Ouroboros

Chapter 4

Day of departure.

[1456.5.17 09:51:40]

In the third command centre, a large projection displayed the current time coordinate as people busied about in an orderly manner. It was no different from the countless missions they had done before.

In eight minutes, the mission will officially start. Everyone in the Tianqiong’s seventh squad had already put on their Guardian combat uniform and were in the process of having their individual conditions checked to ensure that there would not be any adverse reactions when they traverse over.

Song Qinglan had already completed his check and was as usual checking the rest of the team members.

When he saw Ji Yushi, he frowned and patted the member next to him, “Go and see.”

A slender figure was added to this group of strong guardians.

Ji Yushi had a subcutaneous communicator implanted into his neck the day before and the dispatcher was helping him connect it to his bracelet. He was a little taller than the dispatcher, so he had his head lowered. The look in his lowered eyes made him appear cold and aloof.

“The Recorder’s missions are usually solo missions and do not require teammates. Guardians are the opposite.” The dispatched considerately explained to him, “Advisor Ji, you may feel uncomfortable having the communicator implanted for the first time and you may be surprised to suddenly hear your teammates voice but don’t worry, after a while you will forget about its existence.”

“Alright.” Ji Yushi said.

After the dispatched walked away, Ji Yushi heard someone ask him, “Advisor Ji, how do you feel? You don’t look well today.”

The one who asked was one of the twin teammates.

Ji Yushi’s face was pale but his eyes were still bright, “No problem. I just slept late last night.”

“I see.” Because they weren’t familiar, the teammate could only say awkwardly, “Advisor Ji, don’t be too nervous. The transition this time is the same as your previous missions and the mission is also very simple. We should be back by tomorrow.”

Understanding the good intentions of his teammate, Ji Yushi nodded, “Thank you Tang Le.”

When Tang Le returned, his expression was very strange.

Song Qinglan, “What’s wrong?”

“Cap Song!” Tang Le looked like he had just seen a ghost, “He could actually distinguish me from my brother! He called me by the right name! Many people in the department still haven’t figured it out after so many years. Just today, just now, Zhou Mingxuan also made a mistake!”

Tang Qi and Tang Le both had a similarity of 99% in terms of their height, weight and appearance. People who didn’t interact with them day in and day out wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the two.

But Ji Yushi who was only introduced to them once remembered and it was even when they were wearing the same attire. This surprised Song Qinglan.

“Probably a coincidence.” Song Qinglan said indifferently, “He’s okay?”

Tang Le replied, “No problem! Just said he didn’t sleep well.”

Song Qinglan: “It’s good that he’s okay. Didn’t want him to drag us down later.”

The countdown displayed three minutes.

Everyone entered the large transmission platform. Several silver capsules were closely connected, like lotus seeds on a lotus.

Ji Yushi entered his capsule, sat in the seat and closed the door.

[Welcome Ji Yushi. You are about to set off to complete your first A-level mission.]

The noisy sounds in the command centre was completely blocked off. It was so quiet, he could only hear his own breathing and heartbeat.

Ji Yushi allowed the seat to securely bind around his calf, waist, abdomen, shoulder and neck. He then saw the control bracelet on his left wrist glow green.

It displayed the current position and physical condition of the six teammates.

Ji Yishi realised that this time he wasn’t crossing through time and space alone. Beside him were six teammates.

[You are connected to the public channel.]

After a brief reminder, Tianqiong’s law was displayed on the transparent panel.

“I am a witness of time and I hereby swear an oath.”

“Never change the past!”

“Never talk about the present!”

“Never be obsessed with the future!”

Uniform chants of the teammates resounded through the public channel.

This oath was something Ji Yushi was very familiar with but with so many saying it at the same time, it seemed more resolute than before.

There were ten seconds left on the countdown.

Catching Ji Yushi by surprise, a low male voice suddenly invaded his mind, numbing his auditory nerves in an instant.

Song Qinglan’s tone was very relaxed, “Everyone get ready. Tianqiong’s seventh squad, the thirteenth A-level mission, let’s go!”

*

The pleasant voice still lingered in his ears.

Like the many time travels he had done before, Ji Yushi took a deep breath and about two or three seconds later, the originally calm and silent capsule started to jolt around violently!

