Chapter 194 — The One Who Remembered
The world folded.
For Tony Stark, it felt like being shoved through an elevator shaft while the building was being redesigned around him.
For Yiping, it felt considerably worse.
His system was screaming.
[WARNING: SPATIAL COORDINATES UNSTABLE.]
[WARNING: TEMPORAL COORDINATES UNSTABLE.]
[WARNING: EXISTENCE ANCHOR DISCONNECTED.]
Yiping gritted his teeth.
"Could you at least warn us before doing that?"
The Observer's voice came from somewhere ahead.
"I did."
"You said 'possibly'!"
"That was the warning."
Tony's voice interrupted them.
"Wonderful. We have officially reached the point where our transportation system is powered by bad communication."
Then the distortion ended.
All three landed on a solid floor.
Tony stumbled forward and caught himself against a wall.
Yiping landed on one knee.
The Observer remained standing, looking thoroughly unimpressed.
Tony straightened his jacket.
"Next time, I'm building the portal."
Yiping stood up and examined their surroundings.
They were inside the tower.
Unlike the unfinished city outside, this place was completely formed.
The walls were made of a dark material that reflected neither light nor shadows. Strange symbols moved across the ceiling, rearranging themselves whenever Yiping tried to focus on them.
There were no windows.
No doors.
Only a long corridor stretching into the distance.
And at its end stood the young woman who had entered the tower.
She was staring at a floating sphere.
The sphere contained a miniature version of the city.
Every street.
Every building.
Every person.
Even the enormous eye hanging above the world.
Tony looked at the sphere.
"That's either the world's most advanced surveillance system or the universe's worst snow globe."
The woman turned.
"You're here."
Yiping approached cautiously.
"Are you all right?"
She nodded.
"I think so."
"Do you remember what happened after you entered the tower?"
She considered the question.
"I walked through a door. Then I found myself here."
She looked at the sphere.
"And then I saw everything."
Tony's expression became serious.
"Everything?"
"The city. The people. Their decisions."
She paused.
"But I can also see things that haven't happened yet."
Yiping exchanged a glance with the Observer.
That was dangerous.
Very dangerous.
"What do you see?" Yiping asked.
The woman pointed toward the sphere.
"Three possible futures."
Three images appeared above the miniature city.
In the first, the city was empty.
In the second, the city had become a thriving civilization.
In the third, the entire world was covered in darkness.
Tony studied the images.
"Let me guess. We don't like the third one."
"The third future is the only one that keeps appearing," she replied.
Yiping's system activated.
[FUTURE PROJECTION DETECTED.]
[SOURCE: UNKNOWN.]
[PROBABILITY CALCULATION: FAILED.]
He frowned.
The tower was showing possible futures, but his system couldn't calculate their probability.
That meant the projections weren't being generated through a process his system understood.
Or someone was deliberately preventing it from seeing the answer.
The Observer approached the sphere.
"Do not trust those projections."
The woman looked at him.
"Why?"
"Because someone is showing you what they want you to see."
The sphere suddenly flickered.
A fourth image appeared.
A man stood in the middle of the city.
He wore an ordinary dark coat.
His face was familiar to Yiping, although he couldn't remember ever seeing him before.
The man looked directly at them through the projection.
Then he smiled.
"Hello, Observer."
The Observer went rigid.
Tony noticed immediately.
"Oh, you know this guy."
The man ignored him.
"I see you've finally brought your little experiment to the tower."
The Observer stepped closer to the sphere.
"How are you still here?"
The man tilted his head.
"That's an interesting question."
The image changed.
The man was now standing in a different city.
Then another.
Then another.
Each location belonged to a different version of the same world.
In every image, he remained unchanged.
"How long have you been following us?" Yiping asked.
The man finally looked at him.
"Following you?"
He laughed softly.
"You're thinking too small."
The images disappeared.
The sphere went completely black.
Then a single line appeared across its surface.
I WAS HERE BEFORE THE FIRST STORY BEGAN.
Silence filled the tower.
Tony slowly turned toward the Observer.
"Care to explain?"
The Observer didn't answer.
His expression had changed completely.
For the first time, Yiping saw genuine fear in his eyes.
"That's impossible," the Observer whispered.
The man spoke again.
"Impossible?"
The sphere illuminated.
