Extraordinary Pedigree.

Chapter 1000: The Entanglement with the Memory Monster

Xia Xiu keenly noticed that the surrounding magnetic field was undergoing an abnormal reversal. The next moment, he sensed that the indescribable monster was rushing towards him along the reversal of the magnetic field.

That thing had no physical form, only a sense of devouring. It was like a giant mouth opened to its limit, filled with the sound of teeth chewing, and with a nauseating suction force, it bit directly at Xia Xiu's outer memory information.

Xia Xiu immediately realized that this monster was even more ferocious than the "Little Bird Stomach Gray" he had seen before.

Gray is just a gluttonous snake; he gets full after a few bites, and his teeth aren't very strong. He can only bully the weak; he's a piece of trash who would feel nauseous if he gnawed on even a few minutes of his own memory.

This time, however, the monster was a ferocious beast with sharp teeth and a stomach as deep as an abyss.

This one bite could swallow a month's worth of Xia Xiu's memories.

He clearly felt that the darkness unfurled by the monster was reaching out to the outer layer of his mind, frantically gnawing at the memory threads within him as an "information integration entity." It felt as if someone were silently severing the very fabric of his being with sharp scissors.

Once he's firmly bitten, all his memories from that period will be completely wiped away.

Xia Xiu's golden pupils suddenly contracted, as a strange and immense pressure swept over him. It wasn't like being crushed by force, but rather as if the entire world's negative had been torn apart, and a monster was trying to rip him off from outside the frame.

He took a deep breath and tapped his silver cane.

【The Crown Unfolds: A World of Frames】

--boom.

The surrounding air seemed to be folded, and the environment and void shattered into frames of images in an instant. Countless overlapping figures appeared, like afterimages in a film rewind, but instead of flashing in sequence, they jumped, cut, and disappeared.

Xia Xiu's figure overlapped, stretched, and shattered repeatedly within it, as if a piece was being pulled out of reality and then another piece was being put back in. Time did not stop, but it lost its continuity.

"Those few seconds that were deleted," Xia Xiu murmured.

The monster's first bite missed its mark; its massive black maw snapped shut, but only managed to shatter the afterimage and the meaningless void.

Xia Xiu's original body has deviated from its original path, and what remains between the monster's teeth is only a phantom image cut off by the "frame world".

"That's really fierce!"

A chill ran through Xia Xiu's heart. In the few seconds of "empty frame," he quickly mobilized the calculations of the information integration system and searched for the methods one by one.

He first tried to replicate the process, throwing all the garbage information from the past year—broken rumors, obsolete formulas, meaningless conversations, and piles of worthless articles—to the periphery.

But the monster remained unmoved.

Its massive maw merely flicked indifferently, bypassing the layer of garbage, and continued to lock onto the core memories of intelligent life.

Xia Xiu frowned.

"As expected... this guy is different from Gray. It only eats real memories, that is, traces deep in the soul."

"boom!"

The second wave of attacks has arrived.

The magnetic field was disturbed again, the surrounding void trembled, and the black maw opened again, with even the gaps between its teeth flashing with tearing arcs of electricity.

Xia Xiu's expression turned cold, and with a wave of his hand, the crown unfolded once more:

"—The world of frames!"

The afterimage exploded into thousands of fragments once again, tearing the entire space apart like a shattered mirror.

The timeline jumped frames instantly, and his body disappeared from its original position, re-embedded into another "unswallowed" branch.

The monster lunged at nothing, the black snapping sound shaking the void, yet it still bit nothing.

The second attack was evaded by [Frame World], and the black giant maw missed its target again.

In those few seconds, an ordinary crocodile wouldn't have time to think and would have to endure the next attack.

In battles against monsters of conceptual level, life and death can be decided in milliseconds, determining victory or defeat.

He must now use the intelligence he has gathered and his own abilities to find a way to defeat this intangible monster.

His thoughts unfolded instantly in that brief moment, with hundreds of deductions running in parallel, like a giant calculating wheel spinning rapidly in his mind.

Xia Xiu's golden eyes flashed, and he suddenly caught a fragment of memory. It was the trembling words spoken by the Grand Patriarch when he was forced to reveal them.

"That thing... is hidden in the north. Only by facing it when praying can I temporarily deceive it... As long as I bow my head and dare not look directly at it, it will think that I still belong to it."

"But once I turn my back... once I stop facing it... it will pounce on me and... tear my memories apart piece by piece..." "Do you understand? We've all fed it memories... I even threw my childhood lullabies and my mother's face at it as feed, just so it wouldn't touch me!"

