Solidified darkness. Sticky and icy, like sinking into a forgotten sea of asphalt deep within the earth's core. Each journey was like ripping a soul from a familiar body, shoving it roughly into the festering wounds of another timeline. Silent screams rang out from deep within his bones, every nerve burning in protest against this desecration of existence itself.

Then, the darkness was abruptly ripped away.

Light. Not sunlight, but the blinding white glow of a burning inferno, mingled with the leaden ash of billowing smoke, instantly searing Kane's retinas. Following closely behind was a tremendous wave of sound. The dull roar of collapsing buildings, the shrill, inhuman howls in the distance, the crackling and popping of flames nearby as they greedily devoured everything, and...wind. The wind, suffocating with the stench of charred flesh, sulfur, and decaying organic matter, filled his mouth and nose.

Tokyo. The eve of the Third Impact. Coordinates confirmed.

Kane knelt on one knee on the cold, rough asphalt, the dull pain of his knee pounding real and tangible. He forced down the acid rising in his throat. Sweat, mingling with falling ash, blurred his vision. He raised his hand to wipe it away, and what appeared before him was a replica of the scroll of hell. Twisted and broken rebar, like the remains of a giant beast, pierced the filthy sky. Farther away, the burning skeletons of buildings spewed black smoke that obscured the sun, painting the sky like a filthy oil paint. The air distorted violently in the heat, and all he could see was a gray graveyard of shattered walls. Desperate wails, the screams of the dying, the resounding roar of complete structural collapse... countless sounds merged into a symphony of doom, tearing at his nerves, which had still not recovered from the tinnitus from the previous mission.

Fourth mission. Codename "Cleaner."

He lowered his head, his right hand tightly gripping a cold metal cylinder. A matte silver-gray, the size of a thermos, heavy, as if it held the weight of the despair of billions of wronged souls. "Pandora." The chilling codename that brought hell from the Time Bureau's archives. The prototype of the neural-corrosion virus, capable of spreading through the air at terrifying speeds. Now, it lay in his hands, contained within this seemingly insignificant metal cage.

The emotionless synthesized voice of the mission briefing, like a cold chisel, echoed in his mind again: "Coordinates: Tokyo, the eve of the Third Impact. Objective: Ensure the complete physical annihilation of the 'Pandora' prototype and its developer, 'Doctor,' before the shockwave. Operational window: Countdown to one hour and forty-seven minutes."

One hour and forty-seven minutes. Each time limit was like a guillotine hanging overhead, ticking with precise precision.

His left hand instinctively reached into his coat pocket, his fingertips touching a piece of cool metal. His pocket watch. The proof of his journey, the embodiment of his life's hourglass. The dial was coated in a layer of crystalline, blood-red sand that silently flowed. Time was the only currency he could pay, and every payment carved a deeper etch into his existence.

Kane abruptly stood up, clutching the Pandora tightly to his chest. The cold metal pressed against his heart, each beat like an invisible death knell. The coordinates of his target location—the University of Tokyo's Deep Biocontainment Laboratory—were clearly etched into his mind. He had to reach it before the nuclear detonation countdown reached zero, to complete the destruction.

Running. Running through ruins and corpses. The road beneath his feet was already shattered, piled high with rubble, a deadly maze of broken concrete and twisted steel. Thick smoke seared his trachea, and the ashes of death drifted across his vision. He rounded a half-collapsed wall, but his footing suddenly slipped, and he stepped into a pool of sticky, dark mud that reeked of a strong stench.

Stumbling to steady himself, his eyes swept over the filth, his pupils suddenly constricting. Half-buried in a slurry of blood and mud was a crumpled, soaked newspaper. The edges of the yellowed, fragile paper curled and stained, but the photo on the front page burned into his eyes like a red-hot iron. A man in a white lab coat, his hair slightly graying, his eyes sharp and focused, stood in the background, surrounded by complex laboratory equipment. A large, glaring headline in Japanese glared fiercely: "Savior? Destroyer? Dr. Nakamura's 'Pandora Project' Sparks Controversy!"

