LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 217 Butterfly Effect Stabilization
Cheng Jingtian, after uttering that incomprehensible talk about "Spirit Guarding," suddenly lost the clarity in his eyes. His gaze dimmed in an instant, and his head drooped down as if life had left him.
In the next second, a gray light ascended above his head, a blurry shadow.
This shadow was only half the size of a person, seeming to break free from its cage. First, it stretched out its hands from the top of Cheng Jingtian's head and then crawled out with difficulty.
Once it had emerged, Yan Junze finally saw clearly that the shadow took the form of Cheng Jingtian, albeit listless. It hunched its back, standing atop its own body.
In less than two seconds, the gray shadow swiftly dissipated into nothingness.
After the shadow vanished, Cheng Jingtian's body ceased its resistance, instead becoming eerily quiet. Then, his body began to swell rapidly as if it were a balloon that was abruptly inflated.
"Not good!"
Yan Junze felt a tremendous force squeezing out the hair that penetrates Cheng Jingtian's body, and he immediately retracted all his hair, retreating frantically.
But Shen Wanqiu, who was oblivious to these sensations, moved forward fiercely and hugged Cheng Jingtian's body, devouring it desperately after Yan Junze stepped aside.
Bang!
Right where Cheng Jingtian stood, his body exploded into pieces, not only turning into a mush of flesh but also generating a powerful blast of air.
Shen Wanqiu, who was directly on top of Cheng Jingtian, bore the brunt of the blast. Even with her evolved strength, she was still torn into five or six pieces and hurled away by the explosion.
The living room door behind Cheng Jingtian was blown clear off to the staircase passage outside, with the adjacent walls collapsing inwards, leaving them bloodstained and marred.
The bed in the room, also caught in the blast, was pushed up against the desk near the window. The strange baby on the bed, together with the two odd babies and the Crawler Monster fighting over it, were smeared with exploding gore and flung into the wall with a brutal impact.
Having anticipated Cheng Jingtian's body explosion, Yan Junze was still in Semi-Spirit State despite being nearby, which helped him resist the shockwave.
As expected, the impact of the self-detonation blew his Semi-Spirit Body into the bathroom, causing a loud crashing noise, and even the thick curtain outside the bathroom was blown away.
Indeed, Cheng Jingtian's last attack before death was extremely terrifying.
Yan Junze felt his head spinning and heavy, but after regaining some clarity, he didn't hesitate. He immediately collected the two odd babies smeared against the wall and the stunned Crawler Monster into the Atlas.
The Atlas contained Different Dimension Energy, which would allow them to recover slowly, so there was no need to worry for now.
Following the explosion, Yan Junze used the semi-Spirit State to withstand the impact, then forced himself to recover rapidly.
About ten seconds later, he reverted to his normal body, but immediately felt a wave of weakness and hunger wash over him.
He steadied himself and exited the bathroom. By then, the room was in complete disarray, with hardly an inch of space near the living room door left intact.
Only in the direction of the computer desk, which had shifted position, was everything relatively untouched.
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A cat's meow came from beneath the computer desk.
Yan Junze bent down to see Bai crouched underneath, curled up into a ball with eyes filled with terror, shivering fearfully.
He reached out to pick up Bai and then examined Shen Wanqiu's scattered remains, noticing that her dismembered body no longer twitched. Obviously, she died nearly at the same time as Cheng Jingtian.
Fortunately, the "Revenge" mission had also been completed. Whether or not Cheng Jingtian's soul had escaped, his death was an undeniable fact.
Just as he thought this, a mission completion notification popped up.
["Revenge, Hair-Raising (High)," completed, earn 1500 points of Different Dimension Energy.]
Yan Junze was left with just over 2200 points of energy; now with an additional 1500 points, he had a total of 3700 points.
He had just been warned by the Atlas about insufficient energy points for "Butterfly Effect Stabilization," but now it seemed he had more than enough.
Carrying Bai, Yan Junze coughed twice and walked straight out the living room door.
At this moment, the dust still whirled in the air outside the living room at the top of the stairs from the explosion, though it was beginning to dissipate gradually.
Looking down from the stairway, the Fat Old Man fanning himself stood on the floor below, craning his neck and looking upward, his face etched with panic.
Apart from that, neighbors from upstairs and downstairs stood at their respective stair entrances to look, but none dared to approach.