A series of images appeared.
A universe filled with stars.
A planet.
A civilization.
A familiar skyline.
Then a young Tony Stark.
A younger version of the Observer.
And finally, a man standing alone in a white room.
The same man from the projection.
"The original timeline wasn't the beginning," the stranger explained.
"It was merely the first version you were allowed to remember."
Yiping felt his stomach tighten.
The Observer shook his head.
"No. I witnessed the beginning."
"You witnessed what remained after the previous world ended."
The stranger's voice remained calm.
"You mistook the beginning of your memories for the beginning of everything."
Tony looked at Yiping.
"Please tell me your system has something useful to say."
Yiping checked.
It didn't.
For the first time since arriving in this world, his system displayed no warnings.
No predictions.
No analysis.
Only a blank interface.
Then new text appeared.
[UNKNOWN ENTITY IDENTIFIED.]
[IDENTITY: ORIGINAL WITNESS.]
[ACCESS LEVEL: UNDEFINED.]
[WARNING: THIS ENTITY PREDATES CURRENT TIMELINE.]
Yiping stared at the words.
Original Witness.
Not Observer.
Not protagonist.
A witness.
Someone who had seen the world before the world they knew.
The woman stepped away from the sphere.
"Why are you doing this?"
The stranger looked at her.
"Because you are the first person in this timeline who can see the truth without being assigned a role."
She frowned.
"I don't understand."
"Of course you don't. You're still becoming yourself."
He smiled.
"But you will understand soon enough."
The Observer finally found his voice.
"What do you want?"
The stranger looked at him.
"To see whether this world deserves to continue."
Tony immediately stepped forward.
"Who gave you the authority to decide that?"
The stranger regarded him with mild amusement.
"Nobody."
"Then you don't get to decide."
"That's a comforting belief."
The stranger lifted one hand.
The miniature city inside the sphere began to change.
Buildings disappeared.
People vanished.
The timeline's stability indicator dropped.
[TIMELINE STABILITY: 51.6% → 46.2%.]
Yiping stepped forward.
"Stop!"
The stranger ignored him.
[46.2% → 41.8%.]
Outside the tower, the city began losing its shape.
The stranger continued speaking as though nothing were happening.
"I have watched countless worlds attempt to escape their predetermined structures. Some created new heroes. Others created new gods. A few attempted to abandon stories altogether."
The stability fell again.
[41.8% → 37.1%.]
"All of them eventually created another structure to replace the one they rejected."
Tony clenched his fists.
"So your conclusion is that freedom doesn't work?"
"My conclusion is that freedom is easy to praise when you don't have to live with its consequences."
The Observer stepped forward.
"Enough."
The stranger looked at him.
"You, of all people, should understand. You spent centuries trying to restore the original timeline because you couldn't accept that your world had changed."
The Observer's face tightened.
"And you destroyed it."
"I watched it end."
"You could have stopped it!"
"No."
For the first time, the stranger's voice became sharp.
"I couldn't."
The sphere flickered.
For a fraction of a second, Yiping saw something behind the stranger.
A vast empty space.
Not darkness.
Not destruction.
An absence so complete that even the concept of emptiness seemed inadequate.
Then the image vanished.
The stranger's voice returned to normal.
"That is why I need to know whether this world can survive."
Yiping finally understood something.
The entity beyond the timeline wasn't necessarily the Original Witness.
The Witness might have survived the destruction of the previous world, but he wasn't the thing the Observer had been trying to keep outside.
He was investigating it.
Perhaps studying it.
Perhaps trying to discover a way to stop it.
But his methods were destroying the very world he claimed to be testing.
Yiping looked at the miniature city.
The stability indicator continued falling.
"You're wrong about one thing."
The stranger raised an eyebrow.
"Oh?"
"This world doesn't need to prove that it's worthy of surviving."
Yiping pointed toward the city.
"The people living there don't need to pass your test. They have the right to exist whether their decisions are predictable or not."
Tony nodded.
"And if you're so interested in seeing what happens when people have freedom, maybe you should stop interfering long enough to find out."
The stranger watched them in silence.
Then he smiled.
"Very well."
The stability stopped falling.
[TIMELINE STABILITY: 37.1%.]
The woman looked toward the sphere.
"Are you leaving?"
