Abyss Train

Chapter 734 Finding a Way to Survive

Compared to Jeffreys, the squad leader, Tom was more unlucky——

——Due to the urgency of the situation, the farm hostess did not have time to replace the compression pack when taking the second photo of Jeffreys, and the first photo of Tom could not be fully developed.

The moment [Mobius] sends the two to the strange spiritual world, Tom Creed will experience even more cruel mental torture.

For squad leader Jeffries, this endless time loop was just a short twenty minutes spent on a mission.

But for Tom Kreider, this Finnish guy has lived in Ai Zongling for almost ten years.

The defensive grenade on his body did not take his life, nor could it trigger the time loop of [A Way Out] - every time Jeffreys died, [A Way Out] would automatically close the loop, taking this zombie who had lost part of his memory back to the moment the mission began, back to the second before Jeffreys fell off the tree.

The situation Tom encountered was the same as the first time that the Bighorn Deer squad leader suffered [A Way Out]. He was only seriously injured and not completely dead. According to the closed-loop logic of [Mobius], he must follow the guidance of the timeline and spend a long life in this endless spiral geometry until [Mobius] closes naturally.

The concept of the so-called "closed loop" is described in detail in both the Magic Academy and "The Rift Apart".

There are thousands of soul powers, and no matter how experienced the Blue Gold Guard is, he dare not say that he can judge the soul power attributes of the enemy in the first place.

All superpowers related to time have closed-loop behaviors, whether it is a single-line time disturbance or a multi-line parallel chaotic space-time. As long as there are various events that can be observed and recognized in the material plane, they are intertwined and have intricate causal relationships, and they also need to complete a closed loop.

  What is a closed loop?

Take the regret medicine of FE204863 as an example.

It is impossible for this time traveler to go back to the time when he had not yet obtained the regret medicine. No matter how powerful his spiritual power is, he cannot use this power to change the attributes of his own soul power.

The regret medicine has a long lasting effect and can go back four hours at a time, but Sixty-Three himself only needs to rest for fifteen minutes before he can continue to use this superpower.

Maybe he could crawl back little by little, sleep for fifteen minutes, crawl for four hours, and repeat this cycle over and over again, until he was in his twenties.

But Sixty-Three cannot change what has happened before, because "Jiang Bailu's death" will always happen before "obtaining the [regret medicine]" - this law of causality is like a pair of shackles, making FE204863 unable to change his own life. He can only watch Bailu grow up from afar through one parallel universe after another and through windows from other timelines.

This is also the closed loop of FE204863. It is precisely because of the order of events that the continuity of time and space is basically guaranteed, and FE204863 exists. If the fact of "Jiang Bailu's death" is to be erased, then the regret medicine and a series of subsequent events will no longer exist - this is the "paradox" that Jeffreys has always been worried about.

Because what has happened cannot be changed, Jeffries resolutely chooses to shoot at his past self, and continues to be a puppet according to the development of the events of [Mobius] bit by bit, and outlines his own cyclical life according to the content of the photos in [A Way Out].

It was not until the team leader ran into "Tom No. 2" from another time and space in the pigpen at the back door that Jeffreys realized that the male owner of the farm was actually Tom himself. Tom was also affected by this strange spirit, but Tom ran farther than him and returned to an earlier era. He was already in his thirties.

They completed the second closed loop, and the structure of Mobius became more complete, making the circulation process of the spiritual world more stable.

  What kind of life has Tom Kreider experienced in the past ten years?

It's too complicated and confusing to describe in a few words.

In the third year of Emperor Lingzong's reign, Tom Creed returned to the tomb of Emperor Aizong with the help of a strange woman.

He didn't know what was going on at first, he only knew that the bighorn deer was like a madman, shooting at civilians and completely losing its mind.

The defensive grenade left a lot of shrapnel in his body. There was no time for surgery, so Panacea simply and roughly closed the wound on his torso. He could feel that there was still a piece of shrapnel slowly extending towards the thoracic vertebrae along the muscles of the torso.