The neighbors on this floor, whether they were home or not, never opened their doors.
Upon seeing the fat old man, Yan Junze stroked Bai in his arms, signaling that he could come over to be held.
When the fat old man suddenly saw Bai, he was startled, then became hesitant.
After a brief moment of indecision, he still climbed the stairs and hurried over to Yan Junze and Bai.
Following the fat uncle was a middle-aged man who seemed to be his son.
Once the fat old man got closer, Yan Junze handed Bai over to him and said, "Fat uncle, did you have your cat groomed?"
The fat uncle didn't immediately answer him. Instead, after taking Bai, he glanced into Cheng Jingting's room, saw nothing in the pitch darkness, and then replied, "Hmm, it used to be black. It always ran off and hid in hard-to-see corners, and with my poor eyesight, I couldn't spot it, so I decided to dye it white. Let's see how it tries to hide now?"
"May I ask who you are...?" The fat uncle's son, who was behind him, expressed doubt and began to inquire.
Yan Junze didn't speak; he just nodded and turned to enter the room.
At this moment, there was no longer any need for him to stay there. He took a deep breath, called up the Spacetime Atlas in his mind, and initiated the return command.
From the perspective of a third person watching, one could see a black point suddenly appear in front of Yan Junze, while Yan Junze himself rapidly shrank and was sucked into the black point.
Once again, he stood in the gap space of spacetime, but this time, a prompt immediately popped up for "Butterfly Effect Stabilization."
[The current "Spacetime Fixed Point Insertion" has resulted in 4 butterfly effects. The first butterfly effect requires an estimated energy consumption of 300 points, and it has generated 572 ripple events. The second butterfly effect requires an estimated energy consumption of 300 points, and it has generated 580 ripple events.
The third butterfly effect requires an estimated energy consumption of 400 points, and it has generated 769 ripple events.]
Yan Junze looked closely, mentally prepared for the number of ripple events a single butterfly effect could cause.
So, even though he had changed only the fact of Cheng Jingting's death, if he allowed the event to trigger butterfly effects without intervening, who knows? By the time he returned to his own time period, many historical events might have changed.
For instance, he might not be able to attend university because Tianmeng Science University could have been forcibly shut down by the authorities. Or he might never meet his current roommates, or he might not even live in Room 411 anymore.
In any case, constant shifts in more than 500 ripple events from a single butterfly effect ultimately form the altered outcome – the complexity of which was almost too daunting to contemplate.
Just then, the Atlas popped up with information about the fourth butterfly effect.
[The fourth butterfly effect requires an estimated energy consumption of 2000 points, generating 34 ripple events. If the ripple events are realized, they will have a fatal impact on the host. Ripple event number 18 is the key, with infinite variability, and must be addressed personally by the host. A maximum of 500 points of Rewind Energy may be used with caution.]
Reading this Atlas information, Yan Junze took a moment to digest it before going over it again to fully understand.
It turned out that not only did the fourth butterfly effect consume a large amount of energy, but it also required his personal intervention due to its high variability - meaning he would have to make another trip.
At this moment, the Spacetime Atlas displayed another prompt.
[The first, second, and third butterfly effects can be handled personally at your discretion or corrected automatically by "Butterfly Effect Stabilization." During the automatic process, the host may choose to observe from a third-person perspective. Would you like to start now?]
Yan Junze thought for a bit and mentally agreed to begin.
[We will now commence the stabilization of the first butterfly effect. Please choose whether to handle it personally or let the Atlas automatically correct it.]
"Let it automatically correct. I will observe from a third-person perspective," Yan Junze muttered to himself.
The space in front of him suddenly quivered, a fissure yawned open, revealing a segment of a timeline.
It felt as if Yan Junze was instantly transported there, standing within this scene, watching the people passing by, chatting animatedly, yet no one could see him.
At this moment, Yan Junze was as if an invisible observer.
Not far in front of him stood the fat old man, holding Bai, and standing with his son at the bottom of the stairs.
Downstairs was now crowded with many residents, there were police cars stopped inside the complex, and beyond that, Yan Junze also saw some men in suits entering the building, likely belonging to the Exorcism team.
A man in a suit was inquiring about the incident from the fat old man at the time.
The fat old man's account mostly matched reality—he heard several people fighting in the room, sounding not like ordinary people, their cries harrowing and spine-chilling to anyone who listened.