Dr. Nakamura.

That name, that face!

His heart felt like it was being gripped by an invisible, icy hand, stopping instantly. A piercing chill shot from his tailbone to the top of his head like lightning. It wasn't just a resemblance, it was an absolute match! The contours of his brow, the line of his nose, the curve of his jaw... They were identical to those of Professor Carson, the "culprit" of the New York biological leak; Sir Evans, the "culprit" of London's ecological collapse; and Dr. Al-Sayed, the "person responsible" for the Cairo energy core meltdown... Four missions. Four doomsday nodes. Four different names. The same face!

The Time Bureau's supposedly precise archive, covering all time and space... that invisible web... could there be such a massive, absurd loophole? No! The moment the thought arose, Kane's willpower crushed it. The Time Bureau was order, the sole truth that transcended chaos. To question it was to question the very foundation of his existence, the meaning of every breath.

But this face...haunted him like a ghost.

A deep, existential panic gripped him. He gasped, each breath smelling of dust and death. His fingertips dug deep into his palm, trying to dispel the dizziness brought on by the absurd associations with the pain.

"Parallel universe... timeline disturbance..." He whispered dryly, his voice rolling in his throat, unable even to convince himself. The pocket watch pressed coldly against his chest, the subtle sound of blood-red sand flowing like thunder, mercilessly cutting into the dwindling time.

Time! Damn deadline!

Kane jerked his head away, banishing the newspaper and that face from his mind. Now wasn't the time to dwell on this! The nuclear detonation countdown continued, and Pandora was in his arms! He gritted his teeth, unleashing all his strength. Like a cornered animal, he sprinted through the rubble and flames, toward his goal.

Time compressed and stretched as he ran. He dodged the blazing wreckage of cars, leaped over broken ravines, skirted the crumbling buildings... His lungs burned, his legs felt heavy as lead. The surrounding scene was like a rapidly flipping, bloody film: a mother weeping silently, clutching the charred corpse of her baby; an elderly man, pinned beneath prefabricated slabs, staring blankly at the sky; a group of frantic figures, like hungry ghosts from hell, smashing and looting a collapsed convenience store... All of this silently whipped him. The blood-red sand in his pocket watch flowed faster and faster.

Finally, the iconic building appeared at the end of his sight. The iconic dome of the University of Tokyo's Biological Research Center had largely collapsed, revealing its hideous steel skeleton, like a giant bird with its wings broken. But the main structure, miraculously, remained intact. The entrance to the dedicated passage leading to the deep underground laboratory was hidden behind the main building, beneath a nondescript concrete bunker.

The bunker's heavy alloy door was ajar, its hinges twisted and deformed, leaving a gap barely wide enough for one person to squeeze through. The pale, cold light shone through the gap, a stark contrast to the hellish scene outside. The scent of disinfectant mixed with cold, pungent chemicals wafted into the air. This is it. Pandora's source, the Doctor's lair, the mission's end.

Kane leaned sideways, shouldering open the heavy, cold gap and squeezing through. Inside the doorway was a wide, downward-sloping passage. The walls were pale, smooth. The cold light bulbs overhead hummed softly, the light glaring brightly. The silence was as mortal as a tomb. The constant low temperature maintained by the air circulation system created a world of contrast with the scorching inferno outside. The passage was eerily clean, its light reflecting off the viewer. Only the sound of Kane's footsteps on the polished pavement resonated hollowly in the emptiness, each step like stepping on a frozen lake.

Downward, deeper. The walls bore no markings, only cold, white reflections. A profound silence enveloped him, the sounds of breathing and footsteps amplified in his ears. His pocket watch rested in his pocket, the subtle rustle of blood-red sand flowing as distinct as an inverted hourglass.

At the end of the passage stood a massive, heavy, airtight alloy door. In the center of the door was a striking red circular biohazard symbol, three interlocking black rings, and beneath it, a cold warning in Japanese and English: BIOHAZARD LEVEL 4 CONTAINMENT AREA - HIGHEST AUTHORIZED ENTRY. The control panel on the side of the door glowed a dim gray.