He didn't dare get out of bed and move around. This situation was very dangerous. The naturally healing muscle segments and the wildly growing bones would slowly push him into hemiplegia. If the spinal center was severed, he would most likely die of cardiopulmonary failure.

Boy Tom has come under the control of [Mobius] and started to evolve into the next closed-loop life.

He had no idea of ​​his own situation, nor did he know which time and space he was in. The sudden disappearance of the radio station signal, the singing and dancing, and the thriving engineering projects in the tomb of Emperor Aizong, all made him feel strange and lonely.

He was brought into a gap between time and space by [A Way Out], and all the stories that happened there were illusions.

A week later, when Tom Boy found out the reign of Chabon, he almost went crazy on the spot.

——As a scout of the Quick Blade, he originally possessed a strong will to survive and spiritual attributes. But traveling back ten years in an instant was beyond his common sense.

He was unable to perform surgery on his thoracic spine and became almost useless. Drinking another sip of the panacea would only hasten his death.

Like Captain Jeffries, the front-line assault teams all have an amazing will to survive. Even if they see the gates of hell flying towards them, these soldiers will never give up their lives easily.

He faced the reality and began to plan for the next step.

According to the calendar of the secular world, he was in the year 2019, which was fourteen years ago.

There was no Operation Harvest of Shambhala, no Judas, no Gunsmiths and Sharp Swordsmen.

All combat operations against Shambhala have not yet begun - the crazy Butterfly Holy Cult on the other side of the Pompeii Sea is still rampant, and this land is full of natural and man-made disasters.

Including the girl who saved his life, Ai Zong's Mausoleum is managed by a group of fish-human hybrids. The religious cause of Tiangongyuan is deeply rooted here, and the believers believe in every word of the founder.

A month later, Tom could barely walk, and he had a crush on the girls on the farm.

——That was the person who saved his life. She was two years older than him. She was the daughter of a rich peasant from Lingnan Village who married into the tomb of Emperor Aizong. Her name was Zhang Cuiyun.

Just a few years earlier, Cuiyun's husband was buried in the loess along with the remains of Emperor Aizong's mausoleum.

Emperor Aizong of Xia died suddenly, and there was no time to bury him in this remote Feng Shui site. The craftsmen who failed to complete the project ahead of time naturally had to be buried with the country, and Cuiyun became a widow.

According to the Daliang Kingdom's handling method, Cuiyun was originally going to be buried with her husband, but the founder of Tiangongyuan asked her to chant some scriptures and specifically said a few words for the vulnerable group of craftsmen's widows - so these orphans and widows escaped the disaster and did not become burial objects in the tomb.

"I just saw it a while ago. I don't think the weather will be good."

This Xiabang peasant woman is twenty-three years old. She speaks incoherently and her brain is not very good.

"It's cloudy for a while and sunny for a while. When the sun rises on the eastern hills, it's going to rain on the western rivers."

"I felt a burning fire in my heart, so I hurried to the east coast to pick vegetables for the festival. I didn't expect to meet you on the way."

As she spoke of this, she scooped water into a clay jar, swung the iron pot, and deftly placed it on the wood stove. She kicked the pine needles to start the fire, kicking them into a pile of complete and dense grass leaves, and with a slight pull, the matches ignited a blazing flame that rushed into the stove.

"I saw that you had the magic water (panacea) on you, maybe you are the disciple of Tiangongyuan Bodhisattva? I brought you back."

Tom asked, "How long have you lived here?"

Cuiyun replied confusedly: "It's been a long time."

Tom followed up by asking, "I mean, when did you start living here?"

Cuiyun continued in confusion: "I just married from Nanzhuang and lived here with my old man. I was only fifteen or sixteen."

Tom was patient, trying to gather some information, so he asked, "How long ago did your old man die?"

Cuiyun was not sad, her husband had been dead for a while.

——As a child bride, she didn’t have any thoughts, so she just said it casually.

"My father had to pay back the rent. It was a disaster year. I remember it. I have a good memory. Otherwise, I would have married here."

