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Chapter 1122 Dozens of Cycles

During his fifty-first rebirth, Zhao Wuji—or rather, Roy—suddenly sat up straight on the edge of the bed.

"Wait. I'm Zhao Wuji."

This thought split his chaotic consciousness like lightning. He pinched his thigh fiercely, and the sharp pain made him sure that this was not an illusion. The memories of the first fifty deaths came flooding back like a tide, and those details that were deliberately blurred by the system suddenly became clear.

"System!" he roared in his heart, "What did you do to me?"

[Abnormal memory recovery detected.] The system's mechanical sound has a subtle fluctuation, [It is recommended that the actors focus on the current scene.]

Zhao Wuji stumbled to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face. The man in the mirror had bloodshot eyes and an unshaved chin, but the clarity in his eyes was something he had never seen in the past dozens of cycles.

"I remember it. I remember it all"

He ran his shaking fingers over his temple, where the burning sensation of the bullet still lingered. Fifty different ways of dying had left an indelible mark on his muscle memory.

Outside the window, the familiar angle of sunlight told him that there were about three minutes before the sniper appeared. Zhao Wuji's brain was working rapidly - if he followed the script completely, he would have to experience hundreds of meaningless deaths before he could advance to the key plot.

“You have to find the loophole.”

He grabbed the revolver on the bedside table, and this time the system did not stop him, because according to the script, Roy would indeed pick up the gun at some point in the cycle.

[Warning: Thinking mode deviates from the character setting. ]

"Shut up." Zhao Wuji gritted his teeth and whispered, "Didn't you say that as long as the main storyline is not changed, it's fine? I want to play a Roy who decides to speed up the progress."

The system went silent, which made his heart beat faster. Maybe this was the breakthrough - using the character's logic to rationalize his actions.

He quickly tore off a piece of calendar paper and wrote down a few key words with a burnt matchstick: "Dr. Wu", "time machine", "Kraven's weakness". These are all information that will be revealed later in the original series, but if he can...
There was a knock on the door on time.

Zhao Wuji took a deep breath, pointed his gun at the door lock and fired, then jumped out of the window. The sound of shattering glass mixed with the landlord's screams.

He landed on the fire escape in perfect position, an instinct honed by fifty deaths, but before he could steady himself, a bullet grazed his face, sending sparks flying on the iron railing.

"How is that possible?" Zhao Wuji's eyes widened, "The sniper should be in the direction of the main gate!"

The second bullet hit his shoulder. In the severe pain, he saw three reflections from different directions on the roof of the opposite building - the number of snipers increased.

[Detected abnormal plot fluctuations.] The system's voice was almost sarcastic, [Starting the correction program.]

Zhao Wuji gritted his teeth and pulled out the dagger on his shoulder - which he had taken from the killer in the last cycle - and threw it towards the nearest sniper point. After a scream, the shooting in that direction stopped.

He took the opportunity to fall down the fire escape and landed on a trash can in the alley. The wound on his left shoulder was bleeding, but compared to the pain of being cut into pieces by a chainsaw, it was nothing.

"We need to find Dr. Wu. As long as we get the time machine blueprints"

He staggered towards the lab address he remembered. The crowds on the street scattered in panic. This was not in the script - the chase in the original play happened when he was alone.

When he turned the third street corner, Zhao Wuji suddenly stopped. A two-meter-tall metal giant was blocking the middle of the road, and its mechanical eyes were flashing red.

"Identification: Target Roy Purv." The mechanical synthesizer sounded, "Termination order confirmed."

"What the hell is this? Is this in a movie?!" Zhao Wuji took a few steps back and his back hit the cold wall.

The mechanical giant raised its right arm, and the hydraulically driven chain sword began to rotate at high speed.

Zhao Wuji rolled to the right at the critical moment, and the chain sword split the place where he had just stood, and the concrete wall was cut like tofu. He raised his hand to empty the cylinder of the revolver, but the bullet only left a few dents on the armor of the mechanical giant.

"System! This is fucking beyond the settings!" he screamed in his mind.

[Correction mechanism activated.] The system's voice was icy cold, [Because you sped up the plot without authorization, the villain Colonel Kraven deployed the experimental killing mecha in advance.]

