert! A state of war!’

He rushed to the window, pulled back the curtains, and looked out. His pupils contracted at the unbelievable sight.

Massive, translucent domes of light were spreading out from various points across Hong City. The domes varied in size; the largest one engulfed nearly half of the downtown area, its image reflected in the terrified eyes of countless pedestrians.

The Satellite Investigation Mirror provided a bird’s-eye view from space, transmitting clear, real-time images to a large screen inside the Star Association.

—A brilliantly lit modern metropolis, dotted with rising, translucent bubbles.

The scenery within the domes of light began to rapidly rewind, as if God had hit the reverse button at several hundred times normal speed. Light and shadow flickered in rapid succession as magnificent skyscrapers were caught in a loop: demolished, rebuilt, demolished, and rebuilt again. The overall height of the buildings in the area plummeted. Pedestrians and vehicles zipped backward, leaving trails of afterimages, yet nothing escaped the domes.

Everything within them hurtled back in time: ten years, twenty, thirty… The architectural style of the buildings grew progressively older, until the torrent of time finally settled sixty years in the past.

Inside the domes, people from the past stared out in bewilderment, gazing from within the transparent time barrier at the World of the future.

“Fuck…”

In the safe house, Yang drew in a sharp breath, his scalp prickling.

‘This is on a whole different level…’

His phone vibrated and rang in his pocket. He pulled it out; the call was from Jiang Che, someone he hadn’t heard from in a long time.

“It’s time.”

Jiang Che’s calm voice came over the line as soon as he answered. “There’s a car at the entrance to the safe house.”

“Boss.”

Yang swallowed hard. He forced a smile as he spoke. “My stomach hurts. I think I need to call in sick.”

“You have twenty-seven seconds before the expanding space-time bubble engulfs the safe house.”

Yang didn’t hesitate. He threw open the window and leaped out, spotting a black car parked at the curb, its engine already running.

He yanked open the door and slid into the driver’s seat. “Then what?”

“See the Woolworth Building?”

“I see it.”

“Floor it. Go there, kill the Blood Race, and destroy the Eternal Life Machine,” Jiang Che ordered.

Yang’s hands trembled on the steering wheel, a pained look on his face. “Boss, you’re sending me, a Tier Two Ascender, to take on a Blood Race stronghold? And this Eternal Life Machine thing… it sounds way out of my league. There’s no way I can handle that…

‘Oh, right. I have a Soul Contract with the Blood Race, so I can’t harm them. Plus, they’ve hired mercenaries from Omega…”

As he spoke, a white light flashed around him, and the contractual shackles on his Soul shattered.

“There. I’ve taken care of it for you.”

It seemed Jiang Che had used her authority to activate some incredible device within the Star Association, remotely shattering the contract on his Soul.

Yang’s mouth fell open, but he didn’t say anything else. He just sighed and buckled his seatbelt. “Weapon?”

“In the back seat. Your favorite sniper rifle.”

“You know something, don’t you?”

Yang slammed his foot on the accelerator. The car roared to life like a beast, tearing down the street and leaving the expanding space-time bubble in its dust.

“Isn’t it obvious?”

Jiang Che’s voice came over the phone, as calm and steady as ever, as if nothing in the World could stir her emotions. But for Yang, this all-knowing composure was exactly what he liked best. It meant he didn’t have to worry too much about saving his own skin.

“I can’t reveal too much else. I can only give you one small hint.”

“What is it?”

“Go with the flow.”

With that, the line went dead.

Yang was stunned.

‘Go with the flow… Why is she being so cryptic? No, she’s not just being cryptic, she’s a full-blown riddler!’

‘And that’s not even a hint!’

·

「Year 174 of the New Calendar.」

In a residential complex.

Zhou Chen stared into the distance, his expression grim. Just a moment ago, the Dream Realm had undergone a bizarre transformation. It had started to turn transparent, revealing everything within.

The Nightmare was gone, replaced by the reality it had once shrouded.

But this was not a good thing. Just five hundred meters away, the confined slice of reality had been plunged into time accelerated several hundredfold. Time flew by in a blur as buildings were demolished and rebuilt in a repeating cycle. The entire cityscape shot upward before his very eyes, the architecture growing more futuristic and technological with every passing moment.

It was… Hong City, sixty years in the future.

“Zhou Chen… wh-what is happening?” Li Xiye was utterly dumbfounded.

“The future is descending,” Zhou Chen answered, his voice dry.

‘Space-Time Instrument, Time Tunnel, Dream Realm, Spirit Realm, Blood Race, Crimson Sect, Eternal Life Machine…’

Countless clues were now connecting in his mind, forming a terrifying conclusion.