Departure Day

[09:51:40]

In the Sky Vault’s Third Command Center, a massive system projection displayed the current time coordinates. People were busy in an orderly manner, no different from countless previous Guardian missions.

The mission would officially begin in 8 minutes. All members of the Seventh Guardian Team of the Sky Vault had already changed into their standard black combat uniforms and were having their physical conditions rechecked by the examiners to ensure no adverse reactions during the time jump.

Song Qinglan had finished his examination and, as per routine, was checking on all the team members.

He noticed Ji Yushi and frowned, then patted the shoulder of a nearby teammate: “Go check on him.”

Amidst the group of strong Guardians, there was one slender figure.

Ji Yushi had an under-skin communicator implanted on the side of his neck the day before, and now a dispatcher was connecting it to his control wristband. Ji Yushi was taller than the dispatcher, so he lowered his head, his long eyelashes shading his eyes, giving him a distant and aloof appearance.

“Record Keepers usually work alone and don’t need teammates, but it’s the opposite for Guardians,” the dispatcher helpfully explained. “Consultant Ji, this is your first time using an implanted communicator, so you might feel uncomfortable. Hearing your teammates’ voices in your head for the first time might even give you a shock. But don’t worry, after a while, you’ll get so used to it that you’ll forget it’s even there.”

“Got it,” Ji Yushi replied.

After the dispatcher left, Ji Yushi heard someone ask, “Consultant Ji, how are you feeling? You don’t look too well today.”

It was one of the twin teammates asking.

Ji Yushi did look pale, but his eyes were still bright. “I’m fine, just slept late last night.”

“Oh, I see,” the teammate said awkwardly, not familiar with Ji Yushi. “Don’t be too nervous, Consultant Ji. This jump will feel similar to the missions you’ve done before. It’s simple, and we’ll be back by tomorrow.”

Ji Yushi appreciated the teammate’s kindness and nodded. “Thank you, Tang Le.”

Tang Le returned with a very strange expression.

Song Qinglan asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Captain Song!” Tang Le looked as if he’d seen a ghost. “He actually distinguished between me and my brother! He called me by my name! So many people in the department still can’t tell us apart, even after all these years! Just today, just now! Even Zhou Mingxuan mistook me once!”

Tang Le and Tang Qi were identical in height, weight, and appearance, with a 99% similarity. Anyone who hadn’t spent a lot of time with them couldn’t tell them apart.

But after just one introduction, Ji Yushi had remembered, even though they were dressed identically. This surprised Song Qinglan as well.

“Probably a coincidence,” Song Qinglan said dismissively. “Is he okay?”

Tang Le replied, “He’s fine! Just said he didn’t sleep well.”

Song Qinglan said, “Good, as long as he doesn’t hold us back.”

The countdown reached 3 minutes.

Everyone entered the large transfer platform, where the silver capsule pods were tightly connected, resembling seeds in a lotus pod.

Ji Yushi entered his capsule pod, sat in the safety chair, and closed the door.

[Welcome, Ji Yushi. You are about to embark on your first A-level mission.]

The noisy sounds of the command center were completely cut off, leaving only his own breathing and heartbeat in the silence.

Ji Yushi let the safety chair’s locks secure him one by one, from his calves to his waist, abdomen, shoulders, and neck. Then, he saw the control wristband on his left wrist light up green.

It indicated the current location and physical status of his six teammates.

Ji Yushi realized that this time, he wasn’t traveling through time alone. He had six teammates with him.

[You have connected to the public channel.]

After a brief notification, the transparent panel displayed the Sky Vault Law.

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

“Never alter the past!”

“Never discuss the present!”

“Never be infatuated with the future!”

The voices of his teammates echoed uniformly and powerfully in the public channel.

Ji Yushi was long familiar with this oath, but reciting it with so many others added a solemn and deadly seriousness to it.

The countdown reached the final ten seconds.

Suddenly, a deep male voice intruded into Ji Yushi’s mind, sending a shiver down his spine.

Song Qinglan’s tone was relaxed: “Everyone get ready. Sky Vault Guardians, Seventh Team, thirteenth A-level mission, launch!”

The pleasant young male voice lingered in his ear.

Just like during his many previous time jumps, Ji Yushi took a deep breath. But this time, within two or three seconds, the normally smooth and quiet capsule pod began to violently shake!