Tom decided to change the question: "How many people do you know now?"

"I know them all. They're from the same village." Cuiyun said immediately, "I don't even call them by their names. Except for Teacher Baimei, no one likes them. They were supposed to be buried with the dead. How could they be found?"

Tom was a little mad: "I mean"

"Hey!" Cuiyun blanched the chicken and didn't mind the heat at all. She directly grabbed the chopping board and started cutting.

She disliked this little brother for asking questions all the time.

"Last time I thought this thing was hereditary—"

"——Like my mother and father, they don't recognize many people. My aunt doesn't like her, and my uncle doesn't like her either."

"But she didn't kill my father, but I did kill the old man."

Tom: “Uh”

This elite soldier from Guangling was exhausted at that moment.

——He has never worked in logistics, he has always been on the front line. If it were Flavia and Duran, they would know that this kind of cross-channel communication is actually very common in the unknown villages and towns in the mountains.

Scouts require information to be complete, brief and clear.

She is nothing like Sister Cuiyun, who keeps talking about this and that. Tom can’t handle her.

The pace of life was once again slowed down by this useless communication. Tom talked a lot every day, but very little useful information was obtained.

His watch didn't work, his summons bell went unanswered, and his defensive grenades destroyed most of his equipment.

In order to repay his gratitude, he could only manage the farm with Cuiyun, working from sunrise to sunset like the locals. At the same time, he also realized that this was an opportunity, an opportunity to get close to Judah and kill him.

It was not until half a year later that he tried to remove the shrapnel from his sternum, but he almost died. It was still a failed operation and a failed attempt.

It was not until a year later that Cuiyun finally could not stand the gossip of the villagers. She had to have a proper status for such a wild man at home, and Tom Creed had to commit himself to her, and gradually forgot about the task of attacking the enemy.

One year and eight months later, Cuiyun became pregnant, and Tom Creed also determined Judas's movements through the driving routes of the local engineering team, but he did not dare to act rashly - without the dispatch order from the team leader and the support of the headquarters. Without the coordinated operations of the assault team, he was just a deserter from the organization.

More importantly, Jeffries lost to his paranoia, while Tom Creed lost to love. He and Sister Cuiyun already had a child.

However, the child soon miscarried and died in the mother's womb just over a month after being conceived.

Tom initially thought it was an accident. After all, the medical level and sanitary conditions in this damn place called Shambhala were extremely backward, and even a small problem with the food could cause a pregnant woman to have a miscarriage.

Whenever he found an opportunity and was ready to take his equipment and trade one for one with Judah, Cuiyun would always get pregnant and then have a miscarriage.

Tom would also suspect that perhaps this is one of the few chances he has to see through the mystery of [Mobius] and escape this endless cycle.

He really couldn't figure it out, so he flipped through his old notes and found some descriptions of the Great Rift of All Things. He turned on the military multimedia in super power saving mode and found some soul power information related to time.

  ——A terrible thought came to his mind: Couldn’t Judas die here?

Once the assassination procedure begins, will all kinds of special circumstances occur?

This is what Tom thought, regardless of whether he had the ability to explode with Judas and whether he could achieve a one-for-one trade.

  Even if it could be done, and Judah died here, would the subsequent events related to Judah, and the things that had already happened, still happen as usual?

Tom didn't understand. He couldn't tell whether this was fate or just his wife's special physique.

Finally, the doctor from the construction team of Emperor Aizong's Mausoleum gave Tom a reassuring answer:

——Cuiyun has some merman blood. It is difficult for hybrids and Homo sapiens to give birth to healthy children, so frequent miscarriages are normal.

This sense of security wiped out Tom's last bit of doubt, and he was completely immersed in the space-time rift created by [Mobius].

He gave up the assassination plan, not only for the sake of closing the loop, but also for his own future.

He was unable to do strenuous exercise. The last open surgery almost cost him his life. If Cuiyun had not been by his side, he would have died long ago.