【Warning! Warning! You have deviated from the destination coordinates! You have deviated from the destination coordinates!】

The warning light in the capsule flashed nonstop and the transparent panel before him flickered over and over again.

White light flashed in front of him.

A sharp alarm sounded, and dizziness, nausea and a strong sense of weightlessness almost overwhelmed him.

【Illegal transition detected!】

【Illegal transition detected!】

Something went wrong!!

Ji Yushi gritted his teeth and tried to press the emergency button several times but the capsule continued to spin and jolt around violently.

At the prompt, he could only use all his strength to grab the seats armrest, relying on the belts binding tightly around him to keep him firmly in place and prevent him from being thrown around.

After what felt like a century, the capsule gradually stabilised.

As soon as the capsule completely stopped moving, Ju Yushi quickly grabbed the nutrient solution handed over by a robotic arm and downed it in one go. It took him more than ten seconds to slowly recover.

　　[? ? p0754%$#37]

　　[: “”LRR”/’l’89”]

Indecipherable garbled characters were displayed on the panel. It seemed like it had completely broken.

Without the time coordinate, it was impossible for Ji Yushi to confirm what year he was in and what had happened.

But through the glass windows of the capsule, he could see that they had landed inside a forest and through the dense tree canopy, a dark grey sky could vaguely be seen.

Ji Yushi released the bindings from the chair and stepped out.

“Bleagh————”

A teammate was throwing up.

The person who started vomiting as soon as he got out of the capsule was the youngest teammate, Li Chun. He had just been recruited as a Guardian for less than a year and was a big boy with good physical fitness. He only had one problem: He gets “motion sickness”.

Hearing him vomiting, the teammates who seemed to be well trained in this aspect tacitly scattered away.

Song Qinglan also took back a few steps, “I told you to sit on the pendulum ten times before the next mission. Tell me the truth, how many times did you do it?”

Before Li Chun could finish speaking, he vomited a second wave, “T-twice….Bleagh ——-”

The teammates all expressed shock.

“Did you hear that?”

“The break was so long. Did you only use it to flirt with girls?”

“The simulator can’t help you anymore, yet you dare neglect the pendulum?”

Li Chun finally finished vomiting. He said weakly, “……..No, don’t you smell it? The air here smells bad.”

Duan Wen walked over with a bottle of water while pinching his nose, “Chun’er, don’t make excuses. Rinse your mouth first.”

Li Chun: “Thanks Brother Wen……..Huh? Where’s Advisor Ji?”

Ji Yushi’s capsule was closest to Ji Chun. The door to the capsule was wide open but he was nowhere in sight.

Just as everyone was worried that he may have been thrown into some other time and space, a cold voice travelled over, “I’m here.”

At some unknown point in time, Ji Yushi had moved four or five metres away from Li Chin. Under the fluorescent light from the capsules, you could see a hint of discomfort on Ji Yushi’s pale face.

Everyone: “……..”

Was it necessary hiding so far?!

Prim and proper people really love cleanliness!

Song Qinglan glanced at Ji Yushi but wasn’t in the mood to care about the new teammate’s shallow comradery.

Everyone had encountered a similar situation in their capsule. The transparent panels of all of them showed garbled characters. Song Qinglan turned on the communicator on his wrist and saw that the time had been updated to the current time: [1470.8.05 04:41:31].

This place clearly wasn’t the time coordinate for their A-level mission, let alone their original time period.

That strong turbulence just now was accompanied by the report of an “illegal transition”. Song Qinglan guessed that they may have encountered some form of malfunction —–This was his first time encountering such a situation in the two years he had been completing missions.

“Duan Wen.” Song Qinglan ordered succinctly, “Check the main control panel and see if there are any data leaks or data hijacking and contact the command centre immediately.”

“Yes.” Duan Wen worked quickly and soon returned to report, “Cap Song, our equipment seems to be locked.”

Song Qinglan frowned: “How is it locked?”

Duan Wen explained, “The main control panel is offline, and the command centre cannot be contacted. The capsules also don’t work. It seems to be because of the electromagnetic waves here. The magnetic field here seems a little different but it’s still not certain. Perhaps the transition just now had something to do with it. Right now, all that we can use is the communicator. We’re basically trapped here.”

Everyone heard the news and one after another they began to cuss.

“What about the mission?”