"But now... the potion has brought my memories back, I've remembered them all again... it... it will definitely come back along with my memories!!"

These words replayed in Xia Xiu's mind at an extraordinary speed, and he instantly grasped two key points.

First, head north.

It is not a symbol, but an index.

Facing north is tantamount to signing a "listed" mark on its prey list.

As long as you keep facing north, it won't bite—because it thinks you still belong to it.

Second, false memories.

It can be fed, but not with junk information; it's fed real, emotionally charged memories. Even childhood lullabies or a mother's face—as long as they can be defined as memories, it can devour them.

Xia Xiu was rapidly deducing in his mind when suddenly, as if a bolt of lightning had cleaved through his thoughts.

——Something is wrong.

The monster's two attacks were as fast as lightning, but when he recalled the details, he keenly noticed something amiss.

It doesn't attack indiscriminately; it lures the prey.

Xia Xiu raised an eyebrow slightly, his gaze tightening coldly.

"It wants more than just memories. It's forcing me... to avoid what it considers the 'north'."

His mind quickly replayed the positions he had just been in.

In the instant of the frame rate transition, he appeared in three different locations within the afterimage.

Logically, on two occasions, I was facing north, which is the direction indicated by the magnetic field.

But the monster didn't stop.

Therefore, there is only one truth: at the moment the magnetic field reverses, it rearranges the entire space like a chessboard.

North and south are reversed, directions are disordered; he is clearly "facing north," but is being forcibly moved to "facing away from north."

Moreover, this reversal is instantaneous and not fixed; one moment facing north, the next moment facing south.

"I see..." Xia Xiu's thoughts quickly coalesced.

"It not only chews on memories, but also uses magnetic field reversal to distort the prey's sense of direction. It makes me think I'm facing north, but in its eyes, I've been moved to face away from north—that's its hunting window."

Xia Xiu couldn't help but give a cold laugh:
"This guy is pretty good at playing the game... he has one trick after another."

His mind raced, going over the Patriarch's confession, the magnetic field anomaly, and the logic behind the monster's biting.

All of this thought took only two seconds.

The void trembled suddenly, and the third round of attacks began.

This time is different from the past.

Xia Xiu's mind instantly caught the change—the feeling of being devoured was no longer concentrated in one place, but spread out like a dark tide, enveloping the entire area.

It was an overwhelming sense of oppression, like countless giant mouths snapping shut at once, turning the air, the ground, the magnetic field, and even memories into food.

Xia Xiu raised his eyelids and couldn't help but sigh:

"Oh, you've gotten smarter, you've increased your firing range." He could clearly sense that the parameters of the darkness were being rewritten. What was originally just a biting, tentative predation had now expanded into an all-encompassing hunting net, with almost no blind spots.

"Tsk, it can even adjust the values ​​itself." Xia Xiu exhaled softly, his golden pupils gleaming coldly.

This monster can also adjust its stats, changing its attack panel from [Range: C] to [Range: A].

This is blatantly telling him: I've leveled up.

“This guy’s growth potential is at least an A.” Xia Xiu gave it high praise. “It just mistook my ability for something that my range couldn’t cover, or something that there was a difference in space.”

From the monster's perspective, it has no eyes or mouth, only a predatory instinct entangled with magnetic fields and memories.

The first time I bit down, it missed; the second time I chased after it, it missed again.

It detected the prey's unusual behavior: the prey would disappear for a moment at a crucial instant.

In its view, it was a spatial displacement, simply being forcibly moved out of range.

Therefore, it concluded that the prey had manipulated the space, its attack range was too short, and its mouth was not big enough.

So it began to adjust.

Reverse the numerical value.

What was originally a point-bite range quickly expanded into a full-scale attack. In its perception, its fangs had extended several times over, surging towards Xia Xiu like a massive black tide.

If you have another chance, even if the prey disappears again, it will still be enveloped by you, even if it's just a corner of your body or a trace of your memory.

Once it touches the surface, it can penetrate along the cracks and completely entangle its prey.

The moment the third wave of attacks erupted, the entire void seemed to be swallowed up by a giant black wave.

The swallowing sensation, accompanied by a biting sound, even made the gaps in space vibrate, carrying a terrifying power, determined to engulf Xia Xiu entirely in its teeth.

Xia Xiu's pupils suddenly contracted, and with a tap of his cane, golden light burst forth beneath his feet.

【The Crown Unfolds: A World of Frames】

The screen malfunctioned.

The afterimages of the sanctuary, the rubble, the mist, even the outline of the monster's attack—all were cut into fragmented frames, as if several seconds had been forcibly cut from a film reel. Xia Xiu's figure then vanished, only to reassemble on another "deleted" trajectory.