The door was unlocked.

The heavy alloy door silently slid inward, a narrow gap just wide enough for one person to pass through. It was as if someone had anticipated his arrival and had already prepared the entrance for him. His heart pounded heavily against his ribs in his chest, each beat carrying a sense of foreboding. Kane took a deep breath of the cold, disinfectant-smelling air from the passage, removed the metal cylinder of "Pandora" from his bosom, and gripped it tightly in his right hand. His left hand quietly slid to his waist and grasped the custom-made high-energy particle pistol. The cold grip of the gun gave him a false sense of calm.

He slid sideways and squeezed through the gap.

The view before him suddenly opened up.

A vast, circular underground space, with a soaring dome, illuminated by a soft white light, resembled an inverted bowl. In the center lay the core area, enclosed by a transparent, high-strength polymer barrier wall. Within the walls, complex and sophisticated instruments flashed with colorful indicators, and thick cables snaked like giant pythons. Most striking was the massive cylindrical array of culture tanks towering in the center of the core area. Dozens of cold metal cylinders, tightly packed together, filled with a viscous, dark-green liquid seething with tiny bubbles. Deep within the liquid, faint, distorted, indescribable shadows could be seen slowly wriggling, like the embryo of a nightmare dormant in the abyss.

Buzz—buzz—

A low, rhythmic hum filled the entire space, the relentless heartbeat that kept the systems running. The air was thicker with the scent of disinfectant and cold chemicals, mingled with a faint, eerie odor like rotting sweet almonds, piercing the brain.

Kane's gaze, drawn as if by a magnet, was fixed on the other end of the core isolation area.

A figure in a washed, frayed white lab coat, with its back to him, stood before a control panel covered in intricate instrument panels and control screens. His figure was stooped, a weariness seeping deep into his bones. His silver hair, as if covered in frost, gleamed faintly under the cold light.

Time seemed to freeze at that moment. The blood-red sand in his pocket watch seemed to have stopped flowing.

The figure turned slowly, slowly.

Time, that invisible torrent, seemed to have been plunged into absolute zero, frozen in an instant. The air stagnated, the low hum eerily hushed, leaving only the frantic beating of Kane's heart in his chest, thump, thump, heavy as the last struggles of a trapped beast.

The figure at the control console turned completely around.

The ghostly face in the Time Bureau's archives—Carson in New York, Evans in London, Said in Cairo—now appeared before Kane, incredibly real, bearing the relentless marks of time.

But this face...

This face...was his own!

It was the face he'd seen in the bathroom mirror on countless weary nights, aging ruthlessly accelerated! Deep wrinkles, like cracks in a dry riverbed, covered his forehead, eyes, and cheeks, each one bearing the weight of an unspeakable burden. Bags hung heavy under his eyes, the whites of his eyes cloudy and bloodshot like spiderwebs. That gaze... no longer the familiar sharpness and numbness of a mission-carrying warrior. Those eyes were filled with boundless fatigue, like a desert drained of all life, yet deep within it burned a near-mad, heart-pounding calm and relief.

The corners of his mouth twitched upwards ever so slowly, forming an eerie, indescribable arc. It wasn't a smile, more like the stiff, relaxed position finally found by a muscle stretched so long.

"You... are here," he said. Hoarse and dry, like sandpaper scraping against rotten wood, each syllable bore the brunt of time's wear and tear, yet somehow it strangely pierced the barrier and reached Kane's ears with unmistakable clarity. The texture of that voice was the voice of Kane's future self, simulated deep in his throat on countless lonely nights!

A shudder, emanating from the depths of his soul, instantly seized Kane. The hand gripping the gun shook violently and uncontrollably, the cold handle threatening to slip from his grasp.