“I even said that the mission would be over tomorrow and invited a girl out for dinner.”

“You’ve fucking slagged so many. It’s endless.”

At this moment, footsteps could suddenly be heard from the forest.

At four o’clock in the morning, who be in the depths of such a remote forest?

Everyone turned silent.

Adhering to the principle that traverser must remain low profile and shouldn’t be discovered by the original residents of the land, Duan Wen who was in charge of machinery immediately turned off the holographic map on his bracelet and the seven capsules were also changed into a hidden state under his control, turning completely invisible.

Once the last of the light sources were gone, the forest plunged into darkness and silence. It was so quiet; you could even hear a needle falling.

They may have just gone the wrong way.

Everyone remained hidden under the cover of the trees, silently waiting for the other person to leave.

That drifter saw them.

Seeing a group of mysterious figures suddenly appear in the middle of the forest, anyone who was normal would be shocked, but this drifter didn’t appear surprised at all. On the contrary, as soon as he saw this group of people, he suddenly cried out in excitement and sped up!

Li Chin stood closest. After vomiting just now, his mind was still a little hazy.

As the stench approached him, Li Chun responded quickly with a curse and threw the other person onto the ground.

“Grrr!! Grr!!”

The drifter growled strangely and lashed out again.

“What the hell?!” Li Chun didn’t expect the other party to fight back. He only felt a strong stench flash by and then it was followed by a sharp pain in his shoulder, “Fuck!!!”

The drifter had left a vicious bite on Li Chun’s shoulder!

With a ‘thud’, the drifter was kicked three or four metres away by Song Qinglan!

On the other end, Duan Wen supported Li Chun up, “Chun’er! How are you?!”

Li Chun grinned in pain. Fortunately, the Guardian’s combat uniform had armour on the shoulders. That bite just now only left toothmarks and didn’t seem to have pierced through the skin.

If ordinary people were kicked by Song Qinglan, they wouldn’tbe able to get up. That drifter however got back up again while continuing to growl.

This time, his target had changed to Song Qinglan.

Seeing that he was about to pounce again, Song Qinglan didn’t panic. In the darkness, his figure moved around like a black panther. In just a blink of an eye, he had appeared behind the drifter, swiftly knocking the other party down and subdueing him.

Perhaps it was just too easy going against civilians. Song Qinglan didn’t even break a sweat from this and just raised his chin, “Chun’er, is this someone you have slagged? Seemed to have chased you all the way here.”

The teammates laughed, “Pfft.”

Ji Yushi on the side: “…….”

This squad seems a little different from what he had imagined.

The captain and the team members all don’t seem like serious people.

Li Chun who was teased didn’t dare talk back. He obediently endured the stench and tied the ‘person he has slagged’ up. This was his retribution. Who told him to vomit just now, polluting the nose of his teammates?

The drifter was still howling frantically as he struggled about. He seemed to have lost his mind. That coarse and strange cry echoed through the silent forest, clearly not sounding like that of a human but more like a cannibalistic beast.

Song Qinglan noticed something was wrong. He ordered concisely, “Flashlight.”

This order instead brought Ji Yushi over.

Seeing him come over with a flashlight, Song Qinglan finally remembered that the special advisor that was recruited into the squad was actually the scout in their team.

But the new scout’s mental fortitude wasn’t very good. He only took a quick glance at the drifter and immediately looked away.

It could be seen that the gentle and clean Advisor Ji felt rather sick.

Song Qinglan looked at him, “Can you bear with it? If not, change with them.”

In the dark, Ji Yushi’s pale neck was stubbornly tense. It could be seen that he was enduring, “I’ll try my best.”

Song Qinglan was noncommittal and warned, “Then you better hold it in.”

In the darkness, the strong light from the flashlight allowed everyone to see the drifter’s appearance.

It was an extremely pale face with skin covered in blue-green blood vessels. His eyes were grey and turbid and seemed to have lost focus. What was even more shocking was that the man’s mouth and clothes were covered with dark red blood stains as well as several small pieces of flesh!

Not only Ji Yushi, the expressions of the other teammates also changed.

Those pieces of flesh had a certain characteristic. It could vaguely be made out that it once belonged to a human.

Li Chun had a strong desire for survival. He whispered in a small voice, “I told you the air here smells.”

That smell came from the blood covered man here.

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