[Warning! Warning! You have deviated from the target coordinates! You have deviated from the target coordinates!]

Warning lights flashed continuously inside the capsule pod, and countless colorful, bizarre images flickered rapidly on the front transparent panel, creating a surreal and bewildering scene.

A white light flashed before his eyes.

A sharp ringing filled his ears, and dizziness, nausea, and a strong sense of weightlessness overwhelmed him!

[Illegal jump detected!]

[Illegal jump detected!]

Something went wrong!!

Ji Yushi gritted his teeth, trying several times to press the warning button, but the capsule pod was spinning wildly, shaking violently.

Amidst the alerts, he had to use all his strength to grip the safety chair handles. The safety locks held him firmly in place, preventing him from being thrown out of the seat and crashing into the pod walls, avoiding serious injury.

After what felt like an eternity, the capsule pod finally began to stabilize.

Once it came to a complete stop, Ji Yushi quickly grabbed the nutrient solution offered by the robotic arm and gulped it down. It took him a good ten seconds to regain some composure.

[??p0754%$#37]

[:“lrr”’l’89”]

The panel displayed unreadable garbled text, as if the system had completely crashed.

Without a time coordinate, Ji Yushi had no way of confirming what year they had arrived in or what situation they were facing.

But through the capsule pod’s glass window, he could see that they had landed in a forest. Through the dense canopy, he could faintly make out the dark gray sky.

Ji Yushi unlocked the safety chair and stepped out of the pod.

“Ugh—”

One of his teammates was vomiting in the wind.

The one throwing up as soon as he stepped out of the pod was the youngest teammate, Li Chun. He had been recruited into the Guardians less than a year ago, a normally fit young man, with only one problem: he got motion sickness.

Upon hearing him vomit, the other teammates, as if well-trained, scattered away from him in all directions.

Even Song Qinglan took a few steps back to avoid the smell. “I told you, you had to ride the giant swing ten times before your next mission. How many times did you actually ride it?”

Li Chun barely managed to speak between bouts of vomiting: “Twice… ugh—”

His teammates were shocked.

“Seriously, how could you?”

“You had all that time off, and you only used it to flirt with girls?”

“The simulation machine can’t help you now, and you still dared to slack off on the swing?”

Li Chun finally finished vomiting and weakly said, “…No, didn’t you smell it? The air here stinks.”

Duan Wen handed him an open bottle of water while pinching his nose: “Chun, stop making excuses. Rinse your mouth first.”

Li Chun: “Thanks, Brother Wen… Hey? Where’s Consultant Ji?”

Ji Yushi’s capsule pod was closest to Li Chun’s, and the door was wide open, but there was no sign of him.

As everyone worried that he might have been thrown into some other time period, a cool voice called out, “I’m over here.”

Ji Yushi had somehow already moved four or five meters away from Li Chun. Under the faint glow emitted by the capsule pod, they could see that Ji Yushi’s pale face showed a hint of discomfort.

Everyone: “…”

Was it really necessary to distance yourself that much?

Scholarly types are indeed the cleanest!

Song Qinglan glanced at Ji Yushi but had no time to worry about the lack of camaraderie from the new team member.

Each of them had experienced similar situations in their capsule pods. The transparent panels displayed garbled text, and when Song Qinglan activated his wrist communicator, he found that the time had been updated to the current time: [04:41:31].

This clearly wasn’t the correct time coordinate for their A-level mission, nor was it their original timeline.

Given the violent shaking and the “illegal jump” warning, Song Qinglan concluded that they had likely encountered some kind of malfunction—something he had never experienced in two years of missions.

“Duan Wen,” Song Qinglan commanded clearly, “check the main control panel for any data errors or information hijacking, and contact the command center immediately.”

“Yes,” Duan Wen quickly responded, and after some rapid work, he reported, “Captain Song, it seems our equipment has been locked.”

Song Qinglan frowned. “Locked how?”

Duan Wen explained, “The main control panel is offline, and we can’t contact the command center. The capsule pods aren’t functioning. It seems there’s some interference here—maybe the electromagnetic waves or the magnetic field. I can’t be sure, but it might be related to the jump. The only thing still working is our communicators. We’re stuck here.”

Upon hearing this, the others started cursing under their breath.

“What about the mission?”

“I was planning to ask this girl I just met out for dinner tomorrow.”

“Seriously, another one? Can’t you stop?”