"Who are you?!" Kane's voice was raspy, filled with uncontrollable fear and rage on the verge of collapse. "The Time Bureau... four missions... those faces... were all you?! What the hell..." The rest of the words were trapped in his throat, becoming a meaningless groan. The pocket watch sat heavy against his skin in his pocket, the feel of the blood-red sand flowing through him clearer than ever before, like the concrete manifestation of life's passage. "Time Bureau?" The old scientist—or rather, the aging Kane—let out a low, broken groan from his throat, like an old bellows about to fall apart. A fleeting glimmer of irony flashed across his cloudy eyes. "They... only show you the 'lines' they want you to see." He raised his bony hand, covered in dark brown age spots, and tremblingly pointed toward the curved wall of the vast dome.

Kane's gaze instinctively followed his direction.

His heart suddenly stopped.

On the pale, smooth wall, near the dome, someone had painted a vast, horrifying pattern with some dark, blood-viscous paint. A giant snake, its head and tail linked, its body twisted into a perfect, hopeless closed loop. Its eyes were two deep, empty holes, as if swallowing all light and hope. An ancient symbol, an eternal cycle. Ouroboros.

Below the Ouroboros, near the control console, a small patch of wall appeared particularly mottled, as if someone had frantically written or scribbled there, then roughly scraped away. But within those messy, deep scratches, a few crooked letters, almost carved with fingernails, stubbornly emerged like the last struggles of a dying person:

THEY LIE

Lie.

A chilling chill, piercing deep into his soul, instantly froze Kane's blood. The Time Bureau... Order... The foundation... Lies? The very thought was like a boulder dropped into the depths of his mind, instantly unleashing a torrent of chaos. He instinctively took a step back, his heel colliding with the cold doorframe.

"Why..." Kane's voice seemed to drift from afar, broken and shattered. "...Why create Pandora? Why bring about these doomsdays?"

"Doomsday?" The aging Kane's throat erupted once again with that broken wail. He shook his head slowly and with great difficulty, his silver hair swaying. "Child... don't you understand yet?" His cloudy gaze pierced the isolation wall, resting on the heavy metal cylinder, his expression as complex as the abyss. "That's not 'creation'... it's 'selection'... among all the worse outcomes, the least bad one you barely grasped..." His bony finger gestured towards the huge incubation tanks bubbling with dark green liquid. "See those 'embryos'? They... are the real 'Pandora's'... they are time itself... within the cracks of accumulated mistakes... a cancer... that has grown... must be eradicated..."

"Cancerous? Eradicate?" Kane was completely bewildered, the absurdity and panic nearly tearing him apart. "Eliminate with destruction? With a virus? With a nuclear explosion?!"

"It's... 'reset'..." The aging Kane gasped, his cloudy eyes fixed on his younger self, a chilling light burning in them, almost paranoid. "We must... return to the starting point... interrupt the mistake... before it becomes irreversible..." His gaze jerked to an object hanging on the wall next to the control console.

It was a massive hanging.A clock.

It was ancient and heavy, its brass case dark from oxidation, its glass face covered in scratches. But the hands were remarkably clear. At that moment, the slender second hand, with a steady rhythm, moved step by step toward the crimson number at the top of the dial—12.

And below the dial, where the date appeared, was an electronic countdown screen.

The crimson numbers, like congealed blood, pulsed coldly:

00:00:10

Nine seconds… eight seconds… seven seconds…

The nuclear detonation countdown was about to reach zero!

A huge, icy fear instantly froze Kane's limbs. Mission! Order from the Time Bureau! Physical annihilation! The instinct for survival and the ingrained "cleaner" code overwhelmed all confusion and hesitation at the last moment. Kane suddenly raised his left arm, and the cold muzzle of the particle gun locked onto the old, hunched figure through the transparent barrier! The Pandora cylinder in his right hand was practically deformed by his crush.

"Mission order! Drop everything! Now!" Kane's roar echoed in the dead silence, tinged with desperate madness.

The aged Kane stared at the black muzzle of the gun, his face frozen in a strange, twisted expression. It was a strange calm... a blend of pity, relief, and finality. He had no intention of dodging or resisting. Instead, a terrifying energy seemed to suddenly ignite within his withered body. His cloudy eyes blazed with their final, brightest light, piercing through the barrier like a tangible arrow, piercing the depths of young Kane's vision.