Things of the future should be left to future people to accomplish. Even if Judas is killed here, and he really has the ability to accomplish such a great cause - there will still be another "Judas" who will take the golden mask, put on Judas' clothes, and continue the endless cycle of disasters.

This was already happening, and Tom had no power to change it. All he had left in his heart was his little home in Shambhala and comforting his wife.

After Sister Cuiyun learned the diagnosis, she kept crying——

——It was never a good sign for a widow to remarry. At first, she brought bad luck to her husband, and now she brings bad luck to her son.

In order to take care of his wife's emotions, Tom almost put the focus of his life on this small farm.

Day after day passes, year after year turns.

The couple made many attempts and finally gave birth to a daughter, a mixed-race girl with heterochromatic eyes.

Tom hid all the weapons and equipment deep in the farmland and never thought about the assault team again.

Until thirteen years later——

——According to Jeffreys' [Mobius] process, Tom received the news of Judas' visit early on, and based on his vague memory, he re-weaved the specific action route of Group A of Class 3.

He stood in front of the checkpoint of fate and specially let his beloved little cat go - the cat was specially found by him from Nanzhuang, and it looked very similar to the BOSS. He had raised it for seven years.

He held the camera, waiting, and following Mobius's instructions, gradually restored everything in his memory.

He heard gunshots from the concrete floor of the farm and felt nervous, but he was hesitant to go out and face it.

Until Jeffreys, covered in blood, rushed out the back door with his younger self.

——Tom took the two photos from his wife's hands, and as fate would have it, he raised the camera, aimed it at the two of them, and pressed the shutter.

  The flames from the defensive grenade engulfed everything!

He was knocked over by the powerful air wave and crashed into the stone fence of the pigpen. The fragments of his thoracic spine had traveled for more than three thousand days and nights and finally pierced his fragile spine. He didn't even have time to speak.

Before he died, Tom felt only regret. If he had the chance to do it again, he would probably make the same choice.

However, when executing the photo-taking procedure, you need to run to a safe location to take photos before completing the closed loop.

But the previous Tom did the same thing, and perhaps the previous Tom died the same way.

But how can we change what has already happened?

Tom Creed from the "past" died in the year 2033.

The same explosion as Tom Creed from the "future".

The damage was caused by the same defensive grenade.

The book continues from the previous chapter.

Su Ling sent Ling Ao away, and after taking a photo, the corpse turned into another incarnation butterfly.

“Look at this photo!”

The "prophetic scene" shown in the photo is also a tense battle at the Laibei Ferry. In addition to the original incarnation butterfly, there is now a spherical winged monster.

In addition to [Mobius], the ability of [A Way Out·生路] has been fully demonstrated in the eyes of [Phoenix]. The space-time disturbance phenomenon caused by it is very interesting. Su Ling also captured the photos taken when sending Luo away.

The prophecy of Mistress Luo losing her head must have come true. The last portrait also has a special meaning.

——That was a picture of Judas eating with his back to the camera.

"It seems that the Luo family's grandmother has become Judas's meal." Su Ling whispered, "It fits the information of the Gate of Wonders."

Billy the Kid asked, "Master VIP, are you ready to have a fight with him?"

"certainly."

Su Ling nodded and started ringing the bell.

"Call a professional."

Billy perked up all of a sudden: "You want to call the teacher to deal with him?"

"Call your brothers and move quickly." Su Ling pulled Billy out of the bathhouse and explained seriously, "I don't know what happened to the scouts of the Quick Blade. Let's grab your teacher and bring him over to calm the situation. He once faced off against FE204863's Regret Pills. He has more experience in dealing with this kind of soul power that distorts time."

After crossing more than 70 kilometers of mountain roads, we looked towards the second peak of Tiger Ridge Mountain.

——The bald monk carrying the luggage suddenly walked out of the team and changed direction.

The fellow travelers wanted to continue talking about Buddhism and self-cultivation with the master, and as the clear bell rang, the gunsmith turned around, took a few leaps and bounds along the steep mountain road to the northwest, found the official team, grabbed a horse, threw a dozen silver dollars to the foreman, and rode away.