"No."
The stranger's smile widened.
"I'm giving you a choice."
Three doors appeared behind the woman.
One was white.
One was black.
One was completely transparent.
"The first door will show you the original timeline."
"The second will show you the world that exists beyond the timeline."
"The third will show you a future that has never existed before."
Tony immediately frowned.
"That sounds suspiciously like another set of forced choices."
"It is."
The stranger didn't deny it.
"But unlike the Observer's choices, these doors will not disappear if you refuse to choose."
Yiping studied the doors.
That was the trap.
The stranger was presenting the woman with a choice that would define her role.
If she chose the original timeline, she might become its restorer.
If she chose the world beyond the timeline, she might become the key to confronting the entity outside it.
If she chose the unknown future, she might become the central figure in the new world's story.
And if she refused—
The stranger would learn something else.
Tony stepped beside the woman.
"You don't have to choose anything."
She looked at him.
"But what if I want to?"
"Then make sure it's because you want to. Not because some mysterious guy thinks your decision will make his experiment more interesting."
The woman looked at the three doors.
Then she looked at the sphere.
She could see the people outside.
The families being formed.
The strangers helping one another.
The small decisions that were slowly giving the world its own history.
Finally, she turned away from the doors.
"I choose none of them."
The Original Witness stopped smiling.
The Observer stared at her.
Tony grinned.
"Now that's a decision I like."
The tower trembled.
The three doors vanished.
For several seconds, nothing happened.
Then the sphere began glowing.
[TIMELINE STABILITY: 37.1% → 39.4%.]
Yiping watched the numbers rise.
The woman had refused the choice without rejecting the future.
She hadn't chosen a predetermined role.
She had simply decided that she would continue living.
And somehow, that was enough.
The Original Witness stared at her for a long moment.
Then he laughed.
Not mockingly.
Not angrily.
Almost with relief.
"So it is possible."
The Observer looked at him.
"What is?"
The stranger turned toward the three of them.
"For a world to continue without needing permission from those who came before it."
He began fading.
Tony stepped forward.
"Wait. We're not finished."
The stranger paused.
Tony pointed at him.
"You owe us answers."
"Eventually."
"That's not good enough."
"It will have to be."
The stranger looked at Yiping.
"And you should be careful."
Yiping narrowed his eyes.
"About what?"
The man's expression became serious.
"The entity you saw outside this world has already noticed the new timeline. It will come again."
He glanced toward the woman.
"And next time, it won't attack the city."
His gaze returned to Yiping.
"It will attack the reason the city exists."
Then he disappeared.
The tower fell silent.
Yiping immediately checked his system.
[TIMELINE STABILITY: 39.4%.]
[NEXT MAJOR EVENT: APPROACHING.]
[ESTIMATED TIME: UNKNOWN.]
Tony looked toward the sphere.
"So much for getting answers."
The Observer remained motionless.
Yiping turned toward him.
"You knew the original timeline wasn't the beginning, didn't you?"
The Observer didn't answer immediately.
Then he lowered his head.
"I suspected."
Tony's expression hardened.
"You suspected, and you still tried to force us into restoring it?"
"I believed it was the only structure strong enough to protect this world."
"And now?"
The Observer looked toward the woman.
"Now I think I was wrong."
Yiping nodded slowly.
"Good."
Tony glanced at him.
"Good?"
"Because we're going to need him."
Yiping looked toward the sphere.
"The next attack is coming, and this time, we won't be able to rely on the Observer's old rules."
Outside, the city continued changing.
Its people continued making decisions.
Its future remained uncertain.
But the eye above the world had not disappeared.
It was merely waiting.
And somewhere beyond the boundaries of existence, the Original Witness was watching something else entirely.
A memory he had kept hidden for longer than anyone could imagine.
A memory of the moment the first world ended.
And the person who had caused it.
To be continued...
Author's Note
Only 6 chapters remain until Chapter 200!
The mystery surrounding the original timeline has grown even bigger. The Observer wasn't the only one hiding information, and the Original Witness may know what truly happened to the world that came before.
We're entering the decisive stretch of the final arc. If you're enjoying the story, please leave a Power Stone, vote, or comment to support the last chapters.
Let's bring Yiping and Tony's journey to a satisfying conclusion!
See you in Chapter 195!