The mechanical giant's chest armor slid open, revealing a miniature missile launcher. Zhao Wuji's last consciousness lingered on the dazzling firelight and the system's final notice:
[Memory cleaning program started. The next time you are reborn, the memory related to the violation will be deleted.]

Darkness. White light.

Zhao Wuji—now he was more certain that he was Roy—was startled out of bed. The sun was shining brightly outside the window, and the revolver on the bedside table lay quietly. He frowned and pressed his temple, where he felt a strange swelling pain, as if he had forgotten something extremely important.

"What am I going to do today?"

There was a knock on the door on time.

“Roy! I know you’re in there! The rent is two weeks late!”

He instinctively walked towards the door, but hesitated when he grasped the door handle. Some blurry images flashed through his mind: the red eyes of the mechanical giant, the spinning chain sword, the blueprint of the laboratory.
The name "Dr. Wu" slipped out of his lips unconsciously.

[Warning: Residual memory detected.] The system's voice startled him, [Cleaning procedures are being strengthened.]

Roy fell to his knees with a severe headache. When he looked up again, the flashbacks had disappeared without a trace.

The door opened.

boom!
This time the bullet hit his heart. Death came quickly, but in the moment before his consciousness faded, he seemed to hear the system saying:

[Progress update: Assimilation rate 87%]

By the time of his seventy-third rebirth, Roy had completely accepted this cyclical world. The only memories of "Zhao Wuji" left were the occasional flashes of strange images, like someone else's dream.

Today he decided to do something different. In the first few loops, he found that he was particularly good at dealing with the killer with the samurai sword - he could predict every angle of the opponent's chop.

"Perhaps I can live longer today," he muttered to himself, picking up his revolver and checking the ammunition.

When the knock on the door came, Roy did not answer immediately. He counted to ten quietly, then suddenly fired three shots at the door. The sound of the wooden door panel exploding was followed by the dull sound of a heavy object falling to the ground.

When he opened the door, he saw the fat body of the landlord, with three bullet holes in his forehead arranged in a perfect triangle. This was not the plot in the script, but the system did not intervene - because in theory, desperate Roy could indeed do such a thing.

The street was unusually quiet. Roy held his gun tightly and looked around vigilantly. According to his "memory", the first killer should appear
The shadows in the alley on the left suddenly moved. A tall, thin man wrapped in black leather walked out slowly, holding a samurai sword in each hand.

"Roy Pulver," the killer's voice was as hoarse as sandpaper, "today I'm going to make a tie out of your intestines."

Roy grinned. Somehow, he knew exactly that the opponent's third move would be a slash from the lower right to the upper left. When the killer attacked as expected, he easily dodged sideways and shattered the killer's kneecap with one shot.

"Who sent you?" He pressed the gun to the back of the killer's head. "Where's Kraven?"

The killer laughed strangely: "Do you think this is the end?"

The ground suddenly shook. Roy looked up and saw a column of smoke rising four blocks away. That wasn't in the script—at least not so early.

[Warning: Detected that the actor's subconscious mind is directing the plot to deviate.] The system's voice was rarely urgent, [Initiating the ultimate correction protocol.]

The sky darkened. It was not dark clouds, but a black cloud made up of hundreds of mechanical drones. They simultaneously lit up their blood-red aiming lasers, shrouding Roy in scarlet.

"Oh, this is bad." This was Roy's last thought before he was evaporated by the plasma beam.

The hundredth rebirth.

The man sat up in bed, his eyes empty. The pistol on the bedside table was covered with a thin layer of dust - he hadn't used it for a long time.

“I’m Roy Purv,” he said into the air, his voice steady and mechanical. “My son Joey is in danger. I have to save him.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Roy! I know you’re in there! The rent is two weeks late!”

The man slowly walked towards the door, his steps as precise as if measured with a ruler. A second before opening the door, he unconsciously touched his left chest - there should have been a bullet hole there, but the skin was intact.

The door opened.

boom!
This time, when the bullet pierced through his forehead, he smiled in relief. The system's voice followed him like a shadow:

[Assimilation rate 100%. You can enter the final stage. ]