At that moment, footsteps suddenly echoed through the forest.

Who would be deep in a forest at 4 a.m.?

Everyone instantly went silent.

Adhering to the principle that time travelers shouldn’t be discovered by natives, Duan Wen immediately used his wristband to turn off the glowing holographic map, and the seven capsule pods standing in place were also cloaked, becoming completely invisible.

With the last bit of light gone, the dark forest returned to its quiet, eerie stillness.

It was probably just someone who had taken a wrong turn.

With the crisis seemingly averted, the group waited like ghosts in the shadows of the forest, silently hoping the intruder would leave.

The vagabond saw them.

In the pitch-black forest, the sudden appearance of a group of mysterious figures should have startled the vagabond, but instead of being scared, he seemed completely unfazed. Not only did he not stop, but upon seeing this group of people, he let out an excited scream and rushed straight toward them!

Li Chun, who was standing on the outer edge, was still feeling weak from vomiting.

The stench hit him, and before he could react, the vagabond had lunged at him. With a quick reflex, Li Chun grabbed the person and threw him to the ground.

“Haa! Haa!” The vagabond made strange hissing noises and immediately lunged again.

“What the hell?!” Li Chun hadn’t expected the vagabond to be so aggressive. He caught a whiff of a nauseating stench just as a sharp pain shot through his shoulder. “Damn it!”

The vagabond had sunk his teeth into Li Chun’s shoulder!

With a loud thud, Song Qinglan kicked the vagabond, sending him flying three or four meters away!

Duan Wen quickly helped Li Chun up: “Chun, are you okay?!”

Li Chun gritted his teeth in pain, but fortunately, the Guardian combat uniform had a layer of armor at the shoulder, so the bite left only a set of teeth marks and didn’t break the skin.

A normal person would’ve been incapacitated by Song Qinglan’s kick, but the vagabond, making more strange noises, staggered back to his feet!

This time, his target was Song Qinglan.

Facing the renewed attack, Song Qinglan remained calm. In the darkness, he moved with the agility of a panther, circling behind the vagabond in a flash. With a swift elbow strike, he took the vagabond down, silently and efficiently subduing him.

Maybe handling a civilian was too easy; Song Qinglan didn’t even break a sweat. He casually nodded his chin toward Li Chun and teased, “Chun, is this your new fling? Chasing you all the way here?”

One of the teammates chuckled: “Pfft.”

Ji Yushi, standing nearby: “…”

This team was not what he had imagined.

Neither the captain nor the teammates seemed like serious people.

Li Chun, after being teased, didn’t dare talk back. He obediently tied up the “object of his affections” with a rope, knowing he deserved this for polluting his teammates’ noses by vomiting.

Even after being restrained, the vagabond continued to howl and struggle as if he had lost his mind. His hoarse, eerie cries echoed through the silent forest, sounding less like a human and more like a beast from a low-budget horror film.

Sensing something was wrong, Song Qinglan tersely ordered, “Flashlight.”

But before anyone else could react, Ji Yushi had already approached, holding a flashlight.

As he walked over, Song Qinglan remembered that this special consultant was actually their team’s observer.

However, the new observer seemed to lack mental fortitude; after just one glance at the vagabond, he immediately averted his eyes.

It was clear that the usually composed and clean Ji Yushi was genuinely disgusted and struggling to keep it together.

Song Qinglan eyed him and asked, “Can you handle this? If not, let someone else take over.”

In the darkness, Ji Yushi’s pale neck formed a defiant line, clearly trying to hold it together. “I’ll manage.”

Song Qinglan didn’t seem convinced, but he replied nonchalantly, “Just make sure you do.”

In the pitch-black forest, the strong light of the flashlight revealed the vagabond’s face to everyone.

It was a ghastly pale face, with dark blue, web-like veins visible under the skin. The eye sockets held a pair of gray, cloudy eyes, devoid of any focus or trace of humanity. Even more horrifying, the vagabond’s mouth and clothes were covered in dark red bloodstains, with bits of flesh clinging to them!

Not only did Ji Yushi feel nauseated, but the other teammates also reacted with varying degrees of discomfort.

The pieces of flesh were unmistakably human in origin.

Li Chun, now driven by sheer survival instinct, muttered softly, “I told you the air here stinks.”

The nauseating stench was indeed emanating from the blood-soaked vagabond.