"Too late... son..." The aged voice was remarkably clear, laced with unwavering determination. "...you must... press that button... yourself!"

Before he finished his words, the hunched figure of the aged Kane suddenly erupted with a ghostly swiftness that completely belied his decaying body! Like a bolt of white lightning tearing through space, he slammed fiercely into the theoretically insurmountable polymer barrier with reckless determination!

"No!" Kane's horrified roar barely escaped his throat.

There was no earth-shattering crash as expected.

There was only a strange, teeth-grinding "sizzle," like strong acid corroding metal. The moment the aged Kane's body touched the impenetrable transparent barrier, it strangely rippled violently, like boiling water upon which a boulder had been dropped! The molecular structure of the wall, instantly disrupted and softened by some incomprehensible force!

The next moment, the withered figure in a wrinkled, washed-out lab coat, unexpectedly pierced through the center of the violent ripples... unimpeded! It appeared directly before Kane! The icy air, reeking of disinfectant and rotting sweet almonds, instantly enveloped Kane completely!

It was too fast! Faster than the limits of physics!

Kane's gaunt, aging hand held an incredible, terrifying force, like a hydraulic clamp. With precise and violent force, he grasped Kane's right wrist, which was tightly gripping the Pandora releaser! The touch was cold and hard, like an iron hoop, instantly strangling all feeling in Kane's wrist, and his bones trembled under the weight!

Kane didn't even have time to pull the trigger of his left-hand particle gun.

"Finally, this time it's right!"

The aged Kane roared hoarsely, his cloudy eyes blazing with a frenzied, fiery light. It was the ecstasy and relief of finally grasping a lifeline after countless years of despair! He used the last and greatest strength in his body to hold Kane's wrist tightly, and with irresistible, devastating determination, he slammed it down hard, hard, on the most conspicuous, scarlet-colored button on the edge of the control panel—

The virus release button!

Puff!

A dull, slimy sound. The scarlet button was pressed completely to the floor by a hand brimming with the combined strength of youth and age! A faint green light instantly illuminated from within the console, sprinting along thick pipes like an activated serpent towards the massive culture tanks in the core area!

Almost instantly!

Buzz!

A siren, sharp enough to rip eardrums and pierce the soul, suddenly and violently resounded throughout the entire underground space! This sound didn't originate from any real-world loudspeaker; it seemed to penetrate the depths of Kane's brain, carrying with it an indescribable, icy, repetitive despair, like the death shriek of a vast, invisible Möbius strip spinning madly!

Möbius siren!

Kane's mind, pierced by the shrill whistle, went blank, leaving only pure, soul-chilling fear. He watched helplessly as his aging self pressed the button, his face, a mixture of ecstasy and utter exhaustion, instantly frozen. Those eyes, once blazing with a last gleam, quickly dimmed like a burnt-out candle, becoming hollow, devoid of all brilliance, leaving only boundless, eternal exhaustion. The withered body, like a shabby doll stripped of its last vestiges of support, began to collapse.

The aging Kane's lips moved, uttering a few barely audible whispers that struck the young Kane's heart like a hammer:

"Remember... the cycle... the key..."

Before he finished his words, the aging body, like a weathered sand sculpture, rapidly disintegrated from the point where it touched Kane's wrist, transforming into countless tiny, faintly phosphorescent gray dust particles that drifted silently into the cold air, leaving no trace. As if it had never existed.

In the underground space, only the sharp, cold, repetitive whistle of the Mobius siren wailed frantically, playing an eternal mournful melody for the departed soul and the newly begun cycle of reincarnation. Kane stood frozen in place, his right hand still held in a forcible position, the lingering sensation of a cold iron band lingering on his wrist. Slowly, like a rusted machine, he raised his head.

His gaze passed across the empty core area and settled on the massive wall clock.

On the crimson countdown screen, the numbers reaching zero hadn't triggered destruction.

They were strangely pulsing and reorganizing:

71:00:00:00

The numbers froze.

Then, with a low, click-clack ...