"Click——"

The massive black maw snapped shut with a force powerful enough to crush mountains, yet it only shattered illusions and emptiness.

The monster missed.

But this time, it did not hesitate. The invisible will to prey surged violently in the darkness, like an excited beast licking the air.

The disappearance of its prey confirmed the anomaly.

This time, it came up with a way to defeat its prey—by compressing the opponent's ability cooldown time.

It made adjustments immediately.

Normally, there would be a two-second cooldown between attacks. But this time, the gap was suddenly shortened to only one second.

Xia Xiu keenly sensed this change in his mind and directly analyzed the other party's transformation.

"The value has been changed? It used to be a two-second reaction time, but now it's been compressed to one second."

The feeling of being swallowed suddenly contracted.

The monster's attack method changed accordingly. It abandoned its previous wide-ranging coverage and instead tightened its bite into a sharp tear. A dense, grinding sound echoed in the void, like thousands of iron teeth grinding together in the same instant.

It sacrificed breadth but forcibly increased its speed.

[Range range: A → C]

[Speed: C → B]

It is closing in—even if it only touches the prey's corner, it can completely devour the entire memory along the crack.

The pressure of being devoured surged in again, the void shrinking inward like a giant net. The afterimages beneath Xia Xiu's feet flickered incessantly, his golden pupils narrowed, yet a sense of awe rose within him.

"This monster's combat adaptability... is indeed terrifying." He shook his head inwardly, but a cold smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

The first time, the range was increased; the second time, the gap was shortened; the third time, the speed panel was directly adjusted.

Each adjustment it makes is like patching itself up, upgrading its fighting style bit by bit.

“The mechanisms are getting more and more complicated.” Xia Xiu’s mind raced. “If I hadn’t squeezed the information gap out of the Patriarch, and neither side knew the rules, all I could have done was use the frame-by-frame world to dodge and rewind memories. Then you would have given Lu Dayou (jumped away) to temporarily avoid the brunt of the attack and wait until we had gathered more information before taking action.”

"And..." he chuckled inwardly, "If I really let this thing be forced to change its [Endurance: C] to [Endurance: A], it can keep trying and keep chasing. No matter how fast I react, I'll get bitten sooner or later."

The air trembled as the black tide swallowed it, and the magnetic field hummed in his ears, but Xia Xiu merely raised his chin, his eyes sharp as knives.

"Fortunately—I've already figured out the formula for victory."

He took a deep breath, and the afterimages of the frames scattered with a bang, while the crown-like domain behind him slowly unfolded.

"This game...it's time to end."

The crown field unfolded with a roar.

The afterimages of the frames are like shattered film, played in reverse and cut one frame at a time, and dozens of Xia Xiu's figures appear in the void.

They are misaligned and flickering, like parallel frames squeezed out from the depths of time.

At the same time, he raised the lever of heaven and whispered a command:
【Cloud and Mist Authority - Clone】

[The Lever of Heaven: Memory Unleashed]

The fog suddenly spread.

That wasn't ordinary water vapor, but an information cloud locked by authority, as if data and consciousness had been incorporated into the weather itself.

In the false north, a brand new figure slowly rose to the occasion.

It was an exact replica of "Xia Xiu," with blond hair, golden eyes, and a silver staff in hand. Behind him were layers of afterimages, and even the details of his memories were perfectly replicated.

He was not a simple illusion, but a clone pieced together from information. His outer shell emanated the unique fluctuations of intelligent life. His figure was extremely realistic, and even the memory veins on the outer layer seemed to be alive, exuding the unique fragrance of the devoured.

The dark tides suddenly became agitated.

—The monster moved.

It doesn't doubt authenticity at all; it only hunts based on "direction" and "smell".

The false North, the false Xia Xiu's lineage, is like a piece of meat dripping with oil from being roasted over a flame, being served to it.

The void was suddenly torn apart, and a huge black maw ripped everything apart, biting at the illusion.

In that instant, there was only one sound in the world, and countless grinding teeth and tearing sounds erupted at the same moment.

Xia Xiu stood in the sea of ​​fog, coldly watching this scene.

He slightly raised the corners of his lips and uttered four words:
"Took the bait."

With those words, his figure flashed through the afterimages and silently moved away.

The frame rate was cut off for a few seconds, tearing a gap in the continuity of time. Under the cover of all illusions and shadowy frames, his true form successfully jumped to a new location—behind the monster.

The roaring sound stopped abruptly.

At this moment, Xia Xiu's location is exactly north after the magnetic field has reversed!

"game over."